Jihadi John

In July 2017, German-based journalist Souad Mekhennet published I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad, which details the hunt to identify and kill Jihadi John, in part through the investigations of Souad Mekhennet herself. She was the lead reporter of a story, published in The Washington Post, that first revealed his true identity.

In September 2017, The Telegraph released old video footage showing Mohammed Emwazi and other notorious ISIL members relaxing unmasked and talking casually.

On 19 January 2016, in the ISIL magazine Dabiq, the group confirmed that Emwazi had been killed by a drone strike in Raqqa. The obituary showed him unmasked and referred to him as Abu Muharib al-Muhajir. Further photographs showing him unmasked in Syria were released on 26 January 2016.

On 12 November 2015, U.S. officials reported that Emwazi had been hit by a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria. His death was confirmed by ISIL in January 2016.

Haruna Yukawa, age 42, was captured sometime before August 2014. Kenji Goto, age 47, was captured sometime in October 2014 while trying to rescue Yukawa. In January 2015, a threat was issued that they would be killed unless the Japanese government paid a ransom of $200 million. Yukawa was beheaded on 24 January, and Goto on 31 January 2015.

On 26 February 2015, The Washington Post identified the perpetrator as Mohammed Emwazi, a British man then in his mid-20s who was born in Kuwait and grew up in west London. The Washington Post investigation was undertaken by Souad Mekhennet and Adam Goldman.

In March 2015, the media reported that his mother had recognised Jihadi John's voice as her son's; meanwhile, his father denied that this had happened or that Emwazi was Jihadi John.

On 8 March 2015, according to The Sunday Times, Emwazi apologised to his family for "problems and trouble the revelation of his identity has caused" them. The message was conveyed via an unspecified third party.

On 12 November 2015, two United States drone aircraft along with a British drone conducted an airstrike in Raqqa that targeted Emwazi as he left a building and entered a vehicle. US officials stated he had been killed, and a senior US military official was quoted as saying, "we are 99% sure we got him." A US official called it a "flawless" and "clean hit" with no collateral damage and that Emwazi was "evaporated." On 14 December 2015, US President Barack Obama stated Emwazi had been "taken out".

The nicknames "Jihadi John", "Jailer John" and "John the Beatle" were created by journalists. "Jihadi John" was used on 20 August 2014 in the conservative British magazine The Spectator in a piece titled "Jihadi John – a very British export" by Douglas Murray, a frequent critic of Islam, and soon after joined by the BBC and other sources.

In a video uploaded to YouTube on 19 August 2014, Foley read a prepared statement criticising the United States, the recent airstrikes in Iraq, and his brother who serves in the United States Air Force. Emwazi, wearing a mask, also read a prepared statement in which he criticised America and President Barack Obama and made demands to cease the 2014 American-led intervention in Iraq. The masked man then beheaded Foley off-camera, after which he threatened to behead Steven Sotloff if his demands were not met. The FBI and United States National Security Council confirmed that the video, which included footage of Foley's beheaded corpse, was genuine.

On 2 September 2014, a video was released reportedly showing American journalist Steven Sotloff's beheading by Emwazi. The White House confirmed the video's authenticity.

On 13 September 2014, a video, directed at British Prime Minister David Cameron, was released, showing British hostage aid worker David Haines being beheaded by Emwazi.

On 3 October 2014, a video released by ISIS showed Emwazi beheading British aid worker Alan Henning. Henning, a taxi driver from Salford, Greater Manchester, had volunteered to deliver aid to Syria. He was kidnapped in Al-Dana, an area held by ISIS, on 27 December 2013.

On 16 November 2014 a video was posted by ISIS of Emwazi standing over a severed head, which the White House confirmed was that of Peter Kassig. Kassig's actual beheading was not shown, and unlike earlier hostage beheading videos he did not make a statement. There has been speculation that, faced with the prospect of being beheaded, he may have resisted and been shot dead: a senior surgeon performed a detailed examination of the video and saw possible evidence of a gunshot wound.

Other factors that could have led to his identification were his height, general physique, the pattern of veins on the back of his hands, his voice and clothes. A team of analysts might use the topography of the landscape in the video in an attempt to identify the location. On 24 August 2014, the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Peter Westmacott, said that Britain was very close to identifying "Jihadi John" using sophisticated voice recognition technology, but when pressed, refused to disclose any other details.

On 20 September 2014, the United States Senate approved a $10 million reward for information that led to the capture of anyone involved in the murders of James Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Cawthorne Haines. On 20 November, the bill, extending the potential scope of the reward program to any American kidnapped and murdered by a "foreign terrorist organization" and limiting the reward to a maximum of $5 million, was referred to the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In August 2014, The Sunday Times reported that Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary ("L Jinny"), 23, a hip-hop musician from West London, had "emerged as a key suspect" in the investigation. Other sources also stated that Abu Hussain Al-Britani, 20, a computer hacker from Birmingham, and Abu Abdullah al-Britani, in his 20s from Portsmouth, were suspects.

In June 2010, Emwazi was detained by counter-terrorism officials in Britain, who searched and fingerprinted him, and blocked him from returning to Kuwait. In an email four months later to Qureshi, Emwazi expressed sympathy for Aafia Siddiqui, an al-Qaeda operative who had just been sentenced in US federal court for assault and attempted murder. Qureshi said he last heard from Emwazi when Emwazi sought advice from him in January 2012. Close friends of Emwazi interviewed by the Post said that he was "desperate to leave the country" and one friend stated that Emwazi unsuccessfully tried to travel to Saudi Arabia to teach English in 2012. Sometime after January 2012, Emwazi travelled to Syria, where he apparently contacted his family and at least one of his friends.

The Post reported interviews with Emwazi's friends indicating that Emwazi was radicalised after a planned safari to Tanzania following his graduation. According to the interviews, Emwazi and two friends, a German convert to Islam named Omar and another man, Abu Talib, never made the safari. Rather, upon landing in Dar es Salaam in May 2009, the three were detained, held overnight by police, and eventually deported. In May 2010, The Independent reported on the episode, identifying Emwazi as Muhammad ibn Muazzam. According to e-mails sent by Emwazi to Qureshi and that were provided to the Post, after leaving Tanzania, Emwazi flew to Amsterdam, where he claimed that an MI5 officer accused him of attempting to go to Somalia, where al-Shabab operates. Emwazi denied attempting to reach Somalia, but a former hostage told the Post that "Jihadi John was obsessed with Somalia" and forced captives to watch videos about al-Shabab. Tanzanian officials have denied that they detained and deported Emwazi at the request of MI5, saying instead that he had been refused entry for being drunk and abusive.

Later, Emwazi and his friends were permitted to return to Britain, where Emwazi met with Qureshi in late 2009. The Post quoted Qureshi as saying that Emwazi was "incensed" at the way he had been treated. Emwazi moved to Kuwait shortly afterward, where (according to emails he wrote to Qureshi), he worked for a computer company. Emwazi returned to London twice, however, and, on the second visit, he made plans to wed a woman in Kuwait.

In 2006, he went to the University of Westminster, studying Information Systems with Business Management. He secured a lower second-class BSc (Hons) on graduation three years later. At age 21, he worked as a salesman at an IT company in Kuwait and was considered by his boss as the best employee the company ever had.

The BBC stated that Emwazi is believed to be "an associate of a former UK control order suspect ... who travelled to Somalia in 2006 and is allegedly linked to a facilitation and funding network for Somali militant group al-Shabab." He reportedly prayed on occasion at a mosque in Greenwich. He graduated with a degree in Information Systems with Business Management from the University of Westminster (2009). His final address in the UK before he went abroad was in the Queen's Park area of north-west London.

Mohammed Emwazi (born Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri; Arabic: محمد جاسم عبد الكريم عليان الظفيري ‎; 17 August 1988 – 12 November 2015) was a British Arab believed to be the person seen in several videos produced by the Islamist extremist group ISIL showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. A group of his hostages nicknamed him "John" since he was part of a four-person terrorist cell with English accents whom they called "The Beatles"; the press later began calling him "Jihadi John".

Emwazi was born Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri on 17 August 1988 in Kuwait as the eldest of five children to Jassem and Ghaneyah Emwazi. The family, who were Bidoon of Iraqi origin, lived in the town of Al Jahra, before moving to the United Kingdom in 1994 when he was six. They settled in inner west London, moving between several properties in Maida Vale, later living in St John's Wood and finally in Queen's Park. Emwazi attended St Mary Magdalene Church of England primary school, and later Quintin Kynaston School.

Emwazi was born to Iraqi parents who moved to neighbouring Kuwait from Iraq. When the Kuwaiti government rejected their application for citizenship, in 1994 they moved to Iraq and then on to Britain. According to his student card from the University of Westminster, Emwazi was born on 17 August 1988.