ABSTRACT
In mid-August 2014, the Islamic State (also called ISIS for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIL for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) shocked the world with a close to five-minute video uploaded on YouTube. The involuntary star of the production was the American journalist James Foley wearing an orange jump suite and kneeling next to a masked ISIS fighter. Under duress, the hostage called the U.S. government his real killer and exclaimed that he wished he wasn’t an American. But condemning the Washington government did not save Foley’s life. The ISIS fighter pulled out a knife and beheaded his hostage while the camera captured every second of this most brutal execution.
