Mohammed Emwazi, the British-Kuwaiti Da'esh/ISIS beheader known as "Jihadi John," was fuming with self-righteous outrage after he was deported from Tanzania in August 2009. Turns out, he was part of a London terrorist network all along. Who’d a-thunk: a guy willing to cut off heads of human prisoners would also tell lies?
Mohammed Emwazi whined that his safari was ruined once he was detained at the Tanzanian airport and sent back to Dover, England, where he was interrogated by MI6. But British security had been listening in on his phone conversations before he planned his trip and they knew he intended to meet up with Al-Shabab Islamist terrorists.
Emwazi, of course, denied any association with terrorism, pretended to denounce the 2005 London Tube bombings and the 9/11 attacks, and squealed about his innocence. But a dozen British court documents paint a different image of Emwazi and make a strong case for why he was on British security services' radar before his 2009 trip.
British security services knew that Emwazi was part of a radical West London recruitment network for Islamist terrorist teams. Besides Emwazi, the London group included: “CE”, Ibrahim Magag aka “BX”, “J1”, Mohammed Ezzouek, Hamza Chentouf, Mohammed Mekki, Mohammed Miah, Ahmed Hagi, Amin Addala, Aydarus Elmi, Sammy Al-Nagheeb, Bilal Berjawi and others. Of that group, virtually all are either dead or wanted. Emwazi also associated with Choukri Ellekhlifi, a gang member who preyed on rich targets in a series of violent attacks and who also later traveled to Syria to join ISIS. Hanging out with terrorists may not be a crime in itself, depending on what aid and abetting is offered to them, but it is certainly grounds for monitoring and questioning.
Details, below...
One member of Emwazi's group, a 30-year-old British-Iranian known as "CE,” was allegedly trained by al al-Qaida terrorists in Somalia in 2006 and placed on a British "control order." A December 2011 court document on CE's case named Emwazi as a part of his extremist network.
British Home Secretary Teresa May "maintained she has reasonable grounds for suspicion that since his return to the United Kingdom in February 2007, CE has continued to associate regularly with members of a network of United Kingdom and East African-based Islamist extremists which is involved in the provision of funds and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes and the facilitation of individuals' travel from the United Kingdom to Somalia to undertake terrorism-related activity.” She named the members as above, including Mohammed Emwazi. CE told British officers that Mekki and Emwazi often stopped by his wife's flat.
Five members of the group -- CE, Berjawi, BX, Ezzouek, Miah and Chentouf -- attended an al al-Qaida camp in Somalia in 2006 where they were taught how to make and use explosives.
The 2006 camp was run by two veteran al al-Qaida operatives, Saleh Nabhan and Fazul Muhammad, who told the London group to return to the UK to “carry out facilitation activities and to recruit individuals to work on behalf of al Qaeda and/or Al-Shabaab.” Saleh Nabhan and Fazul Muhammad were the most-wanted al al-Qaida operatives in Africa and, in line with a 2009 U.S. State Department cable, their camps offered much more advanced instruction than that offered by Al-Shabaab.
Nabhan, a Kenyan operative, played a key operational role in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998, and in a bomb attack on a Mombassa resort in 2002, and an unsuccessful missile attack on an Israeli jet taking off from Mombasa's airport.
Fazul Muhammad, from the Comoros Islands, also played a key role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. He wrote in a 2009 memoir that Western recruits should be coached and sent home, "to build sleeping cells round the world,” rather than instantly sent as suicide bombers in Somalia.
Nabhan was killed by a Navy SEAL raid in September 2009 – the month after Emwazi was sent back from Tanzania.
Fazul Muhammad was killed in an ambush in Somalia in June 2011.
A USB-stick on Fazul’s body, likely written by a British recruit (perhaps Bilal Berjawi or Muhammad Sakr), identified possible targets in the UK including Eton College and London’s Dorchester and Ritz luxury hotels. The plan was similar to the 2008 Mumbai, India attacks (on the Taj Mahal Hotel, train station, Jewish community center, Oberoir Hotel, and elsewhere) -- that killed 160 people and lasted 4 days. The plan proposed two months training in Somalia for British recruits, including target reconnaissance, hostage-taking, weapons and counter-surveillance.
Another member of Emwazi's circle – “J1,” a 36-year-old Ethiopian asylum seeker, had links to the al al-Qaida cell that tried to bomb the London transport system on July 21, 2005, just two weeks after the bombs on London’s underground that killed 50 and wounded 770. J1, a Christian convert to Islam known as Abdul Shakur, contacted bomber Hussain Osman by phone on the morning of the July 21.
In October 2009, just two months after Emwazi's alleged aborted plan to wage jihad in Somalia, three other members of his west London network did in fact travel and join Al-Shabaab in Somalia. These were: Bilal Berjawi, Muhammad Sakr and Walla Eldin Rahman.
The Lebanese-born Berjawi, from St. John's Wood in West London, rose to a senior position in Al-Shabaab and worked closely with senior al al-Qaida operative Fazul Muhammad. Berjawi also remained in touch with the network he and Emwazi belonged to in the UK.
Berjawi and Sakr were killed in U.S. drone strikes in early 2012.
By year-end 2012, Emwazi's West London radical network shifted its focus to the Assad regime in Syria.
Two other members of Emwazi's network moved back to London briefly, then managed to flee the UK despite being under "terrorism prevention and investigation measures" (TPIMs) – the UK’s policy of monitoring terror suspects before there is sufficient evidence to charge them. Their current whereabouts are unknown.
Ibrahim Magag -- a British-Somali man also known as "BX" -- fled in December 2012, using scissors to cut the strap of his GPS tracking device. He had attended the camp run by the senior al al-Qaida operatives Nabhan and Fazul Muhammad in Somalia in 2006 and was involved in fund-raising for al al-Qaida in geographic area, in East Africa. In 2010, before the introduction of TPIMs, the British had determined he was "too dangerous to permit him to be in London for even a brief amount."
Mohammed Mohamed -- a Somali-born radical earlier known as "CC" -- went on the run in November 2013 after going into a west London mosque, removing his GPS tracker, and putting on a burka to disguise himself as a girl (as shown by security cameras). Earlier, in 2008, Mohamed^2 had traveled to Somalia, where Al-Shabaab gave him terrorist training. He was detained in Somaliland in 2011 and deported back to the UK. He helped other fighters travel to Somalia and he raised funds for Al-Shabaab, before fleeing undetected.
In 2013, Emwazi himself escaped in the back of a truck, traveled to Syria, joined ISIS, and commenced guarding Western hostages. In August 2014 he was dubbed "Jihadi John" -- beginning with the hideous murder of journalist James Foley, and many others since then.
Hard to believe that such a nice guy would have the audacity to lie and proclaim his innocence, and to insinuate falsely that those nasty British intelligence officers were responsible for him becoming a terrorist -- despite being neck-deep in terror circles. Eh, what? </snark>
Sources:
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
http://edition.cnn.com/...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...