WATCH ABOVE: James Foley’s parents open up after learning the identity of “Jihadi John” but admit if it wasn’t him, it would have have been someone else put that role.
TUCSON, Ariz. – The parents of an American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State group say they are surprised a college-educated, London-raised man is the masked militant known as “Jihadi John” from the video of their son’s slaying but also realize stopping him won’t end the bloodshed.
“The point is if we capture him and bring him to justice, what does that do? ISIS is still doing its thing. It’s a very narrow approach. We will be happy when ISIS is defeated,” John Foley, father of slain freelance journalist James Foley, said during an interview with reporters Thursday in Tucson, Arizona. “The next ‘Jihadi John’ is on the way.”
READ MORE: U.K. spies face questions about failure to stop ‘Jihadi John’
The Foleys spoke about the front man for IS murder videos with reporters before they participated in a forum at the University of Arizona on the growing dangers journalists face in conflict areas. James Foley was captured by the Islamic State group in November 2012 and killed last August.
But it came as a surprise to Diane Foley that “Jihad John” was revealed to be Mohammed Emwazi, a soccer-loving young man from London who was educated and showed promise before joining militants in Syria.
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“So he, in a sense, had a privileged upbringing, so to me that makes that even more sad that he’d want to use his gifts for such evil and such hatred. It’s very frightening to me,” she said.
Diane Foley added that Emwazi, a Kuwait-born computer science graduate educated in Britain, was a sad and sick man.
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“We need to forgive him for not having a clue what he was doing,” she said.
Emwazi is in his mid-20s and had been known to British intelligence services since at least 2009. He appeared in a video released in August denouncing the West before the 40-year-old Foley was killed. A man with similar stature and voice was also featured in videos of the IS killings of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Britons David Haines and Alan Hemming, and U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
At the university event, the Foleys said the government – and the press – failed to do enough to save the lives of Foley and others. They talked about being kept in the dark by government officials investigating the kidnapping.
The Foleys also said some responsibility lies with U.S. members of the media who failed to continue reporting on their son’s kidnapping, letting it fall out of the news cycle.
“We’re a hot item when it’s a fresh story, but after the item dissipates, we couldn’t catch a cold,” John Foley said.
The couple was joined by Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press correspondent who was held captive in Lebanon for nearly seven years, and David McGraw, an attorney for The New York Times.
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