Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, two of the Islamic State “Beatles” who starred in many of the terrorist group’s brutal execution videos, were flown to the United States from Iraq on Wednesday and charged in federal court for the murders of James Foley and other American hostages.
U.S. Attorney-General William Barr has written to Home Secretary Priti Patel promising not to seek the death penalty against the so-called “Beatles” terrorists after British judges ruled the UK government could not provide the Americans with evidence against them if a conviction might result in their execution.
President Donald Trump celebrated the killing of Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by U.S. forces on Sunday. Still, many high profile Americans died under al-Baghdadi’s reign before U.S. forces were able to kill him.
Some parents who lost their children to fatal torture tactics at the hands the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) are demanding justice for their loved ones, urging the Syrian Kurdish fighters who apprehended the two “hateful” terrorists behind the death of their sons and daughters to hand them over to the American justice system.
The family of murdered American journalist Steven Sotloff has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, alleging that Syria “provided financial, material, and military support to the Islamic State.”
As with previous issues, the latest release of the Islamic State’s propaganda magazine Dabiq features a piece ostensibly written by hostage John Cantlie, a British photographer kidnapped in 2012 alongside subsequently murdered American journalist James Foley.
The English-speaking masked terrorist who has appeared in many ISIS murder videos, known as “Jihadi John” but long ago identified as 27-year-old British expatriate Mohammed Emwazi, has been targeted by a drone strike near the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa, Syria.
Later this afternoon, Obama is expected to meet with some of the families of the slain hostages and announce his new policy that would allow families to privately pay ransoms to terrorists to recover their loved ones. According to Foreign Policy, only 24 of the 82 families that the administration contacted chose to participate in the hostage review.
“President Obama met today with the family of Steven Sotloff — one of the American journalists brutally beheaded by ISIS last year,” ABC News reported Thursday. “The White House announced that Obama met with Art and Shirley Sotloff during his trip to Miami. The Sotloffs live in Florida, so the White House says it was ‘an appropriate occasion for the president to visit with them.'”
President Obama wasted nearly a month before launching a rescue mission after British intelligence provided his administration the possible location of American hostages held by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), reports The Daily Beast.
