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French Hostage in Algeria Is Beheaded in New Video French Hostage in Algeria Is Beheaded in Video
(about 3 hours later)
A French tourist captured in North Africa by a group aligned with the Islamic State is seen beheaded in a video circulated on Wednesday, according to SITE Intelligence, which tracks jihadist groups. In a sign of the growing influence of the extremist group known as the Islamic State, fighters aligned with the organization beheaded a French tourist in Algeria and released a video on Wednesday documenting the brutal killing, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
The Frenchman — Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice — was abducted in Algeria on Sunday by the terrorist group, known as Jund al-Khilafah. Mr. Gourdel had arrived only a day before on a trip to go hiking in Algeria’s northern mountains. The Frenchman — Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice — was kidnapped over the weekend, soon after the Islamic State called on its supporters around the world to harm Europeans in retaliation for the recent airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
The terrorist group issued a statement after his abduction, saying that it was following the guidance of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq and has called on its sympathizers to strike Westerners — especially the French — wherever they can. The Algerian fighters swiftly responded to the Islamic State’s call by posting a video of Mr. Gourdel in captivity, appearing disoriented and still carrying his camera slung around his neck.
In the statement, the Algerian group had demanded that President François Hollande of France cease his country’s intervention in Syria within 24 hours or face seeing Mr. Gourdel killed. In addition, a militant group in the Philippines also announced that it was holding European captives: two Germans whom it threatened to kill unless Germany pays ransom or stops supporting the American-led campaign against the Islamic State.
In the video, Mr. Gourdel is shown kneeling before four armed captors with his hands bound behind his back. His bony shoulders poke forward, and he stares at the ground as his captors read a script announcing that he will be killed. They then wrestle him to the ground and place a knife at his throat. The video then cuts to an image of his decapitated body, and shows the captors holding his severed head. Policymakers have debated for months whether the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is able to strike directly at the West. Its capacity for large-scale terrorist attacks beyond its home in the Middle East remains in dispute. But the beheading of Mr. Gourdel and the threat to kill the two Germans demonstrate that smaller groups around the world aligned with the Islamic State are capable of kidnapping Westerners and using them for grisly propaganda purposes in sympathy with the organization.
The killing of Mr. Gourdel signals that the Islamic State’s practice of beheading Western captives for propaganda purposes has spread beyond the area it controls in Syria. Numerous smaller factions in the Middle East and elsewhere have pledged allegiance to the group. Small jihadist groups elsewhere in North Africa — like Libya and Tunisia — as well as in the Caucasus and in Southeast Asia have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and many of them operate in areas where Westerners frequently travel, including tourists, journalists and aid workers. The public oaths of allegiance indicate that the smaller groups have placed themselves under the command of the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Analysts have questioned how close these relationships are, but the sequence of events over the weekend suggested that at least the Algerian cell was directly following the larger group’s orders.
Separately, a militant group in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf, has announced that it is holding two German citizens and has threatened to kill them if Germany does not back out of the intervention in Syria, according to a transcript provided by SITE. Mr. Gourdel was kidnapped on Sunday in the mountainous Tizi Ouzou region of Algeria, a day after he arrived there to go hiking. The group that seized him — known as Jund al-Khilafah, or Soldiers of the Caliphate — released the first video of him in captivity on Monday, declaring that France had 24 hours to renounce its participation in the assault against the Islamic State or face seeing Mr. Gourdel killed.
The fighters in the video quoted the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, who exhorted followers in a speech over the weekend to kill Europeans, “especially the spiteful and filthy French,” wherever they could.
The second video, documenting the beheading, began circulating on Wednesday, according to a link provided by SITE Intelligence, which tracks jihadist groups.
France has a history of paying ransom through intermediaries to obtain the release of its kidnapped citizens, including four French journalists held by the Islamic State in Syria this year. However, the French government said this week that they would not give in to the Algerian cell’s ultimatum. The prime minister, Manuel Valls, told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday: “If we cede, if we retreat one inch, that would hand victory” to the militants.
President François Hollande of France, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, said of Mr. Gourdel that “he was abducted and he was beheaded — this is what terrorism does.” He added, “If we don’t respond to it, or respond too weakly, then the terrorists will continue with their undertakings of indoctrination.” Mr. Hollande said that “France will never give in to pressure” and would fight terrorism as long as necessary.
Over the past decade, groups directly affiliated with Al Qaeda have obtained millions of dollars in ransom from European governments and their proxies. According to the Treasury Department, about $40 million was paid last year to free four French citizens who were being held by Al Qaeda’s North African branch. An investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda’s affiliates had generally moved away from killing their hostages for propaganda purposes, and preferred to use them as a source of revenue.
The exception to this trend was the Qaeda branch in Iraq, whose leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, relished filming himself beheading his Western victims, including the American contractor Nicholas Berg. His methods were deemed so brutal that the Qaeda leadership reprimanded him in a letter that was later made public, saying that at a minimum he should kill his captives by shooting them, to avoid the horrifying and potentially damaging imagery of a decapitation.
Mr. Zarqawi’s group has since broken with Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State is its newest incarnation.
In the video circulated on Wednesday, Mr. Gourdel is shown kneeling before his four armed captors with his hands bound behind his back. His bony shoulders poke forward, and for the most part he stares at the ground as his kidnappers read a script announcing that he will be killed.
“We say to the generous emir and brave hero, Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: We are at your service,” the fighters say in the video, referring to the leader of the Islamic State. “Let the French people know that their blood is cheap for their president, and it is the same as you made the blood of Muslim women and children cheap in Iraq and Syria.”
They are then seen wrestling Mr. Gourdel to the ground, where he tries to curl up in a fetal position to protect himself. The fighters pull his head back and place the blade of a knife at his throat.
The video then cuts to a scene of the fighters holding up Mr. Gourdel’s severed head.