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‘Jihadi John’ in ISIS Videos Is Identified as Mohammed Emwazi of London British Intelligence Services Had Early Encounter With Man Identified as ISIS Fighter
(about 5 hours later)
LONDON — The man in the black balaclava who has apparently beheaded several hostages of the Islamic State in gruesome propaganda videos has been identified by British security services as Mohammed Emwazi, a British citizen. LONDON — Mohammed Emwazi was 6 when his parents moved to West London from his birthplace in Kuwait, and he seems to have lived a normal life, studying hard and graduating in computer sciences from the University of Westminster in 2009.
Known in the news media as “Jihadi John,” Mr. Emwazi is said to have been born in Kuwait and raised in London. He traveled to Syria in 2012. His name was first published on Thursday on the website of The Washington Post. But he came to the attention of the British intelligence services in May that same year, detained as he landed in Tanzania with two friends on what he described as a celebratory safari. British officials thought he and his friends were headed to Somalia, to fight with the terrorist group Al Shabab, and allegedly tried to recruit him as an informant before shipping him back home.
The identification was confirmed by a senior British security official, who said that the British government had identified Mr. Emwazi some time ago but had not disclosed his name for operational reasons. The identification was also confirmed in Washington by a senior United States military intelligence official. Mr. Emwazi was identified on Thursday as the masked Islamic State fighter called “Jihadi John,” and his journey from computer student to a murderous spokesman for the Islamic State is only beginning to come clear. How and when he was radicalized, and whether the British intelligence services were at fault — either dealing with him too harshly or not identifying him as a serious threat soon enough — is already the subject of hot debate.
Mr. Emwazi, 26, grew up in a trim housing estate on Lancefield Street in West London and graduated from the University of Westminster with a degree in computer programming. The dilemma for security services is the same all over the West, whether in Britain, France or now in the United States, as some young Muslims are becoming radicalized or seeking to join a jihad. Given important constitutional and legal protections, how do counterterrorism and police officials draw the line when they find enough evidence to suspect someone, but do not have enough to prosecute them, or even to keep them under legal surveillance?
He first showed up in Islamic State videos in August, when he appeared to behead the American journalist James Foley and delivered threats against the West. The actual execution was not included in the video. “When you have a lot of evidence but not enough to prosecute what do you do?” asked Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a British research institution. “Doing nothing is not practical or acceptable under today’s conditions.”
The same man appeared in the videos of the beheadings of a second American journalist, Steven J. Sotloff; the British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines; the British taxi driver Alan Henning; and the American aid worker Peter Kassig. Last month, he appeared in a video with Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, both Japanese hostages, shortly before they were killed. Mr. Emwazi was called “Jihadi John” by the foreign hostages he guarded, a number of whom he apparently beheaded in widely circulated videos. First named on Thursday by The Washington Post website, his identity was confirmed by a senior British security official, who said that the British government had identified Mr. Emwazi some time ago but had not disclosed his name for operational reasons. The identification was also confirmed in Washington by a senior United States military intelligence official.
Scotland Yard refused to confirm the identification of Mr. Emwazi, and the prime minister’s office had no comment. Information is still vague about Mr. Emwazi, with Britain officially refusing to confirm that he is indeed “Jihadi John” because of what are described as continuing operations.
“We are not going to confirm the identity of anyone at this stage or give an update on the progress of this live counterterrorism investigation,” said Richard Walton of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command. But Mr. Emwazi appears in 2011 court documents, obtained by the BBC, as a member of a network of extremists who funneled funds, equipment and recruits “from the United Kingdom to Somalia to undertake terrorism-related activity.”
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he has viewed the videos with horror. Speaking in November, he said, “You should be in no doubt that I want Jihadi John to face justice for the appalling acts that have been carried out in Syria.” Mr. Emwazi is alleged to be part of a group from West and North London, sometimes known as “the North London Boys,” with links to Al Shabab, organized by an individual, whose name was redacted, who had returned to London in February 2007.
Mr. Emwazi apparently was set on the path to radicalization after being detained by the authorities on a visit to Tanzania in 2009 for a safari after graduation. He was accused by British intelligence officers of trying to make his way to Somalia. Another person associated with that group was Bilal al-Berjawi, who was born in Lebanon but brought to West London as a baby. He fought in Somalia and rose through the ranks of Al Shabab and Al Qaeda in Africa before being killed in a drone strike in January 2012, according to Raffaello Pantucci, also a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.
Friends of Mr. Emwazi told The Washington Post that he and two other friends — a German convert to Islam named Omar and another man, Abu Talib — never made it to the safari. On landing in Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, in May 2009, they were detained by the police and held overnight and eventually deported, they said. Later, Mr. Emwazi said that an officer from MI5, Britain’s domestic security agency, had tried to recruit him. Mr. Berjawi traveled to Kenya in February 2009, telling his family he was heading for a safari; he and a friend were detained in Nairobi and shipped back to London, but made it to Somalia in October that year.
Asim Qureshi, a research director at CAGE, a British advocacy organization opposed to the “war on terror,” civil rights abuses and erosion of due process, met with Mr. Emwazi in the fall of 2009. “Mohammed was quite incensed by his treatment, that he had been very unfairly treated,” Mr. Qureshi told The Post. The neighborhood group “is a tight community and it’s very probable that they knew each other and were part of the same crew,” Mr. Pantucci said.
But in a statement on Thursday, Mr. Qureshi repeated that he could not identify Jihadi John as Mr. Emwazi with complete certainty. Mr. Qureshi said that two years of communications with Mr. Emwazi highlighted “interference by the U.K. security agencies as he sought to find redress within the system.” So it is likely that Mr. Emwazi’s own safari a few months later in May, from Britain to Germany to Tanzania, using the name of Muhammad ibn Muazzam, set off alarms with the British security services, and that he had started on the road to radicalism even before his encounter with MI5 in 2009.
Mr. Emwazi moved to Kuwait, his birthplace, shortly after his detention to work for a computer company, and he returned to London at least twice, Mr. Qureshi said. British counterterrorism officials detained Mr. Emwazi in June 2010, fingerprinting him and searching his belongings. In July of that year, Mr. Qureshi said, Mr. Emwazi was not allowed to return to Kuwait, which had apparently refused to renew his visa and blamed it on the British government. Asim Qureshi, research director at CAGE, a British advocacy organization opposed to what it calls the “war on terror,” met with Mr. Emwazi in the fall of 2009. Mr. Emwazi was very angry over his treatment at the hands of British security services, Mr. Qureshi said, and the two stayed in contact for two years.
“I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started,” he wrote in a 2010 email to Mr. Qureshi. “But now I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London. A person imprisoned & controlled by security servicemen, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace & my country, Kuwait.” Mr. Qureshi said he is not 100 percent sure that Mr. Emwazi, whom he described as “extremely kind, extremely humble and extremely soft-spoken,” is the masked Islamic State terrorist.
In his statement, Mr. Qureshi said he last heard from Mr. Emwazi in January 2012. “He desperately wanted to use the system to change his situation, but the system ultimately rejected him,” he said of Mr. Emwazi. But he nonetheless blamed Mr. Emwazi’s treatment for his radicalization, describing harassment by police officers at airports, pressure on Kuwait to cancel a visa and on one occasion, Mr. Emwazi being “roughed up” and “strangled by a police officer” before being sent home.
Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, at King’s College London, said on Twitter that Mr. Emwazi, “middle class & educated, demonstrates again that radicalization is not necessarily driven by poverty or social deprivation.” “This is not somebody who ever said, ‘I hate the system, I reject the system,’  ” Mr. Qureshi said. “It’s someone who said, ‘I don’t like the environment but I’ll work within the system to effect change.’  ”
In an interview, Mr. Maher noted that the conflict in Syria in 2012 was different from what it is now, with more varied groupings. He suggested that Mr. Emwazi joined Islamic State later, noting that most jihadists from West London “are of North African and Arab origin, so it matches him broadly.” As ever, there is a set of conflicting interpretations, with some seeing a young Muslim man treated badly, put into a headlock, barred from traveling and induced to betray his friends, and those who say that such treatment is not any excuse — or reason — for repeatedly cutting off the heads of civilians taken hostage.
The neighborhood where Mr. Emwazi grew up is not middle class but marked by public housing. It is predominantly Muslim, with immigrants from various parts of South Asia and the Middle East and is said by residents to have a problem with youth gangs and drugs. There is a small Bangladeshi mosque in what used to be a post office. Further, there are others who are wondering how security services can identify potential terrorists like Mr. Emwazi, but then fail to recognize what risk they pose.
Nicole, 22, a young mother, who has lived in the area all her life, said on Thursday that she was shocked to think that “Jihadi John” lived less than 100 yards away. She turned to her partner and said, “It’s that crazy terrorist who cut those heads off. I’m shocked that he was at our doorstep. I must have passed him in the street. He’s not back, is he?” CAGE, which embraces its notoriety, emphasized similar circumstances in the case of Michael Adebolajo, who attacked and hacked to death a British soldier, Lee Rigby, outside a London barracks in May 2013. Mr. Adebolajo claimed he had been detained in Kenya and “tortured” by British officials who suspected he was traveling to Somalia to join Al Shabab, and MI5 also tried to turn him into an informer.
She did not want her surname published and said that there are a lot of idle youth in the area. “There’s nothing for anyone here to do, there’s a park but it’s full of drunks,” she said. “There’s nothing for kids to do but sit in the street causing trouble.” Mr. Emwazi, returning from Tanzania, was detained again at an airport in the Netherlands and questioned by Dutch and British security officials.
British officials estimate that there are at least 500 homegrown militants fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of whom have returned to Britain. Mr. Emwazi later moved to Kuwait, his birthplace, working for a computer company, and he returned to London at least twice, Mr. Qureshi said. British counterterrorism officials detained Mr. Emwazi in June 2010, fingerprinting him and searching his belongings. In July of that year, Mr. Qureshi said, Mr. Emwazi was not allowed to return to Kuwait, which had apparently refused to renew his visa, and Mr. Emwazi blamed the British government.
Hostages gave Mr. Emwazi the name John, in reference to a member of the Beatles, as he and other Britons had been nicknamed; another of their captors was called George. They were said by hostages to be part of a team guarding Western hostages, first in Idlib, Syria, and then in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State. “I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started,” he wrote in a 2010 email to Mr. Qureshi. “But now I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London. A person imprisoned & controlled by security service men, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace & my country, Kuwait.”
In his statement, Mr. Qureshi said of Mr. Emwazi, “He desperately wanted to use the system to change his situation, but the system ultimately rejected him.”
Mr. Qureshi said he had last heard from Mr. Emwazi in January 2012. By 2013, he was in Idlib, Syria, helping to guard Western hostages and in August 2014, presided over the first of the beheading videos of those hostages.
Even if Mr. Emwazi’s version of events, as passed on by Mr. Qureshi, is true, Mr. Pantucci asked, “Is it justifiable to go and behead journalists and aid workers because you have cops causing you trouble?”
Mr. Joshi said there were doubts about CAGE’s “crude and simplistic” narrative of radicalization because of police mistreatment, saying that there was evidence of Mr. Emwazi’s involvement with Somalia before he was ever detained, and long before the Syrian civil war and the rise of Islamic State.
Mr. Emwazi first showed up in Islamic State videos in August, when he appeared to behead the American journalist James Foley and deliver threats against the West. The actual execution was not included in the video.
The same man was apparently seen in the videos of the beheadings of a second American journalist, Steven J. Sotloff; the British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines; the British taxi driver Alan Henning; and the American aid worker Peter Kassig. Last month, he appeared in a video with Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, both Japanese hostages, shortly before they were killed.