Fourth Member of ISIS Murder Cell Was QPR Fan from White City


Elsheikh worked on local funfair and preached outside Shepherd's Bush station

The fourth member of the murderous group of British members of ISIS nicknamed The Beatles has been identified at El Shafee Elsheikh - a 27 year-old QPR fan from White City who at one point preached from a stall outside Shepherd's Bush Tube Station.

Elsheikh studied engineering at Acton College then worked as a mechanic and on the funfair when it visited Shepherd's Bush Green.

The gang of four terrorists, who killed and tortured more than two dozen hostages in Syria and who were given the nickname by their hostages because of their English accents, included Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed Jihadi John, whose brutal murders were filmed and disseminated by ISIS, or Daesh.

El Shafee Elsheikh was born in Sudan, and his family came to Britain in the early 1990s.

His father, Rashid Sidahmed ElSheikh, a translator in London, told the Guardian his son had travelled to Syria to fight for jihadists at the start of 2012. He described his son’s radicalisation as "lightning fast".

His mother, Maha Elgizouli, told  The Washington Post, that his radicalization was extremely fast after he began following the preachings of a West London imam, Hani al-Sibai.

" My kids were perfect, and one day it suddenly happened," she said. She approached al-Sibai and slapped him, asking: "What have you done to my son?"

She said she had no idea that her son was a member of the ISIS 'Beatles' and added: " That boy now is not my son. That is not the son I raised."

ElSheikh is a fluent Arabic speaker and remains at large in Syria, believed to be living in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo with a Syrian wife.

His youngest brother Mahmoud also joined Isis as and was killed in Tikrit, Iraq, in April 2015.

Two other local men have also been named as accomplices of Mohammed Emwazi. Aine Davis, 31, from Hammersmith, was identified earlier this year as a member of the cell.

Davis, whose mother Fay Rodriquez is a dinner lady at Hammersmith's Latymer Upper School, grew up in Gambia and converted to Islam at 15. 

Former drug dealer Davis was married to Amal El-Wahabi, 27, who in 2014 was found guilty at the Old Bailey jury of funding terrorism by arranging to send 20,000 euros in cash to Turkey at his request.

El-Wahabi, who had two young children with Davis, was jailed for 28 months.

In November 2015, Davis was detained in Turkey on suspicion of planning attacks in Istanbul similar to those in Paris.

Alexanda Kotey, 32, from Holland Park, was described by ITV News as the terror cell's 'leader' and key recruiter.

Kotey, known as Alexe, has been described by neighbours in West London as a quiet man who was a dedicated fan of Queens Park Rangers football club.

Kotey, who has two children still living in London, is also believed to be connected to the 'London Boys' a network of extremists who played five-a-side football in west London and who have been linked to the 7/7 London bombings and the subsequent failed 21/7 plot.

The pair, both Christians who became Muslim converts met Emwazi at the Al-Manaar mosque in Ladbroke Grove, where their extremist views led to them being marginalised.

The gang shocked the world with videos of their brutal beheadings of victims, including the British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines, and the US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley.

Emwazi was killed by a drone strike last summer, but the whereabouts of David and Kotey are currently unknown, though there were reports that Kotey had been killed last summer.

In a statement made in February, members of Kotey’s family said they were "deeply distressed" at the revelations and confirmed they had not seen him "for a number of years".

The three, along with another member of the gang, were collectively nicknamed The Beatles by their hostages because of their British accents.

May 24, 2016