The Islamic State claimed Friday that the Jordanian bombings in northern Syria intended to avenge its immolation of a captured pilot had killed an American woman held hostage by the group.
An Islamic State message published by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist activity, said the American woman, Kayla Mueller, was killed when the building where she was being held in the Raqqa area collapsed in an airstrike.
“The failed Jordanian aircraft killed an American female hostage,” said the message. “No mujahid was injured in the bombardment, and all praise is due to Allah.” Mujahid means fighter.
The group said the woman was killed by “fire of the shells dropped on the site.”
There was no immediate way to verify the claim by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But it identified the hostage by name for the first time, and gave her address in Prescott, Ariz., apparently to add credibility to its message. The group also posted photographs of an obliterated house where, it said, Ms. Mueller's body had been buried beneath the rubble.
Kayla Mueller
An online posting by the Islamic State showed a collapsed building in northern Syria where it said the 26-year-old woman had been killed.
The White House said American intelligence officials were investigating the claim.
“We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. “We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim.”
Jordanian officials cast doubt on the Islamic State's claim, calling it propaganda, but they did not explicitly rule it out and confirmed that Jordanian warplanes had carried out airstrikes on Friday.
Jordan's foreign minister, Nasser S. Judeh, said on his Twitter account that the claim was “An old and sick trick used by terrorists and despots for decades: claiming that hostages human shields held captive are killed by air raids.”
The country's information minister, Mohamad Momani, said in an interview that Jordan was looking into the claim but regarded it skeptically.
“How could they identify Jordanian warplanes from a huge distance in the sky?” he said. “What was the America lady doing in a weapons warehouse?"
The Islamic State, which occupies parts of Syria and Iraq, has executed three other American hostages, all men, in beheadings that it posted on the Internet. An American-led coalition that includes Jordan and other Arab allies of the United States has been bombing Islamic State targets on a frequent basis for months.
Ms. Mueller, 26, the only known remaining American hostage held by the Islamic State, is a humanitarian aid worker who disappeared in August 2013 after she had driven into the northern Syria city of Aleppo with her Syrian boyfriend. Her parents received proof of life in May of the following year.
Her family had asked news organizations to avoid identifying her by name while she was still in captivity. But the Islamic State's use of her name and hometown in its message on Friday prompted the family to confirm the information, even though there was no proof she had been killed.
In a statement about Ms. Mueller, the family called her a passionate aid worker who had been taken captive by the Islamic State after she had left an Aleppo hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, the medical charity.
The Fates of 23 ISIS Hostages in Syria
On Feb. 6, the Islamic State claimed that Jordanian bombings in northern Syria had killed an American woman, the only known remaining American hostage held by the group. She and James Foley, the first American killed by ISIS, were among 23 foreigners held in the same prison. A majority of these hostages were freed in exchange for large sums of cash, but those from the United States and Britain — two countries that abide by a strict no-ransom policy — were either killed or are still being held.
Hostage status
Hostage nationality
American or British
Still held
Freed for ransom
Killed
European/other
2012
2013
2014
April
Nov.
Jan.
July
Oct.
Jan.
Nov.
Mr. Foley and Mr. Cantlie were the first in the group to be abducted, and Mr. Foley was the first to be publicly beheaded.
James Foley, American journalist
1
2
John Cantlie, British journalist
Taken
together
Month captured
Month killed
The militants killed Mr. Gorbunov and showed the other hostages a video of his body.
Sergey Gorbunov, Russian engineer*
3
Mr. Haines was the third hostage to be publicly beheaded.
Federico Motka, Italian aid worker
4
5
David Cawthorne Haines, British aid worker
Mr. Ottosen was one of several prisoners who succeeded in smuggling out letters to the families of remaining hostages.
Daniel Rye Ottosen, Danish photojournalist
6
Didier François, French journalist
7
8
Edouard Elias, French photojournalist
Toni Neukirch, German citizen
9
Nicolas Hénin, French journalist
10
11
Pierre Torres, French photojournalist
Mr. Sotloff was kidnapped minutes after entering Syria. He was beheaded shortly after Mr. Foley.
Steven J. Sotloff, American journalist
12
Ms. Mueller disappeared in August 2013.
Kayla Jean Mueller, American aid worker
13
Marc Marginedas, Spanish war correspondent
14
Javier Espinosa, Spanish journalist
15
16
Ricardo García Vilanova, Spanish photojournalist
President Obama called the killing of Mr. Kassig “an act of pure evil.”
Peter Kassig, American aid worker
17
Alan Henning, British aid worker
18
Mr. Henning cashed in his savings to buy a used ambulance. He was the fourth hostage beheaded.
Belgian aid worker
Danish aid worker
Swiss aid worker
Five workers from Doctors Without Borders were taken from a field hospital in January. Three were released in April and two in May.
Swedish aid worker
19
20
21
22
23
Peruvian aid worker
Where the hostages were captured
“The common thread of Kayla's life has been her quiet leadership and strong desire to serve others," the statement said.
Ms. Mueller, the statement said, had “devoted her career to helping those in need in countries around the world.”
Experts on the Middle East said they believed Ms. Mueller was dead, since the Islamic State had no motivation to make such an assertion about a hostage if it were not true. Some also speculated that the Islamic State might have killed her beforehand and opportunistically blamed the Jordanian bombs for her death.
Andrew J. Tabler, senior fellow at the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said it was possible the militants “simply wanted to drive a wedge between regional and Western members of the coalition.”
The immolation death of the Jordanian pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, 26, which was posted on the Internet in a carefully produced Islamic State video on Tuesday, generated new levels of world outrage.
It was never made clear when the pilot, who was captured in late December, had been killed. But Jordanian officials said after the video was released that they believed the militants killed him in early January, and had lied that he was alive during negotiations aimed at freeing him.
Jordan hung two convicted terrorist prisoners, including a woman, in retaliation on Wednesday and launched bombing attacks on Islamic State targets in neighboring Syria as a further response for vengeance.
A senior United States military official with knowledge of the targets attacked by the Jordanians said the targets in and around Raqqa that were struck were carefully vetted and scrutinized, as with previous strikes, and there were no indications in advance that any hostages were located at the facilities.
“The same high standards we apply to all targets in the vetting stage were applied to these,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. “If there’s any inkling a person like that was there, we don’t go there.”
The official cautioned that without proof of the American hostage’s death, the statement by the Islamic State could be a ploy to cause the Jordanians and the rest of the American-led coalition to refrain from any heavier airstrikes.
The official said though the Jordanian fighter jets took the lead in the strike in and around Raqqa, they were accompanied by American aircraft, as is standard on bombing runs over territory held by the Islamic State in Syria.
Correction: February 6, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the year when the woman was taken hostage. It was August of 2013, not last year.
An earlier version of this article misstated the year when the woman was taken hostage. It was August of 2013, not last year.
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