BEIRUT — Islamic State extremists released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines, who was abducted in Syria last year, and British Prime Minister David Cameron late Saturday condemned his slaying as “an act of pure evil.”
Cameron confirmed Haines’ death in a statement posted on his official Twitter account after the British Foreign Office had said earlier that it was “working urgently to verify the video.” Haines, 44, is the third Westerner beheaded in recent weeks by the Islamic State group, which has seized vast swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.
“The murder of David Haines is an act of pure evil,” Cameron said, adding that “my heart goes out to his family who have shown extraordinary courage and fortitude.”
“We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes,” Cameron said.
Cameron returned to his residence at 10 Downing Street shortly after midnight and was expected to lead a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee early Sunday.
The video emerged a day after Haines’ family issued a public plea late Friday urging his captors to contact them.
Islamic State militants recently beheaded two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and posted the videos online after the U.S. began airstrikes and humanitarian missions in August to aid waning Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq. The Islamic State group has also put out videos showing the beheading of Kurdish and Lebanese soldiers and the mass shooting of dozens of captured Syrian soldiers.
President Barack Obama issued a statement strongly condemning “the barbaric murder” of Haines by the Islamic State terrorist group.
At the end of the video showing the beheading of Sotloff, the Islamic State group threatened to kill Haines next and showed him on camera.
In the video showing Haines’ slaying, the group threatened to kill another British captive. Both British men were dressed in orange jumpsuits against an arid Syrian landscape, similar to that seen in the Foley and Sotloff videos. Haines’ killer, who appeared to be the same masked man speaking with a British accent and brandishing a knife as in the previous videos, tells the British government that its alliance with the U.S. will only “accelerate your destruction.”
