American ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller is dead, the 26-year-old's family said Tuesday. The confirmation came four days after ISIS claimed the Arizona native had been killed by a coalition airstrike near Raqqa, Syria.
"We are heartbroken to share that we've received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller, has lost her life," Mueller's parents, Carl and Marsha, and brother Eric, said in a statement. "Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice, and peace."
The statement from Mueller's family did not elaborate on how it had learned of Mueller's death or the circumstances behind it.
U.S. officials would not confirm Mueller's cause of death or say when she died, telling NBC News only that the family had received a message from the aid worker's captors with information that American authorities were able to authenticate.
President Barack Obama expressed his "deepest condolences" on Mueller's death.
"No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla's captivity and death," he said in a statement calling ISIS a "hateful and abhorrent terrorist group."
Mueller — who had worked as a humanitarian aid worker — was captured in Syria in August 2013. Last week, ISIS claimed she had been killed in a Jordanian airstrike. At the time, U.S. officials said they could not confirm ISIS' claims.
Obama recently had stressed that the U.S. was deploying "all assets" to save the young aid worker, who was believed to be the last American hostage held by ISIS. Three others — James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Abdul-Rahman Kassig — were beheaded by ISIS militants.
Little was publicized about Mueller's ordeal before ISIS claimed her death last week: her family had requested her name be kept out of the press out of fears it would endanger her life.
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