THE killing on November 12th of Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State (IS) video executioner dubbed “Jihadi John”, has dominated the headlines and prompted David Cameron, the British prime minister, to warn jihadists: “We have a long reach, we have unwavering determination and we never forget about our citizens.”
But probably of far greater significance for the fight against IS was the recapture of the town of Sinjar in north-west Iraq by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and the start of an offensive by Iraqi security forces to expel IS from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.
Emwazi’s death—the result of a strike by an American drone on a “tactical unit” in the IS stronghold of Raqqa—was confirmed as “99% sure” by American military sources. A British citizen, Emwazi became the symbol of IS brutality last year through carefully staged propaganda videos showing the beheading of hostages from Britain, America and Japan. The successful targeting of such a high-profile figure will give a boost—mostly symbolic, but also raising questions about IS’s internal security—to a campaign against the jihadists that appeared to...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1MbYenl
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