The United Nations Security Council on Saturday strongly condemned the “heinous and cowardly” murder of American journalist Steve Sotloff, AFP reported.
Sotloff, 31, was beheaded by terrorists from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in a video released Tuesday, two weeks after the similar video of U.S. journalist James Foley’s killing was posted online.
“The members of the Security Council stressed again that ISIL [another acronym for the group -ed.] must be defeated and that the intolerance, violence and hatred it espouses must be stamped out,” said a unanimous statement from the 15-member council.
Council members added that “such continued acts of barbarism perpetrated by ISIL do not intimidate them but rather stiffen their resolve that there has to be a common effort amongst governments and institutions, including those in the region most affected, to counter ISIL, Al-Nusra Front and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaeda.”
It was revealed on Wednesday that Sotloff was also an Israeli citizen, who made aliyah to Israel in 2005 by himself, and studied at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.
The beheadings have highlighted the threat from IS not only to Iraq and Syria but also to the West, as some of the IS terrorists are citizens of other countries who leave their homeland to fight alongside IS.