Tracing Jihadi John’s descent
Before he became a cold-blooded executioner beheading captives for terrorist porn videos, “Jihadi John” was just one more mildly disaffected Muslim teenager living in the U.K.
Not particularly observant religiously, hanging with a loose network of west London punks, drinking and clubbing, yet also graduating with an IT degree from Westminster University.
How he got from there to here — from Mohammed Emwazi to Jihadi John to most wanted man on the planet to “martyr’’ killed in a 2015 U.S. drone strike — is the narrative framework of a biography by British journalist Robert Verkaik: Jihadi John, the Making of a Terrorist, which will be published in Canada next week.
Emwazi’s death was confirmed in an extravagant obituary posted by Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in its online propaganda magazine, Dabiq. The 27-year-old was eulogized thusly:
“Abu Muharib al-Muhajir, the mujahid who made headlines around the world as ‘Jihadi John’, was originally from the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula, while his mother originated from Yemen. At a young age, the honorable brother traveled with his family to London. This would become a place he grew to hate along with its kafir people, whose customs were far-removed from the praiseworthy values he was much accustomed to. It was through the mercy and blessings of Allah that Abu Muharib attained the gift of a sound ’aqidah (creed) and correct manjah (understanding of the Quran) despite residing in one of the centers of kufr (disbelievers) and despite the increased presence of deviants calling to the gates of Jahannam (hell).” Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. Verkaik has a unique perspective on the evolution of Jihadi John. To his own astonishment, the writer discovered that he knew Emwazi from interviews conducted in 2010, before the radicalized Brit gained global notoriety for sawing off the head of journalist James Foley — and at least half a dozen others. He’s the only journalist known to have spoken face to face with Emwazi. Yet so unmemorable were the encounters around London, so unprepossessing a subject, Verkaik had forgotten all about Emwazi, even when his balaclava was stripped away and his real name revealed by the BBC.
“It was an extraordinary moment,” Verkaik told the Star a few days ago. “I’d spent most of that year desperately trying to find out who Jihadi John was.”
Only after plowing through old emails did the picture of Emwazi begin to emerge from fragmented recollections.
Verkaik had written several articles about young Muslim men complaining about harassment by national security agencies that had doubled down on efforts to recruit informants from within the community, following the 7/7 atrocity of the London transit bombings. “For lots of these men, it really is a huge insult to ask them to spy, very offensive,” says Verkaik. “It also reinforced the prejudice of what they believed the British security services thought about them. It forces people into corners.”
Emwazi had a familiar story. Authorities had ruined his engagement to a London girl whose parents had been questioned about his alleged terrorist sympathies, prevented him from going to Kuwait and essentially “destroyed my life.”
In analyzing events through a rear-view mirror, it can be seen that Emwazi was already being sucked into extremist views, enthralled by senior jihadist devotees in London — “more than role models, they carried real cachet,” says Verkaik — and increasingly bitter towards the West, most especially the intelligence security grid that had originally (in 2009) accused him of trying to join Al Shabab in Somalia. Emwazi was obsessed with Al Shabab, long before popping up in Syria, where he would eventually be exposed as one of the “Beatles,” a Daesh cell of fighters with British accents.
Emwazi, sent to Kuwait by parents hoping he’d make a more useful life for himself in a country where his tech skills would be a passport to a good job, became engaged to another young woman there. But, after going home for a visit (and to see a dentist for his maddening toothache, Emwazi was blocked from returning to Kuwait. This was a key trigger point of his radicalizing journey. As Emwazi’s younger brother Omar told Verkaik: “He was always trying to get married. All his friends had got settled apart from him. That was the thing that hurt him the most.”
Denied a transit visa for Kuwait, Emwazi would eventually make his way to Turkey, likely overland. At this point, MI5 lost track of him.
Verkaik believes, and there’s evidence to suggest, that Emwazi came under the calcifying influence of Omar al-Shishani, a red-bearded Chechen of ruthless brutality who eventually pledged his allegiance to the Daesh. It was al-Shishani, Verkaik speculates, who groomed Emwazi in his transition to Jihadi John, specializing in the kidnapping and torture of foreigners, journalists and aid workers who ventured into Syria. “While Shishani would make his name as a ruthless commander of jihadi fighters,” writes Verkaik, “Emwazi was given the job of guarding and torturing prisoners.”
Al-Shishani, elevated to Daesh Minister of War, may have died from injuries he suffered in an airstrike last week. There were conflicting reports on Tuesday about his purported demise.
There are many gaps still to be filled — might never be — in Emwazi’s descent into profound depravity, a man utterly devoid of human empathy. He will forever be remembered for the grotesque execution of Foley, standing in front of a camera and cutting off the reporter’s head, further burnishing Daesh’s terrorist credentials. Jihadi John was their poster-boy of barbarity.
“Clearly they were looking for a Westerner to star in their new video terrorism,” says Verkaik. “Someone capable of doing these terrible things, committing cold-blooded murder to order. He must have shown some kind of interest in the role, he must have been very loyal to follow orders so blindly.”
Jihadi John left behind a wife and child. Nobody knows where they are. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.