by A grisly video of a french hostage being beheaded was released by an extremist group in Algeria. The man, Herve Gourdel, 55 has only been in captivity for less then a week. The band of militants who captured Gourdel call themselves, Jund al-Khilafah, they have strong ties to the extremest group ISIS.
Gourdel a French journalist was kidnapped as he was hiking in Djurdjura National Park in Algeria. The group released a video two days ago to French authorities alerting them that they had Gourdel, and issued an ultimatum that if their demands weren’t met, the journalist would be killed. The group demanded that France stop it’s air strikes on Iraq immediately. France would not acquiesce to any demands of terrorists or extremists.
The group released the death video today, the entire video was in French. The video came with a message that read: “A Message With Blood To The French Government”. This video was similar to the other three videos released by ISIS of Western journalists being beheaded. Two Americans and one British journalists in the other killings. However there do appear to be some differences. The three prior be-headings were apparently done by the same individual that had a distinct British accent. The current video starts out with a clip of French President Francois Hollande delivering a speech about airstrikes against Iraq and ISIS in particular. The video then switches to a shot of the Mr. Gourdel on his knees in front of four militants whose faces are disguised.
Mr. Gourdel with his hands tied behind his back, talks directly to his family, expressing his love for them. Before he could end his thoughts one of the militants reads a statement that condemns the actions of the “French criminal crusaders” against the Muslims in Algeria, Mali and Iraq. The militant says that Gourdel will be beheaded to avenge all the victims that have been taken in the unjustified airstrikes. The French President Francois Hollande condemned the beheading of Gourdel as the acts of cowards and was done with extreme cruelty. He went on to say the French airstrikes against Iraq ISIS targets would continue, and they would not be dissuaded by the acts of terrorism. President Hollande was speaking in front of the UN general assembly said that the capture and beheading of Gourdel was a barbaric act of terrorism, not only affecting France but the entire world. President Obama weighed in on the killing of Gourdel today saying, “Today the people of the world have been horrified by another brutal murder of Herve Gourdel by terrorist in Algeria”. Mr. Obama was attending a United Nations Security Council meeting when he made his comments. He said today that he urging world leaders to take a more active role in obliterating the evil forces of these terrorist extremists groups. The French President at the same meeting, thanked Obama for his statement of condolences. The French President went on to say that France was not in a state of mourning.
