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 Smiling at the camera with his church school friends, there is nothing to link this middle-class schoolboy to the merciless terrorist butcher Jihadi John. 
 
 Arriving in Britain when he was six years old, Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Emwazi appeared to embrace British life, playing football in the affluent streets of West London while supporting Manchester United. 
 
 Neighbours recalled a polite, quietly spoken boy who was studious at his Church of England school, where he was the only Muslim pupil in his class. 
 
 Classmates: Emwazi (front row, second from left) pictured with classmates at the St Mary Magdalene Church of England primary school in west London. Friends described him as football-mad and popular 
 
 The son of a Kuwaiti minicab driver, young Emwazi arrived in Britain speaking only a few words of English, and appeared more interested in football than in Islam. 
 
 He went to mosque with his family, who spoke Arabic to each other, but wore Western clothing and became popular with his British classmates at St Mary Magdalene Church of England primary school in Maida Vale, West London. 
 
 Former schoolmates were yesterday struggling to believe that the quiet boy they knew had been unmasked as the world’s most notorious terrorist. 
 
 In a chilling twist, in a school yearbook from when he was 10, Emwazi lists his favourite computer game as shooting game "Duke Nukem: Time To Kill" and his favourite book as "How To Kill A Monster" from the popular children's Goosebumps series. 
 
 He also lists his favourite band as pop group S Club 7, and when asked what he wants to be when he is 30, writes: 'I will be in a football team and scoring a goal.' 
 
 Emwazi also listed his favourite colour as blue, his favourite animal as a monkey, his favourite cartoon as The Simpsons and chips as his favourite food. 
 
 His role as Islamic State’s sadistic butcher was a far cry from the football-mad schoolboy who moved to Britain from Kuwait with his parents in 1993. 
 
 Given a council flat overlooking the Regents Canal in the exclusive Little Venice area of West London, his father found work as a minicab and delivery van driver while mother stayed at home with Mohammed and his two younger sisters now 25 and 23. 
 
 Three more children followed, all born after the family settled in Britain, and the family were said to be close, with both parents arriving at the school gate each day to collect their children. 
 
 His family are not being named to protect their privacy. 
 
 Former classmates at St Mary Magdalene said Emwazi had got into occasional fights after school assemblies, but said he was usually reserved and dedicated to his religion. 
 
 From angel to devil: Mohammed Emwazi (left) pictured as a schoolboy in London. Today, he was revealed as the man behind the 'Jihadi John' mask (right) 
 
 One former classmate said: �?It was a Church of England school and he was the only Muslim in our class. One time we had an RE lesson and he got up and talked about his religion. 
 
 �?He wrote Arabic on the board to show us what it looked like and how it went in the other direction. He showed us a religious text and spoke about what his religion was about. 
 
 �?That was when we were eight or nine. He mentioned fasting. His English wasn’t very good throughout primary school. He could only say a few words at first – like his name and where he was from. 
 
 DO YOU KNOW JIHADI JOHN? Please email news@dailymail.co.uk or call 0203 615 1866 
 
 �?He played football every lunchtime and at the after-school football club. Through football, he learned different words and expressions. Like all the guys, he always wanted to be the striker. 
 
 �?He wasn’t so good in school, he was the bottom half of the class, but he was one of the sporty guys. He was popular.’ 
 
 Another told LBC: 'We were in the playground and Mohammed was running away from someone, I think he was just about to get into a fight. And as he was running another guy blocked his path. And he ran into a goal post and hit his head on a metal goal post and fell to the floor. 
 
 'This was year six, we didn't see him for six weeks. He was not the same ever since that brain injury. I am telling you one million per cent. He was not the same'. 
 
 After finishing primary school in 1999, young Mohammed moved to Quintin Kynaston Community Academy, in St John’s Wood, where he is believed to have studied alongside former X Factor judge and pop star Tulisa Contostavlos. 
 
 Horrifying: Jihadi John has featured in the execution videos of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, aid workers Alan Hennings and David Haines, 22 Syrian soldiers and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto (pictured) 
 
 Once there, he became more observant of his religion and began wearing more traditional Islamic dress, and his sisters began to wear the hijab. 
 
 One younger sister, now 19, was a prefect at the school and completed a detailed �?murder mystery’ film project about a female serial killer. 
 
 Teachers said Mohammed was still �?diligent, hard-working…everything you would want a student to be’ and neighbours said he was �?like any other teenager’. 
 
 It was only after he won a place studying computing at the University of Westminster that his behaviour began to change. 
 
 The university has since been linked with several proponents of radical Islam, and Emwazi appeared to have fallen under their sway. 
 
 He began attending different mosques and was known to associate with Bilal el-Berjawi, who was killed by a drone strike in Somalia three years ago. 
 
 Unmasked: ISIS executioner 'Jihadi John', pictured here with American journalist Steven Sotloff, has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Sotloff's family have called for him to be caught and tried 
 
 In August 2009, after his graduation, Emwazi flew to Tanzania in East Africa with friends and told authorities they were going on a wildlife safari. 
 
 But the group was refused entry and put on a plane to the Netherlands, where Emwazi later claimed he was questioned by an MI5 agent called Nick. 
 
 The British officer accused him of planning to travel to Somalia to join the militant group Al Shabaab, he said, and said MI5 had been watching him. 
 
 Emwazi denied the accusation – bragging that he would not take a designer Rocawear sweater in his luggage if he was planning to join Somalian rebels. 
 
 JIHADI JOHN'S SIBLINGS: BROTHER FOLLOWS HATE PREACHER AND SISTER WROTE OF HOODED KILLER The younger brother of Mohammed Emwazi is a small-time criminal with hardline and outspoken Islamist views. Student: Emwazi's 19-year-old sister was a prefect and studied cinematography at A-Level It emerged yesterday that the 21-year-old from London follows a radical Muslim cleric – while his younger sister is a media student who once made a short film about a �?hooded serial killer’. Emwazi’s brother – whom the Mail had decided not to name – is a member of the Woolwich Dawah group, who once harboured the killers of Lee Rigby. The university graduate, who like his sibling has taken a keen interest in computer networks, listens to the teachings of radical preacher Khalid Yasin. Several of his friends use images similar to those used by extremists online and last night at least one of his 68 friends on Facebook was displaying the black flag of Islamic State. He has also commented on videos, supporting one in which a woman is mocked for praying in a clumsy manner. He has at least two convictions, for handling a stolen police bicycle and a string of thefts at a shopping village – and has twice been hauled back for repeated breaches of community orders. His 19-year-old sister, like Emwazi, went to Quintin Kynaston school where she was a prefect and studied cinematography at A-Level. Her film, a �?thriller’ depicting a hooded man chasing a girl through a school, was made as part of her coursework and contained themes about bullying. Writing about her studies online, the teenager – whom the Mail is not naming and whose face we are obscuring to protect her privacy – said: �?It gives out a hidden message about ... how we humans shouldn’t stereotype people and pick on them because of what background they come from or the colour of their skin nor what they believe in. Also...that revenge is NEVER the right answer.’ She is now thought to be studying media studies at Middlesex University. 
 
 In emails to the campaign group Cage, Emwazi said: �?He [Nick] knew everything about me; where I lived, what I did, the people I hanged around with.’ 
 
 �?Nick’ then tried to recruit the 21-year-old, Emwazi claimed, and threatened him when he refused to cooperate. 
 
 Emwazi said the officer told him: �?You’re going to have a lot of trouble…You’re going to be known…You’re going to be followed…Life will be harder for you.’ 
 
 On his return to Britain, Emwazi said his family told him they had been �?visited’, and he claimed a woman he had been planning to marry broke off their engagement because her family had also been contacted and were scared. 
 
 According to Emwazi, his family then began planning for him to travel to Kuwait to get him away from the �?harassment’ he had suffered in Britain and he went to work for a computer programming company in the emirate. 
 
 Home: Minicab driver's son Emwazi most recently lived at a flat in Queen's Park in west London 
 
 In his account to Cage, he said security officers continued to visit his family and he decided to make a �?new life’ in Kuwait, where he was once again planning to marry. 
 
 But following a visit back to Britain in 2010 he said he was stopped at Heathrow Airport and barred from flying back to Kuwait, and claimed that he was interrogated by an aggressive officer who threw him against a wall, grabbed his beard and strangled him. 
 
 FACEBOOK FACES CRACKDOWN Social media firms are to be urged to take �?stronger, faster and further action’ to stop terrorists using their sites. In a response to a report on the murder of Lee Rigby, the Government wants Facebook, Twitter and others to take a �?zero tolerance approach’ to jihadist propaganda. An Intelligence and Security Committee report into the murder of the British soldier found that Facebook hosted exchanges between one of the killers, Michael Adebowale, and an Al Qaeda extremist in which Adebowale said �?Let’s kill a soldier’ – but failed to tell MI5. Facebook had already disabled seven of Adebowale’s accounts without informing the security services. Six months later, Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo hacked Fusilier Rigby to death in South East London. 
 
 Emwazi made an official complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, saying he had been assaulted by the officer. 
 
 But court documents show he was also arrested himself later that year and charged with possessing five stolen bicycles, although he was later acquitted at court. 
 
 Incensed by the decision to stop him returning to Kuwait, Emwazi told Cage he felt �?like a prisoner’ in London. 
 
 He said he was �?a person imprisoned and controlled by security service men, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace and country, Kuwait.’ 
 
 Friends told the Washington Post he was already talking wildly about travelling to Syria, where the uprising against Bashar al Assad was beginning in earnest. 
 
 But he also applied for work in Saudi Arabia, taking a course to teach English and applying for work at language centres in the kingdom. 
 
 Rejected by those, his father suggested he change his name in a bid to avoid any block from British authorities, and Cage said he changed his name by deed poll in 2013 to become Mohammed al-Ayan. 
 
 He made one more attempt to fly back to Kuwait that year but was barred from leaving Britain again and disappeared from his parents’ home a week later. 
 
 His parents reported him missing after three days but claimed it was four months before police arrived at their home and said they had information he was in Syria. 
 
 His father, 51, told police they were wrong and that his son was in Turkey helping refugees from Syria, and the family are said to continue to deny that he is the masked IS executioner. 
 
 Meanwhile, two British trainee medics who met Jihadi John in Syria said he had a fearless �?nothing to lose’ attitude and was always ready for war. 
 
 Speaking anonymously to ITV, they said the killer was unmarried and was probably picked for the executioner poster boy role because of the way he handled difficult situations. 
 
 Describing him as an 'adrenaline junkie', they said he went to fight for the al-Nusra front, an Al Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Syria, before moving to ISIS to further his ambitions. 
 
 His attitude was revealed when he was stopped at a checkpoint by Free Syrian Army fighters. 
 
 One said: 'He was at a checkpoint, from what I heard, and the people manning the checkpoint stopped him and forced him to get out. 
 
 'From what I understand they were trying to rob him and, for a man with several weapons pointing at his face, he responded by pulling out his own weapon and pointing it at one of their faces'. 
 
 Another said: �?He seems like someone with not a lot to lose. There has been incidents where he has run into checkpoints and he dealt with people in a careless, gung-ho manner with disregard for his own safety. 
 
 On the scene: Police officers near the property where Emwazi once lived with his family 
 
 �?He was chosen most likely for his fearless mentality and he’s got nothing to lose. He obviously didn’t want to go back to the UK and he believed passionately in this cause and he believed that killing these people was the right thing to do. 
 
 �?I remember he was quiet - not reserved quiet, he had a lot of friends and was social. In Syria he seemed to be a very busy man, he was always ready for war in safe areas.’ 
 
 They also said Emwazi seemed wealthy, adding: �?All of his kit was expensive. Even the guns he had were extremely expensive and rare to find in that part of the world.’ 
 
 Asked if he disliked Britain, they said: �?When I mentioned the UK to him he had a scowl on his face. 
 
 �?He had no intention of returning and never identified himself as British, he said Kuwaiti or Yemeni. His jihadi name was Abu Muharib al Yemeni. He had no link to Britain unless you asked him are you British and he would say, "Kind of. I lived there for a long time".' 
 
 Terror: Emwazi is believed to have been one of more than 700 foreign fighters in The Migrants Brigade who arrived in the Middle East three years ago to fight for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate 
 
 A source who claimed to have met Emwazi in Syria told Channel 4 News that he was a member of one of the earliest groups from London who travelled to fight for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. 
 
 He is believed to have been one of more than 700 foreign fighters in the Katiba al-Muhajireen (The Migrants Brigade) who arrived in the Middle East three years ago. 
 
 Video shows Ibrahim al-Mazwagi, the first British jihadi known to have died in Syria, talking through his life in Syria with fellow fighters who proclaimed themselves a band of brothers. 
 
 West London radical at centre of network that influenced 'Jihadi John' passed freely between UK and African terror hot spots for THREE YEARS 
 
 The man at the centre of a network that influenced the ISIS executioner identified as 'Jihadi John' was allowed to fly in and out of London to terrorism hot spots unchecked for almost three years. 
 
 Bilal al-Berjawi passed through UK Border Control at least five times between 2006 and 2009 as he travelled between London and African terror cells. 
 
 Over that period he was rising to prominence as a senior member of Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia - returning to the UK only to raise funds and to marry. 
 
 Bilal al-Berjawi (right) travelled freely between the UK and terror hubs in East Africa as he rose to prominence with al-Qaeda. He is believed to have radicalised Jihadi John (left) on his return visits to London 
 
 It is believed that it was during these return visits to London that Al Berjawi became the driving force behind the radicalisation of 26-year-old Mohammed Emwazi, using his growing stature within the terror group to radicalise homegrown extremists. 
 
 Bilal al-Berjawi (above) was killed in Somalia in 2012 
 
 According to people who have moved in jihadi circles in west London, Emwazi began to be noticed 'five or six years ago', when al-Berjawi was still flying between the UK and Africa. 
 
 'That's when he emerged, so to speak,' said one. 
 
 Bilal al-Berjawi was killed by a drone strike in Somalia three years ago. By that point he was a key figure in al-Qaeda's East African operations. 
 
 Originally from Lebanon, Berjawi first joined militants in Somalia in 2006 and then returned to Britain in 2007 on a fundraising venture. 
 
 He left again in February 2009 with his friend Mohammed Sakr, who is of Egyptian origin, to travel to Kenya, telling their families they were going on a safari - the same front used by Emwazi when he flew to Tanzania in 2009. 
 
 They aroused the suspicions of the manager of the hotel at which they were staying in Mombasa and when they moved to Nairobi, police raided the premises and they were deported. 
 
 A laptop found at the premises contained extremist material including encouragement of jihad and instructions on making car bombs. 
 
 Berjawi married a Somali woman in London, and in October 2009, they decided to slip out of the country again, without telling their families that they were leaving. 
 
 All three were the subject of a manhunt, accused of crossing into Uganda to plot terrorist attacks that culminated in bomb attacks in Kampala in July 2011 that killed 74 people. 
 
 Berjawi was said to be a senior figure with Al Qaeda in East Africa, a radical part of the Al Shabaab movement, and was known as one of its most active fighters. 
 
 He was also responsible for securing weapons and for overseeing the contingent of foreign fighters. 
 
 In an online obituary published in 2013, Al Shabaab said 'Abu Hafs' had been trained by two top military commanders of al-Qaeda in East Africa, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. 
 
 The government stripped both men of their British passports and they were killed in separate drone attacks in 2012. 
 
 Jihadi John's old university was a 'hotbed of radicalism where students celebrated 9/11', claims ex-pupil - and extremist was even due to speak there TONIGHT 
 
 Jihadi John's former university was a 'hotbed of radicalism' where students 'celebrated 9/11', it has been claimed. 
 
 A former student two years older than the Islamic State executioner has lifted the lid on his time at the university - as it's also revealed a talk by a Muslim extremist has been postponed due to 'security concerns'. 
 
 Extremist: Haitham al-Haddad's speech has been postponed 
 
 Haitham al-Haddad was set to speak tonight, but the event will not go ahead as planned after it was revealed 'Jihadi John' studied computer programming at the university. 
 
 Today, the terrorist was named as a university graduate from London who was able to flee to Syria despite being on an MI5 terror watch list. 
 
 Emwazi is said to have travelled to the Middle East three years ago and later joined ISIS. 
 
 Jihadi John has featured in the execution videos of British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines, U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, Japanese reporter Kenji Goto and Syrian soldiers. 
 
 Former University of Westminster pupil Raheem Kassam, who campaigns against extremism at British universities, said the conditions at the university are right for the radicalisation of someone like Emwazi. 
 
 Speaking today, he said: 'I once walked into a meeting of the Islamic Society where they were clapping and cheering the events of 9/11. 
 
 'I did not know him, he would have been two years behind me, but I am utterly unsurprised. The university was nothing less than a hotbed of radicalism when I was there. 
 
 'Universities across the country, the University of Westminster in particular, are being targeted by radical recruiters.' 
 
 A University of Westminster spokesman said: 'We take these allegations very seriously. We condemn any behaviour that promotes terrorism and violence on any of our campuses. 
 
 'We have strict policies to promote tolerance among our 20,000 student community, who come to study from over 150 nations. Any student found to be engaging in radicalised activity would be referred to disciplinary procedures. 
 
 'As a London-based university operating in a diverse multi-cultural city, we are fully aware of all the influences within this international city. 
 
 'With other universities in London, we are working together to implement the Government's Prevent strategy to tackle extremism.' ||||| NOTE: CAGE represents cases of individuals based on the remit of our work. Supporting a case does not mean we agree with the views or actions of the individual. Content published on CAGE may not reflect the official position of our organisation. ||||| Image copyright other Image caption Emwazi in one of the videos in Syria which feature the killing of hostages 
 
 What do we know for sure about Mohammed Emwazi? 
 
 Mohammed Emwazi was born in Kuwait in 1988 and came to the UK in 1994 when he was six years old. 
 
 He was educated at the Quintin Kynaston Community Academy in St John's Wood, north London. 
 
 The then headteacher, Jo Shuter, has told the BBC that she never suspected that the "reasonably hardworking" pupil would become the man we know him to be today. 
 
 Emwazi was 14 when Ms Shuter arrived at the school and she found him to be a quiet young man, with caring responsibilities outside of school as the oldest of a number of siblings. 
 
 "He had adolescent issues," she said. "Particularly at that age - year nine, particularly the boys, is a time when the hormones start raging, and he had some issues with being bullied, which we dealt with. 
 
 "By the time he got into the sixth form, he, to all intents and purposes, was a hardworking aspirational young man who went on to the university that he wanted to go to. "I can't stress enough, he wasn't a huge concern to us." 
 
 Image copyright Rex Features 
 
 Research and additional reporting: Steve Swann, BBC Home Affairs team. Follow Steve on Twitter 
 
 He later graduated in computing from the University of Westminster in 2009 and his final address in the UK before he went abroad was in the Queen's Park area of north-west London. 
 
 Emwazi came to the attention of the security services during the same year as MI5 and other agencies monitored suspected extremists linked to foreign fighters joining al-Shabab in Somalia. 
 
 'Rough and noisy' 
 
 Going by the name Muhammad ibn Muazzam, he had travelled to Tanzania with another Briton, known as "Abu Talib" and a third man, a German convert called "Omar". 
 
 Once they arrived, they were denied entry and interrogated and Emwazi later claimed to Cage, a campaign group in London, that they had been subject to harassment and abuse. 
 
 But a police officer in Tanzania has told the BBC that Emwazi was deported for being drunk and abusive, 
 
 The officer said Emwazi "brought chaos to the airport" by being "rough and noisy" and that he behaved "like alcohol was involved". 
 
 His behaviour led him to being refused entry to the country, along with his two friends. 
 
 Image copyright Unknown 
 
 Emwazi later said he had been threatened at gunpoint and was told to ask the British government why he had been stopped. 
 
 But Tanzanian immigration commissioner Abdullah Khamis Abdullah said no instructions had been issued from any other country to stop Emwazi. 
 
 And the arresting officer said Emwazi was not tortured, as he later claimed. 
 
 Cage said that Emwazi was questioned by both Dutch and British security services as he returned home via The Netherlands. The account he gave to the campaign group includes allegations that MI5 spoke to his fiancee - and she then ended the relationship. Emwazi himself was not charged with an offence. 
 
 Wider network 
 
 But MI5's view was that this had been no innocent post-university safari holiday. He was considered an associate of a number of high-profile suspected jihadists whom they were tracking across the world. 
 
 One of them was a married man with two children whom we can only identify as "CE". He was placed on a control order in 2011 and forcibly relocated from London. During his legal challenge against the house-arrest style conditions, the security service's lawyers argued that his network included, amongst others, Mohammed Emwazi, "BX", J1 and Bilal Berjawi. 
 
 Image copyright other Image caption Court papers naming Emwazi from 2011 - names redacted by the BBC 
 
 All of these men were said in court to be involved in the "provision of funds and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes and the facilitation of individuals' travel from the United Kingdom to Somalia to undertake terrorism-related activity". 
 
 BX - now known to be a man called Ibrahim Magag - went on the run and is widely thought to have reached Somalia. 
 
 Bilal Berjawi, another Londoner, also succeeded in reaching the Horn of Africa. The ethnically Lebanese man had dual nationality and the Home Secretary stripped him of his British citizenship. Some time later he was killed in a US drone strike on militant targets. 
 
 As for J1, in a 2013 court ruling on attempts to deport him the Court of Appeal described the Ethiopian as someone who had "thrown in his lot with a group of Islamist extremists who are committed to terrorism". J1 is, in turn, linked to some of the men jailed for the failed suicide attacks on London on 21 July 2005. 
 
 Mohammed Emwazi timeline: 
 
 1988 : Born in Kuwait, moves to UK in 1994 
 
 : Born in Kuwait, moves to UK in 1994 2009 : Completes computing degree at University of Westminster 
 
 : Completes computing degree at University of Westminster Aug 2009: Travels to Tanzania with two friends for safari but refused entry at Dar es Salaam. Put on flight to Amsterdam. After questioning there, returns to Dover 
 
 Travels to Tanzania with two friends for safari but refused entry at Dar es Salaam. Put on flight to Amsterdam. After questioning there, returns to Dover Sept 2009: Travels to Kuwait to stay with father's family 
 
 Travels to Kuwait to stay with father's family July 2010: Returns to UK for short stay but told he cannot return to Kuwait as visa denied 
 
 Returns to UK for short stay but told he cannot return to Kuwait as visa denied 2012: Passes Celta English language teaching course 
 
 Passes Celta English language teaching course 2013: Changes name by deed poll. Tries to travel to Kuwait but is stopped. Disappears. Parents report him missing. Police tell family four months later he has entered Syria 
 
 Source: Cage, London-based campaign group 
 
 'Jihadi John' movement mapped 
 
 Kuwait future 
 
 Between late 2009 and early 2010, Mohammed Emwazi returned to Kuwait to stay with his father's family and, according to reports, look for a new life in the Middle East. 
 
 Image caption Court papers identified Bilal Berjawi as an associate of Emwazi 
 
 The family are of Bedoon ethnicity - a group that is marginalised in Kuwaiti society. He was looking for a good computing job and was, according to Asim Qureshi of Cage, planning to marry and settle down. 
 
 He spent three months working as an IT salesman before returning to the UK - but he never returned. 
 
 According to Cage, he was prevented from returning to Kuwait when he was detained for six hours at Heathrow. He alleged that he was assaulted by an officer. 
 
 Cage claims that he became desperate to leave the UK and that in 2013, he changed his name by deed poll to Mohammed al-Ayan and tried once more to travel to Kuwait. But he was stopped again. His parents reported him missing in August. Four months later police are said to have told the family that he was in Syria, although the family thought by now that he was doing aid work in Turkey. 
 
 We do not know exactly when he entered the war zone but he was first reported to be in Idlib in the same year, assisting in guarding Western hostages. 
 
 Jihadi John sightings 
 
 August 2014: Video in which US journalist James Foley is apparently beheaded 
 
 Video in which US journalist James Foley is apparently beheaded 2 September 2014: Video in which US journalist Steve Sotloff is apparently beheaded 
 
 Video in which US journalist Steve Sotloff is apparently beheaded 13 September 2014: Video in which British aid worker David Haines is apparently beheaded 
 
 Video in which British aid worker David Haines is apparently beheaded October 2014: Video in which British aid worker Alan Henning is apparently beheaded 
 
 Video in which British aid worker Alan Henning is apparently beheaded November 2014: Video in which Jihadi John is shown killing a Syrian soldier in a mass beheading, which also shows body of US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter Kassig 
 
 Video in which Jihadi John is shown killing a Syrian soldier in a mass beheading, which also shows body of US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter Kassig 20 January 2015: Video in which Jihadi John is seen standing alongside two Japanese hostages and demanding a ransom in exchange for their release 
 
 Video in which Jihadi John is seen standing alongside two Japanese hostages and demanding a ransom in exchange for their release 31 January 2015: Video released appearing to show Jihadi John beheading Japanese hostage Kenji Goto 
 
 In August 2014, he appeared in the video which shows the murder of US journalist James Foley - and then over the subsequent months, similar films showing the killing of Steve Sotloff, David Haines and Alan Henning. In none of these videos is it clear whether it is the masked man or another person off camera who kills the victims. 
 
 But in November 2014, the same militant features in a hostage death video - and this time he appears to be carrying out the killing of a Syrian military officer. He also stands over the severed head of American Peter Abdulrahman Kassig. 
 
 Two months later the man features in another video in which he kills the Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto. This January 2015 video was the last appearance of the masked killer. A British newspaper later reported that it had seen new footage of Emwazi "unmasked" - although it was unclear when the video had been shot or whether the man in it was definitely Emwazi. 
 
 In her interview with the BBC, Emwazi's former headteacher Jo Shuter said: "I can't even begin to say the shock and the horror that I feel. 
 
 "Even now when I'm listening to the news and I hear his name I feel the skin on the back of my neck stand up because it is just so far from what I knew of him and it is so shocking and so horrendous the things that he has done." ||||| Foreign policy reporter Adam Goldman explains who Mohammed Emwazi is and how The Washington Post discovered his identity. (Gillian Brockell and Alice Li/The Washington Post) 
 
 For months he taunted, knife in hand, his voice slightly muffled behind the mask that became the grim symbol of Islamic State barbarism. 
 
 But when the identity of the killer known as “Jihadi John” was revealed Thursday, the profile that emerged was disturbingly familiar: a young man whose parents’ decision to immigrate to the West afforded him a comfortable life and an education, but who ultimately found identity and succor in extremist ideology. 
 
 His name is Mohammed Emwazi. And despite friends’ descriptions of a polite and quiet man not capable of violence, Emwazi’s links to extremist groups appear to have been long-standing, and he was well known to counterterrorism officials in London before he went to Syria. 
 
 He has become infamous there in the past six months as the unidentified man who has beheaded American, British and Japanese hostages. The Washington Post revealed Emwazi’s name and details of his life on its Web site Thursday morning, based on information from two close friends and others familiar with his case. 
 
 The BBC on Thursday posted an excerpt of what it said were 2011 court papers in which the British government described Emwazi, now 26, as a member of “a network of United Kingdom and East African based extremists which is involved in the provision of fund and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes.” 
 
 [Read: How Mohammed Emwazi became Jihadi John: 5 key takeaways] 
 
 Raffaello Pantucci, a security analyst with the Royal United Services Institute, said Emwazi was probably part of an informal gang of young Arab men from West London who became fixated on traveling to Somalia to fight alongside Islamist militants there. 
 
 Many had criminal records and were involved in petty crime and drugs. 
 
 One member of the group, a Lebanese-born, British-educated man named Bilal al-Berjawi, ultimately became a senior figure in the Somalia-based al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2012. A close friend of Berjawi’s, Mohammed Sakr, who grew up in the same West London neighborhood, was killed in a drone attack a month later. 
 
 Emwazi, in the end, made his way to Syria, where 20,000 foreign fighters from 90 countries have flocked, according to U.S. figures. 
 
 British security officials would not comment about Emwazi on Thursday and would not confirm that he is Jihadi John. They cited an active police investigation. Cmdr. Richard Walton, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said no public details of the ongoing probe of Emwazi will be released. 
 
 [Read: Emwazi was routinely detained by British authorities] 
 
 “We are not going to confirm the identity of anyone at this stage or give an update on the progress of this live counterterrorism investigation,” Walton said in a statement. 
 
 President Obama was asked about Jihadi John during an interview Thursday with the Seattle television station KOMO. “I’m not going to comment on this particular case, but we have been consistent and we are patient,” Obama said. “And eventually, if you hurt an American, you’re going to be brought to justice in some fashion.” 
 
 The Kuwaiti-born Emwazi appears to have left little trail on social media; his invisibility is so striking it appears his online presence may have been deliberately erased. Those who knew him in London say he had a penchant for wearing stylish clothes while adhering to the tenets of his Islamic faith. He had a beard and avoided eye contact with women, friends said. 
 
 He was raised in a middle-class neighborhood in West London; he graduated from the University of Westminster in 2009 with a degree in computer science. 
 
 “If these allegations are true, we are shocked and sickened by the news,” said a statement from the University of Westminster. “Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.” 
 
 The identity of the masked man whose video appearances have come to symbolize the barbarity of the Islamic State has been made public. (The Washington Post) 
 
 On Thursday, reporters descended on the West London address where Emwazi grew up, a well-to-do area with pockets of deprivation. One neighbor popped his head out the door and shouted expletives at the gathering of about 40 journalists. None of the other neighbors answered their doors. It was not immediately clear whether any of Emwazi’s relatives live at the address. 
 
 Worshipers at a mosque about 100 yards away expressed shock that the man known as Jihadi John once lived around the corner. 
 
 “It’s a big shock to me and everyone here,” said Khosru Khan, 32, a travel agent who was praying at the Harrow Road Jamme Mosque. “. . . The Muslim community has been demonized here and around the world. He seems to be some sort of bogeyman for the Muslim community. We don’t know who he is.” 
 
 [Read: How Islamic State is failing at being a state] 
 
 Two close friends of Emwazi’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said they believe he started to radicalize after what Emwazi described at the time as a planned safari in Tanzania following his graduation. 
 
 Emwazi and two friends — a German convert to Islam named Omar and another man, Abu Talib — never made it on the trip. Once they landed in Dar es Salaam, in May 2009, they were detained by police and held overnight. It is unclear whether the reason for the detention was made clear to the three, but they were quickly deported. 
 
 
 
 Two police officers walk outside a flat believed to be the former home of Mohammed Emwazi in London. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters) 
 
 Emwazi flew to Amsterdam, where he claimed that an officer from MI5, Britain’s domestic security agency, accused him of trying to reach Somalia, according to e-mails that he later sent to Asim Qureshi, research director at the rights group Cage. 
 
 Emwazi denied the accusation and claimed that MI5 representatives had tried to recruit him. But a former Islamic State hostage said that Jihadi John was obsessed with Somalia and made his captives watch videos about the militant group al-Shabab. 
 
 The Tanzania trip, experts said, was probably a ruse to obscure plans to link up with al-Shabab. 
 
 [Read: Emwazi and the debate over poverty’s link to terrorism] 
 
 “It doesn’t ring true,” said Nick Lowles, chief executive of the ­anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate. “It’s a bit like the jihadis who say they’re going on a package tour to Turkey, then, once they’re there, shoot over the border to Syria.” 
 
 Berjawi and Sakr also had traveled to Kenya in February 2009 after telling relatives they planned to go on “a safari.” But they were deported back to Britain after a Kenyan hotel manager became suspicious. They returned to East Africa months later and ultimately made their way into Somalia. 
 
 Emwazi and his friends were allowed to return to Britain, where he met with Qureshi in the fall of 2009 to discuss what had happened. “Mohammed was quite incensed by his treatment, that he had been very unfairly treated,” Qureshi said. 
 
 Shortly afterward, Emwazi decided to move to his birthplace, Kuwait, where he landed a job working for a computer company, according to the e-mails he wrote to Qureshi. He came back to London twice, the second time to finalize his wedding plans to a woman in Kuwait. 
 
 In June 2010, however, counterterrorism officials in Britain detained him again — this time fingerprinting him and searching his belongings. When he tried to fly back to Kuwait the next day, he was prevented from doing so. 
 
 “I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started,” he wrote in a June 2010 e-mail to Qureshi. But now “I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London. A person imprisoned & controlled by security service men, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace & country, Kuwait.” 
 
 In an interview, Qureshi said he last heard from Emwazi in January 2012, when Emwazi sent him an e-mail seeking advice. 
 
 “This is a young man who was ready to exhaust every single kind of avenue within the machinery of the state to bring a change for his personal situation,” Qureshi said. In the end, Emwazi felt “actions were taken to criminalize him and he had no way to do something against these actions.” 
 
 Close friends of Emwazi’s also said his situation in London had made him desperate to leave the country. It is unclear exactly when he reached Syria or how. 
 
 
 
 The University of Westminster, where Mohammed Emwazi studied computer programming. (Toby Melville/Reuters) 
 
 One friend said he believed Emwazi wanted to travel to Saudi Arabia in 2012 to teach English but was unsuccessful. Soon afterward, the friend said, he was gone. 
 
 “He was upset and wanted to start a life elsewhere,” another friend said. “He at some stage reached the point where he was really just trying to find another way to get out.” 
 
 Once in Syria, Emwazi contacted his family. It is unclear what he told them about his activities there. 
 
 A former hostage who was debriefed by officials upon release said that Jihadi John was part of a team guarding Western captives at a prison in Idlib, Syria, in 2013. The hostages nicknamed the facility “the box.” Emwazi was joined by two other men with British accents, including one who was dubbed “George.” A former hostage said Emwazi participated in the waterboarding of four Western hostages. 
 
 Former hostages described George as the leader of the trio. Jihadi John, they said, was quiet and intelligent. “He was the most deliberate,” a former hostage, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview. 
 
 Beginning in early 2014, the hostages were moved to a prison in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital, where they were visited often by the trio. They appeared to have taken on more powerful roles within the Islamic State. 
 
 About the same time, Qureshi said, he sent an e-mail to Emwazi. 
 
 “I was wondering if you could send me your number,” he wrote. “Inshallah [God willing] it will be good to catch up.” 
 
 There was no response. 
 
 Goldman reported from Washington. Julie Tate in Washington and Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
– Mohammed Emwazi, the British-Kuwaiti man who has been identified as "Jihadi John," had long been known to British security services—and according to the advocacy group Cage, the way they treated him may have contributed to his radicalization. According to the group, when he tried to travel to Tanzania for a "safari vacation" in 2009, he was detained, questioned, and returned to the UK by security officials who accused him of wanting to join militants, and he complained about harassment by security services in the years afterward. Cage says that after Emwazi moved to Kuwait later in 2009, he returned to Britain for a visit the following year and was told he could not return to Kuwait, leaving him feeling trapped and unable to return to his job and fiance. According to court papers seen by the BBC, however, authorities believed Emwazi was part of a network "involved in the provision of funds and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes and the facilitation of individuals' travel from the United Kingdom to Somalia to undertake terrorism-related activity," and had at least one associate who ended up fighting in Somalia with al-Shabab radicals. The director of Cage says Emwazi was never "somebody who ever said, ‘I hate the system, I reject the system,'" reports the New York Times. Instead, he says, "It's someone who said, 'I don't like the environment, but I'll work within the system to effect change.'" But a lot of people aren't buying the argument that harsh treatment from security services turned Emwazi into a brutal ISIS executioner. "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King got a lot more pressure from police, and neither decided that decapitating people is the right response," Brookings Institution fellow JM Berger tells the Times. After he was unable to return to Kuwait, Emwazi trained as an English teacher and changed his name to Mohammed al-Ayan in 2013, according to Cage. After another failed attempt to get to Kuwait, he left the family home in London to travel elsewhere. His parents reported him missing in August that year and were informed four months later that he was in Syria. Around where Emwazi grew up in a comfortable part of West London, people are stunned to find "Jihadi John" once lived among them. "It's a big shock to me and everyone here," a worshiper at a mosque 100 yards away from the address where Emwazi grew up tells the Washington Post. "He seems to be some sort of bogeyman for the Muslim community. We don't know who he is." Former primary school classmates describe Emwazi, who has five siblings and whose father is a taxi driver, as popular and obsessed with soccer. "He was the only Muslim [in] our class," one classmate tells the Daily Mail, recalling that Emwazi once got up in religious studies to explain his religion and spoke about fasting. Emwazi graduated from the University of Westminster in 2009 with a degree in computer science. "If these allegations are true, we are shocked and sickened by the news," the university said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with the victims and their families."