Beheaded French hostage will be avenged, country vows as tributes paid to married father of two

Thousands of Algerian soldiers supported by helicopters are hunting for the ISIS-linked Islamist terrorists who beheaded a French mountaineer in a sickening video released yesterday.

Herve Gourdel, 55, was captured by the Islamist group Jund al-Khilifa while hiking in the Djurdjura National Park on Sunday - just one day after he arrived in Algeria for a 10-day walking holiday.

Mr Gourdel was brutally murdered yesterday, less than 24 hours after militants uploaded a video to YouTube warning that the married father-of-two would be killed unless France pulled out of a coalition of nations bombing targets connected to the ISIS in Iraq.

By early this morning some 2000 soldiers were involved in the search in the Tizi Ouzou region, along with 500 marines supported by sniffers dogs. 'Everything will be done to bring the killers to justice,' said a spokesman for Algeria's Defence Ministry.

The news came as France's defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian revealed his country is considering whether to expand airstrikes into Syria to assist a U.S. and Arab coalition in thwarting ISIS' advances.

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Murdered: Herve Gourdel, 55, (pictured right, holding a water bottle) was captured by the Islamist group Jund al-Khilifa while hiking in the Djurdjura National Park on Sunday - just one day after arriving for a walking holiday

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Experienced: Herve Gourdel (pictured left and right) was a passionate amateur photographer and married with two adult children. He worked as a mountain guide and had vast experience of working in remote locations

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Execution: ISIS-linked militants in Algeria beheaded Herve Gourdel yesterday after he was captured at the weekend. The group earlier made threats to kill Mr Gourdel if France did not stop bombing targets in Iraq

There are 30,000 French citizens living in Algeria, where Mr Gourdel was brutally murdered yesterday by militants loyal to ISIS - the terror group led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi which controls a swath of territory larger than Britain and a population of four million brutally oppressed citizens.

Asked about the French citizens living in Algeria, Mr Le Drian told RTL radio that the goal of the extremist groups is to 'spread terror.'

 

The Algerian government last night reiterated its commitment to protecting foreign residents living inside the country.

There are fears that other radical Islamist groups may carry out copycat attacks on Westerners following calls to do so by ISIS on Sunday.

The kidnapping and murder of Gourdel, however, is believed to be a crime of opportunity, since Algeria's extremist have been confined to remote mountainous regions and the French mountaineer was one of only a very few foreigners to venture into this area.

This morning tributes were paid to the professional mountaineering guide, both from politicians and from locals in his home city of Nice, where a book of condolence was opened in his memory.

Mr Gourdel - a passionate amateur photographer - was a married father of two adult children. 

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Grieving: This morning tributes were paid to murdered professional mountaineering guide Herve Gourdel by locals in his home city of Nice, where a book of condolence was opened in his memory

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Residents of Nice sign a book of condolence for Herve Gourdel, who was murdered in Algeria yesterday

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Threats: A video featuring Mr Gourdel was released on Tuesday in which the militants threatened to kill the Frenchman unless France stopped bombing ISIS targets in Iraq within 24 hours

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'Network of death': Mr Gourdel's murder came just 30 minutes after U.S. President Barack Obama gave a speech to the UN General Assembly, urging the world to unite to tackle the threat posed by ISIS and its affiliates

The sickening four minute 46 second video of Mr Gourdel's murder - titled 'A Message in Blood for the French Government' - was released exactly 30 minutes after Barack Obama gave a speech vowing to destroy ISIS and its affiliates to the UN General Assembly.

In his speech President Obama urged the world to come together to tackle the threat posed by ISIS and 'dismantle this network of death'. The address ended at 10.38am New York time, with the existence of Mr Gourdel's murder video revealed just 30 minutes later, at 11.09am.

Yesterday afternoon the terrorism watchdog SITE Intelligence Group distributed a video by Jund al-Khilafah announcing Mr Gourdel's death.

Images of the execution emerged on social media a short time later, showing the mountaineering guide wearing a purple T-shirt surrounded by masked men, with his hands bound behind his back. 

France confirms French hostage held in Algeria by IS splinter...

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Tragic: Herve Gourdel, 55, was captured by the Islamist group Jund al-Khilifa while hiking in the Djurdjura National Park on Sunday - just one day after he arrived in Algeria for a walking holiday 

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Experienced: Mr Gourdel was a professional mountaineering guide and amateur photographer. Although he enjoyed spending time in remote locations around the world, he was always extremely careful, friends said

MERCILESS: WHAT HAPPENS IN THE VIDEO OF THE BEHEADING OF HERVE GOURDEL RELEASED BY  ISIS-LINKED MILITANTS

The video shows French text, which translates to English as  'BLOOD MESSAGE FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT'.

It then shows Gourdel kneeling with his arms tied behind his back before four masked militants. Two have assault rifles.

Gourdel appears to have a gash on the front of his throat. He appears calm.

One of the men, reading from a script, says: 

'Here is criminal France that is full of hatred for Muslims, coming to us with a new dress. The aggression on the Muslims in Mali was not enough for it, and before that in Algeria, where it destroyed and sowed corruption in the land, violated honor, fought whoever converted to Islam with its laws, prevented the hijab, spread vice and corruption, and killed the Muslims and displaced the weak.

'And today it refused to see the Shariah of Allah be applied in the land, the implementation of proscribed punishments, and the religion be spread.

'So it came with its horses and men to participate in this Crusader war under the pretext of terrorism, as they allege.' 

'Let the French people know that their blood is cheap for their president, and it is the same as you made the blood of the Muslim women and children cheap in Iraq and Sham [Syria] and other countries.

'Your blood has been cheapened as an exact recompense.'

The militants then push the victim on his side and hold him down. The video does not show the beheading, but a militant holds the head up to the camera afterwards.

Just before the militants gave their statement, the Frenchman briefly addressed his family. 

On Tuesday a video posted on YouTube showed the white-haired, bespectacled Mr Gourdel surrounded by masked men holding Kalashnikov rifles.

The group threatened to kill their hostage by the end of the day unless France ceased its air strikes in Iraq, where ISIS terrorists control vast swaths of territory under the guise of a 'caliphate'.

The Algerian murderers referred to their group as Jund al-Khilifa - which means 'caliphate soldiers.' 

The footage prompted some 1,500 Algerian forces to comb through the restive, mountainous Tizi Ouzou region in the east of Algeria - desperately trying to save Mr Gourdel before it was too late. 

Speaking at the United Nations in New York, Mr Hollande said: 'France is going through an ordeal because of the murder of one of its citizens, but France will never give in to blackmail.

'France will never give in to terrorism because it is our duty and above all, it is our honour.The fight against terrorism must continue and be stepped up.'

Politicians lined up to condemn Mr Gourdel's murder, all vowing to fight terrorism.

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Hunt: Tuesday's warning video prompted some 1,500 Algerian forces to comb through the restive, Tizi Ouzou region in the east of Algeria - desperately trying to save Mr Gourdel before it was too late

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Dangerous location: Mr Gourdel was seized on Saturday while hiking in the heart of Algeria's Djurdjura National Park (pictured). The mountains have been a sanctuary for radical Islamists loyal to Al Qaeda since the 1990s

ISIS FREES SCORES OF PRISONERS IN DESPERATE BID TO STOP AIR STRIKES ON 'CAPITAL' AS OIL WELLS ARE POUNDED FROM THE AIR

Terrorists fighting for ISIS in Syria are believed to have freed 150 prisoners in the group's de facto capital Raqqa in the hope it will convince America and its Arab allies to end a campaign of airstrikes.

Desperate militants released the captives overnight, according to local activists, in the belief the move could encourage an anti-ISIS coalition of nations to focus their raids away from Raqqa.

The militant stronghold is widely thought to be a base for the group's senior figures - including leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - and where British hostages Alan Henning and John Cantlie are being held.

The 150 prisoners released by the group are all believed to have been arrested in recent weeks, suggesting they are most likely to have been locals accused of committing minor crimes.

The news comes as a fresh wave of airstrikes from the United States and its Arab allies hit ISIS oil refineries overnight, killing at least 14 militants and striking at the heart of the terror group's funding.

ISIS generates up to $2million a day from the sale of oil, employing highly trained engineers to extract thousands of barrels a day from the vast swaths of Syria and Iraq under the terror group's control.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said: 'The support of the whole nation goes to Herve Gourdel's family. France will never give in.'

MP Laurent Wauqiuez said: 'Barbarity cannot defeat the values of democracy.'

Herve Morin, of the UDI party, tweeted: 'To Gourdel's murderers: You are monsters and you are hideous.'

And the National Front's Louis Aliot said: 'All my thoughts are with the family of our compatriot, cowardly executed by the enemies of our civilisation.'

Christian Estrosi, the deputy mayor of Nice who visited Mr Gourdel's family, said the whole country had been plunged into a period of 'national mourning.'

He said Mr Gourdel's elderly parents and children were dealing with their loss 'with dignity, anger and an unspeakable pain'.

Algeria, which won independence from France in 1962 following a bitter war of independence, is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism.

The Tizi Ouzou region has been the scene of attacks by al Qaeda's North African branch, AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).

They have been operating in the mountainous wooded area for more than a decade, since the end of the brutal civil war which decimated Algeria during the 1990s.

On Monday, Islamic State (IS) issued an audio statement calling on Muslims everywhere to kill citizens of nations that have joined the fight against jihadist groups in Iraq.

Spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani called on followers to 'kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war'.

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