Breaking Update:
Pentagon says it is “reasonably certain” that air strike killed Jihadi John – the world is “better off”
[Statement by DOD added at bottom]
Remember the masked ISIL terrorist with a British accent who so brutally beheaded several Western hostages including American journalist James Foley?
Reports are emerging that the U.S. military launched a drone strike Thursday targeting the murderer, but that “the Pentagon is still working to determine whether the strike actually killed the militant, Briton Mohammed Emwazi,” according to the Washington Post.
The Post:
An official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive operation, said that the gathering that was targeted in Thursday’s strike may have included another of the so-called Beatles [the name given to a number of English-speaking captors due to the British accents]. The Washington Post first identified Emwazi early this year, but the identities of the other British militants have not become public.
.The Beatles are also believed to have held Kayla Mueller, another American hostage whose death was confirmed in February. Militants alleged she was killed in an Jordanian air strike, but American officials have suggested she was killed by the Islamic State.
.For more than a year, Western officials have sought to determine the whereabouts of Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait but grew up in a well-to-do London family and studied computer programming before becoming radicalized. Now in his mid-20s, he is believed to have made his way to Syria around 2012 and later joined the Islamic State.
Read more here
Added:
Statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on Airstrike in Raqqa, Syria
“U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Raqqa, Syria, on Nov. 12, 2015 targeting Mohamed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John.”
“Emwazi, a British citizen, participated in the videos showing the murders of U.S. journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.
“We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate.”
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