US President Barack Obama confirmed that the person beheaded in a gruesome video released by Islamic State was indeed American journalist James Foley.  That came as Washington made the stunning revelation that it had “boots on the ground” in the middle of the Syrian Civil War on a failed hostage rescue mission.

“One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century,” said Mr. Obama, using one of the other acronyms used to refer to Islamic State (IS, ISIL, ISIS).  He added that the world needs to take action against the “cancer” of Jihadi extremists who claim to be at war with the west but are causing massive destruction in the Muslim world.

“Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents,” Obama said.  “No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day.”

In the video, IS announces that Foley is being killed to avenge US air strikes that helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces retake some territory from the terrorists.  The black-clad terrorist who beheaded Foley threatens to kill another journalist being held hostage, American Stephen Sotloff. 

British Prime Minister David Cameron broke off his holiday in response to the crisis, and confirmed that terrorist on the video spoke with an English accent.

“From what we have seen it looks increasingly likely that it is a British citizen,” said PM Cameron.  “This is deeply shocking.  But we know that far too many British citizens have traveled to Iraq and traveled to Syria to take part in extremism and violence.”

It’s known that hundreds of Europeans have traveled to Syria to join IS as it establishes its brutal rule over large swaths of territory captured from Syria and Iraq.  Austria detained none people suspected of trying to get to Syria.  They are Chechens with Russian citizenship who had been granted asylum from in Austria. 

Back in the States, the Pentagon revealed that US Special Forces “recently” attempted to rescue “a number” of American hostages held in Syria by IS, but the mission or missions failed.

“This operation involved air and ground components and was focused on a particular captor network within ISIL (IS),” said Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.  “Unfortunately, the mission was not successful because the hostages were not present at the targeted location.”  

The Obama administration has repeated stated that it did not want any American “boots on the ground”, meaning combat troops, involved in the Syrian Civil War or Iraq’s crisis with IS.