Islamic State claims Jordanian airstrike killed American hostage

A Jordanian airstrike killed the last known American held by the Islamic State, the group said Friday, according to a translation from a U.S. group that monitors Islamist militants.

The American, a 26-year-old aid worker, died when the building she was being held in was struck by a bomb or missile, the group said.

“The failed Jordanian aircraft killed an American female hostage,” the message said, according to the translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. “No (Islamic State) fighters were killed in the bombardment.”

Her family previously hadn’t released her name but acknowledged Friday that the aid worker is Kayla Mueller, who’d traveled to Aleppo, Syria, with a friend and was kidnapped by the group on Aug. 4, 2013.

Her family had asked news organizations to avoid identifying her by name while she was still in captivity. But the Islamic State’s use of her name and hometown in its message Friday prompted the family to confirm the information, even though there was no proof she had been killed.

According to the family, Mueller, who grew up in Prescott, Ariz., and graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2009, had worked with humanitarian aid groups in India, Israel and the Palestinian territories before traveling to the Turkish-Syrian border in December 2012 to work with a Danish refugee organization.

In an e-mail sent to news organizations, the family said she’d been taken captive while leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria. The family first heard from her kidnappers last May, receiving evidence that she was still alive.

“The common thread of Kayla’s life has been her quiet leadership and strong desire to serve others,” the statement said.

The plight of families fleeing the violence in Syria drew her to Turkey in December 2012. She worked with the aid groups Support to Life and the Danish Refugee Council.

“Kayla found this work heartbreaking but compelling; she is extremely devoted to the people of Syria,” the family said. “When asked what kept her going in her mission, she said, ‘I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.’”

Mueller shared some of her experiences with the Prescott Kiwanis Club in 2013, including a story of trying to reunite a father with his 6-year-old son after a bombing at a refugee camp in Turkey. She eventually found the boy as he came out of surgery at a hospital, but the man’s wife had been killed.

“This story is not rare in Syria,” Mueller said, according to an article in the Daily Courier. “This is the reality for Syrians two and a half years on. When Syrians hear I’m an American, they ask, ‘Where is the world?' All I can do is cry with them, because I don’t know.”

She made a promise that day:

“For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal,” she said. “It’s important to stop and realize what we have, why we have it and how privileged we are.”

No confirmation

U.S. officials in Washington said they had no confirmation of the death and were attempting to determine the veracity of the claim.

“We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. “We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim.” ISIL and ISIS are acronyms for the Islamic State.

Government officials in Jordan called the claim that a Jordanian airstrike had killed the hostage “illogical” and “propaganda” and questioned how the Islamic State could be certain it was a Jordanian strike that was responsible.

Jordan has been conducting air raids over Islamic State targets in response to a video posted Tuesday that showed the immolation of a Jordanian pilot, Moaz al Kasasbeh, who was captured after his plane crashed outside Raqqa, Syria, on Dec. 24.

Jordan’s information minister, Mohamad Momani, said in an interview that the country was looking into the claim but regarded it skeptically.

“How could they identify Jordanian warplanes from a huge distance in the sky?” he said. “What was the America lady doing in a weapons warehouse?”

Although the Islamic State has publicly displayed and executed three American hostages, two British citizens and the Jordanian pilot, the group had never admitted to holding or threatening Mueller.

The claim that she was killed in a strike was confirmed by sources with an anti-Islamic State advocacy group, Raqqa Silently Slaughtered, which maintains a number of sources throughout the city.

The Islamic State has released at least a dozen European hostages, mostly aid workers and journalists, over the last two years, reportedly for tens of millions of dollars, but the United States and Great Britain have refused to negotiate, which led to a series of brutal executions that began in August with the beheading of journalist James Foley. Subsequent videos documented the murders of journalist Steve Sotloff and aid workers David Haines, Alan Henning and Peter Kassig.

This story was originally published February 7, 2015 at 6:41 AM with the headline "Islamic State claims Jordanian airstrike killed American hostage."