World awaits confirmation if Friday the 13th drone attack killed Mohamed Emwazi, aka 'Jihadi John'
Friday the 13th may be considered an unlucky day for superstitious people, but for Islamic State beheader Jihadi John, it could be true.
The Washington Post reports that Mohamed Emwazi, more known as Jihadi John, the black-clad decapitator of Islamic State (IS) hostages, was the target of a drone attack launched by the U.S. on Thursday night. Although the strike was launched on Nov 12, in other parts of the world, it was already Nov 13, the third and last of the three Friday the 13s of 2015. The first two were in February and March.
However, Pentagon is still working to determine if the strike killed Jihadi John. “We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate,” says Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook.
Cook said the drone attack was held in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the IS. Jihadi John topped the kill or wanted list of the US and UK. The numbers 2 and 3 jihadists on UK’s wanted list have been killed the past few weeks by drone attacks also.
CNN reports that Jihadi John was in a vehicle during the drone attack. Authorities said it was the result of persistent surveillance, and added they knew it was Emwazi who was in the car that was hit.
IS videos posted on YouTube point to Jihadi John as the decapitator of American hostages Steven Sotloff and James Foley, British captives David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
Because of his British accent, Emwazi was called Jihadi John, named after “Imagine” singer John Lennon, one of the four members of the famous 1960s British band Beatles. Besides beheading the hostages, Emwazi is believed to have taken part in torturing the captives by wakeboarding and hitting them.
Also on this day, the space junk WT1190F was scheduled to crash at the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka. It appears a bigger political junk crashed for the Islamic State.
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