WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday condemned as a “barbaric murder” the slaying of British aid worker David Haines by Islamic State extremists.
Haines was abducted last year in Syria, and extremists released a video on Saturday showing his beheading.
In a statement issued Saturday night, Obama said the hearts of Americans go out to Haines’ family and the people of the United Kingdom.
“The United States stands shoulder to shoulder tonight with our close friend and ally in grief and resolve,” Obama said.
“We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world,” he said.
In his statement, Obama repeated the pledge he made Wednesday night in a nationally televised address in which he laid out a strategy to respond to the threat from the Islamic State group, which is referred to at times as ISIL. “Our objective is clear,” he told the nation earlier this week. “We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”
The U.S. began attacking the extremist group with airstrikes in Iraq last month. Since then, the extremists have beheaded two American journalists held captive in Syria, James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
As part of the effort against the Islamic State group, Secretary of State John Kerry formally announced Saturday that retired Marine Gen. John Allen was joining the State Department as a special presidential envoy to coordinate the international coalition. Allen worked with international allies as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan from 2011-2013.
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Just wondering: Mr. President, have you ever condemned the barbaric murder of unarmed journalists from a helicopter gunship that Chelsea Manning’s disclosure showed us?
Have any sanctions been levied on the perpetrators heard in the audio as was done with the individual who leaked the video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0I6S8mva-sPlease pay attention and do not give ISIL there way…It is NOT all Muslims but the terrorists bastardizing a religion just like the US Faux christians do to fear monger and support violence against others in this Nation.
Do you often weigh everything on a scale and make sure it all balances out?
Balance this out:
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
March 29, 2012 by Chris Woods
Published in: Covert Drone War, Drone strikes in Yemen
Drone strikes in Yemen
The civilian massacre the US neither confirms nor denies
For some weeks in early winter 2009 the people of al-Majala, southern Yemen, had noticed a spotter plane overhead.
The aircraft, most likely American, wasn’t seen as a threat. After all, it had been seven years since the last US military action in Yemen, when a CIA drone had killed six al Qaeda-linked militants.
But everything was about to change. At 6am on December 17, a US Navy vessel stationed in the Gulf launched at least one cruise missile towards al-Majala.
Among the dead were 22 children. The youngest, Khadje Ali Mokbel Louqye, was aged just one. A dozen women also died, five of them reportedly pregnant
The US target that day was Saleh Mohammed al-Anbouri, also known as al-Kazemi. The man was a known militant, who had allegedly been ‘bringing nationals from different countries to train them to become Al Qaeda members’, as stated in a later inquiry. He was linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a franchise of the global terrorist organisation which had launched multiple attacks against US interests in Yemen.
Al Anbouri had brought his wife and four young sons to live with his tribe in al-Majala. Also living in the hamlet was the extended al Haydara family, mostly women and children. They had no known links to AQAP.
Al Anbouri told locals that after recently being released from prison, he wanted to ‘start a new life.’ On the morning of December 17, he and a group of other men were digging a well.
But then at least one BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile hit al-Majala. An Amnesty International investigation later forensically identified fragments, concluding:
This type of missile, launched from a warship or submarine, is designed to carry 166 cluster sub-munitions (bomblets) which each explode into over 200 sharp steel fragments that can cause injuries up to 150m away. Incendiary material inside the bomblet also spreads fragments of burning zirconium designed to set fire to nearby flammable objects.
Entire families killed
Within hours of the attack, news began circulating that a large number of civilians had died in al-Majala. The New York Times reported that night: ‘some witnesses and local journalists in Abyan said a number of civilians were also killed in Thursday’s raids there.’ By the following day Al Jazeera was airing video images of shrouded corpses.
Al Jazeera footage and report of raid aftermath
Forty-one civilians died in the US attack. Fourteen members of the extended al Haydara clan were killed, along with 27 members of the al Anbouri clan. Three more people later died when they stepped on left-over cluster munitions.
As a surviving woman later told reporter Jeremy Scahill, for Al Jazeera, ‘At 6am they were sleeping and I was making bread. When the missiles exploded I lost consciousness. I didn’t know what had happened to my children, my daughter, my husband. Only I survived with this old man and my daughter.’
Among those killed that day were 22 children. The youngest, Khadje Ali Mokbel Louqye, was just one year old. A dozen women also died, five of them reportedly pregnant.
Yet these numbers mask the many individual families annihilated in the attack. Mohammed Nasser Awad Jaljala, 60, his 30-year-old wife Nousa, their son Nasser, 6, and daughters Arwa, 4, and Fatima, aged 2, were all killed.
Then there was 35-year old Ali Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, his wife Qubla (25), and their four daughters Afrah (9), Zayda (7), Hoda (5) and Sheikha (4) who all died.
The youngest killed, Khadje Ali Mokbel Louqye, was just one year old
Ahmed Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, 30, was killed alongside his 21-year old wife Qubla and 50-year old mother Mouhsena. Their daughter Fatima, aged 13, was the only survivor of the family, badly injured and needing extensive medical treatment abroad.
The Anbour clan suffered similarly catastrophic losses. Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye died with his wife, son and three daughters. His brother Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye’s seven-strong family were also wiped out.
Sheik Saleh Ben Fareed, a tribal leader, went to the area shortly after the attack and described the carnage to Al Jazeera reporter Scahill: ‘If somebody has a weak heart, I think they will collapse. You see goats and sheep all over. You see heads of those who were killed here and there. You see children. And you cannot tell if this meat belongs to animals or to human beings. Very sad, very sad.’
The deaths represent one of the highest civilian death tolls of any recent US military operation.
Yet because the US is fighting a covert war in Yemen, it is unknown whether there has been any investigation into the deaths. Instead, the US has actively sought to cover up its role in the attack.
ISIL is determined to be our and much of the rest of he world’s enemy and for some reason want a fight that they are going to lose badly.
The bad guys are forcing the good guys to unite and prove their resolve. The bad guys have proven what they are all about, bloodlust. They are a true enemy and are not a phony cover story created in order for some corporation to profit behind the scenes. Bush’s bullshit war just keeps on keepin’ on, the fool had no idea what he was starting and obviously no idea of how to end it.
This is the repercussions of neocon politics felt worldwide. Thanks Dick and Dumb Dumb.