Jessica Stern, author of "Terror in the Name of God," it says right under your picture, "Jessica Stern, the foremost U.S. expert on terrorism." I`m...

What do you think about that, when somebody calls you "the foremost expert on terrorism"?

I want to go into some detail about your background. But first, before we do that, how many different countries did you go to to write this book?

Over how many years?

And when did you write the last word for this book? Do you remember the date, roughly?

Your background includes working for Bill Clinton. Doing what?

Council on Foreign Relations. Doing what?

At the Hoover Institution, doing what?

And your background includes -- where were you born, and where`d you go to college?

Studied what?

And what would you say got you interested enough to try to find terrorists around the world to talk to? And where does that come from?

And while I was researching that book, it occurred to me that a number of the operatives, terrorists who had thought about acquiring or actually acquired...

And I went out to see him in Texas and got even more curious and then really wanted to learn about this and went many times to Pakistan, where, as you...

Well, many of the groups in Pakistan that call themselves jihadi groups are active both -- were active in Afghanistan and continue to be active in Kashmir....

Other background. You say in the text in the book that you did a project that was supported by Ted Turner. What was that?

I went to Pakistan. Scott went to India. The Pakistanis were very forthcoming and really actually wanted assistance with personnel reliability, in particular....

Yes, they have.

Probably, yes.

I don`t know. Maybe if we weren`t on TV, you would start telling me your secrets!

I`m not really sure. People just -- almost immediately -- I mean, even taxi drivers, who haven`t, you know, had -- it`s not -- I`m not casting a spell...

Well, in investigating why terrorists do what they do, it`s been an extraordinary benefit. The jihadi groups in Pakistan, for example, have told me...

You teach at Harvard, and at the end of your introduction, you say, "I had to present the project to the standing committee on the use of human subjects...

Did that scare you at any point? Not the committee, but the Kalashnikov?

You had a knock on your door, and you said, Who`s there? And they said, Room service. And you said things -- your knees started to knock after that...

I had met with them for them to decide whether it was OK for me to meet their leader. They wanted to make sure that I wasn`t there to kill their leader....

And I had brought some clothing. I needed to wear Pakistani clothing, and I had sent it to be pressed. And they were delivering my laundry in the middle...

Why do they hate Jews so much?

They had ideas about Jews, interestingly, that they in some cases picked up from neo-Nazi Web sites in the United States. I noticed that this particular...

In the middle of August, 2003, an F-16 flown by an Israeli flew over the Gaza strip and killed someone that you talked to for this book. I`ll try to...

Who was he? And why was he killed?

Which university in the States?

Colorado. University of Colorado?

And he also told me that while he was in prison for his activities, he started thinking about the different personality types of the prisoners, people...

He said that those who use a rifle are trained -- that it requires training to learn how to be a shooter -- but that the person who blows up a bomb,...

Hamas is a Islamist group that has several wings, a terrorist wing that is involved in killing innocent Israeli civilians quite regularly, a social...

... based in Palestine -- providing all kinds of social welfare, after-school activities for children, all kinds of clubs, sports activities for children,...

Well, they seem to get money from charitable donations in many parts of the world, including in the United States, and of course, in Saudi Arabia and...

Many years. Many years.

It began seriously in the late `80s, but it comes out of a movement that is quite old. It really comes out of the Muslim Brotherhood, that goes way...

Based in Palestine. How many people are involved in it, do you know?

What year did you talk to Abu Shanab?

And...

How did you get there?

By the way, if I remember right, that`s the only time I read in the book that the Islamic folks or Hamas wouldn`t talk you to, a Jew.

One time only? Is that the only time it happened?

You were in Jordan, and you had to go all the way across Israel to get to Gaza.

How did you do that?

Anybody traveling with you?

She was from Saudi Arabia.

Her name.

Don`t you use her name in the book?

A false name?

Now, this was before the suicide bombings, wasn`t it, when you met with Abu Shanab?

In the year 2000, though, you met with him where?

Why did he meet with you? Do you have any idea?

And this is typical of what we see in a very weak state or a failed state. A terrorist group can really step in where the state is failing, can provide...

Now, I don`t believe that applies to the senior political leaders -- for example, Abu Shanab or Dr. Rantissi. They told me that they had -- everyone...

He`s dead.

I think it`s very complicated. I think if Palestine was a country and the two countries were at war, it might be legitimate. It might be legitimate....

I thought it was counterproductive. I can`t say that I...

I think he felt willing. I don`t think that he was prepared to deliberately put himself at risk. You know, the truth is, I don`t know what he was doing....

You have a quote in here from somebody named Sheikh -- I don`t know if this is -- Younis al-Astal, a Hamas leader. And it`s, "A believer should never...

Well, the first thing to point out is that poverty in and of itself, as far as I can tell, does not cause terrorism. If it did, I think we`d see a lot...

And I did meet with a number of mid-level managers who discovered that their leaders were making a killing, that their leaders were getting really,...

How many madrassas are there in the United States, do you have any idea?

Well, we keep hearing from people on television, talking about the situation around the world that the Saudis are funding the madrassas in this country...

And here, too, where they feed this anti-Americanism all the time. Do you buy off on that?

Until recently, I think, it never occurred to them that this was something that perhaps they should keep secret. Now, of course, there`s a lot of concern...

Well, there are a number of theories. One, of course, is that they are happy to support jihad, as long as it`s not against their own regime. That it`s...

Yes, I have.

In Pakistan, and the equivalent in Indonesia.

The most interesting madrassa I visited was one that was actually in Lahore.

Lahore, Pakistan. It was not out near Peshawar, it was not in the sort of jihadi area. It was not near Afghanistan. It was right in Lahore, a beautiful...

These groups are going around Pakistan and killing Shia, killing doctors, killing lawyers, killing people whose bad luck, at least at that moment, is...

Well, there is a tension between Sunni and Shia. A tension between Sunni and Shia, which is very important in Pakistan, but is less important right...

And this was a guy who was really mesmerizing. He had a skill. I could see that it would be very easy for young men to fall under his power. He also...

No, no. My notes were subpoenaed, they did not take my notes away. My notes were subpoenaed in this case in regard to an American, nobody ever bothered...

I`m not going to go into details about that case, but that`s what happened.

Why did I mention that my notes had been subpoenaed?

I think it`s a very important part of the -- describing the process that I underwent in order to get to -- to have these conversations, and I just thought...

And I want to say that I was very fortunate. I received the help of a very skillful lawyer and I did not have to turn over my notes.

Kansi, yes.

Well, he`s dead. He`s also dead. There are a fair number in this book that are now dead.

He was a Pakistani national who had shot -- had been involved in a very serious shootout at the CIA. He killed two CIA employees, and wounded several...

He did. He did.

Yes, he did.

Almost immediately.

He was involved in the Pakistani expatriate community. And he managed to get a ticket through a local agent. Nobody knew, of course, that he was a killer....

There was help provided. First of all, there was money on offer for any leads leading to his capture, and there were -- someone provided the U.S. government...

I talked to him in Virginia, where he was on death row.

He at first, did not want to talk to me. I had written to him, and he said he would only talk to me if I gave him a lot of money. And I told him that...

And this, of course, is something that happened to me over and over again, that I would be invited to convert to the religion, to donate money to the...

Yes.

Her name was Sister Miriam Therese. And she was my grandmother`s best friend. And she and the other nuns in New Rochelle, New York, referred to my grandmother,...

Now, you dedicate the book to Evan and Jeff. Who are they?

How old is your son?

What about the personal side of all this? Do you ever feel threatened or do you ever feel you might be marked because of the way you take this information...

I have not -- you know, it would be very nice for me to be able to go there and talk to government officials. I love Pakistan. I`d love to do that,...

He`s an economist.

This fall I am co-teaching a course with Sam Huntington, the author of "The Clash of Civilizations" and David Little, who is a professor at the Divinity...

Yes.

Yes.

Judy heard -- I don`t even remember how this came about, maybe I told her, I can`t even remember, that I was going to the line of control. The Pakistani...

Her husband was one of my editors, yes.

Jason Epstein, yes. That came about in a very strange way. Jason claims when he decided he wanted to edit me that he didn`t remember that I was the...

I just felt he was trying to turn me into a different person, and then I went home and did exactly what he told me to do. He obviously hypnotized me....

I wrote that.

Yes.

I didn`t write it to be the sort of poem in the opening of the book. It was just something that I wrote that just came to me, and Jason urged me to...

She is a poet.

I know that what I did, that many people at first blush would be horrified by what I did, and might think that I was getting too close to evil. And...

Almost out of time. Do you have any hope that this can ever stop?

Do you have another book in you around this subject?

This sounds like an awkward question. Do you think you`re more fearful because of all that you know and we haven`t even scratched the surface in this...

The cover of the book looks like this -- "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill." Jessica Stern of Harvard went all around the world...