The Pentagon says it is “reasonably certain” that a U.S. drone strike in Syria has killed the Islamic State militant known as “Jihadi John”.
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U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, said a Hellfire missile was sacked at a vehicle believed to be carrying Emwazi and another man. The missile killed the people riding in the auto, he said. “We still have to finalize the verification that those personnel were specifically who we thought they were”.
Emwazi is the English-speaking militant seen in videos released by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Whether the strike killed the British man who appears in several videos depicting the beheadings of Western hostages was not known, officials said. But Warren also noted that Emwazi has been a major part of ISIS’s recruiting efforts. And he noted “the absolute barbarism” that Emwazi displayed in infamous videos. The Observatory said the bodies were charred, and Observatory chief Rami Abdurrahman said the commander killed in the attack was most likely Emwazi. Officials were assessing the results of the strike, he said.
“We had been following this target for a few time”, Warren said. “The intelligence indicators that we had gave us great confidence that this individual was Jihadi John”.
Hammond, who was in Prague Friday, said at a news conference British officials believed “the strike was successful” although they could not be sure. Emwazi had lived in Britain and was educated there for years.
Born in Kuwait, Emwazi grew up in Britain, giving him added symbolic weight.
He was identified as the mysterious knife-wielding man in the gruesome ISIS execution videos in February. Earlier the Pentagon confirmed that U.S. forces carried out an airstrike in Syria targeting Mohammed Emwazi.
Experts said Emwazi’s death may not make much difference to Islamic State or to the struggle against radicalisation among a few young British Muslims.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, appearing at a news conference in Tunis, Tunisia, declared that extremists “need to know this: Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated”.
She added that she would have preferred Emwazi to have been brought back to the United Kingdom to face justice.
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Speaking outside his Downing Street residence, Cameron described Emwazi as “a barbaric murderer” who “posed an ongoing and serious threat to innocent civilians, not only in Syria but around the world and in the United Kingdom too”.
