Cairo: Daesh militants fighting in Iraq and Syria claimed in a video posted online on Sunday that they had beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig.
The video did not show the beheading but showed a masked man standing with a decapitated head covered in blood lying at his feet.
Speaking in English in a British accent, the man says: "This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen."
News agency Reuters, who reported the beheading, said it could not immediately verify the authenticity of the footage, which appeared on a jihadist website and on Twitter feeds used by Daesh.
The video also shows a number of other people being beheaded.
Kassig had 'calling' to help Syrians
Kassig had a "calling" to help Syrians suffering due to the devastating civil war in their country.
Kassig had been in the region since March 2012, when he traveled to Lebanon on a break from university, his family wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to raising awareness about his plight.
After witnessing the plight of those displaced by the war in neighbouring Syria, he emailed a letter to family and friends telling them he was not coming home yet.
"I have tried to live my life in a way that displays what it is that I believe, but the truth is, much of my life I have only been searching for my calling, I had not yet found it," he wrote. "Here, in this land, I have found my calling."
The young American, who was also trained as an emergency medical technician, went to Turkey and founded an aid group, his father, Ed Kassig, said in a video last month.
"He helped train 150 civilians in skills needed to provide medical aid to the people of Syria. His organisation gave food, cooking supplies, clothing and medicine to those in need," Ed Kassig said.
In an email to a friend in 2012, also posted on the Facebook page, Kassig wrote about the desolation of war and his hope for the future.
"How will I tell you of the walls riddled with bullets and the flowers that grow over them?" he wrote.
"War never ends, it just moves around... Loss and destruction in this land brings about only survival; the determination to press on and rebuild," he added.
"I can't be sure but I think I'm starting believe that as beautiful as it is to finish building a house, its a better feeling laying the first brick again after its been torn down..."
In a quotation on the Facebook page, he admits he at times wished for something different. The quote is attached as a caption to a photo showing Kassig brandishing a blood-clotting agent he obtained to help treat wounded in Syria.
"The truth is sometimes I really think I would like to do something else, but at the end of the day, this work is really the only thing that I have found that gives my life both meaning and direction."
Kassig, who converted to Islam during his captivity and took the Muslim name Abdul Rahman, said in a letter smuggled to his family his faith was intact.
"In terms of my faith, I pray every day, and I am not angry about my situation in that sense. I am in a dogmatically complicated situation here, but I am at peace with my belief."
