coverage as well. thanks to everyone who's joined me for this msnbc special. you can find me on weeknights on "the beat" at 6:00 p.m. eastern. this program includes violent and disturbing content. viewer discretion is advised. they came out of the desert promising death and destruction to all those who opposed them. they established a caliphate that ruled over millions of people. but their five-year reign of terror was short lived. >> isis is a death cult. it's a death cult. >> we are the victorious group. >> now the caliphate is destroyed. their leader has sworn to fight on in a global jihad, promising

to bring the fight to the west. so is the islamic state really dead? join me as i trace the rise and fall of isis. i've covered isis from the beginning. as the militant army rolled through much of iraq and syria, conquering a vast territory and establishing its caliphate. but by the spring of 2019, the tables had turned. isis was losing. i came back to witness the end. only a few thousand of the most hard-core militants were left. they were surrounded in a little syrian town called bagouz.

>> translator: this is as far as we can go. it's very dangerous. >> he's a field commander in a force made up predominantly by ethnic kurds, a key ally in the fight against isis. >> they don't look like they're ready to surrender. he's saying the ones who are in here, they're prepared to die. the united states and the kurds had a joint war plan, a partnership. the u.s. military dropped bombs from above. while these kurdish fighters did the grunt work. they backed isis into this final holdout, a squalid section no bigger that a few football fields. >> there are battles raging inside. this is the last stage. either they surrender or we kill them. >> little by little, isis lost its grip. and the kurds closed in.

he's saying, stay in one line because there could be ieds. they haven't cleared this area. the operation to strangle baguoz went down for weeks. >> we watched as american bombs rained down night after night. the last bastion of the islamic state tonight is on fire. and then, suddenly, the battle for bagouz was over. this is where the islamic state was defeated. where isis fighters made their last stand and lost. the most brutal, most aggressive, best funded terrorist group in modern history is now in ruins. it was buried here. but as the dust settled, the victors realized they had a new problem on their hands.

thousands of people emerge from baguoz stumbling amid the rubble. they were stunned, starved, and had nowhere to go. they were the wives and children of the isis fighters. they'd given up and in return were given food and water before being taken away to refugee camps. eventually the men surrendered too. hundreds of them. and even though we'd seen them fighting and many were battle scarred, they all told us they were just cooks and drivers, innocent civilians. no one says they're a fighter, no one. we haven't met anyone who says, yeah, we're a fighter. the detainees were searched thoroughly and interrogated by american special forces before being marched off to prison. i questioned dozens of captured

isis supporters myself, but one guy stood out. a 34-year-old american from sugar land, texas. warren christopher clark comes from a military family. but the muslim convert was a substitute teacher before coming to isis territory. he claims he just sold candy to support himself with isis and spent a lot of time reading. >> i would say most people, yeah, they want to go, they want to go fight or work in some area. i want to actually go see exactly what the group was about, you know what they were doing. >> his words rang a little hollow. how could he not have known? isis never made a secret of what it was about. in online videos, the group proclaimed its fanatical view of islam and documented the gruesome violence it inflicted on nonbelievers. >> you make it sound like you were a tourist visiting a normal country. >> yeah. >> but when you went in the spring of 2015, you'd seen all

of these videos. you knew what the group was about. you'd seen all of the murders and the very, very graphic nature of the violence that they were carrying out. and yet you decided, that's where i want to go. >> the videos is not really what the islamic state was about. it was only part of what it was about. you know, why do people from africa want to come to the united states? we've all seen "roots." we've all seen "12 years a slave." we've seen all the movies about how bad america treated black people and continues to treat black people today. >> race wasn't what motivated him to join it's ris or he's known as "the american" although he's from the island of trinidad. >> if you're from the caribbean, they don't know. even if you say south america, they call you american. >> he was captured on the battlefield but said he too was

just an innocent bystander. he said he was an isis medic, but that didn't seem to fit with the bullet wounds in his face. >> same old story, i got shot in my face. >> working for the medical corps? >> yeah. >> does that sound believable to you? >> many things are not believable. it's the truth. >> his kurdish guards certainly didn't believe his story. >> kurdish intelligence officials tell us that you were a leader in isis. >> no. >> that you worked in their financial department, you worked in their war room. >> no, no, no. i wasn't -- i wasn't this. a lot of information they got -- what i know, when they know -- some of them told me i was working with the secret service of them. so information comes in, some of them, they are not true. >> so he claimed. but the video evidence against him was damning. >> they're here to take over this place for allah after we go

and we kill and we take the neck off assad, we will take the neck off of trump. >> you appeared in one of their propaganda videos. >> yeah. >> that sounds like someone who's quite a believer. >> yes. it was a believer. >> and we will put the flag of islam in the white house. >> even in defeat it was clear these were some of the most committed isis followers. this man told me with a smile, isis lives on in our hearts. the women i met were equally unrepentant. they didn't even attempt to hide their hostility and anger, hurling insults and water. it could have been worse. several women blew themselves up rather than surrender. whenever they saw our cameras, the women and some of the

children would raise a single finger in the air just like they were taught to do. it represents the one true god, who could never be defeated. >> is it over, isis finished? >> no. next time it will be in your lands. >> as they were hauled off to camps and prisons, i was left wondering, could that threat be real? after the break, we'll get to know the women of isis. the world's worst terrorist group. stay with us. somebody living with hiv?

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the defeat of the isis state created a new problem, what to do with all the people? the millions who lived under isis were suddenly homeless. thousands of the most radical were sent to refugee camps, including this sprawling sea of tents in northern syria. the al hol camp is home to 65,000 people. the families of isis fighters are kept here until their home countries figure out what to do with them. but their governments don't want them back, so they languish here, poorly guarded, with

nothing to do. where are you from? >> from russia. >> from russia. i came to the al hol camp because i heard a young woman was here who said he was american, named hoda. hode da, i'm richard engel from nbc and i wanted to talk to you. hoda muthana was born in new jersey, daughter of a diplomat from yemen. >> i'm just as american as any blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, and i would like to stay in my country and do american things. >> instead, age 20, she left her comfortable, even privileged life in the u.s. to come to syria to join isis. she was an ardent believer and used her twitter account to incite americans to commit murder. >> there's one tweet in particular where you talk about calling on americans to do drive-by shootings, to rent a truck and drive over people, spilling their blood. and you say, memorial day, veterans day, go out and do it.

>> my lawyer told me not to speak about these things. >> hoda now claims she is filled with remorse. but she was literally wedded to the cause, marrying three isis fighters one after another. >> so you were married three times? >> yeah, three times. >> two were killed and one? >> divorced me. >> divorced. how were these men killed? >> on the battlefield. >> they were fighters, they were killed fighting? >> uh-huh. >> did you ever get any military training? i've seen those images of the isis women with guns. >> no, we didn't -- women didn't really have a role there other than being a housewife. >> that's just not true. isis had a women-only brigade of enforcers, part of the feared morality police. they were called the hansa brigade. since isis had strict rules

forbidn men and women mixing, it was these women responsible for enforcing and punishing other women. in southern turkey i met three of them and asked a woman named dewa what her role was. "we were a female police force. we would tour the markets, take part in raids, take women who were violating the dress code to our headquarters for punishment." punishable offenses ranged from standing too close to a man, to consuming alcohol, even just having a hint of a pattern on their black abayas. "this woman was wearing an abaya with a design on it. when she was told to come to our headquarters, she tried not to, to avoid punishment, so they increased her sentence. it was supposed to be 20 lashes, i whipped her 40 times." for more serious crimes like

adultery, the punishment was death by stoning. these women were not mere followers, they were committed disciples enforcing obedience. another hansa member named omsma received military training and liked it, but she says the public executions went too far for her sensibilities. "the way the bodies were displayed in the streets after the executions was disgusting. they'd leave a body hanging for a week so everyone who passed would see it and smell it." the hansa women's brigade also helped manage one of the islamic state's most disturbing practices, sexual slavery. when isis rolled across northern iraq, it captured towns long inhabited by an ethnic group called yazidis, nonmuslims with a secretive religion, and isis claimed they worshipped the devil. yazidi men were killed on the

spot. yazidi girls of my age were taken as spoils of war, to be distributed among the fighters. fareeda was one of the spoils. "all of the girls were screaming and crying because they didn't want to go with them, but they make the girls." isis established a slave market where fighters could buy and sell their captives. this girl instantly recognized the men. "i saw that one, and this guy. i don't know their names but i saw them."

she saw them laughing. "they sold they from one man to the next." she was raped repeatedly for three months. she says she was considered too old by some of the isis men. they raped girls as young as 8, she says. "they would say the older ones know something about men while the younger ones know nothing." "one was just 12, she didn't know what rape meant, only that she woke up bleeding." he was old, she said of one of the men, he was 50. both girls escaped but the 12-year-old is so badly traumatized, she struggles to speak. isis women also allowed their own children to be turned into murderers and used as propaganda

in deeply disturbing scenes like these. children, the so-called isis cubs, were isolated, indoctrinated, and given military training. they went from playing soldiers to being soldiers. and then to stone-cold killers. mohammad was one of those selected by isis to be a young cub, but he didn't like it. he kept skipping the training. so isis made an example of him. they chopped off the 14-year-old's opposite hand and foot. "they put my arm on a table and they brought in the butcher, and he cut it." this is the man who mutilated him, an iraqi nicknamed "the bulldozer." "the most difficult time when is i go to sleep.

then the pain really starts." mohammad cries whenever his bandages are changed. he can't afford to have the treatments done at a hospital. isis targeted children, he says. "they gave the money for a bicycle then take him in a car in a bomb to blow himself up." and isis women were equally responsible for the crimes. hoda muthanna had a son with an isis man. she wants to take the boy to the united states. she says joining isis was just a big mistake. >> you say now you regret coming, but i'm trying to understand what it is you regret exactly. is it that you regret you're in this situation? >> no -- >> that you regret you're here? >> i regret the whole thing. i regret the ideology, i regret ever coming here, i regret ever even going online. i regret everything.

>> i left wondering how much hoda is changing her story because she wants to get out of this prison camp. from what i've seen, women were the backbone of isis, the ones who held the group together and made some of its worst atroci atrocities possible. but why join in the first place? next, the false promises that lured recruits to isis and the violent truth of life inside the caliphate. mercedes-benz suvs were engineered with only one mission in mind. to be the best. in the category, in the industry... in the world. lease the gla 250 suv for just $329 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. like very high triglycerides, can be tough. you diet. exercise.

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i watch the black flag of isis spread across the muslim world like a plague, according to the islamic state's own propaganda, this was god's will, foretold by the prophet mohammad himself. isis said it was fulfilling a divine mission, and naive believers flocked to be part of

it. >> there is no other path to victory except through sacrifice and jihad. >> they were convinced isis would herald a new islamic golden age and create a pure state for muslims, the caliphate. i understood the desire to return to islam's glorious past. isis promised to restore muslim pride and prestige. >> it means power after powerlessness. it means honor and dignity after embarrassment and failure. >> as a young muslim growing up in the west, mobin sheikh felt alienated and disillusioned. he himself was radicalized and joined the group before switching sides. he now worked with western intelligence agencies. >> it offered to a lot of muslims who looked around the world and saw muslims in a state of disarray, weakness, loss, and failure.

and they thought in their heads, if only we would establish the caliphate, you know, everything else would fall into place and we'd all live happily ever after. >> tens of thousands of foreign fighters believed the islamic state was their destiny. they destroyed their passports to show their commitment to the caliphate. for them, there was no going back. i met one of those men, a former jihadist named mo, back in manhattan while he was in federal custody. mo went to columbia university and had what can only be described as a normal upbringing. >> what was it like to be a kid in your house? >> i don't imagine anything different from any other new yorker. i grew up playing basketball, going to school. >> so what drew you to isis? >> it's just feeling alienated, being pushed towards being identified as an other. why do you think i'm not

american? why do you think i'm so abnormal? >> mo was easily offended. he was convinced the world, especially america, was against muslims. he snapped when a provocative video of a muslim woman wearing a sheer and transparent abaya was shown during one of his college classes. >> i saw a video that was really offensive. it made me feel insulted. like, what's wrong with a burqa? why is it getting desecrated? and it's an emotional thing. it still bothers me. it's just not right to do that. >> warren christopher clark, the isis recruit from sugar land, texas, also felt persecuted in his own country. >> i'd come from a long line of strong people who have survived 300 years of slavery, hundreds of years of jim crow, and the struggle still goes on. >> and you wanted to go there --

>> yes. >> -- specifically to be part of the islamic state, to be part of isis? >> no, i wanted to go there to see specifically what was going on, for myself. >> for hoda muthanna, peer pressure brought her to isis. she says it started innocently enough, chatting with friends online. >> it was like a muslim community going on, and i was part of it. at one point we were just very normal people, very normal muslims, and then suddenly we became religious. we became involved -- >> would you call it radical? >> definitely. >> so you feel you were manipulated, someone -- >> yeah, definitely. >> brainwashed? >> brainwashed. >> abdel hamid from trinidad said joining isis seemed like the national thing to do. >> jews go to israel. any muslim would go to islamic state. >> i'd heard arguments like this before, that isis members were

victims of persecution or looking something for bigger, a cause. >> they need cannon fodder. to fight or die for the so-called islamic state. so dumb as they come, the more the merrier. >> the most powerful weapon in the isis arsenal turned out to be propaganda. a media blits that drew in thousands of new recruits. slick music videos depicted an epic struggle of good versus evil. and isis were the good guys. recruits were told they were noble warriors on a divine mission to bring pride back to islam. their own graphic videos showed the truth was much darker. >> isis wanted thugs and criminals. and thugs and criminals is what they got. >> isis revelled in the violence, documenting each gruesome act to excite the followers and intimidate their enemies.

the world was outraged when a jordanian pilot shot down and captured while flying over syria was burned alive in a cage. >> the goal was, shock and horrify. >> i caught up with ben rhodes. >> good to see you, how are you? >> former white house speechwriter, one of president obama's closest advisers on foreign policy. >> they are the kind of 2.0 version of a terrorist threat, we don't need to hijack a plane to terrify people in new york, we can uss something horrific in iraq or syria, put that on social media, they'll see it and they'll be terrified. >> isis leaders weren't just terrifying the outside world, they were also spreading fear among their own believers. >> you thought that this was going to be an islamic utopia, you said. >> yeah. >> what was it like when you got there? >> dystopia. >> dystopia? >> yeah.

just all sorts of crazy. >> you see madness in their eyes. >> hey, america. >> just started to execute people for things which even in islamic law you would not be executed for. i remember the, you know, images of young teenagers being executed because he ate during ramadan. these are not capital offenses in islamic law. but to them everything became a capital offense, because they were a death cult. >> i did see severed heads placed on spiked poles. >> you saw heads on a stake? >> yeah. >> what did you think? >> just -- blocked it out. i tried to ignore it. >> others didn't care. >> when you went in the spring of 2015, it was already pretty clear what isis was all about. they had already beheaded

people. they had already kidnapped yazidi women. they had already committed atrocities that they were putting out in video after video. did you know that? >> i'm from united states. from texas. they like to execute people too. you know. so i really don't see any difference. i mean, okay, maybe they might do it off camera. but it's the same. >> the videos you say you saw were so gruesome. that's not executions in texas. >> i know. but while i was there i saw the americans killing plenty of innocent people, the russians killing plenty of innocent people. >> but whatever its justification, the islamic state's murderous regime did nothing to restore muslim pride. and its appetite for gruesome publicity seemed limitless. one isis member who became a household name was a british citizen dubbed jihadi john. >> you claim to have withdrawn from iraq four years ago.

>> jihadi john, real name mohammad mwazi, was a petty criminal back home who became an isis executioner. he was responsible for holding, torturing, and beheading 27 foreign hostages, including four americans. he taunted president obama. >> an attempt by you, obama, to deny the muslims their rights of living in safety under the caliphate, will result in the bloodshed of your people. >> true to his word, jihadi john murdered james foley on camera. >> i get a phone call. and i pick it up and it's lisa monaco, president of counterterrorism. she says, there's a video of jim foley. and she's narrating it. i can see her saying, they're wearing an ordinary jumpsuit like a guantanamo de19ny.

they're holding a knife. i hear her dissolving into tears. what they're watching is the beheading of james foley. >> he had to break the news to the president. >> i had to tell him what happened, and that in the video they said the reason they were doing this is because of a decision he had made. >> a visibly shaken president obama spoke out. >> today the entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of jim foley by the terrorist group isil. jim was taken from us in an act of violence that shocked the conscience of the entire world. >> tragically, there were to be many more bleak moments for the american administration and for american hostages. >> kalie mueller, a young woman. peter kasich. you're waiting for this terrible thing to happen and for it to be broadcast on youtube. >> tragically, none of those hostages made it? >> no. we knew after foley, the horrific thing is you just had

this sense that we were going to lose all of them. so this is about as dark a time as i can remember in my eight years in government. >> but just as isis was at its most powerful and most brutal, a small town in syria showed the world how to fight back. join me on the front lines as america goes to war against isis. ly.. with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?

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defense secretary mark esper saying all u.s. troops leaving syria will now go to iraq to continue fighting isis. this come is despite president trump's president trump's public claims his decision to pull the troops was at least partly an effort to bring u.s. soldiers home. officials set off explosions in new orleans sunday trying to topple two cranes hanging precariously over a partially collapsed hotel in new orleans. but only one came down.

to understand the rise and fall of the islamic state, you have to go back to the war in iraq. ashamed after defeat at the hands of americans and angered by the american-backed shia government, isis was formed by sunni extremists who believed al qaeda was too soft. their tactics were as old as history, but they remained brutally effective. >> the way the mongols conquered the world was, get to a town and essentially say, you have two options action you all be killed, or you'll be broiled alive, your women will be raped. there was such terror of them, nobody would fight them.

>> the group's reputation for savagery was often enough to strike fear into their enemies. it got so bad, 30,000 iraqi soldiers in the city of mosul dropped their weapons and fled rather than stand up to less than 1,000 isis fighters. >> we spent $25 billion building this army in central iraq. hundreds of thousands of personnel in the iraqi security forces. and they didn't even fight. the iraqi security forces just melted away. >> cities fell one by one. raqqah on the banks of the euphrates river. mosul and an old field in iraq. ramadi, flaunallujah, tikrit. they all fell to isis. united states and its allies seemed powerless to stop them. but then in the summer of 2014,

something extraordinary happened when isis reached one little town called kobani, northern syria. kobani was right on the border separating turkey and syria. the world media and hundreds of syrian refugees watched helplessly from the turkish side as black-clad isis fighters advanced on the town. i couldn't believe what i was witnessing. right in front of me, isis fighters were move unopposed and completely out in the open. these people are extremely frustrated by what's happening here. they see isis fighters in their villages, and they say, if the americans really want to bomb isis, they're not hard to fight. >> at the time the u.s. government said, kobani just wasn't worth saving. >> what's happening in kobani, as horrific as hittiit is, you to step back and understand the strategic objective. >> but the people of kobani had

their own objectives. they stood their ground and fought. i wanted to get inside to see if the resistance had a chance. i left the safety of turkey and sprinted across no man's land directly into kobani. firefights were under way. isis had already captured more than half the town. the people of kobani were trying to hang on to what they had left. these brave resistance fighters were ethnic kurds, a minority group of millions in the middle east that has been striving for independence for centuries. they'd organized into a militia unlike anything else in the region. secular, socialist, egalitarian, and most surprising in this part of the world, proudly feminist, with men and women sharing power

equally. and fighting shoulder to shoulder. a field commander named azima led us to city hall. the only safe way she knew was going in through holes in the walls to avoid the snipers. >> she says there were about 40 isis fighters just in these rooms here. it's not that they're fighting between buildings and across streets, but room to room. you can see some of the damage. you can see the bullet holes. this was real close-quarter fighting. >> azima shows us where the enemy is. not far. "we watch them all the time and make sure to shoot them before they get too close." >> they led and it they paid for it in blood. >> general jonathan braga led a unit of u.s. special operations

forces that fought side by side with the kurds. >> why kobani? why did you start in kobani? >> that's the first place that we noticed, someone's fighting back. and it was the people of kobani. >> what kind of partners did you find them to be? >> committed. dedicated. formidable. >> and what started in kobani quickly expanded. the first patch of 50 american advisers sent in to help the kurds soon grew to 2,000. the u.s. military trusted their allies so completely that the kurds were soon calling in american air strikes. the kurds not only did what they promised, they were willing to fight and die. >> coalition losses to combat in syria? >> two. >> two? >> two. >> two american soldiers in uniform have died? >> one coalition, one u.s. two.

they have lost thousands. >> what kind of toll did they inflict on isis? >> it's in the tens of thousands of isis killed. >> for the allies, kobani was a turning point. >> every morning i'd come in and i'd be looking at a map in my briefing. i could see where isis colors had been taking over that map, suddenly it's moving the other direction. >> and that was so important, because it really kind of broke the psychology. isis tried very hard to take some place and been beaten. i think after that we knew what it took to beat them. >> four years later, it was all over. for the kurds it was a time to celebrate. i wanted to go back to kobani, back to where it all began, to catch up with an old friend. >> hello. how are you? >> i'm delighted.

>> azima was happy to see me. >> you remember this place? it was very different. last time we came through the walls. this time through the door. wow. >> town hall was back up and running. holding a meeting of the women's rights committee. but no one's forgotten what happened here. >> so i think there was a shooting position over there. there were bullet holes here. >> azima then took me to another part of kobani. it's scarred from the fight against isis, and so is she. she's saying since we saw her, she's been injured three times. once she stepped on a land mine, still has shrapnel in her legs. another time a mortar exploded, she has shrapnel in her head. and she's been shot three times. you look remarkably well for being blown up and shot three times. "when i joined the battle, i knew without a shadow of a doubt

that kobani would be liberated one day like it is today." what do you think history will write about kobani, about you and your fighters? "i am proud of what happened. this is history." even if nobody writes about it, who can deny what happened, who can deny our martyrs?"even if n who can deny what happened, who can deny our martyrs?" to understand what the kurds sacrificed, you only need to go to the edge of kobani. there's a graveyard there of those who died fighting isis. the kurds lost 11,000 people in all. do you think the u.s. owes something, owes a debt of gratitude, to the kurds? >> absolutely. the whole world does. the kurds were on the front lines at the darkest moments. and they won. ♪ kobani kobani

>> but what did the kurds get for all their sacrifice? they're being abandoned. president trump announced with isis defeated, the u.s. was heading home. >> we did a great job, 100% of the caliphate, and we're rapidly pulling out of syria, we'll be out of there pretty soon. let them handle their own problems. >> the battle against the caliphate may have been won, but the war is far from over. >> the caliphate is destroyed, but is isis dead? >> no. no, they're still there. >> isis is making a comeback, and we in the west are the targets. these days, we're all stressed.

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abu bakr al baghdadi has sworn to fight on. to take the fight to the west, and it's not an idle threat. paris, london, berlin, brussels, manchester, san bernardino, cities around the world have been targeted. hundreds of people have been killed. as devastating as the terror attacks are, isis may have left an even more dangerous legacy. tens of thousands of foreign fighters and their families are detained in makeshift prisoner of war camps scattered across iraq and syria. with nowhere to go and an ideological hatred of the west still burning in their hearts. al baghdadi has urged his supporters to attack the prisons and liberate their brothers. >> what happens to all these other people in the camp? do you think they're still dangerous? >> it's obvious who are still radical, who are still dangerous and who are completely flipped

180. >> hoda is right to be worried. the women of isis continue to openly pledge allegiance to the group. several women at this camp got together and beat a woman to death for betraying the cause. guards have been stabbed. how can people be convinced, our viewers be convinced that you're not dangerous? >> because i want to come back to america, and i just want to live safely under america, and i just want to raise my child and have nothing to do with jihad ever again. >> the u.s. government is in no mood to forgive her. >> have you seen this? this was the secretary of state pompeo saying that you're not a u.s. citizen. listen. >> she is a terrorist. she's not a u.s. citizen. she ought not return to this country. >> the u.s. says you can't go back. >> i'm hope -- >> do you have any idea what's going to happen? >> i'm hoping they do fix it up and bring me back because there's nowhere else i'd rather be than america. >> she may be telling the truth

but the former jihadity says the so-called isis brides were not innocent victims. >> some were members of the women police. some were used as spies and messenger couriers. you have some that married isis fighters, but it was to breed literally the next generation of jihadi fighters. they understood their role in that. >> and many of those children, those isis cubs who are raised on hate, still believe, too. in the camp, the kids even made an isis flag, hoisted it and chanted that they would carry on the struggle. >> unfortunately, these children will grow up living in prison camps, being hated and despised so what we should probably prepare ourselves for is the next wave of isis cubs who have tried to become normal but will realize that that is something that will forever be beyond

their grasp. >> u.n. investigators say the only way to defeat the isis ideology is to have nuremberg-style trials because many detainees themselves still believe they've done nothing wrong. >> what do you think is going to happen to you now? what do you want to happen to you? >> deport me. take me back or they will put me in jail here. >> resigned to your future, whatever that future is. >> yeah, whatever the future is. >> do you regret joining the group? doesn't really sound like you do. you sound like it was what it was and -- it happened. >> there's regret, but i'm not regretting that i came to syria. >> despite facing years in prison, warren christopher clark still has no regrets. >> maybe i go to jail. maybe i don't. i mean, i don't know. it's not really, you know, big thing to me. lots of great people have gone to jail. malcolm x has been to jail.

nelson mandela has been to jail. >> would you put yourself in that same category? >> i don't know i would be considered as great as these people but, you know, my dad always told me, he said we're all going to die. so if you're going to die, die for something that you believe in. >> but some have changed their minds. >> do you regret that you had gone there? >> more than anything. that's obviously the worst decision i've ever made in my life. >> so you are apologizing? >> absolutely. >> some might say, of course he's apologizing now. he's in u.s. custody. he'll say anything. >> i think i have a real message. the message is that islamic state is not bringing islam to the world. and people need to know that. and i will say that from, you know, until the day i die. >> he served a two-year sentence for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. he cooperated with intelligence

agencies and is now free back in the u.s. warren christopher clark is back in the u.s., too, facing charges of providing material support to isis. if convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a quarter million-dollar fine. zayed abdul hamid remains in kurdish custody. trinidad has no plans to repatriate him any time soon. and hoda and her son have been moved to another detention camp in northern syria for their own safety as they await their fate. the islamic state was defeated, but president trump's withdrawal of u.s. forces from northern syria has left their kurdish allies abandoned and betrayed. the kurds are now fighting for their survival, less able to guard isis prisoners. and in the chaos, there have been prison breaks and hundreds of isis members are once again

on the loose determined to regroup. >> they are still there. there's still people that followed him. there's still people who have unique expertise. there's still an ideology that attaches to it. i think isis is going to be around for a long time. the com, we present limu emu & doug with this key to the city. [ applause ] it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work. [ applause and band playing ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ wayfair's got your perfect mattress. whether you're looking for a top-brand at a great price. ready to upgrade. moving in. moving on up. or making big moves.

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