Second American journalist beheaded by ISIS terrorists

A new video has been posted on the internet purported to show Islamic State militants beheading American journalist Steven Sotloff.

The Associated Press and the SITE Intel Group, an organization that tracks the online activity of terrorist groups, both reported on Tuesday that the Islamic State has posted a video of the execution barely two weeks after the group formerly known as ISIS published a similar clip of American photojournalist James Foley suffering the same fate.

The White House could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the latest video, “A Second Message to America,” but press secretary Joshua Earnest said during a briefing on Tuesday that the administration’s “thoughts and prayers” are with Sotloff’s family.

A 31-year-old freelance journalist who has written for Time magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, among others, Sotloff was kidnapped near Aleppo, Syria in August 2013. According to a profile published in the New York Times last month, Sotloff’s family tried desperately during the last year to keep the abduction quiet due to fears that the publicity would endanger him further.

Upon release of the Foley video last month, the Islamic State demanded that United States President Barack Obama cease attacks on the group or else risk Sotloff becoming the next casualty of the group’s violent campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Sotloff’s fate, a militant warned the president last month, “depends on your next decision.” In response, Sotloff’s mother posted a minute-and-a-half-long video plea asking Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to release her son.

The US has since ramped up its attacks on the Islamic State, and international efforts are expected to be discussed by NATO member state’s during this week’s summit in Wales.

In the Sotloff video, militants again warn that another captured civilian, David Haines of the UK, will be killed next unless “this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State” ends immediately.