With the death of Jihadi John less than two weeks ago in a Raqqa airstrike, the Islamic State lost one of the most recognizable masked men of their P.R. jihad: an executioner who would introduce the West to murder ISIS-style, an English-speaking killer eager to behead Americans and Brits.
But even before the passing of Kuwait-born, London-raised Mohammed Emwazi, ISIS had incorporated other English-speakers into their videos — with American or Canadian accents.
And unlike some of the Jihadi John videos where the knife-wielding Emwazi isn’t shown actually beheading his victims, a recent ISIS video shows a masked American beheading a Kurdish prisoner.
An ISIS member with an American accent tells President Obama they’re beheading Peshmerga prisoners in revenge for airstrikes.
The Peshmerga Killer
This fair-skinned jihadi appeared at the end of a late October video that was mostly in Arabic, spoken by a narrator walking through the decimated compound near Hawija, Iraq, where Kurdish and U.S. forces rescued dozens of Iraqi prisoners facing imminent death.
Then the 15-minute video cut to four Peshmerga prisoners in orange jumpsuits kneeling before the rubble, and the black-clad killers wielding knives behind each Kurd.