WATCH ABOVE: Jackson Proskow reports on ISIS’ claims that U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller has been killed by a Jordanian airstrike.
An American woman ISIS has held hostage in Syria has purportedly been killed, but the claims the militant group has made about her death are suspect.
Jihadist threat monitoring service SITE Intelligence Group publicized ISIS’ claim a female aid worker, taken hostage in 2013, had been killed in a “Jordanian” airstrike on Friday in Raqqa — an ISIS stronghold and the de-facto capital of its self-declared caliphate.
The Jordanian government called the claim a publicity stunt by the media-savvy militant group.
“They tried to cause problems internally in Jordan and haven’t succeeded,” CNN reported Jordanian Interior Minister Hussein Majali saying. “They are now trying to drive a wedge between the coalition with this latest low PR stunt.”
READ MORE: Jordan launches new airstrikes after vowing harsh war on ISIS
The woman’s purported death comes after Jordan launched new airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, following the horrific execution of Jordanian fighter pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh.
Al-Kaseasbeh was taken hostage after he ejected from his crashing F-16 fighter jet, near Raqqa, on Dec. 24. He was reportedly burned to death on Jan. 3, but ISIS continued to offer his release in exchange for high-profile al Qaeda operative Sajida al-Rishawi.
READ MORE: What if a Canadian pilot is shot down in ISIS territory?
ISIS has yet to produce proof the woman was killed, only sharing an image of a shell-hit building where it claims the woman was located.
In past instances, when the terror group has killed American and British hostages, ISIS has posted graphic videos and images on social media sites.
READ MORE: How effective are government efforts to stop ISIS propaganda?
WATCH: Jordan launches airstrikes against alleged ISIS targets
The Associated Press confirmed with the woman’s family last year that the hostage is Kayla Jean Mueller — the name of the woman ISIS alleged was killed in a strike.
Through a spokesperson on Friday, the Mueller family said their daughter had just left a Spanish Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, when ISIS militants captured her on Aug. 4, 2013.
Mueller, from Prescott, Arizona, has been involved in several humanitarian efforts since graduating from Northern Arizona University in 2009, including work with Syrian refugees on the Turkey-Syrian border through the Danish Refugee Council and with Turkey-based Support for Life.
“Kayla found this work heartbreaking but compelling; she is extremely devoted to the people of Syria,” read an email from the Mueller family’s spokesperson.
According to the email, Mueller once explained her reasons for such humanitarian work by saying: “I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.”
Another statement released by the family Friday evening provides insight into their plight.
“To those in positions of responsibility for holding Kayla;” the statement reads, “in adherence to your warnings and out of concern for Kayla’s safety, we have been silent until now.”
READ MORE: After Kassig, ISIS still holding John Cantlie and female U.S. aid worker
Mueller also carried out humanitarian work in northern India and Israel and Palestine, as well as spending a year working at a local HIV/AIDS clinic and a women’s shelter in Arizona.
A May 2013 article in Prescott’s The Daily Courier reported Mueller once helped reunite a Syrian man with his then 6-year-old child, after the bombing of a Turkish refugee camp.
“This is the reality for Syrians two and a half years on. When Syrians hear I’m an American, they ask, ‘Where is the world?’ All I can do is cry with them, because I don’t know,” The Daily Courier reported Mueller saying.
“Syrians are dying by the thousands, and they’re fighting just to talk about the rights we have.”
She said she found “joy” in the work that she did and she would “not let this suffering be normal.”
A 2007 profile in the same publication detailed her volunteer work with the Save Dafur Coalition, promoting awareness of victims of the Sudanese conflict — which many human rights groups have labeled a genocide.
“I always feel that no matter how much I give I always get back more through these projects,” she told The Daily Courier when she was just 19 years old.
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