Radicalised in the UK, the hostage executioner dubbed 'Jihadi John' was known to MI5 before he left west London to join Isis ranks
The true identity of ‘Jihadi John’, the hooded Islamic State militant behind hostage beheadings, has been known for several months to security officials on both sides of the Atlantic and across much of the Middle East.
But there was no question of any indiscreet inquiries into his whereabouts being conducted as long as hostages’ lives remained at risk. As a consequence, his family in London was not questioned and his known associates were left unmolested.
After the killer was named in the US as Mohammed Emwazi on Thursday, details of his life and his descent into terrorism and murder began to emerge.
Emwazi’s family moved from Kuwait to London 20 years ago, when he was aged six. The family settled in North Kensington, in the west of the capital. It is an area that has produced a surprising number of violent jihadis.
He was educated at Quintin Kynaston school, in St John’s Wood, north London, where his contemporaries included the singer-songwriter Tulisa. He then studied information technology at the University of Westminster, graduating in 2009.
By this time, Emwazi was said to be a polite, observant Muslim with a penchant for designer clothes. He was also a member of a loose-knit group of Muslim youths who played five-a-side football together, were educated at the same schools, attended the same mosques, and were all impressed by a particular preacher, Hani al-Sibai.
Of that group, three are now dead, one is living in Sudan after being stripped of his British citizenship, a fourth cannot leave the UK for fear that he too will be deprived of his citizenship, and several are serving prison sentences.
According to people who have moved in jihadi circles in west London, Emwazi began to be noticed by like-minded people about five or six years ago. “That’s when he emerged, so to speak,” said one.
He was associating with a number of people who were being scrutinised closely by MI5 and Scotland Yard. Some had been discovered to have been in telephone contact with Hussain Osman, one of the men who attempted to detonate a series of bombs on London’s transport network two weeks after the 7 July 2005 attacks. Several were also found to have taken part in jihadi bonding sessions on mountain camps in northern England and Scotland.
Around five years ago, one man began to emerge as the leader of the would-be jihadis in this corner of west London.
He was Bilal el-Berjawi, who had grown up in North Kensington after
his family moved to the UK from Lebanon when he was an infant. In
2011, Berjawi was stripped of his British citizenship after he went to
Somalia to join the Islamist group al-Shabaab, apparently gaining a senior position within its ranks.
In January 2012, Berjawi was killed in a US drone strike in Somalia. A few hours earlier his wife had given birth to a child at St Mary’s hospital in west London, prompting suspicions among his associates that his location had been pinpointed as a result of a telephone conversation between the couple.
The following month Mohamed Sakr, who had been Berjawi’s next-door neighbour when they were growing up in London, was also killed in a drone strike in Somalia. Although born in Britain, Sakr’s parents were Egyptian, and the British authorities regarded him as a dual national. Like Berjawi, he had been stripped of his British citizenship shortly before the US drone strike. His parents promptly flew to Cairo and formally renounced their Egyptian citizenship, to prevent their two other sons from being deprived of their British status.
It was in 2009, while associating with people like this, that Emwazi embarked on a trip to Tanzania. He has since told friends that it was a “safari trip”, but MI5 and the Tanzanian authorities were clearly not convinced.
Emwazi was refused entry to the country and in a series of statements that he subsequently made to Cage, a London-based NGO which campaigns on behalf of communities affected by the “war on terror”, he alleged he was threatened with beatings by armed members of Tanzania’s security forces who suggested to him that they were acting on behalf of the British government.
After being refused entry to Tanzania he was put on a plane to the Netherlands, where he said he was questioned by an MI5 agent named “Nick” who accused him of wanting to take up arms with al-Shabaab.
In a series of emails to Cage, Emwazi said the British officer knew “everything about me; where I lived, what I did, and the people I hanged around with”. It is claimed that the MI5 officer then attempted to “turn” Emwazi, asking: “Why don’t you work for us?”. When he refused, MI5 is alleged to have said that “life would be harder” as a consequence.
In the event, Emwazi was put onto a ferry to Dover, where he was further questioned by police who told him they had contacted his fiancee in Kuwait. She later broke off their engagement.
Emwazi complained to his friends that the police had told him that they were listening to his telephone calls.
Despite this surveillance, local police in west London suspect that he engaged in a series of petty crimes. In 2010 he was charged with possession of a number of stolen expensive bicycles. One of the charges alleged that he “acquired criminal property, namely a Cannondale Bad Boy bicycle”. In the event, he elected for trial at crown court and was acquitted.
Emwazi moved to Kuwait, where he found work with a computer company, but after one return trip to London he was detained and questioned by police as he tried to return to the Middle East. He has alleged also that he was assaulted by one police officer. The following day he was refused permission to board a flight to Kuwait, and informed that his visa had been cancelled.
The following year Emwazi was named in court papers as being part of a “network of United Kingdom and east African-based Islamist extremists which is involved in the provision of fund and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes and the facilitation of individuals’ travel from the United Kingdom”. At the time Emwazi denied that he was part of any terrorist grouping.
Then in 2012 he completed a short English language teaching course, but was rejected by a number of English-language institutes in Saudi Arabia.
By 2013, Emwazi’s father suggested that he change his name. He did so, adopting the name Mohammed al-Ayan, but was still refused entry to Kuwait. A week later, after being barred from Kuwait for a third time, he left his parents’ home to travel to Turkey, ostensibly to work with Syrian refugees. Four months later the police arrived at the family home to say he had crossed the border: Emwazi was now on the way to becoming “Jihadi John”.
He is said to have risen rapidly through the ranks over the next 18 months, achieving a leading role within the foreign jihadi corps that comprise a large part of the group’s fighting force.
However, while Emwazi has rank among the foreign corps and the trust of the leadership, he is a long way from the Isis decision-making group. “He is like a sergeant in an army,” said a US member. “Iraqis run the state, Syrians are second and the foreigners will never get close to them.”
Emwazi is now known to many of his fellow fighters as Abu Abdullah al-Britani, and has a reputation within the group as a ruthless executioner who will kill on command.
He also played a lead role in the negotiations to free European hostages captured by the jihadis. Two officials involved in the discussions say the person they spoke to via Skype sounded identical to the person now identified as Emwazi.
He is one of a trio of Britons who held hostage Spanish, French, Danish, British and US nationals. The hostages were captured in northern Syria, some in Idlib province, others in Aleppo, and a third group in and around Raqqa province, which has since become the main Syrian stronghold of Isis.
The jihadi cell that spawned Isis was initially strong in Idlib province, having taken root there in the summer of 2012. From there it spread to Aleppo, where hostages that had been captured at that point were held in one of two locations - under the eye hospital in the centre of the city or in a factory deep in an industrial zone on its northern outskirts.
By February last year, all the hostages, including Briton John Cantlie, who is one of two remaining western hostages, were moved to Raqqa.
It was in Raqqa that the hostages first became aware of the status that Emwazi had developed among Isis.
One former hostage described him as “cold, sadistic and merciless”.
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