"We are reasonably certain that we killed the target that we intended to kill, which is 'Jihadi John,'" Colonel Steven Warren, spokesman for the US military operation against ISIS, told Pentagon reporters in a briefing that was webcast live.
However, it will take some time before it is confirmed that Jihadi John has been killed, he said. "It was a drone strike," he said. "The weapon system hit the intended target."
At the same time, he described this as a significant blow to the ISIS also known as ISIL.
"Jihadi John was an ISIL celebrity. He was a recruiting toll for ISIL. So it's a significant blow to the prestige of ISIL. But Jihadi John was not a tactical figure in ISIL," he said.
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Mohamed Emwazi known as Jihadi John was British citizen.
He participated in the videos showing the murders of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, aid worker Abdul- Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.
Said to be a computer science graduate who lived in west London before he left for Syria in 2013, Emwazi had been known to security services and was detained several times as long ago as 2009.
Though interrogated several times, he was never arrested or charged.
Warren said the US has been tracking Jihadi John for quite some time. It was based in multiple intelligence capabilities.