As reports surfaced Friday on the presumed death of “Jihadi John,” the ISIS militant who beheaded journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff in 2014, Foley’s mother speculated that he would be “devastated” about the revenge killing.
“Jim would have been devastated with the whole thing. Jim was a peacemaker; he wanted to figure out why this was all happening,” Diane Foley told ABC News.
The British-born ISIS fighter (real name: Mohammed Emwazi) is presumed dead after a drone strike in Syria on Thursday night. He was responsible for the killing of journalists and human aid workers throughout the Middle East.
Mrs. Foley went on to criticize the U.S. government for diverting its focus from saving captured Americans like her son.
“It’s just so sad that our precious resources have been concentrated to seek revenge, if you will, or kill this man,” she said, adding that those resources should have been spent on trying to save her son and other Americans captured by ISIS.
She also had advice for press in the U.S. — don’t glorify “Jihadi John.”
“I think we have to be careful, as an American media, not to glorify this deranged young man — he’s a sad individual filled with hate for us.”