Nightly News   |  January 23, 2013

Islamic militants re-armed after Gadhafi’s fall

When Libya dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed in an uprising, militant groups looted his weapons cache, dispersing the guns and missiles to various countries. The violence in Algeria and Benghazi -- and Israel’s worries about an increasingly hostile Arab world – stem from this resurgence. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> all of this brings us to our chief foreign correspondent, richard engel in the studio. at one point the secretary just kind of waved her hand today to indicate the whole region of the middle east as something we should have our eyes on. as i know, all too well, it's a tinder box . what do you have your eyes on right now?

>> in regards to this testimony, i think she was highlighting the problems in north africa . and it really goes down to weapons. when gadhafi was falling, i was there at the time, i had never seen so many weapons in my entire life. and they were just being taken from depots, they were being handed over to militant groups. and then they went all over the region. they went from country to country and they fell into the hands of militant groups. and this is no longer theoretical. serve americans have been killed, including an ambassador in the last four months.

>> benjamin netanyahu re-elected bye-bye a thin margin with less power and there they sit in the middle of a lot of this.

>> they feel very isolated right now. and the message in israel, and there was a lot of apathy toward this vote but the main message is, this is about your security. you're going to vote to save your life. israel feels right now it has been surrounded by an increasingly hostile arab world . and to some degree, it's not wrong.

>> richard engel , as always, good to see you.