[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18279-18280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 REMEMBERING ABDUL-RAHMAN KASSIG AND THE NEED TO STAY VIGILANT AGAINST 
                                  ISIS

  (Mrs. BROOKS of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BROOKS of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on Friday the world again was 
shocked and stunned when eight gunmen wreaked havoc on Paris, the City 
of Lights. The day before a pair of suicide bombings struck Beirut, and 
today we learned that the Russian passenger plane carrying 224 innocent 
people that crashed last month was blown up using a homemade explosive 
device.
  Violent extremism can't be contained in far-off places. It is a 
cancer that will inevitably spread across the globe, dividing our 
societies, undermining our personal security, and sparing none from the 
true definition of terror.

[[Page 18280]]

  One year ago yesterday violent extremism touched my home State of 
Indiana. Abdul-Rahman Kassig, a 26-year-old humanitarian aid worker 
from Indianapolis, was mercilessly killed by the ISIS coward known as 
Jihadi John.
  Abdul-Rahman is exactly the type of person that ISIS is targeting in 
hopes of expanding their caliphate, an apolitical medical aid worker 
committed to treating the wounded and bringing some sense of relief to 
the 7.6 million displaced Syrians in Lebanon and Syria.
  The Islamic State's twisted ideology will not allow it to cease until 
our entire way of life is destroyed. That is why it is absolutely vital 
that the United States redouble our efforts to take the leadership role 
that the world demands of us, develop a strategy that will not just 
degrade, but will ultimately destroy, the ISIS network. Abdul-Rahman 
and the victims of terror and their families deserve this, and the 
security of our Nation depends on it.

                          ____________________