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Islamic State claims hostage US aid worker was killed by Jordan air strike

Hypocrisy

Alfrescian
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Islamic State claims hostage US aid worker was killed by Jordan air strike

Date February 7, 2015 - 4:20PM
Rukmini Callimachi

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The secret hostage: Aid worker Kayla Mueller in Arizona in 2013. Photo: AFP/Arizona Courier

She had always been the unidentified, lone female American hostage of the Islamic State. For nearly 17 months, while her fellow American captives were beheaded one after another in executions posted online, Kayla Mueller's name remained a closely guarded secret, whispered among reporters, government officials and hostage negotiators - all fearing any public mention might imperil her life.

On Friday, the Islamic State confirmed her identity, announcing that Ms Mueller, a 26-year-old aid worker from Arizona, had been killed in the falling rubble of a building in northern Syria that it said had been flattened by bombs from a Jordanian warplane. Both the Jordanian and US governments said there was no proof, even as they rushed to deplore her possible death. Top Jordan officials said the announcement was cynical propaganda.

But the group's use of her name for the first time prompted her family and its advisers to confirm her prolonged captivity in a statement.

Ms Mueller's parents also said they were still hopeful she is alive. Carl and Marsha Mueller asked IS to contact the family privately.

"You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest, as your guest her safety and wellbeing remains your responsibility," they said in a message directed to "those in positions of responsibility for holding Kayla."

The IS claim of Ms Mueller's death threw a spotlight on a hostage ordeal that befell an eager and idealistic young woman who had ventured into one of the most dangerous parts of Syria.

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Protest: Thousands of Jordanians participate in a demonstration to express their solidarity with the pilot killed by Islamic State. Photo: Getty Images

Initially based in southern Turkey, where she had worked for at least two aid organisations assisting Syrian refugees, Ms Mueller appears to have driven into the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on August 3, 2013, alongside a man who has been alternatively described as her Syrian friend or colleague, and by others as either her boyfriend or her fiance.

Although Ms Mueller had moved to Turkey in December 2012 to work with two organisations helping refugees she was not employed by either of those groups when she entered Syria, said the Mueller family advisers. What she was doing in Aleppo - beyond accompanying her Syrian companion - remains unclear. Her companion, who was released after several months, declined to be interviewed.

"There is a lot of murkiness about what she was doing there. That's been the problem - no one really knows," said one adviser of the Muellers.

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Unverified claim: The heavily damaged building in the northern Syrian city of Raqa in which IS says Kayla Mueller died. Photo: -

Ms Mueller was believed to have been held with other IS hostages. Nicolas Henin, a French journalist who was freed in April, said in a message on Twitter on Friday that Mueller was "among the very last of my former cellmates still detained".

SITE, a US-based group that analyses terrorist activity, said the claim was made in a tweet from an IS-linked group. The tweet also carried a photo of the alleged site, described as being near Raqqa, the group's de facto capital.

"The failed Jordanian aircraft killed an American female hostage," said the message. "No mujahid [fighter] was injured in the bombardment, and all praise is due to Allah."

Experts on the Middle East said they believed Ms Mueller was dead, since IS militants had no motivation to make such an assertion about a hostage if it were not true. Some also speculated that IS might have killed her beforehand and taken the opportunity to blame the Jordanian bombs in her death.

A senior Jordanian official expressed scepticism about the IS claim and said that the building pictured in the image distributed by the group was a "weapons warehouse".

The official, Mohammad al-Momani, Jordan's media affairs minister, said the claim was "part of their media spinning/PR campaign, and it's not the first time they do this".

The militants, he said, "are constantly trying to drive a wedge in the coalition [and] playing with public opinion".

He also questioned how the IS would have been able to identify any warplanes as Jordanian at such an altitude.

Jordan has carried out two days of strikes in IS-controlled area in retaliation for the killing of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh by IS militants.

New York Times, Washington Post, agencies



 
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