Jihadi John, the masked ISIS fighter shown speaking in an English accent before beheading American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley on video last year, came from an affluent London neighborhood according to a new report in the Washington Post.
According to friends and others familiar with his case, is Mohammed Emwazi, a Briton from a well-to-do family who grew up in West London and graduated from college with a degree in computer programming. He is believed to have traveled to Syria around 2012 and to have later joined the Islamic State, the group whose barbarity he has come to symbolize.
Just last week, State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf argued jobs were the way to defeat ISIS fighters.
"We cannot kill our way out of this war," Harf said. "We can help them [Muslim countries] build their economy so they can have job opportunities for these people."
Thousands of fighters are pouring into Iraq and Syria from economically sound countries like Great Britain and even the United States. There are now more British volunteers for ISIS than there are for the British armed forces. It isn't poverty that is causing Muslim men to flock to ISIS, it's a dedication to radical Islamic ideology.
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