The Pentagon is “reasonably certain” (unofficial US sources are saying they’re “99% sure”) that Mohammed Emwazi, AKA “Jihadi John,” AKA ISIS’s chief beheader of Western hostages, was killed in a drone strike in Raqqa yesterday. I mention this only because it’s all over cable news and the internet, and has been for much of the day.
So, um, OK. Yippee? This is supposed to be a big deal because “Jihadi John” was the “masked public face” (seriously?) of ISIS, and a “primary recruitment tool” for the group, but if that’s true then ISIS has been missing its public face and primary recruitment tool since early this year, when his identity was uncovered and he stopped showing up in ISIS’s video propaganda. There was even a substantive rumor over the summer that Emwazi had “fled” ISIS, and while the fact that he was (allegedly) killed in Raqqa suggests otherwise, it still makes it clear that by mid-July nobody had really heard from this guy in months. Emwazi wasn’t important to ISIS operationally, so, really, what’s the big deal?
There were apparently serious US and UK resources that were devoted to hunting this guy down and killing (or capturing, I guess) him, and I’m kind of baffled as to why. The feeling seems to be that killing a famous ISIS goon will discredit the organization in the eyes of potential foreign recruits, but even that I find dubious. The best way to discredit the idea of joining ISIS, it seems to me, is to broadcast the message of the people who have been defecting from it as far and as wide as possible. Killing Emwazi turns him into a martyr and probably increases his value as an ISIS totem, particularly since he’s been of very little use to them in that way since he stopped appearing in their videos.
You want some other ways to discredit ISIS? Take territory away from them and keep it away from them. What’s happening in Sinjar right now matters a lot more than this one jihad bro’s death. Or, try arresting a few of these guys and putting them on very public trials. That would discredit them. It also happens to be what a lot of people whose loved ones were executed by Emwazi wanted. I get that arresting Emwazi wasn’t practical, and I’m not going to lose much sleep over the fact that a dude was an active participant in an organization that relishes killing innocents was himself killed extra-judicially. But what are we getting so excited about? This wasn’t some great victory.
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