According to reports, Mohammed Emwazi, 26, whose London accent earned him the nickname “Jihadi John”, left IS a number of weeks ago and is fleeing to North Africa, terrified the militant group will turn on him.
Islamic State would drop him “like a stone or worse if they feel he is no longer of any use to them,” a source told the Daily Express.
“So it is possible he will end up suffering the same fate as his victims.”
The Daily Express claims Emwazi feared his unmasking and subsequent notoriety had diminished his value to Islamic State. He also reportedly fears jealous members of IS might be plotting against him.
Emwazi is wanted by a US-led coalition for the sickening killings of American journalists and aid workers Stephen Sotloff, James Foley and Peter Kassig and Brits David Haines and Alan Henning.
In the videos Emwazi, a Kuwait-born, British-raised computer science graduate, taunted world leaders Barack Obama and David Cameron and threatened more deaths before brutally killing the western hostages.
His last public appearance was in a video released in January that depicted the beheading of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto.
Then, it seemed, the tough-talking terrorist had disappeared.
But this isn’t the first time Emwazi has seemingly feared for his life.
Before he went to Syria to begin his reign of terror, Emwazi was worried he was a “dead man walking” after run-ins with security services.
Email exchanges with a journalist claim Emwazi said he considered suicide after coming face to face with what he suspected to be a British spy as he tried to sell a laptop computer in 2010.
But a research fellow for the International Centre of the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence told the Daily Mail that too much shouldn’t be read into Emwazi’s current absence.
Nick Kaderbahi said IS probably didn’t want to overuse the high-profile killer.
“If anything, the less he is featured, the more impact he will have,” he said.
Meanwhile a former friend of the IS butcher blasted Emwazi as “not a good Muslim” during his school years.
The ruthless extremist used to dress “like a gangster rapper”, the anonymous friend told the Daily Express.
She said: “He smoked drugs, drank and was violent towards other boys. The fact he portrays himself as a strict Muslim is laughable and shameful.
“I never saw him pray or wear Islamic dress — he would not even mention religion at all.
“Being a Muslim myself I was very aware of it at the time. We had a gang and he was very much a part of it — which shows he is a total hypocrite.”
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