U.S.-U.K. Officials Identified James Foley’s ISIS Executioner In Video

Senior Western intelligence officials said that 23-year-old London rapper Abdel Majed Abdel Bary is the suspect believed to be James Foley’s executioner.

American and British intelligence officials have identified a British-born rapper as the ISIS executioner who beheaded American journalist James Foley.

Senior Western intelligence officials confirmed that 23-year-old London rapper Abdel Majed Abdel Bary is the suspect believed to be James Foley’s executioner.

U.S. intelligence officials have refused to comment on the reports and the sources’ claims, but another source told Fox News that Bary’s Egyptian-born father had been extradited from London to the United States in 2012 due to his alleged connection to Osama bin Laden, specifically the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa.

Sources say that U.S.-U.K. intelligence agencies were aware that Bary had traveled to Syria in 2013 to fight with ISIS, a time when President Obama had called for U.S. airstrikes to support the so-called rebels after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s self-imposed “red line” when he used chemical weapons against ISIS.

The Sunday Times and Sunday People identified Bary as a member of a group that includes at least three British-born ISIS fighters known among former hostages as “The Beatles.” The Sunday Times reported that MI5 and MI6, Britain’s two main intelligence agencies, had almost immediately identified the man, but decided not to make that information public.

Source also confirmed a report from Fox News claiming that the FBI opened a crisis file shortly after Foley was kidnapped in northern Syria back in November 2012.The file includes interviews with former hostages that depict the kidnappers as particularly vicious captors, who regularly beat their prisoners and torture them with Tasers, and worse.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Mirror, citing British intelligence sources, identified two other suspects as 20-year-old Abu Hussain al-Britani, originally from Birmingham, and 23-year-old Abu Abduallah al-Britani (no known relation), from the county of Hampshire. The county is located on England’s southern coast.

According to a Sunday report from the Mail, the three men are known as “John,” “George,” and “Ringo,” and make up a special kidnapping gang that may have been formed with the explicit purpose of targeting Westerners. The paper reported that the “Beatles” were at one point actually barred from guarding hostages due to their extreme cruelty.

U.S. officials at the State Department last week stated that ISIS has been very successful at raising money through kidnappings, because Europe has established a “will negotiate with terrorists” policy. Now, according to The Mail on Sunday, the “Beatles” routinely bragged about the fact they had made millions of dollars from ransoms paid by European countries. As to the amount of money, one hostage told the paper it was enough to “retire to Kuwait or Qatar.”

While the U.S. and Britain have a long-standing policy of refusing to pay ransom to terrorists in exchange for captured citizens, other weaker Western countries do not, which has made their citizens a target. The New York Times reported last month that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have received at least $125 million in ransom money since 2008, paid by European countries like France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland. The CEO of GlobalPost, a media organization where Foley had previously worked, confirmed that ISIS had demanded a $132 million ransom for Foley’s release.

Further, The Mail on Sunday reported that France, for instance, paid roughly $13.2 million just this year for the release of four hostages held by ISIS. Italy also paid close to $5 million for the release of an Italian journalist. The kidnapping and ransomed releases of seven other European journalists and aid workers reportedly netted ISIS a total of $26.5 million.

In addition to Foley, ISIS is believed to be holding three other Americans hostage. One of them, journalist Steven Sotloff, is threatened with beheading by the militant known as “John” at the end of the video released last week.

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