Federal Bureau of Investigations director James Comey has announced the United States has officially verified the identity of the masked terrorist with a British accent in the gruesome ISIS beheading videos, but the FBI is withholding his name and additional information, according to Reuters.
U.S. and European officials said the principal investigative work identifying the man was conducted by British government agencies, Reuters reported.
The masked man has appeared in three different videos where a hostage was killed - two American journalists and a British aid worker, Reuters reported.
The full beheadings are not shown in the videos, but the British-accented, English-speaking militant holds a long knife and appears to begin cutting the three men, American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines, Reuters reported.
At the FBI's headquarters on Thursday, Comey said he would not reveal the man's name or nationality and did not address whether the U.S. believes the man actually carried out the killings himself, according to Reuters.
Investigators said that because of the way the videos were edited, it is possible that someone other than the British-accented man carried out the murders, Reuters reported.
"I believe that we have identified," Comey told a small group of reporters, Reuters reported. "I'm not going to tell you who I believe it is."
The videos released in August and September of Foley and Sotloff showed a masked Islamic State militant brandishing a knife and speaking English with a British accent, Reuters reported.
A European government source familiar with the investigation said that the accent indicated that the man was from London and likely from a community of Asian immigrants, according to Reuters.
John Cantlie, a British journalist held by the group, has appeared in two Islamic State videos criticizing U.S. airstrikes against the group and suggesting that the United States had become engaged in "Gulf War III," Reuters reported. Islamic State militants also have threatened to kill a second British aid worker, Alan Henning.
