The transformation of Emwazi, described as a gentle and peaceful man, has revived the problem of the fascination of ruthless extremism and the role of Great Britain as an incubator of Islamic militants.
Emwazi, he would have been watched by the secret services before leaving Britain for Syria. Emwazi, is only the latest in a series of radical English extremists raised in the homeland.
In memory returns the failed suicide attack of Richard Reid in the 2001 or the massacre of the London subway in July of 2005 with 52 dead and 700 injured. In the 2006, the London police foiled a plot hatched by eight Englishmen, later convicted, to detonate seven airliners from Britain to the United States and Canada.
The British authorities, from the 2006, have intensified the controls, allowing however some subjects to operate freely in the hope of acquiring information.
The British police then foiled four or five alleged terrorist plots in the 2014 and at least one in the 2013. But just in Britain, there would seem to be a group that would bring British troops in trouble and recruit them, after careful indoctrination, among the ranks of extremists.
Those who know him describe Mohammed as an "extremely kind, polite, very calm boy." We are talking about the same executioner who slaughtered the western hostages kidnapped by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
His first appearance dates back to last August, when he beheaded the American journalist James Foley. Emwazi would later execute American journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning and US humanitarian worker Peter Kassig.
The history of the "executioner"
We know that Emwazi was first arrested in 2009, Tanzania, where he had gone on a safari after graduation with two friends (a German converted to Islam named Omar and another man, Abu Talib). In fact, the British authorities already suspected his affiliation with the terrorist group Shalab, active in Somalia.
Landed at the airport of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in May of 2009, they were arrested by the police and held overnight before being expelled.
According to Asim Qureshi, founder of Cage Prisoners, a sort of Muslim Amnesty, Emwazi was repeatedly interrogated by MI6 agents and on one occasion, the young man would also have been "thrown against a wall, beaten and grabbed by the throat". Still according to Qureshi, the British secret services would have asked Emwazi to become an informant.
The attention of the British authorities, according to the story of the association that defends the victims of the war on terror, allegedly "complicated his love life, losing two girlfriends".
Emwazi, after his forced return from Tanzania, moved to Kuwait and began working for a while as a computer programmer. In the 2010, he returns to Britain twice to visit the family, but when he tries to return to Kuwait, his visa is refused.
I had a job waiting for me and a marriage to think about - the future executioner in Cage Prisoners would have said - I feel in a cage, the secret services keep me in check and prevent me from making a living in my hometown.
Emwazi then tries to change his name to the registry office. What he gets in the 2013, when he legally changes his name to Mohammed al-Ayan. It was then that he buys a new ticket for Kuwait, but this time he is again blocked and interrogated by the secret services. A week later, Emwazi leaves her parents' home forever.
Four months later, the family denounces his disappearance. The London police respond to them that their son went to Syria in the ranks of terrorists.
Emwazi's family claims that the executioner cannot be that polite and kind young man. Kuwait is an ally of the United States, but it is also a country with many donors for extremist groups fighting in Syria.
In Kuwait, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was born, the self-confessed mind of 11 September 2001 and his nephew Ramzi Yousef who designed the 1993 bombing with a car bomb that exploded near the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people and wounding one hundred.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is locked up in Guantanamo, while Ramzi Yousef is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.
Franco Iacch
