ISIL demanded $100 million ransom for Foley: Report
ISIL originally demanded a huge ransom for James Foley’s release but the US refused to pay.
The ISIL terrorist group originally pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom before decapitating American journalist James Foley in a gruesome video posted online.
The militants had demanded a ransom of $100 million but the US refused to pay, according to The New York Times.
A grisly video uploaded on YouTube Tuesday and later confirmed as "authentic" by the White House shows an ISIL militant executing Foley in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iraq.
The video, dubbed “Message to America,” came almost a month after US President Barack Obama authorized the use of force against ISIL in northern Iraq.
It is not clear when the terrorist group made its ransom demand for Foley’s release. The journalist was on assignment for AFP and the Boston-based media company Global Post when he disappeared in Syria on November 22, 2012.
The White House revealed on Wednesday that a US Special Operations team tried and failed to rescue Foley and other American hostages.
ISIL has threatened to kill a second American hostage, Steven J. Sotloff, a freelance journalist for Time magazine, if its demands are not met.
“The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” the ISIL militant is seen in the video after beheading Foley, as he is holding Sotloff with his hands cuffed behind his back in the same landscape.
Several European countries have funneled large sums of money to ISIL to bring captured citizens home safely.
Calling ISIL a "cancer," Obama said Wednesday that the United States "will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and civility."
HRJ/HRJ
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