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The drone strike that U.S. officials believe killed “Jihadi John,” the Islamic State executioner whose beheading of Western hostages came to symbolize the militants’ brutality, appeared this week as a rare success in the struggling U.S. campaign against the group.
More than a military feat, the death of the Islamic State’s most well-known spokesman, if confirmed, would be a step forward in the U.S. effort to counter the group’s sophisticated social-media operations and to up the ante in a two-way propaganda war.
Speaking the day after the strike in Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria, U.S. military officials said they were "reasonably certain" that the two Hellfire missiles fired from an American MQ-9 Reaper drone late Thursday killed the British militant, whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi, and a second individual.