Multiple media sources are reporting tonight that the U.S. military launched an airstrike, targeting Jihadi John. At this point, U.S. officials say it is unclear if that strike actually killed the man whose real name is Mohammed Emwhazi.
The Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Emwazi turned into one of Britain’s most notorious terrorists, wanted dead or alive, after murdering British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the strike took place around the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
“We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate,” Cook said.
In July, multiple media sources claimed that Jihadi John had reportedly fled Islamic State-controlled territory, fearing that the publicity surrounding him will eventually result in his head served on a plate by his fellow terrorists.
Interestingly, U.S. media jumped all over the story of only one high profile terrorist possibly being targeted by U.S. drone strike while completely ignoring that Russian forces helped to end, this week, an ISIS siege of a key air base in Aleppo.
As we reported, the siege had been ongoing since 2013, with ISIS forces surrounding the facility as around 1000 Syrian troops clung to their positions awaiting liberation. Reporters have theorized that ISIS’s infamous brutality might have prevented the Syrian troops from surrendering out of fears that they might face the types of executions that have befallen ISIS’s widely-publicized victims.
Syrian state TV claimed that dozens of ISIS fighters died in the battle, and a soldier who had been defending the base said that hundreds of extremist corpses were found around its perimeter.
