A reporter who was abducted and decapitated by the notorious ISIS member “Jihadi John” reportedly uttered six final words before his brutal execution.
James Foley went missing on November 22, 2012, in the northwestern region of Syria close to the Turkish border after being forcibly taken by ISIS militants. At the time of his abduction, Foley was employed by the online American news platform GlobalPost. Two years later, ISIS released a video showing Foley kneeling beside a black-clad figure, where he was coerced into delivering a scripted message blaming the US as the “real killer” before being beheaded. Just before his tragic end, Foley was engaged in a conversation with British photojournalist John Cantlie.
Allegedly, he remarked, “Great, captured on Thanksgiving Day, killed on my mom’s birthday,” to Cantlie, whose words were published in ISIS’ propaganda magazine Dabiq and likely written under pressure. In 2017, reports surfaced claiming Foley had been killed in a Mosul airstrike.
Former US President Barack Obama denounced Foley’s execution, stating, “The entire global community is horrified. No just deity would tolerate their actions. People like this ultimately fail. They fail because progress is achieved by builders, not destroyers. The legacy is shaped by individuals like Jim Foley.”
Following the video release, American forces conducted 14 airstrikes targeting ISIS operatives near the Mosul dam in northern Iraq. Jihadi John, Foley’s executioner – identified as Mohammed Emwazi from London – was part of the ISIS Beatles group, along with three other Britons.
Emwazi met his end in a drone strike in Raqqa in 2015 after being located at a kebab shop. A defense source revealed, “We had been monitoring Emwazi for six weeks, observing his routine visits to a building near his mosque. Upon confirmation from MI6 that it was a kebab shop, our team seized the opportunity when he left the shop to play football.”
In 2022, Diane Foley, James’ mother, confronted one of the individuals involved in her son’s murder. Alexanda Kotey, known as Jihadi George, is serving a life sentence at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado. Diane spent four hours with Kotey at a Virginia courthouse, aiming to make him grasp the devastation he caused and the noble intentions of individuals like James who sought to report truthfully from Syria.
Reflecting on the encounter, Diane expressed, “I wanted Kotey to face the atrocity of his actions and comprehend the good he erased and why people like James were in Syria. They were driven by care and a commitment to unveil reality to the world.” She added, “He mentioned seeking forgiveness from his deity. He displayed a photo of his family, including young children he may never see again. It highlighted the losses incurred by embracing hatred and propaganda. It evoked pity in me.”
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