The former bouncy castle seller, Siddhartha Dhar has been designated a global terrorist by the US State Department, alongside the Abdelatif Gaini, a Belgian Moroccan who is also fighting in the Middle East.
US officials have identified Dhar, also known as Abu Rumasayah, as the replacement for “Jihadi John” as the Islamic State group's executioner.
The US government said that the declaration of Dhar and Gaini as specially designated global terrorists was meant to deny them “the resources they need to plan and carry out further terrorist attacks”.
A statement stated that Dhar, who had been nicknamed as “Jihadi Sid” was now the leading memver of the terrorist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, alomng with Anjem Choudary.
The statement read, “He is considered to have replaced Mohammad Emwazi, the Isis executioner also known as Jihadi John. Dhar is believed to be the masked leader who appeared in a January 2016 ISIS video of the execution of several prisoners who ISIS accused of spying for the UK.”
American officials have stated that the designation “notifies the US public and the international community that Dhar and Gaini have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism... designations expose and isolate organisations and individuals, and deny them access to the US financial system.”
Siddhartha Dhar was raised as a Hindu but converted to Islam to marry his Muslim wife, Aisha. His former neighbours from Walthamstow, East London claim that Aisha was allegedly more religious than him and also suggested that she may have influenced him to take up the path to extremism.
Dhar, alongside Anjem Choudary, were arrested in September 2014 on suspicion of belonging to the banned organisation, Al-Muhajiroun. However, just afters after being given bail by the police, Dhar and his family caught a bus to Paris and then went on to travel to Syria where he joined ISIL.
Dhar taunted the British authorities by posting a picture of himself on Twitter holding an AK-47 rifle in one hand and holding his baby son with the other.
