American ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller dead, family says

Posted 2015-02-11 12:35 by Grunt Report with 0 comments

Kayla Mueller’s parents had been holding out hope.

But on Tuesday, the American ISIS hostage’s family revealed devastating news.

They received it, officials said, in a message from her captors.

“We are heartbroken to share that we’ve received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller has lost her life,” the family said in a statement. “Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice and peace.”

ISIS sent the family a private message over the weekend, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said.

“Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased,” Meehan said.

The message sent to the family included photos. One picture showed her wrapped in a burial shroud, but there was enough showing for the family and forensics examiners to identify her, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The new information does not clarify how 26-year-old Mueller died, a law enforcement source familiar with the case said on condition of anonymity.

On Friday, ISIS claimed that Mueller — an aid worker captured in northern Syria in 2013 — had been killed in a building hit during a Jordanian airstrike on Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in Syria. At the time, ISIS offered no proof to back up its claim, other than an image of a building in rubble.

But a White House spokesman on Tuesday placed blame for her death squarely on ISIS.

“This was, after all, the organization that was holding her against her will. That means they were responsible for her safety and well-being, and they are therefore responsible for her death,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Confirmation of Mueller’s death drew condolences and tributes from across the country and around the world. In Jordan — where seething leaders have vowed revenge after ISIS burned a captive Jordanian pilot to death — government spokesman Mohammed Al-Momani expressed “grief and anger” over Mueller’s death.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said he had ordered flags at state government buildings to fly at half-staff until sundown Wednesday in her honor.

Speaking in Mueller’s hometown of Prescott, Arizona, family and friends said they are still finding strength in her seemingly boundless desire to help those in need and share their stories.

Kathleen Day, a friend of Mueller, read from a blog post the aid worker wrote in Syria before her capture: “Every human being should act. They should stop this violence. People are fleeing. We can’t bear this. It’s too much. I hope you can tell the entire world what I have said here, and what I’ve seen.”

That, Day said, is what friends and family will do now.

“They tried to silence her. They locked her up. They kept us silent out of fear. But now she’s free, and she says that she found freedom even in captivity, and that she is grateful, so her light shines,” Day told reporters. “And we thank you for shining your light not on Kayla, but shine your light on the suffering that Kayla saw. And let’s tell Syria, we hear you, and we’re going to do something.”