All language subtitles for American.Jihad.2017.720p.HULU.WEB-DL.DD+5.1.H.264-monkee

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Hotel-November-5-2-0-9er.

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There are ominous clouds
gathering in your horizon.

- 3-0-1 ready to go.
- Radio 3-0-1.

You have two choices --
either hijra...

Radio 3-0-1-0-0
in and out.

3-0-9.

...or jihad.

- This is Starter 2.
- Roger that.

You either leave or you fight.

I, for one,
was born in the U.S.

and lived in the U.S.
for 21 years.

I was a preacher of Islam,

involved in nonviolent
Islamic activism.

However, with
the American invasion of Iraq,

I could not reconcile
between living in the U.S.

and being a Muslim.

I came to the conclusion
that jihad against America

is binding upon myself,

just as it is binding on
every other able Muslim.

When I first started
watching those videos,

I thought I was the only one.

I specifically invite the youth
to either fight in the West

or join their brothers
in the fronts of jihad.

You guys need to come here.
This is the place to be.

That video --
it was really shocking to me.

I can't comprehend him
being violent.

We did not know that he had been
fully radicalized,

loaded up as a bomb himself.

These weren't outsiders.

We were members
of the same community.

So it's even more confusing
and harder to understand.

I was messaging him
through an app,

and he told me that he was
in a training camp.

I remember him telling me,

"I'm having
the time of my life."

I invite them to join us
in our new front, Yemen.

Anwar al-Awlaki's rise
from American-born cleric

to key terror plotter

had put him atop the U.S.
terror hit list.

The Justice Department
wrote a secret memo

authorizing
the killing of Awlaki.

I got good range,
good limits on him.

Declare fire.
Declare fire.

U.S. intelligence says
Awlaki was on the hit list,

although he wasn't killed.

We cannot stand idly
in the face of such aggression.

And we will fight back

and incite others
to do the same.

Would you fight back?

My ancestry dates all the way
back to the Mayflower.

We will fight you and destroy
you if we have to.

By that time,
I was firmly committed,

and I was inserting
the rhetoric of al-Qaeda

into the American arena.

We're not calling for your death
and destruction,

unless, of course,
you continue to fight us.

I was still radical.

I was in prison.

And one day, I'm sitting
there in the bunk,

and, all of a sudden,
I see Anwar al-Awlaki on TV.

I didn't know what was going on.

I figured that he had ordered
an operation.

Early Friday,
a CIA drone found its target.

He was killed by a drone attack.

Everybody figured he
was invincible -- everybody.

Awlaki was the leader
of external operations

for al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula.

The loss of Awlaki is
another major blow to al-Qaeda,

coming just five months after
the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden was dead.

Now the primary ideologue
in the English language,

Awlaki, was dead.

I was like, "Wow,
they really just won the war."

Everybody
get off of the street!

But the war was not over.

Even in death,
Awlaki's message

continued to capture the hearts
and minds of Americans.

♪♪

Um...

I'm more New York-ish.

But, uh, it's better
than not having access

to a city at all, you know?

My kids are in a great
public-school system,

so I'm very happy for that.

Sure.
Yeah, yeah, sure.

In September 2016,

five years after the deaths

of Osama bin Laden
and Anwar al-Awlaki,

another in a series of attacks
occurred on U.S. soil.

Following a three-day manhunt,

the suspect in the bombings,

28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami,

a naturalized U.S. citizen,

was was captured
after a gun battle with police.

They found a notebook today,

heavily influenced
by Anwar al-Awlaki's musings.

I invite them to join
us in our new front, Yemen.

So maybe homegrown,
maybe foreign-plotted.

The way that he laid it
in the Dumpster, I don't know.

Not -- Doesn't seem like
a trained operative,

from that standpoint.

Just when you think
like it's going to go away

for a while, you know?

It's not like you can
move away from this.

You can't run.

Like, you can't ignore
what you've done.

This revival, ya Muslimin,
requires that you rise up,

that you make dua
for the mujahideen...

...that you defend them
when they're assaulted

by the moderates
and by the enemies of Islam.

Throughout our
history, we had individuals

who were mainstream
members of society

turn against their societies
for various reasons.

This is something
that has always happened.

So the phenomenon
of people joining ISIS,

joining al-Qaeda,
is nothing new.

I think we think of terrorism

as a foreign thing
because, on 9/11,

we were attacked by 19
foreign-born Arab terrorists.

But, in fact, it is
a very homegrown thing.

I've looked at 300-plus cases
of jihadi terrorism since 9/11,

and they're
overwhelmingly Americans

who are radicalizing online.

There have been Americans
associated with al-Qaeda

for a long time.

Anwar al-Awlaki
was born in New Mexico.

America as a whole has
turned into a nation of evil.

What we're seeing is
the Americanization of jihadism.

And we have to try
and understand

why this is happening.

Why is it that we're not
able to sell our values

and our system
to our own people?

Why is it that
the joining of groups

like ISIS and al-Qaeda

is a more attractive
option for people?

♪♪

We lovingly call that
the "Beautiful Mind" board

when it comes
to jihadist recruits.

Very rudimentary,
kind of reminds me, again,

of the old-school
Mafia days

of which dots
connected to that one.

I was at the Senate Homeland
Security Committee,

and homegrown terrorism was just
kind of starting to bubble up.

The average age of a guy
that was drawn to this was 26.

I was 26. They kind of threw
the cases on me and said,

you know,
"Figure out this niche."

Why people join terrorist
organizations is complex.

Radicalization
isn't a linear process.

Just not how it works.

There is no single
type of person

who gets drawn
into this ideology.

They're rich,
they're poor, you know,

they're college graduates
and high-school dropouts.

It runs a spectrum.

In 90 % of the cases,
they're male.

They tend to be younger.

What is your name?
What is your name?

- Muhammad.
- Muhammad what?

Younus Abdullah Muhammad.

That's my name.
- Who do you represent?

I represent Islam.

Younus Abdullah Muhammad

was born in Pennsylvania
as Jesse Morton.

Jesse's story is interesting
in terms of radicalization.

But it's more interesting to me
in terms of de-radicalization.

How does an individual
like that,

a prominent player on the scene,
able to get out,

and what does that
lesson tell us?

My birth was in Pennsylvania.

And my ancestry dates

all the way back
to the Mayflower

and the Sons and Daughters

of the American Revolution.

I went through severe abuse
in the early stages of my life.

That led me to run away

at the age of 16
to flee the abuse.

I started selling drugs
to survive,

and wound up in jail.

While in prison,
Jesse discovered the Qur'an.

Picked it up,
read the second chapter.

And it say, "This is a book
wherein there is no doubt."

You know, I was overcome
with emotions, started to cry,

started to want
to change my life,

and decided right then and there

that I wanted
to become a Muslim.

I was practicing Islam,

and it established
stability in my life.

Jesse Morton.

I graduated from Columbia,

and immediately,

my dream was to go
to the Muslim world

and to become a teacher.

From there, things
got more complicated,

and I eased myself
into the jihadist world.

The Internet was
full of preachers

that were very radical,

and I would just listen
to their lectures constantly.

That's how I started
participating

in the Islamic Thinkers Society.

Espousing radical ideology
was an outlet for my rage,

my frustration.

Here Allah, azza wa jal, says,
"Jihad is ordained for you."

Well, I was born
and raised in Saint Louis,

and I was raised a Catholic
because my mother was a nun.

She left the convent,
but she was still very grounded

in her Catholic faith.

And so that's how I received
my moral foundation

and the empathy that I was
raised with to have for others.

I became Muslim in '92

when this echo of the war
in Afghanistan was still there.

At that time, it was still sort
of a memory among the Muslims

about the noble jihad
of the Afghan mujahideen

fighting against the Russians.

When I heard
that word "mujahideen",

something about that word
kind of captured me.

In the early '90s, '92,
the war in Bosnia started.

♪♪

I became outraged by
all this violence

that was being directed
at these innocent people.

And I immediately
started to think,

"Maybe I could go there
and join them,

just like the people
who had gone to Afghanistan."

I figured it out from there.

I got my way to an Arab brigade

and was with them
until the end of the war.

During war, you feel
this adrenaline,

you feel this honor
in being a soldier

for a good cause,

that's thrilling,
adventurous, meaningful.

The Arabs that I was with --

these were not people who were
out committing suicide bombings.

We were actually just soldiers.

I never heard the word
"al-Qaeda" then.

I never heard
the name Osama bin Laden.

The term "jihad" has a lot
of different connotations

for religious people.

Since the war against
the Soviets in Afghanistan,

it has come to mean either
"you pick up and you go

to another country
to defend your religion"

or "terrorism."

Guys like Awlaki were
very heavily involved

in legitimizing
that form of terrorism.

Jihad has actually nothing
to do with terrorism,

but he transferred
the meaning to "jihad."

It's embedded in his lectures.

I listened to those,
several times --

online, like many others.

Whenever you see
the word "terrorist",

replace it with the word...

"Mujahid," which is
the Arabic word

for someone who wages jihad.

Whenever you see
the word "terrorism",

replace it
with the word "jihad."

Totally transferred
its understanding

to equate going out
onto the street,

outside of your house,

and just killing
a random civilian

as if you were
waging holy war.

We have chosen the path of war

in order to defend ourselves
from your oppression.

The legacy that he left
is in the message.

God willing...

When I first started
watching those videos,

the way he would talk,

it was almost like
he was talking to you

and like you're the chosen one.

Yesterday morning,
FBI agents arrested six men

charged by criminal complaint
with conspiring

and attempting to provide
material support to ISIL.

To be clear, we have
a terror-recruiting problem

in Minnesota.

My -- My goal was my son
never be in a gang.

I have seen a lot
of Somali youth get killed

because of gang members.

Zak Warsame was
brought to America

as a refugee at 10 months old.

His family settled
in Minnesota,

where nearly one-third

of the American Somali
population resides.

Zak grew up in Minneapolis,

often referred to
as Little Mogadishu.

If you're the
new-generation Somali,

living in Minnesota,

you have all these
different identities.

You know, you're Somali,
you're Muslim,

and you're American,

and so it's kind of confusing.

I felt, at that time, that
something was missing for me.

I wanted him to learn, you know,

his religion and practice it.

Because he learned the religion,

I thought that,
completely, my son,

he's in the right path.

I never thought that
he's learning extremist Islam

or jihadist
or those kind of stuff.

He was normal Zak.

The mosques,
they would preach in Somali.

And I really didn't know
how to speak Somali fluently.

I became more eager
to learn about the religion.

One important aspect
of Islam is the prophets.

I wanted to know
more about their stories,

and so,
when I searched on YouTube

"stories of the prophets,"
a video came up.

Yunus, alaihis salam,

was stuck in the stomach
of the whale

under three levels of darkness.

Allah, azza wa jalla,
delivered him to safety.

I felt like I was actually
learning something,

because he was speaking
in English

and I understood him,
you know, more than I understood

some of the imams
at the local mosques.

He would talk about prophecies

and how the end of the world
was coming

and how a group would emerge
from Syria and Iraq.

The reckoning of people
is near.

And so, when the
civil war happened,

I saw it as this
prophecy coming true.

The more I listened,
the more I had respect for him,

the more I became wrapped
in this ideology.

Everyone wants to
raise their iman,

everyone wants to be
a good Muslim.

As you're watching
these videos, you're saying,

"This guy seems to
understand me as an American.

He seems to understand me
as a Muslim.

He seems to want to help me
become a better person."

We want to be
better than we are.

But we fall short.

And then he makes a turn.

And this turn, you know,
happens all of a sudden.

So now let's talk about

what the commitment
that comes with that is.

This needs sacrifice.

It needs willingness
to give for Allah's order.

When I wasn't at school
or doing my homework

or out with my family,
I was watching those videos.

Most of the videos
would talk about how,

if you would engage in jihad,

you would be doing
not only yourself,

but your family, a favor

and that you'd be
saving their lives

from eternal hellfire.

You were created
for eternity.

Whether it is in Jannah
or it is in hellfire,

it is eternity.

Awlaki and others played
on people's emotions.

They used the Qur'anic verses
and so forth

to interpret it in a way
that they think can recruit

these young people to them,
to their cult.

The only war that
is justified is jihad,

because that is for done
for the sake

of Allah, azza wa jalla.

Awlaki has given them
a simplified, bite-sized,

dumbed-down version
of the ideology,

that the majority of Muslims

don't see as a legitimate
version of their religion.

You're not doing Islam a favor
by modifying Islam

to fit into
what they want to hear.

He knew Islam very, very well,
so he had the authority,

he had a legitimacy
as a preacher,

and that meant that his audience
were taking his word for it.

All that they want is to
deceive you from your religion.

They told them,
"All of you good Muslims,

you have to listen to these
particular scholars,

you have to learn
these particular books,

and by the way,
you need to also think

about the suffering of Muslims
around the world."

There are Muslim brothers
who are in jail.

Every sinister method
of interrogation

is used against them.

"You're an American,
and you're a Muslim,

but, primarily, you're a Muslim.

And you look around the world,

there's this war
on Islam taking place.

They are oppressing
your brothers and sisters.

They are killing
your brothers and sisters.

And you're sitting in America
doing what? Nothing."

Maybe Allah, azza wa jalla,

will unify us
and end the bloodshed

that is happening
among us, through you.

All those lectures
would talk about

how this is a time for action.

And so we decided we should
bring about some action.

Zak was arrested
along with several others,

charged with conspiracy

to provide material
support for terrorism.

It's not only this group.

A lot of people,

all over the world,
are watching this guy.

I'm the imam of ADAMS Center,

which is a mosque in Virginia.

Very diverse.

"On my honor, I will try..."

I'm an imam wearing many hats.

Aah!

The same guy,
with the same hat,

go to the hospital and deal
with a person who's dying.

And then, in the evening,
I officiate a marriage.

Your brother-in-law?

Imam role in America --
very complicated.

Of the 1.5 billion
Muslims in the world,

3.3 million live in America.

Of those, less than 300
have attempted to join ISIS.

As an imam, I have to answer
for all of that.

I have to answer for 1.5 billion
people every day,

what they do,

as if I'm the spokesman
of all of them.

I counsel 25 families

who their children
have joined Daesh.

Two of them have been
killed already now.

We did workshop here
for the parents --

how to protect
your children online.

Daesh -- they have 24-hours
connection with young people

because they are with him
in his bedroom.

I am not.

No person just decides,
"I'm going to wake up tomorrow,

and I'm going to think
about killing people."

We know that the average time,
right now,

seems to be about 10 months
for them to be indoctrinated.

People who are trying
to pull young people

in towards extremist groups,

they spend a lot of time online
building new relationships.

In Europe, you have
face-to-face recruitment.

In the United States,
the situation

is a little bit different.

The threat has mostly been
through the Internet,

through social media.

They have the understanding
of how to use Twitter,

how to use Telegram,
how to use Facebook,

and in many ways, they're able
to recruit that way even easier.

Brothers and sisters,
we are on the verge

of an Islamic revival.

There are more
and more Muslims

who are coming
to the conclusion

that jihad must be part
of our program of revival

and change in the Muslim world.

Al-Awlaki's ability
to speak English,

to communicate
to Western audience in a way

that no one else
from the extremist movement can,

made him a popular figure
for al-Qaeda

and now even ISIS.

But al-Awlaki himself,
what made him an extremist?

Awlaki was born
in New Mexico in 1971.

When he was 7, he moved
to Yemen with his family.

The son of a prominent
Yemeni government official,

he grew up in
a conservative Muslim society.

He returned to the U.S. to
attend Colorado State University

in Fort Collins,

where he served as imam
at the local mosque.

Around this time,
he began a series of trips

to London to attend
Islamic conferences.

It was in London where
Awlaki was exposed

to the ultraconservative strain
of Islam

known as Salafi jihadism.

Salafi jihadism is a fusion

between fundamentalist
interpretation of Islam

and politicized Islamism.

Essentially, this says,
"It is not only a desire

for us to change the planet
and create an Islamic state,

which will eventually
encompass the globe,

it's a duty upon all Muslims

to fight in order
to achieve this."

These were guys who did not
begin with the intention

of creating a terrorist
movement in the West.

Salafi jihadism came to the West

after the ousting
of the Soviets from Afghanistan.

A number of those
people who fought in that jihad

dispersed around the globe.

Some of them went back

to their home countries
in the Middle East

and then were kicked out
of these countries

by secular dictatorships
as exiles,

and many of them
went to Europe.

Many of them actually
went to London.

My dear Muslims, when you speak

to the Muslims today,
and say to them,

"We need to establish
the domination of Islam."

It essentially created
a milieu of Salafis

and Salafi jihadis who were
working together,

helping spread this
interpretation of the religion.

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki.

Awlaki was certainly
a member of that milieu,

and he was among those
who helped take it

over to the United States.

There are millions of Muslims

who lack the basic understanding
of the foundations of Islam.

Guys like Awlaki were able
to take Salafi jihadism,

take its key tenets,
and westernize them.

So, for example,

one of the key
teachings in Salafi jihadism

is that there is a war
on Islam taking place.

The Palestinian issue
should be something

that we are concerned
about day and night...

For an American Muslim, on the
face of it, that's a hard sell.

...and let them know that the
American Muslims are with you.

Awlaki had to figure out a way

to sell this war
on Islam to his followers.

And we're seeing them
bleeding to death.

What are we doing for them?

He was very good
at connecting with an audience.

He had, you know,
storytelling skills

and kind of an emotional depth

to what he said that really
distinguished himself.

The key to the solution
is right here,

in our hearts.

Awlaki's reputation
for preaching

earned him an invitation
to be the head imam

at the Al-Ribat Al-Islami
mosque in San Diego.

As human beings, we're limited
by our frames of reference.

On the one hand, he was known

as being kind of
a firebrand of a preacher.

At the same time,

he's got this
other secret life,

where he's visiting
underage prostitutes

and engaged in,
like, a lot of behavior

that none of his other audiences

would have appreciated.

Guys like Awlaki,
they talk about being pious,

but, actually, in reality,
they are not.

They are narcissists,

and they only care
about themselves.

He did not lead the life
that he was preaching.

And he was arrested
a few times

because of prostitution.

But Awlaki managed to keep
his arrest record under wraps.

His growing popularity landed
him the coveted position of imam

at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque
in Falls Church, Virginia.

We always hear that there
is hatred

against the United States.

That's not true.

There is anger and resentment,
but not hatred.

He knew his power
over an audience,

and that's one of
the reasons Dar Al-Hijrah

hired him in the first place.

They wanted somebody
who could bring in

younger Muslims
to their mosque.

He had gained some prominence
in the local media

as being sort of this
articulate voice

for good relations
with the community.

The Muslim world
does not understand the U.S.,

and the U.S. does not
understand the Muslim world.

I first met Anwar al-Awlaki

when he was appointed
the imam of Dar Al-Hijrah.

What is the role American
Muslims have played?

There was nothing
particularly odd

about his sermons that,
you know,

would have raised a red flag.

As a matter of fact, he was
promoting harmonious relations

between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The American Muslim population
are the bridge

between America
and the Muslim world.

But always there was
that undercurrent

of "us versus them,"

you know, sort of attitude,
that was there.

What you're looking at
is the current scene

at this moment
at the World Trade Center.

ABC's John Miller is with us --

John, who's one of our
leading reporters on crime.

Usually, during these
things, there's a basic calm

over the police radios
among emergency workers.

Um, I can hear them screaming.

Everybody who lived through 9/11

remembers
how that froze our world,

made us question our ability
to be safe at home,

of our government's ability
to protect us.

After September 11th,

all of the feelings
of the American Muslims

were feelings of sympathy
for the victims

and a sense of that,

"Whoever did this needs
to be brought to justice."

When the Joint
Congressional Committee

began investigating 9/11,

they discovered that
Awlaki had connections

to three of the hijackers.

Awlaki, by coincidence,

happened to be
in the same mosque

attended
by some of the hijackers.

And by coincidence,
he moved to the East Coast

and happened to be
in the same mosque

that is also attended
by some of the hijackers.

When you look at the timeline,

how these guys traveled,
how they interacted,

how they met with him
behind closed doors,

and the help he gave them
in each location,

there's an awful lot of smoke
for there not to be any fire.

A number of us in the press

became very interested
in Awlaki in 2002,

because the Congressional
inquiry spotlighted Awlaki.

There were portions
of that report,

28 pages,

which were redacted
in their entirety.

As a reporter, that made
this ever more intriguing.

Come to find out that
this was the time period

where he was soliciting
prostitutes in Washington.

He found out
the FBI knew about it,

and he may have been concerned
that was going to come out.

He realizes that
he's not going to be able

to live
in the United States anymore

because of the scrutiny
he's under from the FBI.

He goes to London.

They are plotting
to kill this religion.

He becomes progressively
more radical,

and it starts to become
a hostile environment

for him there, too.

So he returned to Yemen.

I'm speaking to you
from Yemen at the moment.

In Yemen, that's when we see

that he really becomes
openly radical

in the things
he's talking about.

So, I want to talk to you
about something that people

don't like to talk about,
and this is jihad.

At the time,
Awlaki's threats of jihad

from Yemen paled
by comparison to the threat

posed by bin Laden,
who was still at large.

After a show of military force
in Afghanistan,

the U.S.
quickly declared victory

over the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

And FBI special agent Ali Soufan

was tracking bin Laden's
operatives.

Al-Qaeda, after the loss
in Afghanistan,

after bin Laden is in hiding,

they shifted from being
chief operators

to being chief motivators.

And with that shift,

the threat from al-Qaeda
became the ideology --

the narrative
of the organization.

That narrative found
new roots in Iraq

when the United States
turned its attention

to toppling the regime
of Saddam Hussein.

In the minds of many,

this Western invasion of yet
another Muslim country

was a call to arms.

Thousands of foreign fighters

flooded to Iraq
in defense of Islam.

In the years
following 9/11,

the gaping hole
in Lower Manhattan

was a constant reminder
of the threat of terrorism.

In 1995, the Oklahoma City
federal bombing attack

killed 168 people.

It was right-wing
extremists who did it.

And if you do
the thought experiment

when 9/11 didn't happen,

we would be probably
very concerned

about right-wing extremism.

But 9/11 did happen,
and that's why we continue

to be very preoccupied
by this subject.

Since 9/11,

there have been twice as many
right-wing attacks

versus jihadist attacks
in the United States.

Look at Dylann Roof,
for example.

If Dylann Roof's name
was Muhammad, then, definitely,

it will be a terrorist attack.

But, in this case, it was
considered a hate crime.

When you have something
from outside,

something that's
connected to wars

in different regions,

something that you
really don't understand,

I think people
will be more scared.

It's an overreaction,

but it's the intended
overreaction.

The drama in terrorism
is meant to create fear,

and the ending, of course,
is the carnage.

Post-9/11,

al-Qaeda set its sights
outside of the U.S...

...Madrid...

Bali...

Istanbul...

Mumbai...

London.

By the time
of the trials in London,

when it emerged
that Awlaki's lectures

were on people's hard drives,

that's the point
where we decided,

at The Washington Post,

we got to dig in
a little bit more on this.

When Sue Schmidt began
digging back into the story,

she discovered
Awlaki's connections

to known terrorists prior
to 9/11

that the FBI had looked
into, but dropped.

I gathered string
here and there.

There were stories about

when Awlaki was living
in San Diego,

he was visited by
a procurement agent

for bin Laden.

He was also visited
by an associate

of the blind Sheik Rahman,

who was by then
already in prison.

So, the FBI opened
these investigations.

Each went on for
a couple of months.

They did not go anywhere,
so they closed both of them.

Ironically, the second one,
they closed a month or so

after the hijackers
had arrived in San Diego.

In 2006, Awlaki was picked up
by the Yemeni authorities.

It's a little murky
why he was in jail.

There were reports
that he was arrested

for kidnapping issues.

The FBI was very interested

in making a case
against al-Awlaki,

but the Yemeni government
let him out of jail

somewhat unexpectedly
at the end of 2007.

Allahu akbar wa lillahil-hamd!

On condition of anonymity,

a CIA operative
finally gave Schmidt,

on the record, the confirmation
she was looking for.

U.S. intelligence officials

were saying that they believed

he was an operational,
active al-Qaeda terrorist.

I think, when he became
involved with al-Qaeda

in the Arabian Peninsula,

also known as AQAP,

he found a channel
for his narcissism.

And that was being
the English spokesperson

for the narrative
of al-Qaeda.

Jihad will continue
until the day of Judgment.

It is youth who always,
in history,

bear the burden of change.

If you have come out
for jihad in my cause,

the ones who will
sacrifice their lives

and their wealth,
their time and their belongings

for Allah, azza wa jalla,

will be given a lot of rewards

from Allah, azza wa jalla.

I was never a supporter
of al-Qaeda.

I found al-Qaeda's views

to be repugnant
to the religion of Islam.

I always deemed them
to be a fringe group

that had nothing to do

with the actual jihad movement

that I was familiar with,
from Bosnia.

Nevertheless, I was still
an enthusiast of the mujahideen

that were fighting in Kashmir.

I encouraged a friend that I had
to go and get training there.

For helping his friend
travel to Pakistan

to train with a jihadist group,

Ismail Royer was
arrested in 2003.

He pled guilty and received
a 20-year prison sentence.

Because I was in prison,

I was only tangentially aware

of how important the Internet

had become in radicalization

until I met this crop
of young people

who had come in

after having been
radicalized online.

This group of people were
of a different degree altogether

of ideological extremism

than anyone
I'd ever encountered before.

We tell you Muslims
to rise up.

To hell with every ideology,
ism, and schism

that does not agree
with our Islam.

I was handing out flyers

on behalf of the Islamic
Thinkers Society,

and a young individual
approached me

and said that he agreed
with our message,

and we became friends.

Zachary Chesser was incredibly
intelligent and articulate,

but narcissistic to a degree
that was scary.

He went from not being a Muslim
at all to being a Muslim

and then on to becoming
a staunch supporter

of Anwar al-Awlaki
almost overnight.

He and Anwar al-Awlaki
would communicate,

like anybody else could,
over e-mail -- general e-mail.

I still remember
Anwar al-Awlaki's,

you know, Yahoo account.

We started to discuss the idea

of formulating
a new organization.

So we started Revolution Muslim.

Revolution Muslim
posted anti-Western propaganda

on its blog and website

to draw recruits
to their cause.

The hits on the website went
from couple hundred a day,

in the beginning,
to several thousand a day.

The rate of people that go

from a radical, violent,
extremist ideology

to actually the commission
of violence is very low.

But the more and more
that you spread the ideology,

that pool of recruits grows.

And I remember,
the very first public case

that was connected
to Revolution Muslim,

and her name was,
in the press, Jihad Jane.

The woman behind the veil,

Colleen LaRose, hiding
behind alias "Jihad Jane,"

recruited fellow radicals
over the Internet.

It was a case
of homegrown radicalization.

And they asked her, "Well, what
did you pay most attention to?"

She said, "I listened to the
lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki,

and I watched this website that
I loved, Revolution Muslim."

With more on this, we go
to Younus Abdullah Muhammad.

He heads up the website
revolutionmuslim.com.

Rather than talking
about Jihad Jane,

they should have been
talking about G.I. Joe.

Anwar al-Awlaki was proud
and very happy about this case.

And I remember he said,
"Now Jihad" --

basically,
meaning "terrorism" --

"is as American
as apple pie."

A new terror recruiting video
calls out by name

a number of young Minnesota men

who died fighting
for al-Shabaab.

Amongst the many Muslims

who could no longer call
the United States their home

were the Minnesota martyrs.

These young men
could not afford

to just sit and watch
as the American crusaders

perpetrated the most
hideous atrocities

against their Muslim brothers.

Allahu akbar!

- Allahu akbar!
- Allahu akbar!

The three things
that young people seek

across the board,
across countries,

is they're looking
for identity,

they're looking for belonging,

and they're looking
for a purpose.

We are facing you
with men who love death

just like you love life.

We love death more
than you love life.

We seek martyrdom.

Young kids who want adventure,

who want to be part of a change,

who have that
revolutionary zeal --

Salafi jihadism is offering
that to them.

30, 40 years ago,
these were kids

who may have been
looking towards far left

or anarchist ideologies
or communism.

Unfortunately, now, the biggest

sort of revolutionary
countercultural movement

in Western society,

and perhaps in the world,
is Salafi jihadism.

If you guys only knew how
much fun we have over here.

This is the real Disneyland.

You need to come here
and join us...

Allahu akbar!

...and take pleasure
in this fun.

It's a shock,
and it's never the way

I imagined that our life
would turn out.

Troy was a really
energetic child.

♪ You make a lot
of better friends ♪

He was very athletic.

He played basketball
and did karate.

By time Troy
was out of high school,

he wasn't doing well.

I think he was
sometimes frustrated,

sometimes feeling really lost.

Troy converted to Islam,

and it really was great for him.

He'd been struggling
with chemical use,

and it was just really clear,

you know,
you don't use chemicals.

And he stopped, and he was
really clean and positive.

He loved the community.

He loved the Friday prayers
with all the men.

He was excited about things

and really wanting to know
more about the religion.

Be careful.

Do not trust
the enemies of Allah.

I do remember, he was watching
some videos with a cleric,

but the little things
that I'd see,

it didn't seem really hateful.

Many of the people just follow
what is told,

what they're told.

I just was not aware to,
like, watch and go,

"What is that guy saying?"

Never ever trust a kuffar.

Then, all of a sudden,
he said he was going to Kenya

to study
and to teach English.

And you know, it was
a little strange to me --

like, I questioned him
about it --

but in my mind,
the way it made sense

was sort of the same way
Christian organizations

send missionaries places.

- Allahu akbar!
- Allahu akbar!

When the FBI came to let me know

about what they thought
was happening,

it was really shocking to me.
I didn't --

And I even e-mailed him,
and I said, "Stay in Kenya,

because the FBI thinks

that you're connected
with something bad.

And if you go into Somalia,

you're, you know,
that -- that..."

So I was still really thinking
that he was in Kenya.

We're here in the land
of jihad -- Somalia.

You guys need to come here.

This is the place to be.

Troy never would have considered
that he was a terrorist.

I think he may have believed
he was joining a rebellion

to help the Somali people.

He never was violent.

Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I'm not stupid.

I know that those people
get into the force of the group.

People do do
horrible things.

- Takbir!
- Allahu akbar!

- Takbir!
- Allahu akbar!

Troy Kastigar left
his home in Minnesota

in November of 2008.

Less than a year later,
he was killed in Somalia.

The loss is terrible
and shocking.

I'm careful about talking
about this loss,

because I can't bear

to have anyone be hateful
toward my son.

And, um, I just can't bear it.

There is this idea that these
young people are demons.

So to have other people

that you can just share
the grief with,

who also adore
their children...

and understand they made
some bad decisions.

Yes, my son was trained,
processed,

programmed to kill,

in Yemen,
in a foreign country.

Carlos grew up
as a very happy person.

In Memphis, we operated
a tour-bus company.

Carlos would love
to hang around

and talk to the people.

He loved to try to pick up
on a different language.

He got in some
trouble in college.

And basically, when he went
to court, the judge said,

"If I see you in my courtroom
again, you know,

you're going to do time."

And we honestly think
that scared him.

He wanted to change his religion
because he thought,

"Well, maybe I'm not
getting enough

from the Baptist religion.

I need to find another religion

to try to help
keep me out of trouble."

While in college in Nashville,

Carlos Bledsoe
converted to Islam

and changed his name
to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad.

One of the things that
really changed with Carlos --

when he gave away his dog.

Carlos loved animals.

And the golden retriever,
which was his heart,

he left him out in the woods,

because he said that
that was not something --

as a Muslim,

you shouldn't have animals
in your house.

Carlos come home
maybe a couple months later

and said to us that he was going
to be going to Yemen.

Bledsoe arrived in Yemen

with a letter of recommendation
from an imam,

describing him
as a practicing Salafi.

He was admitted
to Dar al-Hadith,

an Islamist seminary,
where he studied the Qur'an.

One late night,
got a phone call.

"Your son" --
that's the only thing

I could understand at the time.

While in Yemen,

Bledsoe was arrested
for carrying a fake passport,

which he had intended to use

to travel to Somalia
for training.

He was also in possession
of a flash drive

loaded with bomb-making
instructions,

as well as lectures
by Awlaki and others.

At the State Department,

we had a dialogue that lasted
almost a couple months

before Carlos was
abruptly released

from the Yemenis' jail

and they was going
to allow my son

to travel back to America.

When he was in Yemen,
before he came back,

he was in a jail
with well-known terrorists.

They threw him in there
with the wolves.

And now he's being told that
when he comes back to America,

that he must do something.

Shots rang out at this
Little Rock shopping center

shortly after 10:00
Monday morning.

The victims --
two U.S. Army soldiers.

23-year-old
Private William Long

of Conway was killed.

18-year-old
Private Quinton Ezeagwula

seriously injured,
when, police say,

a suspect in a black S.U.V.
drove by, opening fire.

When I got that phone call
from the FBI...

that was...

really a knockout pain.

"Why would you do this, Carlos?"

That was the question
that we kept repeating,

asking ourselves,
"Why would you do this?"

My son Carlos --
he forgot who we were.

You give away your dog,

you give away
all your possessions.

And if you can't convince
your parents or your family

to become Muslims,

then you forget
who they are, as well.

Carlos Bledsoe
sent a letter from jail

to the judge in the case.

He described himself
as a soldier of al-Qaeda

in the Arabian Peninsula.

He described the shooting
as a jihadi attack,

done in retribution

for the killing of Muslims
by American soldiers

in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bledsoe also spoke to the media.

He thought was
he did was right.

Basically, he was going
to the media

saying he'll do it again.

If he's let go,
he'll do it again.

Bledsoe pled guilty
to capital murder charges

and was served 11
consecutive life sentences.

This has been
a tough pill to swallow.

Still trying to digest it.

I think it hurts more
because I have two boys.

They do go and visit him.

And my oldest,
he asked the question,

"Mommy, what did
Uncle Carlos do?"

And I have not been
able to fathom the words

to let him know.

I just say,
"He did something bad,

and when you do something bad,
you have to --

you're punished for it.

You know, you have to pay
for what you've done.

And that's what
Uncle Carlos is doing."

And it breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart.

Let's set the scene
here at Fort Hood.

The base still on lockdown,

and we're still trying
to figure out the motive

in this shooting.

Reporter

wearing an Army combat uniform,
and started shooting,

shouting in Arabic
that God is great.

At an Army base
in Fort Hood, Texas,

a lone gunman killed 13
and wounded 32 others.

When it happened
in Texas, I felt like,

"Did Carlos start something?

Did my brother start it?

Are there people trying
to mimic what he did?"

Major Nidal Hasan was
an American-born Muslim

scheduled to be deployed
to Afghanistan

the following month.

Nidal Hasan was a man

who was
an American Muslim soldier

in the post-9/11 era.

Muslims were,
for right or wrong,

dying at the hands
of American soldiers.

And this was an American Muslim

who was struggling
with that split identity.

The Army and the FBI

are now combing Hasan's
computer records,

assessing his apparent
attraction

to inflammatory websites

and this mosque
in suburban Washington.

While Awlaki was serving
as imam of Dar Al-Hijrah,

one of the people attending
the mosque was Nidal Hasan.

And Awlaki,
in the spring of 2001,

presided over the funeral
for Hasan's mother.

By 2009, Awlaki was
openly radical,

and he started getting
e-mails from Nidal Hasan.

Nidal Hasan was very keen
to get instructions from Awlaki.

Awlaki didn't
give him too many.

But he certainly didn't
discourage him from his actions.

The FBI had been monitoring
Awlaki's e-mails with Hasan.

But due to a lack of
interdepartmental communication,

the 18 e-mails exchanged
between Hasan and Awlaki

were never shared
with the Terrorism Task Force.

Major Hasan never went
to al-Qaeda training camp.

He never traveled to places
considered al-Qaeda.

The criteria
that was used before

to detect terrorism,
did not fit.

Major Nidal Hasan was
born in Arlington, Virginia,

half a century ago.

So the problem we have now
is really a domestic problem.

This is a time of war.

And these Americans
did not die

on a foreign field of battle.

They were killed here,
on American soil.

America refuses to admit

that its foreign policies

are the reasons behind the men
like Nidal Hasan,

born and raised in the U.S.,

turning his guns
against American soldiers.

The American government
is losing this war.

This is something
that America

would never want to admit.

They would never want to admit
that they're being crushed.

21-year-Old Samir Khan was
a Saudi-born American citizen.

Samir Khan was a young radical
living in North Carolina

who had been experimenting
with jihadi media.

Samir Khan had become
a little bit of a star.

His blog, written
in the basement

of his parents' home
in Charlotte, North Carolina,

was getting some attention.

Anwar al-Awlaki was
in coordination with Samir,

recommending that we start

the very first
pro-al-Qaeda magazine

in English.

And I penned an article

that served as the cover story
for the very first edition

of what was called
Jihad Recollections.

Are you helping recruit
for al-Qaeda?

No.

- Not at all?
- No.

- Helping recruit for terrorism?
- Not at all.

When Samir's blog
caught the attention

of American news media,

he left the country on
a one-way ticket to Yemen.

When he joined Awlaki in Yemen,

they set out to re-create
this magazine format and to --

not just re-create it,

but really supercharge it
and expand it.

They created Inspire magazine,

which became a hugely
successful, new,

slick online magazine
directed at Jihadi recruits.

What Inspire really did
that was different is it took

all this kind of classic
Jihadi propaganda

and married it to,
"Oh, by the way,

here's how to build a bomb
in the kitchen of your mom."

Anwar al-Awlaki is presented

by the then-leader of al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula,

and he's asking Osama bin Laden

if Anwar al-Awlaki
can become the emir,

the leader of the organization.

And bin Laden is saying,
"I don't know,

because the magazine
that they're publishing

and the plans
that they're sending me

are absolutely even worse
than what I would do."

Strapping razor blades
to a pickup truck

and going down Times Square
to mow people over,

and plans to poison the water
supply of major cities.

Another big contribution
Awlaki made

to the Salafi jihadi movement
was to develop

the religious justification

for killing people who
insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

You've done this town
a huge favor

Hold on a second!
There are some extremists

threatening that if we give
to the celebrities,

they're gonna bomb us.

What?!

When "South Park"
aired an episode

depicting the Prophet Muhammad
in a bear suit,

Zachary Chesser posted
an ominous threat

on the Revolution Muslim
website.

Chesser posted a picture
of Theo van Gogh,

who made a film about Islam

and was killed
in the middle of the street.

He said that the writers
of "South Park,"

for portraying the
Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit,

would likely end up
like Theo van Gogh.

This thing was covered
in the press

as being the origin of it
coming from Revolution Muslim.

It went viral.

We have more
breaking news tonight

about one of the leaders
of a homegrown, radical group

called Revolution Muslim.

"Turhibunna" --
this means "terrorize them."

It's a command from Allah.

Now a man named
Jesse Curtis Morton,

who's also known
as Younus Abdullah Muhammad,

has been threatening the writers

of the television comedy series
"South Park."

Shortly after
the "South Park" story unfolded,

Zachary Chesser was arrested

for trying
to join al-Shabaab in Somalia,

and so I assumed

that I would also
soon be arrested

for the "South Park"
controversy.

So I left to go
and move to Morocco,

where I was ultimately arrested.

The Americans came to pick me
up five months later,

changed me into
the orange jumpsuit,

strapped the earplugs in,
blinded --

like the Guantanamo images

I used to use
to promote the idea

that America was at war
with Islam.

So my own conspiratorial views
start to creep in.

"Oh, my God, they're taking me
to a secret prison."

All of a sudden, the earplugs
come out and he says,

"I just want to know,

do you prefer to be
called Younus Abdullah Muhammad,

or do you want to be
called Jesse Morton?"

And sort of, I didn't
even think about it.

I just said, "Jesse Morton."

I wasn't going to Bagram
or Guantanamo.

I was being treated
like a human being.

So, I'm facing life in prison.

I ask to go to the law library.

Originally, I intended
to research my case

and to get out
of the trouble I was in.

Soon, it became apparent
that there was no way

to get out of the trouble
that I was in.

But I came across
this collection

called
the Encyclopedia Britannica's

"Great Books
of the Western World."

And I started to read
selected works

from the era
of the Enlightenment.

And I realized that
freedom is something

that every individual
yearns for inside

and that these are principles
that I myself believed in,

but allowed totalitarian
interpretations of Islam

to sort of destroy.

That woke me up.

And that was the start
of my de-radicalization.

Others, however,
continued to be radicalized

by Awlaki's lectures online.

Nigerian-born
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,

the son of a wealthy banker,

was studying in London
when he first discovered Awlaki.

Four years later,
at the age of 23,

Abdulmutallab transferred
his studies to Yemen

to meet Awlaki
and participate in jihad.

When asked to consider
a martyrdom mission,

Awlaki's latest recruit

was willing
to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Awlaki coached Abdulmutallab

in the making
of his martyrdom video.

Awlaki's final instructions --

"Wait until you are in the U.S.,
then bring the plane down."

Northwest Flight 253,
carrying 278 passengers,

was about to touch
down in Detroit,

when chaos broke out on board.

We heard a loud pop.

And then we looked back,

there was some fumes
and some flames.

I heard, "The bags
were on fire."

Abdulmutallab evaded security

by concealing a unique powdered
explosive in his underwear.

A U.S. government test showed
what could have happened

had the explosives
detonated on board.

It was only a technical issue
with the device

that saved the flight
from total destruction.

However, our brother
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

has succeeded in breaking
through the security systems

that have cost
the U.S. government alone

over $40 billion
since 9/11.

You are still unsafe,

even in the holiest and most
sacred of days to you --

Christmas Day.

The U.S. passenger-plane plot
had failed,

but Awlaki was already planning
his next operation.

This time, bombs would be
planted inside printer boxes

to be shipped via cargo planes.

Once over U.S. soil,
the bombs would be detonated.

But after a tip-off,
the packages were intercepted

at airports in the U.K.
and Dubai.

When they did the UPS bombing,

they printed a special edition
of Inspire, saying,

"Look, we only spent
a couple thousand dollars

on this thing,

and we paralyzed half of
the Western security system

as a result."

This attack elevated
Awlaki's status

to the highest level of concern
by the United States.

Awlaki became the first
U.S. citizen

to be put on a kill list
by the President.

3-0-1 ready to go.

Anwar Awlaki, the chief
of external operations for AQAP.

He helped oversee
the 2010 plot

to detonate explosive devices
on two U.S.-bound cargo planes.

He was involved in planning
to blow up an airliner in 2009.

The decision to kill
Awlaki, as an American citizen,

does raise complications,
but you have to do something.

What you do is the question.

I got good range,
good limits on him.

Declare fire.

Good impact.
Break away.

The U.S.-ordered
drone strike that killed Awlaki

also killed three others,

including fellow
American Samir Khan.

The problem here is that
the U.S. has done something

that I don't think it
has ever done before.

It has killed one
of its citizens,

somewhere else
around the world,

without any due
process at all.

I've got real concerns about it
because it sets a precedent.

Two weeks
after his father was killed

in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen,

the younger al-Awlaki

was also killed
by a drone there.

It's not known whether
he was targeted in that attack.

He was 16 years old,

and there is no public evidence

he was a member of the al-Qaeda
network in Yemen.

Awlaki was not
the most senior figure

in al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula.

AQAP will go on.

I think we've missed
an opportunity

to do more than just kill him,

but to discredit the ideas
that he pushed for years.

We killed the messenger,

but we did not kill the message.

It was a beautiful day.
The sun was out.

People
laughing and cheering.

We wanted to be there
at the finish line,

even though we didn't have
any specific person

who we were looking for.

It was about being there
as a part of the city.

Something just blew up!

All of a sudden, it just felt
like we were on a rocket.

And we shot up together
and landed next to each other.

There was smoke everywhere
and people screaming

and a lot of chaos.

The Boston Marathon
bombing killed three

and injured hundreds of others,

17 of whom, including Jess
and Patrick, lost limbs.

Get back!

I was in prison
when Boston happened.

And I was numb.

I was, like, shaking, especially
when it came out

that the bombs
used in the attack

were built upon the article
inside of the magazine

that I essentially laid
a template for

with Samir Khan
and Anwar al-Awlaki.

It's almost like being
insane and coming to.

You see the consequences
of ideas in the real world,

and it's catastrophic.

An attack on a live, televised,
iconic American event --

that shakes America's
soul to the core.

And the question is,
"Who did this?

And who sent them?
And who ordered it?"

And the answer is,
"Nobody sent them."

You know, they drank
the Kool-Aid on the computer.

The two brothers --

Tamerlan and the younger
brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev --

one was an American citizen,

the other one was
a legal permanent resident.

They'd been in this country
since they were children.

They radicalized here
in the United States.

They didn't
radicalize elsewhere.

The perpetrators
of this crime

lived a mile
from our front door.

They both attended high school
where my --

Patrick's parents met.

A teacher who knew him

at Rindge and Latin High School
in Cambridge was stunned.

There's nothing about him

that would suggest
anything like this --

politics, religion, nothing.

These weren't outsiders.

We were members
of the same community.

So it's even more confusing
and harder to understand.

If you look
at Tamerlan Tsarnaev,

here's a kid who comes
to America from Chechnya.

He wants to get girls and money
and things,

be on the U.S. Olympic
boxing team.

They changed the rule.

"You're a legal
permanent resident,

but not a U.S. citizen,
you're off."

That, I believe, created
identity problems for him.

He became very angry, very mad.

He went to the Internet.

In the Internet, he found
already established conflicts

that he can relate to.

It's the war in Chechnya.

He stumbled into people
like Anwar al-Awlaki

and his fiery sermons.

And then, suddenly, he decides

that he is not
accepted in America.

He is not an American,
he is a Muslim,

and he has to fight for Islam.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev really
saw himself as a heroic figure

whose dreams of Olympic-level
glory faded over time.

The Boston Marathon
attack was a way

to turn himself once again

into the hero of his own story.

The younger brother, Dzhokhar,
was not an observant Muslim.

He was smoking marijuana

and chasing girls and drinking.

For him, I think
it was the influence

of his older brother
and Anwar Awlaki.

A month before the attack,

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
tweeted about Awlaki.

So, they watch
Anwar al-Awlaki's videos,

and they got
inspiration from those.

But there's no sign
that they communicated back,

in a two-way street,
with any terrorist organization.

Now, a lot of people
will go back on that and say,

"Well, the Russians
tipped the FBI,

and the FBI looked at them."

Two years prior to
the Marathon bombing,

Russian intelligence
sent a tip to the FBI

about Tamerlan Tsarnaev,

citing possible ties
to violent extremists.

The FBI can open
a preliminary investigation

that basically says,
"We got a tip on this person,"

and they can run
that for 90 days.

But at the end of the day,
if you haven't found grist

for that initial allegation,
then you have to close it.

The problem is, you can't
watch everybody all the time.

An FBI surveillance team
surveil one person for a week.

It takes a team
of like a dozen people

working around the clock.

Some of these cases

are always going to slip
through the cracks.

There's no such thing
as a perfect system

for catching them all.

If the conspiracy was
just between two brothers,

your ability to get in front
of that plot is very challenged.

So, gone is the complex
terrorist organization

with hierarchical command
and control.

You're seeing
lower-scale attacks,

lower levels of casualties,

but the psychological effects
are still there.

America suffers
the PTSD of 9/11,

which, in turn,
magnifies the impact

of all these events,
large or small.

I was awaiting
my sentencing hearing.

I'm sitting in my cell,

and one of the inmates,
a young man,

tells me that he was thwarted
in his efforts

to conduct a terrorist attack,

and he tells me
about people on the outside

that he left
further plans with.

Me and the FBI are developing
a relationship,

and so I tell them.

They need confirmation
of the plot.

Long story short,

that was the very
first piece of cooperation.

That relationship
with the FBI continued,

and that was major part of
my further de-radicalization.

I really can't comment
on any specifics.

I can say that my cooperation
yielded significant gains.

Some of you might
remember me,

and others of you
don't know who I am.

But I'm the former emir
of Revolution Muslim.

In exchange
for his cooperation,

Jesse was released after serving
less than 3 years

of his 11 1/2-year sentence.

I was extradited from Morocco.

Jesse also agreed
to re-embed himself

as an undercover
informant for the FBI.

He recorded this video
and posted it online.

Nobody would have ever believed
that Younus Abdullah Muhammad

would have de-radicalized,
or that Younus Abdullah Muhammad

would have cooperated
with police.

The world is a very
different place,

but I'm hoping that some of you

might be courageous enough

to welcome me back to it.

All the old buddies
reached out --

everybody that I had
previous contact with --

and I re-embedded myself
in a network

that I really saw had
become much more serious

than before I went to prison.

ISIS is a metastasization
of al-Qaeda.

Essentially, the ideology
is the same.

But the reason that ISIS
is so effective in radicalizing

and promoting terrorism
in Western countries

is because they've established
something al-Qaeda never could,

and that is the Khilafah,
the Caliphate.

ISIS was al-Qaeda of Iraq.

And they said,
"Syria is a jump ball.

That's free real estate.

Let's grab our piece of it.
We'll plant the flag.

We'll call it
the Islamic State."

This is our Khilafah
in all its glory,

remaining and expanding.

Therefore, what you're doing,

the violence
you're perpetrating,

is actually the positive.

It is the preservation
of the Caliphate itself.

You know, the Nazis
and the Khmer Rouge

went to great lengths
to hide their war crimes.

ISIS has broadcast them
for everybody to see.

It's run
as terrorism mass marketing

through social media.

ISIS has built
its recruitment success

on its ability to project
an image of military success.

Fire!

What we're seeing is that

as they are less able
to claim that success,

as they lose on the ground,

some of their appeal
is also going away.

ISIS' first priority
was get people

to travel to join them
in Iraq and Syria.

They no longer urge that.

They want people to stay
and attack in place,

because there is
no pragmatic way for them

to get them over the border,
get them into place.

You have two choices --
either hijra or jihad.

You either leave or you fight.

ISIS has adopted Awlaki.

So he is as much
an influence for them

as he is for al-Qaeda
at this point.

"If you can't fight
the enemy here,

fight it where you are,

whether that's New York,
Chicago, L.A.,

or Orlando, Florida."

Born in New York,
Omar Mateen moved to Florida

with his family
at a young age.

Mateen's school years
were checkered

with fights and expulsions.

It was a pattern of behavior

that would follow him to his job
as a security officer.

When his second marriage
produced a son,

Mateen appeared
to be settling down.

But something he said
at his local mosque

led a fellow worshiper
to call the FBI.

Based on the tip,
the FBI interviewed Mateen.

But the field officer
assigned to the case

concluded that Mateen
was not a terrorist.

"I don't believe
he will go postal."

Gunfire, gunfire!
Gunfire, gunfire!

Position of cover.

Mateen is an individual
who wanted to be a policeman.

Because of psychological
testings,

he was not able
to be a policeman.

That triggered him to go
on a totally different path.

In Orlando, 49 were killed
and 53 others were wounded.

It was the deadliest
mass shooting

by a single shooter
in U.S. history.

Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers
of the Khilafah,

was one of the few
that was truthful to his Lord.

ISIS is very happy
to take advantage of that

and say, "Hey, see?

They responded
to our message,

and they are soldiers
of the Caliphate.

Look what they did in America."

But are they really
soldiers of the Caliphate?

No. The only relationship
they have is a narrative

that convinced them
to commit murder,

to commit terrorism,

in order to justify some sick
feelings inside them.

Same thing with
San Bernardino.

He went berserk.

He met his wife, and they killed
a lot of his co-workers.

In San Bernardino,

14 were killed
and 24 were wounded.

The links to ISIS
from that attack

are very, very unclear.

But because ISIS judged
accurately

that they could
make this claim credibly

and that nobody would
really push back on it,

it's become part of
the ISIS folklore now

that this was an ISIS attack.

It is an ideology that
can convince an individual

to kill for the name
of the Caliphate

or for the name of al-Qaeda.

If we don't combat
the narrative,

if we don't kill the ideology,

we're going to continue to play
a game of whack-a-mole.

Donald J. Trump is calling for
a total and complete shutdown

of Muslims entering
the United States

until our country's
representatives

can figure out
what the hell is going on.

Isolating
American Muslim community

by making the statement,

this hurts us twice --

as Americans and as Muslims.

Protection of the nation

from foreign terrorist entry
into the United States.

That's big stuff.

Let's say we banned
all immigration tomorrow.

That wouldn't solve the problem.

People are being radicalized

in their bedrooms
by the Internet,

which is not susceptible
to being banned.

So, that being the case,

what you need is not to alienate
the Muslim community,

you need to enlist them.

This is absolutely
playing into the hands of ISIS.

You're already seeing,
on social media,

pro-ISIS radicals
claiming victory.

The West will eventually turn
against its Muslim citizens.

If that view gains currency,

which one fears that it might,

that would have
the effect of, in fact,

driving people into the arms
of extremists

who otherwise wouldn't.

The narratives
of these organizations,

a lot of times,

it's based on our mistakes.

We invaded Iraq.
That fed into the narrative.

The images of Abu Ghraib
fed into the narrative.

Guantanamo Bay fed
into the narrative.

Killing innocent people
with drone strikes

fed into the narrative.

Banning Muslims fed
into the narrative.

That's why, on the eve of 9/11,

al-Qaeda had 400 members.

Today they have
thousands and thousands.

I believe this was part
of bin Laden's vision.

Mr. Bin Laden,
you've issued a fatwa.

When I talked to him in 1998,
in an interview, I asked,

"Are you worried about being
captured or killed by America?"

And he said, "Oh, it doesn't
matter what America does.

Someday this will
become a movement

that's driven by the message."

A lot of what he predicted
has come true.

It went from being
an organization

to being a network
of organizations

to being basically
a movement driven

by social media.

ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab --

we have to realize
that these are groups

that represent
a wider movement.

And it's the wider movement we
need to be more worried about.

As long as that
movement exists,

as long as it still
attracts people,

it will continue
to be a problem.

We had a lot
of tactical successes

in the war against al-Qaeda.

But all the tactical
successes we had,

in some weird way,

amounted to a strategic
failure --

a strategic failure that we are
still dealing with today.

If you really think back
to 15 years ago, it's like,

"Is the problem better,
or did we make it worse?"

During the hearing
of an operative

arrested as a result
of Jesse's testimony,

his undercover
status was blown.

This is a message directed
towards Jesse Curtis Morton,

previously known
as Younus Abdullah Muhammad.

Let's be honest,
you lied to my face

and took advantage
of many brothers' sincerity.

I called you to inform you
that a mutual friend of ours

might be an informant

that entrapped
a Muslim recently.

And now I just found out
that you've been one all along.

Seriously, man,
lost all respect for you.

You know who this is.

That's an old friend --

one of my better friends
from the movement.

But the reality is that
they are not friends,

and they never were friends.

In the beginning,
he emphasizes, like,

"Jesse Curtis Morton,"
the whole name.

Basically, you know,
that's letting people know,

you know,
"There's the middle name,

so now you can find him."

So, what do you do with that?

You just realize
how positive it is,

the change that you made
in your life,

and that you need to continue
to do work to counter them.

What would you do if I came
to your house, blew it up?

I'm glad that I've been able
to tap into my personal issues

and see the world
the way it really is,

rather than as an outlet for me
to project my own animosities.

De-radicalization,
it's a process,

it's not an event.

It's almost like
drug addiction.

You think that you're healed

and that you're
never going to relapse,

that you're never
going to return,

but then you realize,

"Oh, that still exists in me."

In late December of 2016,

Jesse was arrested
for possession of cocaine

and soliciting a prostitute.

We have to think
about the concept

of re-entry or rehabilitation.

We have to de-radicalize them
on the ideologies,

but you also have to
give them re-entry skills

so they can become
productive members of society.

It's not a new idea,
but the fact

that we've only started
talking about it

from the government
side now, it's, uh...

This is what makes you think,

"Okay, are we really serious
about dealing with the issue?"

Right now,
if you're a family member

worried about your kid,
you got nothing.

You do nothing,
kind of hope it's a phase,

you know, teenage angst,
they grow out of it.

Or you call the FBI
and, potentially,

talk to your loved one behind
a prison bar for 20 years.

What happened to my son...

I thought it's only
Somali community.

I never thought
that it's Caucasian.

I never thought that
it's African-American.

I find out this happen
to everyone.

We're talking about
small numbers of individuals

that are drawn
to groups like ISIS --

105 people in the last
two years.

These are manageable numbers

in terms of one-on-one
interventions.

You can have a bench
of religious leaders,

properly vetted,

intervention specialists,
social workers,

mental-health professionals
that you can say,

"I got a guy down the street.

I need your help on this.
Can you help me out?"

We haven't done that.

I'm an ordinary citizen,
but I don't understand

why we have so much
fear of talking

about what is real.

It is a real threat
to America,

as I said earlier today.

It came into my house,

but it's at your doorstep,
and we need to talk about it.

This shouldn't happen
to anyone--

any child, any American citizen,

any parent -- no one.

I used to travel to Minneapolis

to meet with mothers of kids
who had joined al-Shabaab.

And they're saying, you know,

"Seamus, can you help me
save my kids?

They're been brainwashed,
they've been kidnapped.

Help me save them."

That actually frames
the way I look at this issue.

I never want to have to sit in
an apartment-building basement

talking to grieving mothers.

I don't want to do it.

I think there's a way
to do this,

because at some point,

you don't want to have
those conversations anymore.

We got to figure this out.

We need to develop
a strategy where people --

regular people in communities
around the world --

feel part of this fight
against radicalism,

part of this fight
against evil.

That's the only way we can
win this war.