[Explosion]
SHANE SMITH: This week on "Vice,"
we follow in the footsteps
of the Boston bomber in Dagestan.
NARRATOR: Then, it's the end of times.
MAN: The Lord himself will descend from heaven,
and we are going to crown Jesus Christ King of Kings
and Lord of Lords.
Don't point that camera, eh?
♪
[Shouts]
[Cheering]
MAN: Oh!
THOMAS MORTON: Can America get on the right side of Armageddon
by supporting Israel?
We're gonna talk to some of the people that were here
about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan.
[Explosion]
Sync & corrections by honeybunny www.addic7ed.com
♪
The tiny Russian republic of Dagestan
has been in the news a lot lately.
Many in America first heard of it
when it became known that one of the alleged Boston bombers,
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, spent 6 months there
before returning to America to carry out this terrible crime.
[Explosion]
[Siren]
More recently, Dagestani terrorists
attacked Russia in a series of suicide bombings.
Now, these same extremists also vowed
to disrupt the Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi,
causing international concerns over Russian security
surrounding the global event
and a harsh response from President Putin.
SMITH: Now, in order to understand why
so many suicide bombers are coming out of this tiny republic
and to see firsthand what Tamerlan Tsarnaev went through
during his time there, we traveled to Dagestan
to follow in his footsteps.
♪
Our first stop upon arriving in Makhachkala,
Dagestan's capital city,
was to meet one of Tamerlan's Dagestani connections
who also served as kind of
an unofficial religious mentor to him
to explain to us exactly what he experienced
during his time here.
Now, due to the intense international scrutiny
of the bomber's actions while in Dagestan,
he would only speak to us if we agreed to conceal his identity.
I know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came here for 6 months,
about 6 months, in 2012.
What do you think he learned here?
♪
SMITH: So the FBI or the CIA came here
and wanted to ask you questions, or asked you questions.
Why do you think that is?
SMITH: Now, when he mentions-- quote, unquote--"the forest"
in the questions that the FBI asked him,
what he's referring to is "going to the forest,"
which is the local term for joining
the Islamist insurgency in Dagestan.
It refers to young people disappearing
into the republic's remote mountainous region
to join the militants and begin their indoctrination
into Islamic jihad...
[Explosion]
[Sirens]
which, despite its dire consequences,
more and more Dagestani youth are doing every year.
[Flies buzzing]
SMITH: One thing I didn't understand
is that if joining the insurgency is a one-way ticket--
i.e., you join, and then you die--
then, despite that fact, why is the insurgency
still so popular amongst young people?
♪
SMITH: In an effort to understand all of this
a bit better, we met with a local imam
whose students have been targeted
by the authorities as insurgents
and whose mosque, we were told, Tamerlan attended.
Do you think that the People of the Book,
like Christians and Jews,
or secular people should convert to Islam
and the world should be under Sharia?
SMITH: So, just to be clear, what he is saying here
is that, "A," not only in the world convert to Islam,
but that, "B," they should all be under Sharia law.
SMITH: Not surprisingly because of messages like this,
the security forces have targeted the imam's followers.
Are young men who come to this mosque
being taken away by the Special Forces
and being detained?
Because young people are being taken
away from their homes, there's a lot of anger
with the young people,
and they're joining the rebels.
Is this happening here?
SMITH: Police abductions and torture of suspected militants
are everyday occurrences here.
There are countless stories of young men
around Tamerlan's age being kidnapped, tortured,
and, in many cases, murdered.
One such young man is Sokhrab Abakar,
a 23-year-old taxi driver from Makhachkala.
We're here at a house with a family
who's showing me pictures of their son,
and I was wondering maybe if you could tell me
the story of what happened to your son.
SMITH: After their son's disappearance,
the family was given cell phone footage
from the sympathizer that clearly shows
their son's abduction in the plain light of day.
Can you tell me what's happening in this--
Right.
♪
[Car horn honks]
So they've taken him from his car
and put him in this car.
SMITH: So they don't admit that they've taken him.
SMITH: And because there's no law
and the police are acting like this,
are a lot of young people getting angrier?
[Explosion]
SMITH: Because of the extreme police tactics used
in fighting the insurgents--
such as kidnapping, torture, and murder--
they've become the focus of almost constant attacks
by the militants.
[Machine gun fire]
This building is a government building
that they had a car bomb come and attack.
They had a little, tiny bomb
so that the police would gather around it,
then a big car bomb go off.
[Explosion]
[People screaming]
So we're gonna talk to some of the people that were here,
some of the ex-policemen,
about why there are so many bombings,
about why police are the targets,
about the secret war that's going on in Dagestan
that's now bleeding out into Russia,
bleeding out into Syria, and bleeding out into America
to the Boston bombers.
Magomed Shamilov is a retired senior police officer
who was fired when he fought against corruption
within the police force.
Why are the militants so angry at the police?
Why are they targeting the police?
So you're a policeman, an ex-policeman,
saying that the police corruption
and the police terror tactics
are leading to further radicalization
within the rebels.
SMITH: So the local police force being corrupt has led
to a continuing cycle of violence in Dagestan...
[Radio chatter]
[Machine gun fire]
but what ramps up the insurgency even more are the tactics used
by the Russian Special Forces, or Spetsnaz,
whose hyperviolent antiterrorist techniques
have led to even more and more anger from the people,
which, in turn, leads to more Dagestani youth
going to the forest.
Now, we wanted to talk to somebody
from the Special Forces, but, obviously, if you talk to them,
they become a target of the insurgents.
So we're talking to one who just left the Spetsnaz.
He still has two brothers in the Spetsnaz.
So we have to be very careful. We're not gonna show his face.
He would only speak to us on the condition of anonymity.
We're here on the outskirts of town.
We're gonna go see what happens within the Spetsnaz.
Can you tell us your rank and your duties
when you were in the Spetsnaz?
Why do you think that there's
so many terrorist attacks?
There's a lot of them here in Dagestan.
SMITH: So we asked the commander to walk us through
a recent Spetsnaz operation to clear an apartment of militants.
Da. OK.
SMITH: The video we watched together was shocking.
The video shows an armed siege from November 2012.
A female insurgent named Zamira Tutusheva
had been cornered in an apartment
along with two other militants and her two young children.
In an effort to get her to surrender,
the Spetsnaz got her father to plead with her
to give herself up.
Zamira herself refuses to come out
but is persuaded to give her two-year-old daughter
and 5-year-old son to their grandfather
before the attack begins.
So now that he's got the children out,
I guess they've had a deal with the Spetsnaz
because now they come in.
[Gunfire]
How often do these kind of battles take place?
SMITH: Her last phone calls were recorded by the Spetsnaz.
This one is of a friend of hers
advising her to get killed rather than be taken alive.
[Gunfire]
SMITH: So this woman was willing
to have her children die,
and she was willing to kill herself.
Why do you think the insurgents
are so fanatical?
[Explosion]
SMITH: Now, videos like this one are ubiquitous in Dagestan
and only serve to recruit more and more people
into the insurgency because what you have here
is a perfect storm.
On the one side, you have jihadists
who have the goal of an Islamic state under Sharia law
and on the other, a corrupt and hyperviolent
security services that serve as the perfect opponent
to the jihadis who train here,
and since the fighting is so brutal
and the stakes are played so high,
the terrorist that come out of this region
are at the core of the best planned
and most deadly suicide attacks.
[Explosion] Oh!
SMITH: Dagestan has become a kind of terrorist university
that sends its graduates all over the world,
including America, for it was in this environment
that Tamerlan Tsarnaev lived for 6 months
prior to the Boston bombing.
As long as this perfect storm of insurgency
and counterinsurgency continues in Dagestan,
terrorist just like Tamerlan
will continue to be created here.
♪
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the focal point
of geopolitical instability in the Middle East
since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Although the vast majority of the international community,
the UN, and the United States
publicly support a two-state solution
to try and end this conflict, after decades of negotiation,
a final settlement has never been reached,
and tensions between the Jewish state
and the Arab world continue to fester.
Throughout this process, America has remained
firmly behind Israel as its greatest supporter.
In fact, Israel receives more U.S. foreign aid
than any other country in the world.
Now, much of this support has been attributed
to a strong, wealthy, and very pro-Israeli lobby
in America, which is true, but you'd think
that the majority of the strength behind this lobby
would be the Jewish community in the U.S.,
which is only partially correct because, as it turns out,
in terms of sheer numbers, the evangelical Christians
from America's Bible Belt make up the majority
of this lobby's power base.
So we sent Thomas Morton to find out
why a bunch of born-again Christians from Texas
are so in love with the nation of Israel.
♪
MAN: This may be the most important prophetic spot
in the entire Bible
because the final act
of the Book of Revelation
is going to begin right here
at this place.
The Bible teaches that Russia,
Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Turkey,
and other nations will come down under a UN flag,
and they will invade Israel at this particular point.
Can you imagine thousands of tanks
out here in this valley
rumbling, fighting, firing?
Can you imagine jet airplanes screaming overhead?
The battle is going to be fierce.
MORTON: The horrific, multinational fighting
this preacher is describing is the Battle of Armageddon,
which is supposed to happen right here
just as soon as Israel is a fully Jewish state,
which is why a bunch of Christians in Texas
have become the most fervent Zionists on God's green earth.
While most Americans probably think the pro-Israeli lobby
is largely a Jewish thing, actually most of its support
comes from right here in the Bible Belt,
where evangelical Christians overwhelmingly believe
that Israel has a right to exist because God said so.
Go to the phone right now and call that number
and say, "Yes. I'm gonna stand with Israel.
"I'm gonna bless the people of the Bible.
I'm gonna bless God's chosen people."
Will those of you in this audience
who support the state of Israel stand to your feet
and give a shout of support?
[Cheering and applause]
MORTON: While a lot of Israel's financial support
does come from Jewish wallets,
there are close to 70 million evangelicalin America
versus less than 14 million Jews worldwide,
and, given that roughly 80% of these Christians support Israel,
that makes American Christians the largest
pro-Israeli voting block in the world,
about 4 times the size of the Jewish community on Earth.
There's a lot of money behind the Christian Zionist movement.
This church behind me, Cornerstone,
is one of the biggest supporters of Israel
not just among Christians, but in the world.
The pastor here, John Hagee, has raised an estimated $70 millions
over the course of his ministry.
Pastor Hagee also founded Christians United for Israel,
or CUFI, which is the largest pro-Israel lobbying organization
in America, even bigger than AIPAC,
the organization most people assumed
dominates the American Israel lobby
because it's the biggest Jewish one.
What's dicey about CUFI is that a good deal of their money
for Israel is spent on buildings and organizations
in the Israeli settlements.
These are massive Jewish communities
built well within Palestinian territory
in violation of international law.
The settlements are run by some of the most fanatical Zionists
who believe the Bible entitles them to their land
and that ceding any of it back to the Palestinians
would be a violation of God's law.
God gave them that land. They own that land.
MORTON: While there's nothing wrong with Christians
supporting Israel, the way these Christians
have chosen to do so puts them firmly on one side
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
one that's directly opposed to the U.S. government's
official policy, and they're using
their massive political power and money
to oppose the peace plan John Kerry
is currently trying to push through.
That's the two-state solution that would give the Palestinians
the West Bank and Gaza Strip
and the Israelis would get the rest,
hopefully ending all the violence.
Evangelicals not only lobby Washington
and send money to Israel to fight the two-state solution.
They also make up over 40%
of American tourists in Israel every year
with popular Holy Land pilgrimage tours.
Many of these tours actually have stops
in the Israeli settlements which are used by the settlers
to solicit donations for their cause.
We're in Qarne Shomron, Israeli settlement.
We're about to meet Sondra, who deals with Pastor Hagee
in the United States.
She is not a Christian.
She's an Orthodox Jew, and right now,
She's hosting a bunch of Christian Australians
who are touring the settlement
and, hopefully, coughing up the bills.
To make the settlements more relatable
to their Christian friends, Sondra and her organization
use the Palestinian territories' biblical names
of Judea and Samaria.
It is for us, as people who believe in the Bible,
to stand on the moral and spiritual right
of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria.
Amen?
ALL: Amen. Good.
MORTON: After Sondra's presentation,
we reboarded the bus to see the settlement for ourselves.
BARAS: Come on, guys.
I want you to try to punch him
in the stomach.
Let's give it a try.
[Laughter]
Unfortunately, our Arab neighbors
also have these kinds of guns.
You need to be protected
with something like this.
MORTON: How important is Christian support
specifically for the settlement?
Christian support for the Jewish presence
in Judea and Samaria is critical
because it's a very large group of people
all over the world and we need to hear
their voices, and--thank God--
they are raising their voices on this issue
louder and louder every day.
♪
MORTON: Another Christian Holy Land tour leader
is evangelical pastor Irvin Baxter,
whose Endtime Ministries
takes its flock to Israel twice a year.
The focus of their tours is actually the real reason
evangelicals overwhelmingly want the Jews
to control all of Israel,
which is the actual end times, as in Armageddon,
because, according to their interpretation of the Bible,
Jewish control of the Holy Land will lead directly
to the second coming of Christ.
BAXTER: The word "Armageddon" is actually two words--
"har megiddo," or "hill of Megiddo."
You are standing on the hill of Megiddo right now.
The final act of the Book of Revelation
is going to begin right here at this place,
and when Israel is about to be defeated,
the Bible tells us
that Jesus Christ himself will intervene.
It says it this way.
The Lord himself will ascend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God.
He is going to defeat the antichrist.
He's going to defeat the false prophet.
Both of them will be cast alive into the lake of fire.
At that time, Satan is going to be bound
for the next 1,000 years,
and we are going to crown Jesus Christ
as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
[Applause]
Real quickly, I will take time for a few questions.
BAXTER: Well, I can't tell you for sure
if Maryland will still be there or not?
MORTON: In addition to Armageddon,
Pastor Baxter's Endtimes tour hits all the other
local attractions associated with the apocalypse,
including the most contested piece of real estate
on the planet--Jerusalem, which houses some
of the more sacred sites for Jews,
Muslims, and Christians alike.
It's also were Jesus lands at the grand finale
of the end times, which doesn't pan out so great for the Jews.
BAXTER: 2/3 of Israel will die.
It's Zechariah 13, I think-- maybe verse 7, 8, 9,
right in that area-- that 2/3 will die.
1/3 will be brought through the fire,
and that 1/3 will then turn to Messiah en masse
when He comes back, and the scripture says
that they will run out to Him,
and when they bow to worship Him,
Zechariah 13:6 says they're gonna notice He has got wounds
in His feet and in His hand,
and they're gonna say, "You're Jesus?
"Oh, Messiah, we've been so stubborn.
"We've been so proud. We've been so blind.
Could you ever forgive us?" and 2,000 years of blindness
is gonna come peeling off the Jewish mind,
and those of us that have been up,
caught up in the rapture and come with Jesus here--
MORTON: Oh, because the Christians
have been raptured out.
All who are born again will have been raptured.
When Jesus comes, we'll be called up
to meet Him in the air, and then we will come
with Him to the Mount of Olives,
and so we're gonna be watching
this whole panoramic thing unfold
as the Jewish people turn to their Messiah.
We're gonna be converting people
by the hundreds of thousands
during this time.
It's gonna be the best of times
and the worst of times.
♪
MORTON: While the 2/3 of Jews who die are definitely getting
the "worst of times" end of the stick,
it's a little less clear how the rest of the world fares
in the pastor's end-of-days scenario.
Can America get on the right side of Armageddon
by supporting Israel?
Americans can let their legislatures know,
support Israel.
Right now under the present Obama administration,
there seems to be a drift somewhat away from Israel,
at least a determination to force Israel
to do what America thinks it should do.
The only way for Israel
to endure and thrive as a Jewish
and democratic state
is through the realization
of an independent
and viable Palestine.
BAXTER: The Jewish people
should say, "Look. This is our promised land.
"The Bible says we should not give it up.
"So we're not giving it up.
You have to respect our religion."
♪
MORTON: Aside from potentially derailing
an otherwise pretty solid peace plan,
Christian support for the Israeli settlements
further makes life a pain in the ass
for the Palestinians living nearby,
which is exactly what's happening at Beit Jala,
a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Bethlehem
where Jesus was born.
Xavier Abu Eid is also Christian as well as an official
in the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
We met him at a weekly outdoor Mass
put on by the Catholic church
as a form of protest against Israeli encroachment.
Two years ago, an Israeli court decided
to build the wall here where we are.
So basically, all this valley that you see here,
it's going to be on Israeli side of the wall.
[Speaks Arabic]
Hello. How are you?
Hey, how are you?
For example, he is one of the 58 landowners
that are going to lose their land here
and are 58 Palestinian Christian families
that are going to lose their land here,
and you're not talking about immigrants
that came here.
No. You're talking about indigenous population
of this land.
We are standing now over a territory
that no one in the world,
not even the U.S.,
recognizes as part of Israel.
I know a lot of evangelicals.
It's really big in America right now to support Israel
because, they say, "Well, the Bible says
Israel belongs to the Jews,"
and a lot of them also believe
that once the Jews take over all of Israel,
then they get to have Armageddon.
I read the Bible, and I never saw
the Bible says that God is a real estate agent.
Those Christian Zionist organizations,
they are not giving money, actually,
to the state of Israel.
They are giving money
to the most ideological settlers,
and, of course, I don't think
that's a very Christian act.
If I were a Palestinian Christian,
I wouldn't involve myself in this conflict.
I'd stay out of it and say, "Look.
"I know what's coming.
"I'm gonna serve Jesus Christ.
"When He gets here,
He'll straighten all this out."
♪
MORTON: While Baxter's advice for Christians on the ground
is basically just to bunker down
and get ready for the inevitable,
he and his fellow Christian Zionists in America
are working full tilt to make the end of days a reality
and are using the voting strength of their followers
to try and get Washington on their side...
♪
and in a political conflict that's already been hijacked
by religious zealots on both the Palestinian
and Israeli side, adding millions
of doomsday-ready American evangelicals to the table
is like pouring gas on a fire
in the most flammable region in the world.
Sync & corrections by honeybunny www.addic7ed.com