(MENAFN- Arab Times) KUWAIT CITY Feb 28 (Agencies): Kuwaiti security sources said they were not surprised by the recent information about a Kuwaiti-born British man Mohammed Emwazi who is believed to be the person seen in videos beheading hostages reports Al-Qabas daily.
The sources said they needed confirmation that Emwazi also identified as ''Jihadi John'' is the same extremist responsible for the beheadings. They added the family claimed to be Bedoun in order to obtain Kuwaiti citizenship and after the security systems uncovered the family was of Iraqi nationality and lost hope of obtaining citizenship they left in 1994 to Iraq and then Britain. According to the sources security documents confirmed that the family cooperated with Iraqi forces in the atrocious Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Elsewhere the father of American journalist James Foley who was taken captive in Syria and later decapitated by Islamic State militants has said it was ''not important'' to him that his son''s purported killer ''Jihadi John'' had been identified.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that ''Jihadi John'' who was shown in Islamic State videos of the beheadings of several captives had been identified as Kuwaitborn British national Mohammed Emwazi 26. ''''Jihadi John'' happened to be in that position but if it was not him it would be somebody else so in all fairness discovering who he is might be important to some people but it''s certainly not important to me'' John Foley told reporters in Arizona according to video from local television station KSWT.
Foley whose son''s beheading was shown in a video released last August also said he will be happy when Islamic State ''is defeated.'' John Foley and his wife Diane speaking on Thursday on the sidelines of a forum in Tucson Arizona where they were panelists criticized how the US government dealt with them while their son was held captive. ''We really feel that our government needs to have a clearer policy and be more upfront about what they can and cannot do or will and will not do'' Diane Foley said on local station KVOA. ''We felt we were in the dark a lot'' she added. Foley''s mother and brother told ABC News last year that a military officer for President Barack Obama''s National Security Council had told the family they could face criminal charges if they paid a ransom.
The US government has a policy not to pay ransoms saying it could encourage further abductions. On Thursday two US government sources confirmed investigators believe Emwazi is the knife-wielding militant in the videos. The revelation of ''Jihadi John''s'' identity came months after Washington mounted an unsuccessful military mission to rescue Foley and other US hostages held by Islamic State in Syria last summer.
Alistair Baskey a White House National Security Council spokesman said the president has ordered a review of hostage policy. ''We have heard concerns expressed by some family members about their interaction and communication with US government officials and the amount of information that can be shared about these efforts'' Baskey said. ''We understand this is incredibly difficult and painful for the families and we appreciate their feedback.'' Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Pirates said it was ''absolutely sickening'' to see one of their baseball caps worn by Mohammed Emwazi named by British and US media as the Islamic State executioner ''Jihadi John.'' The Major League Baseball team reacted to an old photo of Emwazi published Friday by Sky News showing him wearing a version of the Pirates'' black hat bearing the club''s golden letter ''P'' on the front. ''The classic gold P stands for Pittsburgh and is worn by our players coaches and fans with a great sense of pride'' the Pirates said in a statement. ''It is absolutely sickening to everyone within the Pirates organization and to our great fans to see this murderer wearing a Pirates cap in this old photo.'' The Islamic State militant is believed to be responsible for the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and American humanitarian worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
Emwazi also appeared in a video with Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto shortly before they were killed. The profile of ''Jihadi John'' the university- educated Londoner whose masked face is emblematic of the grisly executions by the Islamic State group is vastly different from that of the marginalized men who carried out terror attacks in France and Denmark. That comes as no surprise to those who work with tracking such threats who say there is no typical terrorist. Investigators'' jobs have become tougher than ever because of the range of terrorist profiles and the growing number of potential suspects.
Experts cite three to four types of profiles with some variations. But they agree that the profile of Mohammed Emwazi a Kuwait-born man in his mid- 20s raised and educated in Britain is nothing new. High-profile predecessors include the terrorists from Saudi Arabia who carried out the Sept 11 2001 terror attacks in New York and blended easily into the American scene neither poor nor uneducated.
Emwazi a computer science graduate with a distinct British accent has been identified as the man seen in IS videos knife in hand with a kneeling hostage at his side about to be beheaded. In contrast Cherif and Said Kouachi who massacred cartoonists and others in January in the newsroom of the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo were born in France to Algerian parents and grew up in a working class Paris neighborhood. Amedy Coulibaly who killed four hostages in a Kosher grocery store also had working class immigrant roots.
The three men befriended each other via prison before the two attacks that left 20 dead themselves included. ''It is not new but today it is more obvious than before that we are confronted with a multiplicity of profiles'' said former anti-terrorism judge Jean- Louis Bruguiere who once tracked hundreds of terrorists and their sometimes global networks. ''We always have a tendency to seek a single profile that does not exist.'' With multiple profiles and often ''weak signals'' that must be detected in advance not everyone ends up on or stays on the radar. ''It is evident that it is very complicated for intelligence services'' he said. ''Afterward we say ''Why didn''t we see him?'''' Emwazi had been known to the British intelligence services since at least 2009 initially in connection with investigations into terrorism in Somalia. Bruguiere who retired in 2007 said he arrested hundreds of people during his years investigating terrorists many who hopped about the globe and interrogated about 400 of them. He said perhaps 50 of them at large today are ''more dan-gerous than the Kouachis.'' ''They are on the radar but you can''t follow them all over the planet'' he said. Alain Bauer a leading criminologist who has advised French presidents says the problem is not about gathering information but about analyzing it.
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