Four Londoners’ depravity was showcased in shocking videos. Now the last two are in captivity

Exhausted and strikingly different in appearance from the other captives, the two new prisoners were believed by Kurdish militia leaders to be among Islamic State’s cadre of foreign fighters.



But it was not until mid-January, around one week after their capture in eastern Syria, that the Kurds – and their CIA colleagues at the interrogation centre where they were holding the prisoners – knew exactly who they had: Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, Britain’s two most wanted terror suspects. They had finally been caught – and they were ready to talk.

Kotey and Elsheikh are the final two of an infamous quartet of Britons who acted as jailers, torturers and executioners of foreign aid workers and journalists for more than two years from mid-2013. They were dubbed “the Beatles” by their victims, in reference to their British accents – though they were from London, rather than Merseyside.

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Their capture had been a top priority after the self-described Isis caliphate splintered and its powerbases in Mosul and Raqqa collapsed under withering attack. The original cell of four Britons had included Mohammed Emwazi, the brutal executioner killed by a US drone in November 2015, and Aine Lesley Davis, who was captured in Istanbul in the same month.

The remaining pair had been hunted across eastern Syria and northern Iraq ever since by British and US spies and soldiers, determined to avenge the deaths of their nationals, and to prevent the killers’ continued rise through the ranks. The end finally came near Deir ez-Zor along the Euphrates river valley basin, where the most senior members of the group are known to have sought refuge. Exactly how they were captured remains unclear, with reports on Friday suggesting that one of them was thought to be attempting to make his way towards the Turkish border.

Play Video 2:14 'Quest for justice': former Isis hostage on capture of ‘Beatles’ – video

Together, the quartet’s depravity had been showcased by Isis in a series of shocking execution videos that they filmed during the height of the group’s rampage across Syria and Iraq. They became the merciless face of the terror organisation, which sought new ways to shock – through high-definition scenes of death that were drip fed to horrified audiences for more than a year.

Raqqa had been their staging ground, a besieged and traumatised city, where they and other Isis luminaries ruled with impunity until early last year. Attacks in Europe were plotted from homes and internet cafes inside its cramped streets. Emwazi and at least two other Beatles were filmed in one such cafe, charging their phones and sitting on couches, by one Raqqa resident who dared not smuggle the film out of Raqqa until he had long fled.

Only unverified rumours about Kotey and Elsheikh had emerged from Raqqa as it crumbled in the face of a six-month Kurdish assault, backed by US led airstrikes. Some British jihadists fled to north-eastern Syria, where they were rounded up by Kurdish groups, armed by Washington, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

One suspected British Isis member was arrested by Iraqi Kurds and remains detained in Erbil.

Dozens more are believed to have made it to Turkey, along with many more Europeans and several Australians. Throughout the exodus, finding Kotey and Elsheikh had been a visceral drive for American and British intelligence agencies.

Now in US custody – at a base believed by regional intelligence officials to be in the Rumelan area near the Iraqi Kurdistan border – both men are said to have revealed details about Isis’s remaining leadership structure, as well as its tactics and priorities. They are understood to have risen through the organisation to positions that were previously reserved for founding Iraqi members – due partly to the fact that the Isis leadership has been decimated, but also in recognition of their deeds and newfound status.

“They’re part of a section that is the most important cell in the security and intelligence bureau of Isis,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi author and expert on the group. “The section had three stations, Mosul, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. They only include the most hardcore of Isis ideologues, who are delegated by the emirate and the ruling committee.”

The pair have been interrogated in buildings inside an abandoned oil field, where foreign fighters determined to be “high-value prisoners” are held. Further north, in a camp known as Roj, the wives and children of other foreigners are being held.

Determining the residual threat posed by Isis outside of its now defunct borders remains the central focus of interrogators. Senior officials in Washington, Baghdad and London believe the organisation’s ability to direct mass attacks has largely been crippled. Its external operations arms in Raqqa and Mosul have been destroyed and both Kotey and Elsheikh are thought to have been central to what remained of its capacity in Deir ez-Zor.

However, dozens of highly motivated cadres are thought to have made it to Europe, where they remain ideologically driven to carry out attacks and are well-equipped to do so as a result of training during Isis’s better days.

“I think we will still see some shock and horror this year, which some say will be the death rattle of this outfit,” said a former western intelligence official. “Guys like these two have been important to the next phase. Let’s hope they talk enough to allow us to get ahead of what other cadres are up to.”

The legal fate of Kotey and Elsheikh remains unclear. A senior Kurdish official said there had been no approach by Britain to extradite either man. “The SDF doesn’t have a particular interest in the foreign jihadists,” the official said. “These two were identified by the coalition forces after they were arrested.

“There have been cases of foreigners being sent back to their home country before … and most likely the fate of these two won’t be any different if the UK government approaches us.”

British intelligence officers are understood to have had access to the captives. However, their debriefing is being led by the CIA. “They will lead us to these bodies,” said an American official, referring to the US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig, who were brutally treated, then slain by the British jihadis. The British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines were also executed on camera in the barren brown hills above Raqqa. “After that we will deal with them,” the official said. “In our own time.”