Foreigners executed by Daesh militants

Below is a list of executions of foreigners by militants or movements linked to the Daesh jihadist group.

 -- 2014 --

- August 19: Daesh posts a video of the decapitation of US freelance photojournalist James Foley, 40, who was seized in northern Syria in November 2012.

The video of Foley's killing, which provokes worldwide revulsion, also shows a second US reporter, Steven Sotloff, being paraded by a black-clad IS militant who warns that he too will be killed unless President Barack Obama halts air strikes on Daesh positions in Iraq.

- September 2: Daesh says it has beheaded Sotloff, 31, in another propaganda video showing the ghastly killing. The freelance reporter was kidnapped August 2013 in Aleppo near Syria's border with Turkey. His abduction was kept secret under a news blackout.

- September 13: Daesh claims to have beheaded British aid worker David Haines, 44, as the US launches a vast diplomatic offensive to build an international coalition against the jihadists. Haines was seized in March 2013 while working for a Paris-based non-governmental organisation.
- September 24: IS-linked Jund al-Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate," claims to have beheaded French tourist Herve Gourdel, 55, following his abduction in Algeria, in a video posted online after Paris rejected their demand to halt air strikes in Iraq.

- October 3: Daesh claims in a graphic video to have beheaded British aid volunteer Alan Henning, 47, in Syria in response to British air strikes in Iraq. He was abducted in December 2013 while helping deliver aid to a Syrian refugee camp.

- November 16: Daesh says it executed Peter Kassig, a 26-year-old US aid worker kidnapped in Syria in October 2013, as a warning to the United States.

The same video showed the simultaneous beheadings of around 15 men described as Syrian military personnel, in the latest Daesh mass execution.

-- 2015 --

- January 8: Libyan branch of Daesh claims to have executed two Tunisian journalists who went missing in September -- Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari.
The two had been taken captive by an armed group near the town of Brega, further west, on September 3, but were released a few days later before being arrested by a militia and then disappearing.

- January 24 and 31: Daesh claims to have beheaded Japanese self-declared "security contractor" Haruna Yukawa, 42, and a week later respected war correspondent Kenji Goto, 47, searching for him in Syria.

- February 3: The group releases a video showing 26-year-old Jordanian fighter pilot First Lieutenant Maaz al-Kassasbeh, who was captured in December after his plane crashed, being burned alive inside a metal cage.

- August 12: IS claims to have beheaded Croatian hostage Tomislav Salopek, 31, abducted west of Cairo on July 22, posting a purported picture of the victim's body on Twitter.

The jihadists had issued a 48-hour deadline that ran out on August 7 threatening to kill the employee of a French firm if Muslim women prisoners were not released from Egyptian jails.

According to a Syrian NGO, the jihadists have executed more than 3,000 people, including 1,800 civilians, in Iraq and Syria, where they declared an Islamic caliphate in June 2014 in territory under their control.

In February, jihadists in Libya linked to Daesh claimed the execution of 21 Coptic Christians, all but one of them Egyptians, and in April the execution of 28 Christians, all Ethiopians.
Source: AFP