Islamic State may have known of impending U.S. raid to rescue James Foley

A new report suggests that the Islamic State knew of the impending U.S. Special Forces operation to rescue the murdered journalist James Foley before they had even parachuted into Syrian territory.

The Reuters report also has new details about the Delta Force raid that was meant to free Foley and other hostages, but failed because the hostages had been moved before the soldiers arrived.

While government officials would not say the date or time of the raid, Syrians on the ground have told Reuters that the U.S. Special Forces operatives landed in Syria just after midnight, July 4.

The soldiers' first duty was to destroy an anti-aircraft battery 3 miles to the southeast of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the unofficial capital of the Islamic State. The Islamic State has no challengers to its rule in Raqqa, either in the form of other rebel groups, or the troops of the Syrian government.

The soldiers also blocked the main road from Raqqa to the site of the raid to prevent the arrival of reinforcements.

While the U.S. government did not elaborate on what the soldiers did in Syria beyond engage in a firefight, the Syrians told Reuters they killed "many" IS fighters and burned down an entire camp of theirs that was named for Osama bin Laden.

A Syrian source also told Reuters that IS most likely knew ahead of time that U.S. forces would try to rescue the hostages. The source said this is because U.S. operatives were seen trying to find information about the hostages in the Turkish border town of Antakya.

IS still has an unidentified number of Westerners hostage. In the gruesome video where they showed the murder and beheading of Foley, they said they would kill another U.S. journalist named Steven Sotloff if the United States did not stop its campaign of airstrikes on IS positions.