UPDATE:
The Pentagon said Friday that it was "reasonably certain" that a U.S. airstrike killed Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State's most notorious executioner.
Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the militant group, told reporters at a news briefing that the airstrike Thursday took place near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. He said the Pentagon was still seeking final verification that Emwazi, a 27-year-old British citizen who became known as Jihadi John, was killed in the strike.
Speaking from Baghdad over a webcast, Warren said a Reaper drone fired Hellfire missiles at a car in which Emwazi and another militant were believed to be traveling.
"We know for a fact that the weapon system hit its intended target, and that the personnel who were on the receiving end of that weapons system were in fact killed," he said, but it remained necessary to confirm that "those personnel were specifically who we thought they were."
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain defended the decision to target Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and is a naturalized British citizen, as "an act of self-defense" and "the right thing to do." He called the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, an "evil terrorist death cult," and said of Emwazi, "He was ISIL's lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many Muslims, too."
Civil liberties advocates have criticized any official British attempt to kill Emwazi as possibly unlawful, in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration's decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, in Yemen in 2011.
Emwazi, who was initially known only as an unidentified, masked man with a British accent, first came to prominence in August 2014, when the Islamic State released a video in which journalist James Foley was shown reading a statement criticizing the U.S. military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq. His captor then beheaded him off camera and then threatened to behead another journalist, Steven J. Sotloff, if his demands were not met.
Two weeks later, the Islamic State released a video showing the masked man beheading Sotloff.
The Washington Post revealed Emwazi's identity in February, reporting that he grew up in a well-off family that moved to Britain when he was a child, and that he had studied computer science at the University of Westminster.
Original story:
LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said Friday that they did not yet know the outcome of an airstrike the U.S. military launched on Thursday to kill Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State's most notorious executioner.
The two officials spoke, in separate briefings in Tunis and London, the morning after the Pentagon confirmed that the airstrike, near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, had targeted Emwazi, a British citizen who became known as Jihadi John.
Calling the Islamic State an "evil terrorist death cult," Cameron defended the decision to target Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and is a naturalized British citizen, as "an act of self-defense" and "the right thing to do."
"We have been working, with the United States, literally around the clock to track him down," Cameron said. "This was a combined effort, and the contribution of both our countries was essential. Emwazi is a barbaric murderer."
Cameron called Emwazi, who is 27, a "ongoing and serious threat to innocent civilians not only in Syria, but around the world and in the United Kingdom, too."
Using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS, Cameron added, "He was ISIL's lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many Muslims, too."
At a news conference in Tunis, Kerry confirmed that the outcome of the airstrike was not yet known, but said that it should serve as a warning.
"We are still assessing the results of this strike, but the terrorists associated with Daesh need to know this: Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated," Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. "There is no future, no path forward for Daesh, which does not lead ultimately to its elimination, to its destruction."
Civil liberties advocates have criticized any official British attempt to kill Emwazi as possibly unlawful, in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration's decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and a United States citizen, in Yemen in 2011.
Emwazi, who was first known only as an unidentified, masked man with a British accent, first came to prominence in August 2014, when the Islamic State released a video in which the journalist James Foley was shown reading a statement criticizing President Barack Obama and the U.S. military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq. His captor then beheaded him off camera, and then threatened to behead another journalist, Steven J. Sotloff, if his demands were not met.
Two weeks later, the Islamic State released a video showing the masked man beheading Sotloff.
The Washington Post revealed Emwazi's identity in February, reporting that he grew up in a well-off family that moved to Britain when he was a child, and that he had a degree in computer science from the University of Westminster. The revelation touched off intense examination of the causes of radicalization among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
Emwazi was part of a group of young men, called the "North London Boys" by some intelligence analysts, who traveled to Somalia, Syria and other Muslim countries to engage in organized violence.
British officials have said that Emwazi was on a list of potential terror suspects since 2009, but have acknowledged that they were unable to prevent him from traveling to Syria.
The airstrike came as scant consolation to Louise Woodward-Styles, a friend of the British aid worker Alan Henning, one of Emwazi's victims. In a phone interview on Friday, she said that there would be no "closure, particularly for Alan's family and close friends."
Cameron made clear on Friday that his government had taken part in the United States' decision to target Emwazi.
"The United Kingdom has no better friend or ally," he said.
He added, "If this strike was successful — and we still await confirmation of that — it will be a strike at the heart of ISIL, and it will demonstrate to those who would do Britain, our people and our allies harm we have a long reach, we have unwavering determination and we never forget about our citizens."
Cameron then recited a list of Emwazi's reported victims: Kenji Goto, a journalist, and Haruna Yukawa, an adventurer, both Japanese; the American journalists, Foley and Sotloff; the American aid worker Peter Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig; and two British aid workers, David Cawthorne Haines and Henning.
"Nothing will bring back David and Alan," Cameron said. "Their courage and selflessness stand in stark contrast to the empty callousness of their murderers. Their friends and their families should be proud of them, as we are. They were the best of British, and they will be remembered long after the murderers of ISIL are forgotten."
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said that Emwazi should ideally have faced trial. "It appears Mohammed Emwazi has been held to account for his callous and brutal crimes," Corbyn said in a statement on Friday. "However, it would have been far better for us all if he had been held to account in a court of law. These events only underline the necessity of accelerating international efforts, under the auspices of the U.N., to bring an end to the Syrian conflict as part of a comprehensive regional settlement."
In August, a British drone strike, its first inside Syria, killed three suspected to be members of the Islamic State, including two British citizens, Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin.
Britain is not formally taking part in military action in Syria — its Parliament having rejected such an intervention two years ago — but Britain and France are involved in the American-led air campaign against Islamic State targets.
In 2009, after returning from a trip to Africa, Emwazi contacted Cage, a British advocacy organization, to complain that he had been harassed by British security services.
In a statement on Friday, Cage said that Emwazi "should have been tried as a war criminal" and expressed concern about the attack aimed at him. "State-sponsored targeted assassinations undercut the judicial processes that provide the lessons by which spirals of violence can be stopped," it said.