The Beatles (terrorist cell)

Activities

The Beatles were a group of 4, or possibly 3, British Muslims fighting for the extremist, jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Its members were nicknamed John, Paul, George, and Ringo by the hostages, after the four members of the British rock group the Beatles.

They have taken hostages; have guarded more than 20 Western hostages of ISIL in cramped cells in Western Raqqa, Syria; have beheaded hostages; and have memorialized their acts in beheading videos that they made public.

The Beatles spoke to each other in English, and struggled with Arabic. They always kept their faces hidden.

Guarding, torturing, and seeking ransoms for hostages

The Beatles, who have been assigned responsibility to guard foreign hostages by ISIL commanders, are harsher than other ISIL guards. One source said: "Whenever the Beatles showed up, there was some kind of physical beating or torture." They are the most feared of the jihadists because of their taste for the macabre and their beatings, use of electric shock Taser guns, mock executions (including a crucifixion of Foley), and waterboarding, according to a freed French hostage.

Haines, for example, was severely tortured and subjected to electric shock taser punishments by the Beatles, from the time of his March 2014 abduction. The group have also forced hostages to fight each other in boxing matches as the group watched, and then tortured the losers. Because of their excessive brutality, at one point they were removed from their guard duties by ISIL.

The Beatles were interested in obtaining ransoms for their hostages. A former hostage reported that the Beatles bragged that they had been paid millions of dollars in ransoms by certain European countries; enough to "retire to Kuwait or Qatar." The group contacted families of some UK hostages, and are believed to be maintaining links to their associates and friends in the UK. James Foley's mother, Diane Foley, said in an interview: "their requests were impossible for us, 100 million Euros, or all Muslim prisoners to be freed. The requests from the terrorists were totally directed towards the government, really. And yet we as an American family had to figure out how to answer them."

The Beatles cell held at least 23 foreign hostages, nearly all of whom were ransomed or killed.

2014-2015 beheadings

"Jihadi John" beheaded or participated in the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as British humanitarian aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, American aid worker Peter Kassig, Japanese private military contractor Haruna Yukawa, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and 21 members of the Syrian armed forces in a period from August 2014 to January 2015.

A former ISIS member said that using a British man to carry out the beheadings was likely a deliberate effort by ISIS to "project the image that a European, or a Western person, killed an American so that they can ... appeal to others outside Syria and make them feel that they belong to the same cause."

Hostages

In August 2014, it was claimed that there were more than 20 hostages remaining. Many hostage families have chosen not to reveal their relatives' names in order to avoid drawing attention to them and compromising their safety.

"John"

The jihadist known as "John", usually referred to as "Jihadi John", was identified by The Washington Post, in February 2015, as Mohammed Emwazi, and appears in a video as Foley's killer. His identity was known to US and UK intelligence agencies in September 2014, but was not released for reasons of operational security. On 12 November 2015, a United States drone aircraft reportedly conducted an airstrike in Raqqa that targeted Emwazi as he left a building and entered a vehicle. US officials stated he had been killed, but his death had not been confirmed. The US was still analysing the data. The official called it a "flawless" and "clean hit" with no collateral damage and that Emwazi "evaporated". A senior US military official was quoted as saying, "we are 99% sure we got him". In January 2016, ISIL confirmed his death.

"John" II

There is currently a new Jihadi John, known as "John II". Mohammed Reza Haque, 36, is depicted in a video using a serrated hunting knife to cut off a prisoner’s head in the middle of a barren desert.

"George"

George, the leader of the Beatles, often spent time repeating sections of the Quran and promoting ISIL's extremist views publicly. George uses the nom-de-guerre of "Abu Muhareb", which means "Fighter" in Arabic. It was the view of the hostages that George was not very intelligent. The Daily Telegraph has speculated that George is the West London jihadist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary who may have travelled to Syria with fellow jihadist Mohammed Emwazi.

In 2016, Alexanda Kotey, a 32 year old convert from west London, was identified as a member of the Beatles by the Washington Post and BuzzFeed News. They were uncertain whether he was George, or whether he was Ringo, although social media evidence pointed towards Ringo.

A few months later, another joint investigation by the Post and BuzzFeed identified the last member of the group. El Shafee Elsheikh, a British citizen whose family fled Sudan in the 1990s, was a 27 year old Londoner who had travelled to Syria in 2012. They were still uncertain as to whether Elsheikh or Kotey was George.

In early January, 2017, the US State Department froze the assets of Alexanda Kotey stating that he was indeed 'George'

"Ringo"

Ringo was frequently seen by the hostages. In 2016, Alexanda Kotey, a 32 year old convert from west London, was identified as a member of the Beatles by the Washington Post and BuzzFeed News. They were uncertain whether he was George, or whether he was Ringo, although social media evidence pointed towards Ringo.

A few months later, another joint investigation by the Post and BuzzFeed identified the last member of the group. El Shafee Elsheikh, a British citizen whose family fled Sudan in the 1990s, was a 27 year old Londoner who had travelled to Syria in 2012. They were still uncertain as to whether Elsheikh or Kotey was Ringo.

"Paul"

Paul appeared in the cells of the hostages less than the other Beatles, and appeared to be a guard only. Aine Lesley Davis, reported to have been one of the British Islamists assigned to guard Western hostages, was arrested in Turkey on 13 November 2015. He was tried in Turkey in 2016 over allegations that he was plotting a terror attack there.

Reactions

The use of "Beatles" as a nickname for the group elicited a response from English musician and former Beatle Ringo Starr, who expressed his disgust at the use of his former band's name in this context, saying: "It’s bullshit. What they are doing out there is against everything The Beatles stood for," and adding that the Beatles had stood for peace and opposed violence.

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "British people are sickened that a British citizen could be involved in murdering people – including a fellow British citizen who had gone to Syria to help people – in this way. It is the very opposite of what our peaceful, tolerant country stands for."

Manhunt

The British intelligence and security agencies MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard, and GCHQ are working on tracking down the group, in coordination with the CIA, FBI, and a Joint Terrorism Task Force of the United States.

A significant force of the British Special Air Service was deployed to Northern Iraq in late August 2014, and according to former MI6 chief Richard Barrett will be sent to Syria, tasked with trying to track down the Beatles using a range of high-tech equipment and with potentially freeing other hostages. As of September, British intelligence and security agencies including MI5 and Scotland Yard, aided by GCHQ communication monitoring, were working with the FBI and CIA, and field teams from MI6 and the CIA in Northern Syria, to identify and locate the group. British and US electronic eavesdropping agencies have targeted communications by the group. In October, British Prime Minister Cameron told the heads of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ that the manhunt was their top priority.