Former Gitmo detainee Moazzam Begg, in his own words
"They came [to Syria] for a benign reason, which was to fight against the Assad regime. But our government can't see the difference. It says everyone is the same. And thus, it feeds into the ISIS argument.
Whether it's James Foley, whether it’s Alan Henning, whether it's Steven Sotloff, whoever it was, I'm convinced that every single one of these people was assisting Syrians in the way that few others could. If you take James Foley for example, he was serving in Libya, getting out pictures of crimes committed by the Gaddafi regime. He was doing the same thing in Syria and he was a vital lifeline for the people in terms of what was happening there. Alan Henning, goodness. He'd been to Syria several times. A simple man, but one who cared so much that he was prepared to place himself in danger to help people. Peter Kessig, he became a Muslim.
People on the ground are more disgusted than the West is because they have seen their own compatriots killed by these people. They have more reason to be disgusted by the West, but not at the expense of their revolution."