British connection

Mohammed Emwazi, 27

Infamous as Jihadi John, Kuwait-born Emwazi moved to London in 1993 with his family. In 2014 and 2015, he took part in at least seven beheadings of hostages, including two Britons and three Americans, becoming one of the most reviled terrorists in modern times. It took six months to identify the man beneath the balaclava. He shot to No 2 on the Pentagon’s kill list, below only Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the Isil chief himself. Emwazi was killed in a drone strike in November 2015. Feeling “watched” by MI6 in the UK, Emwazi returned to Kuwait around 2009. He left in 2013, telling his parents he was going to Turkey to do aid work. Then he crossed into Syria.

Reyaad Khan, 21

Khan was a straight-as student with a passion for politics. He was the first Briton ever killed in a targeted RAF drone strike in August 2015.

In his home town of Cardiff he had joined al-muhajiroun, a banned jihadist group. According to Isil “entrance” files, Khan left for Syria in 2013, and was later used as a reference for other recruits from Cardiff. On social media, he boasted of the murders he had committed. In one he wrote: “Executed many prisoners yesterday”, alongside a photo of bloody corpses. He also posted online messages joking about the beheading of James Foley, the US journalist. Khan appeared in an Isil propaganda video, urging Westerners to join the war.

Junaid Hussain, 21

 Hussain was an accomplished computer hacker who rose through the Isil ranks to run its information and recruitment arm from Syria.

The British Pakistani from Birmingham was considered the “leader” of the British jihadists and known as “the IT guy”. His notoriety earned him third place on the Pentagon kill list and he died in a US air strike in Raqqa in November 2015. In 2012, he was jailed for six months after hacking into, and publishing, Tony Blair’s emails. After his release on bail, he fled to Syria in 2013. He had a knack of convincing people he met online to join jihad. He began an online relationship with Sally Jones, 45, from Kent, a punk rockerturned-muslim convert and she joined him in the so-called caliphate.