Islamic State beheads 2nd US hostage

The terrorist group the Islamic State has released a grisly video showing the execution of a second U.S. hostage less than three weeks after they released a similar video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

The hostage was Steven Sotloff, who was also a journalist. He was taken hostage in northern Syria in Aug. 2013. Sotloff was paraded in front of the camera in the Foley murder video. In the Foley video, a British jihadist then addresses the camera and says that Sotloff will be killed next if the United States does not discontinue its new campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State.

The New York Times reports that the killer in the Sotloff video appears to be the same man who murdered James Foley. At the end of Sotloff's beheading, the Islamic State threatens the life of a British citizen named David Haines.

The video in which Foley was murdered was titled "Warning to America." That video seems to have been prompted by the initiation of U.S. airstrikes on various IS positions in Iraq. There have been more than 90 airstrikes in the month of August.

These airstrikes have helped the Kurdish militia known as the peshmerga to retake the Mosul Dam from IS forces.

The strikes in combination with humanitarian aid drops have also been credited with saving the lives of thousands of Yezidis stranded on the Sinjar Mountains.

More recently, these airstrikes and aid drops have helped to break an IS siege of the Iraqi town of Amerli, which had been under siege for the last two months. The town's population is made up predominantly of Turkmen. Around 15,000 people have been trapped in the town, according to Reuters.

The airstrikes around Amerli targeted three patrolling Humvees, a tank, and an armored vehicle. The airstrikes also hit an Islamic State checkpoint.