Authorities in Turkey have detained a man they suspect is linked to Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State militant known as Jihadi John.
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Another USA official told CNN that Emwazi was in a vehicle at the time of the strike, which was launched from a drone.
Activists from anti-Isis group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said a drone targeted the auto Emwazi was travelling in near the Islamic Court, which enforces the group’s interpretation of Sharia law, and a roundabout used to stage executions in the city centre.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.
“After seeing the news that “Jihadi John” was killed I felt an instant sense of relief, knowing he wouldn’t appear in any more horrific videos”, Bethany Haines, Haines’ teenage daughter, told ITV News.
Foley’s parents, John and Diane Foley, said Friday that learning of the strike was “a very small solace”.
“It was drone strike using Hellfire missile”.
The journalist, Javier Espinosa, who had been held in Syria for more than six months after his abduction in September 2013, said those being held by three British-sounding captors nicknamed them “the Beatles”, with Jihadi John a reference to Beatles member John Lennon. He is shown killing hostages from the US and other countries in several gruesome videos.
A Kuwaiti-born British citizen believed to be in his 20s, Emwazi has been described by a Spanish journalist who was a former hostage as a bloodthirsty psychopath who enjoyed threatening Western hostages.
For Emwazi, the Islamic State’s best-known propagandist, his death “would be a significant step in the anti-IS fight for the West given his part in recruiting efforts and the terror group’s overall public image”, according to CNN.
Their friends and relatives all said Friday that even if Emwazi was dead, it would bring little comfort.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said while the death had not been confirmed, “it appears Mohammed Emwazi has been held to account for his callous and brutal crimes”.
“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.
And the targeting of Jihadi John could not have been accomplished without recent improvements in intelligence gathering by the CIA with its renewed emphasis on human resources on the ground.
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Mohammed Emwazi’s brown eyes peering out from a black mask and his London accent became the first contact many around the world had with the group, though the extremists carried out other mass killings, rapes and enslavements in their march across Iraq and Syria.
