Parents of ISIS hostage plead for son’s release

The parents of U.S. hostage Peter Kassig released a video on Saturday pleading for their son’s safe return. 

Kassig’s parents, Ed and Paula, said their son answered a call to help the Syrian people and asked his Islamic State in Iraq and Syria captors to release him. 

{mosads}”We implore his captors to show mercy and use their power to let our son go,” they each said during the three-minute video.

“We are all praying for you and your safe return.”

The 26-year-old Kassig was named as the next possible victim after ISIS beheaded Alan Henning, a 47-year-old British aid worker in Syria, on Friday.

The former U.S. Army Ranger and Iraq war veteran returned to the region to do humanitarian work as an emergency medical technician, and was kidnapped Oct. 1, 2013.

“He grew to love and admire the Syrian people and felt at home there,” his father said on the video. 

He said his son’s journey culminated in him converting to Islam and changing his first name to Abdul-Rahman. 

His mother spoke directly to her son saying, “we are so very proud of you and the work you have done to bring humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.”

“Most of all, know that we love you, and our hearts ache for you to be granted your freedom so we can hug you again and then set you free to continue the life you have chosen, the life of service to those in greatest need,” she said.

In a June 2012 CNN story, Kassig said the U.S. needed to take a firm political stance on Syria although he didn’t press for military intervention. 

“This is real, and it’s scary stuff, and it’s sad what is happening to people here,” he says. “People back home need to know about it, they need to know. Sometimes you gotta take a stand, you gotta draw a line somewhere.”