ISIS hostages had grown familiar with rehearsing their deaths, trusting that they were not about to be killed, a new report has revealed. This practice succeeded in giving victims the appearance of calm, moments before their murder.
According to revelations from “Saleh,” a former translator for the jihadi group ISIS, given to Sky News , mock beheadings of hostages were routine, and pledges of their safety just before their murder were commonplace.
Some are using this as evidence to explain why ISIS hostages such as U.S. journalist James Foley and British aid worker Alan Henning appeared so calm while reading statements to camera.
During the Sky News interview from Turkey “Saleh” says he was hired to convince foreign hostages that they were safe. This could have been mere moments before a member of ISIS killed them. A number of instances involved videos with Mohammed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John”.
“He (Emwazi) would say to me ‘say to them, no problem, only video, we don’t kill you, we want from your government [to] stop attacking Syria. We don’t have any problem with you; you are only our visitors.’ So they don’t worry. Always I say to them ‘don’t worry, doesn’t matter, nothing dangerous for you. But at the end I was sure [they would die].”
Saleh said he had seen Emwazi murder Japanese hostage Kenji Goto, and that he had earned respect and fear from others throughout ISIS thanks to his apparently rare willingness to murder foreigners.
“Maybe because he use the knife. I cannot understand why he is so strong. One man can kill and all people will respect. A Syrian man anyone [in Isis] can kill. But strangers [foreigners], only John. When he killed Kenji Goto I live showed this [saw] but not near, from a little [distance].
“The big boss was there with them. Turkish man say ‘put this camera there, change place there’ but John the big boss. All time, all time say to all ‘fastly, fastly, fastly, we should finish’. So respect him. Only he talks orders – others do.”
Advocacy group CAGE has previously commented that the Kuwaiti-born Briton was “extremely kind” and “extremely gentle”but had been harassed by the UK security services. While Research director Asim Qureshi has said the Emwazi family was “in utter shock” that the “beautiful young man” had joined ISIS.
While the march of ISIS seems unrelenting , such chilling first-hand insights into the workings of Islamic State and the character of Mohammed Emwazi are unusual. It is now clearer that the apparent surface-level calm of foreign hostages was coldly manipulated by ISIS in the form of rehearsals and false assurances.
[Image via Sky News.]
