Istanbul, London: A senior Al Qaida militant has spoken out in defence of a Western hostage slated as the next to be beheaded by the rival extremists Daesh in Syria.

Abdul Rahman Kassig, the American Muslim convert and aid worker formerly known as Peter, has been named by Daesh as the next victim in their series of videoed murders of British and US captives.

Tweets by some Daesh members warned that Kassig was to be killed yesterday (Wednesday), as a “deadline” passed for meeting their demands — that America call off its bombing campaign. But the Daesh threat to Kassig has caused dissent from within the ranks of fellow militants, with a number of Islamists speaking out in support of him, particularly because he has embraced Islam.

Abu Omar Aqidi, a prominent member of Jabhat Al Nusra, said in a public statement that he had been told that Kassig was the medic who treated him and other fellow militants. Kassig “performed a successful operation under bombardment by the regime”, Aqidi said in a series of tweets, explaining that he had removed a piece of shrapnel from his wound.

He added that Kassig had also treated several of his colleagues, including “Abu Dujana”, who he and others have named as leader of the group in Deir Al Zour province, north-east Syria. Aqidi’s Al Qaida faction, Jabhat Al Nusra, had been a rival of Daesh, but the American bombardment against both groups has started to bring them closer together again.

‘Surprise’

His tweets suggested that his men had asked after Kassig when he disappeared and that it had come as a surprise when “he showed up in the video where Daesh threatened the United States”.

Kassig was seized by Daesh militants on October 1 2013 while delivering medical supplies to Deir Al Zour for the charity that he had established.

Aged just 26, he had moved to the Turkish border town of Gaziantep to found Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA), a non-governmental organisation providing first-response humanitarian aid.

Aqidi said that when we was being treated by Kassig he had believed the doctor was a fellow militant, adding that “it later became clear to me that he’s a humanitarian activist that served in Deir Al Zour for more than a year and was then kidnapped by Daesh”.

Kassig embraced Islam early in his captivity and, according to the accounts of fellow hostages who have since been released, has dedicated himself to practising the religion. None the less, last month he appeared in a video posted on YouTube, wearing an orange robe and kneeling in the desert while a masked extremist promised that he would be killed in response to the American air strikes.

Daesh has already beheaded four of Kassig’s fellow hostages in this fashion, most recently the British aid worker Alan Henning. Separately, Daesh militants showed off on social media contents of a crate of weapons dropped by the Americans to Kurds fighting in the Syrian border town of Kobani that had apparently fallen into the wrong hands. The air drop was criticised by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who fiercely opposes support for the Kurdish militia fighting Daesh in Kobani, the YPG, and its political wing, the PYD, on the grounds they are tied to the guerrilla group that has fought a long war against Ankara, the PKK.

“It has become clear that this was wrong,” he said. “Some of the air drops have fallen into the hands of the PYD and Daesh. It’s impossible to achieve results with such an operation.”

Daesh may, however, have suffered a setback in its other war, on the Al Assad regime. Syrian officials said that two of three fighter jets seized by Daesh at an air base near Aleppo had been destroyed from the air. The regime has increased its air strikes across the country in recent days.