American journalist Steven Sotloff has been executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group claims in a purported video released Tuesday.
Sotloff, who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, had last been seen near Turkey-Syria border in August 2013, when he vanished without a trace.
He then appeared a video released online last month by the Islamic State group that showed the beheading of fellow American journalist James Foley.
Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against the backdrop of an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video by the masked man who killed Foley.
The executioner called out U.S. President Barack Obama personally that unless the U.S. stopped air strikes on ISIS, Sotloff and more Americans would die.
Obama condemned the killing of Foley and the people who orchestrated it, while admitting his administration lacks a clear strategy for dealing with ISIS.
In the video distributed Tuesday, titled "A Second Message to America," Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before being killed by an Islamic State fighter.
Like Foley before him, Sotloff was beheaded on video in gruesome fashion.
The chilling footage shows Sotloff making what appears to be a pre-written speech, as just Foley had read before he was killed a few weeks ago.
Addressing President Barack Obama, Sotloff says: "Your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for the preservation of American lives and interests."
"Why is it that I am having to pay the price of your interference with my life?"
The masked ISIS fighter then threatens Obama and the U.S. again to stop the bombings or continue to pay with more American lives by his knife.
ISIS allegedly demanded a huge ransom in exchange for Foley's life; it's unclear if similar overtures were made and rejected in Steven Sotloff's case.
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a British national who also goes by the name of J. Linny, is believed to be the man behind the mask during the Foley video.
It is unknown who killed Sotloff, who some observers believe was a marked man by ISIS, whose members target journalists for this graphic and political purpose.
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