US President Barack Obama has confirmed the assassination of American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, describing his beheading at the hands of the ISIL terrorist group as "pure evil"."Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity," Obama said in a statement on Sunday, AFP reported.
The statement was issued from Obamas aircraft, Air Force One, as he flew back to the United States from an Asia tour.
The US president also offered his condolences to the family of Kassig, also known as Peter Kassig, who was kidnapped in October 2013 on his way to the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor while working for his humanitarian organization, which treats refugees from Syria.
Earlier in the day, ISIL terrorists released a video, saying they had beheaded Kassig and warned Washington they would kill more Americans "on your streets."
The video shows a masked militant standing over a severed head which he says is that of 26-year-old Kassig.
"While ISIL revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict," Obama said.
"ISIL's actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own."
Obama praised Kassig's work as "the selfless acts of an individual who cared deeply about the plight of the Syrian people."
The nearly 16-minute video also shows what appeared to be the mass execution of several abducted Syrian soldiers.
ISIL militants first showed Kassig in the video of the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning in early October.
In that video, addressing the US president, an ISIL militant said, "Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment in Sham (Syria). So it's only right we continue to strike the necks of your people."
The terrorist group has executed several foreign nationals including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines, and Henning.
The family said in October that Kassig served in the US Army and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. The former Army Ranger returned to the Middle East as a medical worker after being discharged on medical grounds.
The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.
US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq since early August. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.
Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
By Press TV
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