The identity of the man who has appeared in a series of ISIS beheading videos and earned the moniker "Jihadi John" has reportedly been revealed.
The man initially appeared in the gruesome video released last summer which depicted the beheading of American journalist James Foley. According to the Washington Post, the militant's name is Mohammed Emwazi. Emwazi, 27, was born in Kuwait and raised in London. The Post reports that he joined ISIS after venturing to Syria in 2012:
But his real name, according to friends and others familiar with his case, is Mohammed Emwazi, a Briton from a well-to-do family who grew up in West London and graduated from college with a degree in computer programming. He is believed to have traveled to Syria around 2012 and to have later joined the Islamic State, the group whose barbarity he has come to symbolize.
I have no doubt that Mohammed is Jihadi John, said one of Emwazi’s close friends who identified him in an interview with The Washington Post. He was like a brother to me. . . . I am sure it is him.
Furthermore, friends of Emwazi reportedly told the Post that they noticed a change in him after he graduated from college:
The friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, believe that Emwazi started to radicalize after a planned safari in Tanzania following his graduation from the University of Westminster.
Emwazi and two friends — a German convert to Islam named Omar and another man, Abu Talib — never made it on the trip. Once they landed in Dar es Salaam, in May 2009, they were detained by police and held overnight. It’s unclear whether the reason for the detention was made clear to the three, but they were eventually deported.
The New York Times reports that a senior British security official confirmed that Emwazi is Jihadi John, noting that this information was known "some time ago," but kept under wraps for "operational reasons."
[via Washington Post and New York Times]
