Photos: Wife of British ISIS hostage posts heartbreaking pics of him & his baby daughter

Desperate efforts were under way last night to save the life of a British father threatened with beheading by jihadi fanatics.

David Haines, 44, a married man with daughters aged 17 and four, was named yesterday as the hostage seen in a video of the murder of a fellow captive.

Forced to kneel on the desert sand, the aid worker was warned he will die next.

Although he was identified on the video in both Arabic and English as David Cawthorne Haines, UK media outlets did not name him, in line with a request from the Foreign Office.

That situation changed yesterday when he was identified on websites and in newspapers around the world. 

Military chiefs yesterday briefed ministers on the options for a special forces rescue mission. 

And world leaders vowed to work together to crush the Islamic State fighters wreaking murder and mayhem in Iraq.

Mr Haines’s 17-year-old daughter has told of her despair at his imprisonment in a series of anguished online posts.

Describing him as a hero, she said: ‘I miss my dad. I would do anything to have him home.’ 

The best news she could hear, she says, would be that ‘my daddy’s coming home’.

In other developments in the hostage crisis last night:

• David Cameron vowed to squeeze Islamic State out of existence;
• Barack Obama vowed to build a coalition to ‘degrade and destroy’ the group;
• Military chiefs briefed ministers on rescue mission options;
• Ex-security minister Lord West described the British jihadi as a ‘dead man walking’;
• The Muslim Council of Britain said Steven Sotloff’s murder was ‘depraved’.

A year after her father was abducted, the 17-year-old, who is not being named by the Mail, uploaded a picture of a Fathers’ Day card she had written to him, proclaiming: ‘Hey Daddy, just because you’re not here doesn’t mean you should miss out.’ 

Alongside the card were pictures of them together when she was a little girl and a photograph of him cradling his young daughter from his second marriage.

The Croatian wife of Mr Haines posted a last picture of her husband and their baby daughter on Facebook with the caption: ‘This is my world’.

The 44-year-old is now facing murder at the hands of ISIS, who captured him in March 2013.

Mr Haines was hauled in front of the camera after a British jihadi murdered US journalist Steven Sotloff