joining me now is evan coleman and roger cressey.er, they lived in the united states for ten years. we've seen similar stories of radicalization. how does it happen? >> they didn't come here already r radicalized. we don't know if it was external sources, personal struggles, family issues, they are perceived as religious or ethnic duty. these are all possibilities right now. but we've seen in the past, be it with the faisals of the world, he was a citizen. he came from pakistan. he was radicalized because of the u.s. war against al qaeda and effects on that and the tribal region where some of his family was from. he was trained by pakistani taliban and came to the united states to try to attack the times square. that's a classic situation where we thought someone who was folded into the fabric of american society but ultimately became radicalized for political reasons. we don't know if that's the case for the tsarnaev brothers. >> that was going to be my question. we don't know if they were radicalized. there's no statement or manife

now is mark potok and editor for the intelligence report and "hate watch" and by phone, edwin evan colemanwhat do you notice about the type of event that the bombers chose, a marathon. what does that say to you? >> it's very difficult to pin this on one group or one cause right now but if you do look at the targets here, at least in my opinion, this doesn't show an extreme right-wing group or white supremacist group. there's no doubt that these kinds of groups have gone after marches and parades but that's more to civil rights marches, tied to a political cause or some particular event that is significant to one supremacist. aside from monday was patriots day, it's hard to see how it would fit into their agenda. also looking at the actual device that was used here, it was built using pressure cookers. no one has a monopoly from that technology, it does happen that al qaeda and yemen has very recently been urging people to build their own homemade bombs using, guess what, pressure cookers titled under "how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom." so certain thrly there are a lo question

nbc news terrorism analyst evan coleman is joining me in studio. thank you for being here. let's talk about radicalization, because we heard from former white house counterterrorism expert richard clark this morning. let's listen to what he had to say. >> how do you tell when someone gets radicalized? they're normal, they're happy kids in cambridge, then something happens. a switch is flipped. how can the fbi, how can homeland security notice when that happens? what i want to know is what did the russians do when he went back to russia? they had already said they were interested in him. then he goes back to russia and spends over six months there. what did they do? did they follow him around? that's a question we need an answer to. >> so what are the answers to these questions? we are not a police state, and yet this was someone around whom there were red flags. >> yeah, and look. there certainly was information provided by russian security service to the fbi, but we have to put that into context. the russian fsb and other agencies are not always w

evan coleman is an msnbc terror analyst. evan, what do you make of what we just reported? >> yeah, well, i mean, unfortunately these days there are a number of different groups out there promoting among its membership and its supporters the idea they should build their own small, you know, improvised explosive devices and set them off in crowded areas that are, unfortunately, you know, not necessarily prime targets but they're soft targets. and if that's -- if this, indeed, is a small ied, the fact is is that you have a group like al qaeda in the arabian peninsula which put out an english language guide including something titled how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. it's something designed to allow small grade extremists to be able to carry out something even on this scale. i think it's important even if this is determined to be a deliberate act, or politically or ideologically motivated, to keep in mind something like this is well within the capability of one small determined extremist. not everyone is capable of this, but it's not something that an entire organ

evan coleman is our nbc news counterterrorism expert. sly we're not going to brand or label this anything except twin explosions. but what are -- we noticed the black suv types in boston have locked down the streets. it's a crime scene now. what are they doing? what are they looking for? >> i mean, they're looking to figure out if this was an explosion, is there an explosive residue. can we determine whether or not, you know, if this was a deliberate act, what or who carried this out based on what actual explosive they used. is it something that was homemade? is it something that is military grade? that will give you a lot of indication about who exactly it is that used this. but like -- i mean, i think it's important to emphasize, you said this exactly, it's premature right now. the circumstances are certainly very suspicious. i think it's going to be obvious that the fbi is going to take this carefully. but until we know for sure this was an actual explosion and not some kind of accident, it probably is premature to start labeling the p

a former secret service agent who spent time in russia and have terror analyst evan coleman and one aspect we have not talked about this hour is where they are from. you spent a significant amount of time in russia and ties to chechnya. what have you been able to learn? >> the chechnyans and the separatists are considered russia to be the target and not the united states. not that we were the friend, but we are speculating on the motives. i found it odd that they decided to pick the united states as a target. that's definitely a curveball that was thrown. >> born in russia, the 26-year-old who died, the 19-year-old is still at large, what can you tell us? >> it's relatively interesting. we got a statement from the official chechnyan. they said this is part of a negative campaign and these brother his nothing to do with the bombings. to say there were a number of different organizations in chechnya and surrounding regions that do recruit them to carry out operation, not necessarily overseas, but militant operations. not all of those folks are in chech ni chechnya. we had reports from the so

service on green line between -- >> nbc news, terrorism analyst evan coleman has worked extensively with the fbi in boston. let's bring him in on the phone. what are you hearing in material of injuries? >> some of these injuries, they don't look good. and i mean, that would suggest that these explosions, that they are the work of some kind of explosive device. it is something with some force. we've seen previous attempts by home grown extremists to bull their own bombs and it hasn't gone so well. an individual was trained by the taliban at a camp on the afghan/pakistani border debt made the a car bomb and later a number of experts would go on to laugh at how immaturish that was and how poor a design that was. this appears to be somewhat more sophisticated. and boston, unfortunately, i don't think is known as a great hub of violent extremists. there are a number of individuals in that area who have been picked up over the years on charges ranging from everything from terrorist financing to -- >> evan, i want to ask you. because nbc news has not confirm the nature of the explosion yet. is

evan coleman is a terrorist analyst, and he studieds jihadi chat rooms and social networking hubs.the phone. i understand you are in ireland. thank you so much for carving out some time for us. there were various radical postings on the youtube account and athey were s and they were set up three weeks after the trip to russia. what can we learn about him from those videos? >> one of the things that becomes clear is this is someone with an interest in radical islam. nature of that interest i should emphasize, we are still trying to sort out, but it's pretty clear from the comes that he has made, interviews are previous to obviously what happened in boston, along with other material, this is someone who had a fairly strict view of islam. it appears to be someone who had a relatively negative view of various sects within islam that he considered to be, you know, apostate sects, shiites, this is a view we think is a rigid view ofs i l.a. there is more to be discovered here. interesting aspects revealed by the suspect's mother, interviewed in russian media, she acknowledged the fact tha