[People who have left the ISIS] say that there comes a moment when the inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisies of their sheikh lets them down, and they begin rereading scripture and find ways that vouch for a nonliteralist reading of the Koran.

It seems to me that a 9/11-style attack is impractical.

If we cover a court case involving a murderer, we would still seek out the side of that murderer, even as we realize that what people say is going to be self-serving.

The systemic failure in the media in covering ISIS is that the majority of reporters are doing it in a semaphore fashion.

It's become extremely difficult to speak to active ISIS members now. I was speaking to them in 2015, and the last one was killed in a drone strike.

[People who have left the ISIS] say that there comes a moment when the inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisies of their sheikh lets them down, and they begin rereading scripture and find ways that vouch for a nonliteralist reading of the Koran.

We know that Muhammad waged war against the Qurayshi tribe, his own tribe, and it's from that conflict that much of the concept of jihad and verses that ISIS now uses to justify beheadings come from. A young man just told me that he went back and read this carefully [and saw] the prophet and his people were fighting the Quraysh because they were not allowing the prophet and his people to practice their religion.