Executioner friend of Jihadi John is killed in air strike
A BRITISH jihadi who became an infamous executioner for Islamic State has died in an air strike, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Ali Almanasfi, 29, who was a friend of fellow executioner Jihadi John, is understood to have finally been tracked down and killed after six years fighting in Syria.
In one of the earliest IS propaganda videos, Almanasfi – who used the nom de guerre Abu Julayb – was shown shooting a Syrian man in the back of the head more than a dozen times with a Kalashnikov.
The g r u e s o me footage, which was released on social media in 2014, provided some of the first evidence of the extent of the involvement of British jihadis with extremists in Syria and Iraq.
Security sources last night confirmed t hat i ntelligence strongly suggests that Almanasfi – who was stripped of his British citizenship two years ago – is dead. It is believed he was killed recently by a Russian strike close to the war-ravaged town of Idlib in northern Syria, which has become a refuge for IS fighters following the fall of its so-called caliphate.
Almanasfi, from Acton, West London, travelled to Syria in late 2013 and joined an IS group called Rayat al-Tawheed (Banner of God).
The son of a bus driver, he reportedly knew fellow Londoner Jihadi John, whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi. He was killed in a US drone attack in the IS de facto capital of Raqqa in 2015.
While he wore a mask in the execution video, MI5 and police experts identified Emwazi using voice and facial recognition techniques. He also appeared in IS recruitment and fundraising videos. In one, in December 2013, he was shown loading a handgun with ammunition and asking: ‘ Where are you when we need to start taking heads off?’
Before fleeing to the Middle East, Almanasfi was a violent gangster. He received a four-year jail term in 2009 for a savage assault on a elderly man in a shop.
He is believed to have become radicalised while in prison and, after his release, he travelled to Syria where he joined IS and married a local woman.