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When American journalist Theo Curtis was released in the Golan Heights late last month after being held in Syria by an Islamist group for nearly two years, a pair of FBI agents were waiting for him. One of the agents called Curtis’s mother to tell her that her son was finally safe. That moment was a high point — not only for Curtis’s family but also for the FBI agents based in the Washington field office working on the abduction. The FBI “deserves some credit for what it did for me,” Curtis said in an interview. (snip) The killings by...

The families of two journalists beheaded by Islamic State jihadists were both warned by US government officials they could face prosecution if they raised a ransom for their release. The recent executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic State (IS) extremists triggered worldwide revulsion and Washington has since declared it is at war with the radicals. The United States has a policy of never paying ransoms, contending that doing so would endanger Americans all over the world. Late Friday, a spokesman for Sotloff's family said the murdered journalist's parents were told by a White House counterterrorism official last...

The U.S. government Friday defended its handling of James Foley's case after the slain journalist's mother told CNN that officials suggested the family could be charged if they tried to raise money to free him. Saying everything possible had been done to bring the journalist home, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters officials worked very closely with Foley's family and with his employer, GlobalPost CEO Philip Balboni. "Any advice that this department or other departments give to the families about what they should do in these situations is based solely on what is best for returning their loved one...

As part of his “strategy” to eliminate ISIS, also known as ISIL, President Obama wants to “equip Syrian opposition fighters,” and while not mentioning the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, by name, that group, the group in which American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were embedded before they were captured by ISIS and beheaded, likely would be a recipient. It was the same FSA that ultimately turned Foley and Sotloff over to ISIS.

Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard points out that contrary to media reports Obama was not contrite in his Meet the Press remarks about going golfing immediately after making a statement while on vacation last month about the videotaped beheading of American journalist James Foley by the Islamist terrorist group ISIS. Obama seemed to blame press coverage—saying he’s looking forward to a vacation from the press–rather than his conduct for the optics of being seen laughing it up on the golf course mere minutes after making a somber statement on what many consider to be an act of war on...

BEFORE he was named as a key suspect in the brutal beheading of two western journalists, the man who has become known as Jihad John was an aspiring rapper with a dark message. Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, who released music videos under the name L Jinny and even had a few songs played on BBC radio, has gained notoriety for darker reasons other than his music. The British man has gained worldwide attention after he was named as the chief suspect in the gruesome beheading of American journalist James Foley. Police and intelligence officials told Britain’s Sunday Times that “MI5 and...

Paul SzoldraAugust 30, 2014The White House is pushing back on a report in the Sunday Times earlier this week that said Obama "took too long" to authorize the mission to rescue James Foley and other American hostages held by ISIS militants, a decision that journalist Toby Harnden reported made the mission impossible. The report, which offers a broad overview of the failed July 4 mission to rescue Foley, had two paragraphs which were very interesting: Pentagon sources said Foley and the others might well have been rescued but Obama, concerned about the ramifications of US troops being killed or captured...

The hunt for James Foley’s killer: On Sunday, the British ambassador to the United States said Britain was close to identifying Foley’s killer. A number of possible identities have been suggested by British media although sources on both sides of the Atlantic have told Reuters that there was little likelihood of the British government naming the suspect imminently. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Foley and at least 3 other captives are known to have been waterboarded: At least four hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State, including an American journalist who was recently executed by the group, were waterboarded in the early...

ROCHESTER, N.H. —The parents of slain journalist and New Hampshire native James Foley have released a letter they say their son wrote during his time in captivity. Foley was kidnapped in 2012 while covering the Syrian uprising. The Islamic State group posted an online video Tuesday showing his killing. In the letter, Foley says he was being held with 17 other hostages, and they passed the time by discussing movies, sports and trivia and playing games made up of scraps found in their jail cell.Foley says the hostages were fed daily and given tea and coffee.His parents say letters...

Jihad In America: Terroristic tweets underscore the Islamic State's global reach. It has an army of Western passport holders, and an open southern border to cross. It's not only coming to the U.S.; it's already here. Slain journalist James Foley studied his craft in the Chicago area, earning a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. For a time he was a teacher in the Cook County Jail boot camp program. He was familiar with the streets of Chicago. So, apparently, is the Islamic State that beheaded him. An anonymous tweet has an attached photo showing...

President Barack Obama sent no White House representative to the memorial Mass held yesterday in Rochester, New Hampshire, for James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorists. President Obama, however, did send three White House aides to Monday’s funeral for Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American fatally shot in an encounter with a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The memorial mass for James Foley took place Sunday at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in Foley’s hometown. Connie Hammond, an administrative assistant at Holy Rosary,

THE VIDEO of a British jihadist beheading an American hostage was probably staged, with the actual murder taking place off-camera, according to forensic analysis. Footage of James Foley’s death at the hands of a man with a London accent provided a powerful propaganda tool for Islamic State when it was uploaded on to the internet and broadcast around the world last week. Now it has emerged that the Briton might be a frontman and not the killer. His identity has almost certainly been established by the security services, but they have yet to act for fear of endangering the lives...

Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a British rapper, is suspected by UK's SAS to be John, the man with an English accent who beheaded American journalist James Foley last week, the New York Post reports. In early August, Bary tweeted a photo of himself wearing a camouflage and black hood, while holding on his left hand a decapitated head. The 24-year-old rapper is the son of an Egypt-born militant now waiting for trial in Manhattan on terror charges for the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He is one of the jihadists named by former hostages as member...

MI5 and MI6 have identified the British fighter suspected of murdering the American journalist James Foley, senior government sources confirmed last night. The masked man with a London accent, who is said to be known to fellow fighters as “Jihadi John”, was seen in the shocking video of Foley’s death released by the Isis extremist army last week. While sources gave no details of the man they have identified, a key suspect is Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 23, who left his family’s £1m home in Maida Vale, west London, last year. He recently tweeted a picture of himself holding up a...

commentary -- OBAMA: BEHEADING AND GOLF in graphics (not the beheading) and limerick

Oh, I don’t know. (Snip) Ask yourself this, though. Is “optics” really just a Beltway parlor game? My hunch about most low-information voters, a.k.a. most voters, is that they’d struggle to name who the vice president is when asked. We’re lucky if they’re cognizant of what happened to James Foley at all, let alone Obama’s reaction to it. “As a general rule, I think that he’s right that you can’t be held hostage to the news cycle — the man deserves a bit of downtime,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic strategist. “But in this particular instance, I think a...

The beheading of any American should send every American into orbit from outrage. That includes the beheading of James Foley. What must be made known, however, is that evidence suggests Foley was sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause and may have been a liberal. If that’s true, why would ISIS behead him? The answer is strangely simple. ISIS beheads liberals too, in much the same way that the Tsarnaev brothers set off pressure cooker bombs in a predominantly liberal city – Boston. Foley Betrayed by those he supported. A look at Foley’s twitter feed from 2012 indicates he was a...

On Tuesday, ISIS terrorists beheaded American journalist James Foley. President Obama responded by bombing the fourth green during his long vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. He also lectured ISIS on the true meaning of Islam: “ISIL speaks for no religion…ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings….One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century.” The faculty-lounge insult approach has proved ineffective. ISIS is now threatening to kill journalist Steven Sotloff. They reportedly hold two other Americans as well. And they will undoubtedly seek to kidnap more Americans...

Vatican City, Aug 21, 2014 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has reportedly called the family of U.S. journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS militants earlier this week. According to NBC News, a Vatican spokesperson said Thursday that the Pope called Foley’s family, who was grateful and moved by the gesture. On Aug. 19, the Islamic State (ISIS), a militant group that controls territory in Syria and Iraq, released a graphic video titled “A Message to America” which shows the beheading of Foley, who had gone missing in Syria in 2012. U.S. officials have now confirmed the...

A Frenchman who was held captive with murdered American journalist James Foley for months said today he has a ‘rough’ idea who his executioner is. Didier Francois said a video of the suspected British jihadist stirred painful memories of being chained up in the dark with Mr Foley and other ISIS hostages in Syria. It came as a former MI6 chief said the British jihadist will be identified and the SAS will be sent to Syria to 'bring him to justice'.