Journalist James Foley, a 1996 Marquette graduate, speaks about his experiences as a captive in Libya during a speaking engagement at Marquette University in December 2011. Credit: Rick Wood

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The Islamic State on Tuesday posted a video that appeared to show the beheading of American journalist James Foley, a 1996 Marquette University graduate who was kidnapped in November 2012 while covering the Syrian civil war.

The gruesome video called on President Barack Obama to halt attacks on Islamic fighters in northern Iraq and threatened a second execution of a U.S. captive. It was posted on YouTube — which quickly deleted it — and then disseminated on social media.

The U.S. National Security Council issued a statement saying intelligence officers were studying the video.

"We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen James Foley by ISIL," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. (The Islamic State, an al-Qaida spinoff, is also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.) "The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity. If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist, and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends."

One U.S. official said the video appeared to be authentic, and two other U.S. officials said the victim was Foley. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the killing by name.

One of the officials said Obama was expected to make a statement about the killing on Wednesday.

Tuesday evening, a message from Foley's mother, Diane, was posted on the Free James Foley page on Facebook.

"We have never been prouder of our son Jim," the message said. "He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people. We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world. We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person. Please respect our privacy in the days ahead as we mourn and cherish Jim."

Marquette University issued a statement Tuesday night that said, "The Marquette community is deeply saddened by the death of alumnus and freelance journalist, James Foley. ... We extend our heartfelt prayers and wishes for healing to James' family and friends during this very difficult time.

"James ... had a heart for social justice and used his immense talents to tell the difficult stories in the hopes that they might make a difference in the world — a measure of his character for which we could not be prouder."

Boris Turcinovic, who coached rugby at Marquette when Foley played there, described him as "a very good friend to everyone in his class."

"He was one of those people who was always happiest helping others," Turcinovic said.

John Waliszewski, who played rugby for two years with Foley, said in an email, "Jim was laid-back, adventuresome, and kind ... oh, yeah, and tough, too."

The video released Tuesday shows Foley, 40, kneeling on a bleak, sandy landscape with no visible vegetation. He wears an orange tunic and loose pants; his hair is cut off. Next to him is his killer, an Islamic terrorist wearing tan combat boots and dressed entirely in black, his head and face covered except for a slit at the eyes.

The video features Foley delivering a statement in which he criticizes U.S. policy on Iraq and asserts that he is being killed because of Obama's decision to authorize the airstrikes.

"I call on my family and friends and loved ones to rise up against the real killers, the U.S. government," Foley says in the video. "For what will happen to me is only a result of their complacency and criminality."

He continues with a message to his parents: "Save me some dignity and don't accept any meager compensation for my death from the same people who effectively hammered the last nail in my coffin with their recent aerial campaign in Iraq."

In a slightly quivering voice, Foley then calls on his brother, John, whom he said serves in the U.S. Air Force, to "think about who made the decision to bomb Iraq recently and kill those people, whoever they may have been. I died that day, John, when your colleagues dropped the bomb on those people. They signed my death certificate."

After his statement, the terrorist moves behind Foley to execute him with a knife.

At the end of the video, another U.S. national held with Foley appears in the same type of scene — dressed in orange, kneeling on the sand. "The life of Steven Joel Sotloff depends on Obama's next move," said a statement in Arabic at the bottom of the picture.

Sotloff, a native of Miami who wrote for Time magazine and the National Interest, has been missing since August 2012.

Never questioned returning

A native of New Hampshire, Foley majored in history and Spanish at Marquette. He went on service trips to South Dakota and Mississippi, and volunteered at a local middle school with the intention of becoming a teacher in the inner city.

Instead, he fell in love with international reporting, often in some of the world's most troubled locations. He reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, and was among four journalists kidnapped by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in Libya in April 2011. Foley, Clare Gillis and Manu Brabo were released after 44 days. South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl was killed.

"The others promised they would do something to help Anton's three children," freelance photographer David Brabyn recalled in an interview from his home in New York.

They enlisted Brabyn's help with fundraising. What began as an online sale of photographic prints snowballed into a 2012 auction at Christie's that raised $135,000 for Hammerl's children. The group, Friends of Anton, continues to support freelance photojournalists hurt on the job.

The effort was emblematic of Foley's generous nature, said Brabyn, who met up with Foley whenever he passed through New York.

"Jim was really the kindest guy, incredibly kind and generous," Brabyn said. "I always knew him as the guy who could always smooth over things, just be the kind of guy that everybody likes."

Brabyn never knew Foley to do anything but international reporting, and he wasn't surprised when his friend returned to conflict zones despite having been kidnapped.

"I don't think he ever questioned going back," Brabyn said.

When Foley was taken prisoner in northwest Syria, he was on assignment for the GlobalPost, an online publication based in Boston, as well as Agence France-Presse.

Nevertheless, Brabyn never doubted Foley would stop to see him in New York again one day.

"It seems surreal now that he's not going to come back. I still really can't believe it," Brabyn said. "He was a very happy guy, always optimistic in a good mood.

"Jim always comes back."

Foley cherished his connection to Marquette.

His release in 2011 followed an international campaign spearheaded in part by friends from the university.

"When your friend is in trouble, you do what you can do," Foley's friend and former classmate Thomas Durkin told Marquette magazine for a story on Foley.

Foley returned to campus in late 2011 to discuss his captivity. And in a letter he wrote to his alma mater after the ordeal, Foley said the university "has always been a friend to me. The kind who challenges you to do more and be better and ultimately shapes who you become. ... But Marquette was perhaps never a bigger friend to me than when I was imprisoned as a journalist."

The letter tells of Foley saying the rosary with a fellow prisoner in a Tripoli jail and being allowed to make a phone call home while in captivity. His mother answered.

"Oh Jimmy, so many people are praying for you," she tells him. "They're having a prayer vigil for you at Marquette. Don't you feel our prayers?"

"I do, Mom, I feel them," he tells her, and then adds, "Maybe it was others' prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat."

The letter ends with Foley describing how, in his last day in Tripoli, he was able to watch Durkin via the Internet speaking about him to a room full of Marquette supporters.

"I watched the best speech a brother could give for another," Foley wrote. "It felt like a best man speech and a eulogy in one. It showed tremendous heart and was just a glimpse of the efforts and prayers people were pouring forth. If nothing else, prayer was the glue that enabled my freedom, an inner freedom first and later the miracle of being released during a war in which the regime had no real incentive to free us.

"It didn't make sense, but faith did."

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel staff, Jonathan S. Landay of the McClatchy Washington Bureau and The Associated Press contributed to this report.