February 27, 2015 | Quote

Unmasking of ‘Jihadi John’ Sheds Little Light on His Radicalization


“If it’s true he was going to join Al-Shabab, it’d be hard to say that he wasn’t already radicalized,” added Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Emwazi had denied claims that he was traveling for the purposes of joining Al-Shabab, saying instead that he was going on safari with friends before he was detained, British intelligence sources told Reuters. U.K. agents, he is said to have added, wanted to make him an informant in England. In subsequent interaction with CAGE, he alleged further harassment by U.K. officials, who prevented him from returning to Kuwait, his birthplace, after he had accepted a job there.

But Gartenstein-Ross said it was too soon to definitively assess Emwazi’s radicalization. “What you’re seeing now is why our public sphere is so broken,” he said, on the rush by some media to suggest the cause of Emwazi’s radicalization.

“Suddenly everyone’s thinking they can tell you why he radicalized and how,” Gartenstein-Ross continued: “We’ve only known his identity for less than 24 hours and there hasn’t been an opportunity to do real reporting on this, other than the initial Washington Post story that broke the news.

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