David Cameron vows to defeat ‘barbaric and repulsive’ Isis

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to do everything to defeat Islamic State (ISIS) after the “unforgivable and barbaric” beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning.

After talks with the security services and Foreign Office officials on Saturday at his country residence, the prime minister said the beheading made it clear there was “no level of depravity” to which Isis would not sink.

“It is senseless. It is complete unforgivable. Anyone in any doubt about this organisation can now see how truly repulsive it is and barbaric it is.”

“This is going to be our struggle now, that with others we must do everything we can to defeat this organisation. We must take action against it and we must find those responsible,” he said.

Henning, a 47-year-old taxi-driver, was taken captive on December 26, shorty after crossing the border between Turkey and Syria to join an aid convoy. Henning is the fourth western hostage Isis have killed, following the beheadings of US journalists James Foley, and Steven Sotloff, and the Scottish aid worker David Haines.

A further hostage, Hervé Gourdel, from Nice in France, was murdered by Jund al-Khalifa, a group with links to Isis, on 24 September.

Cameron’s deputy, Nick Clegg – the liberal democrat leader – blasted ISIS for its latest beheading, claiming that it is “twisting ... religion to its own end.”

 “If you are doing this to intimidate us, you won’t. If you are doing this to break our resolve, you won’t. If you are doing this to drag us into a religious war on your terms, you won’t,” he said.

“What we in Britain will do instead in a calm and determined way is to play our role to hunt you down and to rid the world of this barbaric violence. What Isis is doing is sick and twisted and they will not win.”

In the video, entitled Another Message to America and Its Allies, a masked man stands behind Henning, who is kneeling. Henning says: “I am Alan Henning. Because of our parliament’s decision to attack the Islamic State, I – as a member of the British public – will now pay the price for that decision.”

A voice then says: “The blood of David Haines was on your hands, Cameron. Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his blood is on the hands of the British parliament.”

It ends with a threat to a fifth hostage, an US citizen identified as Peter Edward Kassig, a former soldier who had arrived in Syria to join an aid convoy.