emwazi has played in radicalizing individuals around the world and inspiring individuals to join their cause made him a threat not just to the region but to countries around the world. reporter: if confirmed, the strike would be a significant intelligence victory in a country where until recently the u.s. had thin intelligence assets. however, recent operations have killed three senior isis leaders. a special forces raid, recruiter in an air strike and now apparently jihadi john. there will always be somebody to take these people s place. yes, we should go after them, but we also have to realize that they re going to regenerate their leadership and they re going to bring people in we ve never heard of before and the process starts over again. reporter: syria is what the intelligence community refers to as a hard target, not a lot of intelligence assets on the ground for the u.s.
this morning for an iraqi-born american citizen who the fbi says pledged allegiance to the isis leader. he s accused of lying to the fbi about the tweet. he admitted to investigators he did travel to syria. he fought alongside the free syrian army. here with me now is mick mccall. he is the chairman of the house homeland security committee. mr. chairman thank you for joining us. i know you re just back from the region. i want to get to that. but the arrest of this iraqi-born american citizen in texas. supposedly supportive sympathetic to isis. we know he traveled to sear yachlt he said he fought with the free syrian army. i believe that was a false statement. he actually is one of the foreign fighters. that left the united states trained in syria and then came back. in this case to dallas texas. these foreign fighters was a
happen. i know you have not yet been briefed. what can you add to this story? it shows what a threat isis is to our homeland. we need to put this in perspective. the fact they claimed responsibility. whether they were inspired by isis or had direct comun cakes with isis. we had six arrested in minnesota. you had the man fromio who did travel to syria and came back to the united states and was planning attacks on our country. we had the army recruiter who was going to join isis along with a member of the guard. this is all in april alone. this is a threat to us, and making sure we address we ll have social media on isis s use
to athens greece. he snuck into syria and trained with a powerful al-qaeda affiliate. he wanted to join isis. mr. mohammed had plans and did travel to syria, and received terrorism training there on weapon ands combat and tactics. while in syria two months, mohammed was instructed by a cleric to return to the u.s. and carry out an attack. he was influenced by his brother who died fighting for terrorist in syria. his attorney said he is scared and a normal 23-year-old kid. there is gray area. he doesn t exhibit violence. and no weapon s charge. 0. one attorney said this is
ravel to syria to join isis. this happened as three other british teams are back in the u.k. after being nabbed in turkey. they were trying to get to syria to join isis as well. joining us now is cnn former cia terrorism official philip mudd. some of these guys have now been released on bail in londonch they re out trying to join isis now out on bail. does that seem like a risky combination to you? it does. it seems like the right choice to me. the british announced when the girls went weeks ago, some are 15-years-old they wouldn t charge them. i think when you are dealing with 15 16 17-year-olds who don t i think have an ideological commitment to isis.