We finally have a face to go with the name of the infamous Islamic State murderer known as “Jihadi John.” He is Mohammed Emwazi and is shown here in a Pittsburgh Pirates hat from his time at the University of Westminster. He turns out to another militant from a well-off family and someone who seemed successful in society as we have seen in other cases. This will make it easier for the United States which, according to Attorney General Eric Holder, has made capturing or killing Jihadi John a priority.
The 26-year-old now beheads people for not believing in his extreme view of Islam.
When this picture was taken he was completing his Information Systems with Business Management degree at the London’s Cavendish campus.
Cases like Emwazi tend to undermine the image of IS militants as coming from people left without jobs or a future in the West.
Orthodoxy sorry still need the keyboard lol
I “REFUSE” to tell you??! Seriously Randyjet, I dont know what my father did except for what he told me. He was a barber and when he went from town to town he CUT hair. Do you think I’m hiding some nefarious Nazi history? OMG. It was Slavonia, not Slovenia. My father says he crossed borders illegally. IF he was some secret Nazi, or Ustachi or what ever, it was never revealed by anyone in the family or friends. My father sponsored a Yugoslavia Serb who was his apprentice in his barber shop in Milwaukee. We are still friends with the family.
Come on po, often times the WORST place to get history is from your family. If I didn’t go to work @ Leavenworth, Uncle Eugene would have been a WW2 vet like my other uncles, as far as I knew. There are photos of Eugene in uniform @ the beginning of the war w/ his brothers. Eugene just decided to desert when it was time to head overseas. I’m pretty sure none of my cousins knew the ugly history. But, I have told some @ family gatherings. It’s the right thing to do. Families too often bury ugly history. This should not be a revelation for chrissakes! It’s tough knowing my uncle was a deserter. It’s tough saying it in an open forum. But, I revere truth. I spent my professional life as an investigator and history teacher, both are about finding truth.
If you think this is about Islam, you have not been paying attention to any part of history, and especially to its tendency to echo through time.
This happened with the British on the patriots, the British on the Irish, the British on the Muslims…and when they finish coming for them, with your silence and complicity, they will come for you, as they are doing in the black site in Chicago.
Meanwhile, more food for thought:
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Why Britain won’t talk about crucial elements of Jihadi John’s story
BEN HAYES 28 February 2015
The role of our security services in the actions of ‘Jihadi John’ needs grown up discussion – we must not forget the lessons of Northern Ireland.
“In “Suspect Community: People’s Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain”, professor Paddy Hillyard produced what remains the world’s most detailed ethnographic study of the impact of repressive laws and state policies on what we now call “radicalisation”. That was 1993. Hillyard, a former chair of the National Council of Civil Liberties (now Liberty), had interviewed more than 100 people of Irish catholic descent and provided unequivocal evidence that their everyday treatment at the hands of the British state had boosted support for Irish republicanism, acted as a recruiting sergeant for the IRA and fuelled “the Troubles”. Of course it wasn’t the only “radicalising” factor: Bloody Sunday, a shoot-to-kill policy and state collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries also played their part. As of course did the violence, propaganda and popularity of organisations like the IRA.
We could learn a lot from people like Paddy Hillyard and the incremental moves toward truth and reconciliation in the north of Ireland. Instead, this valuable insight is being steadily exorcised from public debate – as are the similar experiences of Muslim communities at the hands of the British state.
Yesterday the identity of “Jihadi John”, the ISIS executioner-in-chief, was revealed to belong to British citizen Mohammed Emwazi. The human rights group CAGE – the only organisation in Britain who offers legal support to Muslims who have been interrogated or harassed by the security services (support which is readily available to most others questioned by the UK authorities) – produced a 3,000 word dossier detailing his treatment between 2009 and 2013. This included, inter alia, the surveillance of his movements, the interception of his telecommunications, the orchestration of his arrest in Tanzania and transfer to the Netherlands where he was interrogated by MI5, attempts to coerce him into becoming an MI5 informer, harassment of his family and fiancé, and the prevention of his resettlement in Kuwait – all in the absence of any formal allegation, charge or prospect of official recourse.
Since this occurred well before Mohammed Emwazi’s departure from the UK and appearance in Syria as “Jihadi John”, one might have thought our media duty bound to ask whether this and other encounters played any part in his decision to go there. Indeed the most revealing exchange, which should surely have been on the lips of any journalist worth their salt, is the following, spoken by MI5 agent “Nick”: “Listen Mohammed: You’ve got the whole world in front of you; you’re 21 years old; you just finished Uni – why don’t you work for us?” When Mohammed declines, he is told: “You’re going to have a lot of trouble… You’re going to be known… you’re going to be followed… life will be harder for you.”
Let us be clear that whatever else may have transpired since this exchange, here is a credible allegation of state-sanctioned blackmail of one of our citizens upon pain of having his life ruined by unaccountable security forces. When things like this happen to Muslims in Arab dictatorships, we talk about “secret police” and “fearsome security apparatuses”. When they happen here, we put our fingers in our ears and demand that Muslims “get over themselves” and condemn acts of terrorism.
And so it was that Kay Burley of Sky News duly began her interview with a CAGE spokesman by asking “What level of harassment by the security services here in the United Kingdom justifies beheadings?” – a plainly preposterous straw man argument that literally no-one was making. Liberal pin-up Jon Snow also glossed over the evidence produced by CAGE, before getting down to the most important business of the day: demanding that their spokespeople condemn terrorism, and seeking to belittle them when they question why this demand is only ever made of Muslims, or worse still, refuse to participate in the ridiculous spectacle.
It was already a nailed-on certainty that the government and the media would turn the “extremist” spotlight onto CAGE and its supporters in a witch hunt that would make McCarthy blush. But having anointed Peter Oborne the Supreme Ruler of Media Integrity for taking on the Telegraph, perhaps they should ask him what he thinks about CAGE’s treatment at the hands of the establishment. Or reflect on CAGE’s founder and director’s own experience at the hands of MI5, or his three-and-a-half years of illegal detention in Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh prisons. Nope: they’re just “apologists for terrorism”, guilty until proven innocent.
Human rights and social justice groups should be supporting CAGE in its endeavours to uncover the extra-judicial prosecution of the “war on terror” in this country. They won’t because they’re scared of the “public perception”. Much easier to support free expression from behind the comfort of a “Je Suis Charlie” banner. The country should be having a serious conversation about the way “intelligence-led policing” has undermined our national security and human rights by linking the treatment of Mohammed Emwazi to the discredited use of informants and double agents in Northern Ireland, to the links between MI5 and extremist groups, and to an undercover culture that has perverted the pursuit of social and legal justice in this country. It won’t, because we’ll turn a blind eye to anything at the drop of the T-word.
Something fundamental has to change if we’re to have the grown-up conversations that can inform these policies, and that can temper the appeal of extremism and violence in all quarters.”
Randyjet, my father said he went “black” over the boarders throughout the war. When the German Army came close to where he was he took off. IF he was some secret Nazi, that would’ve come out I would suspect from the many other relatives and townspeople and even my SERBIAN uncle, I would think. But who knows. My father sure made a good “show” of hating Hitler every time the war came up in conversation.
LOL, no my mother wasn’t a “fat” girl, she was a “FARM” girl. She was quite skinny as a matter of FACT, food was pretty scarce back then. Typing too fast and pretty upset that Randyjet feels he can tell me about my own family’s role in WW2.
Elizabeth Warren comes to mind.
Here a story about my mother, believe or not I do not care. Toward the end of the war in autumn of 1944, the Russians were close to my mother’s town. She and the ethnic German were told to pack up and leave with how retreating German army. They left with some household items and their wagon and horse and then were told to board a train bound for Austria. My mother a young woman of 20 something was told to take the horse to some German Army yard, which she did. It was chaotic and she and her family were separated because she didn’t get back to the train station in time. Her family left without her. She and other young women got anotjer train and in the confusion of war lost contact with jeir families. These young women were given and option once they got to Austria, either join the Air Force or work on a farm. My motjer was a fat girl, so she decided on the Luftwaffe. This was 1944. While there her job was to paint the planes. She and her friends tried to desert the Luftwaffe, and wer caught the first time and were threatened with being shot. The second time she and her friends tried, honey were succesful and eventually found their families in Displced Persons Camps. This is where she met my father, they were from the same village back in Yugoslavia, so they already knew each other. After the war was over my father who was a barber by trade would cut the American soldiers hair.
And Randyjet maybe you should call the Navy and tell them your suspicions about my daughter’s grandfather and make sure you tell them her grandma was in the Luftwaffe. She has a top security clearance that she got when she was in Afghanistan with the Marines.
I had a great history professor in college. This professor taught us about aspects of WW2 few other professors did. He taught us about the ruthless Felgendarmerie units that roamed all of Europe looking for deserters. They were so feared and ruthless, VERY few men refused to serve in the Nazi Army. You were shot on the spot, if even suspected of not serving. The SS and Gestapo had nothing on these guys.
Who knows, maybe my father was a Partisan and THAT is the family secret. My father and my Uncle Valdo were friends from boyhood on into adulthood and that is how my Aunt met my uncle. My mother’s best friend was Serbian. Yes they DID live in peace with their neighbors, even during WW2. My mother’s family, nor my father’s family were never harmed by the Partisans.
Inga, Every time you post you make it more likely that he was with the Ustashi. That he was VERY religious was a mark of that regime and his having to flee is more likely That is why you should read about the Ustashi and get some knowledge of the situation. I have no doubt that he put the past behind him and integrated into American society. But to understand his and your politics and views, you should know his background. That is all. I understand my parents background and how it shaped my initial views on politics and society. I did my own research and discarded theirs which I found were false in many areas.
I’m proud that my father recognized the evil of the Nazis and did what he had to in order to get away from them.
Inga Glad to see that you go to Wikipedia. I wish you would go and look up the Ustashi and you will see that your father did not have to evade the Germans since he was in the Croatian puppet state who most certainly would have caught him and conscripted him It was a vicious police state which was quite efficient in keeping control of its area. So I find the tale he lived in a cave for the whole war a bit hard to believe. That was the favorite dodge of Nazis who came to the US as “refugees” that they hated Nazis and were farmers and never served in the military. That he had to flee from Yugoslavia says a lot about his past. Had he done as he said, he could have stayed with no problems and would have been celebrated as at least a resister of some kind.
Sometimes the truth stays buried for generations. It was just serendipitous I learned the truth of Uncle Eugene.
I learned my Uncle Eugene was a deserter during WW2 and spent some time in the Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks. The FBI caught up w/ him after the war. Family history, the not so bright and shiny parts, come out slowly. I never knew my gadfly uncle did hard time until I was in my 20’s. I got a job @ Leavenworth Penitentiary[Fed prison, not the Army Disciplinary Barracks] in the 1970’s. I was talking on the phone w/ my mom, trying to let her know I got the job and would be safe. That’s when she sprung on me, “You’re Uncle Eugene was in there for a couple years.” I said, “Uncle Gene robbed banks.” Mom then went on to tell me the shameful tale of desertion. Three of his brothers served in combat in both theatres, Eugene spent the war on the lamb. All families have their skeletons.
Randyjet, the Communists were not heros after the war. They killed many many people. They robbed millions of ethnic Germans of their farms that were in their families for generations since the 1700’s. I have no issue with he Partisans and the Communists actions during WW2 in order to defeat the Nazis. As I said, my father was staunchly anti Nazi and would’ve been killed had he been caught by the German army.
Keep waving the flag. What great rule of law principles…
Zum Deutschen Eck restaurant was @ the corner[of course] of Lincoln Ave. near Belmont. A formerly real German stronghold. Not a touristy German restaurant like some, the real deal. It went out of biz awhile back as all the old Germans died, and the neighborhood became a mix of many ethnics. There is a huge, beautiful Catholic Church right across the street. It is now a Hispanic parish.
Randyjet, as I told you, my father DID NOT fight in WW2. And Randyjet your accusations and insinuations are insulting.
As for my grandfathers, both of them served with the German Army during the 1st WW that I’m aware of. My maternal grandfather came out the war severely shell shocked and my paternal grandfather was wounded in the leg with what he called a “ball” and used to show us his scar. He would tell the grandchildren the story of AliBaba and the Forty Thieves in Croatian. The Donauschwaben lived with the various ethnic groups in Slavonia, as I said my aunt married a Serb.
One of the Saboteurs hid w/ family on the northwest side of Chicago where I lived in the 1980’s. You could go into bars and it was bunches of old German men. I always wondered about their history. The beer was good as was the food. The atmosphere could be frosty @ times.
There is an excellent movie The Music Box which deals with the so called refugees from Europe and their dark past. I highly recommend it I believe it stars Merle Streep who finds out her father was a war criminal.
The book, Saboteurs, shows just how ruthless FDR was in handling Nazis. Several of the saboteurs had family in Chicago and Wisconsin. Just a few years ago a Nazi concentration camp guard was deported from Wisconsin to Austria.