AFP/Getty Images The video released Sunday shows members of ISIS, among them a jihadist believed to be French citizen Maxime Hauchard (r.), also known as Abu Abdallah al-Faransi, before taking part in the beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel. The latest mass beheadings in the name of the Islamic State was committed by a cold-blooded coalition of European converts.
A hideous snuff video released Sunday by the terrorist group shows a Frenchman, a suspected Welch doctor and two Brits among the knife-wielding executioners.
A disgusted President Obama called the mass murder “pure evil” as he confirmed Monday that American aid worker Peter Kassig was in fact among those decapitated in the video.
French prosecutor Francois Molins identified Parisian Maxime Hauchard as one of trio of Europeans butchering Syrian soldiers in the same footage showing Kassig’s murder.
The sickening 16-minute clip prompted French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to send out an urgent plea to his country’s “young people who are the primary target of the terrorist propaganda.”
“I call solemnly and seriously on all our citizens ... to open your eyes to the terrible reality of the actions of Daesh,” Cazeneuve said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “These are criminals that are building a system of barbarity.”
THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday there was a 'strong possibility' one of the Islamic State jihadists seen unmasked in a video showing the execution of Peter Kassig and Syrian soldiers was a French citizen. Hauchard, believed to be about 22, left his home west of Paris in 2013 and gave an interview with French TV in July about his experience fighting with ISIS as the militant group swept across Iraq and captured Mosul.
British officials also suspect that two of its citizens — “Jihadi John,” who has been seen in previous beheading videos, and 20-year-old Nasser Muthana — to be among the ISIS thugs participating in the taped slaughter.
“I cannot be certain, but it looks like my son,” Ahmed Muthana, of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff, told the Daily Mail after viewing the footage.
In the clip, the killer believed to be Nasser Muthana is seen standing beside “Jihadi John” — the black-clad psycho who has beheaded three Americans and earned his nickname for his London accent.
Muthana was also featured in a June clip in which he urged Muslims to join the jihad in Iraq and Syria.
-/AFP/Getty Images Maxime Hauchard, 22, left France last year and was seen on an ISIS propaganda tape released Sunday. Obama denounced the extremist group Monday, saying it “revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction.”
He said 26-year-old Kassig — a former Army Ranger and Iraq war vet from Indianapolis — “was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”
Kassig was captured in Syria in October 2013 after founding the aid group Special Emergency Response and Assistance to help Syrian refugees. He converted to Islam while in captivity and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
Obama called Kassig “a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed” by war.
Sending his condolences to Kassig’s family, the president said, “We cannot begin to imagine their anguish at this painful time.”
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Among European nations, France has had the largest contingent of its citizens join up with jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria at more than 1,100 people, including 375 currently fighting in the Middle East and who have been placed under surveillance.
“This analysis suggests with a very high probability that a French citizen could have directly participated in carrying out these abject acts,” Cazeneuve said Monday.
Hauchard was interviewed in July by France’s BFM television, telling the network that “from a personal point of view, my objective is to be a martyr.”
ISIS is believed to hold only one more American captive, a 26-year-old female aid worker captured in August 2013, The Daily Beast reported.
The U.S. has not negotiated with ISIS or paid ransoms for their American hostages as have many of their European counterparts. Several hostages from other countries have been freed after ransoms were paid, though two British men were also beheaded by the group.
Kassig did not read a final statement like fellow Americans James Foley and Steve Sotloff did before they were beheaded. Foley and Sotloff are believed to have been coerced to condemn Obama and America's intervention in the war-torn region.
The change in script prompted many to speculate Kassig was murdered after refusing to comply.
“I suspect that Pete knew this was coming and that he refused to talk,” a source who has been involved with efforts to free American hostages told The Daily Beast.
With News Wire Services
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