Kerry: False claim about Syrians came from ISIS

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was the originator of false allegations that the group purchased captured journalists from rebel forces in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday.

“There have been allegations that the so-called ‘moderates’ over in the region are the ones that sold our reporters to ISIL to have their heads cut off,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), using an alternate acronym for the group.

{mosads}”Is there any intelligence that supports that?” Salmon asked Kerry during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

“Actually, there is intelligence that refutes it. That’s an ISIL dis-information claim. And, in fact, that never happened,” Kerry said. “It was put out by ISIL itself.”

ISIS killed U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff last month, uploading videos of their brutal beheadings online. Since then, another hostage, British aid worker David Haines, has been shown executed.

Barak Barfi, a spokesman for the Sotfloff family, told CNN last week that they believed the Florida native who disappeared in Syria last year was sold to ISIS by moderate rebels there.

“We believe that these so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support, one of them sold him” for “something between” $25,000 and $50,000 to ISIS, Barfi said.

“Somebody, at the border crossing, made a phone call to ISIS and they set up a fake checkpoint with many people, and Steve and his people that he went in with could not escape,” Barfi said, citing unnamed sources on the ground.

The White House pushed back on the claim Sotloff was sold by moderate rebels.

“As it relates to the specifics of this matter, based on the information that has been provided to me, I don’t believe that is accurate,” press secretary Josh Earnest said last week, noting it is the subject of an open FBI investigation.