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            US Trying to Verify Video Showing Journalist's Beheading

   by VOA News

   U.S. officials are working to confirm the authenticity of a video that
   Islamic State militants say shows the beheading of an American
   journalist as a message for the United State to stop intervening in
   Iraq.

   U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said late
   Tuesday that if the video purportedly showing the beheading of James
   Foley is genuine, the U.S. is "appalled by the brutal murder."

   Foley's mother, Diane, urged the Islamic State fighters to not harm any
   more hostages, saying they are "innocents" who have nothing to do with
   U.S. government actions in Iraq and Syria.  She said in a statement
   posted on Facebook that her son "gave his life trying to expose the
   world to the suffering of the Syrian people."

   Militants in the video also claimed to be holding another U.S.
   journalist, Steven Sokoloff, whose life they said depends on how
   President Barack Obama acts.

   Obama ordered U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq earlier
   this month in order to help the Iraqi government counter a group that
   has taken over large areas in northern and western Iraq and eastern
   Syria.

   Foley was covering the civil war in Syria when he went missing in
   November 2012.  Sokoloff went missing there in July 2013.

   U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff, a senior member of the House Intelligence
   Committee, said Tuesday the apparent beheading of Foley "adds to the
   appalling parade of horrors" perpetrated by the Islamic State, calling
   it a "monstrous group that glories in death."
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/us-trying-to-verify-video-showing-jou
   rnalists-beheading/2421798.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-trying-to-verify-video-showing-journalists-beheading/2421798.html