discussing jihad with his mother. russian intelligence intercepted that 2001 call, where tamerlan also mentioned a possible trip to palestine, but moscow didn t inform the cia until the days following the marathon attacks. nbc s michelle franzen has the latest on the investigation. reporter: a key focus for investigators centers on tamerlan tsarnaev s visit to dagestan in 2012 and what he did during his six-month state. authorities tell nbc news they are weighing russian reports on what they learned about tamerlan while he was visiting family. the big question sunday for lawmakers, whether tamerlan received training during his trip. i suspect that ultimately we re going to conclude that a lot of the radicalization took place before the trip. that these brothers, particularly the older brother, were more self-radicalized, that online sources were probably among the most significant factors. reporter: several former counterterrorism officials tell nbc news investigators are
them. now to boston. two weeks after the marathon bombings, investigators are still working to understand how the tsarnaev brothers were radicalized. over the weekend, we learned russian authorities briefed the u.s. officials in the days after the attack about a 2011 conversation between the older suspect, tamerlan tsarnaev, and his brother, in which they discussed jihad and a possible trip to palestinian territory. however, that information, which was captured through a wiretap, was apparently not shared with u.s. intelligence until after the april 15th bombings. counterterrorism officials have also confirmed the tsarnaev s mother was placed on the cia s counterterrorism database in the fall of 2011. that s the same time her eldest son, tamerlan, was put on the same list. now officials have continued their search for an unspecified number of person of interests.
that may cause some attention. but they re very, very hard to find, much like lone wolves in general. so this is one of the real challenges that counterterrorism officials face today, especially in law enmeforcement. and, dan, the u.s. has historically the u.s. government not always been willing to buy the russian liechb that chechnya is a breeding ground for extremists. u.s. officials just think they re trying to drag us into their war. do you think it s possible that that skepticism may have played a role in how the warning about tamerlan was handled. he was interviewed in 2011 but not followed up on in 2012. well, we know that chechnya is a breeding ground for extremists, but it s mostly been extremists who were targeting russians. and i think that one of the issues here is the sort of historic relationship between the fsb, the successor of the
now. a common thread, dan, that we ve seen over the last decade is attacks or attempt at attacks being carried out by individuals who have recently moved to this country taking out their frustrations on their adoptive countries. for example, the attempted times square bomber. what kind of challenge did these type of terrorists present to counterterrorism officials as opposed to more traditional al qaeda type terrorists? well, not just in this country, you ll recall that in france just a couple of years ago a man named mohammed ma raw killed a lot of people in and around ta lose, also a case in holland in 2004 where he killed a famous artist. these are very, very difficult cases because if they re not maintaining connections with terrorist groups in other countries, then there are not a lot of leads to go on. sometimes these people will say things that will get reported by members of their community or others, or they ll do postings
sourced manhunt spread via media but more importantly social media. that s right. the minute they put the picture and video out last night it took off. people started calling, people giving tips. they flooded local authorities. that s probably part, certainly part of what led to the down fall of the second suspect here tonight. kate snow starting off our coverage covering the story tonight. thanks. our chief foreign affairs correspondent chief foreign correspondent richard engel here in the studio with us tonight. there s a lot of ground to cover, but you find meaning in the most interesting things that we have witnessed tonight. that is from the applause that came at the end of the night to the people who saved the day to the fact that this suspect is alive. why those two things? i thought those were the two things that struck me about what we saw today. first that he s alive. because now he can be debriefed and we can answer these questions that counterterrorism