The Foreign Office is getting word that the Briton masked executioner who beheaded two British and two American hostages held by ISIS was injured in a U.S.-led airstrike that targeted a meeting of about 30 militant group leaders in Anbar Province in Western Iraq last Saturday.
"We are aware of reports. We cannot confirm these reports," said the Foreign Office in an official statement.
In addition, a Foreign Office spokesperson revealed to The Mail on Sunday that the reports are still very difficult to verify.
"We are aware of reports that this individual [Jihadi John] has been injured, and we are looking into them," the spokesperson said as cited by IB Times. "We have a number of sources of information coming in. The incident occurred last weekend, and so we have received the reports in the last few days. We don't have any representation inside Syria, and so it is difficult to confirm these reports."
Until now, reports have not corroborated the attendance of the Briton executioner in the top secret congregation that was conducted in a makeshift bunker underneath a house in Al Qaim. But there is already information pointing to the death of 10 of the ISIS leaders in attendance including Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. However, an MP for Anbar province, Muhammad Nasser Delli, told The Mail on Sunday that Al-Baghdadi was indeed tended to but not dead as he did not stay long in the Al Qaim hospital.
Reports also claim that the injured IS leaders were taken to Syria "and travelling 200 miles north along the Euphrates valley to the IS stronghold of Raqqa." The hospitals in Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zour were then "ordered to take their medical supplies and staff to the secure bases, once the HQs of the Assad regime's 17th Division and 93rd Brigade."
In addition, The Mail on Sunday also stated, as per an Iraqi intelligence document from the Federal Intelligence and Investigation unit of the Ministry of Interior, that nine people were injured and 16 IS leaders were killed in the attack, including: Abu Huzaifa Al-Adnany, one of Al-Baghdadi's security guards; Abu Quatayba, the cleric of Al Furat wilaya; and Abu Abdul Rahman Al-Shishani, an IS fighter from Chechnya.
Daily Mail, citing its own sources, stated that a nurse from Al Qaim General Hospital, where wounded leaders have allegedly been rushed, said that Jihadi John, the "one who slaughtered the journalists," was indeed injured.
Another informant from the same media outlet disclosed that there are high chances that Jihadi John, who also goes by the name Jalman Al-Britani, was in the meeting. This is because of Jalman's acquired seniority in the group. The group reportedly made him a member of a shura council (governing body) of an IS wilayat (province) instead of making him a foot soldier or a guard.
These reports came before news of Peter Kassig's beheading hit headlines Sunday morning.
