The group carried out the 2014 beheadings in Iraq and Syria of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.
They were reportedly harsher than other ISIS guards, torturing captives with electroshock weapons and subjecting them to mock executions (including a crucifixion) and waterboarding.
The group's nickname, and those of its members – "John", "Paul", "George" and "Ringo" – were used by the hostages in ironic reference to the regional English accents of the musicians.
[15] A former hostage reported that they bragged that they had been paid millions of dollars in ransoms by certain European countries, enough to retire to Kuwait or Qatar.
[12] James Foley's mother Diane said in an interview: “Their requests were impossible for us, 100 million Euros, or all Muslim prisoners to be freed.
[11][20] A former ISIS member said that using a British man to carry out the beheadings was likely a deliberate effort by ISIS to “project the image that a European, or a Western person, killed an American so that they can ... appeal to others outside Syria, and make them feel that they belong to the same cause.”[21] The jihadist known as "John", the leader of the group and usually referred to as "Jihadi John",[22] was identified by The Washington Post, in February 2015, as Mohammed Emwazi, and appears in a video as Foley's killer.
[23] On 12 November 2015, a United States drone aircraft reportedly conducted an airstrike in Raqqa that targeted Emwazi as he left a building and entered a vehicle.
[28] In 2016, Alexanda Kotey, a 32-year-old convert from west London, was identified as a member of the group by The Washington Post and BuzzFeed News.
[34] In early 2018, Kurdish fighters caught both Kotey and Elsheikh in Syria near the border with Iraq, and handed them over to American officials who confirmed their identities by biometrics and finger prints.
[36] In 2021 in U.S. Federal Court, Kotey pleaded guilty to "hostage-taking resulting in death and providing material support to the Islamic State group from 2012 to 2015".
[40] In July 2022, prosecutors in the United States, refusing to take over Davis's case, claimed that there were only three members of the cell and "Paul" did not exist.
[41] A significant force of the British Special Air Service was deployed to Northern Iraq in late August 2014, and according to former MI6 employee Richard Barrett would be sent to Syria, tasked with trying to track down the group using a range of high-tech equipment and potentially freeing other hostages.
[27][42][43] As of September 2014, British intelligence and security agencies, including MI5 and Scotland Yard, aided by GCHQ communication monitoring, were working with the US intelligence and security agencies, including the CIA and FBI, in addition to field teams from MI6 and the CIA in Northern Syria, to identify and locate the group.
[49] On 7 October 2020, Kotey and Elsheikh were brought to the United States to face charges of conspiracy, and hostage taking resulting in death.