JIHADI JOHN WIPED OUT
Victims’ families struggle with mixed emotions after fanatic is ‘evaporated’ by US drone strike
JIHADI John died ‘too easily’ in a drone strike, his victims’ families said last night.
They pointed out that the Islamic State executioner had escaped suffering – unlike the hostages he terrorised then beheaded.
The family of murdered British aid worker Alan Henning said they had ‘wanted the coward behind the mask to suffer’.
And the widow of Scottish hostage David Haines said she had hoped to look the killer ‘in the eyes’ in a courtroom.
The Pentagon said Jihadi John – a Kuwaitiborn Briton whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi – was ‘evaporated’ by a US Hellfire missile in northern Syria on Thursday night.
As David Cameron called the strike an ‘act of self-defence’, it emerged that: ÷GCHQ and MI5 spies helped locate Emwazi in the IS stronghold of Raqqa six months ago and began the mission to kill him; ÷On Thursday, a UK informant reported seeing him climb into a car; ÷A British surveillance drone was among three used to track him; ÷Protection around Emwazi’s family in London has been stepped up.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sparked a row in his party by saying it ‘would have been far better’ for Emwazi to have faced justice.
But Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said the world was a safer place without the 27-year-old fanatic, adding: ‘When the opportunity presented itself, with the opportunity for minimal civilian casualties, we took the shot.’
The Pentagon said it was ‘99 per cent’ sure Emwazi was dead – citing video footage of its airstrike.
The killer, who came to London aged six, had been high on a hit list of terrorists because of his sickening beheading videos.
Mr Haines, 44, a former RAF aircraft engineer from Perth, was on a humanitarian aid mission when he was captured in Syria. He was beheaded by Emwazi in September 2014. Speaking from her home in Croatia, where she lives with the couple’s five-year-old daughter, his widow Dragana said: ‘I was hoping he would be caught alive.
‘I really wish it was handled a different way…I was always wondering what’s in his head. The perfect way for all of us would have been to see him in a courtroom. He didn’t deserve to die so easily – this is way too easy for him.’
Mr Haines’ daughter Bethany, 18, said she felt an ‘instant sense of relief’ when she heard Emwazi was dead, because ‘he wouldn’t appear in any more horrific videos’.
But she told ITV News: ‘As much as I wanted him dead, I also wanted answers as to why he did it, why my dad, how did it make a difference?’
Mr Henning, a Salford taxi driver, volunteered as an aid worker in Syria in 2013 after being moved by the plight of orphaned children.
The 47-year-old was kidnapped and held hostage for ten months, and despite worldwide appeals and calls for mercy by his family, the terror group released a video in October last year of him kneeling in an orange jumpsuit in the desert as he was butchered by Emwazi.
Yesterday Mr Henning’s brother Reg said: ‘I am glad Emwazi is dead. I would have preferred him to face justice.’ His nephew Stuart said he had ‘wanted the coward behind the mask to suffer’.
Mr Henning’s daughter Lucy, 18, revealed she had discovered her father had died by finding a horrific photo of his body on Instagram.
The teenager stumbled across the gruesome image as she lay on her bed desperately searching online for news of his wellbeing.
Yesterday in a statement outside No10, Mr Cameron welcomed the ‘strike at the heart’ of IS.
Confirming Emwazi’s name for the first time, the PM was careful to avoid stating he was definitely dead, but called him a barbaric murderer adding: ‘This was an act of self-defence. It was the right thing to do.’
He said Britain had worked ‘hand in glove, literally around the clock’ with its closest ally America to track down Emwazi. Colonel Warren said no civilians were hurt, adding: ‘He had a work best-friend who was with him, who is also now dead.’
A senior defence source added: ‘Emwazi was very good at not putting his head above the parapet because he knew if he did he would have a missile headed his way.’
At 11.40pm Syrian time (9.40pm UK time), the order to kill was passed to a US pilot operating an unmanned Reaper drone from Creech air force base in the Nevada desert.
The Hellfire missile would have been launched from 10,000ft and some miles away, invisible in the night sky. Travelling at 995mph, it arrived at such speed that Emwazi would have heard and seen nothing before it struck at 11.51pm.
Dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ after hostages nicknamed a group of IS guards The Beatles, Emwazi first appeared in a video in August 2014 beheading American journalist James Foley. The sister of another US journalist killed by Jihadi John, Steven Sotloff, said justice had finally been served.
Lauren Sotloff said: ‘Not the way I would of wanted him to die. He should have had his head cut off also and been left to suffer. But at least he is dead.’
Emwazi murdered two Japanese hostages – Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto – in January.
He also claimed to have killed US aid worker Peter Kassig and 21 Syrian soldiers.
‘This was way too easy for him’