US officials, family confirm execution; Journalist's death seen in video by Islamic State.

• Author: Jakes, Lara
• Position: News

Byline: Lara Jakes and Julie Pace

WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. officials say they believe American journalist James Foley was the victim executed by Islamic State militants as shown Tuesday in a grisly video.

Separately, Foley's family confirmed his death in a statement posted on a website that was created to rally support for his release.

In the statement, Foley's mother, Diane Foley, said the journalist ''gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.''

One of the U.S. officials said President Barack Obama was expected to make a statement about the killing on Wednesday.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the video by name.

The video by Islamic State militants showed the beheading of Foley as retribution for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.

Foley, a 40-year-old freelance journalist from Rochester, New Hampshire, went missing nearly two years ago in northern Syria while on assignment for Agence France-Press and the Boston-based media company GlobalPost. The car he was riding in was stopped by four militants in a contested battle zone that both Sunni rebel fighters and government forces were trying to control. He had not been heard from since.

At the end of the video, a militant shows a second man, who was identified as another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and warns that he could be killed. Sotloff was kidnapped near the Syrian-Turkish border in August 2013 and freelanced for Time, the National Interest and MediaLine.

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the administration has seen the video and that the intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine if it is authentic.

''If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends,'' Hayden said in a statement.

Several senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation said the Islamic State very recently threatened to kill Foley to avenge the crushing airstrikes over the last two weeks against militants advancing on Mount Sinjar, the Mosul dam and the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

Both areas are in northern Iraq, which has become a key front for the Islamic State as its fighters travel to and from Syria.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the hostage situation by name.

Since Aug. 8, the U.S. military...