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Obama Administration Reviewing Hostage Policies, But Not Ransom Ban

Obama Administration Reviewing Hostage Policies, But Not Ransom Ban

By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has ordered a review of his administration’s handling of kidnappings by terrorist organizations, the White House confirmed Tuesday, but that review does not include a reconsideration of U.S. policy against paying ransom for hostages.

The president ordered the review “over the summer” and applied it to the State Department, Defense Department, FBI, and intelligence agencies, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. The review is specifically focused on hostage negotiations, recovery and communication with family members, he said.

The president was prompted by the “the extraordinary nature of some of the hostage-takings that we’d seen this year,” Earnest said.

In August, after being held captive for nearly two years, American journalist James Foley was beheaded on video by Islamic State militants. Foley’s killing was followed by the release of similar videos showing executions of hostages Steven Sotloff, an American; and two British aid workers.

A fifth video was uploaded Sunday, confirming the death of a third American, former soldier and aid worker Peter Kassig.

Family members of some U.S. hostages have complained about a lack of coordination and clear information about U.S. efforts to recover their relatives. Some have questioned the administration’s prohibition on paying ransom when other governments — including France, Germany, and Spain — have directly or indirectly paid for the release of their citizens.

Administration officials argue that paying for hostages only creates incentive for more kidnapping and bankrolls terrorist and pirate groups.

Earnest stood by that rationale Tuesday.

“The president continues to believe, as previous presidents have concluded, that it’s not the best interests of American citizens to pay ransom to any organization, let alone a terrorist organization, that’s holding an American hostage,” he said. “We don’t want to put other American citizens at even greater risk when they’re around the globe, and that knowing that terrorist organizations can extract a ransom from the United States if they take a hostage only puts American citizens at greater risk.”

AFP Photo/Jim Watson

Foley’s Mother Felt Like ‘Annoyance’ To U.S. Government

Foley’s Mother Felt Like ‘Annoyance’ To U.S. Government

Washington (AFP) — The mother of executed U.S. reporter James Foley said she felt her son’s case was an “annoyance” to the U.S. government.

In an interview aired Thursday with CNN, Diane Foley said her family was warned it could be charged if it tried to raise ransom money to free their son.

The family was also told no prisoners would be exchanged for Foley, nor would the government take military action, the mother said. The family was told not to go to the media and “trust that it would be taken care of.”

“As an American I was embarrassed and appalled,” Foley said.

“I think our efforts to get Jim freed were an annoyance” to the U.S. government, she added. “It didn’t seem to be in our strategic interest, if you will.”

The 40-year-old freelance reporter’s death was revealed August 19 in a video released by Islamic State militants, in which he is seen being beheaded.

IS said his killing was in response to U.S. air strikes against it. A week later it released another video showing the beheading of another American journalist, Steven Sotloff.

Foley had covered wars in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and contributed to GlobalPost, Agence France-Presse, and other outlets. He was seized by armed men in northern Syria in 2012.

“Jim would have been saddened. Jim believed to the end that his country would come to their aid,” Foley said.

“We were just told to trust that he would be freed somehow, miraculously,” Foley’s mother said. “And he wasn’t, was he?”

AFP Photo/Dominick Reuter

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Jihadist Captors Sent Taunting Letter To Foley Family: Employer

Jihadist Captors Sent Taunting Letter To Foley Family: Employer

Washington (AFP) — Journalist James Foley’s jihadist captors sent his family a taunting and rambling email threatening to kill him, just a week before making public a video of his execution, the American reporter’s employer said Thursday.

GlobalPost said it released the full text of the email from Islamic State (IS) militants “in the interest of transparency and to fully tell Jim’s story.”

“We believe the text offers insight into the motivations and tactics of the Islamic State,” it added.

The release comes after the GlobalPost told AFP that Foley’s captors had demanded a ransom of 100 million euros — $132 million — for his release.

The email claims that “other governments” had accepted “cash transactions” for the release of hostages and says that the militants had offered prisoner exchanges for Foley’s freedom, naming Aafia Siddiqui, the scientist jailed for 86 years for attempting to murder U.S. military officers.

IS, which has marauded across large areas of Iraq in recent months, on Tuesday published a video showing one of its members beheading Foley.

Foley, a photojournalist, was reporting from Syria for GlobalPost and other outlets including AFP when he was abducted in November 2012.

Prior to disclosing the email, GlobalPost CEO Philip Balboni said the captors made contact with GlobalPost and the Foley family fewer than half a dozen times, and “the kidnappers never really negotiated” over their huge sum, but simply made their demand.

“We never took the 100 million (euro) figure seriously,” Balboni told CNN.

The U.S. government opposes paying such ransoms, arguing that it only encourages more hostage-taking.

“We do not make concessions to terrorists. That includes: We do not pay ransoms,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Thursday.

Such payouts, she added, would only serve to “fund and finance exactly the groups (whose capabilities) we are trying to degrade.”

Balboni referred to the release of several European hostages by the extremist group earlier this year, likely upon payment of ransoms that were “dramatically less” than what the group sought for Foley.

The family and GlobalPost were seeking to raise money “in the range” of the amount paid for the other hostages, Balboni added, without mentioning a dollar amount.

Harf referenced the other countries’ ransom payments to the group, saying that in 2014 alone, they amounted to millions of dollars, although she too did not provide a figure.

And she stressed that the U.S. government “does not have contact with ISIL.”

Balboni said he and the family provided all information about their search for Foley and their contact with his captors to authorities at the FBI and State Department.

After initial messages and the ransom demand, he said, the line of communication with the jihadists went cold until August 13, when they sent the terrifying message telling the Foleys that their son would be killed.

The Pentagon revealed Wednesday that U.S. special forces were sent into Syria earlier this year to try to rescue American hostages but they came up empty-handed as the captives were not at the targeted location.

“This operation was a flawless operation, but the hostages were not there,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters.

AFP Photo/Aris Messinis

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For Sotloff Family, Quiet Waiting For News Of Kidnapped Journalist

For Sotloff Family, Quiet Waiting For News Of Kidnapped Journalist

By Glenn Garvin, The Miami Herald

It was a day of quiet waiting Thursday for the family of Steven Sotloff, a Pinecrest journalist abducted by Muslim jihadists in Syria who on Tuesday threatened to kill him.

“He’s still alive, so there is nothing to say,” his mother, Shirley Sotloff, told a crowd of reporters assembled outside the family home when she emerged briefly to shop for groceries.

Steven Sotloff, 31, disappeared a little over a year ago, shortly after crossing from Turkey into Syria to report on the civil war there.

His abduction by the fundamentalist rebel group Islamic State was kept almost entirely secret until Tuesday, when the organization posted a video of the decapitation of another American journalist, followed by footage of Sotloff and a threat to kill him next.

Kidnappings of reporters — usually for ransom or prisoner exchanges — have become a common tactic in the three-cornered civil war.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Islamic State demanded a ransom of 100 million euros (about $132 million) for the life of James Foley, the 40-year New Hampshire journalist whose videotaped murder was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

Whether a ransom has been asked for Sotloff is unknown. But friends said he has called his family at least once — last December — since his kidnapping.

Miami Herald staff writer Matias Ocner contributed to this story.

AFP Photo

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