Jihadi John

Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, was a British militant of Kuwaiti origin who appeared in Islamic State videos depicting the beheadings of captives in 2014 and 2015. He was born in Kuwait as the eldest of five children to parents Jassem and Ghaneyah Emwazi. The family were Bidoon of Iraqi origin, stateless and undocumented, living in a slum area where the Kuwaiti government ghettoized such people. When he was six, they moved to the United Kingdom, settling in inner west London, where they lived in several properties including subsidised accommodation in Maida Vale, later St John’s Wood, and finally Queen’s Park. He attended a Church of England primary school and then Quintin Kynaston School, where his former headteacher noted he experienced some bullying. He studied Information Systems with Business Management at the University of Westminster, earning a lower second-class honours degree. At age 21, he worked as an IT salesman in Kuwait and was considered by his boss the best employee the company ever had. He was born a British citizen, but the Home Secretary later stripped him of that citizenship after he went on the run to Somalia. MI5 had known of him years before his execution videos appeared, initially suspecting links to Al-Shabaab, and repeatedly prevented him from travelling to Kuwait. This case prompted former shadow home secretary David Davis to criticise UK intelligence for letting people slip through the net. Hostages nicknamed him “John” because he was part of a four-person terrorist cell with British accents they called ‘The Beatles’, after the band members. Journalists later coined the term “Jihadi John,” first used in The Spectator in August 2014. His reported victims included American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, American aid worker Peter Kassig, numerous Syrian soldiers, and Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. In November 2015, US officials reported he was hit by a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria; IS confirmed his death in January 2016.