it s an entirely new religion. within weeks of reading the koran that victor gave him, bryant travels from long island to new york city, to this mosque in queens. he s decided to become a muslim. his conversion was fast. the mosque had come to was ran by the members are like jehovah s witnesses. although not considered a radical movement counterterrorism officials point out that its members, zealousness, can make some of them vulnerable to radical recruiters. several former members have become implicated in terrorism. for example, john walker lindh, the so-called american taliban, another the ringleader of the london 2005 bombing attacks. unwittingly, bryant neal vinas has taken another step on his path to al qaeda. a journey to jihad, that soon
scrabbled hills from pakistan region. bryant neal vinas becomes a folly-fledge member of al qaeda. by now he is already shown the al qaeda recruiters one of his most valuable assets, perseverance. veteran s cia psychologist marc sageman advised the nypd. that trait of persistence would make him potentially very danger if he had decided to do some kind of terrorist plot in the west, because he would not have given up. bryant is given a place to live with jihadists from europe. conditions in the small house are spartan. some of the europeans he meets are being trained for international operations. you have a subset of people whom might undergo different training in very small facilities on things like how to build an explosive device, how to evade foreign security services, how to communicate in a secret manner. soon, al qaeda instructors training bryant on ak-47s, rockets, heavy machine guns, how to build bombs, how to kill u.s. troops across the border in afghanistan. so he
potentially some type of test to vet him as to whether he was really serious about this. you re going to go through multiple paths, multiple doors, if you will, before someone says okay, we think we kind of sort of maybe trust this person. but when taliban militants here in pakistan don t provide bryant with the training in action he wants, his impatience gets the better of him, and he begins a series of unsuccessful attempts to join osama bin laden s followers. one time he disguises himself as a woman dresses in a burqa to hide his hispanic american identity, and sets off alone to find an al qaeda camp. he fails, but he won t give up and nearly loses his life because of his persistence. some fighters in the tribal areas still don t trust vinas. they suspect he could be a spy. on one occasion militants he runs into decide to kill him. and they almost do. but he talks them out of it. after a few more months, finally he gets what he wants, al qaeda relents, letting him into t
it is where he wants to be, but al qaeda has other plans for hip. his main value to al qaeda is the same value that they ve been looking for, really going back to 9/11. in the sense, who can operate for al qaeda in the west? bryant, the all-american boy, is being groomed for something special. he meets this man. one of al qaeda s founders. believed to be his current military chief. bryant neal vinas. here s an individual, not only has he spent a lot of time in the west but he s gets a u.s. passport and also from just physical appearance, he certainly doesn t look like he s an arab or a south asian, so if you re an al qaeda thinking that you know you re looking to potentially get around customs or some type of security regiment in the west, here s an individual who has a lot of appeal to you, who s just sort of shown up on your doorstep.
he is bryant neil venus and he is part of a frightening new trend, homegrown terrorists. radicalization is definitely on the rise in the united states. american citizens radicalizing, eager to kill their countrymen. venus is the terrorist next door. the american al qaeda. it s clear now the number of americans who have become radicalized and are willing to kill for al qaeda or some other terrorist group is on the rise. just this month right here in times square, a man by the name of faisal shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb. he was born this pakistan, but this is a story about an american-born citizen, a man by the name of bryant neil venus. he grew up in suburbia, loved baseball, but he became a terrorist and worked with al qaeda to try to explode a bomb in new york. he s interviewed close friends of his, tracked down other extremists in the united states who influenced venus. this a.c. 360 special investigation is an intimate and chilling portrait of a homeg