American Held by ISIS Says He Is ‘Pretty Scared to Die’!

Days after the apparent beheading of a British hostage held by Sunni militants in Syria, the parents of a 26-year-old American similarly threatened have released parts of a letter from him in which he says he is “obviously pretty scared to die.”



But the American, Abdul-Rahman Kassig, an aid worker and medic who converted to Islam last year, said in the letter, released late Sunday, that “the hardest part is not knowing, wondering, hoping and wondering if I should even hope at all.”

The letter was said to have been dated June 2, more than two months before the militants first claimed publicly to have decapitated a Western captive, the American journalist James Foley.

Last week, Mr. Kassig was shown in a video from the Islamic State militant group that purported to show the decapitation of a British taxi driver, Alan Henning. Mr. Henning was taken prisoner last December as he tried to deliver humanitarian relief supplies in Syria.

The news of his death dominated newspaper headlines and talk-show conversations in Britain, increasing pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to extend Britain’s participation in the air campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, and join American warplanes in attacks on targets in Syria. Mr. Cameron, like President Obama, has ruled out the deployment of ground forces. 

Last month, Parliament limited the role played by British Tornado warplanes, which are based in Cyprus, to hitting targets in Iraq. But in the anger aroused by Mr. Henning’s death, some Britons have called for the deployment of Special Forces to hunt down the man portrayed in successive Islamic State videos as the killer of four captives so far: two American and two British. 

The masked figure speaks with what seems to be a British accent. In a statement accompanying the portions of the letter they released, Ed and Paula Kassig of Indianapolis, the captive’s parents, urged people to refer to their son by the name he adopted upon converting to Islam, Abdul-Rahman, and not by his birth name, Peter. 

The parents have said that their son spent “a brief time in the U.S. military” before traveling to Lebanon in 2012 on spring break from college “to work there as a medic and humanitarian worker.”



In his letter, Mr. Kassig wrote: “I am very sad that all this has happened and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need.”
“In terms of my faith, I pray every day, and I am not angry about my situation in that sense,” the letter said.
It ends with the words: “I wish this paper would go on forever and never run out and I could just keep talking to you. Just know I’m with you. Every stream, every lake, every field and river. In the woods and in the hills, in all the places you showed me. I love you.”

Mr. Kassig’s parents said their son’s “journey toward Islam” began when he observed the monthlong fast of Ramadan in 2013. But he converted “sometime between October and December 2013,” after his capture “when he shared a cell with a devout Syrian Muslim.”

“After converting, he took Islam’s practices seriously, praying the five daily prayers and taking on the name Abdul-Rahman,” the parents’ statement said. “We see this as part of our son’s long spiritual journey.”
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