[ot-caption title=”On Friday, Pine Crest lowered their flags to half-mast in honor of slain journalist Steven Sotloff. (via Mrs. Ortega)” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aris-article.jpg”]

In recent months, the terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, made considerable progress in occupying parts of Syria and Iraq. ISIS uses of terror, including beheadings and crucifixions, has evoked a powerful, emotional response from the western world. ISIS claims full responsibility for the recent beheadings of two Americans reporters the posting of both videos of their murders on the Internet. The most recent video, depicts American reporter and former University of Central Florida student Steven Sotloff being beheaded.

The video opens with Sotloff reading a prompt written by ISIS. In this prompt, he talks about the U.S.’s failed attempts at achieving peace in the Middle East over the past decade. The executioner in the video states, “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 [words unclear] on Mosul Dam, despite our serious warnings. You, Obama have but to gain from your actions but another American citizen. So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people,” according to a typed out transcript of the video.

The video then cuts to a close-up of Sotloff’s severed head laying on top of his own chest. ISIS ends the video with the executioner standing next to British journalist, David Haines. The executioner threatens, “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.”

Just two weeks prior, ISIS posted a similar video of the beheading of American reporter James Foley. Upon dissecting this second video, analysts believe that the executioner in this video is the same man that executed James Foley. Just as Sotloff was shown in the last few seconds of Foley’s video, one can speculate that David Haines, the British reporter shown at the end of this video, has only a matter of weeks before he becomes the next victim in ISIS’s crimes against humanity.

In a recent press conference, President Obama addresses the American people. “Whatever these murderers think they’ll achieve by killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed,” Obama said, stating that the United States will not rest until the killers have been brought to justice. “We will not be intimidated, we will not forget, and our reach is long, and justice will be served.”

The only thing that we, the people of the world, are left with to ponder, is how far will ISIS take things in order to prove their point? Will it escalate to the point of a full scale World War? How much longer are we prepared to sit in silence while pretending these horrific events are not occurring just across the ocean?

Sources: CNN News, Fox News, Daily Mail, Reddit /r/worldnews