Detained some returning fighters from syria. Authorities there say they dismantled imminent terrorist attacks on a grand scale. The suspects had Police Uniforms and radios. They were reportedly planning to kill Police Officers. This comes after a raid on one location led to a gun battle into the death of two militants. Meanwhile, in paris, prosecutors rounded up 12 people who were being questioned about whether they provided edd Logistical Support to the men who carried out the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket last week. And in germany, two turkish nationals were arrested accused of recruiting those to go fight in syria. The countrys Intelligence Service has warned of planned attacks against major train stations in berlin and dresden. Also tonight big news out of the Supreme Court. The justices will take up samesex marriage and decide once and for all whether kay couples have the right to marry under the constitution. Well get to that in a moment but we begin with the Terror Threat. Nbc news chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel is in istanbul. He has this report. Reporter what were seeing now is europe rounding up the suspects. In belgium, in germany, these were islamic radicals that the government had been tracking, had phone taps on had surveillance on but just decided after paris that it couldnt wait any longer that there was the real risk of an imminent threat. In fact in belgium, police say that there was a threat that could have taken place or a terrorist attack that could have taken place within hours. And when you look at the equipment that was seized from that home in belgium, automatic rifles explosives Police Uniforms and authorities there believe that these militants would have worn the Police Uniforms in order to get close to fellow or get close to Police Officers posing as fellow Police Officers and carried out a parisstyle shooting attack. So this is a dangerous development. Europe is clearly on edge about it. You saw in paris where for several hours people around the world thought, here we go again. Turns out that that hostage situation was not terrorist related, according to french authorities. But this is what isis and al qaeda but isis in particular have been calling for. This is what they want. They mobilized their people. They put out calls of action after paris telling europeans in particular but also american supporters not necessarily to try and come and join the caliphate, which was their original message, for the last year theyve been saying come and join us come do your islamic duty and join the newly established Islamic State under the caliph ab dar al baghdadi. Now they say, if you cant come here, stay home get a weapon and carry out an attack. Back here in the United States, pb president obama and the Prime Minister of Great BritainDavid Cameron discussed the Terror Threat today. In a press conference president obama was asked about the crackdown. This phenomenon of violent extremism, the ideology the networks, the capacity to recruit young people this has metastasized and it is widespread and it has penetrated communities around the world. I do not consider it an existential threat. This is a problem that causes great heartache and tragedy and destruction, but it is one that ultimately were going to defeat. Meanwhile, Prime Minister cameron warned that combating the problem will take time and patience. We do face a very serious islamist extremist terrorist threat in europe in america, across the world. There is no single simple thing that needs to be done. It means closing down the ungoverned spaces that the terrorist operate in it mean ss this death cult of a narrative thats perverting the religion of islam. It means all of these things and it will be a long, patient and hard struggle. Joining me now michael kay, National Affairs correspondent and senior british officer and rafael pantugi at the Royal United Services institute. Michael, let me start with you. This seems like a very abrupt and dramatic departure from just a week ago, a few days ago we were talking about one of the stories out of paris of those attacks was these were guys that had been under surveillance. The authorities knew who they were and they operated in plain sight leading up to the attacks. Now it seems suddenly a very proactive, preemptive approach. Is this a beginning of a new way of handling this issue . Look with this preactive and preeminent approach you describe, that requires an amount of financing, manpower and resource to take that. Historically you get an incident and the police react to it. People are very risk adverse when it comes to looking at what happened at Charlie Hebdo and having to react to that. But one thing to pick up on here, steve, this isnt anything new. If we go back al qaeda in iraq and al zarqawi and the afghan taliban, theyve been spewing this rhetoric for over ten years but the context is difference in terms of globalization and in terms of the ability for people to travel across the world easily and travel through europe through porous borders in terms of social media, the Internet Access to internet in sort of places which historically havent had that type of infrastructure to be able to do that. And this is what the islamists, the radical terrorists are picking up on in their ability to be able to sort of get that rhetoric across. Going to the intelligence communities theyve been doing this for a long time steve. We just dont hear about it. What we hear about are the raids and the failures. Theyve been working behind the scenes for a decade and trying to ameliorate the threat. Were seeing it froth to the surface a little bit. In terms of what the Intelligence Community has been doing, we shouldnt underestimate the work theyve been doing up to the Charlie Hebdo event and what you see now is a more proactive posture to events that might happen in the future. Richard engel mentioned this in that report a minute ago, but he was talking about how isis has been agitating for attacks like the ones that maybe were being planned here. We have this report of the potential attack being foiled where they had Police Uniforms where you have isis thats calling for militants to go after police to go after military in the west is this a seeming manifestation of that . Well its possible. We dont know the plot yet or the exact nature of whether this was directed or whether this is individuals who sort of saw themselves adhering to the isis ideology and sort of deciding to launch an attack very much under their own steam but in advance of a sort of general message thing they got from the group. Weve seen a number of disruptions taking place in other countries where authorities were trying to target civilian targets or target Security Officials and what seemed to be following isis mode. What we dont know is what were looking at here yet. What we saw disrupted in belgium is a plot in close to mature form. These individual hs sort of obviously determined that they wanted to do some sort of incident wearing uniforms and they got some heavy weaponry. And they were ready to go which is why when the authorities walked in heavily armed, they reacted as they did. The bigger point is this is probably a sort of echo in some ways of what we saw happen in paris. Every time that you have some successful incident like that Security Forces will immediately go back and relook at a whole bunch of investigations that maybe theyve been watching for some time and maybe reprioritize some people because theres a tendency for people to build on success. When you see one other successful incident, others try to leap on to it. But certainly isis has been calling for these sorts of things for some time and people seem to be picking up on it. President obama today pointed to one problem European Countries face. Many of their muslim citizens feel disconnected from society. Contrasted that to the situation here in the United States. The United States has one big advantage in this whole process. Our big advantage is that our muslim populations, they they feel themselves to be americans, and there is this incredible process of immigration and assimilation that is part of our tradition that is probably our greatest strength. There are parts of europe in which thats not the case. And thats probably the greatest danger that europe faces. That idea that muslims are more or less assimilated in the United States, maybe more treated as outcasts in europe, that fosters extremism. Do you agree with the president there . Im not sure i completely do. I mean certainly there are individuals i think within european muslim communities who do obviously feel disenfranchised. This is why theyre drawn to these radical narratives. There are vast sections of britains community who are very british and very european and can feel that and express themselves in that way. What youre dealing with here is a minority that feeds off a narrative of victimization. The reason were seeing the particular problems recently of radicalization and people being drawn to go fight in syria and iraq its in part connected to the fact that this conflict is happening on europes borders. If youre sitting in london and want to go fight in syria and iraq, its easy to get to turkey and come across the border. If youre trying to do that from the United States its a long equation and complicated journey and crossing borders that are heavily watched. What were seeing at the moment and this increased problem within europe is something that could, in fact, be easily explainable as gee ogographygeography. On that subject, on the idea of extremism, on the idea of people who actually commit to this cause, muslims who actually decide that they want to take that call to be militants. Do we have an idea of the scope of this. I think its hundreds that have gone to syria that have been returned to europe. Is today what were seeing in terms of these raids just the tip of the iceberg . Do we have a sense of numbers here at all . Just to give you a sense of the context, steve. If you look at this 330 Million People in america and we reckon around 100 jihadists that have managed to get to syria, if you look at france 66 million and we reckon around 1200 jihadists. If you look at belgium, theres 11 million and 300. If you look at the ratios theyre pretty scary versus the volume in the United States. I want to pick up on one statement that Prime Minister cameron made. This is a multifaceted approach we need to take. One is ungoverned spaces that you rightly hit upon. But we need to create ungoverned ed spaces. There was no post conflict planned. Then we went into libya and made a mess out of that. Thats now an ungoverned space that al sisi is having to deal with. If you look at syria, that has no political road map. Thats an ungoverned space where isis are thriving. So malrequest al shabaab is surviving there because its ungoverned space. Nigeria boko haram. There are large swaths that are ungoverned, mali and north africa. Thats absolutely key. So weve got to look at our Foreign Policy in terms of not only creating these issues but really trying to understand the multifaceted approach across the political, economic and security paradigms when were trying to deal with these ungoverned spaces. Thats key to this as well. Thanks to both of you. Appreciate the im. Coming up Chris Christies taking on the press, scott walker is attacking Hillary Clinton and everyone seems to be against mitt romney. The knives are already out for 2016. Plus what promises to be a historic ruling the Supreme Court will decide whether or not samesex couples have the right to marry. That decision will have huge impact on the race. And president obama got momentum, now hes telling Senate Democrats behind closed doors that hes going to play offense using his veto power to protect his agenda against republicans in congress. And finally joni ernst has a chance to do something so many before her have failed to do make a good First Impression delivering the republican response to president obamas state of the union. Theyre coming. What do i do . You need to catch the 4 10 huh . The Equipment Tracking system will get you to the loading dock. There should be a truck leaving now. I got it. Now jump off the bridge. What . In 3. 2. 1. Are you kidding me . Go. Right on time. 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I wanted to express to you personally the sheer horror and revulsion that all americans felt for the cowardly and despicable act, the assault, on innocent lives and on fundamental values. Kerry introduced massachusetts native james taylor who sang youve got a friend for the people of france. Thank you for being a sailor and my daddy. Thank you mom, for protecting my future. Thank you for being my hero and my dad. Military families are thankful for many things. The legacy of usaa Auto Insurance could be one of them. Our worldclass service earned usaa the top spot in a study of the most recommended Large Companies in america. If youre current or former military, or their family, see if youre eligible to get an Auto Insurance quote. What ive told everybody, supporters of mine potential donors of mine staff, is relax. You know no ones voting for another 12 1 2 months. First voting in iowa in the beginning of february of 16. So everyone just calm down. You know . Be relaxed. Look at me. Look how relaxed i look. You look very relaxed tonight. Welcome back to hardball. Chris christie and everyone else sparring for the nomination for president is shaping up for a heck of a fight. While christie says hes relaxed hes out there fighting with his press corps while popularity continues to decline back home. And scott walker launched a major attack on Hillary Clinton and everyone is trying to knock out mitt romney. Michael steele was the chairman of the Republican National committee and with mother jones. During that local radio interview christie ripped into the local press in new jersey for what he saw was unfair and selfish coverage focusing on a media he held with National Media outlets before last tuesdays state of the state address. As the local papers reported local new jersey media was barred without explanation. Could you find a group of more selfconsumed people . That on a day like that theyre writing about themselves. Do you think the public cares a wit whether they got into a private meeting . And by the way, the other private meetings theyve had with me which theyve had in the last month, they didnt report on that did they . Well they were off the record. Well, you know, they can say when talking about this we had a similar meeting with the governor a month ago, but they didnt, did they . Because that would be fair. God knows we wouldnt want to be that. Listen, if they want to act like children let them act like children. Michael steel, im in the media, i should take offense and everything, but politically, the politics of this doesnt Chris Christie have a point here . Nobody likes the media, nobody sympathizes with the media, this is his bread and butter good politics, no . I dont think so exactly. Yeah, you had a meeting with the press a month ago, but its not the same as meeting with them the day before your state of the state. Thats a very different conversation. And its a very different impact has a very different impact because its about the state. So from my perspective, when you go into these types of things you have the ambitions to grow large and do all of that stuff politically beyond your state. Its always helpful to have a press corps at home thats got your back. In other words, is going to tell the narrative of the good stuff youve done even if they come after you on certain thin sgs, they wont be at odds with you. Christie has enough of the noise to deal with. What do you think the idea was there . Hes got the state of the state address. Hes trying to make a national impression. Hes talked to local press certainly before. But that does seem unusual for a governor to say im only talking to the national people. Ive got to agree with my pal, Michael Steele on this. Li