Islamic State (IS) released a gruesome and horrific video showing the beheading of American photojournalist James Wright Foley, who was captured by gunmen 21 months ago while attempting to cover the Syrian Civil War.  The Sunni militants say it’s a warning to the US not to keep intervening in Iraq.

“The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity,” said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.  “If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends.”

The video is disgusting and shows Islamic State’s utter contempt for any human life that doesn’t adhere to its warped version of Sunni Islam.  Independent journalist James Foley is seen dressed in orange, forcibly kneeling next to a knife-wielding IS militant dressed in black and a black mask. After Foley is forced to read the message announcing his own execution and accusing the US of being his “real killers”, the IS militant pulls Foley’s head back and begins cutting.

Afterwards, the video shows another American journalist – Steven Joel Sotloff, who like Foley went missing while covering the Syrian War – while someone who speaks English in an apparent British accent says, “the life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision”. 

US President Barack Obama authorized a series of airstrikes on Islamic State to give air cover to Kurdish Peshmerga forces as they retook the Mosul Dam in Iraq’s north.  But Islamic State still controls huge swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, which the group claims is its new Caliphate.  Reports from IS territory tell of mass executions, crucifixions, beheadings, women and children taken as slaves, and other barbarity.  The Foley video serves to confirm that, and the English speaking voice seems to confirm the presence of jihadis lured to the conflict from all over the world, including Australia, UK, and Europe.