All this speculation about the identity of the 'new Jihadi John' is missing the point entirely

Like Jihadi John, this man – whoever he is – remains a bauble, one we imbue with significance at our own risk. There are other, much more significant, people worthy of our attention

Another hunt is on, for another British jihadi. The executioner in Isis’s latest snuff video speaks – like Mohamed Emwazi, his predecessor – with the lilt of any number of young men in London or Birmingham. He is perhaps a less confident performer: the script, a typical combination of bombast and victimhood, is read haltingly, like some nightmarish version of a school play. The method of murder, too, has changed from beheading by knife to a gunshot to the back of the head. Yet this is unmistakeably the man who, until he is also killed, will be the closest the UK comes to an interlocutor within the ranks of Isis.

Who is he? Leaders of Isis would like to present Jihadi John’s replacement as simply the embodiment of their ideology: an unswerving acolyte sworn to murder and destruction. He terrifies most in the abstract; the more that is discovered, the easier it becomes to treat him as simply another depraved individual, of unsound mind and morals.

Even before the first hints as to his identity emerged, parts of the video invited ridicule. The balaclava-clad killer complains about British soldiers fighting “under the banner of Cameron on the minimum wage”. Contemporary grievances chime poorly with the desire to establish a medieval caliphate; you see for a second the kind of thinking that considers state-mandated pay floors to be no less cruel than shooting innocent people from point-blank range.

If the killer is indeed Siddartha Dhar, a former bouncy castle salesman and member of the British extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, such absurdities come further into focus. Dhar is a Hindu convert, who claimed he could no longer love his mother because she is not a Muslim. Pudgy and pompous, he operated as a spokesman for Isis while in the UK – telling Channel 4 and anyone who would listen that he wanted to go to Syria. The farcical nature of his views is only matched in this case by the farcical performance of the intelligence services, who allowed Dhar to skip bail and reach Raqqa.

Like Jihadi John, this man – whoever he is – remains a bauble, one we imbue with significance at our own risk. I celebrated, as I expect most people did, when Emwazi was killed. The evening of the next day, as suicide bombers wielding AK-47s stormed Paris, brought home the lesson about confusing – even for a moment – mid-level figureheads for organisational strength.

The only targets worth fretting about are those for people whom the group would struggle to replace. There are very few of these. Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi descends from the Prophet Mohammed’s Quraysh tribe; besides the obvious symbolism of killing Isis’s leader, it would not be easy to locate a successor of similar heritage.

On the other hand the 10 targeted killings of Isis “leaders” carried out by the US between 7 and 27 December should not be mistaken for a meaningful achievement. These were mid-level officials, easy come, easy go.

Contained in the video are some indications of changing strategy. The killers – there are five, though only one speaks – wear military fatigues instead of black, and a child is introduced at the end, to warn of coming attacks in the West. Both changes seek to present Isis as a permanent state, one with an army, and a new generation of recruits on the way. There is some defensiveness here, as there was in al-Baghdadi’s purported Christmas-time address; Isis is increasingly besieged, and where first the emphasis lay on making the group appear more terrifying than it is, now it falls on exaggerating its longevity.

Care should be taken not to forget the victims, amid the trauma of witnessing another British citizen stoop to such lows. These men were alleged to be spies; two were paving workers, one a shop owner, another a teenager, and the last an air-conditioning technician, according to reports. They admit – under duress – offences from covert camera work to setting up internet cafés.

None of this may be true, but the heroism of any local citizens resisting Isis beggars belief, knowing the kind of fate they may face. It is thought that local intelligence contributed to the pinpoint attack on Mohamed Emwazi two months ago; paranoid as Isis is, there will be spies operating in the areas under its control. These individuals – and umbrella groups such as Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently – are the ones that deserve space in our minds. Another British jihadi is merely another fool in a mask.