Steven Sotloff

Steven Sotloff
Born Steven Joel Sotloff
May 11, 1983[1]
Miami, Florida, U.S.[1]
Disappeared August 4, 2013[2]
Aleppo, Syria[2]
Died c. September 2, 2014 (aged 31)
Syrian desert
Cause of death
 Decapitation
Nationality American, Israeli[3]
Ethnicity Jewish
Citizenship Israeli and American
Alma mater Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
Occupation Journalist
Employer Time[4]
Religion Judaism[3]

Steven Joel Sotloff (May 11, 1983 – c. 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 Levant (ISIL).

On September 2, 2014, ISIL released a beheading video, showing one of its members beheading Sotloff.[5][6] Following Sotloff's beheading, U.S. President Barack Obama stated that the United States will take action to "degrade and destroy" ISIS.[7]

Early life and education

Steven Joel Sotloff held both Israeli and American citizenship, although his Jewish background and Israeli citizenship were not made public during his work in Muslim countries or during his captivity for fear that the information might endanger his release.[3] He was the son of Arthur and Shirley Sotloff of Pinecrest, Florida,[8][9][10] and a grandson of Holocaust survivors.[11] He grew up in Pinecrest, Florida,[12] graduated from Kimball Union Academy, a private boarding school in Meriden, New Hampshire,[13] and later attended (but did not graduate from) the University of Central Florida with a major in journalism from 2002 to 2004.[14][15] He studied at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel from 2005 to 2008.[16][17] Sotloff previously worked for Temple Beth Am Day School in Florida.[18]

Career

According to Al-Jazeera, Sotloff was in Qatar and wrote a letter of application dated May 29, 2010, to the Arabic for Non Native Speakers (ANNS) faculty at Qatar University.[19] He later traveled around the region with a Yemeni mobile number. His career began during the Arab Spring.[20] Sotloff had worked for the news magazine Time, as well as Christian Science Monitor,[21] The National Interest, Media Line,[4] World Affairs,[22] and Foreign Policy, and has appeared on CNN and Fox News.[8] His work took him to Syria a number of times, as well as Egypt, Turkey, Libya, and Bahrain.[23]

In 2012 he reported in Time magazine about Al-Qaeda fighters and commanders from Libya flocking to Syria and shipping Libyan captured arms and ammunition on its way to join the fight to topple Bashar al-Assad's regime.[24][25] He was also one of a team of reporters that returned to the compound in Benghazi where the US ambassador and three other Americans had been killed on the night of 9/11 that year. He interviewed Libyan security guards who were at the site during the attack.[24][26][27] He named a Libyan militia operative, Ahmad Abu Khattallah, as the head of the group (Ansar al-Sharia) that attacked the US compound and as the man who himself masterminded and lead the attack.[28] He later reported on a tit for tat retaliation pattern following the US attacks on those that committed the attack on the ambassador's compound in Benghazi. A week before entering Libya, he had written from Turkey about the Alawites there and their support for Assad, while another article written on the same day told about Alawites inside Syria who were against Assad.[29]

Janine Di Giovanni, the Middle East editor of Newsweek, told CNN, "He was concerned that he had been on some kind of a list, and this had been around the time that ISIS had been showing up and taking over checkpoints that had been manned before by the rebels. And he thought he had angered some of the rebels, he didn’t know which ones, by taking footage of a hospital in Aleppo that had been bombed, and he had been very concerned about this."[20]

After his death, Felice Friedson, Sotloff's editor at The Media Line, called him "one of the most courageous, talented and insightful journalists that I have met".[30]

Kidnapping and beheading

Sotloff was kidnapped along with his fixer and the fixer's brother and cousins on August 4, 2013, near Aleppo, after crossing the Syrian border from Turkey. The fixer and his family members were released 15 days later.[31][32] He was held in Ar-Raqqah.[4] Sotloff fasted secretly during the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur in September 2013 during his captivity, by feigning illness.[33]

His family kept the news secret, fearing harm to him if they went public. His family and government agencies were working privately to gain his release for the past year.[34]

Sotloff, his family, friends and previous employers such as The Jerusalem Post went to great lengths to keep his Jewish faith and Israeli citizenship a secret from his ISIL captors after Sotloff was shown in the beheading video of James Foley.[35][36] It is unknown if those attempts had any effect, since the information was online for the past duration of his captivity.[36] A journalist's identity is strongly put at risk when on ISIS territory. Following Sotloff's death in October, ISIS published 11 rules that pertain to journalists "who wish to continue working in the governorate." The first rule says all journalists must swear their allegiance as subjects of the Islamic State.[37]

On August 19, 2014, the terrorist organization The Islamic State (IS) released a video titled "A Message to America", showing the beheading of fellow journalist James Foley.[38] At the end of the video, IS threatened President of the United States Barack Obama, telling him that "his next move" will decide the fate of Sotloff.[39]

Only days after this threat was released, the U.S. stepped up airstrikes against IS, firing 14 missiles at various IS Humvees near the Mosul Dam.[40]

Shortly after the release of the video, a petition was started on WhiteHouse.gov, calling for President Obama to save Sotloff's life.[41] The petition attracted thousands of signatures within days.[42] On August 27, 2014, Sotloff's mother released a short video asking Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to release her son.[9]

On September 2, 2014, the SITE Intelligence Group[43][44] discovered the video of Sotloff's execution on what they called "a file-sharing site" and released it to their subscribers.[45] The video, entitled "A Second Message to America", was discovered purportedly ahead of its intended release by Al-Furqan Media Productions.[46] The video opens with a clip of an August 20 speech by US president Barack Obama[lower-alpha 1] denouncing ISIL for the beheading of journalist James Foley followed by a title screen. The video then shows Sotloff, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a wireless microphone, being beheaded by a masked man, apparently Jihadi John, the same person who killed James Foley.[48][49] Sotloff, kneeling and handcuffed, delivers a prepared statement.[lower-alpha 2] In the video, the executioner says, "I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence on continuing your bombings and on Mosul Dam, despite our serious warnings. So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."[50] Jeff Smith, Associate Director of the CU Denver National Center for Media Forensics said “What’s most interesting is that the actual beheading that takes place in the videos, both of them are staged.”[51]

The next scene shows the same executioner holding the orange jumpsuit of another prisoner, British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, 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."[50][52]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Barack Obama: "The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what's necessary to see that justice is done and we act against ISIL, standing alongside others."[47]
  2. ↑ Sotloff: "I am Steven Joel Sotloff. I'm sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing before you. And now this time for my message: Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for the preservation of American lives and interests, so why is it that I am paying the price of your interference with my life? Am I not an American citizen? You've spent billions of U.S. tax payers' dollars and we've lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so where is the people's interest in reigniting this war? From what little I know about foreign policy, I remember a time you could not win an election without promising to bring our troops back home from Iraq and Afghanistan and to close down Guantanamo. Here you are now, Obama, nearing the end of your term, and having achieving none of the above, and deceivingly marching us the American people in the blazing fire."[50]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cavan Sieczkowski (September 2, 2014). "For Steven Sotloff, Covering The Middle East Was More Than A Job". Huffington Post. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Paul Farrell (August 19, 2014). "Steven Sotloff: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". heavy.com. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Paul Hirschson (September 3, 2014). "Steven Sotloff, Journalist Beheaded by ISIS, Was Also Israeli Citizen". NBC News. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Jack Phillips (August 19, 2014). "Steven Sotloff: Missing TIME Journalist Steven Joel Sotloff Threatened by ISIS in Beheading Video, Report Says (Photos, Video)". The Epoch Times. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  5. ↑ Raf Sanchez (September 2, 2014). "Steven Sotloff 'beheaded by Islamic State' – latest". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  6. ↑ "After James Foley, ISIS beheads another US journalist Steven Sotloff". The Times of India. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Obama says beheading videos won't intimidate US". The Times of India. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 4, 2014.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Rosa Prince (August 20, 2014). "Steven Sotloff: the American journalist whose life fanatics say is in Obama's hands". The Telegraph. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Rukmini Callimachi (August 27, 2014). "American Hostage’s Mother Issues Appeal to ISIS Leader: Plea to Islamic State for Release of Steven Sotloff". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2014.
  10. ↑ Neighborhood Reacts To Apparent Murder Of Local Journalist Steven Sotloff CBS September 2, 2014 11:59 PM
  11. ↑ "Steven Sotloff, killed by Islamic State, had deep roots in Israel". Times of Israel. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  12. ↑ Milberg, Glenna (September 2, 2014). "Video purports to show beheading of Pinecrest journalist Steven Sotloff". WPLG – Miami. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  13. ↑ Campo-Flores, Arian (August 21, 2014). "Video Reveals Threat to Another American Reporter". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
  14. ↑ Islamists threaten to behead journalist Steven Sotloff, former UCF student OrlandoSentinel August 19, 2014, By David Harris, Orlando Sentinel
  15. ↑ David Harris (August 20, 2014). "UCF VP: Steven Sotloff in 'unspeakably terrible circumstance'". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  16. ↑ Beheaded journalist Sotloff had kept his Jewish roots hidden Wednesday, September 3, 2014 at 8:58 PM
  17. ↑ "Beheaded journalist Steven Sotloff held Israeli citizenship". JTA. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Islamic State claims murder of Jewish-American journalist in latest beheading video". The Jerusalem Post - JPost.com.
  19. ↑ Sotloff on his attraction to the Arab world Al Jazeera, September 3, 2014
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Islamic State video purports to show beheading of American-Jewish journalist Steven Sotloff". Haaretz. Reuters. September 2, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  21. ↑ Dustin Volz (September 2, 2014). "ISIS Can't Silence Steven Sotloff. Here Are His Stories". National Journal. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  22. ↑ Editors. "Steven Sotloff". World Affairs.
  23. ↑ Dan Lamothe (August 20, 2014). "Steven Sotloff, journalist held captive by the Islamic State, went missing in Syria". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Steven Sotloff’s Reporting for TIME (Time magazine website, September 3, 2014
  25. ↑ Libya's flawed attempt to soak up a flood of weaponry September 30, 2012 (Time website)
  26. ↑ The other 9/11: Libyan guards recount what happened in Benghazi (Time magazine website)
  27. ↑ Steven Sotloff – noted heartfelt war reporting (ABC News website) and image showing Sotloff with the Fox News team during the interview.
  28. ↑ The Benghazi attack's person of continuing interest November 23, 2012 (Time website)
  29. ↑ Time Magazines full list of Sotloff's articles, time.com; accessed October 24, 2014.
  30. ↑ Omer Benjakob (September 3, 2014). "'Steven Sotloff was courageous journalist, warned of jihadi threat'". Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  31. ↑ Yaakov, Yifa (September 17, 2014). "Sotloff’s fixer recounts abduction by Islamic State". Times Times of Israel. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
  32. ↑ Martinez, Michael; Tuysuz, Gul; Penhaul, Karl (September 16, 2014). "Fixer recounts how ISIS abducted him and Steven Sotloff". CNN. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
  33. ↑ Milne, Andy; Zennie, Michael (September 2, 2014). "Heroic Steven Sotloff feigned illness so he could still fast for Yom Kippur while he hid his Jewish faith and Israeli citizenship from ISIS captors". Daily Mail. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
  34. ↑ Chelsea J. Carter (September 2, 2014). "ISIS video shows beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff". CNN. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  35. ↑ Gordon Rayner (August 4, 2014). "Steven Sotloff hid Jewish faith and Israeli citizenship from Isil kidnappers". The Telegraph. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Daniel Estrin (September 9, 2014). "Steven Sotloff: The race to conceal his Jewish identity from IS". BBC. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  37. ↑ "Syria News – Syria Deeply, Covering the Crisis". syriadeeply.org.
  38. ↑ "ISIS claims to have beheaded U.S. journalist". CBS News. August 19, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  39. ↑ Lucas, Ryan; Jakes, Lara. "ISIS threatens to kill 2nd American.". Huffington Post. Associated Press. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  40. ↑ Carter, Chelsea J.; Smith-Spark, Laura (August 20, 2014). "U.S defies ISIS threats.". CNN. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  41. ↑ Gladstone, Rick; Sinha, Shreeya (August 22, 2014). "Steven Sotloff, Journalist Held by ISIS, Was Undeterred by Risks of Job". New York Times. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  42. ↑ "Second US journalist held by ISIS at risk of being executed". Miami News.Net. August 23, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  43. ↑ Emma Margolin and David Taintor (September 2, 2014). "ISIS video appears to show execution of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff". MSNBC.
  44. ↑ Rick Gladstone (September 2, 2014). "Video Claims to Show Beheading of U.S. Reporter Steven Sotloff by ISIS". The New York Times.
  45. ↑ Sanchez, Raf (September 2, 2014). "Jihadists appear caught offguard by release of Steven Sotloff video". The Telegraph. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  46. ↑ "Inside the private intel group that scooped and ‘embarrassed’ ISIS" (video). MSNBC. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  47. ↑ Zezima, Katie (August 20, 2014). "Obama denounces killing of journalist James Foley". Washington Post. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  48. ↑ Paul Lewis (September 2, 2014). "Isis video purports to show execution of US journalist Steven Sotloff". The Guardian. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  49. ↑ Bert Brussen and Bas Paternotte (September 2, 2014). "Video: IS onthoofdt Amerikaanse journalist Steven Sotloff". The Post Online (in Dutch). Includes the video as released by SITE.
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 50.2 "IS jihadi group beheads US journalist Steven Sotloff". CNN. September 2, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  51. ↑ Media forensics experts analyzing ISIS video, denver.cbslocal.com; accessed October 24, 2014.
  52. ↑ "A Second Message to America". Al-Furqan Media Productions.

External links