‘Jihadi John’ ID’d as London-raised college grad

Associated Press

LONDON

The world knows him as “Jihadi John,” the masked, knife-wielding militant in videos showing Western hostages being beheaded by the Islamic State group. On Thursday he was identified as a London-raised university graduate known to British intelligence for more than five years.

The British-accented militant from the chilling videos is Mohammed Emwazi, a man in his mid-20s who was born in Kuwait and raised in a modest, mixed-income area of west London.

No one answered the door at the brick row house where Emwazi’s family is said to have lived. Neighbors in the area of public-housing projects either declined to comment or said they didn’t know the family.

British anti-terror officials wouldn’t confirm the man’s identity, citing a “live counterterrorism investigation.” But a well-placed Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, confirmed he is Emwazi.

One man who knew Emwazi portrayed him as compassionate, a description completely at odds with the cruelty attributed to him.

“The Mohammed that I knew was extremely kind, extremely gentle, extremely soft-spoken, was the most humble young person that I knew,” said Asim Qureshi of CAGE, a London-based advocacy group that counsels Muslims in conflict with British intelligence services.

Qureshi noted strong similarities between the man in the beheading videos and Emwazi, whom he first met in 2009. But he said, “I can’t be 100 percent certain.”