Briton Alan Henning latest hostage threatened with murder in Syria
The latest Western hostage to be threatened with murder by Islamic State militants is a taxi driver from northwest England who fell into the group's hands after joining a group of Muslim friends on an aid convoy to Syria.
Alan Henning, described by friends as "a big man with a big heart", volunteered to join the humanitarian mission last Christmas after helping to raise funds to purchase the medical equipment that the convoy was taking into the country.
The vehicles were halted by masked gunmen after crossing the Turkish border and Henning, 47, was separated from his friends, according to accounts they gave after returning to Britain following their release by the group.
Since then, they and Henning's family have remained silent about his plight, at the suggestion of the British Foreign Office, while behind-the-scenes attempts were made to negotiate his release.
After Henning was shown and named in the latest video posted online by Islamic State, the Foreign Office withdrew a request to the media to avoid identifying him, and on Sunday distributed a photograph taken on a trip to Syria.
His abduction is said to have distressed members of the group of amateur aid workers who organised the convoy, and angered some members of the Muslim communities in which they live, with accusations that a non-Muslim should never have been allowed to join the mission because of the risk. It was his second trip to Syria. The first visit nine months earlier had been trouble-free.
Henning was among a group of volunteers who raised money to purchase medical equipment, including defibrillators and stethoscopes for a hospital at Idlib, in northwest Syria.
One of the organisers, Kasim Jameel, a taxi driver from Bolton, in northern England, said: "Alan is a man who is full of compassion and we are just praying to Allah that he is released safe and sound."
