Hours after UK authorities confirmed they were looking into reports that the Islamic State (IS) terrorist known as “Jihadi John” might have been injured in an air strike, a new IS video shows a masked man with the severed head of an American hostage and apparently directing the executions of captured Syrian troops.

Peter “Abdul Rahman” Kassig converted to Islam in 2013 and was in Syria to drive an ambulance for people injured in the civil war.  Militants captured him in October of last year near the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor. 

The new video has some similarities with past IS videos, such as narration from the black clad terrorist “Jihadi John”.  But there are several significant differences from earlier propaganda videos; it appears to be quickly produced, and offers a look at Mr. Kassig’s head instead of showing the full beheading.  And there is no threat of beheading to another hostage at the end.

What is shown in graphic detail is the beheadings of the Syrians, by IS militants who don’t bother to hide their identities.  As for Jihadi John, he lets loose with the superlatives in that same southern British accent as in previous videos.

“To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers,” he says, assuming that the US would send more troops to the region to fight Islamic State.

“And with Allah’s permission.. the Islamic State will soon.  begin to slaughter your people in your streets.”

US President Obama responded to the savagery while aboard Air Force One which was returning to the US after the G20 Summit in Brisbane.

“Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter,” Obama said, reminding the targets of IS propaganda that Kassig was a willing convert to their world view.  The US President said that Kassig “was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”