LONDON -- The Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John" has been targeted and likely hit in a U.S. drone strike on a vehicle in Syria on Thursday.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday morning they “cannot yet be certain” that Mohammed Emwazi, the masked militant with a distinctive British accent who appeared in several videos depicting ISIS beheadings of Western hostages, was hit in the strike.
Describing Emwazi as a "barbaric murderer" who was the group's lead executioner, Cameron said the U.S. and UK operation was at “a strike at the heart” of ISIS. The Prime Minister said the strike was an act of "self defence".
Earlier, a senior British military source told BBC News there was a "high degree of certainty" Emwazi, was hit in the strike.
On Thursday night a senior U.S. military official told Fox News, "we are 99 percent sure we got him." CNN also reported that U.S authorities are confident that the drone strike killed Emwazi.
Emwazi was the target of the Raqqa airstrike, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement Thursday.
SkyNews with exclusive picture of ISIS executioner #JihadiJohn without his mask and wearing a baseball cap. pic.twitter.com/BmTiXkd3sF— Breaking News Feed (@pzf) February 27, 2015
On Friday, the spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the U.S. military operation against Islamic State militants in the region, tweeted that the U.S. military was "reasonably certain that we killed Jihadi John," but reiterated that it would take time to confirm the information.
On #JihadiJohn: We are reasonably certain that we killed Jihadi John. Will take some time to confirm.— OIRSpokesman (@OIRspox) November 13, 2015
The daughter of beheaded British aid worker David Haines told ITV News she felt "relief" when she heard about the airstrike.
"After seeing the news that 'Jihadi John' was killed I felt an instant sense of relief, knowing he wouldn't appear in anymore horrific videos," Bethany Haines said.
Stuart Henning, the nephew of murdered British aid worker Alan Henning tweeted his reaction to the news:
Mixed feelings today wanted the coward behind the mask to suffer the way Alan and his friends did but also glad it's been destroyed — Stuart henning (@Skyblublood) November 13, 2015
Emwazi has been described by a former hostage as a bloodthirsty psychopath who enjoyed threatening Western hostages. Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa, who had been held in Syria for more than six months after his abduction in September 2013, said Emwazi would explain precisely how the militants would carry out a beheading.
Among those beheaded by Islamic State militants in videos posted online since August 2014 were U.S. journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
In the videos, a tall masked figure clad in black and speaking in a British accent typically began with a political rant and a kneeling hostage before him, then ended it holding an oversize knife in his hand with the headless victim lying before him in the sand.
Emwazi was identified as "Jihadi John" in February, although a lawyer who once represented Emwazi's father told reporters that there was no evidence supporting the accusation. Experts and others later confirmed the identification.
The militant was born in Kuwait and spent part of his childhood in the poor Taima area of Jahra before moving to Britain while still a boy, according to news reports quoting Syrian activists who knew the family. He attended state schools in London, then studied computer science at the University of Westminster before leaving for Syria in 2013. The woman who had been the principal at London's Quintin Kynaston Academy told the BBC earlier this year that Emwazi had been quiet and "reasonably hard-working."
Officials said Britain's intelligence community had Emwazi on its list of potential terror suspects for years but was unable to prevent him from traveling to Syria. He had been known to the nation's intelligence services since at least 2009, when he was connected with investigations into terrorism in Somalia.
The beheading of Foley, 40, of Rochester, New Hampshire, was deemed by ISIS to be its response to U.S. airstrikes. The release of the video, on Aug. 19, 2014, horrified and outraged the civilized world. It was followed the next month by videos showing the beheadings of Sotloff and Haines and, in October, of Henning.