Prime Minister David Cameron has said the UK can not yet be certain that Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi was killed in a drone strike in Syria.
The Pentagon released a statement on Thursday night that 27-year-old Emwazi, dubbed ‘Jihadi John’, had been hit by a US-led airstrike in the Syrian city of Raqqa – an Islamic State stronghold.
Speaking outside Number 10 Downing Street today, Cameron said: “We cannot yet be certain if the strike was successful.
“But let me be clear. I have always said that we would do whatever was necessary, whatever it took, to track down Emwazi and stop him taking the lives of others.”
Cameron praised Emwazi’s victims, including Yorkshire aid worker David Haines, and 47-year-old Alan ‘Gadget’ Henning, from Eccles, who was abducted on an aid mission to Syria on Boxing Day 2013 and held in captivity for over nine months before being beheaded live on video.
“Nothing will bring back David and Alan. Their courage and selflessness stand in stark contrast to the empty callousness of their murderers.
“Their families and their friends 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.”
UK security services are still waiting for confirmation that the hit was successful, said the Prime Minister.
It is understood that a hellfire missile was fired from an American Reaper drone, hitting a vehicle with Emwazi and a second man on board.
This happened near the Islamic Court in Raqqa on Thursday evening at around 10pm.
Reports from the Syrian city sugggest more than one airstrike had taken place at the same time.
Emwazi gained worldwide notoriety in 2014 as the Western face of the militant terror group.
He appeared in sickening videos portraying the beheading of hostages, including Alan Henning, David Haines, Japanese citizens Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley and aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
The Prime Minister said the UK had been working “literally around the clock” to track him down and that the airstrike “was a combined effort”.
“Emwazi is a barbaric murderer. He posed an ongoing and serious threat to innocent civilians not only in Syria, but around the world, and in the United Kingdom too.
“He was ISIL’s lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many, Muslims too. And he was intent on murdering many more people.
“So this was an act of self-defence. It was the right thing to do.”
