A Muslim woman releases a dove as a symbol of peace during a rally against the Islamic State group, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Friday.

DOHA : A report by Al Jazeera News channel has called the executions of two US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff as “Hollywood” casting, saying they could be used as a pretext for a Western intervention in Syria.

The report — published under the “reports and interviews” section of the pan-Arab channel’s Arabic website on Thursday – said Foley likely fabricated the video, said alarabiya.net

“Perhaps the first thing that draws the attention of the viewer” in the first beheading video is that “Foley was playing the role of champion not the victim only, for he recites a lengthy statement in peerless theatrical performance, and it seems from tracking the movement of his eyes that he was reading a text from an autocue,” the Al Jazeera report said.

The report even expressed doubts over the identity of the masked killer, saying: “He does not have the features of common jihadist figures, but he was rather similar to a Hollywood actor.”

To support the claim that the beheading was “staged,” the Al Jazeera report went into details of the execution. It claimed that a review of the video in slow motion showed that “the knife being moved on the neck of the victim six times triggered no blood.”

“The filmmaker wanted to convince us that slaughtering was done after they cut the shot to show his head detached from the body in and unjustified montage leap,” the report claimed.

It added that the same remarks also apply to the video of Sotloff’s execution. Similar to Foley, it claimed, Sotloff displayed no signs of fear, neither during his statement nor during the execution.

It also raised questions over how Foley, who was kidnapped since 2012, reached the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Even more, it raised doubts over the identity of the executed man, claiming that he does not look like Foley.

It quoted “activists” as claiming that Foley had previously worked for the US Department of State and that he might have had links with intelligence, “which could mean that he colluded in the fabrication of the tape.”

The Al Jazeera report claimed that “purported beheadings” could be used to justify a future war, like the George W. Bush’ justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003, Bush marketed his idea to invade Iraq on the basis of reports that Saddam Hussein had weapons of Mass Destruction.

 
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