‘Jihadi John’ injured in US air strike
Jihadi John, the Briton who has beheaded five western hostages, has ben injured in a US air strike that killed 10 ISIS leaders, reports said.
The British government said it was investigating reports that “Jihadi John”, the British-accented Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militant apparently responsible for the beheading of western hostages, had been injured in a US air strike.
The Foreign Office could not confirm reports published in the Mail on Sunday that the masked executioner had been wounded while attending a meeting of ISIS leaders in an Iraqi town close to the Syrian border last week.
According to the paper, he was taken to hospital following the US-led attack on a bunker in Al Qaim, western Iraq, on November 8 that killed around 10 ISIS commanders and wounded 40 others.
“Jihadi John”, named after Beatle John Lennon due to his British background, is believed to be responsible for killing US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Allan Henning.
Despite being a foreigner, the masked assassin, who goes by the nom de guerre Jalman Al-Britani, has become a leading figure in the Islamist group.
The Mail claimed that a nurse who treated some of those wounded in the attack said there was a man named Jalman on her list, referring to him as “the one who slaughtered the journalists”.