Islamic State threatens to behead Iraqi cameraman

Militants from the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) have threatened to behead an Iraqi cameraman kidnapped on Sept. 7.

ISIL abducted Raad Mohamed al-Azaoui of Sama Alah Aldeen TV and 20 other Iraqis in Samarra, a city 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Baghdad. ISIL has said it will execute al-Azaoui after he refused to go to work for the Islamist militia group, according to France-based Reporters Without Borders.

ISIL, which controls parts of eastern Syria and northern Iraq, released videos showing the executions of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines in the past month. President Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have pledged to step up military strikes against the group.

Al-Azaoui is not the only Iraqi journalist being held by the group. On Aug. 15, the group captured journalist Ahmed Khaled al-Dlimi in the northern city of Tikrit. His fate remains unknown, according to Reporters Without Borders. On Aug. 13 ISIL captured journalist Tarek Salah Shankali, an activist from Iraq's Yazidi minority. The group has also warned nine reporters in the provinces of Mosul and Salahuddin, ordering them to "stop their professional activities and join ISIS ranks or face execution," according to Iraq's Journalistic Freedom Observatory.