US 99% Sure Its Airstrikes Killed Notorious ’ISIS’ Executioner

Local Editor

The Pentagon said late Thursday it had launched an airstrike in Syria targeting the British national seen in videos depicting the beheading of hostages held by "ISIS".

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook confirmed that the airstrike in Raqqa was directed at the notorious militant executioner, also known as Mohamed Emwazi.

However, it was not immediately clear whether Emwazi died in the airstrike, but a senior US military official stated, "we are 99 percent sure we got him." The Pentagon was monitoring the aftermath of the strike before making a definitive announcement.

A senior US official said that a drone was used in the airstrike. According to a senior military source, the drone had been tracking Emwazi for most of the day Thursday while he met with other people. The source said the strike took place shortly after Emwazi came out of a building in Raqqa, when he was "ID'd and engaged."

Mohamed Emwazi, a 26-year-old British national of Kuwaiti descent, appeared in a number of videos showing beheading of British and US aid workers and journalists, including James Foley and Alan Henning.

In the videos, a tall masked figure clad in black and speaking in a British accent typically began one of the gruesome videos with a political rant and a kneeling hostage before him, then ended it holding an oversize knife in his hand with the headless victim lying before him in the sand.

Officials said Britain's intelligence community had Emwazi on its list of potential terror suspects for years but was unable to prevent him from traveling to Syria. He had been known to the nation's intelligence services since at least 2009, when he was connected with investigations into terrorism in Somalia.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team