The Islamic State's intentions toward its only female American hostage are unknown following the gristly murder of American aid worker Peter Kassig by the terror group on Sunday,
The Daily Beast reported.
Not much has been said publicly about presumed last American hostage held by the Islamic State (ISIS), other than that, like Kassig, she is 26 years old. Her name has never been released.
She went to Syria to help children caught in the intra-Arab fighting and was taken captive in August 2013. Those involved in her case maintain that the less attention paid to her story, the better her chance is of surviving, the Daily Beast reported.
ISIS released a 16-minute propaganda video showing Kassig after he was beheaded, and the slaughter-by-knife of 18 prisoners who the terrorists claimed were members of the Syrian armed forces. The militants, atypically, did not show their next intended victim.
The group has yet to murder any Western female hostages on camera.
ISIS disseminates such videos to entice Muslims around the world to join its crusade.
"Before they're doing anything, they want to have a really good feel for how it will play," said a former official familiar with the methods of such groups, the Daily Beast reported.
ISIS has demanded a $6 million-plus ransom, knowing that the woman's family cannot privately raise the money. The U.S. government is against paying ransom. It is a federal offense to turn over money to terrorist groups.
ISIS' latest video sought to answer those who said the militants were on the defensive because of U.S.-led airstrikes. Iraqi government forces recaptured an oil refinery some 130 miles north of Baghdad from ISIS on Saturday.
Efforts to target Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group's caliph or leader, have been thwarted because his communications are encrypted. Meantime, U.S. airstrikes against the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, have driven it and ISIS into an arrangement of convenience, the Daily Beast reported.
Kassig converted to Islam while in captivity and went by the name Abdul Rahman. Family members insist his conversion was genuine, according to the Daily Beast.
He was a former Army Ranger,
The New York Times reported.
The fate of another American who was taken in Syria,
journalist Austin Tice, is unknown.
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