US President Barack Obama yesterday condemned the Islamic State militants who beheaded an American journalist as “a cancer” and said “their ideology is bankrupt.”
“The whole world is appalled by the brutal murder of James Foley,” Obama said, speaking a day after the militants released a video of Foley being beheaded, reports Reuters.
Foley, 40, was taken hostage in Syria nearly two years ago. He had earlier been kidnapped and released in Libya.
He has reported extensively across the Middle East, working for the US publication GlobalPost and other media outlets including French news agency AFP.
Foley’s mother Diane said on Facebook she was proud of her son: “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.”
Islamic State, which has been marching through northern Iraq, released the video titled “A Message To America” as a warning to Washington but Obama said the United States would continue to do “what we must do to protect our people.”
The video also showed images of another US journalist, Steven Sotloff, whose life the IS said depended on how the United States acts in Iraq. Sotloff went missing in northern Syria while reporting in July last year. He has written for TIME among other news organisations.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari urged the world to back his country against the group, which he described as a threat to the world.