US brands Foley beheading a 'terrorist attack'
August 23, 2014  11:32
Washington has declared the beheading of an American journalist a "terrorist attack", upping the stakes in its confrontation with the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, as Shiite militiamen gunned down 70 people at an Iraqi Sunni mosque.

The apparent revenge attack at the mosque in Diyala province yesterday will increase already significant anger among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority with the Shiite-led government, undermining an anti-militant drive that requires Sunni cooperation to succeed. 

It came as the US, which is carrying out airstrikes against IS, ramped up its rhetoric over the grisly killing of journalist James Foley, which was carried out by the jihadist group and shown in a video posted online.

In Washington, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said the beheading of Foley "represents a terrorist attack against our country". 

Rhodes also said that paying ransoms to free hostages is "not the right policy", confirming Washington's long-standing position amid claims from IS that other countries had paid to have their nationals freed.
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