ISIS Fighters Pay Cut and Jihadi-John Pulverized by US Drone in the Sky
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| “Jihadi John” |
The Islamic State jihadist group has announced plans to halve the monthly salaries of its members in Syria and Iraq as the economic reality of waging war on several fronts takes its toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists, medics, and fighters across Syria for information on Isis, published what it said was an official statement from the militant group announcing the cuts.
“Because of the exceptional circumstances that the Islamic State is passing through, a decision was taken to cut the salaries of the mujahedeen in half,” the Arabic statement said.
“No one will be exempt from this decision no matter his position, but the distribution of food assistance will continue twice a month as usual,” it said.
Isis has declared a self-styled “caliphate” across swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, imposing its harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
According to Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman, the salary cuts meant Syrian Isis fighters would see their salaries drop to about $200 a month.
Foreign fighters, who were paid double the Syrian militants, would have their monthly income reduced to $400, Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The jihadist group strives to show that it operates a full-fledged state, with government institutions, hospitals, and schools.
The financial strain could be a result of intensified air strikes on its oil infrastructure in Syria and Iraq.
A US-led coalition is conducting an air war on the group in both countries, and Russian warplanes are also targeting the jihadists in Syria.
The Observatory also noted that Isis has released 270 of an estimated 400 civilians, most of them women and children, who were kidnapped at the weekend when its fighters attacked Syrian government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor.
The Observatory said, however, that the ultra-hardline group rounded up another 50 men on Tuesday during raids on houses in areas seized during four days of fighting in the provincial capital.
Rami Abdulrahman, the Observatory’s head, said that the group has kept male prisoners between the ages of 14 and 55 for more questioning.
“Those who they see have ties with the regime will be punished and those who (do) not must undertake a religious course based on the group’s interpretation of Islam,” he said.
The civilians released will remain in Islamic State-run villages in the province of Deir al-Zor, which links the group’s de facto capital in Raqqa with territory controlled by the militant group in neighbouring Iraq.
The group, which controls of most of the province, has laid siege since last March to remaining government-held areas in the city of Deir al-xor.
Welcome to the Virgins?
Islamic State has acknowledged the death of the masked militant Mohammed Emwazi, who appeared in several videos depicting the beheadings of western hostages, the Site Intelligence Group reported on Tuesday.
Site, which monitors terrorist activity, reported that Isis published a “eulogizing profile” of Emwazi in Dabiq, its English-language magazine, on Tuesday.
Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British citizen, was referred to in some reports as “Jihadi John”.
“His harshness towards the kuffar [non-believers] was manifested through deeds that enraged all the nations, religions, and factions of kuffar, the entire world bearing witness to this,” the Dabiq article said, according to a translation provided by Site.
Dabiq also described him as an “honourable brother” known for his “mercy and generosity” who once gave away a concubine as a gift “to an unmarried injured brother”.
A US military spokesman, said in November that the army was “reasonably certain” that a drone strike in Syria had killed Emwazi, who spoke in beheading videos with a British accent as he wielded a knife.
Separately, another US official said three drones – two US and one British – targeted the vehicle in which Emwazi was believed to be traveling in Raqqa, the capital of Isis’s self-proclaimed caliphate in northern Syria. The official said the US drone fired a Hellfire missile that struck the vehicle.
Enwazi appeared in videos posted online by Isis starting in August 2014 that depicted the beheadings of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
In the gruesome videos, a tall masked figure clad in black and speaking in a British accent typically began with a political rant taunting the west and a kneeling hostage clad in an orange prison-style jumpsuit before him, then ended it holding a knife in his hand with the headless victim lying before him in the sand. The videos don’t make clear if he carried out the actual killings.
He also appeared as a narrator in videos of other beheadings, including the mass killing of captive Syrian government soldiers.
Emwazi was believed to be in his mid-20s when he was killed. He had been described by a former hostage as a psychopath who enjoyed threatening his western captives.
Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa, who was held by Isis 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.
The hostages nicknamed three British-sounding captors “the Beatles” – with “Jihadi John” a reference to John Lennon, Espinosa said.
Emwazi was born in Kuwait and spent part of his childhood in the poor Taima area of Jahra before moving to Britain as a boy, according to news reports quoting Syrian activists who knew the family. He attended state schools in London, then studied computer science at the University of Westminster before leaving for Syria in 2013.
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