Jihadi John Biography

Jihadi John was born Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri, on August 17, 1988, in Kuwait, to Ghaneyah and Jassem Emwazi. His name was later shortened to “Mohammed Emwazi.” He was the eldest of the five children in the family. They lived in a town named Al Jahra, located a few kilometers away from Kuwait City, Kuwait. His family was of Iraqi origin. In 1994, the family moved to London in search of a better life and to escape the aftermath of the Gulf War. Back then, John was 6 years old.

Following his high-school graduation, Jihadi John joined the ‘University of Westminster’ in 2006. He graduated with good grades. At the university, he was described as a polite young man who was Westernized in his attitude. He occasionally attended a mosque in Greenwich.

In 2009, after graduating college, Jihadi John planned a trip to Tanzania with two of his close friends. However, the three of them were never allowed to leave the airport. They were eventually taken to a nearby police station. The Tanzanian authorities had received orders to keep a close eye on them and question them. They were not allowed to leave and were supposed to be sent back to Europe.

They were taken to the ‘Schipol Airport’ in Holland, where they were questioned by the British intelligence agencies, as they were suspected of being closely associated with a terrorist group. Jihadi John denied his allegiance with any such group and was later released and taken back to the U.K.

John later came to know that his family had also been questioned by the authorities and this affected him. He was in a bad mental state. Thus, his family advised him to spend some time in their native land, Kuwait. In 2009, he moved back to Kuwait to live with his fiancée’s family for a while. Soon, he joined an IT company in Kuwait and worked there for close to 8 months.

His boss in the company later said that John was one of the best salesmen he ever had. John was only 21 years old and had a bright future ahead of him. However, the mistreatment he and his family had received back in London had scarred him.

Starting in August 2014, the ‘Islamic State’ released a series of videos showing Western journalists being beheaded on camera. The first video that surfaced was that of journalist James Foley. Following this, several other videos surfaced, featuring the beheadings of journalists and workers such as Alan Henning, David Haines, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig. Jihadi John also performed some of the beheadings himself and appeared in the videos wearing a mask.

The videos somehow avoided showing gory details. However, that changed with a video of the beheadings of a few Syrian soldiers, in which Jihadi John, too, was seen beheading a soldier. This video had gory details and showed the heads being decapitated on camera.

Although Jihadi John always wore a mask in the videos, his eyes were visible. Several voice experts claimed that his accent was typical of South London. Later, in 2015, media reports claimed that his mother had accepted that the videos featured her son Mohammed’s voice. However, his father denied that Mohammed was “Jihadi John.”