Author:
Publication: The Huffington Post
Date: August 25, 2014
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/25/boris-johnson-jihadi-john_n_5706797.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Boris Johnson has said he wants the reportedly British jihadist who beheaded American journalist James Foley to be killed in a bomb attack.

The Mayor of London said Britain must take on Islamic State (IS) and "try to close it down now", warning that doing nothing would mean a "tide of terror will eventually lap at our own front door".

Mr Johnson, who has overall responsibility for the Metropolitan Police and is planning to return to parliament next year, called for new laws that would mean anyone visiting Iraq and Syria would be automatically presumed to be terrorists unless they had notified the authorities in advance.

British intelligence agencies are understood to be close to identifying the IS (formerly ISIS) killer of Foley who has been dubbed "jihadi John".

A rapper from west London is a key suspect linked with the murder.

Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary left his home in Maida Vale to fight with IS in Syria, and has previously posted a picture of himself apparently holding aloft the severed head of an opponent.

Writing in his Daily Telegraph column, Mr Johnson said: "Young men such as this killer are famously told that if they die in 'battle' they will be welcomed in heaven by the sexual ministrations of 72 virgins.

"Many of them believe it - even though scholars have suggested that the reference to 'black-eyed virgins' is in fact a promise of 72 raisins.

"I suspect most of us don't give a monkey's what happens to this prat in heaven, whether he meets virgins or raisins - we just want someone to come along with a bunker buster and effect an introduction as fast as possible."

Former shadow home secretary David Davis has called for IS fighters to lose their British citizenship and Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said they must face being stripped of their passports.

Mr Johnson said those who "continue to give allegiance to a terrorist state" should lose their British status citizenship and called for swift changes to the law so there is a "rebuttable presumption" that those visiting war areas without notifying the authorities have done so for a terrorist purpose.

The mayor said that while Britain's recent military interventions have left the nation reluctant to wade into overseas conflicts "doing nothing is surely the worst of all" and warned that the IS "wackos" must be tackled.

"What is the point of having a defence budget, if we don't at least try to prevent the establishment of a terrorist 'caliphate' that is profoundly hostile to civilised values?"

Britain's ambassador to the United States Sir Peter Westmacott confirmed that intelligence agencies were on the brink of identifying the IS terrorist.

He told CNN's State of the Union programme: "I do know from my colleagues at home that we are close.

"We're putting a lot into it. And there are some very sophisticated technologies, voice identification and so on, which people can use to check who these people are. But, of course, the problem goes beyond one horrendous criminal, if you like."

Foreign Office and Home Office officials refused to comment on the claims. "We do not comment on security matters," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

Of all the known Brits who have travelled to fight in Syria, Bary's name has been most closely linked with the group, reportedly known as 'The Beatles' who killed Foley.

1. He was a 24-year-old aspiring rapper known as L Jinny whose music was played on BBC Radio 1.

Video Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MARkfLEtpY

His voice has been scruntinised by security services and compared to the South London voice on the video of the killing of James Foley

2. But he has tried to erase all traces of that life

“A while back he tweeted, ‘please take down the [music] videos of me, I now reject all that’,” Raffaello Pantucci, a London researcher who has been following Jinny’s Twitter account for over a year, told the Evening Standard.

3. The family lived in a £1m home in Maida Vale

The home on Randolph Avenue in Maida Vale was council-owned, and his mother raised him there with his siblings.

4. He posed with a severed head on Twitter, with the caption “Chillin’ with my other homie, or what’s left of him”

Having left London to fight in Syria, he posted regular updates on social media, until he was banned from Twitter for posing with a severed head. Many have pointed out Bary is holding the head in his left hand, the same hand with which 'Jihadi John' holds the knife in the film of James Foley's beheading.

5. He was once abducted and robbed by opposition fighters

Terrorist
@ltsLJinny

Me & Abu Hussein al britani got kidnapped /tortured by FSA/IF scum they stole our 4 ak's and a 7mm, my vechile & our phones and cash
-------------------------------------------

IS forces have clashed with more moderate, anti-Assad fighters from the Free Syria Army in the past

6. He is the son of a Islamist militant who is currently awaiting trial

Bary is the son of an Egyptian-born Al Qaeda-linked militant Adel Abdul Bary who is awaiting trail on terrorism charges in New York, due to his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

7. He has fought under the name Abu Kalashnikov and Soldier of Allah

Bary's Twitter account has been suspended on numerous occasions, but he has posted pictures of himself with stockpiles of weapons.

8. The family was home-schooled because his mother was worried about bad influences

In an interview in the Guardian with Victoria Brittain, Bary's mother Ragaa said she was left to raise her children alone in London as her husband fought extradition to the US. The family had been dependent on benefits for a number of years because of Bary's father's legal woes. "She began to hear about the London world outside her flat from the older ones, with stories about drugs, violence, knife crime and truancy among their schoolfriends. It terrified her," Brittain wrote. "She took most of them out of school and taught them their GCSEs at home."

9. He was a supporter of Anonymous