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 In Washington, U.S. officials said they could not confirm that the
woman, 26-year-old humanitarian worker Kayla Mueller of Prescott,
Arizona, had been killed.
Her family said in a statement on Friday they are hopeful she is
alive and asked Islamic State to contact them.
Mueller was the last-known American hostage held by Islamic State,
which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq.
The group has beheaded three other Americans, two Britons and two
Japanese hostages - most of them aid workers or journalists - in
recent months. Mueller was taken hostage while leaving a hospital in
the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013.
The group's latest claim, detailed by the SITE monitoring group,
came just days after it released a video on Tuesday showing a
captured Jordanian pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, being burned alive in
a cage.
Jordan's King Abdullah, who was in Washington discussing how to deal
with Islamic State militants when the video was made public, vowed
to avenge the pilot's death and ordered a stepped-up military role
in the U.S.-led coalition against the group.
 Jordan said it had carried out a second straight day of air strikes
on Friday on Islamic State positions.
"We are looking into it but our first reaction is that we think it
is illogical and we are highly skeptical about it. ... It's part of
their criminal propaganda," government spokesman Mohammad Momani
said in response to Islamic State's account of what happened to
Mueller.
"How could they identify Jordanian war planes from a huge distance
in the sky? What would an American woman be doing in a weapons
warehouse?" Momani said.
Hours after the release of the video showing the pilot burning to
death, Jordanian authorities executed two al Qaeda militants who had
been imprisoned on death row, including a woman who had tried to
blow herself up in a suicide bombing and whose release had been
demanded by Islamic State.
WHITE HOUSE 'DEEPLY CONCERNED'
In a statement released by a family representative, Mueller's
parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller of Arizona, asked the Islamic State
group to contact the family privately.
"You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest, as your guest her
safety and well-being remains your responsibility," they said in a
message directed to "those in positions of responsibility for
holding Kayla."
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan
said the United States was "deeply concerned" over the report but
had not seen "any evidence that corroborates" the group's account.
Islamic State, in a message monitored by SITE, said Mueller died
when the building in which she was being held outside Raqqa, a
stronghold of the group, collapsed in a Jordanian air strike on
Friday.
"The air assaults were continuous on the same location for more than
an hour," Islamic State said, according to SITE.
The group released photos of what it said were the building's
wreckage but did not include photos of Mueller.
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French journalist Nicolas Henin, a former captive of the group in
Syria who gained his freedom last April, said on Twitter: "Kayla
Mueller was among the very last of my former cellmates still
detained. I was full of hope she could have a way out."
The U.S. military last summer carried out an unsuccessful mission to
rescue American hostages held by the group in Syria.
Reuters and other Western news organizations were aware Mueller was
being held hostage but did not name her at the request of her family
members, who believed the militants would harm her if her case
received publicity.
'WHERE IS THE WORLD?'
Mueller, a 2009 Northern Arizona University graduate, had a long
record of volunteering abroad and was moved by the plight of
civilians in Syria's civil war.
"For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal -
something we just accept," Mueller's local newspaper The Daily
Courier quoted her in 2013 as saying.
"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," Mueller said.
She had worked for a Turkish aid organization on the Syrian border
and volunteered for schools and aid organizations abroad including
in the West Bank, Israel and India.
"The common thread of Kayla's life has been her quiet leadership and
strong desire to serve others," according to a statement from her
family's representative.
Islamic State previously executed American journalists James Foley
and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig, British aid workers
David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and
Goto's friend, Haruna Yukawa.
Among the hostages still thought to be held by the group is British
photojournalist John Cantlie.
Jordan is a major U.S. ally in the fight against militant Islamist
groups. It is home to U.S. military trainers bolstering defenses at
the Syrian and Iraqi borders, and is determined to keep the
jihadists in Syria and Iraq from crossing its frontiers.
(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell, Susan Heavey in Washington
and Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Tom
Brown, Sandra Maler and Paul Tait)
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