The ISIS terrorist group has once again featured a masked, British-accented jihadi in their latest execution video, threatening the United Kingdom for taking part in the anti-ISIS air campaign and mocking the British prime minister as an “imbecile.”
But while it took many months for his predecessor – known as “Jihadi John” by the media – to be unmasked as Mohammed Emwazi, it appears that this last pistol-waving fanatic may already have been identified by his distinctive voice.
Emwazi was killed in a coalition airstrike late last year.
Numerous counter-extremist experts and British media commentators have claimed the terrorist’s voice sounds remarkably similar to that of Siddhartha Dhar, who also goes by the name Abu Rumaysah. Dhar, an Indian convert to Islam, is a former close associate of notorious British Muslim hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who skipped bail along with his wife and four children to join the so-called “Islamic State,” posting pictures online mocking British authorities from Syria.
Apart from his voice, his skin tone and the bags under his eyes also bear a close resemblance to Dhar.
His sister told the Daily Mail on Monday the voice sounded “a bit” like her brother but said she couldn’t believe it was him.
“If it is him, bloody hell am I shocked? I am going to kill him myself. He is going to come back and I am going to kill him if he has done this,” Konika Dhar said.
“I can’t believe it. This is just so shocking for me. I don’t know what the authorities are doing to confirm the identity, but I need to know if it is.”
Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday described the ISIS video, which claimed to show the execution of five British “spies,” as “desperate stuff” designed to deflect from their recent military losses.
“It’s desperate stuff from an organisation that really does do the most utterly despicable and ghastly acts and people can see that again today,” Cameron said during a visit to east London.
“This is an organization that’s losing territory… increasingly losing anybody’s sympathy, and this again shows what an appalling organisation we’re up against.”
The prime minister said ISIS was motivated by a hatred for Britain’s “tolerant, democratic, multi-faith” values and that the jihadists would not succeed in the long term.
“Britain will never be cowed by this sort of terrorism. Our values are so much stronger than theirs,” he said.
“It may take a very long time but they will be defeated.”
British warplanes, which were already attacking ISIS positions in Iraq, at the beginning of December began targeting the jihadists in Syria also.
AFP contributed to this report.
