WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - After months of silence from the captors of American journalist James Foley, on the night of Aug. 13, his family received a chilling message: Foley would be executed in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes on the militant group Islamic State.
The family passed the message on to the U.S. government. The FBI, which handles cases involving kidnapped American citizens, helped craft a response, pleading for mercy, said Phil Balboni, chief executive of GlobalPost, the Boston-based online news publication that employed Foley.