Gruesome video: It purportedly shows beheading of journalist James Foley.
BAGHDAD — Islamist militants fighting in Iraq released a video Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who went missing in Syria in 2012.
The kneeling victim in the video says U.S. airstrikes have “signed my death certificate.”
“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 complacency and criminality,” says the man, who bore a strong resemblance to Foley, a photojournalist from New Hampshire who worked for the GlobalPost news site.
The video, titled “A Message to America,” was released a day after Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot that has overrun large parts of Iraq, threatened to attack Americans “in any place.”
“We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen James Foley by ISIL,” White House National Security Council spokeswom- an Caitlin Hayden said, referring to another name for the group. “The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity.
“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,” she said.
GlobalPost co-founder Charles Sennott said the organization was preparing a statement.
Islamic State militants also claimed in the video to be holding U.S. journalist and former University of Central Florida student Steven Sotloff and said his life depends on President Barack Obama’s next move. UCF said Sotloff attended from 2002-04 and was a journalism major.
“The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” said a masked man in the video posted on social media sites, speaking English as he held a prisoner the video named as Sotloff, who went missing in northern Syria while he was reporting in July 2013. Foley was kidnapped Nov. 22, 2012, in Syria.
A Twitter account set up by Foley’s family said Tuesday: “We know that many of you are looking for confirmation or answers. Please be patient until we all have more information, and keep the Foleys in your thoughts and prayers.”
In another video released Tuesday, Islamic State spoke of a holy war with the United States and said it would emerge victorious over the “crusader” America. It showed footage of attacks on U.S. soldiers.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces pushed north Tuesday in an attempt to recapture the north-central city of Tikrit from the Islamic militants who have been occupying it since mid-June, only to see the assault stymied by snipers, roadside bombs and fierce resistance from the rebels.
By midday, the Iraq army units were bogged down at least 6 miles from the entrance to the city and appeared to be withdrawing south toward the government-held city of Samarra, according to local residents and Kurdish security officials. In a statement to local television, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said the army dismantled at least 40 roadside bombs but declined to elaborate on the stalled advance.
The surprising move to retake Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad and symbolically important as the former hometown of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, came a day after a combined force of Iraqi special forces and peshmerga fighters from the autonomous Kurdish region — backed by heavy U.S. air support — retook the Mosul Dam, a crucial facility that supplies agricultural water and hydroelectricity to much of northern Iraq. The offensive to retake the dam, which also forced Islamic State fighters from a series of small villages in the surrounding areas, was the first significant military success for the Iraqi government since militants swept through northern and central Iraq in mid-June.
The Islamic State first captured Mosul on June 10 and within days was moving toward Baghdad as the Iraqi army, which the U.S. government spent billions of dollars to train and equip, collapsed.
The government’s hopes of replicating that success in Tikrit, which was the scene of a brutal massacre of up to 1,700 government fighters in June and a failed operation to retake the city in July, were quickly dashed by fierce resistance the Iraqi army could not overcome.
“The army is stuck on the highway on the outskirts of town to the south and west. They cannot even enter the villages outside because of heavy fighting,” said a Tikrit resident.