Finally, jihadi john is revealed. Hes the front man for unspeakably horrific isis beheading videos face covered, dressed in black. He holds a knife next to kneeling hostages taunting the entire world in perfect english with a british accent. Now, u. S. Officials confirmed that jihadi john is a kuwaiti born londoner named Mohammad Emwazi. We are learning more about his background and why the white house now sees him as a top target. That comes as shocking new video shows isis thugs ransacking an iraqi museum taking sledge hammers and jackhammers to priceless antiquities they called false idols and gods. Our correspondents and analysts are all standing by. Lets begin with our chief National Security correspondent, jim sciutto, who has the very latest. We are learning now that u. S. Lawmakers have been briefed on suspected americans in isis. This has been a long term concern and this is also happening as u. S. Intelligence officials have increased their estimate of the number of americans who have traveled to syria and iraq to join jihad there, up to 180 now from 150. These are those who have either gone or attempted to go. Some of them killed on the battlefield. But today in the case of jihadi john we got the most vivid illustration of isis broad appeal. Jihadi john identified as Mohammad Emwazi a 26yearold British National born as you say in kuwait well off, well educated and radicalized, it seems, fairly quickly. Now, though u. S. Officials would not publicly discuss his suspected identity today the white house said jihadi john ranks highly on the president s target list because hes responsible for the murder of innocent americans. Seen of course in the beheading videos of james foley, Steven Sotloff sotloff. Friends say they never saw signs of his future as a terrorist. He is such im sorry, i didnt expect he was such a beautiful young man, really. You know its hard to imagine the trajectory but its not a trajectory thats unfamiliar to us. Our entire National Security strategy for the last 13 years has only increased alienation. He seems to be arguing that the treatment that uk authorities gave this jihadi john that that treatment, questioning whatever resulted in his radicalization but this guy eventually went on to become a murderer a killer beheading all these people. We see it on video so this notion that he was simply radicalized because the british were investigating him, that doesnt sound plausible. No its a fairly propos proposterous argument to make. Some muslim groups claim profiling as a radicalizing factor. In his case they talk about a trip to tanzania he was going on a safari and officials suspected he was trying to get to somalia so he was detained and deported. The fact is the root causes of this go so much deeper. The thing is that it is attracting a broad range of recruits. We are seeing men and women in the mideast and the west rich and poor the fact is that the profile is simply too broad and inconsistent and the fact is in his case we dont truly know why he turned radical. But suffice to say it is clear and it is obvious that some mistreatment here and there by the police can certainly not justify or even explain how you become a serial beheader so radical as jihadi john. Good point. Jim sciutto, thank you. So will the exposing of this guy known as jihadi john and the knowledge that theres a name now being targeted make him a less important symbol for isis . Brian todd is here in the situation room. He has been looking into this part of the story. What are you learning . Well its a very interesting question tonight and we are getting a picture from u. S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement officials now of just how important jihadi john is to isis. Many of the officials and analysts we spoke to dont think his importance will diminish now that we know his name. This is a man who has simply become too identifiable with isis, its message and brutality. The british accent behind the mask. Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment which keeps us striking our people. It is only right we continue to strike the necks of your people. Reporter a voice we now think belongs to a 26yearold from west london named Mohammad Emwazi. With each new beheading video, a u. S. Official says jihadi johns value as a top isis figure has grown. His chief value is being the wests boogeyman and isis man on the ground who tells it like it is and does terrible things to his victims. He is out of central casting for isis. Isis has a flair for the dramatic. They are very good not only at social media but also Film Production and also figuring out in terms of narrative what is it that will scare people. Reporter his mask british accent distinctive motion with a knife, the fact that he may have beheaded hostages on camera not only shock western viewers but emboldened isis militants. The freaky thing about jihadi john he kind of looks like he likes that job. For isis its just a way of continuously desensitizing everyone who is within isis to the fact that that is business as normal. Reporter u. S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement officials tell cnn jihadi john is prized as a westerner within isis because he helps recruitment. The message is to westerners if you come to isis you can be important, not just that you can be part of the crowd. Reporter he sprang into americas conscience with the video showing james foleys murder. It was soon followed by the Steven Sotloff video. Analysts say he may not have done it on his own but Mohammad Emwazis videos played a huge role in escalating americas war against isis. Lets put it this way. Had it not been for these videos we probably wouldnt be bombing syria today. Reporter has jihadi johns propaganda value diminished now that he has been named . The analysts we spoke to dont think so. They say as long as he keeps menacing the west on camera he will have propaganda value to isis. The one mitigating factor of course is whether he will go further underground now that western intelligence and military forces know more about him. Be interesting to see if he pops up again now that we know his name. Possible that now that we know more about him, his value to isis could actually increase. It could. Heres the way it could increase. Now that we know hes College Educated and that he comes from this family with means, that is going to get out to potential isis recruits. He is different from many jihadis who have been recruited by isis many coming from poor backgrounds. They are seen to not have many prospects in life. This is a guy who had options in life. He chose this. Thats going to get to isis recruits as well. Brian, thank you very much. Despite punishing new air strikes, there is more evidence that isis is tightening its grip. Shocking new video of isis thugs gleefully destroying ancient artifacts at an iraqi museum. There are shocking new details of the mass kidnapping of christian villagers in syria. Lets go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. Shes got more. Reporter billions of dollars of valuable history destroyed and a new horrifying assault on christianity. Isis says god ordered these ancient artifacts destroyed in mosul, iraq. One priceless statue after another smashed. Some date back to 700 b. C. In northeastern syria, these assyrian christians are fortunate to escape. More than 260 christians now held hostage by isis after fighters swept through their villages, according to an activist network. Women, children and the elderly among them. At 4 00 in the morning they attacked them. Reporter california residents got a terrifying message about some of their 12 family members. What we have heard, it was like a sea of black uniforms marching through all the villages burning down the churches desecrating the crosses and wreaking havoc. Reporter the coalition conducted air strikes in the region to back up peshmerga fighters. But there is great worry the christians are in peril. When you have a group this big now, thats assuming they are all still together we dont know that they could be split up but we will always be mindful of civilians in any kind of air strike that we take. Reporter just across the border in iraq air strikes continued. U. S. French and jordanian jets hitting an isis training camp. The first combat operation inside iraq for jordan. The Iraqi Air Force claiming this air strike targeted an isis hideout in the same town. Still, the big target mosul, iraqs second largest city still fully controlled by isis. New doubt from top u. S. Intelligence officials on the readiness of iraqi forces to quickly be able to engage in large scale combat operations. Youre talking about building from the ground up so to build from the ground up when are they ready . Were talking probably six to nine months, best estimate. Reporter six to nine months for the Iraqi Military to be fully ready to engage in large scale combat operations. That kind of estimate makes it awfully tough to see how they could be ready in the next couple of months to take on that battle for mosul. Because the briefing you had there at the pentagon someone from the u. S. Military Central Command said april or may, 25,000 or 30,000 iraqi troops would be ready to go in and liberate mosul. There seems to be a disconnect here. Reporter you know i think even before that briefing there were a lot of people in the u. S. Military that thought that was a little optimistic and the new defense secretary ash carter has distanced the pentagon from that estimate saying that when the iraqis are ready, thats when mosul will happen. Hard to see at this point that it could be april. Even hard to see that it could be may. But the clock is ticking on this. Summer is coming to iraq. Its going to get very hot, very soon. That could make a land battle for mosul very tough. Wolf . Good information. Thank you very much barbara. Lets get some more now from the ranking democrat on the house Intelligence Committee, congressman adam schiff is joining us from capitol hill. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. You think the iraqi armys going to be ready to launch a major assault on mosul by april or may, to liberate that city from these isis terrorists . I would be very surprised if they could be ready. One of the concerns i have is if the iraqis are going to be too reliant because their special forces arent ready on these iranian led shia militias having shia militias liberate sunni towns, thats a very bad idea. So i wouldnt want us to see the iraqis go before theyre ready and be too reliant on these shia militias or worse, have to call in the american cavalry because we went in prematurely or encouraged them to. Theres no reason for encouragement thinking about that Iraqi Military after their behavior last year. These latest u. S. Air strikes in iraq going after these targets, do you know if they were specifically trying to target this guy called jihadi john we now know his name or the leader of Isis Abu Bakr elleal baghdadi . I dont know the answer to that and at this point im not able to even confirm the identity, the United States and britain arent making any confirmation of these press reports. Thats not something im able to confirm. Thats what i dont understand. I assume you have been briefed on all this but now that the name is public and we know the british and u. S. Governments have known the name for months and months without giving us any classified information or anything congressman, why cant you give us more information about him, at least confirm what we all know his real name . Well let me talk generally about why we often dont confirm peoples identity. Its for one of a couple reasons. It may be because it would reveal some kind of source the intelligence used to identify that person that we dont want to expose. Or it may be that some of the information thats wrapped in their identity may involve where they are located and we dont want to give up that kind of logistical information in case theres an effort to go after them. There may be a variety of reasons. I cant comment on this particular case specifically whether reports are accurate or if they are accurate why that may be the case. But i can tell you as a general matter those are often the reasons why they would withhold that kind of information. Appreciate that. Congressman, i want you to stand by. We have much more to discuss. A lot of questions about whats going on right now, including more on jihadi john. Also this new effort by isis to go out there and kidnap christians men, women and children. Much more with the congressman after this. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts 800,000 hours of supercomputing time 3 million lines of code, 40,000 sets of eyes, or a million sleepless nights. Whether its building the worlds most advanced satellite, the space station, or the next leap in unmanned systems. At boeing, one thing never changes. Our passion to make it real. Oh yea, thats coming down lets get some rocks, man. Health can change in a minute. So cvs health is changing healthcare. Making it more accessible and affordable with walkin medical care, no appointments needed and most insurance accepted. Minuteclinic. Another innovation from cvs health. Because health is everything. Thanks for the ride around norfolk and i just wanted to say geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years roger that. Captains waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. Couldve parked a little bit closer. Its gonna be dark by the time i get there. Geico. Proudly serving the military for over 75 years. Lets get back to our top story, the isis killer known as jihadi john he has now been revealed. His name has been revealed and the United States is making it clear hes now in the crosshairs. We are back with senior democrat on the house Intelligence Committee, congressman adam schiff of california. I just want to be precise. Theres no doubt if the u. S. Knew where this guy jihadi john is Mohammad Emwazi thats his real name the u. S. Would like to target him, right . I dont have any doubt if we had the opportunity to go after him, that we would, along with any of the other isil leadership or anyone who has participated in that kind of atrocity. Certainly the leader of Isis Abu Bakr al baghdadi is targeted as well, right . Absolutely. Not only because of his leadership of this vicious brutal organization but part of their ideology is that hes the caliph he comes from a certain line of descent so you take out the caliph you take out those potentially that could follow in his footsteps and you could have a strategic impact on the situation. I want you to listen to James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence testifying today up on capitol hill saying terrorism this past year is at its worst. Listen to this. When the final accounting us done 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled. I was pretty surprised to hear that. But you follow it probably closer. Thats pretty shocking when you think about it. Well it is pretty shocking although when you consider how many thousands, really hundreds of thousands that have been killed in syria and you add to that the number that have been killed in iraq in nigeria and all around the world, its been a horrendous year. You had a metastizes of this violence and its claimed a tremendous number of lives. You heard also james comey, the fbi director saying there are now surveillance operations under way in all 50 states against suspected isis or other terrorist plotters. Thats pretty shocking wink about that as well. Well it is pretty shocking although i do think we have to put it in context. I would imagine probably almost any year we have investigations in all 50 states of a variety of terrorism cases. What makes this unique is that these are isis related terrorism cases. I was in the u. S. Attorneys office back in the 80s and 90s in los angeles. We hadrorism cases in l. A. They were about blowing up the Federal Building over tax disputes. Its not unusual to have them all around the country. It is unusual to have them all associated with a single terrorist organization. One of those three brooklyn plotters arrested yesterday helped organize and finance that socalled operation. He was doing so from florida. The individual who was arrested in florida was providing all the money for these trips that were supposedly to take place to turkey and syria. Do we know if that individual was directly linked to isis . I dont know the answer to that. One of the things that were working through in this case and in others is what is the level of engagement with isis. Was this a situation where as the criminal complaint points out that some of these people were in touch with a website thats affiliated with isis or was there some more direct involvement, were they getting instructions from isis to finance particular plots. So there are obviously a hierarchy of command and control. Some may be selfradicalized completely others may have had some level of contact. With respect to the guy in florida, i just dont know the answer. These men from brooklyn two from kazakhstan two from uzbekistan one from kazakhstan they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State or isis or isil whatever you want to call it. Does the u. S. Intelligence community, Law Enforcement community, have a pretty good idea how they were initially radicalized . I think so. These are people at least a couple of which Law Enforcement community had contact with for some time. I think they were able to watch how that radicalism proceeded. I dont know whether they know as much yet about how they were radicalized before they came on to the radar screen and that may be most particular with that florida financier, but i think we do know a good deal about these people. One thing that this calls out to me when you look at these three individuals, you look at the reports of the background of this jihadi john and again, i cant confirm whether thats correct or not, but if it were correct, youve got people who are middle class or upper middle class, you have people who are very much