Islamic State claims it executed American photojournalist James Foley

[Ace Nova]

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.”

American intelligence officials believe the video is authentic but are continuing to evaluate it, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday morning.

In a statement Tuesday, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said of the video: “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.”

The Islamic State released a video claiming it executed Foley.

President Obama was briefed on the video aboard Air Force One as he returned to his Martha’s Vineyard vacation and will be updated on further developments, the White House said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a family vacation and returned to London to chair emergency meetings on Iraq and Syria.

In an interview with the BBC, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond acknowledged that the apparent executioner spoke with a British accent and said the video seemed to be genuine.

Hundreds of Britons are believed to have traveled to Syria to fight in the country’s civil war, including many who have joined the Islamic State.

“We’re absolutely aware that there are significant numbers of British nationals involved in terrible crimes, probably in the commission of atrocities,” Hammond said. “Many of these people may seek at some point to return to the U.K., and they would then pose a direct threat to our domestic security.”

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 believed to have joined the Islamic State.

Both prisoners in the video are wearing orange shirts and pants, similar to orange jumpsuits worn by detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A similar outfit, believed to be a jihadist symbol of the prison, was worn by Nicholas Berg, an American businessman kidnapped in Iraq in 2004 whose execution by an Islamic State precursor organization was recorded on video and posted online.

Foley, 40, was working in Syria for the Boston-based news Web site Global­Post when he disappeared on Thanksgiving in 2012.

Philip Balboni, GlobalPost’s chief executive and co-founder, said in a 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.”

In a statement Tuesday night on a Facebook page dedicated to his freedom, Foley’s mother appeared to accept that the video was authentic. “We have never been prouder of our son Jim,” Diane Foley wrote. “He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.

“We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.”

Praising James Foley as “an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person,” she asked that the family’s privacy be respected.

Sotloff, a freelancer who worked for several news organizations, disappeared in Syria in August 2013.

In addition to Foley and Sotloff, at least three other Americans are believed to be captives in Syria, including Austin Tice, a freelance journalist whose articles appeared in McClatchy publications and The Washington Post before his disappearance in August 2012, according to a 2013 GlobalPost article. No one has claimed to be holding them.

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 is authenticated, Foley would 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.

The 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 al-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.

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, 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 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.

The title of the video posted Tuesday was “A Message to America” and was produced by the Islamic State’s media arm, according to the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist Web sites.

A masked man dressed in black is shown standing in an unidentified desert location beside a prisoner kneeling beside him with his hands behind his back. “Obama authorized military operations against the Islamic State effectively placing America upon a slippery slope towards a new war against Muslims,” the masked man says.

The video then shows a clip of Obama’s Aug. 7 announcement, followed by a statement from the prisoner.

“I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government, for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacent criminality,” he says. He asks his parents not to accept “any meager compensation from the same people who effectively hit the last nail in my coffin with the recent aerial campaign in Iraq.”

The prisoner also appeals to “my brother John, who is a member of the U.S. Air Force,” to “think about what you are doing.”

“I wish I had more time,” he says. “I wish I could have the hope for freedom to see my family once again, but that ship has sailed. I guess all in all, I wish I wasn’t an American.”

The masked man then identifies the prisoner as “James Wright Foley, an American citizen of your country.” He then reaches down with a large knife and begins the apparent beheading of the prisoner; the screen fades to black and the next image is of a body with a head placed upon its chest.

The masked man then appears with another prisoner, identified as Sotloff, in a similar kneeling position.

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 Web site late Tuesday.

Julie Tate, Greg Miller and Dan Lamothe in Washington, Griff Witte in London and Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.

Tragic. Time to bring in the special forces and root out these animals.

[Lithium]

Saw the full video yesterday. Some scary shit.

[Not An FSB Agent]

KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

[Crash Diet]

Saw the full video yesterday. Some scary shit.

Can you give me a link? can't find on liveleak etc...

[AxlisOld]

Get the fuck out of Iraq, we don't need to start this all over again.

[cheesecake]

http://m.liveleak.com/view?i=888_1408487001

Saw the full video yesterday. Some scary shit.

Can you give me a link? can't find on liveleak etc...

[Coma16]

Not sure I'll watch it or not. How hasn't LiveLeak been shut down by now? Or are the videos (of murder) technically not illegal?

[Graeme]

White people have been killed, guess we're going to see efforts stepped up a notch or two.

[magisme]

Since ISIS in Iraq is an unintended consequence of our invading Iraq in the first place (or second place), and now this journalist getting his head taken off is an unintended consequence of our meddling where we don't belong once again, how about we start becoming conscious of the horrors that always follow our oh so noble attempts to spread democracy or whatever else with the tips of missiles.

[wasted]

I think it's time to nuke these guys.

[username]

Can someone please shoot all these fucking terrorists in the face now? I mean I'm all for religious tolerance, but these people clearly just aren't. They're genocidal murderers and they need to be stopped. Preferably with big fat bullets through their heads. I just don't get why the western world isn't taking these people serious and doing something about them.

Edited August 20, 2014 by username

[Not An FSB Agent]

Get the fuck out of Iraq, we don't need to start this all over again.

That was Neville Chamberlain's game plan as he surrendered the Sudeten.

Not sure I'll watch it or not. How hasn't LiveLeak been shut down by now? Or are the videos (of murder) technically not illegal?

No. Videos of death are not illegal. Remember the "Faces of Death" videos back in the 80s?

White people have been killed, guess we're going to see efforts stepped up a notch or two.

Perhaps, you didn't hear that we have been engaged in operations against these brutal murderers for a couple of weeks, now.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-20140819-story.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/obama-authorises-iraq-air-strikes-against-isis

[DieselDaisy]

This fucker was from the Islamic Republic of Great Britain. If you want to find all the Al Queda terroists, just look in Britain; they are all on benefits. Today there was a person in white Pyjamas on the BBC discussing how Britain should have sharia law. Mosques pollute our British landscape.

[ADPT]

This fucker was from the Islamic Republic of Great Britain. If you want to find all the Al Queda terroists, just look in Britain; they are all on benefits. Today there was a person in white Pyjamas on the BBC discussing how Britain should have sharia law. Mosques pollute our British landscape.

Mosques don't bother me. What does is how the unwillingness to seriously confront what's going on in some mosques and amongst the communities they serve is starting to bear some really bitter fruit.

[MB.]

Since ISIS in Iraq is an unintended consequence of our invading Iraq in the first place (or second place), and now this journalist getting his head taken off is an unintended consequence of our meddling where we don't belong once again, how about we start becoming conscious of the horrors that always follow our oh so noble attempts to spread democracy or whatever else with the tips of missiles.

Just one question, I for once was actually all for the US meddling now and bomb that area, so those 50.000 people could get off that mountain. Unlike the first two times, when I didn't understand what the US was doing in Iraq anyway. And yes it's the consequence of the US meddling, so they also have to deal with it and help those people now, just like they did. If the US didn't helped out this time or helped out the Kurds with weapons, those people would have died. What choice was there? The US is the only country basicly who could have helped so fast (just 4 days). Those people needed help fast, they were already starving. So should the US have let those people starve to death on that mountain? Better one journalist dead, then 50.000 yazidi's imo.

I do believe some countries where the west meddled weren't ready for a democracy though. Some countries have to fight their own wars. However in this case these people needed to be rescued.

Edited August 20, 2014 by MB.

[magisme]

Since ISIS in Iraq is an unintended consequence of our invading Iraq in the first place (or second place), and now this journalist getting his head taken off is an unintended consequence of our meddling where we don't belong once again, how about we start becoming conscious of the horrors that always follow our oh so noble attempts to spread democracy or whatever else with the tips of missiles.

Just one question, I for once was actually all for Obama bombing that area so those 50.000 people could get off that mountain. Unlike the first two times, when I didn't understand what the US was doing in Iraq anyway. If the US didn't helped out this time or helped out the Kurds with weapons, those people would have died. What choice was there? The US is the only country basicly who could have helped so fast (just 4 days). Those people needed help fast, they were already starving. So should the US have let those people starve to death on that mountain? Better one journalist dead, then 50.000 yazidi's imo.

I do believe some countries where the west meddled weren't ready for a democracy though. Some countries have to fight their own wars. However in this case these people needed to be rescued.

You're basically giving me the commercial with all the suffering animals. I'm a monster of I don't donate a dollar, right?

Unfortunately, humanitarian catastrophes are commonplace in our world. When major powers focus disproportionate attention on one, they do so for political reasons, not humanitarian reasons. That's the meta discourse, so, OK, what about the actual events... well, I'll point to ISIS' presence in Iraq again. You have to have a more comprehensive, wide lens view on this stuff, imo. So when you can go to the bank with the knowledge that the US government is not acting with humanitarian motivations when they choose this one circumstance, regardless of the short term humanitarian benefits of its actions, and when there is now (surprise! surprise!) growing support for a more intensive bombing campaign, and when our last large scale campaign in this country left the country open to the very group we're now bombing... and add to that some more meta shit about how the US ain't doing so well and maybe let's stop bombing the world and spending more on war than the rest of the world combined - considering all of that, I just want us out for good. Lots of people have died and will continue to die. We've helped make sure of that. I'd say it's time for us to stop contributing altogether.

[Facekicker]

Since ISIS in Iraq is an unintended consequence of our invading Iraq in the first place (or second place), and now this journalist getting his head taken off is an unintended consequence of our meddling where we don't belong once again, how about we start becoming conscious of the horrors that always follow our oh so noble attempts to spread democracy or whatever else with the tips of missiles.

The democracy missile, otherwise known as the clusterfuck

[MB.]

I was just editing my orginal post, when you answered. But it's almost the same anyway.

You're basically giving me the commercial with all the suffering animals. I'm a monster of I don't donate a dollar, right?

Unfortunately, humanitarian catastrophes are commonplace in our world. When major powers focus disproportionate attention on one, they do so for political reasons, not humanitarian reasons. That's the meta discourse, so, OK, what about the actual events... well, I'll point to ISIS' presence in Iraq again. You have to have a more comprehensive, wide lens view on this stuff, imo. So when you can go to the bank with the knowledge that the US government is not acting with humanitarian motivations when they choose this one circumstance, regardless of the short term humanitarian benefits of its actions, and when there is now (surprise! surprise!) growing support for a more intensive bombing campaign, and when our last large scale campaign in this country left the country open to the very group we're now bombing... and add to that some more meta shit about how the US ain't doing so well and maybe let's stop bombing the world and spending more on war than the rest of the world combined - considering all of that, I just want us out for good. Lots of people have died and will continue to die. We've helped make sure of that. I'd say it's time for us to stop contributing altogether.

You don't donate to animal causes? . You are a horrible person!

Anyway, in this particular case, it's also kind of the US fault this is happening. In my opinion they should help those people, since the US (and the West) basicly caused it all. It's a very difficult thing. I do think political and material reasons are basicly the reason for the bombing, however it also helped 50.000 people, so it was worth it.

Edited August 20, 2014 by MB.

[AxlsAngel]

Not sure I'll watch it or not. How hasn't LiveLeak been shut down by now? Or are the videos (of murder) technically not illegal?

There are plenty of these sick videos on Youtube (uncensored).... not sure why this one in particular has been taken down.

Saw the full video yesterday. Some scary shit.

Yes it is.... and it's happening every day over there..... men, women, and children.

[Facekicker]

From Reuters

"Islamic State’s captured an enormous amount of U.S. weaponry, originally intended for the rebuilt Iraqi Army. You know — the one that collapsed in terror in front of the Islamic State, back when they were just ISIL? The ones who dropped their uniforms, and rifles and ran away?They left behind the bigger equipment, too, including M1 Abrams tanks (about $6 million each), 52 M198 Howitzer cannons ($527,337), and MRAPs (about $1 million) similar to the ones in use in Ferguson."

"U.S. warplanes are flying sorties, at a cost somewhere between $22,000 to 30,000 per hour for the F-16s, to drop bombs that cost at least $20,000 each, to destroy this captured equipment.

That means if an F-16 were to take off from Incirclik Air Force Base in Turkey and fly two hours to Erbil, Iraq, and successfully drop both of its bombs on one target each, it costs the United States somewhere between $84,000 to $104,000 for the sortie and destroys a minimum of $1 million and a maximum of $12 million in U.S.-made equipment."

[bran]

yeah the video is disturbing to say the least. he and his family are from my state so it has been all over the local news and radio.

[Not An FSB Agent]

From Reuters

"Islamic State’s captured an enormous amount of U.S. weaponry, originally intended for the rebuilt Iraqi Army. You know — the one that collapsed in terror in front of the Islamic State, back when they were just ISIL? The ones who dropped their uniforms, and rifles and ran away?

That is a simplistic view of a complex situation. i find it hard that Reuters would write such rubbish???

But anyway, the "rebuilt Iraqi Army" didn't collapse so much as join ranks with these thugs. As ISIS advanced through Sunni territory, protected by Sunni troops- which share an ideological religious philosophy- the Sunni elements merely blended in with their ideological compatriots.

Most of those that follow these things agreed that when these thugs got into Shia territory, their advance would be halted and reversed. Hell, look what a few sorties did to them in Kurdistan when confronted by a disciplined force of trained fighters-- they suffered heavy losses that continue to this day.

Their day is numbered.

We need to address the problem of these radical Wahhabis at the source- Saudi Arabia!

[Facekicker]

From Reuters

"Islamic State’s captured an enormous amount of U.S. weaponry, originally intended for the rebuilt Iraqi Army. You know — the one that collapsed in terror in front of the Islamic State, back when they were just ISIL? The ones who dropped their uniforms, and rifles and ran away?

That is a simplistic view of a complex situation. i find it hard that Reuters would write such rubbish???

But anyway, the "rebuilt Iraqi Army" didn't collapse so much as join ranks with these thugs. As ISIS advanced through Sunni territory, protected by Sunni troops- which share an ideological religious philosophy- the Sunni elements merely blended in with their ideological compatriots.

Most of those that follow these things agreed that when these thugs got into Shia territory, their advance would be halted and reversed. Hell, look what a few sorties did to them in Kurdistan when confronted by a disciplined force of trained fighters-- they suffered heavy losses that continue to this day.

Their day is numbered.

We need to address the problem of these radical Wahhabis at the source- Saudi Arabia!

You focused on one comment at the expense of the entire piece, therefore missing the entire point. You win the internet today sir.

[Ace Nova]

White people have been killed, guess we're going to see efforts stepped up a notch or two.

Since ISIS in Iraq is an unintended consequence of our invading Iraq in the first place (or second place), and now this journalist getting his head taken off is an unintended consequence of our meddling where we don't belong once again, how about we start becoming conscious of the horrors that always follow our oh so noble attempts to spread democracy or whatever else with the tips of missiles.

Weren't you guys among the people that criticized me for stating that Palestinian blood was on the hands of Hamas a few weeks ago?

Strange....aren't you doing/basically saying the same thing now?

[Val22]

Savages! it sickens me that there are so many horrible people in the world.

If there is a God, he must be just haunted by man has become.

I think since in the past according to the bible when man got out of control, God made floods or locusts or turned people to stone.

I think man is about due for something bigger that maybe will make him realize all the horror he is doing in the world.