BBC names IS terrorist ‘Jihadi John’ as a Londoner called Mohammed

The masked Islamic State militant known as “Jihadi John”, who has been pictured in the videos of the beheadings of Western hostages, was named by the BBC on Thursday. They claim he is called Mohammed Emwazi, a British man believed to be from West London, who was known to British security services. They chose not to disclose his name earlier for operational reasons. Emwazi first appeared in a video last August, when he apparently killed the American journalist James Foley. He was later thought to have been pictured in the videos of the beheadings of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter.

I have no doubt that Mohammed is Jihadi John.

An associate of Mohammed Emwazi

Last month, the militant appeared in a video with the Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, shortly before they were killed. 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. Last year, Islamic State announced the creation of a “caliphate” in the large large swathes of Syria and Iraq it controls. The name ‘Jihadi John’ came after it was reported that hostages referred to the militant as ‘John’ during their time captive. Police in the UK have not commented on the claim.

We are not going to confirm the identity of anyone at this stage or give an update on the progress of this live counter- terrorism investigation.

Commander Richard Walton of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command