world economic forum. among the key topics being discussed global economic growth, income and equality, and talks over the future of syria and iran. those are the headlines, i'm tony harris, inside story is next on al jazeera mentioner. america. >> post soviet russia has been fighting separatists and religious extremists for decades. now the winter olympic games are just weeks away, and terrorist threats are the "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez.

the olympic games gather athletes, heads of states from all around the world. and it is a tempting target for killers who want to create maximum damage, get the world's attention and make a political point. in the modern age every host city has had to worry as much about security as weather, tv rights, accommodations and traffic. with the winter games in sochi just a few weeks ago and the recent bloody terror attacks just a few weeks ago, president vladimir putin know the threats are high and real and there are a number of groups who would like to put putin's pride and joy in a world humiliation. russian security forces

killed islamist leader, a senior insurgent suspected in leading numerous attacks on russian target. >> what has happened in the run up olympics is proof of a hard line approach 1234 the shootout comes at a time when the russian leader faces intense international pressure over rising security concerns at the sochi olympic games next month. he spoke about the situation last friday. >> we provide security for guests of the olympic games, and we're going to do everything for them. >> the collapse of the soviet union in the early 1990's reignited movements in the caucasus region. check knee i can't has seen two wars and violence has spilled

over. putin led the second war against chechen separatists in 1999, thousands were killed. extremist groups are now vowing to disrupt the games as pay back for russia. security services are currently looking for three black widows, believed to be planning olympic-related attacks, looking to avenge their own husband's deaths, wanted posters for a suspect the black widow is hanging up in sochi now hazard the city prepares to host 90 nations. >> the russian president has repeatedly stated that he would insure security in olympic games. i'm convinced that sufficient measures are being undertaken. >> a jihadist organization based in the north caucuses.

>> as for your olympics, we have prepared if god permits, and when the tourists come, there will be a gift for the tourists if god permits. we'll make a present on our part of muslim blood that has been spilt for the entire world. >> claiming responsibility for two suicide bombs detonated in the russian city of volgograd last month that killed 34 people. security personnel will guard the olympic site using a ring of steel with metal detecters, sniffer dogs and bomb detecters. threatening groups say other parts of russia are targets, too. for some u.s. lawmakers putin's assurances are not enough. mike rogers, intelligence

committee chairman in house of representatives. >> i am very concerned about the status of the olympics. i do believe that the russian government needs to be more cooperative with the united states when it comes to the security of the games. we have found a departure of cooperation that is very concerning to me. we don't seem to be getting all the information we need to protect our athletes in the games. >> the u.s. is offering to help with security in sochi. the pentagon said in a statement monday air and naval assets to include two navy ships in the black sea will be available if requested for support and consultation of the russian government. the governments will clarified there is no such requirement at this time. an estimated 15,000 americans are planning to travel to see the games. the opening ceremony is friday,

february 7th. >> the successful staging of a modern olympics, the tightly controlled tota totallen have an advantage at a time when those using political violence would be itching to make a point. protecting sochi is the inside story. joining us to look at russia, olympics and securitiment donachie barelli, former assistant special agent in charge of the new york joint terrorism task force for the fbi. in our washington, d.c. studio glen howard, president of the jamestown foundation, and from virginia beach, virginia, mary mangejekian in the robertson school of government in the

university of virginia. she was cultural attache in moscow. is it getting harder to protect a gathering of people from that many places? >> well, it's always difficult to protect that many people, and especially something like the olympics where you have multiple venues spread out in different parts of the country. you have the ice arena in one area, skiing slopes in another area, and i would say that overall in some ways these venues are going to be easier to protect. as you referred to, this ring of stilsteel around them. you have the games themselves

but you have all these side projects and fan zones and soft targets like hotels and rants restaurant. it's not just going to the game. people go to enjoy a range of activities, and this is very difficult to protect earn at every place they would want to go. >> is there a tension between being open and being closed. if you look back at the list of recent advance, london, melbourne, vancouver, these are dense, highly built up places. they must be really hard to cut off. it can be expensive where you want fans to enjoy themselves. you want them to not feel like they're being treated lick prisoners in a lockdown situation. that's one hand, and then on the other hand you have to take enough protective measures, for example, screening with bomb

dogs and searching ladies forces, things like that that can be invasive. so you want to try to find that blend of being invasive enough to protect and not kill the spirit of the games. this is a delicate balance and sometimes the organizers of the events can be at odds with the security people because sometimes those ideas are opposing one another. >> glen, are there particular challenges, are there particular challenges in russia given its recent past? >> i think people failed to take into mind it's the warmest place in russia. and the operations as putin has described, they're calling it the ring of steel. they've put 50,000 men to

protect the olympics. but this region is frui fraughth regioinstability and we're talkg about potential thousands of militants up in arms fighting russia in the north cacases. we have to bear in mind there were 100,000 laborers were brought into sochi just to help build in the construction. many of these people came from central asian and then 14,000 elections from all over russia. how are they vetting all these people. the russian approach has been has been a military operation rather than a counter terrorism guarantee. >> the olympic committee did not take account of where sochi was

before making that choice. >> i think so. the sochi olympics is as important to putin as munich was for hitler. this is a chance to showcase the new russia and many people on the international olympic committee who signed off on this, a lot of questions are occurring now. i think what you're seeing from this latest outburst of congress there is a lot of questions being raised now. especially with bengahzi and how they handled that. three weeks away from the olympics, what's happening, are we putting 15,000 americans in sochi, there are a lot of gaps and concerns. >> professor, you heard glen howard touch on it previously, but this is not just not another

olympic games. this is post russia's coming out party, and a lot on the line for vladimir putin to proof that prs russia is a success, modern russia. >> of course, at a cost of $61 million. that may be the reason why they had the approval to hold it in sochi they were able to donate so much of their resources to creating this spectacularcal, if you will. even if nothing course the fact that right now we're talking about terrorism rather than any other aspect of the olympics, means that to some degree the terrorists are already starting to get what it is that they wanted, which was to have this be the olympics that is actually about terrorism in the caucuses.

>> is there pressure on russia to show that it can do this on its own? >> yes, if you look at the demands made by this group thougthey made astatement about, they said they had nothing to do about it, first of all. but they said explicitly, we don't have a beef against the western world, if you will. we're not at war with the united states. we're only at war with russia. it may be part of the reason that putin is not looking for outside help in the same way is because he does regard this perhaps as largely an internal conflict. >> when whey come back we'll talk more about this part of the world and it's recent history why there is so much restlessness in the north c

caucuses. >> it's a parental right to say this is the way i'm gonna homeschool my child. >> home schooling, or no schooling, part of our weekl long, in depth series. america tonight only on al jazeera america >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. first sense the conflict

began nearly three years ago. syria's bloody civil war has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions of others. more than half a million threing the conflict are now in neighboring turkey. many of them are living outside refugee camps. he spent some time with several refugees and nick, good to see you, what are those people saying to you? those syrians? >> yeah, tony, these are stories of absolutely heartbreak, and inside syria they have all fled horrific very violent fighting and just give you one statistic, one out of every three homes inside syria has been destroyed or damaged. and so that's why these people have to leave, they feel like their lives depend on them leaving. they are fleeing to lebanon, fleeing to jordan, as you said thereforing also to turkey where i was over

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. on this edition of the program we're discussing security for the upcoming sochi security in russia. there is one separatist group from the caucasus that have made threats. there are weighty tones that we can read, but we need the thumbnail sketch. what is it that people need to understand from this part of the world to see where sochi sits in the threats. >> there is a population of 7 million muslims inside the north caucasus, and all the way to the caspian there is this belt that people have aspired and retained a very strong sense of national identity.

they have fought seven wars and chechens have fought with the russians. you have groups who have fought with the russians and many were wiped out, the first genocide of the 19th senator. 19th century. there whole area is so blood soaked, these groups have appeared for some level of self determination. the in the 1990's, and from since threaten chechnya has evolved from the north caucasus. sochi is basically an island. an island in ethnic and unrest for people who have lost their rights. putin is determined to revive russia, and people forget that

russia is a multi ethnic empire. and it's always been that way these people didn't want to remain russians, yet there they are and were kept inside by pretty brutal war. was several government tried, offered, was some offered? >> there were two chechen wars, one in 1994 and one in 199. in the second chechen war there were foreign fight whose came in to fight in that conflict coming from other islamist lands. at that point it stopped being purely an internal conflict, and if they were to offer autonomy to this group they would like to

implement sharia law and there would be a base for islamic base for the caucasus. it's quite the dilemma for the russian government as to how they should treat this territory. >> over the last dozen years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the idea of networks and transnational movements have dominated the discussion of how the world responds to this. is this a particularly sensitive part of the world for those kinds of threats, and are other governments around the world watching closely of what is happening now? >> absolutely they're watching closely. we've seen this with other groups that have started off with local groups that are really concerned with regional issues. back in the late 90 90's and

alqaida. they didn't need to worry about al-qaeda because it was just a local group interested in the events of the middle east. look at what happened years later. this organization ha has morphed and split and has funding. you may have a local situation now but who knows what the future is going to bring. >> so at a time like this would other security services be watching even if they don't feel that they're directly implicated with what is going on in the caucasus. >> yes, they're watching, and more over, they should be participating. and russian should be inviting others to participate in the collection of intelligence, but realize the olympics, it's in

russia's backyard, but the olympics belong to the world, this is a world event, and it's everyone's responsibility to make sure that the games come off safely and securely and the u.s. the e.u. the russians, everyone has a dog in this fight, that's where mechanism needs to be working in over drive, not just collection, but sharing that information with one another to make sure that all these dots are being properly connected. >> what is at stake for russia and the rest of the world, we're going to take a break and when we come back we'll talk about the olympics and other big events of its kind moving forward. this is inside story.for help.

>> at a time when the two countries are at loggerhead in other places in the world, yet here we are, advance equipment being offered to the russians. naval assets in the black sea, what do you make of that? >> this is what it takes for an event like the olympics being successful in terms of a counterterrorism effort in the united states we have other assets come, other countries help out. that's what it takes to be successful. so i'm not surprised that we are deploying assets to russia, and if we look back at what happened even with boston when they had the bombing during the marathon yes we have some information from the russians, but in my opinion it was not complete. had we had more full disclosures

we might have been able to do more. another part of this thing is a lesson learned from boston. not only do we have to get that intelligence information but share it in a manner in which we can act on it. >> professor, even though the two countries are rivals in various places aroun around thed and around various causes it would be a loss for the united states, too, if there was a successful attack in sochi? >> certainly it would be a loss for the united states if any of our own people who are injured. yes, i think the whole international community would certainly suffer from an event like that. we have no reason to believe that these terrorists would be specifically targeting americans or even necessarily high profile people. practically everyone who has been targeted thus far by these types of suicide-bombers have been on russian policemen, members of the ministry of

interior, but certainly any loss would be tragic not only for russia but the whole international community. >> help us understand a little bit before we close some of the logic, the world would react with revolution almost uniformly countries in all different ideological camps would decry a successful attack against the olympics. how do you win if you pull something like that off, and what's the discrete audience for whom an act like that is performed? >> the thing about the olympics are any of these international sporting events, whether it's the olympics or world cup, which has also had issues with terrorism, there are large, symbolic events. they want large symbolic attack that is going to get their name in the nub and on the news. i'm sure after tonight everyone

will know where dagastan is because of maps that have been drawn up. did you know that they had a website. when i tried to go on their website to learn if they made a statement about this, i couldn't get on. i don't know if russia has tried to shut down that website or if it has crashed because of all the newspaper reporters who want to get their side of the story. they're profiting from making these threats. >> professor, thanks a lot. glen howard here in washington, and thanks to all of you, this brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. see you next time.

children once sacrificed their childhoods, even their lives, working in american mills, mines and factories. the us rooted out child labor practices 75 years ago. but today, us agriculture remains a stronghold for child labor. >> i know most kids come out here to help their parents out, get the money to pay the bills. >> it's just another day on the fields of america.