Sadistic reign of 'jihadi John': British murderer brutally beat hostages and staged terrifying executions before demanding £80million ransom to free US journalist he later beheaded on video

‘John’ was the ringleader of a macabre gang which held hostages

But British jihadi ‘Beatles’ saved most vicious beatings for Mr Foley

American journalist was forced to stand in crucifix pose against wall

John was responsible for negotiations with the families of the hostages



The sadistic brutality of the British jihadi who beheaded James Foley was exposed by the reporter’s fellow hostages yesterday.

The former captives said the Islamic State fanatic they knew as ‘John’ was the ringleader of a macabre gang that held them for months in appalling conditions.

John and his fellow British jihadi ‘Beatles’, Paul and Ringo, saved their most vicious beatings for Mr Foley.

The sadistic brutality of the British jihadi who beheaded James Foley (left) was exposed by the reporter’s fellow hostages. The former captives said the Islamic State fanatic they knew as ‘John’ (right) was the ringleader of a macabre gang that held them for months in appalling conditions



As the security services closed in on John’s identity, it also emerged that:

The hostages were forced to take part in mock executions;

John demanded an £80million ransom from Mr Foley’s family;

The American journalist was forced to stand in crucifix pose against the wall;

Most of the hostages’ time was spent underground in the dark.

At John’s orders the hostages were moved to different locations at least ten times to ensure they could not be rescued.

Astonishingly, he was responsible for negotiations with the families of the hostages, including Mr Foley’s – and it is even thought he spoke to them via Skype.

However, his demands for money were refused, leading IS to cease communications before last week issuing a final chilling message informing his family that he would be executed in retaliation for American airstrikes.

He is said to have successfully brought in millions of pounds by brokering ransom deals for at least eight international hostages this year alone – underlining his huge importance to the IS movement.

The Briton questioned the hostages about their families, before exploiting the information in emails and on Skype to build pressure.

Didier Francois, a war reporter and prisoner for eight months, said Mr Foley and other hostages had to endure the mock executions a number of times.



In a massive joint manhunt by US and Britain, GCHQ and NSA are both tracking the source of the YouTube video showing the beheading of Mr Foley by John, in an effort to trace how and where it was loaded

The 53-year-old said: ‘One of the last times I saw him before leaving, this group – which has a taste for the macabre – made him stand in a crucifix pose against the wall.

‘It is for that reason that when I am asked what I think about the hostage-takers’ motive for executing him, I say I think that they had simply decided to execute him. Period.’

Asked if he recognised Mr Foley’s killer, Mr Francois said: ‘Recognised is a very big word. I see roughly who it is.’



He said all of the hostages were threatened with death. French journalist Nicolas Henin spent seven months in captivity with the 40-year-old Mr Foley whose beheading on video by the British jihadist sickened the world, and for one week he was handcuffed to him.

‘Being an American he was probably more targeted by the kidnappers,’ he said. ‘He would be beaten a bit more probably, he was some kind of scapegoat.

‘What we most suffered from during the first part of our imprisonment was lack of food. The cold, too – we had no hot water.



John and his fellow British jihadi 'Beatles', Paul and Ringo, saved their most vicious beatings for Mr Foley

‘I kept on the clothes in which I had been captured from the first six months. We had so few shoes that we were using to go to the bathroom that we were sharing them.

‘The shoes that James Foley was wearing when he was taken to this place in the desert (to be murdered) I wore them too.’

David Cameron has now told intelligence and security chiefs to make the identification and location of the British trio an absolute priority.

In particular they have been instructed to locate John, the fanatic clad in black who carried out the beheading while speaking with a London accent. Anti-terror investigators believe he and his fellow Britons are still in Syria close to the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

British military signals experts have been moved to northern Iraq to monitor IS communications, seeking to ‘capture’ transmissions that can be passed back to the government’s spy centre in Cheltenham.

In a massive joint manhunt by US and Britain, GCHQ and NSA are both tracking the source of the YouTube video showing the beheading of Mr Foley by John, in an effort to trace how and where it was loaded.

Both MI6 and MI5 as well as their US counterparts are said to have had him on their ‘radar’ for more than a year.

But senior security officials admit that even with his identity and location, ‘getting to him’ would be especially hard while he remains inside Syria.

The US revealed yesterday that a secret mission into Syria to release Mr Foley and other hostages – and kill the captors – this summer had failed.

It ended in a firefight with jihadists after an intelligence failure. Mr Francois said Mr Foley was singled out for beatings after his captors found pictures on his computer of his brother, who is in the US Air Force.

He said conditions in captivity were ‘rough and sometimes violent’ with food and water in short supply and the sound of the bloody civil war always in earshot.

‘They regularly came to get from us evidence that we were alive, making videos and asking questions to which only our families would know the answers,’ he added.

‘Every time we were taken to a new place of detention, they told us they were going to free us to make us keep quiet during the journey.’

He said the American was ‘an extraordinary kid, a superb journalist’, ‘extremely strong’ and who ‘never cracked despite extremely difficult conditions’.

An advisor to the US administration said last night that it had not ruled out strikes inside Syria.



Launching a criminal investigation into Mr Foley’s killing, Attorney General Eric Holder warned: ‘We have long memories and our reach is very wide and we will not forget what happened. People will be held accountable one way or another.’

U.S bungled hostage rescue: Murder victim was moved hours before night mission

US Special Forces had attempted a daring airborne raid on the British jihadis holding James Foley, it emerged yesterday.

The ‘substantial and complex’ mission took place earlier this summer, and was authorised by President Barack Obama.

Under the cover of darkness, two dozen members of the elite Delta Force and support teams were dropped by helicopter into an oil refinery, in a sparsely populated area of north Syria.



US Special Forces had attempted a daring airborne raid on the British jihadis holding James Foley, it emerged yesterday

Intelligence had indicated that the British militant known as John and his Islamic State associates were holding James Foley in a nearby hideout – but once the US forces fought their way there, the captives were nowhere to be found. The Americans then battled to a rendezvous point, where they were airlifted to safety.

Details of the operation emerged hours after the IS terror group released a grotesque video of Mr Foley’s murder, sparking criticism that the US had not done enough to free the journalist.

It is unclear exactly when the mission took place, or whether it had any bearing on IS’s decision to kill Mr Foley, who had been held for 22 months.



After French and Spanish hostages held with Mr Foley were released earlier this year, intelligence officers discovered that US captives were being targeted with mental and physical torture.



As an American with siblings in the US military, Mr Foley had been singled out for particularly harsh treatment, including mock executions. A trio of Britons – dubbed ‘The Beatles’ by their captives – are said to have taken charge of the prisoners while huge ransom demands were made.



The 'substantial and complex' mission took place earlier this summer, and was authorised by President Barack Obama

US officials said their rescue attempt had focused on a particular IS group, believed to headed by the Britons.

The ground offensive – the first time American troops had fought directly with IS fighters at all – was fraught with danger, as US forces flew into Syrian territory in defiance of the regime’s air defence system which was said to pose a ‘real threat’ to pilots.

Modified Black Hawk helicopters were involved, with drones providing cover to ground forces described by the Pentagon as ‘the best of the United States military’. One commando suffered a minor injury and several IS fighters were killed.



A US defence department official said: ‘By the time we got there, it was too late.’ It may only have been ‘a matter of hours, perhaps a day or two’ since the hostages had been at the hideout, he added.



He stressed that IS ‘did not know who they were fighting that night, and we assess Syria did not know [either]’.



The families of US hostages were told of the operation after it had been launched.

Caitlin Hayden, spokesman for the National Security Council, said the US government had ‘never intended to disclose this operation’ but did so after details began to leak out.

White House counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco said: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the remaining hostages’ families and their loved ones during this difficult time.

‘The US government had what we believed was sufficient intelligence, and when the opportunity presented itself, the President authorised the Department of Defence to move aggressively to recover our citizens.’



Intelligence agencies had been collecting data on the suspected location of the hostages for months, giving them confidence to proceed with the mission.



Syria’s government denied any US operation had taken place inside its territory, although it does not control large areas where IS operates.



‘It did not happen that American war planes attacked terrorist positions in Syria, and that will not happen without the consent of the Syrian government,’ information minister Omran Zoabi told the Syrian news agency SANA.





