Journalist Steven Joel Sotloff is reported to be the second American captive shown in a gruesome video released by the Islamic State, or ISIS, on Tuesday that showed the beheading of James Wright Foley.
According to The Orlando Sentinel, Sotloff graduated from the University of Central Florida as a journalism major in 2004 and worked for Time magazine and other news organizations, including World Affairs, National Interest and the Christian Science Monitor. He was kidnapped near the city of Aleppo while covering the Syrian conflict in August 2013.
Sotloff appears at the end of the roughly 5-minute video, shortly after a knife-wielding militant beheads fellow American journalist Foley who went missing while covering the Syrian conflict in November 2012.
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In the video, the militant holds a kneeling Sotloff by the collar of his orange jumpsuit — which many media commentators have said is reminiscent of those worn by the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay.
"The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision," the captor utters shortly before the video comes to an end. Earlier in the video, the militant stated that Foley's death was payback for U.S. actions against the Islamic State in northern Iraq. He said Sotloff would be killed if the U.S. continues its attacks.
Shortly after the video was released, the White House released a statement by National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.
"We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen James Foley by ISIL," it began. "The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity. If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends. We will provide more information when it is available."
ABC News foreign editor Jon Williams reported on Twitter that Sotloff's family was originally advised to avoid publicizing his disappearance.
According to the Daily Mail, however, a family friend wrote about Sotloff's disappearance in December, saying he went missing August 4, 2013.
"Please pray for Steven Sotloff — MISSING in Syria since August 4, 2013," Lilleen-Diane Dee Warren Rohe wrote on Facebook, the
New York Daily News reported.
Sotloff himself was an active Twitter user, and his last tweet, sent out Aug. 3, showed off his dedication to his hometown basketball team, the Miami Heat.
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