Was killed in an air strike. It appears to come out of an isis media unit or isis linked media unit in raqqa. The claim itself is fairly short. It simply says as a result of continuous air strikes by Jordanian Aircraft outside of the city of raqqa that an american female hostage was killed. The message does include pii information, her name her address, in the United States and her email address and try to authentic ate this and there are images provided which appear to show a demolished or semidemolished apartment complex outside of raqqa, which was one of the areas hit by jordanians and where the hostage was killed. Now, in terms of authentic ating it beyond that, theres difficult. Theres no photo no proof of that regard. This is not from isis official main media unit. This is not from the media unit releasing the beheading videos and execution videos. Its to be said we havent heard from isis official media wing yet. Nonetheless, it does come from what we would deem to be a fairly cr
Those airstrikes have in part been because of a real change in mood in jordan after their pilot was killed by isis in that horrific execution where he was burned to death. That is broad Public Opinion, more in favor of confronting isis and the jordanians are taking advantage of that if you like and continuing to launch these air strikes. As i say, what we are hearing now, andrea are these reports that isis is claiming claiming that u. S. American hostage who was held by isis has been killed. Again, absolutely no confirmation and i have Evan Kohlmann on the phone. I want to advise everyone we are not at this time naming the American Woman publicly it has been disclosed she is 26 years old. The white house and the state department have indicated that. Theres no other information about her, her background. Were aware of it but not confirming anything publicly at this point about the 26yearold aid worker who had been captured in august of 2013. Evan, can you tell us anything about the isis
9 00 a. M. Out west. Welcome to weekends with alex witt. Developing now, the u. S. And its allies today conducted new air strikes against isis. Central command reports that piloted and Unmanned Aircraft have flown 26 missions against targets in iraq and syria since friday. And jordan carried out new air strikes against isis targets in syria. Jordan launched the raids thursday in response to the brutal isis execution of a captive jordanian pilot. Isis claims that an american being held captive, 26yearold Kayla Mueller, was killed in one of the jordanian attacks. The u. S. And jordanian governments have been unable to confirm isis claims. Lets get to Richard Engel who joins me with the very latest on all this. Actually, were going to joe fryer first. Were going to get more with Kayla Mueller and talk about her hometown of prescott arizona, her parents have issued a statement from there last night after going to extraordinary efforts to keep kaylas name out of the media for so long. Her n
The suspects name is omar mateen, he lives in port st. Lucie. Something really horrible happened that happened to all of us. As americans, we are united in grief and outrage. You will not break us. We are better people than this. Good evening from orlando. Im lester holt and this is a special edition of dateline. At least 50 dead, 53 wounded, many of them in critical condition. The biggest mass shooting in american history, and says president obama. An act of terror. The gunman omar mateen, stormed a gay nightclub, armed with an assault style military nightclub, opened fire and left the dance floor covered in blood. His motive, pure rate. Reporter it was supposed to be a night of fun, letting your hair down, saturday night had become early sunday morning, the music loud and funky. This video posted on the internet from inside club pulse around 1 00 a. M. Last call, last dance, latin theme night was wrapping up. A crowd of about 300 packed into orlandos popular gay nightclub. Approximat
Among the angles theyre looking at, reports mateen was a frequent patron of the club that he targeted. Jeh johnson and director comey will brief house members later this afternoon. Im joined by nbc justice correspondent pete williams. Pete, what can you tell us . What is the very latest . I think the main focus, and there are many prongs to this investigation, but one of the most intense right now is focusing on those who were closest to omar mateen. His family members, especially his wife, perhaps to some extent his father. What did they know, if anything, about his plans and did they do anything to help him, did they fail to speak up. Those are key questions that we are told the fbi is drilling down on and has been for the past 24 hours. Its only natural that they would ask these questions, according to the secretary of Homeland Security who talked about this this morning on today. The reality is that when someone selfradicalizes, there is almost always someone else close to that per