A War Crime

Published in El Comercio
(Ecuador) on 4 September 2014
by Editorial (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by . Edited by Emily France.
Terrorism, pure and simple. A masked man with a British accent stood in front of a camera and decapitated Steven Sotloff, an independent journalist who worked with Time and Foreign Policy.

The news, which Washington has not officially confirmed, would be the second staging of an American journalist’s brutal murder in cold blood in the name of a fanatical “holy” war.

The decapitation was carried out by the group that calls themselves the Islamic State, whose goal is to install a new fundamentalist caliphate and which operates, for now, in Iraq and Syria.

The victims of the armed terrorist attacks are civilians and conventional military forces from both countries. From the Sunnis’ point of view, the rules imposed in the zones that the Islamic State has conquered come from the most anachronistic social and religious traditions.

Putting their victims on display is the most simple and crude of terrorist methods; it causes fear and panic in the general public and intimidates the political establishment, not only in the zones that have been illegitimately invaded but also in the global community.

Now a considerable group of European supporters from many nations is joining the guerillas, who seek to install a fundamentalist caliphate. They’re the ones in charge of the executions, to which their accents add a much bigger impact.

President Barack Obama isn’t yielding to the blackmail, but the trail of innocent blood continues, and the crimes against humanity are generating a global clamor.


Terrorismo puro y duro. Un enmascarado con acento británico decapitó en cámaras a Steven Sotloff, periodista independiente, colaborador de Time y Foreign Policy.

La noticia, que oficialmente no confirma Washington, sería la segunda brutal puesta en escena de un asesinato a sangre fría de un periodista estadounidense a nombre de una Guerra ‘Santa’ fanática.

La decapitación se inscribe en la acción del grupo autodenominado Estado Islámico (EI), que busca instaurar un nuevo califato fundamentalista y opera, por ahora, en Iraq y Siria.

Las víctimas de los ataques armados y terroristas son pobladores civiles y fuerzas militares convencionales de los dos Estados. Las normas impuestas en las zonas que han conquistado se refieren a las tradiciones sociales y religiosas más anacrónicas desde la visión de una facción islamista: los sunitas.

La idea de exponer a las víctimas es la más simple y cruda de los métodos terroristas: causar temor y pánico en la gente común y corriente e intimidar al establecimiento político, no solo de las colectividades invadidas ilegítimamente sino de la comunidad mundial.

A los guerrilleros que buscan instaurar un califato fundamentalista se une un nutrido grupo de partidarios europeos de distintas naciones. A su cargo están las ejecuciones, que cobran mayor impacto por el acento de los verdugos.

El presidente Barack Obama no cede ante el chantaje pero el reguero de sangre inocente sigue y el crimen de lesa humanidad genera un clamor mundial.
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