he s increasingly isolated in that strategy. i m joined by congressman peter king, member of the homeland security committee on counterterrorism and intelligence. i want to start where richard left off. counterterrorism officials have told nbc news there is a threat to american interests is very high. we re seeing international locales. how concerned are you about all of this? i think we all need to be concerned. isis, i believe, intends to attack the united states, probably sooner rather than later. by having the sanctuary, which they have right now in parts of syria and iraq, it gives them that opportunity. in addition to that and probably more dangerous is the number of foreign fighters. these are europeans who have gone to fight with isis in syria. also, americans have gone over there. europeans would be able to fly from syria to europe and enter
you point that out. everybody that said that to me is like a 22-year-old kid that has no military experience, no experience with the u.s. military and doesn t know what they are talking about. they are talking about pride and national pride but when you talk to iraqi personnel, military personnel who worked one on one, it s a completely different tune as you said. lieutenant general, appreciate you being on. thank you so much. thank you. up next in this hour, the u.s. supported maliki, no doubt about that. the man being blamed for the sunni backlash or does iraq s prime minister need to step down? is there a way for that to happen without the u.s. forcing that to happen? we ll talk about that and i ll talk to richard clark, the top counterterrorism officials his warnings about al qaeda were ignored before 9/11 and we re seeing exactly why. we ll talk to him ahead. you ve reached the age where you ve learned a thing or two.
now a growing number of extremist including sending billions of dollars in military and economic aid, training, pro-regime and militants deploying their own personnel into the country. reporter: counterterrorism officials emphasize his pedigree. he is the third cousin of usama bin laden, and all of the brothers have fought alongside the al qaeda network. two of his brothers wound up at guantanamo bay held by the u.s. martha: a family business is sounds like. what does it say about syria? if it really has become a safe haven for al qaeda, catherine. reporter: another educator the network sees conflict as a strong base of operations and fertile ground for training and suggest al qaeda s leadership is not just located in pakistan but rather the leadership renew alliances now sending it senior members to syria, the operation is not an affiliate but rather
running all these proxy agents to fight in afghanistan and defend what they regard as their back yard and to keep as an annex. were they afraid of another war? that was the most interesting detail i got. when you looked at that house and i went to the house after bin laden was killed, you noticed there was no escape route no, back door, no tunnel. when i talked to counterterrorism officials, they said we saw the same thing so we reckon he was planning to be warned and forewarned by his protectors and handlers. that made the americans looking at it to avoid telling people
insignificant part of the process. we just don t know. they are working hard to figure that out. thanks very much, pamela brown. let s dig deeper right now with our justice reporter evan perez who has information on the investigation. also with us is mike weiss, a 777 pilot and peter goelz, and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. evan, let s start with you. you re talking to your sources and learning new information. tell us what you ve learned. wolf, the leading theory, we re hearing from counterterrorism officials here in the united states, is that they believe this is ultimately going to prove to be an accident. now, they are not ruling out anything. there are still a lot of questions that they are looking into but they have come to this initial conclusion at least because they ve looked at online profiles, they ve done interviews with neighbors, friends, and they have done