Wife of British hostage appeals to IS for his release

London: The wife of a British taxi driver being held hostage by Islamic State (IS) terrorists has issued a desperate plea for his release.

Alan Henning, from Salford in northern England, was seized while on an aid mission to Syria last December. "Alan is a peaceful, selfless man who left his family and his job as a taxi driver in the UK to drive in a convoy all the way to Syria with his Muslim colleagues and friends to help those most in need," his wife Barbara Henning said yesterday in a statement issued via the UK Foreign Office.

"When he was taken he was driving an ambulance full of food and water to be handed out to anyone in need. His purpose for being there was no more and no less. This was an act of sheer compassion. I cannot see how it could assist any state's cause to allow the world to see a man like Alan dying," she said.

The militants had issued their threat to kill the 47-year-old in a video released last Saturday which showed the killing of another British man David Haines. In Beirut, Islamic State jihadists were closing in on Syria's third largest Kurdish town after their capture of surrounding villages sent tens of thousands of refugees streaming into Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.