James Foley

James Wright Foley (October 18, 1973 – c. August 19, 2014) was an American journalist and video reporter.

In 1996, he graduated from Marquette University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and Spanish, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2002, and a Master of Science from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2008.

Foley began his career as a teacher in Arizona for Teach For America.

In 1999, Foley decided to pursue his MFA in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Upon completion of his MFA in 2003, Foley returned to Phoenix for one year before relocating to Chicago in the summer of 2004 and taking a job teaching writing to young felons at the Cook County Boot Camp.

In 2007, Foley enrolled in Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.

By spring 2008, in Iraq, he became an embedded journalist with an Indiana National Guard unit, writing a story for In These Times, about condolence payments paid to Iraqis.

In 2008, he became an embedded journalist with USAID-funded development projects in Iraq, and in 2011 he wrote for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes in Afghanistan, and GlobalPost in Libya.

There, he was captured by Gaddafi loyalist forces and held for 44 days.

The next year, Foley was captured in Syria while he was working for Agence France-Presse and GlobalPost.

Foley was born in Evanston, Illinois, the oldest of five children born to Diane and John Foley of Rochester, New Hampshire.

He grew up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where he attended Kingswood Regional High School.

He was raised as a Catholic.

Starting in 2008, Foley worked for USAID-funded 'Tatweer' development projects in Baghdad.

He helped organize conferences and training seminars for a program designed to rebuild Iraq's civil service, crippled by decades of isolation and autocratic administration.

In 2008, he became an embedded journalist, in Iraq, with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division.

In 2009, he became an embedded journalist, in Nuristan, Nangahar and Kunar, Afghanistan, with the United States 4th Infantry Division and 10th Mountain Division.

In 2010, he left Iraq and applied for military embed-journalist accommodation status in Afghanistan to become a freelance journalist.

He was an embedded journalist with U.S troops in Iraq, where his brother was serving as an officer in the United States Air Force.

In January 2011, Foley joined Stars and Stripes as a reporter on assignment in Afghanistan.

Two months later he was removed from his post after being detained by U.S. military police at Kandahar Air Field on suspicion of possessing and using marijuana.

On March 3, 2011, Foley admitted that he had marijuana in his possession and resigned his position.

In 2011, while working for the Boston-based GlobalPost, Foley went to Libya to cover the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, embedding himself with rebel fighters.

According to media reports, on the morning of April 5, 2011, Foley, fellow American Clare Morgana Gillis, a freelance reporter (Atlantic Monthly, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today), as well as Spanish photographer Manu Brabo, were attacked and captured near Brega, Libya, by forces loyal to Gaddafi; fellow photojournalist Anton Hammerl was killed.

When the shooting started, Foley and Gillis both heard Hammerl yell out, "Help!"

Foley, Gillis, and Brabo were beaten by the pro-Gaddafi forces and then taken as their prisoners.

Foley stated: "Once I saw Anton lying there dead, it was like everything had changed. The whole world has changed. I don't even know that I felt some of the blows."

Gillis said, "We all glanced down at him as we were being taken by, and I saw him just lying in a pool of blood. And then we were put into the truck and our heads were pushed down. We weren't able to see anything that happened after that to him."

Foley was released from jail 44 days later.

On May 18, Foley, Gillis and Brabo, as well as Nigel Chandler (an English journalist also being held), were brought to the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli after release.

Foley returned to Milwaukee to thank the community for praying for his safe return.

In an interview, he said, "You go through different emotions when you're in captivity... These weird extreme ideas of where you are based on this capture. You don't want to be defined as that guy who got captured in 2011. I believe front line journalism is important [without it] we can't tell the world how bad it might be."

Foley also wrote an article for Marquette Magazine about how rosary prayers helped get him through his captivity.

His experience of being captured did not deter him; he quickly returned to Libya, and was at the scene of Muammar Gaddafi's capture with GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton on October 20, 2011.

During the Syrian Civil War, Foley continued working as a freelancer for GlobalPost, in addition to other media outlets, such as Agence France-Presse.

While working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria.

On November 22, 2012, Foley was kidnapped by an organized gang after departing from an internet café with British journalist John Cantlie, in northwestern Syria while on their way to the Turkish border.

Their taxi driver and Foley's translator were not taken.

He was murdered by decapitation in August 2014 purportedly as a response to American airstrikes in Iraq, thus becoming the first American citizen killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Before becoming a journalist, Foley was an instructor for Teach For America.