Whether the strike killed the British man who appears in several videos beheading Western hostages was not known.
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Warren says the operation was one in a string of targeted attacks on Islamic State leaders.
He said the Pentagon was still seeking final verification that Emwazi, a 27-year-old British citizen who became known as “Jihadi John”, was killed in the strike.
There has been no official confirmation of his death but a senior military official told Fox News the USA was “99 per cent sure we got him”, while a Pentagon source told the BBC there was “a high degree of certainty” that Emwazi was killed.
Peter Neumann, director of King’s College’s worldwide Center for the Study of Radicalization, said Emwazi is a “low-ranking officer” in charge of the facility where the Islamic State holds hostages.
Two weeks after Foley, fellow USA hostage Steven Sotloff was killed in the same manner, again on camera and by Jihadi John. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity, said the US drone hit the vehicle. “It was the right thing to do”, he said.
“We are still assessing the results of this strike but the terrorists associated with Da’esh need to know this: your days are numbered and you will be defeated”, he said.
Emwazi, who speaks with a British accent, has always been suspected of being from Britain since he appeared in IS videos past year. It was among a dozen blasts heard during an intense wave of strikes, said the Twitter feed of the group, whose reports rely on a network of activists inside Raqqa.
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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”. “The intelligence indicators that we had gave us great confidence that this individual was Jihadi John”. The identity and nationality of the boy’s mother is not known, but Home Office rules make it clear that he is already regarded as British, stating, “British citizenship may descend to one generation born overseas”.
