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The moving goodbye letter a murdered ISIS hostage wrote to his parents has been read at the trial of the terror suspect accused of masterminding his abduction. Peter Kassig wrote the final letter to his parents Ed and Paula five months before he was beheaded by Jihadi John in November 2014, and revealed that he did not believe his captors' claims that his family had given up on him. It was read at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, Wednesday by Peter's retired teacher dad Edward Kassig, who struggled to hold back tears, as Kassig's mom Paula, a former...

The Pentagon has finally admitted that it killed an innocent aid worker and seven children in a bungled drone strike, marking a disastrous intelligence failure for the Biden administration.A detailed timeline released by the Pentagon on Friday, when compared against prior reporting on how aid worker Zemari Ahmadi spent his day in Kabul on August 29, reveals the mistaken assumptions and tremendous errors that led up to the disaster.Ahmadi, 43, worked for US-based aid group Nutrition and Education International, and US officials now admit he appears to have had no connection to ISIS-K terrorists. His fatal mistake, it appears, was...

A prominent Canadian aid worker was arrested at his mountain villa in Nepal on Monday and charged with sexually abusing children, a local official said. Central Investigation Bureau Chief Pushkar Karki said Peter Dalglish was arrested in April at his home with two Nepalese boys aged 12 and 14 after weeks of investigation. His case is being heard by a court in Kavre, a town near Kathmandu. Karki said Dalglish has now been charged with raping the two boys and faces up to 13 years in prison if convicted. Dalglish has denied the charges. Long history of humanitarian work Dalglish,...

(Oct. 9) -- A British aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan last month was killed by her Taliban captors during a NATO commando raid to rescue her. Linda Norgrove, 36, had spent years working for charities and development projects in Afghanistan, and was on an American project in eastern Kunar province when her convoy was ambushed on Sept. 26. Police fought a gunbattle with the kidnappers before they escaped with Norgrove and three of her Afghan colleagues. The Afghan men were later released unharmed, but Norgrove was held hostage for nearly two weeks before NATO forces decided to try to rescue...

Gitmo Lawyer "Completely Shocked" His Terrorist Client Returned to Terrorism BY John McCormack March 26, 2010 11:34 AM Newsweek follows up on Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio's story on the Gitmo detainee who's returned to the battlefield after being released by the Obama administration: A Guantánamo detainee released last December has now returned to the battlefield to fight with Taliban insurgents, according to three U.S. counterterrorism officials who have reviewed intelligence reports on the matter. If the reports are accurate, the detainee, known as Abdul Hafiz, would be the first Guantánamo inmate released by the Obama administration to have returned...

CAIRO (AP) -- An al-Qaida offshoot in North Africa says it released a Spanish woman who spent 100 days as a hostage in Mauritania because she voluntarily converted to Islam. In a statement posted on militant Web sites Friday, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb says Alicia Gamez adopted the Muslim name Aicha after being exposed to the teachings of Islam by her captors. She and two male colleagues still being held captive worked as volunteers for an aid group called Barcelona Accion Solidaria.

Aid Worker's Death Brutal Reminder of Jihadi Extremism "We must remember that these men have a ruthless plan for the world in the form of a theocratic Islamic caliphate. In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan we saw a glimpse of their utopia: women degraded, freedom denied and followers of other brands of Islam exterminated." -- Faith J.H. McDonnell, Director of IRD's Religious Liberty Programs

A U.S. aid worker has been kidnapped in southern Afghanistan. The governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, says gunmen abducted the 49-year-old woman and her driver Saturday while they were traveling near the southern city of Kandahar. The American woman was wearing a burqa and was on her way to work. Khalid says the woman had been living in the province for a while. He says she worked for a non-governmental organization focusing on agriculture and development. No group has claimed responsibility yet for the kidnapping and officials are searching for the abductors. The provincial governor called the kidnappers enemies...

American woman kidnapped in Afghanistan By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago Gunmen kidnapped a burqa-clad American aid worker and her driver in southern Afghanistan's largest city early Saturday, snatching the woman from a residential neighborhood as she was on her way to work. The American worked in Kandahar for the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, said Jeff Palmer, its international director. Palmer said the group had not been contacted by the kidnappers and that he did not know their identity or demands. Asadullah Khalid, the provincial governor, blamed the kidnappings on the "enemy of Islam and the...

Changanassery (Kerala, India), SVM News, September 22, 2007: A group of narcotoc sellers attacked Christian aid worker, who is also a prayer warrior in Changanassery in Kottayam district of Kerala, India on September 16. Fatimapuram Parayil Thomas, 30, was severely beaten by the selling agents of narcotic distributors and admitted at Changanassery Taluk hospital with serious injuries. The incident was happened in front of the KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) bus stand on Sunday night. Thomas is a Christian aid worker and an active member of the Salem Voice Ministries prayer fellowship. He earns for his family as an...

LONDON — A mutilated body found in Iraq is not that of kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan, the British government said Wednesday. The Foreign Office said it continued to believe that Hassan had been killed, although the evidence was not conclusive. The Foreign Office said dental tests conducted in the United States showed the body of a woman of Western appearance, found in Fallouja last month by U.S. Marines, was not Hassan. The Iraq director of the aid group CARE International, Hassan, 59, was abducted Oct. 19 in Baghdad. On Nov. 16, Arab satellite TV channel Al Jazeera said it...

Sydney (AsiaNews/Afp) - The mutilated body of a Caucasian woman found in the Iraqi city of Fallujah earlier this week appears to be that of missing aid worker Margaret Hassan, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Thursday. Mr Howard told parliament that there was every indication that Hassan was also the woman who appeared in a video received by Al-Jazeera on Tuesday showing an armed man shooting at a blind-folded woman. "The body found in Fallujah appears to have been Margaret's and the video of the execution of a Western woman appears, on all the available information, to...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis reacted with anger and disbelief Wednesday to news that British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan, who worked in Iraq (news - web sites) for decades before being kidnapped a month ago, had been killed by her captors. Irish-born Hassan, 59, moved to Iraq more than 30 years ago after marrying an Iraqi engineer. She learned Arabic and became a pillar of support in local communities, often helping the needy in the face of opposition during Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime. Those who knew her, worked with her or were helped by her described Hassan as...

Gunmen kidnapped an Italian aid worker today on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and have demanded a ransom, the army said. Two Filipino colleagues of Andrea Cienosterone, a project director for Italian non-government organisation Movimondo, were also abducted but later released with the ransom demand for 300,000 pesos ($US5,300), said Lieutenant-General Alberto Braganza, the island's military commander. He said the three were taken at gunpoint by four men in Lanao del Norte province. "We're still checking the ransom demand," Lieutenant-General Braganza said, ordering government troops to try to find the Italian and his kidnappers. An army spokesman said Ms...

Sights of Silence By RICHARD RAGAN as told to JAMES BROOKE Published: May 23, 2004 North Korea is a whisker smaller than my home state, Mississippi. But when I heard about the explosion last month at Ryongchon train station, I knew I was in for a long, hard drive. As the crow flies, it was 300 miles. But I was in the northeast corner of the country, near the Russian border, when I heard the news on the BBC. With North Korea's bumpy dirt roads and circuitous routes, our convoy of white Toyota Land Cruisers faced a three-day, 800-mile road...