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Militants from the Islamic State (IS) on Tuesday released a video of a masked militant beheading an American journalist and threatened to kill a British national they have captive.
The footage, found on private terrorism monitor SITE, shows 31-year-old freelance journalist Steven Sotloff clothed in orange and kneeling on his knees against the desert backdrop. Miami-born Sotloff had written for Foreign Policy, Time magazine and other outlets. He was captured in Syria on August 4th, 2013, with his family only publicly revealing his detention last month, after previously requesting a media blackout.
The masked extremist condemns the current US air strikes against the IS before cutting of Sotloff’s throat. He also introduces the second captive, identified as a British citizen.
“I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State”, the militant said in the video, in what seemed to be a London accent. His words were an apparent reference to the previous video in which US journalist James Foley was slain in similar fashion by an IS extremist suspected to be a British foreign fighter.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said that the latest video portrayed an “absolutely disgusting, despicable act”.
The previous video, depicting Foley’s murder, was released after US President Barack Obama ordered air strikes against the IS. The video showed Foley’s beheading by a masked extremist, who would then proceed to threaten Sotloff.
US officials said that they were working to establish the authenticity of the Sotloff video, with US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki saying that Washington would be “sickened” if the current video proves to be genuine.
The video seems to be shot with the same production values of the previous video, and is entitles “A second message to America”. It opens with a short clip of Obama promising to be “relentless” in his resolve to protect US citizens from extremist attacks. Sotloff then identifies himself in English, before calmly explain that he is being killed for Obama’s policy.