Mohammed Emwazi , known as "Jihadi John," is believed to be the person who beheaded American journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig. A U.S. drone strike early Friday targeted a vehicle in Syria that U.S. officials believe he was in. His death has not been confirmed, officials said.
American and British officials expressed confidence Friday that a U.S. drone strike killed the British defector who became known worldwide as “Jihadi John” for beheading Western hostages of the Islamic State.
Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Brit raised in London from the age of 6, is believed to have died late Thursday when a bomb obliterated the car transporting him and his driver in Raqqa, the northern Syrian city near the Turkish border that has served as headquarters for the Islamic State.
“He was in al-Raqqa when we killed him,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told Pentagon reporters during a video conference from Baghdad.
While Warren said that Jihadi John’s death still needed to be confirmed, he said that intelligence had given U.S. military leaders “great confidence” that the target of the drone strike was Emwazi.
“When the opportunity presented itself, we took the shot,” Warren said.
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said his government had been working with the United States “literally around the clock” to track down Jihadi John in what he described as a “combined effort” to find and take out the infamous Islamic militant.
HE WAS INTENT ON MURDERING MANY, MANY PEOPLE. SO THIS WAS AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE.
British Prime Minister David Cameron
Calling Emwazi “ISIL’s lead executioner,” Cameron said he had “killed many, many Muslims in addition to the Western journalists and aid workers he’d slaughtered by slicing their heads off in killings captured in gruesome videos and broadcast worldwide by the Islamic State.
“And he was intent on murdering many, many more people,” Cameron said in a statement. “So this was an act of self-defense. It was the right thing to do.”
Cameron thanked the United States for having carried out the drone strike, saying that “the United Kingdom has no better friend or ally.”
Jihadi John, who was believed to be in his mid- to late twenties when he died, first came to the world’s attention in August 2014 with the release of a video showing him in a black hood standing behind the kneeling orange-clad American journalist James Foley, who’d been captured in 2012.
After delivering a political diatribe against Western governments, Emwazi then appeared to behead Foley with a long sword.
Later videos captured a man of the same height and speaking in a similar British accent severing the heads of U.S. reporter Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Hemming, and American aid worker Peter Kassig.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article44758110.html#storylink=cpy
Rea
American and British officials expressed confidence Friday that a U.S. drone strike killed the British defector who became known worldwide as “Jihadi John” for beheading Western hostages of the Islamic State.
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| Now sleeps with the Fishes |
Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Brit raised in London from the age of 6, is believed to have died late Thursday when a bomb obliterated the car transporting him and his driver in Raqqa, the northern Syrian city near the Turkish border that has served as headquarters for the Islamic State.
“He was in al-Raqqa when we killed him,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told Pentagon reporters during a video conference from Baghdad.
While Warren said that Jihadi John’s death still needed to be confirmed, he said that intelligence had given U.S. military leaders “great confidence” that the target of the drone strike was Emwazi.
“When the opportunity presented itself, we took the shot,” Warren said.
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said his government had been working with the United States “literally around the clock” to track down Jihadi John in what he described as a “combined effort” to find and take out the infamous Islamic militant
HE WAS INTENT ON MURDERING MANY, MANY PEOPLE SO THIS WAS AN ACT OF SELF DEFENSE
British Prime Minister - David Cameron
“And he was intent on murdering many, many more people,” Cameron said in a statement. “So this was an act of self-defense. It was the right thing to do.”
Cameron thanked the United States for having carried out the drone strike, saying that “the United Kingdom has no better friend or ally.”
Jihadi John, who was believed to be in his mid- to late twenties when he died, first came to the world’s attention in August 2014 with the release of a video showing him in a black hood standing behind the kneeling orange-clad American journalist James Foley, who’d been captured in 2012.
After delivering a political diatribe against Western governments, Emwazi then appeared to behead Foley with a long sword.
Later videos captured a man of the same height and speaking in a similar British accent severing the heads of U.S. reporter Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Hemming, and American aid worker Peter Kassig.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article44758110.html#storylink=cpy
d more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article44758110.html#storylink=cpy
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