Slain US Reporter Had Ties to NH School

Islamic State militants appear to have beheaded a second American journalist with ties to New Hampshire, in a video made public by a jihadist monitoring organization.

Steven Sotloff spent three years in New Hampshire at Kimball Union Academy, which he graduated from in 2002. He was still in touch with school leaders as he reported from war zones around the world.

"It's difficult. This is the second friend now I've lost in two weeks because of the same organization," said friend and journalist Matthew VanDyke.

That organization, the Islamic militant group ISIS, now claims to have killed Sotloff, a 31-year-old journalist who freelanced for TIME, the Christian Science Monitor and World Affairs Journal.

The video in which it purported to execute him was released by the monitoring organization SITE Intel Group. NBC News has not independently confirmed this report.

There is a small portion, though, where a man speaks in English with what appears to be a British accent. "I’m back Obama, and I'm back because of...," the man said.

In the video, Sotloff is in orange clothing, similar to that worn by James Foley in the video that showed his execution last month. Foley was from Rochester, New Hampshire.

Sotloff went to boarding school in Meriden, New Hampshire, where he played football and rugby and revitalized the school newspaper.

In 2011, he wrote to the head of school from Libya, saying that "Kimball Union had prepared him to see the world through different lenses and to commit using what he learned to help others."

Sotloff's mother pleaded last week directly to her son's captors for his release. Tuesday, the family requested privacy outside their home near Miami.

Sotloff vanished in Syria in August 2013 and was not seen until that video last month as ISIS attacks persisted in Syria and Iraq.

“Now, I can only speak from a military perspective and for the Pentagon. But we have been consistently going after the terrorist threat in that part of the world. And not just in that part of the world,” said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby.

VanDyke gave his views on how he would handle the diplomacy.

"Get the other Americans home, and get them home soon, whether you have to pay the ransom or not. Just pay the money and then start a policy against ISIS against and make sure they don't live long enough to use the money anyway," he said.

ISIS also threatened to kill another hostage, whom they identified as a British citizen.