Another Example of How All That Surveillance Is Working

[Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State terrorist known as “Jihadi John,” ] was a computer programming graduate of the University of Westminster and lived in Queen’s Park, West London, [and] is thought to have killed American journalist James Foley. The killing was shown in a video released last August.

He is further believed to have featured in the videos of the beheadings of US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter.

[...]

Emwazi was a “person of interest” for MI5 as he was a member of a London based jihadi cell that had been set up to recruit militants.

[...]

Despite clearly being on the radar of the British intelligence services, Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and travelled to the UK as a child with his family was able to avoid detection and eventually escape to Syria in 2013.

“Given the numbers who appear to have ‘slipped through the net’, it is legitimate to ask, how many more people must die before we start to look more closely at the strategy of our intelligence services?” said the former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, writing in the Guardian on Friday.

  RT

Another case to which the punch line could be: are the Five Eyes intelligence/security agencies incompetent or complicit?

RIP, Alan Henning, Hervé Gourdel; Condolences to Three More

[Setember 24] In a sign of the growing influence of the extremist group known as the Islamic State, fighters aligned with the organization beheaded a French tourist in Algeria and released a video on Wednesday documenting the brutal killing, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

[...]

In addition, a militant group in the Philippines announced that it was holding European captives: Two Germans whom it threatened to kill unless Germany paid ransom or stopped supporting the American-led campaign against the Islamic State.

  NYT

[October 3] A short video released by ISIS on Friday shows the apparent beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, with the executioner blaming the death on the United Kingdom for joining the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the group.

Before he is killed, Henning speaks to the camera, referencing the British Parliament's decision to participate in coalition of more than 40 countries who have banded together to go after the so-called Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria.

At the end of the video, ISIS shows American aid worker Peter Kassig and threatens his life.

[...]

"The brutal murder of Alan Henning by ISIL shows just how barbaric and repulsive these terrorists are," UK Prime Minister David Cameron said, referring to the group also known as ISIL.

  CNN

Yes, because beheadings with a sword are so much more brutal than beheadings with drones.

 Please note my previous post regarding beheadings.

And What Will France Do?

A splinter group that claims links to the militant group Islamic State (Isis) released a video on Monday night of a French tourist abducted on Sunday while on holiday in Algeria. The group has threatened to execute him unless France halts air strikes on Isis positions in Iraq. The French foreign ministry confirmed the authenticity of the video and identified the hostage as 55-year-old Hervé Gourdel.

[...]

“Everything is being done to find our compatriot. All our services are being mobilised to that end, and no theory is ruled out. We are in constant contact with the Algerian authorities, who are cooperating and supporting our inquiry,” said the French foreign ministry.

Hours before the kidnapping, Isis called on its supporters to kill civilians, namely Americans, French, and “their allies”.

Since 2005, about 80 Algerians have been kidnapped in Kabylie by groups demanding a ransom. Most of those who were abducted for extortion were later freed by Algerian security forces.

  Guardian

UPDATE: 9/24 - Gourdel has been beheaded. They didn't give the French much time to respond.

James Foley, et al.

[When IS contacted James Foley’s family to ransom their son], the government told the Foleys that it was a crime for private citizens to pay off terrorists.

More important, in retrospect, was what the F.B.I. did not tell the family: Mr. Foley was being held alongside a dozen Europeans, whose countries have a history of paying ransoms.

[...]

Guided by its strict no-ransom policy, the United States government’s hands-off approach was vastly different from the tack taken by European countries, which quickly negotiated the release of their citizens in exchange for cash.

This greatly frustrated the family of Mr. Foley, 40, a freelance journalist, and the other American hostages, who were desperate for Washington to take stronger action.

[...]

There is little indication that the administration anticipated how Mr. Foley and other American hostages could turn into grisly propaganda by ISIS, increasing pressure on the United States to begin what may become another extended military engagement in the Middle East.

[...]

The United States and Britain are among the only countries that abide by a zero-concession policy, refusing to accede to terrorists’ demands, arguing that doing so encourages more kidnapping.

[...]

“What is hard to prove is how many Americans have not been kidnapped as a result of the fact that the enemy knows they will not get a penny from us,” said Gen. John R. Allen, who recently retired as the top commander in Afghanistan. “In the aftermath of this horrific event it makes it hard to explain this policy. But the fact that there are Americans in the region who were never taken because they knew there was no advantage to doing so needs to be factored in.”

  NYT

And not only were the American families left to their own devices for support while being constantly monitored by the FBI, when the kidnappers asked for money and release of a Pakistani neuroscientist from American prison, they were told by the FBI to stall on the money part of the request and say in no uncertain terms does the US trade hostages. In the meantime, the US traded five Taliban for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. And, as you know, two of the Americans have now been executed.

Two other Americans and two British citizens remain in ISIS custody. At least 15 others held with Mr. Foley, all but one of them European, succeeded in getting out in return for cash.

In an effort to make sure the death of Mr. Foley brings about change, his parents are now working to establish an organization that will advise families of other victims, giving them the information early on that they say they were not given.

Not in time for the family of British Alan Henning.

And, speaking of Bowe Bergdahl…

The Republican-controlled House on Tuesday pushed a resolution condemning President Barack Obama for failing to give 30-day notice to Congress about the exchange in May of American prisoner Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

[...]

Republicans insisted that Obama clearly violated the law, underscored by a Government Accountability Office report last month that reached that conclusion. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, accused Obama of a blatant disregard for the law.

  NY Daily News

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl plans to get out of the Army and pursue a college education once the investigation into his disappearance is completed, his lawyer told CBS News.

[...]

His release from nearly five years in Taliban captivity ended in May, after President Obama decided to swap him for five prisoners held in a Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

[...]

In a phone interview Tuesday, attorney Gene Fidell said that his client feels like he is in a holding pattern and wants to get on with his life.< br/>


  

At least he still has a life to get on with.

And, the Third Man Is Executed by IS

Sincere condolences to the family of David Haines.

Of course, David Cameron has vowed to hunt down and destroy IS.  Just like Obama.  But neither man has any intention of changing their foreign policies so that groups like IS have no reason for being created.  Not to mention, so that IS will stop executing their respective citizens.

And, IS has another man on the block. Alan Henning.  What can I say?

IS Not Prone to Idle Threats

The militant Islamic State group has released a video in which it claims to have beheaded the captured American journalist Steven Sotloff, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

In the video, which lasts for just under three minutes, ISIS murders Sotloff andthreatens the life of David Haines, a British citizen.

Sotloff, 31, was kidnapped in 2013 while reporting on the bloody civil war in Syria.

[...]

The video comes weeks after ISIS released a video in which it beheaded another American journalist, James Foley. In that video, the militants threatened to murder Sotloff next if the US bombing of ISIS targets continued.

  HuffPo

UPDATE: The next man has been executed, and another is on the block.