ISIS Claims To Have Killed U.S. Journalist

ISIS posted a propaganda video Tuesday that it said showed the beheading of James Wright Foley, an American photojournalist who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago. The authenticity of the video hasn't been verified. Was posted to YouTube, later taken down.

The video shows Foley kneeling in a desert landscape, clad in an orange jumpsuit. Standing to his left is an ISIS fighter, who speaks in English with a hint of a London accent. Pulling out a knife, he says Foley's execution is in retaliation for the recent airstrikes ordered by President Obama against the extremist group in Iraq

"I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers - the U.S. govt - for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacent criminality," Foley says in the video. He ends saying that when American soldiers began dropping bombs on Iraq this month, "they signed my death warrant."

James Foley

Tuesday night, Foley's mother, Diane Foley, issued a statement on the Facebook page the family created to publicize their son's disappearance. "We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people. We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages."

Foley was held alongside several other Americans, whose families have asked for a news blackout. The video concludes with the fighter threatening to kill Steven Sotloff, another American freelance journalist, who was being held alongside Foley. Sotloff is seen kneeling in the same jumpsuit, position and landscape

Obama was briefed about the video on Air Force One as he returned to Martha's Vineyard from Washington DC. In DC, a National Security Council spox, Caitlin Hayden, said in a statement that they were working to verify the authenticity of the video. "If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist."

Foley had previously been captured in Libya in 2011. A friend and fellow captive in Libya, journalist Clare Morgana Gillis, wrote in 2013, that captivity was "the state most violently opposite his nature." She described Foley as gentle, friendly, courageous and impatient with "anything that slows his forward momentum."