Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria have posted a video appearing to show the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, triggering condemnation by the British and US governments. The footage on YouTube, highlighted on pro-Islamic State Twitter feeds and found online by the SITE private terrorism monitor, opens with a news report about the British parliament's vote last week to authorise air strikes against jihadist targets in Iraq. Then it cuts to Henning, on his knees against a desert backdrop and wearing an orange prison-style outfit, with a masked militant standing over him wielding a combat knife, similar to past Islamic State beheading videos of two American journalists and a British aid worker. "Because of our parliament's decision to attack the Islamic State, I, as a member of the British public, will now pay the price for that decision," the kneeling man says. A male voice with a British accent addresses British Prime Minister David Cameron: "The blood of David Haines was on your hands Cameron," in references to the aid worker killed earlier. "Alan Henning will also be slaughtered but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament." Mr Henning, a 47-year-old taxi driver from Salford in northern England, was part of an aid convoy taking medical supplies to a hospital in northwest Syria in December last year when it was stopped by gunmen and he was abducted. Mr Cameron described Mr Henning's killing as a "brutal murder" and said it "shows just how barbaric and repulsive these terrorists are". "We will do all we can to hunt down these murderers and bring them to justice," he said. US officials said they had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video, titled "Another Message to America and its Allies". "The United States strongly condemns the brutal murder of United Kingdom citizen Alan Henning," President Barack Obama said. "Standing together with our UK friends and allies, we will work to bring the perpetrators of Alan's murder - as well as the murders of Jim Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Haines - to justice," Mr Obama said. Near the end of the one-minute, 11-second video, the man in black introduces another hostage identified as American Peter Edward Kassig. His parents later issued a statement confirming their 26-year-old son had been taken captive while doing humanitarian work in Syria. "We ask everyone around the world to pray for the Henning family, for our son, and for the release of all innocent people being held hostage in the Middle East and around the globe," Ed and Paula Kassig of Indianapolis, Indiana, said. Mr Kassig had served in the US Army during the Iraq war before being medically discharged, the family said. Pentagon records show he spent a year in the army as a Ranger and was deployed to Iraq from April to July 2007. After leaving the army, Mr Kassig became an emergency medical technician and travelled to Lebanon in May 2012, volunteering in hospitals and treating Palestinian refugees and those fleeing Syria's nearly four-year civil war, the family said. While in captivity, he converted to Islam and took the name Abdul Rahman, a family spokeswoman said. Earlier on Friday, before the video of Henning was posted, a British Islamic State fighter identified as Abu Saeed al-Britani appeared in a separate video, urging British Muslims to travel to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. In the video on YouTube, al-Britani, wearing a camouflage shirt and what appears to be a cast on his right arm, calls British and US military forces "cowards" in carrying out airstrikes instead of putting troops on the ground. "So send all your forces. Send them all. Send all your reserves. Send all of your back-ups, for we'll send them back one by one in coffins," he said. Muslim groups across Britain, including some organisations that are highly critical of British foreign policy and blame Western interference for fanning the recent crisis in Iraq and Syria, had called in vain for Mr Henning's release. Henning's wife Barbara had called him a "a peaceful, selfless man" and appealed to Islamic State to release him. Islamic State is believed to be holding fewer than 10 Western hostages in Syria. The remaining hostages include British journalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in three Islamic State videos.
