The masked murderer in the latest ISIS propaganda video is believed to be a British man who fled London in 2014 after skipping bail, NBC News has learned.
Two U.S. officials tell NBC that the British-born Siddhartha Dhar is suspected of being the man in the video, which purports to show him killing five people accused of being spies.
Dhar, a father of four, fled Britain in 2014 while out on bail after being arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism. He is believed to have traveled to Syria.
British Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham has called the case a "serious lapse in security." Dhar had been ordered to turn in his passport, but instead he used it to depart the country on a bus to Paris, en route to Syria.
A spokeswoman for the British embassy in Washington said there would be no official comment on the case.
U.S. officials said in November they were "reasonably certain" that an airstrike had killed Mohammed Emwazi, who was dubbed "Jihadi John" by ISIS hostages who nicknamed him and three British colleagues "The Beatles."
Emwazi was a Kuwait-born British citizen in his 20s. He appeared masked and wielding a knife in a series of ISIS propaganda videos featuring the beheadings of Western hostages, including Americans Steven Sotloff and James Foley.
The Daily Mail newspaper published a detailed profile of Dhar on Tuesday, saying he was born a Hindu and converted to Islam as a teenager. The newspaper said he wrote a 46-page tourism guide to the so-called Islamic State, describing it like a "plush Mediterranean resort."
The video also featured a boy with a British accent wearing army fatigues and calling for the deaths of non-believers. The British press nicknamed him "Jihadi Junior" and a London man told Channel 4 Tuesday that he boy was his grandson.
The grandfather said the boy, who may be aged as young as four, "doesn't like it over there."
The Times of London has reported that as many as 50 British children reside in ISIS-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
