American journalist james foley biography

American journalist (1973–2014)

James Wright Foley (October 18, 1973 – c. August 19, 2014) was an American journalist and video reporter.

While working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria. He was murdered by decapitation in August 2014 purportedly as a response to American airstrikes in Iraq, thus becoming the first American citizen executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).^[1]

Before becoming a journalist, Foley was an instructor for Teach For America.^[2][3] By spring 2008, in Iraq, he became an embedded journalist with an Indiana National Guard unit,^[4] writing a story for In These Times, about condolence payments paid to Iraqis.^[5] In 2008, he became an embedded journalist with USAID-funded development projects in Iraq, and in 2011 he wrote for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes in Afghanista