At the time, Emwazi had come to the attention of MI5 after making an abortive attempt to join al-Shabaab in Somalia. Emwazi had insisted he had flown to Tanzania to go on a safari after university but intelligence agencies are certain he planned to go to a terror training camp. Emwazi eventually fled to Syria in the late spring of 2013, joining Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) and going on to become a barbaric killer who beheaded two British and three American hostages in executions filmed and released on the internet.