British and US security services are trying to identify the Islamic State (Isis) militant with a British accent who appeared in a video of the apparent beheading of US journalist James Foley, the UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has said. Hammond said intelligence agencies were trying to unmask the fluent English-speaking militant in the propaganda footage.
Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, SO15, also launched an investigation into the video as leading linguistics experts said the man sounded like he was from London or the south-east of England. Hammond said: "All the hallmarks point to [the video] being genuine. We're very concerned by the apparent fact that the murderer in question is British and we are urgently investigating – agencies on both sides of the Atlantic – are first of all looking to authenticate the video, to make sure that it is genuine, and sadly it appears to be, and then to see if we can identify the individual in question."
