Mohammad Emwazi has been identified as the ISIS militant in videos claiming responsibility for the beheadings of U.S., British and other hostages.
The name was first published by the Washington Post this morning. Reports say "strenuous" efforts appear to have been made to cover his tracks online.
A U.S. government official confirmed Emwazi’s identity to the Guardian (UK), after British security services declined to confirm or deny that he is the killer.
Emwazi, a 26-year-old, Kuwaiti-born, London-raised college graduate, had famously been given the moniker “Jihadi John” by a group of hostages.
Captives described him as part of an Isis cell they named “the Beatles.”
Mohammad Emwazi guarded hostages and handled negotiations with their families. By all accounts he is a ruthless killer who has shown no remorse.
Emwazi arrived in the UK at the age of six, having been born in Kuwait. He grew up in London and was known as a polite, mild-mannered individual.
Those who knew him say he had a penchant for stylish clothes but remained an observant Muslim, bearded and reluctant to make eye contact with women.
Fluent in Arabic, he graduated in 2009 with a degree in information technology. Soon after, he began to appear on the UK’s national security radar.
Over the course of a year Emwazi claimed to have been harassed and intimidated by security services. In 2010, he went as far as to file a complaint.
According to people who have moved in jihadi circles in London, the newspaper claims that Emwazi first began to be noticed about 5-6 years ago.
“That’s when he emerged, so to speak,” said one.
Among his associates at that time was Bilal el-Berjawi, a Londoner of Lebanese origin who was killed by a drone strike in Somalia three years ago.
He moved to Kuwait, but In June 2010, counter-terrorism officials in Britain detained him, fingerprinting him and searching him upon his return to the UK.
Then, when he tried to fly back to Kuwait, he was prevented from doing so. In his interrogation, he claimed to have been strangled by a police officer.
Emwazi is thought to have been incensed by the decision to bar him from Kuwait, the land of his birth, and where he had worked and planned to marry.
As early as September last year, MI5 and the FBI ID’d Emwazi as the cold-blooded, smooth-talking knife-wielding maniac seen on viral videos worldwide.
They did not make his name public mainly because of fears about the impact his identification might have on hostages being held by Islamic State.
A secondary reason was concern over the safety of Emwazi’s family in the UK, in case of retaliation. For whatever reason, it has now been released.
He is believed to be the man in recent videos showing the graphic deaths of hostages such as Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Kayla Mueller and others.