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| FILE - This file photo posted on the website freejamesfoley.org shows journalist James Foley in Aleppo, Syria, in July, 2012.In a horrifying act of revenge for U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq, militants with the Islamic State extremist group have beheaded Foley — and are threatening to kill another hostage, U.S. officials say. |
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The United States launched a new barrage of airstrikes Wednesday against
the Islamic State extremist group that beheaded American journalist
James Foley and that has seized a swath of territory across Iraq and
Syria. President Barack Obama vowed relentless pursuit of the terrorists
and the White House revealed that the U.S. had launched a secret rescue
mission inside Syria earlier this summer that failed to rescue Foley
and other Americans still being held hostage.
In
brief but forceful remarks, Obama said the U.S. would "do what we must
to protect our people," but he stopped short of promising to follow the
Islamic State in its safe haven within Syria, where officials said Foley
had been killed. Later, though, the administration revealed that
several dozen special operations troops had been on the ground in Syria
briefly in an effort to rescue the hostages, but did not find them.
And
looking forward, the State Department refused to rule out future U.S.
military operations in Syria, where Obama has long resisted intervening
in a three-year civil war.
Western nations
agreed to speed help to combat the militants - most notably Germany,
which bucked public opposition by announcing it would arm Iraqi Kurdish
fighters to battle the Islamic State. French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius said he was outraged by the beheading, deeming it evidence of a
"caliphate of barbarism." Italy's defense minister said the country
hopes to contribute machine guns, ammunition and anti-tank rockets.
The
Islamic State called Foley's death a revenge killing for U.S.
airstrikes against militants in Iraq, and said other hostages would be
slain if the attacks continued. Undeterred, the U.S. conducted 14
additional strikes after a video of the beheading surfaced, bringing to
84 the number of airstrikes since they began on Aug. 8.
Two
U.S. officials said additional American troops - probably less than 300
- could be headed to Iraq to provide extra security around Baghdad,
where the U.S. Embassy is located. That would bring the total number of
American forces in Iraq to well over 1,000, although officials said no
final decision had been made. The officials spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by
name.
Foley's mother said she is praying for
other hostages being held by the Sunni-dominated terror group, and
described her son's slaying as "just evil."
Obama agreed.
"No
just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do
every single day," the president said. The Islamic State militants have
promised to eliminate all people they consider heretics in their quest
to create an extremist state across much of Iraq and Syria.
"We
will be vigilant and we will be relentless," Obama said, urging unity
among Mideast governments in order to eviscerate the extremist group's
growing power. He spoke from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where
his family is vacationing.
In capitals across
the Middle East, news of Foley's death was met largely with silence,
even in Syria and Iraq - the two countries where the Islamic State is
strongest. On social media, people in the region condemned Foley's
killing, but stressed that the Islamic State has been committing
atrocities against Iraqis and Syrians for years.
For
much of the past year, and until this summer, the Obama administration
was deeply divided on how much of a threat the Islamic State posed to
Americans or even other nations beyond Iraq and Syria. But since the
militants' march across northern Iraq in June, and as its ranks swelled
almost threefold to an estimated
15,000 fighters, Obama has acknowledged
that the Islamic State could become a direct threat to Americans.
The
secret mission to rescue the U.S. hostages involved several dozen
special operations forces dropped by aircraft into Syria. The hostages
weren't found, but special forces engaged in a firefight with Islamic
State militants before departing, according to administration officials.
Several militants were killed, and one American sustained minor
injuries.
"The U.S. government had what we
believed was sufficient intelligence, and when the opportunity presented
itself, the president authorized the Department of Defense to move
aggressively to recover our citizens," Lisa Monaco, Obama's top
counterterrorism adviser, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, that
mission was ultimately not successful because the hostages were not
present."
Foley's death proved to the West
what many people in Syria and Iraq already knew: The Islamic State "has
declared war on the civilized world," said Dr. Najib Ghadibian, the
Syrian National Coalition's special representative to the U.S. The
group's sweep also has served as a wake-up call to other Mideast
governments, said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at
the London School of Economics.
"The Saudis,
the Kuwaitis, the Emiratis, and even the Qataris, are getting the
message now," Gerges said. "I think in the last few weeks we have seen a
kind of new awareness on the part of regional powers that the Islamic
State does present a threat to the very social fabric and the foundation
of the state system."
He said Foley's death
could help intensify efforts on the part of Washington's regional allies
to make a more concerted effort to address the threat.
Jordan
and Saudi Arabia, both of whom share a border with Iraq, have
dispatched troops to the frontier in a bid to prevent any attempt by the
extremists to attack. Iran, an ally of the Shiite-led government in
Baghdad, has sent military advisers to help organize Shiite militias in
Iraq and defend holy sites.
Authorities from
the Gulf to Egypt, as well as their peoples, have looked on with growing
concern as the Islamic State group has brutally expanded the territory
under its control, punctuating its rise by declaring a caliphate in
lands straddling the Syria-Iraq border.
Foley,
a 40-year-old journalist from Rochester, New Hampshire, was no stranger
to war zone reporting. He went missing in northern Syria in November
2012 while freelancing for Agence France-Presse and the Boston-based
news organization GlobalPost. The car he was riding in was stopped by
four militants in a contested battle zone that both Sunni rebel fighters
and government forces were trying to control. He had not been heard
from since.
He was one of at least four
Americans still being held in Syria - three of whom officials said were
kidnapped by the Islamic State. The fourth, freelance journalist Austin
Tice, disappeared in Syria in August 2012 and is believed to be in the
custody of government forces in Syria.
The
Islamic State video of Foley's beheading also showed another of the
missing American journalists, Steven Sotloff, and warned he would be the
next killed if U.S. airstrikes continued. U.S. officials believe the
video was made days before its Tuesday release, perhaps last weekend,
and have grown increasingly worried about Sotloff's fate.
The
New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 80
journalists have been abducted in Syria, and estimates that around 20
are currently missing there. It has not released their nationalities. In
its annual report in November, the committee described the widespread
seizure of journalists as unprecedented and largely unreported by news
organizations in the hope that keeping the kidnappings out of public
view may help in the captives' release.
Obama
avoided specific mention of the other American hostages in Syria, and
was vague on whether the U.S. would significantly ramp up its assault on
the Islamic State beyond the airstrikes and small potential increase in
troops in Iraq. A third senior U.S. official said the administration
was well aware of the risks to the hostages once the strikes began, and
would now consider as aggressive a policy as possible to obliterate the
militants.
At the State Department,
spokeswoman Marie Harf did not rule out military operations in Syria to
bring those responsible to justice, saying the U.S. "reserves the right
to hold people accountable when they harm Americans."
U.S.
lawmakers, however, said they doubted the White House would expand its
attacks to strike within Syria - something the Obama administration has
long resisted.
"The mission already crept a
bit," said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and House
Intelligence Committee member. "The administration would be wise to not
get sucked in. That's going to be very hard."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., lamented that Obama has been "unwilling to do what is necessary to confront" the Islamic State.
