[3] Haines was born in East Yorkshire, moving to Perth, Scotland, as a child and prior to his capture resided in Sisak, Croatia,[4] as a father of two.
[7][8] Haines was abducted in March 2013 by an unidentified armed gang affiliated with ISIL while working in a Syrian internally displaced persons (IDP) camp run by the aid group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED).
[15] After the surfacing of the Steven Sotloff execution video, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond revealed that the aid worker was one of the intended targets of the American rescue mission.
The video was discovered on 2 September 2014 by SITE Intelligence Group, purportedly ahead of its intended release by Al-Furqan Media Productions.
At the end of the Steven Sotloff beheading video, Jihadi John is shown holding a named British humanitarian aid worker by his orange jumpsuit, saying "We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against ISIL to back off and leave our people alone.
The video, following a similar format to the ones for Foley and Sotloff, started with a clip of a press statement by Prime Minister Cameron followed by a title screen.
[20][21][22] In the final scene, the executioner is holding the orange jumpsuit of another person, named as British aid worker Alan Henning, saying "If you, Cameron, insist on fighting the Islamic State then you, like your master Obama, will have the blood of your people on your hands.