The Pentagon has revealed that US special forces had recently attempted to rescue journalist James Foley along other American hostages being held in Syria.

Although several Islamic State (IS) fighters were said to have been killed in a firefight, the secret mission ultimately ended in failure as the captives were not at the target site.

President Obama has paid tribute to Foley who its been confirmed was the man beheaded in an IS propaganda video.

Journalist Steven Sotloff was also threatened with death in the same video if Obama does not cease the air strikes on IS fighters in Iraq.

The families of the hostages including the parents of James Foley were apparently informed of the attempt to save their loved ones after the event.

““We just talked to the president, he shared with us what the administration has done, which they couldn’t share with us before, so we appreciate that, you know, the things they tried, and we thanked him but we begged that they might consider other ways of dealing such that Steven and the others might be spared,,” said Diane Foley.

The killer’s British sounding accent has raised concerns in the UK about its own home-grown jihadists. So much so that Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his summer holiday and returned to lead the government’s response to the atrocity.

“ We have not identified the individual responsible on the video but from what we’ve seen it looks like a British citizen. Now this is deeply shocking, but we know that far too many British citizens have travelled to Iraq and traveled to Syria to take part in extremism and violence,” Cameron said.

The concern is that an established IS could launch international terrorist attacks with its British members bring jihad back on to home territory.