'Jihadi John' identified

"Jihadi John", the masked Islamic State group militant apparently responsible for beheading a series of Western hostages, was named on Thursday as Kuwaiti-born London computer programmer Mohammed Emwazi.

Please join us on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/bangkokpostlearning

Journalists gather outside a residential address in London on February 26, 2015, where Kuwaiti-born London computer programmer Mohammed Emwazi, identified by experts and the media as masked Islamic State militant "Jihadi John", is once believed to have lived. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at London's King's College, a leading resource for studying foreign jihadists, said it believed the identity "to be accurate and correct". AFP PHOTO / BEN STANSALL

IS executioner 'Jihadi John' named as London tech worker

"Jihadi John," now thought to be Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Emwazi, came to Britain as a young boy and lived a middle-class life.

London, AFP – "Jihadi John", the masked Islamic State group militant apparently responsible for beheading a series of Western hostages, was named on Thursday as Kuwaiti-born London computer programmer Mohammed Emwazi.

A Washington Post report citing friends, a leading think tank researching foreign jihadists and a British security official quoted by the New York Times identified Emwazi as being the executioner.

Cage, a civil rights group that was in contact with Emwazi for several years over his alleged harassment by British security services, said that while not 100 percent certain, they believed it was him.

"Jihadi John", nicknamed after Beatle John Lennon due to his British accent, is believed to be responsible for the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

He also appeared in a video with Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto shortly before they were killed.

In the videos posted online, he appears dressed all in black with only his eyes exposed, brandishing a knife while launching tirades against the West.

Cage's research director Asim Qureishi described Emwazi as a "beautiful young man" who had been alienated by his treatment at the hands of the British security services.

Cage published correspondence with Emwazi in which he alleged that a British MI5 secret service agent named "Nick" tried to recruit him while interrogating him at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in 2009.

Emwazi said he was returning with two friends after they were expelled from Tanzania, accused of trying to join Islamist militants in Somalia but on a trip that he claimed was a safari holiday after finishing university.

"Why don't you work for us?" Emwazi quoted "Nick" as telling him. After refusing, he said the officer told him: "You're going to have a lot of trouble, you're going to be known, you're going to be followed."

After being refused entry to Kuwait three times, Cage said Emwazi left his London home in 2013 and that four months later, police told his family he had entered Syria.

Emwazi is from a middle class family and earned a degree in computer programming.

Dozens of reporters gathered outside a modern property believed to belong to his family in the northwest London neighbourhood of Queen's Park. Qureishi said the family did not believe the allegations against their son and were in a state of "absolute shock".

Emwazi (who came to London with his parents in 1993) is described as being quiet and polite with stylish dress sense. In one email to Cage, he complained about police going through his designer clothes.

The rights group claimed that Emwazi had "desperately wanted to use the system to change his situation but the system ultimately rejected him."

Note: In a lengthy story today, the Telegraph says that British anti-terrorism agents believed that by 2012 Emwazi was a member of a network of local extremists, referred to sometimes as "The London Boys": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11438545/Jihadi-John-From-ordinary-schoolboy-to-worlds-most-wanted-man.html

สามารถฝึกอ่านออกเสียงและดูคำแปลได้ที่ : http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/485058/jihadi-john-identified