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| CAGE research director, Asim Qureshi talks during a press conference held by the CAGE human rights charity in London, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015. A British-accented militant who has appeared in beheading videos released by the Islamic State group in Syria bears “striking similarities” to a man who grew up in London, a Muslim lobbying group said Thursday. Mohammed Emwazi has been identified by news organizations as the masked militant more commonly known as “Jihadi John.” London-based CAGE, which works with Muslims in conflict with British intelligence services, said Thursday its research director, Asim Qureshi, saw strong similarities, but because of the hood worn by the militant, “there was no way he could be 100 percent certain.” |
LONDON (AP)
-- The world knows him as "Jihadi John," the masked, knife-wielding
militant in videos showing Western hostages being beheaded by the
Islamic State group. On Thursday he was identified as a London-raised
university graduate known to British intelligence for more than five
years.
The British-accented militant from the
chilling videos is Mohammed Emwazi, a man in his mid-20s who was born in
Kuwait and raised in a modest, mixed-income area of west London.
No
one answered the door at the brick row house where Emwazi's family is
said to have lived. Neighbors in the area of public housing projects
either declined comment or said they didn't know the family.
British
anti-terror officials wouldn't confirm the man's identity, citing a
"live counterterrorism investigation." But a well-placed Western
official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't
authorized to speak publicly, confirmed he is Emwazi.
One man who knew Emwazi portrayed him as compassionate, a description completely at odds with the cruelty attributed to him.
"The
Mohammed that I knew was extremely kind, extremely gentle, extremely
soft-spoken, was the most humble young person that I knew," said Asim
Qureshi of CAGE, a London-based advocacy group that counsels Muslims in
conflict with British intelligence services.
Qureshi
noted strong similarities between the man in the beheading videos and
Emwazi, who he first met in 2009. But, "I can't be 100 percent
certain."
"The guy's got a hood on his head.
It's very, very difficult," Qureshi said, adding that his last contact
with Emwazi was in January 2012.
Asked whether
it was helpful or hurtful to have the jihadi publicly identified, White
House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that investigators over the
last several months "have found it to their advantage to not talk
publicly about the details or progress of that investigation." He didn't
confirm the identity of the suspect.
The
Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King's
College London, which closely tracks fighters in Syria, said it believed
the identification was correct.
"Jihadi John"
appeared in a video released in August showing the slaying of American
journalist James Foley, denouncing the West before the killing. Former
captives identified him as one of a group of British militants that
prisoners had nicknamed "The Beatles."
A man
with similar stature and voice was also featured in videos of the
killings of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Britons David Haines and
Alan Hemming, and U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
The
Washington Post and the BBC, which first identified the masked man in
the video as Emwazi, said he was born in Kuwait, grew up in west London
and studied computer programming at the University of Westminster. The
university confirmed that a student of that name graduated in 2009.
"If these allegations are true, we are shocked and sickened by the news," the university said in a statement.
The
news outlets said Emwazi was known to British authorities before he
traveled to Syria in 2012, and Qureshi said Emwazi had accused British
intelligence agents of harassing him.
Emwazi
first contacted CAGE in 2009, Qureshi said. He had traveled to Tanzania
with two other men after leaving university, but was deported and
questioned in Amsterdam by British and Dutch intelligence services, who
suspected him of attempting to join al-Shabaab militants in Somalia.
The
following year, Emwazi accused the British intelligence services of
preventing him from traveling to Kuwait, where he planned to work and
marry.
CAGE quoted an email Emwazi had sent
saying, "I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started. But now
I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London."
Qureshi accused British authorities of alienating and radicalizing young British Muslims with heavy-handed policies.
"When
we treat people as if they are outsiders, they will inevitably feel
like outsiders, and they will look for belonging elsewhere," he said.
Congregants
leaving a mosque in the west London neighborhood where Emwazi is
believed to have lived said they didn't know Emwazi and didn't believe
he had worshipped there.
Neighbor Janine Kintenda, 47, who said she'd lived in the area for 16 years, was shocked at the news.
"Oh my God," she said, lifting her hand to her mouth. "This is bad. This is bad."
Shiraz
Maher of the King's College radicalization center said he was
investigating whether Emwazi was among a group of young west Londoners
who traveled to Syria in about 2012.
Many of them are now dead, including Mohammad el-Araj, Ibrahim al-Mazwagi and Choukri Ellekhlifi, all killed in 2013.
Maher
said it appears that Emwazi survived, and has become one of the most
prominent members of the Islamic State group, a fighter whose confidence
and Western accent are calculated to strike fear into viewers of the
group's grisly videos.
Maher said Emwazi's
background was similar to that of other British jihadis, and disproved
the idea "that these guys are all impoverished, that they're coming from
deprived backgrounds."
"They are by and large upwardly mobile people, well educated," he said.
The
daughter of British aid worker Haines, who was killed in September,
told ITV News that identifying the masked man was "a good step."
"But I think all the families will feel closure and relief once there's a bullet between his eyes," Bethany Haines said.
Sotloff's
family said they felt "relieved" and "take comfort" after Emwazi's
identity was revealed, and hope he will be caught and sent to prison.
"We
want to sit in a courtroom, watch him sentenced and see him sent to a
super-max prison where he will spend the rest of his life in isolation,"
family spokesman Barak Barfi told the BBC.
