By Sky News US Team
The parents of two American journalists kidnapped in Syria have criticised the Obama administration's hostage policies.
Speaking to Sky News, the mothers of James Foley and Austin Tice cast doubt on whether media blackouts and a blanket ban on ransom payments are truly effective.
They also voiced shock at the "horrific" recent killings of a Jordanian pilot and two Japanese men by Islamic State militants.
Speaking at an event on press freedom in Washington DC, Mrs Foley said she hoped a new White House-ordered review on Americans held captive by terrorists overseas would bring changes.
Mrs Foley said the US government had kept her "totally" in the dark about her son, who was beheaded by Islamic State militants in August last year.
"Jim was let down big time," she said, adding that the family now regretted abiding by the media blackout.
The Foley family was left to negotiate by email with the captors, she said, after the FBI refused to discuss a ransom, angering the militants.
"There was no communications from our government agencies to us," she told Sky News at the Newseum.
"They were constantly asking us for information but nothing came back to us.
"We never knew a thing. They always told us Jim was the highest priority, trust us, don't talk to the media."
Mrs Foley said she never received any official notification of his death, only learning their nightmare had come true from a reporter.
Debra Tice, whose son Austin Tice was abducted in August 2012, said she was now hoping to "raise the volume" on his case.
She said her family's relationship with the FBI had "become acrimonious in a middle-school kind of way, unfortunately" because of the "information vacuum" from the agency.
A month after the 33-year-old freelance reporter went missing, a brief video uploaded to YouTube showed him blindfolded, apparently being walked through rocky terrain by Islamist militants.
The State Department raised the possibility at the time that the former US Marine was actually in the custody of the Syrian government. No ransom demands have been made.
The mothers also said the recent immolation of a Jordanian pilot in an Islamic State video had appalled them.
"The pain that family's feeling, it's just a horrific thing to go through again," said Mrs Foley.
Douglas Frantz, US Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs, accepted some of their points.
"We have had difficulty communicating consistently with families and I'm confident that the (hostage) review is going to fix this," he said.
He told Sky News the National Counterterrorism Center would report back with recommendations in the spring.
Mr Frantz also said the State Department was working "very hard" to free a 26-year-old female aid worker who is the Islamic State's last known US captive.
But he said ransom payments "put targets on the back of every American overseas and feed the kidnap economy".
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