BOSTON, Mass. — American journalist James Foley was murdered by Islamic State militants, who on Aug. 19 publicized the killing in a graphic video uploaded to YouTube. 
 
 On Tuesday, Aug. 12, Foley’s parents received an email from their son’s captors stating that Foley would be “executed.” The Foley family, GlobalPost, government authorities and private security consultants had been investigating Foley’s whereabouts and attempting to secure his release since he was kidnapped on Thanksgiving Day nearly two years ago. 
 
 The terrorist group declared Foley's death would be in retaliation for recent US airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq. 
 
 The Islamic State, which is now holding three American hostages in Syria, has since threatened to kill one of them, freelance reporter Steven Sotloff, if the US continues its bombing campaign in Iraq. 
 
 The Foley family has agreed to release the email from Foley’s captors. GlobalPost has chosen to publish it in full in the interest of transparency and to fully tell Jim's story. We believe the text offers insight into the motivations and tactics of the Islamic State. 
 
 In addition to the extreme views it espouses, the email contains factual inaccuracies. For example, the Foley family was not “given many chances to negotiate” for Jim’s release. After more than a year without contact, the Foleys received their first message from Jim’s captors on Nov. 26, 2013, asking for money, fast. After the militants had proved to the Foleys and investigators that they were in fact holding Jim, they made their sole demand for a ransom of 100 million euros (about $132 million) or the release of unspecified prisoners held by the United States. 
 
 The next time the Foley family heard from the captors was on Aug. 12, 2014. They received this email: 
 
 HOW LONG WILL THE SHEEP FOLLOW THE BLIND SHEPPARD? 
 
 A message to the American government and their sheep like citizens: 
 
 We have left you alone since your disgraceful defeat in Iraq. We did not interfere in your country or attack your citizens while they were safe in their homes despite our capability to do so! 
 
 As for the scum of your society who are held prisoner by us, THEY DARED TO ENTER THE LION’S DEN AND WHERE EATEN! 
 
 You were given many chances to negotiate the release of your people via cash transactions as other governments have accepted, 
 
 We have also offered prisoner exchanges to free the Muslims currently in your detention like our sister Dr Afia Sidiqqi, however you proved very quickly to us that this is NOT what you are interested in. 
 
 You have no motivation to deal with the Muslims except with the language of force, a language you were given in “Arabic translation” when you attempted to occupy the land of Iraq! 
 
 Now you return to bomb the Muslims of Iraq once again, this time resorting to Arial attacks and “proxy armies”, all the while cowardly shying away from a face-to-face confrontation! 
 
 Today our swords are unsheathed towards you, GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS ALIKE! AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTILL WE QUENCH OUR THIRST FOR YOUR BLOOD. 
 
 You do not spare our weak, elderly, women or children so we will NOT spare yours! 
 
 You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings! 
 
 The first of which being the blood of the American citizen, James Foley! 
 
 He will be executed as a DIRECT result of your transgressions towards us! ||||| 
 
 “Jihadi John” (Rex Features via AP Images) 
 
 The horrifying video of James Foley’s execution is dominated by three colors. The orange of Foley’s tunic. The taupe of the desert. And the black of an Islamic State militant’s uniform — a uniform worn by a man speaking with what experts think is a British accent. In the span of two days, the masked man has become perhaps the world’s most notorious terrorist. 
 
 But despite the infamy, he remains enigmatic. Where did he come from? How old is he? What drove him to such extremism? 
 
 Answers to those questions are unclear. But the militant now has an identity. As per the British press, the masked man is known as “Jihadi John.” The nickname speaks to claims slowly trickling out about the killer. 
 
 John’s accent, which experts contend signifies London origins, is the source of his alias, the BBC reported in a radio broadcast on Thursday. John is believed to lead a small cadre of three British militants who guard the Islamic State’s foreign hostages. Because of their captors’ accents, hostages called them “John, Paul and Ringo after the Beatles,” the BBC’s Frank Gardner reported on Thursday. 
 
 It’s not surprising that Foley’s executioner was a foreigner — specifically, a Briton. Militants from Britain account for a larger proportion of the Islamic State’s forces than nearly every other Western country. Estimates place their number anywhere from 800 to 1,500. Today, more British Muslims may fight for the Islamic State than for Britain’s own military, according to USA Today and the Times of London, underscoring the militants’ presence in the United Kingdom. Recruiters recently passed out Islamic State propaganda in London advocating enlistment, and supporters flew a black jihadist flag there earlier this month. 
 
 Such fighters are more radicalized than other members of the Islamic State. “Foreign fighters are often used for the most brutal acts because they are the most ideologically motivated,” Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, told The Washington Post’s Griff Witte. “The locals may say, ‘That’s not the kind of thing we do here.’ But the outsiders don’t know that.” 
 
 Of particular brutality was James Foley’s executioner. John is an “intelligent, educated and a devout believer in radical Islamic teachings,” according to the Guardian, which interviewed a hostage who was also held captive by him. He is reported to have led negotiations with at least eight Western families in the past year for the release of their loved ones, and may have been involved last spring when Islamic State militants released two Spanish journalists. 
 
 But the Islamic State’s correspondence with Foley’s family was different. The group demanded the astronomical sum of $132 million for his release, a “number so absurdly high that private third parties or insurance groups that cover kidnappings would have struggled to pay it,” wrote The Post’s Adam Taylor. It was so high, in fact, that most experts agree the Islamic State never expected to get paid. Foley, it seemed, would be reserved for something else. 
 
 John and the rest of the guards disliked Foley. They seized his laptop, and their subsequent discovery that Foley’s brother served in the U.S. Air Force stirred acts of recrimination, fellow hostage Didier Francois told Europe 1 Radio. “Being an American, he was probably more targeted by the kidnappers,” another captured French journalist told the BBC. “Well, he would be beaten a bit more probably, he was some kind of scapegoat. And the kidnappers knew that his brother was in the U.S. Air Force. He became the whipping-boy of the jailers.” 
 
 One particularly brutal scene came right before Francois’s release in April of this year. The jihadists began to perform mock executions on Foley. “One of the last times I saw him before leaving, the group — which has macabre taste — had forced him to pose as if he was being crucified against a wall,” François said, according to the Wall Street Journal.. 
 
 Finally, on Aug. 12, days before Foley’s execution, his captors sent a final e-mail to Foley’s family. The publication Foley wrote for, GlobalPost, published the letter in full with the permission of Folely’s family. 
 
 “HOW LONG WILL THE SHEEP FOLLOW THE BLIND SHEPPARD?” it read. “…As for the scum of your society who are held by us, THEY DARED TO ENTER THE LION’S DEN AND WHERE EATEN! … Today our swords are unsheathed towards you, GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS ALIKE! AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTILL WE QUENCH OUR THIRST FOR YOUR BLOOD. … You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings! The first of which being the blood of the American citizen, James Foley! He will be executed as a DIRECT result of your transgressions toward us!” ||||| Up to 20 Western hostages are being held by the jihadi group that beheaded James Foley. 
 
 As well as the journalist Steven Sotloff, who was threatened with beheading by the same man who murdered Foley, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) is holding a number of aid workers, thought to include Vanessa Marzullo, 21, and Greta Ramelli, 20, both Italian. 
 
 Three aid workers employed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are also being held hostage after they were abducted last October. 
 
 As fears grew that Isil could make good on its threat to murder more hostages, families of those being held defended their loved ones’ decisions to travel to Syria. 
 
 Ms Ramelli’s mother, Antonella, said her daughter had been determined from an early age to look after others, starting by helping out in a retirement home when she was 12. 
 
 Responding to suggestions that she should not have allowed her daughter to travel to Syria, Mrs Ramelli said: “When you hear your daughter say 'Mamma, in that country they are killing children, I must go and help,’ what can you say?” 
 
 “Can you go back on all the teaching and the values you have tried to instill for a lifetime?” she told Prealpina, an Italian newspaper. “Can you change your daughter, who has these values and has strong ideals about solidarity and human empathy?” 
 
 The two women went missing near Aleppo in Syria at the beginning of this month. On Thursday the Italian foreign office declined to comment on whether they were now in the hands of Isil. 
 
 The Red Cross has not released details of the nationality, gender or age of their aid workers currently being held hostage. The three were among a group of seven who were kidnapped, four of whom were released shortly afterwards. 
 
 A spokesman for the charity said: “Intensive efforts are ongoing behind the scenes to secure the release of the remaining three colleagues, through the ICRC’s broad network on the ground. 
 
 "We cannot provide details about this for the sake of the ongoing safety of our colleagues still abducted.” 
 
 Former hostages who had been held with Foley described how he had been singled out for beatings because he was an American. 
 
 Didier Francois, a 53-year-old reporter with the French radio station Europe 1, said Mr Foley was tortured after his captors found pictures on his computer of his brother, who works for the US Air Force. 
 
 Foley was subjected to mock executions, including one in which he was “crucified against a wall”. 
 
 Paying tribute to the American, Mr Francois said: “He was an extraordinary guy — a companion in imprisonment who was very agreeable, very solid.” 
 
 Mr Francois spent eight months held hostage in Syria with Foley, mostly in underground cells with no natural light. 
 
 For two-and-a-half months, Mr Francois was chained to fellow French hostages Nicolas Henin, Edouard Elias, and Pierre Torres. Mr Francois said he had never spoken publicly about Mr Foley or Mr Sotloff before because of threats of reprisals. 
 
 Mr Henin also paid tribute to Mr Foley, saying: “James was a very good friend and a great support. He was always there when you were feeling not so well with some kind words. He managed to make seven months of captivity easier.” 
 
 Mr Henin, however, was sceptical about reports that a group of British jihadists nicknamed “The Beatles” were the prime culprits. “If investigators were to go in that direction, they would be misleading themselves,” he said. 
 
 Jeroen Oerlemans, a Dutch journalist who was held hostage in Syria with a British colleague, John Cantlie, for nine days last year before the two men were freed, said Foley had worked tirelessly trying to secure their release. 
 
 He said: “The colleague with whom I was abducted was good friends with James. When we missed our appointment with him, somewhere in Syria, alarm bells immediately went off for Foley. He pulled back across the border to Turkey, and put all his journalistic contacts gathering information on us.” 
 
 When the two men were freed by opposition forces, he said: “James was the first to hug me. I did not know him, but because he had been so closely involved with our liberation he knew me well.” 
 
 Mr Oerlemans decided Syria was too dangerous to return to, saying: “You must know very well who you go into business with, your contacts must be one hundred per cent reliable. And even then, James was hugely experienced and had those contacts. Yet it happened to him.” ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine 
 
 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) 
 
 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| Moved by the grisly images of James Foley’s murder, Pope Francis expressed his condolences to the slain journalist’s parents in a heartfelt phone call. 
 
 John and Diane Foley received the call from the pontiff at about 3 p.m. Thursday, a family friend said. 
 
 “He was very compassionate, very loving,” said the friend, Father Marc Montminy, of St. Michael's Church in Exeter, N.H. 
 
 Montminy added that Pope Francis spoke to the Foleys through a translator for about 20 minutes, offering comfort to the staunchly Catholic couple. 
 
 Father Marc Montminy of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Exeter N.H. said the pope was compassionate and loving in his conversation with John and Diane Foley. (Chitose Suzuki/New York Daily News) 
 
 The call from the leader of the world’s Catholics came a day after Foley’s anguished parents paid tribute to their son in a news conference outside their home in Rochester, N.H. 
 
 “James felt compelled to bear witness to people in conflict,” Diane Foley said. 
 
 “He died for that compassion and love,” she added. “We want him to be remembered as a compassionate individual.” 
 
 Foley, 40, was beheaded by a British-accented member of the Islamic State, or ISIS, nearly two years after his Nov. 22, 2012, capture by terrorists in Syria. 
 
 The gruesome slaying, broadcast in an online video, has shocked the world. 
 
 “We believe he was a martyr — a martyr for freedom,” Foley’s father said Wednesday. “I’m sure he didn’t shrink from the situation.” 
 
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– James Foley's Catholic parents received a call from Pope Francis himself yesterday to console them on the gruesome death of their son. The pontiff was "very compassionate, very loving," and spoke to the New Hampshire couple through a translator for around 20 minutes, a family friend tells the New York Daily News. Meanwhile, Foley's former employer, GlobalPost, has released the full text of the last email sent to Foley's parents by his captors, with the family's permission. "You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings!" the Aug. 12 message declares, addressing both his parents and the US government. "Now you return to bomb the Muslims of Iraq once again, this time resorting to Arial (sic) attacks and 'proxy armies,' all the while cowardly shying away from a face-to-face confrontation!" It alleges that the US passed up chances to pay a ransom or swap prisoners, and ends by saying that Foley will be executed "as a DIRECT result of your transgressions towards us!" Read it in full here. In other developments: Other foreigners held alongside Foley says ISIS militants, including British-accented executioner "John the Jihadi," treated the captured journalist more harshly than other captives, the Washington Post reports. "He was some kind of scapegoat," a captured French journalist who's since been released tells the BBC. "And the kidnappers knew that his brother was in the US Air Force. He became the whipping-boy of the jailers." He says militants performed mock executions on Foley, and he witnessed them force him to "pose as if he was being crucified against a wall." The militants have threatened to execute captive US journalist Steven Sotloff next, but he is just one of up to 20 Westerners believed to be ISIS captives, reports the Telegraph. They are believed to include Vanessa Marzullo, 21, and Greta Ramelli, 20, two Italian aid workers who vanished in Syria earlier this month, as well as three Red Cross workers seized last fall. Senior Pentagon officials describe ISIS as a group with an "apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision which will eventually have to be defeated"—but they warn that fighting the group effectively will have to involve strikes on Syria. Senior British officials say the country's military is likely to end up joining any American military action against the group, the Guardian reports.