U.S. military ‘reasonably certain’ Jihadi John dead
The U.S. military is “reasonably certain” an American drone strike in Syria killed the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant executioner known as Jihadi John, an official said Friday as Britain and the U.S. seek to confirm the details of the attack.
Speaking in Baghdad, Army Col. Steven Warren, a U.S. military spokesman, said Thursday’s U.S. drone attack hit its intended target and people were killed. It still remained unclear, however, whether the London-raised militant, Mohammed Emwazi, was among them.
Emwazi, who was shown in videos beheading several Western hostages, came to symbolize ISIL’s brutality and was seen as a potential recruiting tool in the Englishspeaking world.
Warren did not say why U.S. military officials were confident Emwazi, 27, was killed, but he said the drone strike was carried out as planned.
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron lauded the operation, but added there was no certainty the British extremist was dead.
He alternated between speaking about Emwazi in the past and the present tenses, describing him as a “barbaric murderer” who was ISIL’s “lead executioner.”
“This was an act of self defence. It was the right thing to do,” he said.
Citing a “senior military source,” the BBC reported Friday there was a “high degree of certainty” Emwazi was hit in the attack.
If confirmed, his death would cap more than a year of Western efforts to hunt down a militant who became widely known in August 2014 when he appeared, masked and dressed from head to toe in black, in a video in which he beheaded American journalist James Foley.
Emwazi later appeared in grisly videos showing the killing of foreign hostages, speaking to the camera in taunting tones, with a balaclava over his face, a knife in his hand and a holster under his left arm.
The man is thought to have participated in the beheadings of Steven Sotloff, another American journalist; AbdulRahman Kassig, an American aid worker; David Haines and Alan Henning, both British aid workers; and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
“It is a very small solace to learn that Jihadi John may have been killed by the U.S. government,” said Foley’s parents, John and Diane.
“His death does not bring Jim back.
“If only so much effort had been given to finding and rescuing Jim and the other hostages who were subsequently murdered by (ISIL), they might be alive today.”
It is not clear Emwazi had a meaningful role in the group’s leadership structure. Analysts said the impact of his possible death could be limited.
“Implications? None beyond the symbolism,” said a Twitter message from Shiraz Maher, an expert on extremism at King’s College London.