INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – An American aid worker threatened with beheading in Syria had researched the region and knew the dangers, but he believed the good he could accomplish through his relief organization outweighed the risk, his friends said Wednesday.
Abdul-Rahman Kassig, 26, of Indianapolis was helping victims of the Syrian civil war when he was captured Oct. 1, 2013. In a video released Friday, a militant with the Islamic State group threatened to kill Kassig following the beheading of British hostage Alan Henning.
Nearly 300 people gathered Wednesday at Butler University, where Kassig was a student from 2011 to 2012, to celebrate his work to help Syrians and pray for his release. Many wore white in a symbol of peace. One woman held a white sign that read “A hero for peace.”
Many in the crowd were members of the local Muslim community. They joined Kassig’s parents and others in raising their hands in prayer as Hazem Bata, executive director of the Plainfield, Indiana-based Islamic Society of North America, quoted passages from the Quran and urged Kassig’s captors to free him.
“Follow the religion you claim to hold so dear and have mercy on Abdul-Rahman,” he said. “We ask that you send him back safely to his family.”
Several of Kassig’s friends told The Associated Press earlier Wednesday that he was always interested in helping other people and drawn to the Middle East after experiencing the region as an Army Ranger deployed to Iraq in 2007.
But he was well aware of the safety risks, said Todd Hill, who met Kassig in college after his medical discharge from the Army.
“He fully understood that this was a possibility and he accepted that, and I think that says a tremendous amount about the sort of person he is and to the kind of legacy he wants to create,” Hill said.
Kassig, who changed his first name from Peter after converting to Islam while in captivity, founded Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, in Turkey. The group provides food, clothing, medical care and other aid to those affected by the Syrian conflict. According to the United Nations, some 3 million Syrians have had to flee their country, half of them children.
Hill and Joe Dages, who both live in Louisville, Kentucky, told the AP that Kassig researched the region before traveling to the Middle East.
“We knew he was going to go and do something to serve and to help, and it was going to be nonconventional and impressive,” said Dages, an attorney who also met Kassig in college.
Dages said that when he and Hill last saw Kassig, in March 2013, their friend was passionate about the work he was doing.
“He felt a need to stay up all day and all night and continue to help because people were dying all the time,” Dages said. “He thought that maybe if I can just pour a little more of myself into this we can save a few more lives.”