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Tag: islamic militants
Kidnappers Demanded $132.5 Million For James Foley, GlobalPost Chief Says

Kidnappers Demanded $132.5 Million For James Foley, GlobalPost Chief Says

By Alana Semuels and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — Before executing James Foley, the militant group Islamic State sent an email demanding $132.5 million in exchange for the return of the kidnapped journalist, the director of the website GlobalPost said Thursday.

Foley was working for GlobalPost when he disappeared in Syria in November 2012. A video surfaced Tuesday showing him kneeling in the desert and then being killed. The video explained that the killing was retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State.

Philip Balboni, president and chief executive of the website, did not comment on how GlobalPost responded to the ransom demand. However, he has said that the demand was forwarded to the proper authorities.

The United States and Britain have a policy of not negotiating with militants, and the Group of 8 industrial nations has also issued a statement saying its countries reject the payment of ransom to such groups.

But the policy is being questioned in the wake of Foley’s killing. Although U.S. special operations forces had tried this summer to rescue hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State, the mission was not successful. And though the Foley family expressed gratitude to President Barack Obama for the efforts to rescue James Foley, his parents hesitated Wednesday when asked whether the U.S. government had done enough to bring him back safely. “No,” his brother Michael interjected.

More than 80 journalists have been abducted in Syria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which says that is an unprecedented number, going back to the group’s founding in 1981. CPJ estimates that about 20 journalists, the majority of whom are Syrians, are missing in the country.

The issue of ransom has become increasingly divisive because groups such as the Islamic State are financing their operations through such payments. Earlier this year, the Islamic State released several Spanish and French journalists, reportedly in exchange for large ransoms.

“Four French journalists were released in #Syria today. Very happy for them and their families. Hoping #James_Foley and the others will be next!” read a statement posted in April on the Free James Foley Facebook page.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has extorted $20 million in ransom money in the last two years alone, according to Alistair Burt, a former British diplomatic official for the Middle East.

The United States’ policy of not paying ransom puts Obama in a difficult situation because the Islamic State also showed on video that it has kidnapped another missing American journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff.

“The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” a masked man on the video says, according to SITE Intelligence Group. It was originally thought that that decision meant whether to continue airstrikes in Iraq, but it could in fact refer to the decision on whether to pay ransom.

In a news conference Wednesday, the Foley family asked the captors to let Sotloff go.

“We beg compassion and mercy of Jim’s captors, for Steven Sotloff and the other captives,” John Foley told reporters when asked whether he had a message for the militants behind his son’s death. “They never hurt anybody; they were trying to help and there’s no reason for their slaughter.”

Standing on the lawn outside the family home in Rochester, N.H., his wife, Diane Foley, added that her son was an “innocent” and his captors “knew it.”

“They knew that Jim was just a symbol for our country — and it’s that hatred that Jim was against,” she said.

In a statement referring to the Islamic State by one of its several abbreviations, Secretary of State John F. Kerry vowed to “confront ISIL wherever it tries to spread its despicable hatred.”

“The world must know that the United States of America will never back down in the face of such evil,” he said. “ISIL and the wickedness it represents must be destroyed, and those responsible for this heinous, vicious atrocity will be held accountable.”

Semuels reported from New York and Reston from Rochester, N.H.

AFP Photo/Aris Messinis

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Islamist Militants Kill 21 In Attack In Southern Philippines

Islamist Militants Kill 21 In Attack In Southern Philippines

dpa

MANILA, Philippines — Twenty-one people were killed Monday in an attack by suspected Islamic militants while on their way to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in the southern Philippines, authorities said.

Eleven people were also injured in the attack on Jolo island, 600 miles south of Manila, according to a police report.

The dead included five children, said Capt. Maria Rowena Muyuela, a regional military spokeswoman.

The victims included village security volunteers who could have been the target of the attack, Muyuela added.

“This could be retaliation for their assistance to military and police operations,” she said.

Brig. Gen. Martin Pinto said earlier that a family feud could have been behind the attack.

The victims were travelling in two vehicles to a mosque for prayers and to visit relatives to mark the end of Ramadan, said Col. Oscar Nantes, a deputy provincial police commander.

AFP Photo/Therence Koh

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Islamic Militants Release 32 Turkish Drivers Kidnapped In Iraq

Islamic Militants Release 32 Turkish Drivers Kidnapped In Iraq

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

A group of 32 Turkish truck drivers kidnapped three weeks ago by Islamic militants in northern Iraq have been released and are en route home, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told journalists in Ankara on Thursday.

There was no immediate word, however, on the fate of 49 other Turks taken hostage by the militants previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, on June 11, Turkish media quoted Davutoglu as saying.

The renamed Islamic State, which announced this week that it had established a caliphate to govern the lands it seized in Iraq and Syria, also holds 46 Indian nurses who were working at a hospital in the town of Tikrit when it was taken by the radicals last week.

The Hindustan Times reported Thursday that relatives of the captive nurses said they had been told the group was being moved from Tikrit to militant-controlled territory farther north in Iraq.
The truck drivers were kidnapped June 9 while delivering diesel fuel to the city of Mosul as the militants staged a lightning strike across the north of Iraq. All of those freed were in good health except for one who might require “special treatment,” the foreign minister said.

The group was to be transported home by a Turkish Airlines jet sent to fetch them in the Kurdish city of Irbil, Davutoglu said, according to Today’s Zaman newspaper website.

Turkish media had been prohibited by court order from reporting on the hostage situation, and word of the drivers’ release set off a storm of criticism of the government.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who this week announced his candidacy for president ahead of an Aug. 10 election, has been accused of organizing the gag order to silence critics who say the government failed to recognize the danger posed for the 120,000 Turkish citizens working and living in Iraq.

There was also broad speculation in Turkish media that the government may have paid ransoms for the drivers’ freedom. There were reports that ISIS demanded $50,000 for each of the trucks it seized more than three weeks ago.

AFP Photo/ Sabah Arar

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