“We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate”.
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But a USA official said the attack in the northern Syrian town of Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital, had probably killed Emwazi.
“We think we got him”, said the senior official in an interview.
Officials said Britain’s intelligence community had Emwazi on its list of potential terror suspects for years but was unable to prevent him from traveling to Syria.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was aware of the airstrike, and notified families whose kin was executed by Emwazi.
The Pentagon said late Thursday it had launched an airstrike in Syria targeting “Jihadi John”, a British national seen in videos depicting the beheading of hostages held by ISIS.
Peter Neumann, director of the global Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, said Emwazi’s fate would help undermine Islamic State’s image of invincibility, a key element in its appeal to a few young Muslims in Western countries.
Among those victims who appeared beheaded in videos featuring Emwazi was the US journalist James Foley, 40, who had been abducted in Syria in November 2012.
As the masked face of ISIS, he appeared in a series of brutal execution videos, dressed head-to-toe in black and holding a knife. Describing Emwazi as a “barbaric murderer” and Islamic State’s “lead executioner”, he said: “It was the right thing to do”. The official called it a “flawless” and “clean hit” with no collateral damage and that Emwazi basically “evaporated”. Foley’s parents, John and Diane Foley, of New Hampshire, issued a statement saying the news of death of the killer of their son has given them “a very small solace”.
Those being held by three British-sounding captors nicknamed the militants “the Beatles”, with “Jihadi John” a reference to John Lennon, Espinosa said.
“Britain has been working hand in glove with America over the “Jihadi John” drone strike, to defeat (ISIS), and to hunt down those murdering hostages”, Cameron’s office said.
Emwazi is believed to have travelled to Syria in 2013 and later joined IS militants.
Emwazi then appeared in videos showing the deaths of American journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines and United Kingdom taxi driver Alan Henning, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
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But beyond the emotional impact, experts on extremism questioned whether the demise of Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Briton who came to symbolize the brutality of Islamic State, would signify real progress in the fight against the group.
