Steven Sotloff, a 31-year-old freelance journalist, speaks to the camera before a cloaked Islamic State fighter begins to decapitate him.
“I’m sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing,” Sotloff said under apparent duress. “Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for preservation of American lives and interests, so why is it that I am paying the price of your interference with my life?”
The video then cuts to the masked militant warning that as long as U.S. missiles “continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.” He also threatens the life of British captive David Cawthorne Haines.
“I’m back, Obama,” said the left-handed executioner with a British accent who appears to be the same man who killed Foley. “And I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State.”
Sotloff, a Jewish American, wrote for @Jerusalem_Post Company; last article was from #Syria, shortly before capture. http://t.co/rxENwVOoWt
— Michael Wilner (@mawilner) September 2, 2014