Northern Jihadist 'identified as key ISIS sniper and Jihadi John associate'

Raymond Matimba is believed to have left Britain in 2014 to link up with terrorists in the region.

According to the Daily Telegraph, he went on to join a group of high-profile British jihadists that included Mohammed Emwazi, the executioner also known as Jihadi John.

Zimbabwean-born Matimba, who adopted the nom de guerre Abu Qaqa al-Britani al-Afro, is said to have become a leading sniper for the extremist group.

The 28-year-old spent time in Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State, and reportedly may still be alive.

The newspaper said it had acquired a video that shows Matimba, Emwazi and Britons Reyaad Khan and Junaid Hussain in a coffee shop in the city in 2014.

Filmed in secret by an infiltrator, the clip is said to be the first to show all four together.

Matimba, 28, was reported to have been killed earlier this year, however his mother Moncia, 60, told the newspaper that she had not received any official confirmation.

"I am still going through hell and I never expected such a thing like this to happen in my life," she said.

The support worker last heard from her son in 2015 via WhatsApp.

"I contacted the counter-terrorism authorities," she said.

"I said I don't want to talk to him any more. Eventually I changed my number."

Emwazi was killed in a 2015 drone strike after becoming one of the top targets for the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The Kuwaiti-born Londoner appeared in a number the group's videos, including those in which American reporter Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning were murdered.

Before his death Emwazi was suspected of having been part of a four-strong Islamist terror cell dubbed The Beatles.

Computer hacker Hussain was described as a key IS operative before he was killed by a US drone strike on August 24 2015.

The 21-year-old, from Birmingham, was said to have been number three on the Pentagon's "kill list" of IS targets.

Khan, from Cardiff, is thought to have travelled to fight in Syria late in 2013 and appeared in the group's propaganda videos.

He died when a car he was travelling in through Raqqa was targeted by an RAF remotely piloted aircraft.