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Impending Beheading: Aid Worker Captured In Syria Knew Risks
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - An American aid worker threatened with beheading in Syria had researched the region and knew the dangers, but he believed the good he could accomplish through his relief organization outweighed the risk, his friends said Wednesday.
Separately, the mother of the 26-year-old hostage, Abdul-Rahman Kassig, reached out to the leader of the Islamic State militants via Twitter in a new effort to secure her son's release. The group captured Kassig in Syria on Oct. 1, 2013. In a video released Friday, an Islamic State militant threatened to kill Kassig following the beheading of British hostage Alan Henning.
Nearly 300 people gathered Wednesday at Butler University in Indianapolis, where Kassig was a student from 2011 to 2012, to celebrate his work to help Syrians and pray for his release. Many wore white in a symbol of peace. One woman held a sign that read "A hero for peace."
Many members of the local Muslim community joined Kassig's parents in prayer as Hazem Bata, executive director of the Plainfield, Indiana-based Islamic Society of North America, quoted passages from the Quran and urged Kassig's captors to free him.
"Follow the religion you claim to hold so dear and have mercy on Abdul-Rahman," he said. "We ask that you send him back safely to his family."
Several of Kassig's friends told The Associated Press that he was always interested in helping people and was drawn to the Middle East after he was deployed to Iraq as an Army Ranger in 2007.
He was aware of the risks, said Todd Hill, who met Kassig in college after his medical discharge from the Army.
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