>> well, look at mohamed atta. mohamed atta is something we're still trying to puzzle over. he's the lead -- >> rose: middle-class living in hamburg. >> yeah. so we now have novels about mohamed atta trying to figure out these motivations. martin amos wrote a long story about this kind of human speculation. we don't know and we're only a few days into the business of gathering -- >> rose: do yo have any -- do you see things that might be indicative of what -- >> indicative? yes. all of -- there is this evidence -- >> rose: i mean indicative of what causes someone to go from radical ideas to violent action? >> most don't. that's a tiny percentage. >> rose: okay, but what about the -- >> there's no twitter moment. there's nothing online. there are no diaries that we know of. there's nothing where it says we're going to do x. there's no friend that says, yes he did this to me and he might take action like this. that we don't have. >> rose: no one heard him say "i'm going to go dig do something that will make me famous"? >> which, charlie, is part of the reason why the investiga

mohammed atta, expressed interest in joining the chechen insurgency.a part of the world where many later radicalized terrorists have made stops along the way, if you will. >> that's right, but i think we have to wait for the facts to come out to what extent tamerlan tsarnaev was involved. to what extent he was trained in chechnya or dagestan. as opposed to just drawing inspiration from it and doing a copy cat attack in his home town of boston. a lot of the fighters are trained, but this kid seemed to be out of place in boston. he seemed to be alienated. he said he had no american friends, he didn't understand them. and he seemed to find, just like his younger brother seems to have found a kind of grounding in this, in his family's history. >> and ron, certainly that is an important point to bring up. we have no idea what sort of caused them to do this. and whether or not they were even affiliated with anybody at all. this could have just been two brothers carrying out a terrorist attack. learning how to build these devices on the internet. and that com

neil: you know how these legal investigationso, hindsight is always 20/20, if only we had caught mohammed attahecking into the portland airport, that famous security footage where he's just whisking by security on his way with a date with destiny and terror. we're also doing that with these two alleged conspirators in this attack on boston, particularly with the older brother who was fingered by no less than the russian government as the guy we might want to talk to. security officials did, including the f.b.i our dog mcelway has been looking into that and joins us out of washington. what have got? >> the f.b.i.'s acknowledgment on friday that they interviewed the elder brother two years ago at the request of a foreign government will become a key focus in the days and weeks ahead. the f.b.i. itself did not identify the foreign government, but as you said, it's almost certainly russia whose extensive history of battling chechen terrorism would give them concern. it would not be coincidental that president putin spoke to president obama by phone yesterday to offer condolences over the terrorist

i remember when mohammed atta was killed, a killer of 9/11, if you will. we were looking at him going to an atm, a cvs store, right? we had his day figured out. it took a while. i guess now. mr. borelli, today mohammed atta i would assume would be under greater surveillance. you'd have his movements much more quickly. how fast this is moving. >> exactly. technology has just really enhanced law enforcement, but the other thing to keep in mind, chris, you know, technology, the bad guys have access to technology, too. so there's -- >> what do they got? >> well, i mean, they're sending encrypted messages and things like that. some of these are so complicated that the government has a hard time, you know, cracking the code. so, you know, it can -- technology can work against us as well. >> yeah. there's some discussion. i don't know if it's true. put it there, governor, and everybody, that one of these guys was walking around talking on his cell phone while carrying his bags around. so i think they might be a bit behind the curb here, luxury. that's more guidan

like mohamed atta was a professional person, engineer.hese guys had an ability for employment or medical school. but they're disaffected with how their life is going. and what they reach out for, as all people do, as all people do across all the great religions of the world, they reach out often for religion. whether it's christianity, islam, or the jewish religion. whatever it is. but in these guys' cases, they don't get islam. they get al qaeda. >> yeah. >> and what happens is al qaeda has this process, this gentle persuasion where they believe that they are really -- they convince themselves. i mean, it's not brainwash. they convince themselves. once they start inculcating them, you know, khalid shaikh mohammed said it, that the most important thing to be a member of al qaeda was not whether you could speak a foreign language, military training, your ability to shoot a gun, or make a bomb. the most important thing was your willingness for self-sacrifice. that's how you get in. and that's what they've built that cult on. now, in the las