Mother recognized Mohammed Emwazi's voice on hostage videos

The mother of Mohammed Emwazi said she immediately recognized his voice when she heard him on a hostage video released by Islamic State. The parents of Emwazi, 26, told Kuwaiti authorities they were last in contact with their son in 2013 when he called them from Turkey. They said he told them he was going to do humanitarian work in Syria.

Meanwhile the Department for Education is going to investigate schools with links to pupils who have travelled to Syria. Quintin Kynaston Academy in north-west London, where Emwazi had been a pupil, is to be investigated along with another six schools.

Emwazi in one of the videos in Syria which feature the killing of hostages

Emwazi, from west London, who is also known as "Jihadi John", has been named as the man in several IS videos where hostages have been beheaded. He first appeared in a video last August, when he apparently killed the US journalist James Foley. Intelligence officials in Kuwait are believed to have questioned his mother and father in the past day.

Authorities are investigating what Emwazi did, where he went and who he met there during his 2010 visit.  Emwazi's father said his son was a devout Muslim from a young age, and the last contact he had had with him was in the middle of 2013 from Turkey - when he contacted the family to tell them he was going to join a charity in Syria. Kuwaiti officials have described Mohammed Emwazi as being "an illegal resident" when he lived in Kuwait.
They confirmed that he had never held Kuwaiti nationality nor held any Kuwaiti documentation such as medical or educational certificates.
Although Emwazi was born in Kuwait in August 1988, his family are from the so-called "Bidoon" or "stateless" community of southern Iraqi immigrants, many of whom were deported after Kuwait was liberated from Saddam Hussein's forces in 1991.

Meanwhile the Department for Education announced it would carry out a review of schools that had links with pupils who had travelled to Syria.

A DfE spokesman said it had set up the Due Diligence and Counter Extremism (DDCE) division to improve its understanding of extremism and help schools with pupils or former pupils who have since travelled to Syria or "other areas of concern".
It said the task force would consider "if there are any lessons we can learn for the future".

 

Islamic State fighters drive armoured vehicles through Raqqa in Syria

Earlier, a former head teacher of Emwazi denied he had been radicalized at school.  Two other pupils from the same school are also thought to have gone to fight in Syria and Somalia. Jo Shuter, former head teacher at Quintin Kynaston Academy, said there had been no indication that any pupils were becoming radicalized.
She said: "I am not prepared to say when the radicalization took place. All I can say is absolutely hand on heart, we had no knowledge of it. If we had we would have done something about it."

In Canada the RCMP ( Royal Canadian Mounted Police ) is developing a program to stop Canadians from becoming radicalized by violent ideologies, a new report reveals.
The RCMP is putting in place the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program to stop Canadians at risk of being radicalized. The police force says it aims to have the program in place by year's end.
In an email, the RCMP says it will work with families of "vulnerable individuals" who are experiencing behavioural changes. It also says the program "will include educating Canadians on the role of law enforcement and the responsibilities that they, in turn, have in safeguarding Canada."
Discussions are also under way to come up with a program that can be used in schools to discourage
children from being radicalized or swayed toward violent or extreme religious ideologies.
Personally, I don't understand how children are even being exposed to examples of extremism or coming under it's influence in the first place. I also do not understand the logistics or mechanism that can morph a normal child into a murderer or suicide bomber.