United Sates imposes sanctions on London-born ISIS fighter

Washington: The US has imposed sanctions on a surviving British member of the infamous ISIS kidnapping cell known as "The Beatles" - named after the British pop group.

The State Department said London-born 33-year-old ISIS fighter Alexanda Amon Kotey is one of four members of a group that beheaded a number of hostages, including British hostages David Haines and Alan Henning.

"Today's action notifies the US public and the international community that Alexanda Amon Kotey is actively engaged in terrorism," it said in a statement yesterday.

Kotey was born in west London and raised as a Greek Orthodox Christian by a Greek-Cypriot mother and Ghanaian father. He converted to Islam as a teen and fled Britain in 2009, leaving his two children behind.

According to the State Department, Kotey resides in ISIS Syrian stronghold of Raqqa and he is known by a few different aliases.

The sanction means a prohibition against US persons from generally engaging in transactions or dealings with Kotey and the freezing of all of Kotey's property and interests in property in the US.

Authorities believe Kotey acted as an ISIS recruiter who carried out torture for the group, including electronic shock and waterboarding.
Another member of the ISIS Beatles group was Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed Jihadi John, who was also responsible for the killing of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and US aid worker Peter Kassig.

He was killed in a US drone strike in Syria in 2015, while Aine Davis, also from London, was arrested in Turkey the same year.

Another British-origin terrorist was named last year as former child refugee El Shafee Elsheikh, a mechanic from White City in west London.