Zippyjuan
11-13-2015, 02:47 PM
A promising career in viral videos probably had his career cut short this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/europe/jihadi-john-mohammed-emwazi-david-cameron-statement.html?_r=0
The Pentagon said on Friday that it was “reasonably certain” that an American airstrike killed Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State’s most notorious executioner.
Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the American-led coalition fighting the militant group, told reporters at a news briefing that the airstrike on Thursday took place near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. He said the Pentagon was still seeking final verification that Mr. Emwazi, a 27-year-old British citizen who became known as Jihadi John, was killed in the strike.
Mohammed Emwazi as identified in a beheading video.‘Jihadi John’ From ISIS Execution Videos Was Under Watch by British IntelligenceFEB. 26, 2015
Speaking from Baghdad over a webcast, Colonel Warren said a Reaper drone fired Hellfire missiles at a car in which Mr. Emwazi and another militant were believed to be traveling. “We know for a fact that the weapon system hit its intended target, and that the personnel who were on the receiving end of that weapons system were in fact killed,” he said, but it remained necessary to confirm that “those personnel were specifically who we thought they were.”
A video still believed to show Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John. Credit Site Intelligence Group
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain defended the decision to target Mr. Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and is a naturalized British citizen, as “an act of self-defense” and “the right thing to do.”
“We have been working with the United States literally around the clock to track him down,” Mr. Cameron said in London. “This was a combined effort, and the contribution of both our countries was essential. Emwazi is a barbaric murderer.”
He called the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, an “evil terrorist death cult,” and said of Mr. Emwazi, “He was ISIL’s lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many Muslims, too.”
At a news conference in Tunis, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the airstrike should serve as a warning.
“We are still assessing the results of this strike, but the terrorists associated with Daesh need to know this: Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated,” Mr. Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “There is no future, no path forward for Daesh, which does not lead ultimately to its elimination, to its destruction.”
Civil liberties advocates have criticized any official British attempt to kill Mr. Emwazi as possibly unlawful, in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and a United States citizen, in Yemen in 2011.
Mr. Emwazi, who was first known only as an unidentified, masked man with a British accent, first came to prominence in August 2014, when the Islamic State released a video in which the journalist James Foley was shown reading a statement criticizing President Obama and the American military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq. His captor then beheaded him off camera and then threatened to behead another journalist, Steven J. Sotloff, if his demands were not met.
Two weeks later, the Islamic State released a video showing the masked man beheading Mr. Sotloff.
The Washington Post revealed Mr. Emwazi’s identity in February, reporting that he grew up in a well-off family that moved to Britain when he was a child, and that he had studied computer science at the University of Westminster. The revelation touched off intense examination of the causes of radicalization among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
Mr. Emwazi was part of a group of network of friends, called the “North London Boys” by some intelligence analysts, who prayed at the same mosque and became captivated by an Egyptian-born cleric, Hani al-Sibai. Mr. Sibai is thought to have close links to the Tunisian branch of Ansar al-Shariah, a Salafist group that has been linked to a deadly attack in June on tourists in Tunisia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/europe/jihadi-john-mohammed-emwazi-david-cameron-statement.html?_r=0
The Pentagon said on Friday that it was “reasonably certain” that an American airstrike killed Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State’s most notorious executioner.
Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the American-led coalition fighting the militant group, told reporters at a news briefing that the airstrike on Thursday took place near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. He said the Pentagon was still seeking final verification that Mr. Emwazi, a 27-year-old British citizen who became known as Jihadi John, was killed in the strike.
Mohammed Emwazi as identified in a beheading video.‘Jihadi John’ From ISIS Execution Videos Was Under Watch by British IntelligenceFEB. 26, 2015
Speaking from Baghdad over a webcast, Colonel Warren said a Reaper drone fired Hellfire missiles at a car in which Mr. Emwazi and another militant were believed to be traveling. “We know for a fact that the weapon system hit its intended target, and that the personnel who were on the receiving end of that weapons system were in fact killed,” he said, but it remained necessary to confirm that “those personnel were specifically who we thought they were.”
A video still believed to show Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John. Credit Site Intelligence Group
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain defended the decision to target Mr. Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and is a naturalized British citizen, as “an act of self-defense” and “the right thing to do.”
“We have been working with the United States literally around the clock to track him down,” Mr. Cameron said in London. “This was a combined effort, and the contribution of both our countries was essential. Emwazi is a barbaric murderer.”
He called the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, an “evil terrorist death cult,” and said of Mr. Emwazi, “He was ISIL’s lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many Muslims, too.”
At a news conference in Tunis, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the airstrike should serve as a warning.
“We are still assessing the results of this strike, but the terrorists associated with Daesh need to know this: Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated,” Mr. Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “There is no future, no path forward for Daesh, which does not lead ultimately to its elimination, to its destruction.”
Civil liberties advocates have criticized any official British attempt to kill Mr. Emwazi as possibly unlawful, in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and a United States citizen, in Yemen in 2011.
Mr. Emwazi, who was first known only as an unidentified, masked man with a British accent, first came to prominence in August 2014, when the Islamic State released a video in which the journalist James Foley was shown reading a statement criticizing President Obama and the American military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq. His captor then beheaded him off camera and then threatened to behead another journalist, Steven J. Sotloff, if his demands were not met.
Two weeks later, the Islamic State released a video showing the masked man beheading Mr. Sotloff.
The Washington Post revealed Mr. Emwazi’s identity in February, reporting that he grew up in a well-off family that moved to Britain when he was a child, and that he had studied computer science at the University of Westminster. The revelation touched off intense examination of the causes of radicalization among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
Mr. Emwazi was part of a group of network of friends, called the “North London Boys” by some intelligence analysts, who prayed at the same mosque and became captivated by an Egyptian-born cleric, Hani al-Sibai. Mr. Sibai is thought to have close links to the Tunisian branch of Ansar al-Shariah, a Salafist group that has been linked to a deadly attack in June on tourists in Tunisia.