The Islamic State released another video showing the beheading of Steven Sotloff, a U.S. freelance journalist, to a monitoring service called SITE.
Similar to the footage from the video in which the militants killed journalist James Foley just weeks ago, Sotloff is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit, while the militant is wearing an all-black suit, with his face covered with a black mask. The video was shot in a similar desert setting.
“I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State,” the militant says in the video. “So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”
Also in the video, Sotloff says that he is “paying the price” for the United State’s actions toward the Islamic State militants.
“You’ve spent billions of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars and we have lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so where is the people’s interest in reigniting this war?” Sotloff further read a text in the video.
The ISIS militant threatened that a British hostage, David Haines, would be next to be killed, and warned other countries from partaking in an “evil alliance” with the U.S. against the Islamic State.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that he could not confirm the authenticity of the video.
“It is something that will be analyzed very carefully by the U.S. government and our intelligence officials to determine its authenticity,” he said.
“If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act,” said Jen Psaki, U.S. State Department spokesman.
This video release comes just one week after Shirley Sotloff, Steven Sotloff’s mother, released her own video appealing to the ISIS leaders to have mercy on her son.
Sotloff was reported to have disappeared in Syria in 2013, but his family had asked for minimal media attention, fearing that more media attention would backfire and increase chances of harm to Sotloff. A Florida native, he wrote as a freelance journalist for numerous publications, including Time magazine, Christian Science Monitor, and the World Affairs Journal.
