A Second Message to America is an undated
beheading video
A beheading video is a form of propaganda or snuff video in which hostages are graphically decapitated. It is often employed by groups seeking to instill shock or terror into a population, whilst beheading has been a widely employed public execut ...
, depicting the death of
Steven Sotloff
Steven Joel Sotloff ( he, סטיבן סוטלוף; May 11, 1983 – September 2, 2014) was an American-Israeli journalist. In August 2013, he was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the L ...
, published by the
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
(ISIL, ISIS, IS) media department Al-Furqan Media Productions.
Synopsis
On September 2, 2014, the
SITE Intelligence Group
SITE Intelligence Group is an American non-governmental organization that tracks online activity of white supremacist and jihadist organizations. It is based in Bethesda, Maryland. From 2002 to 2008, SITE Intelligence Group was known as the Search ...
discovered the video of Sotloff's execution on what they called "a file-sharing site" and released it to their subscribers.
The video opens with a news clip of a press conference of an August 20 speech by
American president
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
denouncing ISIL for the beheading of journalist
James Foley followed by a title screen. The video then shows Sotloff, wearing an orange jumpsuit kneeling with his hands behind his back and a
wireless microphone
A wireless microphone, or cordless microphone, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated. Also known as a radio microphone, it has a small, battery- ...
in a desert background. To his right is a figure dressed head-to-toe in black, holding a knife in his left hand and wearing a pistol in a holster, who was later identified as
Mohammed Emwazi
Mohammed Emwazi (born Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri; ar, محمد جاسم عبد الكريم عليان الظفيري; 17 August 1988 – 12 November 2015) was a British militant of Kuwaiti origin believed to be the pers ...
, the same person that killed James Foley. Then Sotloff delivers a prepared statement:
Next the executioner says while waving the knife at the camera:
The executioner then puts his right hand on Sotloff's chin and the knife to his throat and begins a sawing motion while Sotloff flinches then falls back. The video fades to black without showing any blood. Next the camera pans left to right as it shows Sotloff's body on the ground with his bloody head on top of his headless body. Jeff Smith, Associate Director of the CU Denver National Center for Media Forensics, opines that while the body shown in the later frames of the video is real, the footage of the beheading itself is likely staged. Smith further remarks that the video was of a high production value, and was likely overseen by a director, shot with multiple cameras, and skillfully edited with modern equipment.
Media forensics experts analyzing ISIS video
denver.cbslocal.com; accessed October 24, 2014.
In the scene following Steven's execution, the same executioner is shown holding another prisoner, British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, and saying "We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone."
See also
* 2014 American intervention in Iraq
Fourteen or 14 may refer to:
* 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15
* one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014
Music
* 14th (band), a British electronic music duo
* ''14'' (David Garrett album), 2013
*''14'', an unrel ...
* 2014 ISIL beheading incidents
Beginning in 2014, a number of people from various countries were beheaded by the Islamic State; a radical Sunni Islamist group operating in Iraq and parts of Syria.
In January 2015, a copy of an ISIS penal code surfaced describing the penal ...
* Beheading in Islamism
Beheading was a standard method of execution in pre-modern Islamic law. Its use had been abandoned in most countries by the end of the 20th century. Beheading is a legal method of execution in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, and was reportedly used ...
* Foreign hostages in Iraq
Members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign hostages in Iraq beginning in April 2004. Since then, in a dramatic instance of Islamist kidnapping they have taken captive more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens ...
* James Foley (journalist)
James Wright Foley (October 18, 1973 – August 19, 2014) was an American journalist and video reporter. While working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria. H ...
* Steven Sotloff
Steven Joel Sotloff ( he, סטיבן סוטלוף; May 11, 1983 – September 2, 2014) was an American-Israeli journalist. In August 2013, he was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the L ...
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Message to America
Propaganda films
Beheading videos
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant mass media