Islamic State killer was part of network formed at school and in football games, some of whose members went on to travel to Somalia for terrorism training

The extent to which a small group of disaffected Muslim youths from one London neighbourhood were able to forge contacts with senior al-Qaida figures is becoming clearer since one of their number was named as the hooded militant behind the Islamic State (Isis) killings.

Mohammed Emwazi, an IT worker from North Kensington, was part of network headed by two men facing prosecution for the 1998 east African embassy bombings in which 224 people were killed and thousands injured, according to evidence heard by the high court in 2011.

Emwazi, 26, was a member of a close-knit group of young jihadis whose links were forged at secondary school and during five-a-side football matches in the west London neighbourhood, rather than at mosques or political meetings, according to one of their number.

His family had settled in the area after moving to the UK from Kuwait when he was six years old.

A number of other members of the network travelled to Somalia for terrorism training from Harun Fazul, who is alleged to have organised the bombings that brought al-Qaida to international attention, and Saleh Nabhan, who was also sought in connection with the attacks.



According to evidence that was accepted by the court after being submitted in secret, the young Londoners were instructed to return to the UK to recruit more members to al-Qaida and to help them to travel to Somalia for training.

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Fazul singled out the leader of the London network, Bilal Berjawi, for mention in an autobiography that he wrote shortly before he was shot dead at a police checkpoint in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in June 2011. Nabhan had been killed in a raid by US forces two years earlier.

By this time, Berjawi had made several trips in and out of Somalia, usually via Kenya, and usually taking a number of his friends from London with him.

Initially, Berjawi is said to have enjoyed experiencing life in a territory that was governed by the Islamic Courts Union, a group of sharia courts that governed much of the south of the country until late 2006. Before long, it is widely accepted, he was taking up arms on behalf of al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida-linked militant group that emerged from the union.

In 2009, according to a number of associates, Berjawi flew to Tanzania with his former next-door neighbour, Mohammed Sakr, and with Emwazi, the killer who the media named “Jihadi John” before his true identity became known.

The trio claimed they were planning to go on safari and, according to a number of their associates in North Kensington, there was some truth in this claim. “They were quite excited about seeing all these wild animals,” said one. But they were being monitored by MI5 and were assumed to also be planning to travel to Somalia and were turned back.

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According to several of Emwazi’s associates, MI5 tried to recruit him at this time. They have also claimed that the agency’s officers intimidated him.

According to workers at Cage, a London-based rights organisation that was in contact with Emzawi at this time, he had been a “kind and gentle” young man before this episode.

However, a batch of emails from Emwazi that Cage released on Friday included one from 2010 in which he expressed concern for “our sister” Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neurosurgeon who had been sentenced to 86 years in prison by a New York district court for trying to shoot American soldiers in Afghanistan 2008. Her lawyers argued unsuccessfully she was mentally unstable.

Around this time, Emwazi was refused entry to Kuwait, where he had been working for an IT firm.

Berjawi and Sakr, meanwhile, returned to east Africa, and this time succeeded in entering Somalia, where they fought with al-Shabaab.

Berjawi, a dual British-Lebanese national, was killed in a US drone strike in January 2012, not long after home secretary Theresa May had stripped him of his British citizenship. He was 27.



A few weeks later, Sakr was also killed in a US drone strike. Although he had been born in London, his parents were born in Egypt so the Home Office regarded him as a dual British-Egyptian national.



Sakr had also been stripped of his British citizenship shortly before he was targeted. His parents subsequently flew to Cairo and formally renounced their Egyptian citizenship to prevent their two other sons from being deprived of their British status.



The judgment in the 2011 high court case, which concerned a control order that had been imposed on a member of the North Kensington network once influenced by Fazul and Nabhan, identifies 10 other young men as members of the group.



Four of them attended the same school, North Westminster community school, which has since closed. Many of them are dual nationals, with Moroccan, Bangladeshi, Ethiopian or Somali origins. A number of them were impressed by a particular preacher, Hani al-Sibai.



Emwazi was educated at another school in the area, Quintin Kynaston (QK), where his contemporaries included the singer-songwriter Tulisa.

A former secondary school teacher of the 26-year-old, who she described as a “success story” for appearing to overcome an anger problem to achieve good grades, said staff at QK had been questioned by MI5.

The teacher, who remained anonymous, told BBC’s Newsnight that Emwazi received anger therapy to help him control his emotions.

“I’d say that Mohammed was a success story of our school, he went on to achieve everything that he wanted to do; he went to a university of his choice and from the way he started in year seven to how he blossomed til he left at the end of sixth form was a huge achievement for him, so I’m very surprised,” she said.

An official statement from the school in north-west London, released by Westminster council, said:“If the allegations are true we are all extremely shocked and sickened by the news.

“All members of staff at QK work very hard to support the education and wellbeing of our students and protect them from harm.”

After leaving QK, he then studied information technology at the University of Westminster, graduating in 2009.



Another member of the group, according to the court’s judgment, was Ibrahim Magag, who was the subject of restrictions imposed by a terrorism prevention and investigation measure (Tpim), but who managed to abscond two years ago simply by calling a taxi.



“They were sporty, not particularly studious young men,” said one person who has moved in jihadi circles in the same area. Some members of the group were not particularly religious or observant. He said Berjawi, who earned a living by renovating household appliances, was not especially clever, but was regarded as reliable and loyal.

Other alleged jihadi associates of Berjawi in west London who have been named in court judgments include two Ethiopians who have since been excluded from the UK on security grounds.

In 2013, Emwazi’s father suggested that he change his name. He did so, adopting the name Mohammed al-Ayan, but was still refused entry to Kuwait.

Shortly afterwards, he left London for Turkey, ostensibly to work with Syrian refugees. Four months later, police called at the family home to say he had crossed the border, where he is now known to have joined the ranks of the Isis fighters.

He is said to have risen rapidly through the ranks over the following 18 months, achieving a leading role within the foreign jihadi corps whose members know him as Abu Abdullah al-Britani.

While his identity is said to have been known to intelligence officials in the UK, US and Middle East since he first began to appear in the Isis videos that have depicted the decapitation of hostages, he was not named officially, amid concerns that this could further jeopardise the lives of Isis hostages.



