US will follow ISIL to ‘the gates of hell’
Vice President Joe Biden says the United States will follow the ISIL terrorist group which executed two US journalists “to the gates of hell.”
“The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand,” Biden said on Wednesday in the wake of the killing of Steven Sotloff. “As a nation we are united and when people harm Americans we don’t retreat, we don’t forget.”
“We take care of those who are grieving and when that’s finished, they [ISIL] should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice because hell is where they will reside,” Biden stated.
On Tuesday, ISIL released a video that claimed to show the beheading of Sotloff, who disappeared in Syria in 2013. In a message, the journalist said that he is “paying the price” for US military intervention in the Middle East.
His family issued a statement saying it believed he had been killed. “The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately.”
On Wednesday, the US National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of the video. “The US Intelligence Community has analyzed the recently released video showing US citizen Steven Sotloff and has reached the judgment that it is authentic.”
On August 20, the White House confirmed the authenticity of a gruesome video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley by ISIL.
The video shows a black-masked ISIL militant beheading Foley in retaliation for US airstrikes against the group in Iraq. It also warns that the group would slay Sotloff, if the US president did not halt the airstrikes.
ISIL controls large parts of Syria’s northern territory. The group sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
The US military has begun planning for airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria after the Foley beheading. The US has launched a limited air campaign against the terrorist group in Iraq since August 8.
GJH/GJH