WASHINGTON: A member of a group of Daesh militants who beheaded American hostages in Iraq and Syria, and were nicknamed “The Beatles” for their British accents, was found guilty of terrorism offenses in a US court on Thursday.
A jury found El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, guilty on all counts following a trial in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, on charges including lethal hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit murder.
The charges against Elsheikh, a former UK citizen, carry a potential death sentence, but US prosecutors have advised British officials that they will not seek the death penalty.
Elsheikh was one of four militants belonging to the four-member Daesh cell. The cell garnered international attention after releasing videos of the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, among other victims.
Two of the cell’s four members, Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, were held in Iraq by the US military before being flown to the United States to face trial. Kotey pleaded guilty last September to the murders of Foley, Sotloff, Mueller and Kassig.
Mohammed Emwazi, a British citizen who oversaw the executions, died in a drone strike in 2015. Aine Lesley Davis, the fourth member of the group, was convicted in Turkey on terrorism charges and jailed.
During opening arguments in the US trial, Elsheikh’s lawyers tried to cast doubt on whether he was one of the “Beatles,” saying hostages had difficulty identifying their captors.
“It was horrific and senseless. None of that is in dispute,” defense lawyer Ed MacMahon said. “What is in dispute — and what you must decide — is whether Mr. Elsheikh bears any legal responsibility.”
Daesh ‘Beatles’ cell member convicted in US of beheading hostages
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Daesh ‘Beatles’ cell member convicted in US of beheading hostages
- A jury found El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, guilty on all counts following a trial in Alexandria, Virginia
- The charges against Elsheikh, a former UK citizen, carry a potential death sentence,
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
