Islamic State video shows 2nd British hostage beheaded

FE Team | Published: October 05, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Alan Henning

MURSITPINAR, Oct 4 (agencies): On Friday night, IS released a video showing the execution of Alan Henning, a 47-year-old British volunteer driver who went to Syria with a Muslim charity.
The footage opened with a news report about the British parliament's vote last week to authorise air strikes against jihadist targets in Iraq.
Then it cut to Henning, on his knees against a desert backdrop and wearing an orange prison-style outfit, with a masked militant standing over him wielding a combat knife.
The jihadist, who has the same British accent as the killer in previous IS execution videos, directly addressed British Prime Minister David Cameron.
"The blood of David Haines was on your hands, Cameron," he said, referring to another British aid worker killed by the group.
"Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament," he declared.
Islamic State militants beheaded British aid worker Alan Henning in a video posted on Friday, triggering swift condemnation by the British and US governments.
As in previous videos, Henning appears to read from a script before he is killed. "Because of our parliament's decision to attack the Islamic State, I, as a member of the British public, will now pay the price for that decision," he says.
A male voice with a British accent says, "The blood of David Haines was on your hands Cameron," in references to the slain aid worker and to Britain's prime minister. "Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament."
Henning, a 47-year-old taxi driver from Salford in northern England, was part of an aid convoy taking medical supplies to a hospital in northwest Syria in December last year when it was stopped by gunmen and he was abducted.
The latest execution was condemned worldwide, with Cameron saying it "shows just how barbaric and repulsive these terrorists are."
US President Barack Obama denounced the "brutal murder" and warned the US-led coalition "will continue taking decisive action to degrade and ultimately destroy" IS.
French President Francois Hollande described it as a "heinous crime".
Washington is leading a coalition of nations against the IS group, which has declared an Islamic "caliphate" in parts of Syria and Iraq.
On Thursday, Turkey's parliament voted to allow the deployment of forces in Syria and Iraq to fight the Islamic State, and the country's prime minister has pledged to "do whatever we can" to prevent Kobane falling to IS militants.
Meanwhile: : At least 35 jihadists from the Islamic State group were killed in air strikes by a US-led coalition overnight in northern and northeastern Syria, a monitor said Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 jihadists were killed around the town of Shadadi in northeastern Hasakeh, and another five outside the embattled town of Kobane, on the border with Turkey in northern Aleppo province.
The US-led coalition has carried out new air strikes against jihadists from the Islamic State group outside a key Syrian Kurdish border town, activists and a monitor said Saturday.
US-led raids were also reported on eastern Hasakeh province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group, said the coalition hit at least four areas late Friday on the southern and southeastern fronts outside Kobane, a strategic border town also known as Ain al-Arab.
The group said the strikes had destroyed some military material belonging to IS, which fired dozens of mortar rounds into the town on Friday after advancing to its outskirts.