US failed in an attempt to rescue hostages held by ISIS. CNN

James Foley. Yahoo/AFP

The United States attempted to rescue hostages held in Syria by the terror group ISIS this summer. -CNN. The mission failed because the hostages were not where they were suspected to be. It is unknown is journalist James Foley was among those to be rescued. More detail is coming out about his case as well. The family was in contact with ISIS and attempted to secure his release. Last week ISIS informed the family that Foley was to be executed. 

My Comment:

Pity that this rescue mission didn't succeed. As for ISIS, I don't believe they were being needlessly sadistic in contacting the family. They certainly were at the end, but remember, kidnapping is a major source of funding for ISIS. When the airstrikes happened, James Foley stopped being a potential source of money and became a political statement. 

Also, I am surprised at how much media attention this is getting. I'm not saying that this isn't a tragedy, just that there has been a ton of tragedy in the Iraq and Syrian wars. Foley is far from the first person to be executed or beheaded by ISIS, he is just the first western person to die. It's like how nobody cared about the mass genocide of Christians by ISIS, but when they started to do it to a more mysterious religious group, the Yazidi, all of a sudden there was media firestorm and airstrikes. I'm sure part of the coverage is due to the fact the media considers Foley to be one of there own. Of course, I'm not saying that the story shouldn't be covered or that the coverage is a bad thing, I just wish the media cared when it was non-westerners being decapitated.