ALGIERS — Algerian militants beheaded French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was kidnapped by gunmen on Sunday in what the group said was a response to France’s action against “Islamic State” militants in Iraq.

In a video released by his captors on Wednesday, Gourdel, a 55-year-old from Nice, is seen kneeling with his arms tied behind his back before four masked militants who read out a statement in Arabic criticizing France’s intervention.

They then pushed him on his side and held him down. The video does not show the beheading, but a militant later holds the head up to the camera.

“This is why the Caliphate Soldiers in Algeria have decided to punish France, by executing this man, and to defend our beloved Islamic State,” one of the militants says in the statement he read out.

France’s president Francois Hollande confirmed the death of Gourdel, and vowed that French military operations against “Islamic State” would continue.

“Our compatriot has been killed cruelly and in a cowardly way by a terrorist group. Herve Gourdel was assassinated because he was French,” Hollande, visibly shaken by the events, said at the United Nations. 

The Caliphate Soldiers, an group linked to “Islamic State” militants in Iraq and Syria, had on Monday published a video claiming responsibility for the abduction and showed the man identifying himself as Gourdel.