How We Finally Got Jihadi John: UK's GCHQ Spotted Him in June
>Drones Followed Him for Weeks... Then 1,000mph Missile Slammed Into His Car
- Intelligence sources located Jihadi John six months ago and have been following him around the clock
- A Reaper drone piloted at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada circled Jihadi John on Thursday night in Raqqa
- Once identified getting into his car, the pilot fired a HellFire Missile which completely destroyed the vehicle
- It is understood that Britain's SAS (special forces operatives), may have even infiltrated the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa
Daily Mail UK, 14 November 2015
For obvious security reasons, neither the Ministry of Defence nor the Pentagon have revealed precisely how Jihadi John was tracked down and killed.
But it is possible to assemble the likely sequence of events by drawing on intelligence sources, the scant details we have been given – and from the experience of previous drone strikes.
After this sinister masked figure first appeared on YouTube in August last year, British and US intelligence services were straight on his trail, crucially helped by voice-tagging technology.
Mohammed Emwazi was blitzed by a missile fired from a drone controlled by U.S. air force pilots sitting in a control centre thousands of miles away. A U.S. official said the ISIS executioner was pinpointed in the centre of the terror group's capital Raqqa after 'persistent surveillance'
This annotated image posted online by anti-ISIS activists Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently claims to show where Emwazi is believed to have been killed (circled), just yards from the group's headquarters in Raqqa
Used previously to good effect in Afghanistan, the technology meant that staff at the Government’s GCHQ spy agency in Cheltenham could analyse voice-recordings collected by Nimrod spy planes.
They can create individual voice profiles of terrorists, in the same way as police use fingerprints.
Confirmation that Jihadi John had been found was finally made by ‘other means’ – most likely an informant.
Next, in intelligence jargon, came ‘Find – Fix – Finish’.
As well as using CIA and MI6 spies in Syria, it is believed that heavily-disguised special forces, such as the SAS, will have infiltrated Islamic State strongholds including Raqqa.
Such ground-level intelligence is known as ‘humint’ – short for human intelligence – but electronic intelligence or ‘elint’ is a far more powerful weapon in their armoury.
This includes the interception of suspects’ mobile phone calls through the use of drones, spy planes and satellites.
The Reaper drone is thought to have taken off from Incirilik Air Force base in southern Turkey, around 200 miles from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa
Former drone pilot John Reed spent six years spying and attacking Islamist extremists in Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria has told of how people would crowd around his screen if a high profile militant was being targeted (file photo)
Staff at the UK military intelligence base at Ayios Nikolaos, Cyprus, can also sweep up complex communications ‘chatter’.
Terrorist targets will try to keep one step ahead of their pursuers: they may not use mobile phones as SIM cards can be tracked, neither will they connect their phones or computers to the internet in an attempt to prevent their UK and US watchers following their IP address, which is automatically recognised by servers.
Instead they use encrypted instant messages – although it is believed GCHQ can decode these, too.
But however it happened, Jihadi John was finally located in June. He would then have been constantly followed by British or US unmanned drones operated by crew at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire – 2,250 miles from Raqqa – or American pilots at Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas, 7,200 miles away.
Over weeks, drone pilots will ‘fix’ intimate knowledge of their target – such as watching them visiting a mosque, seeing friends and shopping – to establish their routine and to identify a location where they can be taken out with little or no collateral damage.
The fliers, as well as being able to launch drones carrying Hellfire missiles, also have in their possession pre-prepared legal clearance to kill high-value targets – since approval to strike cannot always be obtained from David Cameron or President Obama at a moment’s notice.
Jihadi John was watched in August as he travelled in a convoy which included women and children; in such circumstances, a drone strike would not have been wise.
This week, he was finally tracked to Raqqa by GCHQ staff who picked up chatter among IS militants.
Raffaello Pantucci, the director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute – a defence and security forum – said the strike could only have happened using 'local' intelligence
Drones circling above the terrorists’ stronghold would then have been despatched to find his exact location by picking up his voice.
On Wednesday they found him.
With such a high-profile target, it is likely the British and US governments wanted ‘eyes-on’ confirmation, perhaps from SAS observers. Once established, his location would have been passed to the US pilots at Creech – for the Finish.
Throughout Thursday, Jihadi John was watched by drones 50,000ft above as operators waited until they could kill him ‘safely’.
At 11.40pm he was seen emerging from a building in central Raqqa and getting into a car with three more IS terrorists.
At that point, one pilot would have clicked a mouse or control stick trigger to ‘paint’ the target vehicle with a laser, which is used by Hellfire missiles to lock on the target.
Then with either a keyboard command or another click of a mouse, transmitted via satellite, the Hellfire would have been launched.
The next 20 seconds would have been tense, as the US pilots waited for it to strike...
Success! The car was struck – with some poetic justice, near an Islamic court and the clock tower location of IS crucifixions.
A Pentagon official confirmed yesterday: ‘We have been following this target for some time.
‘And when the opportunity presented itself for minimal civilian casualties, we took the shot.’ The explosion, visible on United States Air Force screens in Nevada, would not have been the end of the mission for the drone’s operators.
They had to keep the craft circling above Raqqa, performing Battle Damage Assessment to check the target was ‘Finished’.
It is understood they watched Jihadi John being taken to hospital, where he is thought to have died.
The last word goes to that Pentagon official, who said clinically: ‘We’ve got several methods to determine whether or not the strike successfully killed the target that we wanted killed.
‘We know for a fact that the weapons system hit the intended target and that the personnel on the receiving end were killed by that.’
The unmanned drone, which is thought to have been piloted from 7,000 miles away from the Creech Air Force base (file photo), Nevada, has the advantage of being able to locate and monitor targets while airstrikes are planned