Journalist Killed

From the Stars and Stripes:
"Former Stars and Stripes reporter James Foley beheaded by Islamic State"

The Islamic State militant group claimed Tuesday to have beheaded an American photojournalist in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. A video posted on YouTube, later removed, purported to show the execution of James Foley after he recited a statement in which he called the U.S. government “my real killers.” A second prisoner, said to be Steven Joel Sotloff — like Foley, an American journalist who disappeared while covering Syria’s civil war — then appears in the video. The masked executioner, speaking in English with what sounds like a British accent, identifies Sotloff and says that “the life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.” U.S. intelligence officials said they were still evaluating the video and could not immediately authenticate it. A White House statement said, “We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen James Foley by ISIL,” one of several acronyms associated with the militants. “The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity,” said the statement by National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends. We will provide more information when it is available.” A European intelligence official said the British government was examining the video, and the speech of the purported executioner, to compare it with former Guantanamo Bay prisoners and other British residents thought to be have joined the Islamic State. A former Stars and Stripes reporter, Foley, 40, deployed to Afghanistan for Stripes in 2011. He was working in Syria as a freelance journalist for the Boston-based news website GlobalPost when he disappeared Nov. 22, 2012. Philip Balboni, GlobalPost’s chief executive and co-founder, made the following statement: “On behalf of John and Diane Foley, and also GlobalPost, we deeply appreciate all of the messages of sympathy and support that have poured in since the news of Jim’s possible execution first broke. We have been informed that the FBI is in the process of evaluating the video posted by the Islamic State to determine if it is authentic. Until we have that determination, we will not be in a position to make any further statement. We ask for your prayers for Jim and his family.” According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 66 journalists, all but 10 of them Syrian, have been killed covering the Syrian war. If the video posted online Tuesday is authenticated, Foley will be the first American journalist known to be executed since the conflict began in early 2011. The video evoked the 2002 taped execution in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl by al-Qaeda. Islamic State, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, is the most powerful among a number of extremist organizations that have emerged during the Syrian civil war, which began as a popular uprising against President Bashar Assad. Fighting against both Assad and U.S.-backed rebels, the militants now control much of eastern Syria and claim to have established an Islamic caliphate spanning Syria and neighboring Iraq. As the group has grown, it has merged with the group formerly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to U.S. intelligence, it numbers in the thousands, including foreign fighters from Europe and the United States. In April, Islamic State fighters swept across the border into northern Iraq, taking over the city of Mosul before moving southward to within 60 miles of Baghdad. Extensive reports of executions, including beheadings and crucifixions, have emerged from areas under the group’s control. Early this month, amid reports of stranded and besieged Iraqi minorities threatened with execution, the militants advanced eastward toward Irbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. On Aug. 7, President Obama authorized U.S. airstrikes to rescue stranded minorities and protect U.S. personnel and facilities in Irbil and Baghdad. On Monday, after a total of 68 strikes from fighter jets, bombers and drones, Obama announced that Iraqi and Kurdish forces, with U.S. air support, had retaken a strategic dam north of Mosul from the militants and that they had been pushed back from Irbil. Within hours of that announcement, the Islamic State posted an online message warning it would attack Americans “in any place” in response to the airstrikes. “We will drown all of you in blood,” it said. Foley reported from some of the most dangerous recent crises and was imprisoned for 44 days in Libya in 2011 by forces loyal to deposed leader Moammar Gaddafi. According to GlobalPost, two eyewitnesses saw his interception by a group of armed men in a silver-colored van on a road near the town of Taftanaz in northern Syria on Nov. 22, 2012. Since then, GlobalPost “has mounted an extensive international investigation . . . to determine who kidnapped Foley and where he was being held,” GlobalPost said in an article on its website late Tuesday.

^ I didn't see the video, but still think it shows ISIS is getting desperate. While I don't think airstrikes alone will destroy them I hope that this video will make the US and other countries do more against ISIS and the threat they pose to everyone. ^

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/former-stars-and-stripes-reporter-james-foley-beheaded-by-islamic-state-1.299050