thanks for watching. i hope you have a great week. special report isis behind the mask starts now. the following is a cnn special report. an altar boy from belgium joins the jihad in syria. >> we have to implement. it is a must. >> and swears allegiance to isis along with hundreds of other belgium belgiums. if you had been asked to execute someone would you have done it? >> it is islamic law. >> part of an unlikely terror from the heart of europe. >> they are like vampires

smelling blood. >> this is the story of why they go. all was brilliant and life was glorious. everybody wanted to go. >> and what happens when they come home? >> we are going to take over. >> so europe lives in fear, not sure who comes back to live and who comes back to kill. that's a lot of killing power. it's the sore story of an ordin kill who joined the most brutal terrorist group of the world. ♪ >> a summer concert in belgium,

this is the heart of western europe. a magnet for tourists from all over the world, charming, grand, the picture of old world wealth and elegance. ♪ [ crowd chanting ] >> this is the other side of belgi belgium, home to some of the most dangerous ever. they want to replace belgium democracy with an islamic state ruled under the most radical form of law. >> everyone believes democracy is evil. >> they are not just preaching, they are also recruiting for the world's most reviled terror

group, isis. at least 540 belgiums have gone to syria and iraq to fight jihad say researchers. per capita that is more than any other western european country. meet unis, a 28-year-old isis veteran. he offers a rare incite into the mind of an unrependa tant isis supporter. >> that dream lead him to the civil war in syria and to isis. he says he never killed anyone there. let me ask you something, if you had been asked while you were in syria to execute someone would

you have done it? >> there is the pledge of alliance. >> would you have done it? so you would have done it? >> it's something terrible, but yeah. >> now he is back, more than a hundred bell yums who have returned from syria and iraq. graduates from isis and other extremists groups here, now, walking the picturesque streets of belgium. >> we have to represent. it's a must. >> so we hear from a lot of people who support isis they believe this idealology will spread to europe and across the whole world. do you believe that? >> it's already here. i said it before. it's already here. >> but people will want to know, would you ever participate in a terrorist attack?

>> why should i? i'm here to live. >> so that's a no. >> it's not on my agenda. >> but unis and those like him are what people fear most. >> people who come back after they are trained in syria are very dangerous people one day. >> a lesson belgium has learned the hard way. a year ago isis murdered 32 people here and injured 300 others. >> in two locations in brussels, one at the main airport. >> and remember what happened four months earlier many paris. a massacre organized from across the border in belgium. >> all of europe is going to suffer because of this.

the problem originates from belgium. >> belgium is one of 26 european countries with open borders that allow people to move and work freely. crossing those borders you can see how easily terrorists can also exploit that freedom. we are now driving from belgium into france. i do have my passport with me but i won't actually need it essentially there is no check point here. it is free and open highway. it's like driving from nebraska into kansas. the only way you can even tell that you have move into another country is because the cell phone carrier changes. so this is belgium's new normal, soldiers and heavily armed police on patrol day and night, even as isis supporters are hidden in plain sight. >> the most frightening thing, thousands of european people

saying isis is cool. >> that's right. they think isis is cool and unis is one of them. he was actually raised catholic. ♪ >> baptized and became an altar boy. >> we were raised like normal people with holidays. on sunday we thanked god and that's the way it is. >> as he tells it the journey from the mainstream to margins of hell began with adolescence, smoke weed and trying harder drugs. his salvation was discovering this book, the way of the muslim, a detailed guide to living a life every hour of every day. he converted to islam and changed his name to unis.

he saw his new religion as a step up from christianity. >> i can compare it with buying a computer. if you know there's a windows 10 you won't go out with windows xp. >> so you saw it as an upgrade? >> it's an upgrade, yeah. >> upgrading opened the doors to belgium's large muslim community where a small but vocal subset of islamist fundamentalists were immer immerging. unis joined their ranks, attr t attracted where identity is based solely on religion. as a bell -- >> i'm not belgian. i'm muslim. >> so you don't feel belgium has given you anything? >> actually they have given him

something, about $500 a month welfare check. >> i'm going to get my money from the government. they want to keep me hair they ha -- here they have to pay. >> an ak 47 bb gun is a small symbol of his defiance. in some ways unis is not that different from other young belgiums. he likes to play video games and banter with his younger brother. but in the next breath he can simply shrug off the executions that isis proudly claims as its trademark beheading journalists. >> journalists were going to war zones. they are not over there to

glorify isis. they are there to make bad propaganda about muslims. >> and that would include me, presumab presumably? when we come back who inspired unis. >> we are going to take over anyway. >> and later unis on trial walks free. >> just like any other citizen of this country. so we're lucky. >> and shopping for an assault rifle on belgium's black market. energy is amazing. how we use it is only limited by our imagination.

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when unis, a former catholic altar boy in belgium converted to he says it brought stable to his chaotic life. his search lead him to join the world's most violent terror group, isis, and back to a zealous soldier of god. >> you can go further and try to practice what you're learning. that's the difference between

like they say the moderate one. >> why do you make a face when you say moderate? >> i don't believe in moderate islam. >> a silver tongue who master minded one of the most defective networks in western europe for recruiting jihadists. she a car sales man turned street preacher with a criminal record that includes assault, drug dealing and hate speech. >> we believe that allah makes the laws. he tells us what is allowed and what's forbidden. >> in 2010 he formed an organization called sharia for

belgium. he used belgium's freedom of speech to trash democracy and advocate strict islamic law. >> democracy is the opposite of sharia and islam. the muslim that says he is against muslim. he is the same thing as speak to go a christian jew or jewish muslim or something like that. it's impossible. >> though his vooision appeal t young idealists. >> sharia means no more criminality, no more drugs, nor crisis. >> it's like they are vampires who are smelling blood. >> his son joined sharia for belgium in 2011. >> we were hopeless. >> he was a typical teenager, even competing on a tv talent

show as a michael jackson impersonator. moon walking was a world away. >> did you try to talk to him about it? >> of course, absolutely, so many times we were asking questions. is there something we can help you with? did we fail as parents? >> he finally got some answers by chance when he saw him on the evening news at a sharia for belgium rally.

he took a bold step and invited him to his house to dproconfrone man he believed had brainwashed his son. >> i had never met someone who was so car asthmatic, so intelligent. it was like the devil was sitting on my table. an 18-year-old was also taken in. her mother says nora was an idealist determined to make a difference but lost. [ speaking foreign language ] >> samira seized jihadist recruitists as a grave threat.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> but the version of islam struck a cord with some young muslims. many faced discrimination in education and jobs and live in culturely isolated worlds. >> the level of exclusion and level of animosity and discourse of people in power towards the muslim community, belgium is on the bottom of europe. >> it lead to a deep sense of resentment which he exploited. unis sesz sharia for belgium gave him a sense of purpose. he took to the streets protesting secularism with its ban on full facial vaeils for

women and scarves for schoolgirls. >> over time the sharia for belgium message became more extreme, the tone more hateful. >> it was really becoming worrying. >> allah was top internal security official at the time. he forsaw terror and bloodshed and rang the alarm. political leaders were dismissive. >> thei heard that'd these peop are not extremely dangerous. you're facing a bunch of clowns. >> what was your response to that? you're the head of intelligence services. in your opinion there is legitimate threat here.

>> there is a buiit of frustration. we saw there was bigger and bigger radicalization. he turned out to be right. the group was a pipeline to isis and other extremist groups in syria's civil war, leaving behind desperate heartbroken parents. among those that went demetri's son. >> it's a nightmare. >> he would eventually return home and testify against sharia for belgium. she has not seen her daughter, nora since she left four years ago. video on her facebook page shows a girl she no longer recognizes.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> but for unis going to syria was the answer to his prayers. >> finally there's a place on earth where we can be a muslim for the full 100%. wh >> when we come back, life with isis. >> it's better than living here. it's the honest answer. hey team, i know we're tight on time, but i really need a... ...sick day tomorrow. moms don't take sick days. moms take nyquil severe: the... ...nighttime sniffling,sneezing, coughing, aching, fever best... ...sleep with a cold, medicine.

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in december 2013, 25-year-old unis arrived in syria. the country was two and a half years into a brutal civil war. >> the question is when wha are we in the world going to do about it? >> while he wrung his hands over

who to support militant jihadist groups quickly moved in. unis joined the most violent of them all, islamic state of iraq and syria, isis. >> they were doing what they try today accomplish, to fight for the sake of allah. >> isis's oun bridle brutality, the group would soon declare it had carved out a kal fate the size of michigan, ruled under its version of sharia law. unis denies committing atrocities in syria. you didn't kill anyone while you were there? >> no. >> you didn't kidnap anyone? >> arrested somebody, yeah.

that's not kidnapping. >> talking to him about his experience there, it's hard to fathom how even al qaeda disavowed them. >> it's a war zone. it's a normal thing. people die. it depends on which continent you're in. in america they are executing people with needles, electric chairs. it's also lek tri cushion. >> there was an allure. ♪ >> the ji hjihadi islamic

badasses. in america they flash their gang sign they point one if i think tore one god. there is no god but god, a message sent to the soaring sound track of a cappella. >> you just needed to snap your finger and you had two recruits. it is definitely the feeling of brotherhood. being in a community that helps when you need help they pull you out. when you need money for something they pull you out. the feeling of the belonging and the fact that they were taking part of a greater project that you, as a muslim, you were

suppressed by western government who didn't abide the law of allah and now we have the chance to go fight. they felt they were important. >> unis says he was stationed in this villa and one of his assignments was guarding prisoners. >> what kind of prisoners? >> people who stole something, burglars or something like that. so they were being locked up two or three weeks in jail. >> so no hands were cut off? >> not at that moment. >> were you disappointed? >> no. everything takes its time. >> not all of his associates were so restrained. he is one of unis's close friends. here they are at a rally. here he is more recently in an isis propaganda video. he stands above a man accused of

spying then coolly he pulls the trigger. according to evidence gathered by belgium intelligence he was not the only one. one example picked up on a phone tap featured a young belgian captured a day soldiers were executed. everyone cut someone's throat. another belgian phoned his girlfrie girlfriend. i placed the camera badly and it filmed nothing. were you aware of the behavior of some of your other sharia for belgium colleagues who were bragging about shooting people in the face and cutting their heads off. >> they where young people. >> meaning? >> who wouldn't?

>> bragging about cutting someone's head off? >> keep it for yourself and allah. you're doing it for him, not to brag out. >> what were they doing cutting people's heads off in the first place? or shooting people in the face? >> you have to ask them. i am not responsible for what they did. >> unis deflects criticism for isis's brutality by pointing to how american soldiers photograph themselves and urinating on d d deaddea dead taliban fighters. >> we don't condemn them in front of other people. we don't criticize muslims in public. >> unis returned home to see his wife and children, an isis

soldier back on the streets of belgium. >> and i'm doing whatever i can to spread out the word of islam. that's my goal. >> nonviolently he says. >> not every muslim is a terrorist or potential time bomb that's going to explode in a shopping mall. >> but that is exactly what has europe on edge, indoctrine nated radicals returning from syria have inflicted horrendous losses. >> three years ago the main idea was let's ignore them, let them leave. right now the idea is these guys coming back to kill us. >> when we come back, as innocent people die in europe's great cities unis prays for the killers. >> i ask allah to protect them and give them what they ask for.

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january 2014, unis back in

belgium is under arrest along with other suspected members of sharia for belgium. the prosecutor charged it was a terror group with a pipeline to extremists in syria and iraq. >> i didn't kill somebody over there. i didn't shoot somebody over there. >> awaiting trial unis spent two months behind bars with other radicals. >> every jail has now one or two people with what they call extremist thoughts or terrorism file. >> did you have a way of communicating? >> we did cards in the evenings, football outside. it was no punishment, to be honest. >> more than 100 young men like unis were coming home, some disillusioned about gist and violence and others desensitized

and trained to murder. >> if you are already past the stage of ideas into the stage of fighting for an organization, you went there, trained, acquired the skills, you have to have a very suspicious attitude. we shouldn't be naive. >> belgium had been slow to grasp the danger. may 2014 a man walked into the jewish museum in brussels and shot four people dead. >> it was the first time that we had serious terrorists attack on belgium territory. >> police arrested and charged a 29-year-old french national. he denies being the killer. authorities believe he had fought in syria with isis. >> it was kind of a moment where belgium woke up because we saw a frenchman acting in belgium.

>> it was beginning to look like there was a terrorist highway between france and belgium, but when it came to security belgium was wearing blinders. >> there was not the sense of urgency that exists now. >> the first recognition there were systematic problems came in september of 2014. unis was found guilty of participating in a terrorist group and given a three year suspended sentence, a punishment he flouts. >> as long as i do nothing that's against national security i can do whatever i want, just like any other citizen of this country. >> but you basically seem to be indicating your punishment was a joke. >> of course, so we are lucky.

>> as for sharia for belgium's leader, the judge ruled he was a driving force, and for that 12 years in prison. it was vindication for the man who had sounded the alarm before most people took it seriously. >> you could say that as a vkt ri and in a sense that's when we warned a few years ago it was a radicalization organization, an organization that helped people going to syria that we were on the right track at that time. >> but the damage was already done. several jihadist networks were entrenched in belgium, ready to exploit europe's open borders. paris, november 2015 with a plot launched from brussels isis

attacked. >> terror across paris. it is a city under siege. >> the death toll now stands at 118. >> the world watched as the death toll mounted. and what did unis think about the attacks? he saw them as payback for france's role in the bombing campaign against isis. >> it is a normal reaction. if you're attacking people, some times somebody will attack you back. if you spit in the air some times the spit will fall back in your own face. >> his sympathy is not with the victims but the attackers. >> i ask allah to protect them and give them what they ask for. that's everything that i can do. >> so in a sense you see them as heros? >> in a sense it is allah

decides who is right and who is wrong. >> four monts afths after the i attacks, march 2016, this time it was belgium. bombs in the subway and suicide attacks at the brussels airport. despite all the warning signs belgium was grossly unprepared. unis says it took several days for police to question him about the belgium attacks because they couldn't find him. do you think they are keeping a close eye? >> no. not close enough, because with the attacks in brussels they were searching because they didn't know where i was. they were calling at the doors of my sisters because they didn't know where i was staying. >> do you find that shocking?

>> shocking? it's a little bit funny ak ch actually. it's a little bit funny. >> when we come back. we were blindfolded. we arrived at this place and we are supposed to see a weapon. we'll see how easy it is for a terrorist to get one of these. energy is amazing. how we use it is only limited by our imagination. and at southern company we're building the future of energy, for you.

back in belgium unis is stuck in a world he despises. he is unrepentant about his time with isis in syria. do you ever regret leaving? >> i regret coming back. >> you do? >> yes. i want to live underneath an islamic. is that a crime? no. >> that profound detachment and distan is what frightens authorities. while they can guard the streets they cannot guard the internet where any radical can open a recruitment center. to see how it works we used a consultant to set up a facebook

page. he posed an a line of jihad posting that are popular to isis supporters. in just over a week 223 total strangers wanted to be friends. the majority from belgium and france france. in their profile pictures we found a sea of flags. several invited us to chat further on telegram, an inscripted app. when we asked one are you in syria he told us no, unfortunately, but i want to go. >> the youngest of all of those clowns and the most innocent girl in those circles can be the next suicide bomber in a european street.

>> they have an act for customizing their pitch. in >> in prison, religious radicals groom their cell mates with a promise of redemption through jihad. >> it like when you're drowning and you suddenly see that one signal sticking out, just grasp it and they feel reborn when they come out. >> reborn with a radical cause, and extensive criminal networks they can call on. >> if you go out to syria and if you have a dozen of criminals friends back here in belgium, you only need to make a telephone call and say, hey, bro, i'm coming back, i need a car, a safe house, a kalashnikov. okay, no problem.

getting a weapon really is that easy, even though belgium has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the west. after a few phone calls and secret meetings, we met a small time drug dealer. he showed us an a.k.-47, like the ones used in the paris attacks. [ speaking foreign language ] >> so you're saying there are 20 bullets in each magazine. so that's a lot of killing power. blakt market price tag, -- blac market price tag, he says, about $3,000. so who will win this battle and how long will it take? >> i don't want to be pessimistic, but i think that actions as those in paris and in

belgium could and will probably happen again. >> eunice says he has no plan of attacking europe. his plan son the next generation. he named one of his sons osama. >> did you name him after bin laden? >> yes. i did. and i'm proud of it. >> why? >> because that man is a hero. >> what's the problem with that? >> he killed 3,000 people at a very conservative estimate. >> if we have to condemn everybody who kills people, hell will be full. >> when we come back, he loathes belgium's democracy but gladly collects his government check. >> i'm going to get my money.

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there will always be a line between you and me and that line

is religion. >> eunice wants to live under sharia law. he hates democracy. he even joined isis, but on this day the ultimate paradox. it pay day at the welfare office. >> i'm going to get my money. from the government. because they want to keep me here, they have to pay. >> but they're not paying anymore. recently he got a job repairing bicycles. even so, he embodies a serious dilemma for belgium, how to distinguish free speech and religious liberty from life-and-death security threats. >> you're feeling affinity with your people and we are feeling affinity with our people. >> he chooses his word carefully, voicing support for violent jihadists but denying he

would use violence himself. i might be inclined to believe him but since we met eunice, he was been convicted of domestic abuse. he's obviously capable of violence. still, not every extremist becomes a terrorist but it leaves authorities here with a major challenge, to work out which radicals really are ticking time bombs. do you think there will be more attacks? >> i think the risk is very high, yes. >> in belgium, the experts give a hodgepodge of prescriptions, add not always what you would expect. on the one hand a secular muslim writer calls for harsher pun e punishments. >> when it comes to people who link themselves to terrorist, i think we have to be very hard, zero tolerance. >> while a former security chief says respect, due process. >> it can be very frustrating, but we can't leave the surroundings of what law allows

us to do. >> the vast majority of muslims here reject isis and see extremism as a scourge that hurts their communities but many feel increasingly alienated by the rise of right-wing parties and islamophobia. >> we are doing exactly what the islamic state wants. >> what do you mean? >> the eislamic states wants thm to be infuriated, to go out and join the islamic state and carry out attacks. >> it is a vicious cycle that will likely play out for years. do you see a future where europe and the west will be under sharia law? >> it's reality.

it will happen. it's a promise. >> shorauthorities can go afters on the battlefield, but they cannot kill an ideology. thank you for joining us, we begin tonight with the cnn exclusive behind the intelligence on the recent bans of lap tops and other electronics on flights into the country. we're learning about some chilling methods the bombmakers are using, including testing them out on real airport security scanners until the scanners can no longer detect them. evan and barbara did the reporting on this. evan, what are you learning? >> reporter: well, anderson, cnn has learned that u.s.