The parents of a US humanitarian worker held hostage by the Islamic State group since August 2013 on Friday said they are hopeful she is still alive, after the group said she was killed in a bombing by Jordanian fighter jets.
Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of Kayla Jean Mueller, asked the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, to contact them privately, according to a statement released by a family representative.
“This news leaves us concerned, yet, we are still hopeful that Kayla is alive,” they said in the message.
Photo: Reuters
In a message directed to “those in positions of responsibility for holding Kayla,” they said: “You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest. As your guest, her safety and well-being remains your responsibility.”
Mueller was the last-known US hostage held by the Islamic State group, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq.
US officials said they could not confirm that Mueller had been killed. Jordanian leaders have questioned the group’s claims.
Kayla Mueller, from the small city of Prescott, about 160 km north of Phoenix, felt compelled to help others from an early age, according to a statement from the family.
“When asked what kept her going in her mission, she said: ‘I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you,’” the statement said.
As a high-school student at Tri City College Prep, she received several awards, in part for her volunteering with groups, such as AmeriCorps and Big Brothers Big Sisters, the statement said.
She graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2009 and went on to work for humanitarian aid groups in northern India, Palestine and Israel before returning to Arizona to work at an HIV/AIDS clinic and volunteer at a woman’s shelter, it said.
Mueller relocated to the Turkish-Syrian border in December 2012 to help Syrian refugees, working with the Danish Refugee Council and the aid group Support to Life. She was taken by the Islamic State group while leaving a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013.
Her parents said they had previously remained silent about her capture “out of concern for Kayla’s safety,” and to abide by the group’s warnings.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS