Michael Sercan Daventry
04 January 2016•Update: 05 January 2016
LONDON
Britain’s security services have launched an investigation into a new Daesh execution video purportedly featuring a U.K. citizen, local British press reported Monday.
The footage, which was released online early Monday morning, shows a masked man waving a gun as he taunts British Prime Minister David Cameron over the U.K.’s air bombing campaign against the group in Syria.
“How strange it is that the leader of a small island threatens us with a handful of planes,” the unidentified man is heard saying in a British accent.
Waving a handgun, he continued: “But it seems like you, just like your predecessors [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown are just as arrogant and foolish. In fact David, you are more of an imbecile”.
The extremist and four other masked men are then shown shooting dead five men, believed to be Syrians, who are accused of spying for the U.K.
Neither the desert location of the video nor the filming date could be identified from the footage.
British newspapers widely reported on Monday that the country’s security services had begun work to identify the masked militant.
His actions appeared to resemble those of Mohammed Emwazi, the 27-year-old Daesh fighter from London known in the tabloid press as Jihadi John.
Emwazi was killed in a U.K. drone strike last November. Britain began regular airstrikes against Daesh in Syria the following month.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was “aware of the video and examining its content”.
