Hervé Gourdel

Hervé Gourdel (September 12, 1959 – c. September 24, 2014) was a French citizen and mountaineering guide. Gourdel was kidnapped on September 21, 2014, while hiking in the Djurdjura National Park in Algeria.

The following day, a recently formed ISIL affiliate in Algeria, Jund al-Khilafah, released a video which showed Hervé Gourdel being held hostage. The group threatened to kill Gourdel if the French government continued to conduct airstrikes against ISIL. On September 24, they carried through on threats to behead him after a 24-hour deadline passed. The beheading was captured in a video titled "A Message of Blood for French Government."

The video is similar to other ISIL beheading videos. It opens with a news clip of French President François Hollande and a title screen. It then shows Hervé Gourdel handcuffed and kneeling in front of four armed masked men. After Gourdel delivers a statement, one of the militants reads a statement. In it he declares that this kidnapping and execution were in response to the order of ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani to attack citizens of countries participating in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State. Like the other IS beheading videos, it does not show the actual beheading, but the final scene does show Hervé Gourdel's dead body with his severed head in his lap, and then the fighters holding it up.