Fourth member of ISIL's 'Beatles' cell is named

LONDON — An Islamic State militant known as the fourth “Beatle” and a friend of the group’s slain executioner Jihadi John has been named by media.

El Shafee Elsheikh, 27, is a British citizen and former fairground mechanic whose family left Sudan in the 1990s, the Washington Post and Buzzfeed News reported.

Elsheikh and three other militants were called the "Beatles" by hostages due to their British accents. One of them was Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed Jihadi John, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in November.

British and American intelligence identified Elsheikh as a member of the cell, the Washington Post and Buzzfeed said.

Elsheikh, said to have been a fan of the British pop group the Spice Girls as a child, is now thought to be living in Syria with two wives and two children, Buzzfeed reported. It said his younger brother was killed in Iraq last year while fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.

Speaking to Buzzfeed at her home in White City, a neighborhood in west London, Elsheikh’s mother Maha Elgizouli said he was radicalized at mosques in west London in a space of weeks. He fled to Syria in 2012.

Elgizouli told Buzzfeed she begged British government officials to confiscate his younger brother’s passport to stop him from travelling to join his older sibling.

Virgillia McDonald, 29, who grew up next door to Elsheikh in White City, told The Telegraph: "Shaffe was a couple of years younger than me, I helped him get ready for school, how to behave."

"I've always known him to be a heartwarming guy. I mean, he used to steal my Spice Girls CDs, we used to listen to them together. We did everything together,” she added.

The other “Beatles” were named by media as Alexanda Kotey, 32, a convert to Islam from Shepherd’s Bush in west London whose whereabouts are unknown, and Aine Davis, 31, a former drug dealer in London who went to Syria in 2013. He was detained in Turkey in November.