US, Britain and now it is France – Islamic militants behead a French hostage

After the merciless beheading of two American journalists and a British aid worker, a Frenchman has now fallen victim to the bloodthirsty Islamist militants and has been beheaded by them in Algeria nzherald.co.nz.
An Algerian splinter group from al-Qaida has beheaded a French hostage 55-year-old Herve Gourdel, a mountaineering guide from Nice. He was seized while he was hiking in the Djura Djura Mountains of northern Algeria. His captors released his Algerian companions.
This barbaric act is believed to be due to France's airstrikes on the Islamic State group and is indicative of the possible widening of the crisis in Iraq and Syria to the rest of the region. French President Francois Hollande has termed the killing as a "cowardly assassination," and has vowed to continue the military operation.
President Barack Obama has said that people around the world had been "horrified by another brutal murder … these terrorists believe our countries will be unable to stop them. The safety of our citizens demands that we do…"
The beheading has reportedly been carried out by a splinter group of the ISIS – this group identifies itself as Jund al-Khilafah, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate". It had split from al-Qaida and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group two weeks ago and seized Gourdel in response to the call to kill the "spiteful and filthy French." It gave an ultimatum of 24 hours to France to end its air campaign.
Reports indicate that nearly 1,000 French radicals have joined or are trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria and in Iraq – this number is more than the number of fighters from any other Western country and the authorities are worried that they will return home and stage attacks on French soil.