I Was Told to Come Alone

by Souad Mekhennet

  Finally, at about 8:00 p.m., I received a message on my unregistered phone from an unknown number: “Salam. I am the friend of Mohammed. I can meet you in one hour. Please come to the following address; you will be picked up from a different car then.”

  So he knew I would most likely come by taxi and didn’t want anyone to know where we were going. After he sent the message, I received a call from the man I’d had tea with.

  “Did the friend contact you?” he asked.

  “Yes, he just did.”

  “I thought since you weren’t sleeping much these days, you wouldn’t mind to meet in the evening, it’s better for him,” he said, giggling. He assured me I would be safe.

  I had known this source for many years, and he had always helped me and been very particular about my safety, so I was not as nervous as I might have been about meeting someone I didn’t know alone in the middle of the night.

  The place he wanted me to go to was almost an hour away by car. The address was a pub. When we got there, I double-checked it with the driver to make sure we were in the right place.

  “Yes, my dear,” he said in his proper British accent. He sounded like the butler from Downton Abbey.

  It was surreal to be meeting Jihadi John’s friend at a pub, even if it was just the pickup point. I’d gone through the dance of being dropped somewhere and then picked up to go somewhere else many times before, but I didn’t know what to expect this time. Could this person really be the second source I was looking for?

  “Get out of the taxi, I can see you,” a new message on my phone read.

  After my taxi had left, a car on the opposite side of the road turned on its lights, and I saw a man in the driver’s seat winking me in.

  “I am Mohammed’s friend,” he said. I recognized his voice from earlier on the phone. He was in his late twenties but asked that I not reveal any further details about him.

  Before I got in, I asked him for the kunya, or fighting name, of the man who had called me earlier and who had put us in contact. I wanted to be 100 percent sure that this was the right man.

  He knew the answer. I got into the car.

  He said that he would prefer if we could walk a little, even though by now it was dark. He stopped in a residential area where streetlights shone into the car. When we got out, he asked for my mobile phones. I hesitated at first because I’d planned to show him the video clip of Jihadi John, but then I remembered that I had some magazine and newspaper clips in my bag with pictures of the ISIS executioner, so I switched off the phones and left them in the trunk of his car.

  We started walking toward a park nearby, which was really just a small grassy area with a bench. He took a tissue from his jacket pocket and wiped the bench. By the light of a streetlamp, I showed him the clips and photographs of Jihadi John.

  “Is this your friend?”

  “Yes, I am very sure it’s him. It’s my friend Mohammed Emwazi.”

  Then he told me the same basic story I’d heard from Asim Qureshi. I asked how he knew Jihadi John was Emwazi, or vice versa.

  “There is another friend of ours, he is there as well,” the man said, and then he stopped for a moment. “When the first video came out showing him with this journalist, our friend contacted me and said I should watch it and that it was our friend Mohammed there.”

  He said that parts of the video had been shown on the news and that he’d watched it again and again. He believed that the voice and the eyes were indeed Emwazi’s.

  He never went to the police because he feared getting in trouble. “I recognized his voice and the eyes, but the person I saw in the video is not the Mohammed who used to be my friend.”

  “Why do you think he became who he has become?”

  “I don’t know what he might have seen there in Syria the last few years. Maybe this changed him.”

  “But wasn’t he always interested in going to fight? Wasn’t he planning to travel to Somalia, and that’s how he got into trouble?” I asked.

  “He was interested in what happened in the Muslim world, including Somalia, and he felt the West was following unfair policies and double standards,” the man told me. But he didn’t understand how his old friend could cut off the heads of journalists and aid workers. “This is very difficult for me to swallow. I am asking myself the whole time, why Mohammed?”

  I asked if he had a photo of his friend, but he said he didn’t. We walked back to the car, and he offered to drive me to a cabstand a bit closer to the city.

  Back at the hotel, Adam, Peter, and I got on Skype, and I told them that we now had a second source: a friend of Emwazi’s who said he was Jihadi John.

  “I guess we will have to contact British authorities now,” Peter said. He said he would speak to the Post’s top editors and let me know about next steps.

  “I know it’s quite late where you are and it’s been a long day, but could you stay up so we can update you on what we are doing?” Peter asked.

  I told him that I wouldn’t be able to sleep now anyway. The adrenaline was unbelievable. I understood that we had the name of one of the most wanted men in the world, but I wasn’t sure that British authorities wanted the full story out. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I wondered if MI5 would storm my hotel to try to get our information.

  Adam pointed out that as soon as we contacted British authorities, the story might break anytime. “But let me check it with my sources here in the United States first,” he said. “Well, actually, if we ask the Americans for reaction, it’s very likely they will immediately tell the Brits.” He had a couple of trusted sources in the United States he could at least ask off the record, he said.

  We agreed to regroup via Skype within the next few hours. I typed up my notes and took a quick shower. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I called the night porter at the little bed and breakfast where I was staying and asked if he had anything warm to eat.

  “I am afraid all I could offer you is a cheese sandwich and a banana,” he said. I told him that would be okay, and I ordered a pot of chamomile tea as well.

  I played some music on my cell phone to calm myself down. I was especially worried about the British authorities leaking our story to British news organizations. The night porter arrived with the sandwich, banana, and chamomile tea on a wooden tray.

  “I’m sorry we don’t have any warm food to offer you, but I found some crisps and shortbread,” he said, setting the tray down on the table.

  There go my good intentions for better nutrition, I told myself. I was in the midst of tipping the porter when I received a Skype call from Peter.

  “There is an update. Adam told his source what we found out, and after some back and forth he said we wouldn’t be wrong if we wrote that it was Emwazi.” I had pushed my earbuds deep into my ears so as not to miss any of what he said.

  Even though I already had two sources, having someone from the U.S. or British government confirm or at least not disavow our findings was very important.

  “Adam’s source was quite shocked when he heard what we had found out,” Peter continued. “At first he didn’t want to say anything, but when we told him we had two sources, he at least didn’t deny it.”

  Hearing this, I was in shock myself. “We’ll now reach out officially to U.S. authorities and also the United Kingdom, so you may want to tell CAGE as well,” Peter said.

  I told him I would and that I would also try to make contact with Emwazi’s family.

  He agreed. “Now, get something to eat and get some sleep. We have some intense days ahead.”

  After we hung up, I sent a message to the CAGE people asking if we could meet. I told them it was very important and that soon there could be something breaking in the media. I wanted them to read the message first thing in the morning and get back to me right away. I drank the cup of chamomile tea and fell into a deep sleep, leaving the cheese sandwich and the rest of the food on the tray untouched.

  The next morning, Asim Qureshi ca
lled and said he could pass by my hotel, as he had something to do in the neighborhood. When he arrived, I told him what we had learned: that the Mohammed Emwazi who had reached out to him some years ago was Jihadi John. He seemed astonished. I told him that now we were also reaching out to British authorities and that he should be prepared for a big reaction.

  I showed him a video of Jihadi John and made him listen to the jihadist’s words. “What do you think has happened to him?” I asked Qureshi.

  He said he couldn’t answer that question. “This is a young man who was ready to exhaust every single kind of avenue within the machinery of the state to bring a change for his personal situation,” Qureshi said. Ultimately, Emwazi felt “actions were taken to criminalize him, and he had no way to do something against these actions.”

  I’d found an address for Emwazi’s family on the Internet. “I think they should know that this might break soon,” I told Qureshi. “I’d like to give them a chance to react beforehand.”

  He said he understood but that he couldn’t help me get in touch with them. Emwazi’s friend confirmed the address I had, but he too said he wouldn’t be able to help me connect with them.

  After Qureshi left, I went back to my computer and saw an update from Adam: “The Brits are upset. They are scheduled to have a conversation with our bosses.” He meant the Post’s executive editor, Marty Baron; the national editors; and Peter. “We didn’t tell them that you are the reporter on the ground, but be aware there might be more eyes on you soon.”

  He added that they wanted to pull the story together as quickly as possible and that I should write my part and send it to him. I sat in the room for hours, noting down everything I had and wondering what the conversation with the editors would lead to.

  I then left the hotel, taking all my notes and my computer with me. I walked to the main road, watching my surroundings and trying to figure out if anyone was following me. I stopped a taxi and gave the driver the address of Emwazi’s family.

  The Emwazi family lived in a largely well-to-do West London neighborhood called Ladbroke Grove, in a semidetached house on a diverse block, nothing like the banlieues I’d explored outside Paris. There was no light on in the house, and, when I knocked, no answer. It was early afternoon. A neighbor who looked Southeast Asian came out to collect a package from a delivery service. I asked if she knew the Emwazis.

  She said not much, that everyone here kept to themselves. But she mentioned that she hadn’t seen them in some days.

  I thanked her and spent a few minutes in front of the house. How much pain had Mohammed Emwazi brought to various families, including his own? His friend had told me that the family had done everything to give Mohammed an excellent education. His sisters had gone to school, too, and at least one had been to university. He had grown up very differently from the Kouachi brothers or Hayat Boumeddiene. But I had no idea what might have gone on in his family as long as I couldn’t speak to them.

  My phone rang. It was Peter. “Any luck with the family?”

  I told him there was no one at the house. He asked me to let him know when I could Skype, as there was some news.

  Back at the hotel, he filled me in. “There was a conversation with the British authorities. They still didn’t want to give any comment, but they asked us not to publish the story.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “They said this could endanger the life of John Cantlie, the hostage. What do you say? Could this endanger his life? The editors would like to hear your opinion.”

  This was something I hadn’t expected. I was still upset that we hadn’t succeeded in the Kassig case, and now this.

  “Please give me a few hours,” I told Peter. “I can’t give you a clear answer now.”

  There was one person I did want to ask: Emwazi’s friend. I was able to arrange another meeting with him and my old source at the coffee shop with the Indian and Arabic music outside London.

  “You look even worse than the last time,” my source said when I arrived. Emwazi’s friend was already sitting there and drinking a juice cocktail.

  “Well, it’s not like I’m on honeymoon.”

  “I pray for the day you will call me from your honeymoon,” he answered and opened his hands as if he were praying.

  We all started laughing. I told him that I hadn’t laughed in days. I had indeed been very exhausted, and my stomach ached from the tension.

  I asked both of them if they thought Cantlie’s life might be in danger if we published the story. The two men looked at each other.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Emwazi’s friend said.

  Both told me that a critical but fair article would not lead to the killing of the hostage. “It would be worse if it would be a one-sided British propaganda piece,” the friend said.

  I told him that he had to be aware that our article would of course be critical and mention all the killing for which Emwazi was responsible. He said that this was clear, but they were sure it would be fair. When I asked if there was any chance I might get a short interview with Emwazi, the friend shook his head.

  “No chance. ISIS has him on lockdown,” my source said. “They seem to know something might come out soon.”

  I got back to the hotel and reached Peter. I said I’d spoken to some people who knew the “subject” and that they didn’t think it would have an effect on the British hostage.

  “Okay, I’ll let the editors know.” I later learned from Peter that U.S. officials were also skeptical of the British argument that Cantlie would be endangered by the story’s publication.

  In the meantime, Adam and I wrote messages back and forth regarding the article and various revisions. Hours passed before Peter called me back on Skype.

  He said the paper had told the British authorities that we would go ahead with the piece. They had asked for forty-eight hours to inform all the families involved, both Emwazi’s and those of the hostages and victims. “We agreed to do this,” he said.

  But a couple of hours later, I received a message from Adam. It seemed that someone very high up at the BBC had called the Post and said they’d heard we were planning to reveal the identity of Jihadi John.

  “Does this means the Brits are playing games with us?” I asked. “Are they trying to stop us from writing about the case with the argument that it would endanger the hostage, so they can leak things to the BBC?”

  I endured another sleepless night. The next day I got an encrypted message from one of the people I’d talked to in London: “Souad, something weird is going on. Some BBC and ITV people are asking about the guy.”

  “How detailed?” I asked.

  “They go around in the community and ask about the guy and know his name.”

  Now I was getting angry. It looked to me as if British authorities were trying to trick us. First, they had used Cantlie’s safety as an argument to delay us. Then they’d said they had to inform the families and take precautions. Now it looked like they were leaking all kinds of information to the BBC and ITV, so that a British news organization would break the story.

  We had worked so hard to get this information carefully and ethically, and now we might get beaten on the story anyway. I called Peter and told him what I’d just heard.

  “Don’t you think we should reconsider the forty-eight hours?” I asked. There were still twenty-four hours left on the clock, and a lot could happen. He said that the Post would honor the agreement for the sake of the families, but that if I heard that someone was about to break the story we would go ahead.

  Something else had been occupying my mind. A friend who worked for an Arab newspaper called me that night. He said a friend from the BBC had told him that the Post would publish the name of Jihadi John the next morning. He’d assumed I was somehow involved. “Do you think it’s wise to put your name on that story?” he asked.

  I’d been wondering the same thing. How would the notorious ISIS executioner react to seeing his real name, Mohammed Emwazi, in print? An
d how would the Islamic State respond to the knowledge that a Muslim woman had unmasked him? Would it make a video broadcasting my face to the world and accuse me of being the enemy or a spokesperson for the intelligence services?

  I didn’t seriously consider taking my name off the story, but I did some risk assessment and damage control. I’d done what I could to make sure that Emwazi’s friends knew we had reported the story fairly. Through the person I’d met in the park, we gave Emwazi’s mother and siblings, who were still in London, a chance to speak, which they declined.

  I had my own reasons for acknowledging my role in the story. I wanted to send a message to Jihadi John and others like him: we will tell the world who you are and stop you from spreading fear—and a Muslim journalist, a woman, has the power to do this.

  In the end, we broke the story with the BBC snapping at our heels. I was proud of our achievement, but it also had a personal resonance. I was sending a message to those in the West who blame every Muslim and Islam.

  15

  Terror Comes Home

  Austria, France, and Belgium, 2015–16

  The train stations in Austria were packed with people when I arrived in September 2015 to cover the refugee crisis that was paralyzing swaths of Europe. In some corners, food stands and kitchens had been set up; elsewhere, there were field beds for the newly arrived crowds to nap on. Helpers from many backgrounds and all corners of Austrian society had come to support the needs of the refugees, who were streaming in from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also from other places, as I soon learned. Many journalists were covering the story. As I read German media accounts and listened to the politicians talk, I sensed a completely uncritical euphoria about the newly arrived foreigners.

  Wir schaffen das—translated variously as “We’ll manage it” or “We can do it”—was German chancellor Angela Merkel’s slogan, a way to encourage Germans to take an optimistic view of the refugees’ arrival. This upbeat, determined spirit was echoed in news articles and TV programs. I shared the hope that these refugees fleeing horrific circumstances in their home countries would be accepted and find peace in Germany and other countries. But I also knew this would be a perfect opportunity for all kinds of jihadi groups to send recruits to Europe, where they could operate as sleeper cells.