The International Business Times reported last month that activists on the ground near Al Bab, Syria, said that the Dawood Brigade, which now consists of about 1,000 people, defected from the Free Syrian Army and moved on to Raqqa to join ISIS. The group arrived in Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold, in a convoy of more than 100 vehicles.
The Dawood Brigade, which used to be called Jaysh al-Mujahedin (Mujahedin Army), but changed its name in late 2012, was originally under the direction of Abu Mohammed al-Shami al-Absi. The group was rumored to have been responsible for the kidnapping of John Cantlie and Jeroen Oerlemans, who went missing in Syria in 2012, according to the Syrian sources. The two journalists were rescued by another rebel faction, and escaped.
After their release from captivity, the two journalists described their captors, saying that many of them had British accents -- like the man who was seen in the ISIS video killing Foley.
Cantlie, a freelance photographer, apparently went back into Syria with Foley in the fall of 2012.
The Dawood Brigade joined in an alliance with the Suqour al-Sham (Falcons of the Levant) in the Jabal al-Zawiya region of the northwestern province of Idlib. As the war progressed, Suqour al-Sham and Dawood expanded their influence to areas such as Damascus and Aleppo. The group also got a new leader, Hassan Abboud.
No details about Foley's captors have yet been released by the State Department, the White House or Global Post. In the past two years, rumors have circulated about the whereabouts of several kidnapped American journalists in Syria and how exactly they went missing..."
James Wright Foley, an American freelance photojournalist missing since being abducted in Syria some 22 months ago was beheaded by an Islamic State militant in a graphic video released this week.
Toward the end of the video, the terror group threatens to kill another hostage, Steven Joel Soltoff, a journalist who has contributed to TIME and has been missing since the middle of last year.
The situation with ISIS has gotten so out of control, that even the Pope is endorsing the use of force to stop them. Watch the video to see what the Pope had to say on the matter.
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