North Korea blast US calling Obama a monkey

This is really epic, North Korea calling President Barack Obama “a
monkey” and blamed the U.S. on Saturday for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row
over the comedy “The Interview.”
North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un.

After Sony Pictures initially called off the release in a decision criticized by Obama, the movie has opened this week.

On Saturday, the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the release of “The Interview.” It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s
Policy Department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

“If the U.S. is to persistently insist that the hacking attack was made by the DPRK, the U.S. should produce evidence without fail, though belatedly,” the statement publish by KCNA said.

He also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korea websites this week, after
the U.S. had promised to respond to the Sony hack.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday. According to the North Korea commission’s spokesman, “the U.S., a big country, started
disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag.”

The commission said the movie was the results of a hostile U.S. policy toward North Korea, and
threatened the U.S. with unspecified consequences.

North Korea and the U.S. remain technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War
ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North’s nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against North Korean aggression.

Source: Associated Press

Mitt Romney Hating on Obama as he Delivers An Epic Rant About Obama’s ‘Terrible Administration’

When big boy Work little boys Rant, like the Famous Hip Hop rapper snoop Dogg will say

” Big dogs don’t back, small dogs do”
Captured in details was Mitt Romney ranting over Obama’s terrible administration, he was ranting like a wounded puppy saying “If you’re running for office they tell you it’s not a good idea to tell jokes alright. Because you always offend someone,” and he continued “But I’m going to tell you one about the president and I don’t care if he’s offended.”

Romney began by declaring he didn’t care about upsetting Obama.
“If you’re running for office they tell you it’s not a good idea to tell jokes alright. Because you always offend someone,” said Romney. “But I’m going to tell
you one about the president and I don’t care if he’s offended.”

Romney, who was campaigning for Nebraska GOP Senate candidate Ben Sasse, went on to make a crack about Obama not having “a clue” that he’s used in other recent appearances.

“Look, I’m not a big fan of the president’s as you may understand, but even I have been disappointed by what I’ve seen over the last six years,” Romney said.

“Because he promised some things, but hasn’t been able to deliver those things.”
Romney went on to list things he said Obama promised to address including “poverty,” “income inequality,” the education system, and the president’s infamous promise people would be allowed to keep existing health plans under Obamacare.

Afterwards, Romney swiftly moved away from domestic issues. That’s where he really got fired up, still ranting like a screaming Christmas Chicken and hating on Mr President

“It’s been a terrible administration here at home and then look internationally,” said Romney. He went on to accuse Obama of having a foreign policy that is
“very different” from all other post-war
presidents. Romney said Obama has ignored “three principles” that were first established by President Harry Truman: that American must “be involved in the
world,” that we must “promote our values,” and that we need a “military second to none.”

“He went on to shrink our military smaller, and smaller, and smaller,” Romney said of Obama. “Our navy will be smaller than that of China in seven years. Russia already has a larger nuclear arsenal than ours.”

Romney suggested the decreased size of our armed forces has contributed to international tensions. “The challenges we face are not just because of the leadership skill of the president. It’s because he’s wrong on so many issues,” said Romney.

He went on to contrast this with the Republican Party, which Romney argued is offering better solutions. Then, Romney, who is sometimes cited as a potential 2016 presidential candidate made an admission.

“A lot of times we’re not as effective in communicating our message as we should be,” Romney said. “I’m to blame for that too and I wish I would have won.”

Romney concluded by encouraging the audience to vote for Sasse and other GOP candidates this year even though it is not a presidential race. “The president said it right. I don’t always agree with the president, but he said something right yesterday and you’ve heard it before. He said ‘Look, I’m not on the ballot, but my policies are,'” said Romney. “And that’s absolutely right.”

” Mr Mitt Romney the Fire spiller, words are easily said than done, so let your actions speak louder than your voice”

Credits to Business Insider

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WoW ! Ebola crisis: Obama says US outbreak risk very low

The US President Barack Obama emphatically said that the chance of an Ebola outbreak in the US, is “extremely low”.

He was speaking after a second US nurse became infected after treating a Liberian who died a week ago in Dallas.
Meanwhile, a UN chief has warned that West Africa faces a potential food crisis because of the Ebola crisis.

The dreaded disease has killed about 4,500 people so far, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. In the US, health officials are seriously seeking to trace 132 people who flew on a plane with Amber Vinson the day before she fell ill.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it wanted to interview the passengers on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas on Monday.

An unnamed federal official has told US media that Ms Vinson, 29, called the CDC before boarding to report a temperature of 99.5F (37.5C) and to say she was getting on a plane.

She is the second nurse to become infected after treating Thomas Eric Duncan at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. More than 70 medics who may have come in contact with Mr Duncan at the hospital are being monitored for symptoms.

President Obama cancelled a political campaign trip to meet Cabinet officials involved in the Ebola response both in the US and in West Africa. He has also cleared his diary for Thursday,postponing other engagements so that he can remain in Washington and monitor the situation.

Willing volunteers On Thursday, campaign group Avaaz said it had identified more than 2,000 international
volunteers, including hundreds of doctors and nurses, who are willing to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The group said it will give the names to aid agencies working in the field but they are unlikely to arrive in the region in the near future because of the training needed before they can be deployed. Meanwhile, the head of a United Nations agency said on Wednesday that the West African states affected by the outbreak were facing a looming food crisis.

Kanayo Nwanze, the president of the UN’s International Fund for Agriculture, said farmers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia had abandoned their crops because of fear of catching the disease.
‘Aggressive monitoring in US’ Speaking after chairing a crisis meeting on Ebola,
President Obama said it would be more difficult to prevent an outbreak in the US if the epidemic “rages out of control in West Africa”.

He promised a “much more aggressive” monitoring of Ebola cases in the US and reaffirmed plans to send a “Swat team” of experts to any hospital that reported an infection. It is still unclear how Ms Vinson and the other infected nurse, Nina Pham, contracted the virus.

Both wore face shields, hazardous materials suits and protective footwear as they drew blood and dealt with Mr Duncan’s body fluids. However, a national nurse union said health workers
had not been properly equipped while treating Mr Duncan.

Source : BBC

Amber Vinson was not supposed to travel on an aeroplane, health officials said

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WoW ! ISIS Publicly Crushing Babies of Christians to Death who fail to convert

They claim to be the religion of peace. They are called the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”. Barack Obama claims they aren’t Islamic. They are Islamic. They are barbarians. They do want to take over the world.

In a three photo slide show, an ISIS cleric kills a baby belonging to a Christian family who refused to convert to Islam. ISIS thugs are spreading across the
Middle East and are calling on their affiliates in the United States to begin doing the same. After Friday’s beheading in Oklahoma, Americans need to both be
on guard and be angry.

The “religion of peace” has started another Crusade, and most Americans are blissfully unaware. If there’s ever a time to realize that the enemy is here and they must be defeated, it is now.

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WoW ! Attorney General Eric Holder announces resignation

Reports coming from CNN about the Attorney General Eric Holder office resignation, now leaving the space of the Attorney General vacant, read the full report bellow by CNN

“Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that he will resign after six years at the helm of the Justice Department. Holder has agreed to remain in his post until the confirmation of his successor.

“In the months ahead I will leave the Department of Justice,” Holder said at the White House, thanking President Barack Obama for the “greatest honor of my professional life.”

Though he’s stepping down, Holder said that “he will never leave the work.”
“I will continue to serve and try to find ways to make our nation even more true to its founding ideals,” he said, without offering any specifics.

Obama stood next to Holder in the White House State Dining Room, praising the first African- American to serve as attorney general and who made civil rights and equal rights central components to his tenure at Justice.

The President noted that his department
prosecuted hundreds of terror cases,
“rooted out corruption and fought violent
crime,” tackled financial fraud and “attacks on the Voting Rights Act.” Obama said

Holder also helped to bring down the
crime rate and incarceration rate by 10%
over the last six years. “Eric has done a superb job,” Obama said. “I just want to say thank you.”

In a telephone interview with CNN’s Evan
Perez before the official announcement,
Holder said he never intended to stay for
the duration of Obama’s second term. He
said now was the appropriate time to step down — a time when things are going smoothly at the department.
“I’m confident we’re in a good place,” Holder said.

“Now was a good time to go [with] those
accomplishments in the last few years in place.” He points to Justice’s role in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He has also stated that protecting voters’ rights and gay rights, easing federal drug sentencing rules that he argues disproportionately burden minorities and defending the use of criminal courts to try terrorist suspects are critical issues.

“I think I go out having accomplished a great deal in the areas that are of importance to me. I’m satisfied with the work we have done,” he said.
Eric Holder’s legacy Holder has discussed his plans to step down personally with the President on multiple occasions in recent months, and finalized those plans in an hour-long conversation with Obama at the White House residence over Labor Day weekend, an Obama administration official said.

Holder noted that he has loved the Justice Department since, when he was a boy, he watched how — under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — the Justice Department played a leadership role in advancing the civil rights movement. During his tenure as attorney general, Holder has had Kennedy’s portrait in his conference room.

Feds launch probe of Ferguson police department Controversy Holder also has been criticized as being overtly political, and some Republican members of Congress are shedding few tears over his
resignation. For instance, Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina tweeted, “Good riddance Eric Holder. Your disregard for the Constitution of the United States will not be missed.”

House Speaker John Boehner released a
similar statement, saying Holder’s
resignation is “long overdue.” Some congressional Republicans have accused the attorney general of defying the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v.

Holder, which struck down a component
of the Voting Rights Act, and they
investigated him over Operation Fast and
Furious. In Fast and Furious, the so-called gun- walking operation, roughly 2,000 guns were allowed into Mexico with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. Two guns found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s fatal shooting in December 2010 were linked to the operation.

In June 2012, the House voted to hold
Holder in contempt of Congress for
refusing to turn over documents linked to that operation. Upon hearing the news of Holder’s resignation, House Oversight Committee Chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, who lead the contempt proceedings,
called Holder “the most divisive U.S. Attorney General in modern history.”

Who might replace Eric Holder?
Partisan support But Holder has his supporters, including the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I particularly appreciate how Attorney General Holder has restored the Civil Rights Division to its historical mission,” Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont
said.

Lawmakers weigh in on Eric Holder’s resignation Leahy also pointed to the attorney general’s work on sentencing reforms and efforts to reduce recidivism rates. Those sentiments were echoed by Rep. Marcia Fudge, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

She said Holder’s departure “will leave a
significant void in this administration and in our nation.” Tenure

The attorney general is one of only three
remaining members of Obama’s original Cabinet. In 2013, Holder described his first meeting with Obama, which occurred just after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

“I sat next to him at this dinner and we just started talking about a variety of things, sports among them and criminal justice issues. And we saw that we had a lot of similar views and so we just started a relationship that was casual,” Holder
said.

Some conservatives: Holder playing racial politics Holder was sworn in as the 82nd attorney general in February 2009 after serving as President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general, the first African- American to serve in that position. Previously, the Columbia Law School graduate was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and served during President Ronald Reagan’s
administration as an associate judge at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.”

Source : CNN

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WoW ! ISIS executes British aid worker David Haines; Cameron vows justice

British aid worker David Haines has been
executed by ISIS militants, according to a video posted Saturday to a website associated with the group, making him the third Western captive to be killed by the Islamist extremist group in recent
weeks.

The ISIS video post showing Haines’ beheading called his execution “a message to the allies of America.” It is produced very similarly to the videos that showed the executions of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, the last of which included Haines and the threat that he’d be killed next.

The new video pictures a masked ISIS militant placing his hand on another captive, whom he identified as Alan Henning, a British citizen. In a tweet, British Prime Minister David Cameron
called “the murder of David Haines” an “act of pure evil.”
Cameron added, “We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes.”

Haines offers brief scripted comments on
the video, as does the man who kills him.
Directing his remarks at Britain, the executioner — who sounds like the man
who killed Foley and Sotloff — says, “Your
evil alliance with America, which continues to strike the Muslims of Iraq and most recently bombed the Haditha dam, will only accelerate your destruction and claim the role of the obedient lap dog.

“Cameron will only drag you and your
people into another bloody and unwinnable war.”

Retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona — an Air
Force veteran intelligence officer and CNN military analyst — surmised that if ISIS planned to dissuade Britain for teaming up with the United States, the group will be disappointed.

“ISIS has just guaranteed British cooperation with the Americans on all phases of what we’re going to be doing,” Francona said. “… I think this is now a Western fight; it’s not just a U.S. fight.”

News of the gruesome killing came the same day that the 44-year-old Haines’ family released a brief message to his captors through the British foreign
office. In it, the family says,

“We have sent messages to you to which we have not received a reply. We are asking those holding David to make contact with us.”

Haines’ face became known to the world in the ISIS video, released September 2, in which he looks forward and kneels as a masked ISIS militant stands behind him. The militant says in that video,

“We take this opportunity to warn those governments who’ve entered this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people
alone.”

British officials said after the video’s release that they had sent troops to try to rescue an unidentified British citizen “some time ago,” but failed. They released no other details. Mike Haines, in a statement early Sunday, through the British Foreign Office, noted that his
brother leaves behind two children and his wife Dragana.

He described his brother as “just another bloke” whose “childhood was centered around our family” and who was “brought up to know right from wrong.”
David Haines worked for the Royal Mail, then joined the Royal Air Force. He later worked with the United Nations in the Balkans, where “he helped whoever needed help, regardless of race, creed or religion,” according to his brother.

“During this time, David began to decide that humanitarian work was the field he wanted to work in,” Mike Haines said. “… David was most alive and enthusiastic in his humanitarian roles.”

After working for ScotRail, David Haines went on to get a job as a logistics and security manager for the Paris-based humanitarian Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development. He was abducted in March 2013 near a refugee
camp in Atmeh, Syria, where he was working to arrange for the delivery of humanitarian aid to people staying at the camp. He had previously worked on aid operations for victims of conflict in
the Balkans, African and other parts of the Middle East, according to an ACTED spokesman.

“His joy and anticipation for the work he (did) in Syria is, for myself and family, the most important element of this whole sad affair,” Mike Haines said. “He was and is loved by all his family and will
be missed terribly.”

The US president Obama said….

“The United States stands shoulder-to-shoulder tonight with our close friend and ally in grief and resolve,” the President said. “We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world.”

Source : CNN

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WoW ! Obama says need to ‘snuff out’ militant groups like Islamic State

President Barack Obama said on Friday the goal of an international coalition he is helping to form is to “ultimately snuff out” the type of extremism demonstrated by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

It is a “sobering time,” said Obama at a Democratic fund-raising event in Baltimore following his decision to authorize U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time, and to add to targeted areas in Iraq.

The threat from Islamic State has had an important silver lining, he said. It has focused the world’s attention on the need to “ultimately snuff out this particular brand of Islamic extremism that really has no place in the 21st century.”

Obama is leading an effort to form a coalition of Western allies and Gulf Arab states to take on the extremist group, whose savage methods have included beheading two American journalists.

“We’re going to be able to build the kind of coalition that allows us to lead, but also isn’t entirely dependent on what we do,” said Obama, who wants to avoid a
repeat of the Iraq war and has vowed not to send large numbers of U.S. combat troops there.

Obama met with NATO allies last week in Wales and later this month will hold a leaders security conference at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, aimed at gaining commitments from nations willing to join the coalition.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to host a training mission for those Syrian rebels deemed moderate by the United
States. The Baltimore fund-raising event was held at the home of Howard Friedman, a former head of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Residents in the heavily Jewish neighborhood spilled out into their
front yards, many waving pro-Israel signs.

“Thank you for standing by Israel,”

Friedman told Obama in introducing him to the small crowd at the fund-raiser.

Source: Reuters

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WoW ! Obama: U.S. chasing ISIS ‘wherever they exist’

President Barack Obama on Wednesday outlined a U.S.-led coalition’s plans to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant through airstrikes and support for Syria’s opposition, stressing to a weary nation that he is not leading the nation into another war.

“I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Obama said from the State Floor of the White House in a rare primetime speech.

“It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

Rather, it is a “counter-terrorism campaign” that “will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground,” he said. It’s a “strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front
lines,” the same targeted strategy that the United States has been using in Yemen and Somalia.

The battle against ISIL will not be limited by political borders, Obama said. “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Coming as the coalition takes shape and prepares to go on the offensive, the president’s primetime speech is an opportunity for him to explain his administration’s strategy to the American people and to ask for “buy in” from Congress, whether in the form of funding for the effort or with a bill authorizing its actions, which senior administration officials say they do not believe is necessary but would not object to seeing lawmakers pass.

The United States plans to lead a “broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat” with a clear objective, to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a
comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”

The ramping up of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East is a major shift for Obama, who advocated for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since before his campaign for president.
It comes a year after the president flirted with engagement in Syria against the regime of Bashar al- Assad for using chemical weapons, only to run into
congressional opposition.

A year later, Obama’s attention is again turned towards Syria, but at defeating ISIL, a group that branched off from al Qaeda in Iraq, and that, according to administration officials, poses a great
threat to Iraq, Syria and Americans in the region. Instead of asking Congress for the authority to act – as he did a year ago – Obama is more broadly looking for support from lawmakers.

“My administration has … secured bipartisan support for this approach here at home,” he said. “I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL. But I
believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show
the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.”

Support from Congress could be a bill authorizing the president to take military action against ISIL, a senior administration official said on a conference call with reporters to preview the speech, or could mean that lawmakers vote to provide funding for the action.

House Republicans delayed a vote this week on a continuing resolution to fund the government after Sept. 30 with the aim of potentially using the bill as a
means for funding U.S. efforts to train and arm the moderate Syrian opposition.
On Wednesday, Obama asked Congress for the “authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.

In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”

He also announced that 475 more U.S. military personnel will be sent to Iraq, not to engage in combat but to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces build up their capabilities. They join several hundred others who have been sent there since June. Obama aimed to prepare the American people for what administration officials have describe as a “sustained” effort that will take an indeterminate
amount of time.

“It will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL,” the president said. “And any time we take military action, there are risks involved – especially to the servicemen and women who carry
out these missions.”

The president also sought to put the fight against ISIL in context, noting that Thursday marks the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and
that next week marks six years since the 2008 financial crisis hit its lowest depths.
“Despite these shocks [and] through the pain we have felt and the grueling work required to bounce back, America is
better positioned today to seize the future than any other nation on Earth,” he said.

He also spoke of the leadership role that the United States has played in helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s incursion into Crimea, fighting the latest outbreak of Ebola in Africa, and protecting the Yazidis facing threats from ISIL in Iraq.

“When we helped prevent the massacre of civilians trapped on a distant mountain,” Obama said of the Yazidis, “here’s what one of them said, ‘We owe our American friends our lives. Our children will always remember that there was someone who felt our struggle and made a long journey to protect innocent
people.’”

“That is the difference we make in our world,” the president said. “Our own safety – our own security – depends upon our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation, and uphold the values that we stand for – timeless ideals that will endure long after those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth.”

Source: Politico

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WoW ! President Obama & his family attend his chef’s wedding

WoW ! What a lucky man . Imagine the President of the United States, the First Lady and their kids attending your wedding. Yesterday August 30th, president Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters, Sasha and Malia flew from Washington to New York to attend the wedding of the White House assistant chef and their longtime family chef and close friend, Sam Kass (top right), who married MSNBC host Alex Wagne (bottom right).

Kass began cooking for the Obamas when they lived in Chicago before Obama became president, and in 2009 they persuaded him to come to the White House. Obama even attended Sam’s bachelor party last week.

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WoW ! U.S. military failed in rescue attempt for journalist Foley

The U.S. military earlier this summer carried out an attempt to rescue journalist James Foley and other American hostages held in Syria, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, in an operation that the Pentagon said ultimately failed to find the captives.
Foley, 40, was beheaded by an Islamic State militant in a video that surfaced on the Internet on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama expressed revulsion on Wednesday at the execution and vowed the United States would do what it must to protect its citizens.

The unsuccessful rescue operation “involved air and ground components and was focused on a particular captor network within ISIL,” the Pentagon said in a statement, using a different name for the militant group.

“Unfortunately, the mission was not successful because the hostages were not present at the targeted location.”
Officials would not say exactly when the operation took place but said it was not in the last couple of weeks.

Obama authorized the mission “earlier this summer,” Lisa Monaco, Obama’s top counterterrorism aide, said in a separate statement. “The President authorized
action at this time because it was the national security team’s assessment that these hostages were in danger with each passing day in ISIL custody,” she said.

Islamic State said Foley’s execution, which prompted widespread horror that could push Western powers into further action against the group, was in revenge
for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.

The Pentagon said U.S. aircraft conducted 14 airstrikes in the vicinity of Iraq’s Mosul Dam, destroying or damaging militants’ Humvees, trucks and explosives. Britain’s prime minister cut short his vacation as UK intelligence tried to identify Foley’s killer, while France called for international coordination against the Islamist militants fighting in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. officials said on Wednesday that intelligence analysts had concluded that the Islamic State video, titled

“A Message to America,”

was authentic. It also showed images of another U.S. journalist, Steven Sotloff, whose fate the group said depends on how the United States acts in Iraq.

The gruesome video presented Obama with bleak options that could define American involvement in Iraq and the public reaction to it, potentially dragging
him further into a conflict he built much of his presidency on ending.

Obama called the beheading of Foley “an act of violence that shocked the conscience of the entire world” and said the militants had killed innocent civilians, subjected women and children to torture, rape and slavery and targeted Muslims, Christians and religious minorities.

“So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and 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 in brief comments to reporters in Edgartown, Massachusetts, where he has been
vacationing.

He said he had spoken with Foley’s family.

“ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would “never back down in the face of such evil.

“ISIL and the wickedness it represents must be destroyed, and those responsible for this heinous, vicious atrocity will be held accountable,” Kerry said in a statement.

INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

British anti-terrorist police began an investigation of the video, in which Foley’s killer spoke with a London
accent.

Possibly a British national, the killer is just one of hundreds of European Muslims drawn to join Islamic State, who authorities say pose a security threat to
U.S. and European interests if they return home from the Middle East.

The video showed a high level of technical proficiency and the use of a British voice may have been intended
to make its contents clear to audiences in the United States, Islamic State’s declared enemy.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was not surprised to hear the British accent and that large numbers of British nationals were fighting in Iraq and
Syria.

“Our intelligence services will be looking very carefully on both sides of the Atlantic at this video to establish its authenticity, to try to identify the individual concerned and then we will work together to try to
locate him,”
Hammond told Sky news.

France said it wanted the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and regional countries, including Arab states and Iran, to coordinate action against Islamic State. President Francois Hollande called for an international conference to discuss how to tackle
the group.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned “the horrific murder of journalist James Foley, an abominable crime that underscores the campaign of
terror the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant continues to wage against the people of Iraq and Syria,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari urged the world to back his country against Islamic State, which he described as a threat to the world, not just to the
minority ethnic groups whose members it has killed in Iraq.

Germany and Italy said they were ready to send arms to bolster the military capabilities of Iraqi Kurds fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq. Sending arms into conflict zones is a major departure
for Germany, which has often shied away from direct involvement in military conflicts since World War Two due to its Nazi past.

The video’s message was unambiguous, warning of greater retaliation to come against Americans following nearly two weeks of U.S. airstrikes that have
pounded militant positions and halted the advance of Islamic State, which until this month had captured a third of Iraq with little resistance.

Foley was kidnapped on Nov. 22, 2012, in northern Syria, according to GlobalPost. He had earlier been kidnapped and released in Libya. Sotloff, who appeared at the end of the video, went missing in northern Syria while reporting in July 2013.

He has written for TIME among other news organizations. On Facebook, Foley’s mother, Diane Foley, said: “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. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in
Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.”

The video was posted after the United States resumed airstrikes in Iraq this month for the first time since the end of the U.S. occupation in 2011. U.S. Senator John McCain, a Republican, said Foley’s
death should serve as a turning point for Obama in his deliberations over how to deal with Islamic State.

“First of all, you’ve got to dramatically increase the airstrikes. And those air strikes have to be devoted to Syria as well,” McCain said in a telephone interview.

ISLAMIC STATE

Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in the parts of Iraq and Syria it controls, opened the video with a clip of Obama saying he had authorized strikes
in Iraq.

The words “Obama authorizes military operations against the Islamic State effectively placing America upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims” appeared in English and Arabic on the screen.

It showed black and white aerial footage of airstrikes with text saying: “American aggression against the Islamic State.”

A man identified as Foley, head shaven and dressed in an orange outfit similar to uniforms worn by prisoners at the U.S. detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, is seen kneeling in the desert next to a man holding a knife and clad head to toe in black.

“I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government, for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacency and criminality,” the kneeling man says.

The man next to him, in a black mask, speaks with a British accent and says,

“This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen, of your country. As a government, you have been at the forefront of the aggression towards the Islamic State.”

“Today your military air force is attacking us daily in Iraq. Your strikes have caused casualties amongst Muslims. You are no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an Islamic army, and a state that has been
accepted by a large number of Muslims worldwide.”

Following his statement, he beheads the kneeling man. At the end of the video, words on the side of the screen say,

“Steven Joel Sotloff,” as another prisoner
in an orange jumpsuit is shown on screen. “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” the masked man says.

University of Virginia political scholar Larry Sabato said the killing was like the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002. He said it
could help bolster a perception among Americans that the United States will have to be more aggressive in dealing with Islamic State militants.

Syria has been the most dangerous country for journalists for more than two years. At least 69 other journalists have been killed covering the conflict there
and more than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that about 20 journalists are currently missing in Syria. Many of them are believed to be held
by Islamic State.

Source: Reuters

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