An unnamed woman, the last American citizen held hostage by the ISIL terrorist group, might be the next victim of ISIL, according to a report.
The identity of the American woman has been withheld at the request of her family fearing her safety, current and former US officials told The Daily Beast.
If beheaded by ISIL, she would become the first foreign female victim killed in the terrorist group’s scare videos.
According to credible sources, the last remaining US hostage is of the same age as ISIL’s latest American victim, 26-year-old aid worker Peter (Abdul-Rahman) Kassig, and like him, she was also captured while helping people injured in the Syrian conflict.
The woman is the only American female held by the Islamic State
She was taken in August 2013, along with a group of other aid workers who have reportedly been released.
The latest ISIL video released Sunday showed a beheaded Kassig, who was kidnapped in October 2013 on his way to the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor while working for his humanitarian organization, which treats refugees from Syria.
The terrorists warned Washington in the 16-minute-long video that they would kill more Americans "on your streets."
The video also showed an alleged mass execution of several abducted Syrian soldiers.
Unlike ISIL’s previous videos, where one victim is killed and the next one on the death row is shown as the executioners make threats about his life, the American woman was not shown in the video. Whether this change of pattern can indicate any hope for her fate is still unclear.
The terrorist group has executed several foreign nationals so far, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.
The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.
US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq since early August. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.
Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
