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| US tried but failed to free US hostages in Syria | US tried but failed to free US hostages in Syria |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A US secret military mission had "recently" tried but failed "to free a number of American hostages held in Syria", the Pentagon has revealed. | A US secret military mission had "recently" tried but failed "to free a number of American hostages held in Syria", the Pentagon has revealed. |
| It did not say whether the US troops had also tried to rescue US journalist James Foley, a video of whose beheading by Islamic State appeared on Tuesday. | It did not say whether the US troops had also tried to rescue US journalist James Foley, a video of whose beheading by Islamic State appeared on Tuesday. |
| However, senior US officials - speaking on condition of anonymity - said this was the case. | |
| IS said Foley's death was revenge for US air strikes on its fighters in Iraq. | IS said Foley's death was revenge for US air strikes on its fighters in Iraq. |
| US President Barack Obama condemned the killing as "an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world". | |
| He compared IS militants, who control large parts of Syria and Iraq to a "cancer" and said the group's ideology was "bankrupt". | |
| The UN, UK and others have also expressed abhorrence at the video. | |
| Mr Foley's mother Diane said he "gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people". | |
| 'Firefight' | |
| In a statement, the Pentagon said its operation "involved air and ground components and was focused on a particular captor network within ISIL" (the former name of IS). | |
| "Unfortunately, the mission was not successful because the hostages were not present at the targeted location." | |
| Meanwhile, the senior Obama administration officials said that several dozen special troops had been dropped by aircraft into Syria earlier this summer to try to rescue US hostages, including Foley. | |
| They added that the troops had been engaged in a firefight with IS militants, killing a number of them. No Americans were killed. | |
| James Foley, 40, was seized in Syria in 2012. | |
| He had reported extensively across the Middle East, working for US publication GlobalPost and other media outlets including French news agency AFP. |