
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 Advertisement

‘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. Advertisement

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. Advertisement

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.'