conversations with the family, those extend out to friends, to colleagues. your first question is whether there was a conspiracy around this. not yesly just people providing weapons but people who were part of the because they knew something was a foot. did something was happening, did they communicate with number a year ago where this rat calization started. it s almost a ripple effect for the investigation. finally, the question i would be having now, in the wake of the farris plot, who were people in syria who have transitioned over the past month or year in isis who have said, we re not going to passively encourage people to strike europe and the united states. we are going to train them and send them out because i d be worried after paris that isis is going to try to send people to new york and california. there have big questions how someone without any training could pull off these pipe bombs,
unquestionably. put them all together in the baking heat of southern iraq a man who dreamed of a new kind of terror. it was a recipe for isis. they were playing soccer together and strategizing together. one thing is clear. he went through a transformation at the camp. he was an average person and he was arrested by the americans. by the time they left he was someone else. all we know is he became a different secreture in terms of rat calization and in terms of building a huge network and militants in the prison. he networked with hundreds of jihadis, at least some of whom would join isis and the day
motivation for what took place. and of course, we want to be very cautious about characterizing it one way or the other. but michael does bring up some salient information here. i want to bring in now nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. richard, we were talking earlier today about the link between chechen rebels and al qaeda. i ll read an excerpt from the council on foreign relations, they talk about the newer size between al qaeda and chechen groups, chechen militants fought alongside al qaeda and taliban forces reportedly and the u.s.-backed northern alliance in late 2001 and the taliban regime in afghanistan was one of the only governments to recognize chechen independence, osama bin laden backed chechen rebels in the 1990s during their civil wars with the russians. tell us more about the interlinkage and the rat calization of that part of the world. it s not just chechnya, there s also a region called babistan. these are areas that long wanted independence. whe