had on a war weary nation, hungry for good news, the black sheep provided a steady stream of it. theirs is a war story that deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. good night. >> tonight on war stories investigates -- >> we awoke to this war on 9/11. but the roots of this jihad runs deeper than most realize. >> we represent everything they hate. >> they can watch "american idol" at night and the next morning there is suicides going. >> that's next on war stories investigates, jihad. this is jerusalem.

the whaling walls, part of the temple built by king solomon. above it, the dome of the rocks. one of the most revered sights in islam. just beyond, the garden where christ prayed the night before he died. all sites holy to jews, christians and muslims. good evening. tonight war stories investigates the jihad. the holy war or struggles to spread well beyond this yanjient city of david, threatening innocent people around the globe. as you see, the jihad goes far beyond terrorists taking hostages, hijacking aircraft and the horror of suicide bombers. this is a war we did not want and few saw coming. stay with us. as war stories investigates the jihad. >> you don't need them there.

they are coming to you. >> i'm very aware they might be able to kill me. >> it is a war that is coming in and it's a war that make take 25 years. >> our responsibility is to not leave anyone tomorrow. >> they are menacing images of a hate-filled ideology with mosques, college campuses and religious schools. they use the internet, television, even graffiti to attract recruits worldwide and

captivating the boy next door. >> the consequences in this world and the income. >> experts are uncertain of how many 1.2 billion muslims are militant who is joined the jihad. people eager to use violence to spread islam. >> jihad. what is a jihad? >> jihad means constant effort to do something. historically it means constant effort on behalf of the islamic state to expand that state or to defend that state. as long as there is a leader or the friends, he has a discretion for the launch of that holy war. >> educated in beirut, he moves to the united states in 1990. he's a senior fellow for democracy and author of future jihad. >> in old centuries, when there was an islamic state, someone like osama bin laden declaring

jihad on their own would be in jail. you can't do that. now that there is no islamic state and no empire, osama bin laden and his allies are projecting themselves as a new interest and new killer. >> militant jihadis want to drive infidels, anyone out of the lands where islam reigns for centuries. >>. >> the real objective of the jihadist is to take back of planet earth and reestablish it. >> they are being invaded and occupied by nonmilitants. when they talk about islam, they mean all the lands that have been a part of islam. >> the professor of near eastern studies at the university and one of the world's foremost little east scholars. >> it is the duty of every able-bodies male to participate. it is collective. it is an obligation.

>> today's leaders, osama bin laden, hezbollah shakes and an iranian president called themselves jihadists. they claim they are following the path of the founder and his companions who established the first islamic state some 600 years after jesus. muslims believe god's word was revealed and is contained in the koran. 30 years after mohamed's death in 632, an internal split was between sunni and shia, but didn't deter the spread of the religion. in 1095, the pope called upon european christians to recapture the holyland. the campaigns and the crusade would change everything. >> the muslim response was minimal until they committed the

following. where islam was born. >> the holiest places in islam were threatened by foreigners and the call went out for a jihad to drive the infidels from the lands. >> that aroused the jihad that drove the crusaders out. this clearly saying your time has passed. your religion is superseded. this is the final word. move over. >> despite this great jihad, western influence is in the middle east to stay. for centuries, they came and went at will. from napoleon to the french and british. after the great war in 1923, the empire collapsed, ending it. three powerful factions of islam emerged. a hard core group of fundamentalists took part. by 1929, a second radical movement, the muslim

brotherhood. now shia scholars asked their followers to rid the lands of the prophet of western influence. these three strains of militant islam were brought closer together three years afterworld war 2. 1948, the day after the jewish state was proclaimed egypt, syria, lebanon, jordan and iraq determined to crush the new nation. >> it ended in a humiliating scene. i think it is that humiliation and bad enough to be dominated by the great empire. but to be defeated by a miserable gang -- >> what happened is it's the muslims think if they can reestablish their religion, they

can defeat israel. >> a spy served 21 years in the little east. he is the author of see no evil and blow the house down. >> maybe if we got religion, we will be able to compete and defeat it. >> in 1963, the muslim governments recognized the palestine liberation organization and the military arms, fatah. >> they joined the military wing and thought they could liberate palestine by using religion and arms. >> june 1967. egypt, jordan, syria and iraq amassed 500,000 troops and 800 aircraft from once again try to destroy the jewish state. this time the israeli victory takes six days, resulting in an israel that is three times larger. >> the arabs sit back and say what did we do wrong?

driven by religion and we have these things. that will allow us to fight back. >> israel's stunning victory spurred the religious fervor of islamic extremists, saying they were committed to terror. 5, september, 1972, munich, germany. 11 members of the olympic team are taken hostage by the terrorist organization, black september. for a day and a half, the hostage crisis was a televised global event. in the end, as the games continued all 11 israelis were murdered, five of the eight were killed and given state funerals by gadhafi. germany freed the surviving tourists and the passengers were used as bargaining chips.

the munich massacre and israel's's defeat of the arab army convinced the militants that terror was the best way to capture them and motivate young muslims to join their cause. general angry clerics were attracting new followers. the ayatollah and towering tehran, terror explodes worldwide and no one is safe. stay with us as war stories investigates the jihad. you always pay your insurance on time. tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance. ...from godaddy! in fact, 68% of people who have built their... ...website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. build a better website - in under an hour. with gocentral from godaddy.

>> in 1979, the shaw was forced to flee his homeland. ayatollah komeny, a shia cleric returned from exile and seized power. >> he was a very able person.

strong wills and american culture represents even culture. >> he served in tehran as israel's ambassador from 1973 to 1978. neither he or western diplomats predicted the firestorm. >> komeny became more and more convinced that he had a divine mission. just as nowadays they believe that the missing imam is on his right hand and whisked us into it and how and when to do it. >> his return symbolized the creation of the islamic state. >> mark is the author of guests of the ayatollah, the first battle in america's war with militant islam. >> the first time we confronted the rhetoric of radical islam.

>> 4 november, 1979. nine months after komeny came to power, a group of students stormed the embassy and take 53 americans hostage. it began an ordeal that would last 444 days. >> they originally planned to hold it for two or days and it was modelled after the sit ins that took place during the antiwar era. it was a publicity ploy. >> few realized they were not just targeting americans and europeans, they were intent on purifying islam as well. >> it was in 1979. >> she was an eyewitness to those who caught the silence of moderate muslims. >> i was a follow student at the university in syria.

the killings of my professor. boy a bunch of criminals. they were bringing a lot of grief. at that moment, i left. >> the murder of a college professor was hardly noticed. instead images of the embassy in iran and screaming radicals proclaiming an islamic revolution. >> in which the french revolution was there, there was a major shift in power. socially, economically and intellectually. >> christmas day a month after the hostages. this invasion gave islamic militants another cry for the warriors for the soviets to land that was once part.

>> backed by pakistan and saudi arabia, muslims from around the world flocked to join the afghan resistance. >> eager to inflict the defeat on the soviets, the united states delivered covert aid. >> we were in the middle of the cold war and the afghans had their hans out. there was blow back. we did it for the right reasons. >> by the time the soviets withdrew, muslims including osama bin laden claimed that victory was proof to totally committed muslims to defeat an infidel army. >> emerging out of that was the ideology. part of that operation with al qaeda out of that. >> president carter orders the rescue of the hostages and the mission failed in a sandstorm,

killing eight u.s. service men. >> without a single iranian firing a shot reinforced the belief that allah had intervened. >> they were not the only ones to suffer the wrath. 1977, he was the first arab head of state to officially visit israel. 6 october, 1981. it cost him his life. the successor arrested over 300 radicals and among them, the blind sheik. and future al qaeda member.

>> they came as peace keepers and became targets for the worst terror ax tack in history against the u.s. ♪ alright crew, let's get started. sure. ♪

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>> june 1982. the day after ambassadors gunned down in london, defense forces move into lebanon. their mission, stop murderous attacks by yasser arafat. as the battle raged, ayatollah watched from tehran. >> he wanted to be described as a revolutionary and they had to move it to a set country and that was lebanon. >> move, they did. >> they set up an organization.

>> it was orchestrated from tehran. they could gain within lebanon a proxy. a fault that would be loyal to him and hezbollah. and inside the country. >> in august of 82, a multinational peace keeping force of marines, french, italian and british soldiers. they were branded as invaders. >> it's like car bombs. no biggie. >> on 23 october, armando was a 29-year-old marine sergeant. >> i had gotten off at 4:00 a.m. on the second floor. in a certain area. everybody was close to there. this was the assigned places. that's the first time they wrote the rules. it's too crowded in here. you can't sleep. we went to my room or our area

where we had 15 marines. >> just after 6:00 a.m., the mercedes benz loaded with explosions, crashed into the lobby. the building collapsed, killing 241 u.s. service men. >> i was buried under rubble for four hours. the concrete is going in the back of my thy. >> moments after the marines were hit, a second killed 58 french paratroopers. hoz bo hezbollah was behind the attacks. >> sorry there anything that could have been done to prevent the attacks some. >> i don't think so. it's growing overtime. >> at the time vice president dick cheney was in his third term as congressman. >> in the early 80s when we grew from beirut, that took it as evidence if they killed enough americans, they would change the policy. i don't mean to be critical of

the decisions that were made 20 or 25 years ago, it's different than what we are faced with now. >> kidnappings, hijackings and bombings stretched from cairo to lockerbie, scotland. in the summer of 1985, hezbollah's hijacking of flight 847 focused the world on militant islam. among the passengers, a 23-year-old navy diver who was brutally beaten and shot and his body dumped under the tarmac. >> a body of a young american hero robert dean was returned to his native soil in a coffin. let me make it plain to the assassins in beirut and accomplices. wherever they may be, america will never make concessions to terrorists. >> one of the hezbollah hijackers was released from a german jail in 2005. >> i really, really expect more

than to allow convicted terrorists to be released after having killed americans. released early because of good behavior. >> after a decade of confronting jihad overseas. >> osama bin laden declares war in the west from the mountains of afghanistan. that's next when war stories continues. >> i want to drive us out to establish it. it's what they have told us. >> it's essential that we listen to the words of the enemy. i got a mortgage offer from the bank today. whuuuuuat? you never just get one offer. go to lendingtree.com and shop multiple loan offers for free! free? yeah. could save thousands. you should probably buy me dinner. no. go to lendingtree.com for a new home loan or refinance. receive up to five free offers

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>> it's the shock being felt around the world. iraq invaded kuwait. >> it look less than two