MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - The Islamic State (IS) is using CIA torture methods on US citizens taken hostage by the militant group, The Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the hostages’ treatment.
“At least four hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State, including an American journalist who was recently executed by the group, were waterboarded in the early part of their captivity,” the newspaper reported. “James Foley was among the four who were waterboarded several times by Islamic State militants who appeared to model the technique on the CIA’s use of waterboarding to interrogate suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
Waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, involves pouring cold water over a person’s face covered with a cloth, and has been used since 9/11.
In a 2008 statement, former CIA chief Michael Hayden said the agency’s “decision to employ waterboarding in the wake of 9/11 was not only lawful, it reflected the circumstances of the time.”
“CIA’s terrorist interrogation program, lawful and effective, was born of necessity,” he said in 2008.
The CIA’s harsh interrogation and torture techniques were banned after President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
The Washington Post cited several people who witnessed the captivity of an American journalist James Foley and said he was tortured, including by waterboarding. Foley, who was taken prisoner in Syria in November 2012, was beheaded last week by IS militants.
On August 19, the IS released a YouTube video showing a masked man executing Foley. The group explained that the journalist was killed in revenge for US airstrikes against IS positions in northern Iraq.
