“ISIS broadcast its killing of captured American journalist James Foley [note: there is no link to the video – only to a more in depth article about Jim Foley] to show the U.S. what awaits anyone who challenges the Islamic State’s march across Iraq and Syria. Foley’s killing was a blunt and stomach-churning bit of messaging that joined ISIS’s cold-hearted ambitions with one of international terrorism’s most prominent pieces of tradecraft: hostage-taking. According to a June 2014 statement by Treasury undersecretary David S. Cohen, ransom payments are now second only to state sponsorship as a source of revenue for terrorist organizations, implying that kidnapping for profit is ahead of even private contributions, bank robbery, and other forms of fundraising. To be sure, Foley was killed for political and ideological reasons — and possibly to trigger a galvanizing or strategically costly U.S. response. But ISIS also has a recent history of using other foreign prisoners as a means of filling its coffers.”