A senior ISIS leader who was involved in the killing of former U.S. Army Ranger Peter Kassig has been killed in a drone strike in Syria on Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition said.
Per an article by Fox News, coalition spokesperson Col. Sean Ryan said in a statement that the ISIS leader — identified as Abu al Umarayn — was killed in a precision drone attack along with several other members of the terror group in Syria’s Badiyah Desert.
According to officials, Al Umarayn indicated that his group posed an imminent threat to Coalition Forces and he was involved in the killing of American Citizen and former U.S. Army Ranger, Peter Kassig, the report said.
“He has been linked to and directly involved with executing several other prisoners as a senior ISIS member.”
The statement also added that “coalition airstrikes continue to disrupt ISIS command and control on the battlefield as we remove key figures from their ranks.”
Peter Kassig was 26 years of age and was an aid worker and a U.S. citizen. He was providing aid to Syrians who fled the country’s civil war when ISIS captured him October 2013. According to his friends, he converted to Islam while in captivity and took the first name Abdul-Rahman.
In 2014, ISIS released a graphic footage that showed his brutal beheading. U.S. officials confirmed that the video was authentic.
BREAKING: Peter Kassig, an ex-US Army Ranger, was beheaded by ISIS on camera after being captured in Syria https://t.co/ipH61Zvv3D pic.twitter.com/1TnP2n64DL
— Daily Star (@Daily_Star) December 2, 2018
Per Kassig’s military record, he enlisted in the Army in 2004 and then became a Ranger to serve in an Army special operations unit called the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Fox News report said. In 2006, he trained in Fort Benning, Georgia before being deployed to Iraq from April to July 2007. The report also detailed that in September 2007, Kassig was medically discharged at the rank of private first class.
Kassig had an interview with Time in January 2013, where he revealed that he heavily traveled throughout Lebanon to evaluate the needs of people there. He also founded an aid organization called the Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA) in Turkey.
The organization worked to provide aid and assistance to Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey. According to a previous article by Fox News, Kassig said that his organization was founded to “show people that we care, that someone is looking out for those who might be overlooked or who have slipped through the cracks in the system for whatever reason.”
In 2012, he began visiting Syrian refugee camps where he used to deliver food and medical supplies. Per the report, Kassig trained as a medical assistant and provided trauma care to wounded Syrian civilians and also trained around 150 civilians in providing medical aid.