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Air Strikes Continue Against ISIS in Iraq; Belgian Man Rescues Son From Joining Terrorist Group; Family of Journalist Murdered by ISIS Interviewed

Aired August 23, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SCOTT CARROLL, CHICAGO WHITE SOX PITCHER: Any time you see some kids from the inner city, and especially the Jackie Robinson kids play so well and accomplish what they have, you can bring some light to the kids in the areas and show those kids from that area that, hey, this can be done.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: The number of African- American players in Major League Baseball has dwindled from around 20 percent since 1986 to only eight percent this season. The decline is a concern of new MLB elect Rob Manfred, who was in attendance at the Little League World Series this week.

ROB MANFRED, MLB COMMISSIONER: We want all kinds of kids playing the game more, and that's the kind of approach that -- Commissioner Selig has already started this on, and it's you're going to see more of this.

PIERCE JONES, JACKIE ROBINSON WEST: We try to stay humble and keep it from going to our heads. But it is hard though, because we've been getting stopped a lot.

SCHOLES: You are being asked for autographs a little bit, right?

JONES: Yes. Yes.

SCHOLES: That's kind of odd, isn't it?

JONES: Yes. Well --

SCHOLES: It is pretty cool, though?

JONES: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again. Good afternoon, it is 2:00 here in the east. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Fredricka Whitfield.

Talk of potential U.S. air strikes on ISIS targets is Syria is growing louder today. U.S. official are telling CNN military leaders are discussing this right now, and they're gathering intel for the president's review. Our Anna Coren joins us now live in Erbil, the city right near some ISIS strongholds in Iraq. Anna what are learning about these options the U.S. Navy is considering in Syria as well as Iraq?

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, there's no denying that the tone and the rhetoric coming out of the White House has changed significantly since the horrific murder of American journalist James Foley. We are hearing it from all top senior Obama officials that the murder of Foley is the equivalent to terrorist attack on America, that ISIS poses an imminent threat, and that we have never seen a terrorist organization like this before.

So really they are laying the groundwork, if you like, laying the argument for why the U.S. needs to go into Syria and launch those air strikes, the reason being is that Syria is a safe haven, it's a sanctuary for the ISIS militants who are currently operating here in Iraq. They have crossed the borders and they go back into Syria. So the U.S. can conduct as many air strikes as they like here in Iraq, but at the end of the day the militants will move back into Syria.

We heard from General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying, that if we are going to defeat ISIS, we have to go into Syria. We know that President Obama has been reluctant to go get involved in the Syrian war, which has been going on now for some three years, claimed the lives of almost 200,000 people according to the United Nations. But this is no longer just about Syria and Iraq. This is now about America, because these ISIS militants are going after American citizens, and we know from the horrific video that we saw that they are threatening to execute a second journalist, Steven Sotloff, if these air strikes continue here in Iraq now.

CABRERA: All right, so what's next, Ana Coren, thank you. I want to bring in Peter Bergen. He's a CNN national security analyst and has written extensively about counterterrorism. He's joining me from Washington. Peter, let's cut right to the chase. You've been watching these guys. How big of a threat are they, ISIS, to us here on U.S. soil?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I am little skeptical of the claims that ISIS is a threat to the United States directly. Obviously it's a threat to the Americans in region and American diplomatic facilities potentially, but we have only seen a limited number of Americans go to Syria. Some of them have joined ISIS or tried to, but it's not clear that any of those folks have come back and planned terrorist attacks in the United States at all.

There are of course larger number of Europeans who have gone, and that is certainly a big issue potentially for Europe, and they could come to the U.S., but it is a "could," and not a definite.

But on the issue of the strikes in Syria, I think there is a lot of problems associated with carrying out the strikes in Syria from the sort of legal, international law perspective. I think that the president would at a minimum have to seek congressional approval. After all, this is a country which is not, unlike in Iraq where the government is actually asking for U.S. military strikes, the Syrian government is certainly not asking for this. And as a matter of international law, typically you would have a U.N. mandate or even potentially a NATO operation, neither of which are likely to happen at present, which leaves you really with the congressional authorization. I think that president actually temperamentally would like to go back to Congress if such strikes were to happen in any serious way.

CABRERA: Right. So we might see the escalation of the response to the situation there. I'm curious, as you mentioned, there are more westerners joining ISIS and that Europeans perhaps have a bigger threat currently than the U.S. given ice ISIS's location and the number of people who may be joining. But what makes ISIS so effective in their recruiting?

BERGEN: Well, I think nothing succeeds like success. I think five years ago if you were a jihadist militant from Germany, you went the tribal regions of Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda or a like-minded group, today instead you are going to ISIS because ISIS controls more territory more than any Al Qaeda-like group in its history, from Aleppo in western Syria basically almost to the gates of Baghdad in the east about 450 miles across. And, you know, they have a pretty effective social media campaign. And if you are somebody who is influenced by this ideology, they're the group that you want to join right now.

Four years ago, some people may have been tempted to join Shabaab, the Al Qaeda group Somalia which controlled much of Somalia at that time. So ISIS is really the flavor du jour and it's simply and it's arguably the most effective jihadi terrorist group that we've seen in the modern era.

CABRERA: We have seen the air strikes that the U.S. has been doing in Iraq, actually do something to ISIS to pushing them away from the dam there near Mosul. I wonder if your take, just to get your take the on all of this, air strikes and the boots on the ground, what is it going to take to stop ISIS?

BERGEN: Well, that's a political question, not just a military question. I mean, there is no constituency in the United States for a ground invasion of Iraq. Air strikes, you know, they are effective. They are not going to destroy ISIS, but the fact is that ISIS can no longer function as a conventional army using tanks and driving down highways. It has to function much more of an insurgent terrorist group, which is basically the way it has functioned in the past. So the air strikes are effective, but they are not, you know, decisive. But there is very little appetite in the United States for major ground operations in Iraq.

CABRERA: All right, Peter Bergen, thank you for your time.

BERGEN: Thank you.

CABRERA: Now let's head to Ferguson, Missouri, where rallies supporting Michael Brown as well as Officer Darren Wilson are happening today. The organizer for Officer Wilson's rally just spoke within the last hour. We brought that to you live right here on CNN. And she said in part that other supporters there have received death threats, and that they believe that Wilson is justified in the action and said as the facts come out that will become evident. It has been two weeks since officer Wilson shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Now in about an hour an NAACP youth march is expected to start in Ferguson supporting the Brown family.

Up next a father makes a dangerous journey from Belgium to Syria to find his lost son. Now, he is worried that he was caught up in the radical Islam and had turned his back on the life that he once knew.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: One man has a unique perspective on ISIS and its recruitment of young men and women from the United States or Europe. Now he risked his life to save his 18-year-old from Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria. Now he is helping other western fathers to bring home sons who joined ISIS. He is in Syria right now doing just that. Atika Shubert has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As a teenager, this young man danced in the music video, but within a year he went from this to this, a young Muslim convert preaching into the streets of Antwerp.

DMITRI BONTINCK, RESCUED SON FROM PRECURSOR TO ISIS: He started to become very religious, always praying, he don't wear western clothes. So we did see the signs of radicalization.

SHUBERT: Then he said he was needing to study in Cairo, but when he missed his younger sister's birthday, his father knew he son was actually in Syria.

BONTINCK: On that day, no phone call, no message. That day I know 100 percent something is going wrong.

SHUBERT: Bontinck began to search the Internet for any sign of his son.

BONTINCK: I discovered a video from a television station. Inside of the video I see friends of him from this radical Muslim civilization from this city, from Antwerp, they would speak the language of Antwerp. When I saw that, I knew that my son is there.

SHUBERT: Against the advice of police and his lawyer, Bontinck decided to go after him himself. He kept a video diary that he gave to CNN. His search began in the north of Syria with the three lawyers in Aleppo.

BONTINCK: Your son, he says, he does not want to leave.

SHUBERT: The trail eventually leads to Syria's Islamic extremists. In his video, Bontinck seems to sympathize with them, trying on their weapon, but also capturing extraordinary moments as a jihadi fighter sits down to play a grand piano in an abandoned luxury home, scenes that change his views on Islam and the Syrian conflict.

BONTINCK: Well, it is something that I know about Muslims and Islam is it's like people who have no civilization, who cannot live in peace.

SHUBERT: But you changed your mind?

BONTINCK: I changed my mind, yes.

SHUBERT: Why?

BONTINCK: Because I have been to Syria and I've met so many Muslim groups, fighting groups that are Muslim and people with Al Qaeda and terrorists, and I'm not a Muslim, and if you see what these people have come from, where they are sleeping food, they search for me everywhere.

SHUBERT: But Bontinck did not succeed at first. It took nearly a year and two trips before he could track down his son. He says he found him months later with Jabhat al-Nusra.

BONTINCK: They beat me. They almost killed me. They took all my clothes off. They put a cap on me. They hide me and they suspect me, thought I was with the CIA, and then they believe me and they let me go. And they let me son return home with me.

SHUBERT: What was that like?

BONTINCK: I cried. I never cried before. When he was missed, but the first contact I held him, and it is like parents who get to hold their children who have passed away.

SHUBERT: He was released without charge, not monitored by Belgium police, but barred from speaking to the press. He is also facing charges of recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria. His father insists his son in innocent, but it is easy to see where he gets his taste for adventure, and perhaps an inflated sense of his own importance.

BONTINCK: They respect me, and why? Because for them it was amazing, amazing that a father from the west who is not a Muslim tried to risk his life to come to a war country to look for his own son, a son who is one of them who had become a Mujahidin. So I was a hero for them. I was a hero for them.

SHUBERT: A hero or an adventurer, lost child or a jihadi, many questions unanswered, and like father, like son.

Atika Shubert, CNN, Antwerp, Belgium.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: What a parent will do for their children.

Now the siblings of the American journalist beheaded by terrorists are speaking out for the first time since his death. What they want you to know about their brother.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CABRERA: The siblings of the American journalist who was executed at the hands of terrorist group ISIS, they are speaking up for the first time since his death. ISIS posted an online video of James Foley's execution earlier this week. Now his brother and sister sat down with Yahoo's Katie Couric, and they told her how they are coping with his death and how they hope you're remember him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE COURIC, YAHOO ANCHOR: Jim was so committed to journalism, and shining a light, I think, on these terribly violent and repressive situations, giving voice to the voiceless. And I was interested to read about his life. He joined Teach for America. He then got his MSA at Amherst. And he really decided to go to pursue journalism in his mid-30s when he went to Medill at Northwestern and got a master's degree. What drove him to the profession, do you think?

MICHAEL FOLEY, JAMES FOLEY'S BROTHER: Well, actually, it was I think the perfect mix of his interests. He cares deeply about the people, particularly the disadvantaged and how he taught in inner city Phoenix for years and made a lot of relationships and shaped some lives there. And he taught in a county jail in Chicago for several years, and he loved to write. He always loved to write. He loved photography. And, you know, I think that combination was a natural one.

COURIC: Let's go back if we could to Thanksgiving Day, 2012, when you both heard that Jim had been kidnapped while working for the "Global Post" in Syria. Michael and Katy, you must have been sick with worry to hear that news.

KATIE FOLEY, JAMES FOLEY'S SISTER: Yes. Yes. Actually I was fortunate enough, I actually had to work at the hospital that day on Thanksgiving, and I remember I was up that morning, and I got a Skype alert. I opened up my computer, and it was Jim. And he was just talking to me, and I had told him happy Thanksgiving. And he was like, it is Thanksgiving over there? And I said, yes, it is Thanksgiving. So you know we all love you. And then I went off to work, and obviously you know the rest of the story.

MICHAEL FOLEY: Well, Jim was at an Internet cafe, so you were probably, certainly the last person in our family to talk to him.

KATIE FOLEY: Yes, and so I feel very honored and you know, it is really special that I was at least able to say that before he was taken.

COURIC: And Michael, this wasn't the first time that your brother had been kidnapped?

MICHAEL FOLEY: No. No, it wasn't, Katie. He was I think, I don't know, detained for something like 40 days in Libya, and we worked day and night to get him released. I will never forget meeting him in Tunisia and flying him and Claire home, and just the thrill of the moment.

A lot of us were really initially angered when Jim went back, back to Libya, and he was on site when he covered Gadhafi's fall. We were angered when he went back to Libya to help look for Anton Emeril's (ph), the deceased colleague who was killed when they were captured in Libya. I had the same initial reaction in Syria. But over time, we have learned to understand why and how, how brave he was and how important what he did or was or is to the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: And up next, our Jennifer Gray watching some severe tropical weather we want you to know about. She will join us with the forecast when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Welcome back. I want to bring you up to speed on some rough weather that's developing off of the east coast in the Atlantic. So let's bring in meteorologist Jennifer Gray. Jennifer, gill us in, what is happening no now?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, the hurricane hunters have been out in this system for much of the day. It is not a tropical system yet. It does not have the low level circulation which it needs to become a tropical system. Still a tropical wave out there, but it could become a tropical depression or tropical storm later today or tomorrow. Still an 80 percent chance of developing in the next 48 hours, but it has dumped at lot of very heavy rain across Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It will start to pull away from that and impact the Caicos as well as the southern Bahamas.

And because of its close proximity to the Bahamas as well as the southeastern U.S., it is a definitely a concern to us. That is why we are focused on it. And of course, we are focused on where it is headed next. And as you can see, from all the computer models that we look at, the confidence is very, very low. There is a huge uncertainty of where the system is going to go over the next couple of days. Computer models take it from anywhere east of the U.S. all of the way into the Gulf of Mexico. That is why the confidence is staying very low.

A lot of different scenarios of where this could possibly head. This could keep moving up to the north and picked up by the jet stream and stay off shore. It could also slow down a little bit, skirt the U.S., and impact portions of the southeastern portions of the U.S. It could also stay on the western track, that southwestern track, and head into the Gulf of Mexico. That is the least likely scenario. Of course it is something that we are going to continue to watch, Ana, over the next couple of days because it is so close to the southern tip of Florida. We only have a couple of days to watch before possible impacts of anything such as high surf and rip currents, things like that. It is something that we are going to be watching over the next couple of days, so stay tuned to CNN.

CABRERA: All right, we will keep the fingers crossed that everybody stays safe. Jennifer Gray, thank you.

We will have more news in just 30 minutes with Jim Sciutto in New York. "CNN MONEY" is next. Thanks so much for spending part of your weekend with us.