AP Essay: 'Jihadi John' won't have the same impact unmasked

[webfact]

AP Essay: 'Jihadi John' won't have the same impact unmasked
By GREGORY KATZ

LONDON (AP) — As "Jihadi John," he was a terrifying figure, his identity concealed by a black mask, his threatening tone backed up by his oversize, serrated knife and his willingness to use it in the name of Islamic State and its self-declared caliphate.

His professional-looking videos began with a political rant and ended with his victims lying dead at his feet, severed heads cupped in the sands of Syria. He seemed both judge and executioner, savoring each fresh kill.

After the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., many believed that terrorists would turn to crude weapons of mass destructions to attack cities. Few predicted that a man with a knife and a video production team could have such an impact using a medieval technique.

Now that he has been exposed as Mohammed Emwazi, the tall man with the British accent and mocking tone is no longer a mystery. He is revealed as one more furious young Londoner, in this case a well-educated, middle-class jihadi in his mid-20s who turned against his adopted country after he moved to Britain from Kuwait as a boy.

His unmasking may well have reduced his usefulness to the cause.

For one thing, with his identity known, and the global distribution of pictures of him looking slightly goofy in an ill-fitting Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap, Emwazi may become less sinister to viewers, less able to send chills up the spines of people who abhor Islamic State's claim to be killing civilians in the name of Islam.

If he kills again on camera, the element of surprise will be gone and the reaction may well be, "Oh, him again."

Also, now that authorities know who he is, there is little doubt he will become the target of a drone attack if the U.S. or Britain can learn his precise whereabouts. The pressure on him could make him less valuable to Islamic State militants — perhaps even a liability.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism specialist with the Swedish National Defense College, said Emwazi can be expected to play a reduced role in the organization because every time he speaks on a mobile phone he risks having his location pinpointed, sparking drone fire that could kill him and others. Ranstorp said the identification of Emwazi also gives the public hope that he will be brought to justice.

"It's quite important for families of the victims," he said. "They know where to focus. They know there is one particular person who has been named who authorities will focus on and who will live for the rest of his life knowing that every day he will face a possible drone attack. Now that he is known, he may not be as menacing as he once was."

Now that details about his personal trajectory have begun to emerge, Emwazi becomes the stuff of parliamentary inquiries: How was he radicalized? Why didn't the security services determine he was a mortal threat and do something to keep him from getting to Syria?

Emwazi is perhaps the most chilling exemplar of the radicalization trend that is gaining pace not just in Britain but also in France, Belgium, Denmark and other countries in western Europe.

He went to Syria early, in 2013, in the vanguard of the British jihadi movement, before the Islamic State militants seized territory and issued a call for other likeminded people — including girls and young women — to join its ranks in Syria and Iraq.

There is circumstantial evidence suggesting Emwazi tried earlier to link up with al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia but was thwarted in part by a British spy who tried unsuccessfully to recruit him into the secret service.

Since then, the call to jihad has intensified, galvanized in part by easy access to Internet sites that depict the Islamic State's territory as a religious utopia governed by Shariah law.

Britons watched helplessly this week as three teenage schoolgirls who had run away from their homes in London were reported by police to be in Syria, apparently linked up with Islamic State extremists as potential "jihadi brides."

Now al-Shabaab is making threats of its own, warning that the two big shopping malls in London — as well as the famous department stores on Oxford Street — are considered targets for terrorist attacks along with the Mall of America in the U.S.

Nearly half of British Muslims surveyed in a BBC poll published this past week say the British public is becoming less tolerant of Muslims. At the same time, the UKIP political party is making gains by taking a stand against increased immigration.

This increased polarization was clearly one of the goals of the Islamic State campaign that used Emwazi's familiar London accent as a potent reminder to Britons that the enemy was in their midst: not some far-off person speaking Arabic, but a homeboy from their streets.

"The fact that he appears like a relatively ordinary young British resident is disquieting," said John Gearson, professor of national security studies at King's College London. But "the de-mystification of this individual reduces the propaganda effect for Islamic State. He's just a murderer now."

Still, if Emwazi's moment has passed, Islamic State militants — with their strong grasp of how to use social networking and video to spread fear — are likely to come up with other ways to shock the public.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-02

[Dannyboy666]

It will only be a matter of time to bring out some Medieval Torture Device for More Shock and Awe...

Edited March 2, 2015 by Dannyboy666

[joesanunu]

Drone his family, friends and anybody that knows him. Feed their bodies to a herd of pigs.

Wreck their houses and businesses, take their money and possessions.

Anybody that doesn't like it, kill them too.

[Dannyboy666]

Hopefully The Muslims will get a hold of him for some Special Justice, we would be looked at as Barbarians if we did it... Let's hope some Jordanians get a hold of him...

[soalbundy]

Drone his family, friends and anybody that knows him. Feed their bodies to a herd of pigs.

Wreck their houses and businesses, take their money and possessions.

Anybody that doesn't like it, kill them too.

you mean become like them

[joesanunu]

Drone his family, friends and anybody that knows him. Feed their bodies to a herd of pigs.

Wreck their houses and businesses, take their money and possessions.

Anybody that doesn't like it, kill them too.

you mean become like them

I would set these rules.

Up to the head choppers if it happens.

[ToddinChonburi]

Well now we know what happens when you remove all the evil dictators that kept these nut in line, chaos.

[joesanunu]

Well now we know what happens when you remove all the evil dictators that kept these nut in line, chaos.

Exactly. Where is Saddam Hussein when you need him?

[nuananddon]

This ISIS threat is relative to a start of a cancer in ones body. If it is not removed and treated it WILL grow and grow until it claims a part of the body or death to the whole of the body. From what has been happening lately, the governments of the civilized world better get their act together and soon to unite to eliminate this cancer on mankind. Don't say it's a problem of England,France,The rest of EU,USA, or The Middle East. These people are no better then rabid animals turned loose on innocent children.IMHO.

[Lissos]

If he kills again on camera, the element of surprise will be gone and the reaction may well be, "Oh, him again."

It is less about that, imo. It is more about the fact that, as far as I know, they only have one western hostage left - John Cantlie.

Because they have been using him as a mouthpiece, he has been spared up till now while later captors were murdered.

I guess that they will cease using him when they have to turn the knife on him as a last resort in order to get western attention.

Because even if 50 Syrians are slaughtered on Camera, Emwazi knows full well that this will not register quite the same in the west.

After all, the poor Syrians who were lined up and brutally despatched simultaneously, were nameless faces in the west.

Western aid workers, reporters and others have probably got the message loud and clear and are staying well away for now.

Perhaps the immolation of the Jordanian pilot was an indication of how they know they're going to have to stoop even lower to retain shock attention?

[wooloomooloo]

Britons watched helplessly this week as three teenage schoolgirls who had run away from their homes in London were reported by police to be in Syria

I don't know anyone that gives a rat's arse. Sorry, but I'm yet to experience any feelings of empathy from anyone here in the UK.

That includes myself.

Edited March 2, 2015 by wooloomooloo

[Bwanatickey]

And when the media show their parents, friends begging them to return, the empathy shown by the fellow white subjects , is so very kind.

[Johnny S]

Drone his family, friends and anybody that knows him. Feed their bodies to a herd of pigs.

Wreck their houses and businesses, take their money and possessions.

Anybody that doesn't like it, kill them too.

"The Kingdom": We will kill them all

[Lissos]

Well the way this character is being discussed here in the west is now comical, if it wasn't so tremendously unfunny for all the relatives of the rising victims (Arab or otherwise) of this nutcase with his balaclava, because the latest coming our way today is a released audio recording by this 'cage' rights organisation, with Emwazi upset and claiming he was 'harrased' by MI5 accusing him of being an Islamist 'extremist' and not believing his given story for travel to Africa that he was visiting Tanzania for 'Safari'. So, the implication here is what? It is that the anger of being 'accused' of being an extremist, makes someone suddenly capable of becoming just that and now quite capable of cutting open the knecks of human beings and mutilating their bodies on camera. No, MI5 probably knew full well that the thin surface layer of a quiet shy gentleman portrayed elsewhere, was a mere facade with him. It takes a 'special' kind of already miswired person to be able to carve the head off a living human being when you consider that very few people are capable of actually killing another human being, and his method is as close as you could get. It is being suggested to us in the west that Emwazi is 'our' creation, a lovely guy who only wanted a computer job and peacefull life until his travel plans were disrupted and his movements restricted to certain countries because he wasn't convincing enough with his objections. What's that you say? Emwazi was so upset about being accused of extremism that he goes the extra mile to prove he is not an extremist, by becoming an extremist Islamist militant? MI5 didn't create him, they merely sussed him out, it annoyed him, and that restrictions were put on his movements didn't 'make' an extremist, just exposed a budding one.