ISIS Reportedly Released Sotloff Execution Video ‘By Mistake’
According to a report from Vocativ, a website that mines the Deep Web for information about global news events, ISIS did not intend to release the video U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff’s execution to the world today. Instead, the video appears to have leaked online without official authorization from the group’s leaders.
Citing “chatter on ISIS forums,” Vocativ reports that a now-suspected Twitter account posted a link to the video ahead of the group’s predetermined schedule. ISIS later posted an apology to its followers for the lack of discipline surrounding the release:
“A clarification about the mistake was made by ‘Uyun al-Ummah’ account, that has published the video before the official time.
The user saw a tweet with the video and thought it was published officially. We tried to remove the video after we understood that his was published by mistake, and we are sorry to the followers of the Islamic State.”
It is not clear when the group intended to release the video and U.S. intelligence officials have not yet been able to determine when Sotloff’s execution was filmed. In the video released two week ago of ISIS beheading U.S. journalist James Foley the group threatened to kill Sotloff if President Barack Obama did not halt its airstrikes in Iraq.
CNN aired a short excerpt from the video featuring the moments before Sotloff was killed. Watch video below, via CNN:
[Photo via screengrab]
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