FBI Believes Foley Execution Video 'Authentic' as Obama Urges Joint Effort to End Jihadist 'Cancer'
U.S. President Barack Obama called for a joint effort to eliminate the "cancer" of jihadist terror in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday, after Islamic State militants murdered an American journalist.
Obama said the entire world was appalled by the beheading of 40-year-old reporter James Foley, which the IS fighters videotaped and published on the Internet.
"There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread. It has to be a clear rejection of these kind of nihilistic ideologies," Obama said.
"The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless," he pledged.
Obama praised Foley, a freelance reporter who contributed to GlobalPost, Agence France Presse and other outlets before being kidnapped two years ago, as a courageous journalist working in dangerous area and "bearing witness to the lives of people a world away."
But he made no mention of a second kidnapped U.S. journalist, Steven Sotloff, who was shown alive in the video.
Saying Foley's execution was in reaction to the U.S. air attacks on IS fighters, the group threatened to also kill Sotloff, saying whether it does or not depends on Obama's actions.
Before Obama spoke, the Pentagon confirmed a fresh round of strikes in northern Iraq, where Islamic State militants have expanded their territorial holdings and were threatening the Kurdish populations and the regional capital of Arbil.
"We continue to conduct strikes in Iraq," said spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.
The U.S. Central Command said U.S. warplanes and drones conducted 14 air strikes against IS targets near the Mosul Dam in Iraq since Tuesday.
Since Tuesday, U.S. drones and fighter jets destroyed or damaged six IS Humvees, three sites for improvised explosive devices, one mortar tube and two armed trucks, U.S. Central Command said.
The latest air raids brought to 84 the number conducted since August 8. Of those, 51 were in support of Iraqi forces near Mosul dam, now under the control of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces.
The command said the latest strikes served to "further expand" Iraqi and Kurdish control of the area.
"These strikes were conducted under authority to support Iraqi security forces and Kurdish defense force operations, as well as to protect critical infrastructure, U.S. personnel and facilities, and support humanitarian efforts," it added.
Obama condemned the Sunni extremist group as a threat to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
"One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century," he said, using the acronym for the group when it was formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
"They have rampaged across cities and villages, killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands."
"No faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day," Obama said.
"ISIL has no ideology. Their ideology is bankrupt."
He said he had spoken to the parents of Foley, and "told them we are all heartbroken at their loss."
"Jim was taken from us in an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world."
Earlier on Wednesday, the FBI has told the parents of Foley that it believes video footage of his execution released by jihadist militants is genuine, news gatherer GlobalPost said Wednesday.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said also on Wednesday it seemed "increasingly likely" that a British jihadist executed Foley.
Cameron, who broke off his holidays for meetings on the threat posed by Islamic State militants operating in Iraq and Syria following the beheading, said the likely nationality of the executioner was "deeply shocking".
Following the talks with senior ministers at his Downing Street office in London, he said "far too many" Britons had traveled to the region to take part in extremism.
"Let me condemn the barbaric and brutal act that has taken place and let's be clear what this act is -- it is an act of murder, and murder without any justification," Cameron told reporters.
"We have not identified the individual responsible, but from what we have seen it looks increasingly likely that it is a British citizen.
"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. And what we must do is redouble all all our efforts to stop people from going."
He said Britain would remove the passports of people contemplating travel, strip extremist material off the Internet and prosecute people participating in extremist violence.
Scotland Yard, which leads counter-terror policing in Britain, confirmed it was investigating footage of the killing.
"The Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command is investigating the contents of the video that was posted online" on Tuesday, it said.
The footage showed a masked militant with an English accent beheading Foley, who has been missing since he was seized in Syria in November 2012.
Some 400 to 500 British nationals are thought to have travelled to the region to link up with jihadists, and speculation is mounting that the executioner is one of these.
Cameron also said London would work with the new Iraqi government, help arm the Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants in northern Iraq and use Britain's aid, diplomacy and "military prowess" to put pressure on "this appalling organisation".
However, he insisted there would be no "knee-jerk" escalation of British military involvement, insisting the the country was "not going to get involved in another Iraq war" while putting "combat boots on the ground" was "not something we should do".
"It is a battle we have to fight... whether it is dealing with this problem in Somalia, in Mali, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria," Cameron said, because "what happens in these other far-flung places can come back and cause huge harm here too".
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was among those attending the meetings Cameron chaired at his Downing Street office.
"We'll have to do some more analysis to make quite certain" of where the executioner came from, he told BBC radio.
He said the intelligence agencies were monitoring Britons who could be involved in extremism in Syria and Iraq.
"There are significant numbers of British nationals involved in terrible crimes, probably in the commission of atrocities, making jihad with IS and other extremist organisations," Hammond said.
He said jihadists could pose a "direct threat to our own national security" if they seek to return with the "tradecraft" they have learnt in Iraq and Syria.
Shiraz Maher, from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College London, said British extremists are among the "most vicious and vociferous fighters" in the IS ranks.
He said the ICSR, which tries to track foreign fighters in Syria, was confident that Foley's executioner was from Britain "due to the colloquialisms" used, as well as his accent.
"We have a database of several hundred fighters in Syria and myself and my colleagues are frantically looking through it to try to pin him down," he added.
The Guardian newspaper, citing an unnamed former hostage, claimed the executioner could be the leader of a group of "British fighters" that has guarded foreign hostages in Syria.
The paper reported the man was called John and hailed from London.
The newspaper cited linguistics experts who said the executioner has a "British accent, from the south" and spoke "multicultural London English".
Afzal Ashraf, an expert on counter-terrorism at the Royal United Services Institute security think-tank, told AFP that expert analysis, voice recognition technology and people who know the killer could soon establish his identity.
"There are people who are very good at pinpointing accents from particular communities -- not just geographical locations but also from ethnic backgrounds. You can tell a lot through the way people use words and their voice," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday issued a strong condemnation of the murder of Foley, describing it as an "abominable crime."
"The secretary-general condemns in the strongest terms the horrific murder of journalist James Foley, an abominable crime that underscores the campaign of terror of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant continues to wage against the people of Iraq and Syria," his spokesman said.
Ban extended condolences to Foley's family, friends and colleagues and said the perpetrators must be brought to justice.
Europe's top powers also stepped up their response against Islamic State militants who beheaded Foley, as France warned the world faced the "most serious international situation" since 2001.
In a highly significant move, Germany said it was ready to send weapons to support Iraqi Kurds in their battle against IS, while France pledged to hold a conference on the security of the region and the battle against the "barbaric" militants.
After other European nations said they would arm Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, "we are ready to do the same," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.
Paris has already said it will dispatch arms to Kurdish fighters but sending weapons is unusual for Germany, which often shies away from foreign military engagements and as a rule does not export arms into live conflict zones, given its past aggression in two world wars.
Germany said it would first send more humanitarian aid and non-lethal equipment such as helmets, night-vision goggles and explosives detectors while it checked what weapons shipments would make sense, in coordination with EU partners.
French President Francois Hollande stressed the gravity of the crisis in Iraq, telling Le Monde daily in an interview: "I think we are in the most serious international situation since 2001" -- the year of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
He said he would "soon propose to our partners a conference on security in Iraq and the fight against Islamic State."
"We need a global strategy against this group which is well-structured, which is well-financed and has very sophisticated weapons, and which is threatening countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon," he added.
At an emergency meeting on Friday, EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to back the arming of the overwhelmed Iraqi Kurdish fighters in the face of the IS onslaught.
Britain, a leading player in the 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, has said it would "favorably consider" arming the Kurds if they received such a request.
Later Wednesday, Italy also signaled it was ready to send arms including machine guns and anti-tank rockets to the Kurds fighting IS.
"The preparatory work is already under way and could be finalized in the coming days," Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told a joint meeting of the parliamentary commissions for defense and foreign affairs.
Global outrage mounted over the IS video posted online late Tuesday showing a masked militant beheading the American journalist, who has been missing since he was seized in Syria in November 2012.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the video, confirmed as genuine by the White House, was a "disgusting assassination" that showed "the true face of this 'Caliphate of Barbarism'."
"There can be no impunity for those that carried out these barbaric acts," added the minister in a statement.
Steinmeier also termed IS's onslaught as "barbaric" and described the suffering of the refugees fleeing their charge as "unimaginable."
And Cameron said the murder was "shocking and depraved."
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond voiced his "absolute horror" at the beheading which he said was "one more example in a catalogue of brutality" by what he described as an "evil organisation."
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters that the video depicted "the barbaric, truly merciless murder of a person."
"It shows that this terror group has nothing to offer but cruelty and fanaticism," Steffen Seibert said, adding that the chancellor was "horrified."
The White House has said that Obama has been briefed on the contents of the video, as pressure mounted on Washington to consider expanding its military campaign against the jihadists.
Obama has ordered air strikes on IS forces in a bid to defend the Kurdish regional capital Arbil and protect civilians, military action that has enabled Kurdish and Iraqi forces to push the extremists back and recapture a strategic dam.
The U.S. has carried out further strikes "since yesterday," a senior U.S. defence official told AFP Wednesday.
Source: Agence France Presse
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