Jihadi John Identified As Mohammed Emwazi

The Washington Post has identified the masked executioner of ISIS as Mohammed Emwazi, a British national.

The militant appeared in a number of videos showing the beheading of Western hostages, including Steven Sotloff and James Foley. He also appeared in videos that showed the murder of Alan Henning, David Haines and Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

In all the videos he appeared for ISIS, he was clad in an all-black-attire and spoke with a calm London accent. He was given the nickname Jihadi John by the media. His identity was supposedly known by British security services, but he was never identified due to security concerns.

A close friend of Mohammed Emwazi revealed to The Washington Post that he believed Jihadi John was his friend. CAGE research director Asim Qureshi was also in contact with Emwazi before he left for the Middle East. Qureshi believed that the London resident was the executioner after he saw one of the propaganda videos of the radical group. He revealed to the Post that the resemblance was uncanny, which makes it fairly certain for him to identify Jihadi John as Emwazi.

Emwazi was born in Kuwait and lived in west London. He was also a student at the University of Westminster and attended a mosque in Greenwich.

Mohammed Emwazi - image credit: dailymail.co.uk

A former colleague of Emwazi revealed that the former West London resident was radicalized following a failed safari. He was detained in Tanzania together with his companions before being deported by officials. A number of emails Qureshi received from Mohammed Emwazi revealed that there were attempts by members of MI5, the British intelligence service, to recruit him. However, an operative supposedly accused him of trying to reach Somalia. Somalia is the base of al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist militant group.

Qureshi said Mohammad was angered by the way he was treated. He claimed he was not treated fairly. The emails also showed that frustrations of the hardened terrorist with the way British authorities treated him. It also showed how he was radicalized.

He was employed in a tech company based in Kuwait before he returned to London to arrange his wedding with a woman he met in Kuwait. However, when he tried to return to the Gulf country, British counter terrorism officials detained him.

Mohammed Emwazi revealed to Qureshi that he was in the middle of organizing his wedding and a job was waiting for him in the Gulf country. He added that he felt like a prisoner in London. He said he was detained and monitored by security officials, who prevented him from starting a new life in Kuwait.

Another close friend of Emwazi said the masked executioner wanted to start a new life by leaving Britain. Emwazi wanted to start a new life in another place and reached a stage where he simply wanted to get out. The Jihadi John nickname was used since this was the term used by some hostages when they talked about him while in captivity. He is joined by two other militants who spoke with a British accent, and together they were referred to as the Beatles.

The last appearance of Mohammed Emwazi was on an ISIS video showing the group demanding the government of Japan to pay $200 million for the release of two Japanese hostages.

Posted by James Fried on Friday February 27 2015, 11:41 AM EDT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0