US drone strike targets ‘Jihadi John’, Islamic State’s British executioner, in Syria

A US drone strike targeted a vehicle in Syria believed to be transporting the masked Islamic State militant known as “Jihadi John” on Thursday, according to American officials.

Whether the strike killed the British man who appeared in several videos depicting the beheadings of Western hostages was not known, officials said.

Mohammed Emwazi was the target of an air strike in Raqqa, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement. Officials were assessing the results of the strike, he said.

A US official said a drone had targeted a vehicle in which Emwazi was believed to be travelling.

Emwazi, believed to be in his mid-20s, 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.

Sotloff’s mother, Shirley Sotloff, told NBC News following word of Thursday’s strike that she hadn’t been informed about it and that, even if Emwazi had been killed, “it doesn’t bring my son back.”