Steven Sotloff, the American freelance journalist whom Islamic extremists have claimed to have beheaded, spoke of the perils of his new reporting plans shortly before arriving in Syria last year.
"It was certainly a dangerous situation," said Matthew VanDyke, a documentary filmmaker and friend of Mr. Sotloff who said the two had dinner in Washington, D.C., not long before the reporter left. "He was certainly aware of the risks and took all the precautions that he could."
Mr. Sotloff, who spent years in the Middle East writing for publications including Time and Foreign Policy, was abducted near the Turkish border in Syria in August 2013, according to Sherif Mansour, a program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York.
At the request of his family, Mr. Sotloff's abduction wasn't publicized, and few knew about it until the militant group Islamic State released a video last month showing the beheading of fellow journalist James Foley. It concluded with a shot of a militant dressed in black standing beside a kneeling Mr. Sotloff and saying, "The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision."