Key questions and answers about the Islamic State group that beheaded American journalist James Foley, and that U.S. President Barack Obama described as a "cancer".

Q. What is the Islamic State group?

The European Union on Thursday deplored the "outrageous" beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley by Islamist jihadists calling the murder a brutal denial of "universally recognized values".

Iran is ready to join international action against jihadists in Iraq provided the West lifts crippling sanctions, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday.

The Turkish foreign ministry on Thursday angrily denied a newspaper report that Ankara was in talks with Islamic militants to hand over a historic tomb it controls in Syria in exchange for dozens of nationals held hostage in Iraq.

The United Arab Emirates has toughened anti-terrorism laws, local media reported Thursday, as concerns mount worldwide about increasing violence being committed by radical Islamist groups.

The head of the international police organization Interpol on Thursday condemned the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and called for a global response to the threat posed by Islamic extremists.

"The barbaric murder of James Foley by the Islamic State group underlines the depths of its depravity as it wages its campaign of terror across Syria and Iraq," Interpol chief Ronald Noble said in a statement.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq has said he was not aware of the involvement of a regional country in the mediation to release the troops and policemen kidnapped by jihadists in the northeastern border town of Arsal earlier this month.

Al-Mashnouq told al-Akhbar newspaper published on Thursday that General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim is not in contact with any regional or Arab country in the efforts exerted at setting free the soldiers and Internal Security Forces members.

The president of the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, Indonesia, on Thursday called the actions of Islamic State militants "embarrassing" to the religion and urged Islamic leaders to unite in tackling extremism.

U.S. President Barack Obama sent special operations troops to Syria this summer on a secret mission to rescue American hostages, including journalist James Foley, held by Islamic State extremists, but they did not find them, the administration disclosed Wednesday.

Officials said the rescue mission was authorized after intelligence agencies believed they had identified the location inside Syria where the hostages were being held. But the several dozen special operations forces dropped by aircraft into Syria did not find them at that location and engaged in a firefight with Islamic State militants before departing, killing several militants. No Americans died but one sustained a minor injury when an aircraft was hit.

Nine people who had been given asylum in Austria have been arrested on suspicion of seeking to join the jihadist opposition in Syria, the government said on Wednesday.

The arrests follow an investigation by the Austrian secret service, said Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, without giving any information on the identity of the suspects.