An investigation is under way to establish whether the man dubbed Jihadi John is behind a second murder after a British-accented man was shown in the video depicting the killing of Steven Sotloff.
Security sources said that although there were similarities between the voice on the film that emerged on Tuesday and that depicting the murder of James Foley a fortnight ago, the figure is largely hidden in black clothing.
A man with a British accent was seen in an Islamic State video posted last month in which the American journalist James Foley was beheaded. He was dubbed Jihadi John after one former hostage spoke about three Britons, collectively know as the Beatles, who were among their captors, one of whom went by the name of John. In both videos, the speaker has what appears to be a London accent.
The killer is one of an estimated 500 Britons to have joined other Europeans as well as Americans to fight in Syria and Iraq, but despite speculation over his identity in parts of the media, the intelligence services have not identified the individual.
Such investigations are normally kept secret but the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Peter Westmacott, in an unusual break with protocol, publicly revealed last month that the British intelligence services were close to identifying him. "[W]e are putting a lot into it, using voice recognition technology to try to identify him. I cannot say more than this but I know we are close," Westmacott said in an interview on US television. Voice recognition techniques offer the best chance of establishing that the same man is involved in both videos.
In the latest video, the British-accented man says the killing is in retaliation for continued US attacks in Iraq and threatens to kill a third hostage. He says: "I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State."
After the first video appeared, there was speculation that the British-accented man may not necessarily have been the person who carried out the killing.
The landscape in the second video is similar to that in the first, although the victim, who also appeared in the first film, has a beard in the second, which suggests that some time passed between the two killings and that they were not, as has been suggested, filmed in quick succession.
