A Frenchman who was kidnapped over the weekend in Algeria appears to have been beheaded in a video that was posted online Wednesday.
The video shows armed men beheading a man who appears to be Herve Gourdel — a man who the French foreign ministry said was kidnapped Sunday in Algeria’s Tizi-Ouzou region east of Algiers.
In the video, the armed men claim to belong to Islamist militant group Jund al-Khilafa — or Soldiers of the Caliphate — in Algeria, and pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The video — titled “A message of blood for the French government” — surfaced as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls addressed the French National Assembly, the country’s lower house of parliament, about the fight against ISIS.
The French government did not immediately confirm the authenticity of the video.