ISIS Is Now Threatening To Execute A Former US Army Ranger [Report]
A native of Indiana, Kassig, 26, was working to help Syrian refugees by providing medical and humanitarian support with a group he founded called Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA), according to Time.
On its website, the group says it had temporarily ceased operations "due to the present security situation in Syria."
SERA was founded by Kassig in late 2012 along with his friend Eliot Stempf. According to an article from Reed College, the pair lived together in Turkey and frequently crossed over into Syria to help train locals to become emergency first responders.
Kassig joined the Army in 2006 but was honorably discharged for medical reasons after his Iraq tour in 2007, according to CNN. He went on to college and became certified as an emergency medical technician in 2010.
In an interview with the website Syria Deeply last year, Kassig - a Ranger who was deployed to Iraq in 2007 - said he was adamant about only providing humanitarian, and not military support.
"I can either be in a position to deliver tens of thousands of dollars of antibiotics for women and children, or I can be another young man with a gun," he said.