Family confirms death of American female hostage at hands of Islamic State
The parents of Kayla Mueller, the Arizona woman who was taken hostage by ISIS in August 2013, confirmed Tuesday their daughter died while in the hands of the terror group.
“We are heartbroken to share that we’ve received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller has lost her life,” Carl and Marsha Mueller, of Prescott, Ariz., 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.”
The family received information from their daughter’s ISIS captors over the weekend that was authenticated, according to U.S. officials.
“The family received a private message from Kayla’s ISIL captors containing additional information,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Tuesday. “Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased.”
It is not yet known how or when 26-year-old Mueller died. ISIS claimed last week she was killed by a Jordanian airstrike, but offered no immediate evidence.
President Obama issued a statement Tuesday, also acknowledging her death.
“In how she lived her life, she epitomized all that is good in our world,” Obama said of Mueller. “She has been taken from us, but her legacy endures, inspiring all those who fight, each in their own way, for what is just and what is decent. ”
“No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death,” he said. “On this day, we take comfort in the fact that the future belongs not to those who destroy, but rather to the irrepressible force of human goodness that Kayla Mueller shall forever represent.”
Images of children suffering in the early stages of Syria’s ongoing civil war prompted Mueller to leave her home in Prescott, Ariz., in December 2012, to work with the Danish Refugee Council and the humanitarian organization Support to Life to help refugees. According to a family spokesperson, Kayla found the work heartbreaking but compelling.
Mueller was captured on Aug. 4, 2013, in Aleppo, Syria — 10 days before her 25th birthday — while leaving a Spanish hospital staffed by the international humanitarian group Doctors without Borders.
In a letter written during her captivity in November 2014 and released to the public on Tuesday, Mueller wrote to her family, “If you could say I have ‘suffered’ at all throughout this whole experience it is only in knowing how much suffering I have put you all through.”
“I have a lot of fight left inside of me. I am not breaking down + I will not give in no matter how long it takes,” wrote Mueller, a 2009 graduate of Northern Arizona University. “I know you would want me to remain strong. That is exactly what I am doing. Do not fear for me, continue to pray as will I + by God’s will we will be together soon.”
According to an intelligence source, Mueller was kidnapped along with her Syrian boyfriend, who was let go days later. He went back to convince ISIS to free Mueller but was unsuccessful, the source told Fox News.
Jordan has been launching airstrikes against [Islamic State] in response to a video released this week that shows captive Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death in a cage.
Al-Kaseasbeh, whose F-16 came down in December while conducting airstrikes as part of a campaign against the [terrorists] by a U.S.-led coalition, was believed to have been killed in early January.
Mueller is one of four Americans to die while being held by Islamic State. Three other Americans — journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig — were beheaded by the group.
In late October 2014, ISIS set up a Twitter account specifically to communicate with the family of American Peter Kassig, a military veteran and aid worker whom they later executed. To show their credibility, an ISIS tweet told the Kassig family to send the terror group’s regards to “Carl and Marsha Mueller.”
Obama spoke to Mueller’s parents, offered his prayers and condolences and, “committed that we will relentlessly pursue the terrorists responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death,” Meehan said.
In confirming her death Tuesday, the Mueller family quoted another letter the young woman penned to her father on his birthday in 2011.
“I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine. If this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you,” Kayla wrote in the letter.
“I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I’ve known for some time what my life’s work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering,” she wrote
