WASHINGTON - Hostage Peter Kassig wrote in June that he was "scared to die" at the hands of his Islamic State jihadist captors, his parents said in a statement released on Saturday.

The 26-year-old former US soldier was paraded at the end of an IS video released on Friday that showed the murder of British aid worker Alan Henning.

Hostages threatened at the end of four previous, near-identical IS beheading videos have subsequently been murdered.