Back in November, The Pentagon claimed to have killed Mohammed Emwazi - better known by his stage name “Jihadi John” - in a drone strike near Raqqa.
Emwazi was infamous for his role in catapulting ISIS into the public’s collective consciousness. Clad in black and brandishing a Bowie knife, the Brit beheaded hostages dressed in bright orange jumpsuits in some of the first Islamic State propaganda videos to garner widespread Western media coverage.
Late last week, ISIS released a new video featuring a British executioner who has apparently taken up the mantle in Emwazi’s absence. Dubbed the “the new Jihadi John” by the British press, the masked executioner reads the following message to Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently won parliamentary support for British airstrikes on Raqqa:
This is a message to David Cameron. Oh slave of the White House, oh mule of the Jews. How strange it is that we find ourselves today hearing an insignificant leader like you challenge the might of the Islamic State. How strange it is that the leader of a small island threatens us with a handful of planes. One would have thought you would have learned the lessons of your pathetic master in Washington and his failed campaign against Islamic State.
It seems that you, just like your predecessors Blair and Brown, are just as arrogant and foolish. In fact David, you are more of an imbecile. Only an imbecile would dare to wage war against a land where the law of Allah reigns supreme. And where the people live under the justice and security of the Sharia.
Only an imbecile would dare to anger a people who love death the way that you love your life. Oh British Government. Oh people of Britain. Know that today your citizenship are under our feet. And that the Islamic State, our country, is here to stay. And we will continue to wage jihad, break borders and one day invade your land where we will rule by the sharia.
So who is the "new and improved" Jihadi John, you ask? Apparently he's British Indian Siddhartha Dhar. Here's Reuters:
The masked militant in an Islamic State video showing the killing of five men accused by the group of being Western spies is believed to be a Londoner known as Sid who once sold inflatable bouncers.
Siddhartha Dhar, who left Britain for Syria while on police bail after his arrest on suspicion of belonging to a banned group and encouraging terrorism, has been identified by media as the spokesman in the militant organization's latest film.
Dhar, who is also known as Abu Rumaysah, is one of Britain's most high-profile Islamists and an associate of Anjem Choudary, Britain's best-known Islamist preacher who is due to go on trial next week accused of terrorism offences.
A convert from Hinduism who lived in east London, Dhar regularly attended protests staged by the now banned organization al-Muhajiroun and had often spoken to the media in support of radical Islamic causes.
Since leaving Britain he gained further attention through online videos in which he exhorted life under Islamic State.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, Islamic State's newest Western executioner was a bouncy castle salesman.
But that's not all. Dhar is also "a former Arsenal and Nirvana fan" who "enjoyed drinking, would take girls to his favourite action movies, and dreamed of being an NHS dentist," according to the Daily Mail. "Dhar's family say he was a 'sensitive boy' who 'changed' as a teenager after the death of his father and converted to Islam, shunning TV and music, sleeping on the floor and even telling his mother he couldn't love her anymore because she is not a Muslim," DM wrote on Tuesday. "He stopped studying and rented bouncy castles for children's parties while supporting banned militant group Al-Muhajiroun and running 'roadshows' aimed at attracting troubled youngsters in inner-cities."
Apparently, Dhar skipped bail in September 2014 and fled Britain for Syria. He announced his arrival in the "caliphate" by posting the following picture on Twitter which depicts his young son holding a pistol:
“I was in a state of shock,” Dhar's sister Konika Dhar told BBC. “I believed the audio to resemble, from what I remember, the voice of my brother but having viewed the short clip in detail, I wasn’t entirely convinced which put me at ease.” Here's a documentary about Dhar and his family shot by Vice News in 2014:
The ISIS video in which Dhar appears also features a toddler dressed in fatigues and donning an ISIS headband. Following the execution of five prisoners, the child proclaims that ISIS will "kill the kaffir (unbelievers) over there".
"Sunday Dare, a Londoner of Nigerian origin, identified the child as his four-year-old grandson Isa," Reuters reports. "Dare told British media his daughter, who grew up a devout Christian named Grace before converting to Islam and changing her name to Khadijah, had taken London-born Isa to Syria with her to join Islamic State." Here's Sputnik:
The child featured in the video has been identified by his grandfather who told Channel 4 news in Britain that he recognized the boy and condemned the footage. Sunday Dare, said: "It's propaganda; they are just using a small boy. He doesn't know anything. They are just using him as a shield."
Child in Isil video has now been identified as Isa Dare, the son of Grace Dare a Jihadi bride from Lewisham pic.twitter.com/1fqIXWaOWt
— Belfast Child (@bfchild66) January 5, 2016
His jihadi bride mother had previously posted a picture of her son carrying an AK47 assault rifle 18 months ago, provoking a debate in the British media over whether the image and subsequent identity of her elder child dressed in camouflage clothing should be revealed by the press.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has said the child whose face is featured in almost every British newspaper and online news website, "should be brought back to the UK and taken into care."
Like us, you're probably struggling to comprehend all of this.
Bouncey castle salesmen?
Mothers taking their children to the caliphate to grow up in the Islamic State?
Has the whole world gone crazy?
Then, we remembered an image from an ISIS propaganda video released last summer and suddenly, all of the above made sense: