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American Killed Fighting with ISIS; Syrian Opposition Group Feeling on Potential Airstrikes or U.S. response in Syria; Obama Authorizes Reconnaissance Flights in Syria; New Audio in Michael Brown Shooting Case; Visa Program Could Allow ISIS into U.S.

Aired August 26, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: So we were just listening in to Rear Admiral John Kirby. The headline at the top of that press conference is "Several partner nations have committed to providing weapons to the Kurdish fighters inside Iraq to help combat Syria (sic)." We'll talk -- to help combat ISIS, that is. We'll talk about that and any potential U.S. involvement in just a moment.

But during that briefing, we had some breaking news come in to CNN. An American man believed to be fighting as a jihadist has been killed in Syria.

Let me bring in CNN's national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, with me right now.

Jim, what do we know?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is a remarkable story and an alarming story. I spoke to the uncle of an American Douglas MacArthur McCain, 33-year-old from San Diego, and his uncle tells that he was notified by the State Department that Douglas McCain was killed while fighting as a jihadist. His uncle says that the family is devastated and says that they are just as surprised as the country now that his nephew, that their son was killed fighting there for these extremist groups.

He gave some more details as well, Ana. He said he was raised a Christian, converted to Islam a number of years ago and at the time didn't raise any alarm bells with the family. They said they respect all religions and he seemed committed to his faith.

More recently, the family beam aware that he began to post on websites, Facebook, Twitter, postings that were sympathetic to ISIS and other extremist groups there. He traveled to Turkey recently. But when he traveled to Turkey, they didn't know that he would go on to Syria. They said he liked to travel. But when he went to Turkey that was the last contact that the family had with him.

So, you know, this is something that intelligent officials have been talking to me and other colleagues at CNN, this great concern about foreigners joining the fight in Syria with jihadi groups there, including ISIS. It's believed that there are 100 Americans in that group now and more than 1,000 Europeans. This would be one of those Americans who went there and he dies.

CABRERA: Do we know, was he fighting with ISIS or against is?

SCIUTTO: We're waiting for confirmation to find out which of these jihadi groups he was fighting for at the time. Alarming under any circumstances.

You remember a while ago an American from Florida who was killed dying as a suicide bomber. He set off a truck bomb in Syria fighting for one of these extremist groups, al Nusra. A similar story. He was raised in the U.S. I believe he was raised as a Muslim. This one, he was raised as a Christian. He converted at a later time.

But this is a tremendous concern to U.S. intelligent officials, administration officials because ISIS is a threat in its own right, taking over enormous parts of Syria and Iraq, but it has a secondary threat as well, that it's attracted so many foreigners. And the concern is, what happens when the foreigners go home? It's the believe of U.S. intelligence officials I've spoken to -- and I've got a number of briefings on this -- concern that they may be being trained and encouraged, when they return home, to carry out attacks on the U.S. homeland.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: It's an enormous fear. And it's raised the prospect now of U.S. airstrikes on ISIS not just in Iraq but also in Syria. It's a great concern and here you have an American that went there and he died.

CABRERA: Jim Sciutto, thanks for that information.

Let's talk about the response to the ISIS threat.

I'm going to bring in retired Army Lieutenant General, Mark Hertling. He's a CNN military analyst. Also with me, Josh Rogin, a CNN political analyst and a senior national security correspondent for "The Daily Beast."

Josh, let's start with you.

We heard the president mention support for the Syrian opposition since so much of the focus is moving into Syria, an ISIS stronghold. You just wrote about the groups battling the Assad regime as well as ISIS in Syria. How do those groups feel about potential airstrikes or a U.S. response in Syria?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST & SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST: The Free Syrian Army will come to their aid in their fight against ISIS which has been going on now for almost a year. They've heard repeated promises from the Obama administration for money, arms, other types of support that have not been met. They are open to the possibility that now that U.S. personnel and U.S. homeland is under threat from ISIS, that the Obama administration may make the decision to intervene in Syria but don't believe airstrikes are the best way to do it. Very simply put, ISIS is not a group that can be struck and destroyed

like a state. According to the Syrian opposition, ISIS is spread out into cities. If we were to do airstrikes into those cities, we would kill civilians and the only way to get at them is to have a ground game and that would include, if you are not willing to put U.S. troops on the ground, working with the Syrian opposition. That's what they are asking for. They say they are on the ground and they can help and they haven't been utilized. Nevertheless, they are optimistic but cautious about the prospect of the U.S. doing something more in Syria after three and a half years of bloody civil war.

CABRERA: It's so interesting, the dynamics in Syria specifically, General Hertling, because Assad, who has been a nemesis seems to be welcoming this and they are saying the airstrikes might hurt rather than help. Does handling ISIS in Syria demand a different tactic than fighting ISIS in Iraq?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think fighting ISIS is fighting ISIS. We're going to have to take a very holistic approach in the way we encounter this group. The requirement for intelligence, the continued search for intelligence across the board and across that very porous border, as we just heard Admiral Kirby eloquently state, having been in that part of the country in Iraq and knowing there are no border posts or tribal guards, they allow for free flowing of fighters between those borders. This is going to be very challenging and the direction against ISIS is one direction. It doesn't matter where they are. This is a horrific terrorist group that has to be defeated by the forces that are there.

CABRERA: And the question is, how do you defeat them? There's been a lot of talk, especially from U.S. officials about really relying on allies needing to play a key role to stop is. I know that has been part of the approach to handling the crisis in Syria initially at least.

And, Josh, you write that doesn't seem to be working.

ROGIN: The fact of the matter is ISIS and other jihadi groups have received support from lots of countries around the region, Including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and others. This allowed them to grow into the problem that they are. There is an effort to stop the international support but that effort is not complete.

Moreover, now that ISIS has its own money, its own oil fields and revenue and a bunch of U.S. equipment that it stole from Iraq, that the amount of sheer force that's going to be needed to roll back their advances is so mammoth that it would have to come from not U.S. airstrikes but from the closing of the borders in Turkey and support from countries like Jordan and Iraq.

So it's clear that the Obama administration is scrambling now to figure out a holistic plan to roll back the gains of ISIS and to ensure a strategic defeat of the group but they haven't done that yet and the strikes that they are contemplating, they'll make a decision about later this week are limited in nature, meant to strike ISIS in the open area and not meant to actually defeat the group. That larger plan will have to come through some other means and I don't think they are there yet, and that's a problem.

CABRERA: General --

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Go ahead.

HERTLING: Yeah, if I might add to, that Josh has hit a very good point. Your question sums it up. There's been the talk of international defense against this threat but it's only really been talk. And I think the execution of Mr. Foley last week, the understanding that jihadist are coming from Europe. In my last command in Europe, it's good to hear many of the courts that are now ponying up supplies for this effort. We've got to get not only Europeans but the moderate Islamists involved in this in condemning this group which is such an aberration to the great religion of Islam.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGIN: That's true but the only thing I would add, if we are fighting the ideology of is, a group that is so good at social media it can radicalize people in the U.S. and Europe, we have to have a counter propaganda, a counter messaging plan as well. I don't see that in any real way.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Gentlemen, thanks so much.

Just a moment.

I need to bring in -- I want to bring into the conversation with us our Christiane Amanpour, who is now joining us. She also was listening in on that Pentagon briefing. She's been up to speed on the latest developments regarding the reconnaissance flights over Syria that the Obama administration has now said it's OK to move ahead with that.

Christiane, what is your reaction to what you've been hearing in the last few hours?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've been reporting on what possibly might happen. I interviewed the U.K. ambassador to the U.N. who says that, yes, now the surveillance flights have been authorized, it's possible that some U.S. action could happen, as both the general and Josh have been talking to you about.

But I think, from what I've heard from your conversation with the two gentlemen, a big sign needs to go up, wanted, one coherent strategy. As the general said, this is a major terrorist threat. There needs to be a complete strategy to defeat ISIS. The U.S. has done it before with ISIS's predecessor, AQI, al Qaeda in Iraq. And during the surge of '07, '08, they managed with the help of Sunnis in Iraq to push back the ISIS predecessor. But there's a huge amount of fear here in England. The foreign

secretary, Phillip Hammond, has said that now they control a massive swath of territory in Iraq, in Syria, which is a terrorist state and it's only a matter of time that they will attack the West: Europe, United States, and elsewhere.

And you were just talking about Jim Sciutto about the American jihadis, 500 British jihadis, some 3000 Western jihadis in all, who are fighting there. And many feel they will come back, a lot of them, radicalized and with attack on their minds -- Ana?

CABRERA: Christiane, I want to ask you, when you talk about a comprehensive strategy is needed to defeat ISIS, what could or should our allies in the U.S. be doing that they haven't been doing already?

AMANPOUR: Well, what we've seen is the U.S. leadership has actually worked to an extent in the limited nature it's been deployed so far. For instance, trying to help the Kurdish areas, trying to help the refugees who were faced up the mountains by ISIS. So there is a way to do this. But it involves a coordinated, allied sort of plan. But also, obviously, no one is going to put boots on the ground and it's the straw man of the Israelis in order to deflect anything at all.

But trying -- it may be the 11th hour, but trying in Syria to finally bolster the moderate opposition, which still exists, although it is on its last leg for want of any help, any decent help from the West, and trying to really boss sister allies in the region to try to help, to push back ISIS. But also try to figure out how to get locals on site as they did in Iraq.

But you know, Ana, it's very late in the game. People have been suggesting this for the last three years and the administration has simply not wanted to do it. And now they may be forced to do something. But it can't work if it's going to be piecemeal, according to military officials that I've been talking to. It's got to be intense, whole, and it's got to work. Otherwise, this caliphate is going to exist in the Middle East, raising armies who are going to attack, not just those regions but our regions as well.

CABRERA: Final quick question. Why is it the U.S.? Or should it be the U.S.' responsibility to lead this effort against ISIS?

AMANPOUR: Well, the bottom line is that the U.S. is the only one that can do it. The United States has all of the lifting capacity, the intelligence, surveillance, hardware and all of that. But it's not just the United States. It has to be the United States with a group of NATO allies, regional allies to try to get this job done. And many have said that it's been a lack of any kind of intervention over the last three years that has seen what was actually a moderate opposition, more and more sidelined by the extremist ISIS, al Nusra, all of the others in Syria who have received help from outside while the moderate opposition has not.

Let's not forget that the moderate opposition over the last year, perhaps a year ago was very close to making very serious inroads into Assad's forces and it's been beating back and fighting off the extremists like ISIS. But then Assad got help from Iran and Russia and came back strong. And there's evidence that Assad has been colluding with ISIS in order to have this self-fulfilling prophecy. And this notion that maybe the U.S. should jump into bed with -- in a marriage of convenience with Assad, that is being pooh-poohed by the U.S. and, indeed, by Britain right now because, indeed, Assad, they say, is actually the cause of all of this.

CABRERA: We just heard Rear Admiral John Kirby say that's not going to happen.

Christiane Amanpour, thank you for your insight.

And also our thanks to Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and Josh Rogin. Up next, potential new clues in the mystery surrounding the death of

Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. CNN has obtained new audio allegedly of the gunshots fired by the police officer. But there's a gap in between shots. I'll speak live with an audio forensic expert coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Welcome back.

From an autopsy the family ordered, we've learned Michael Brown was shot at least six times. And now we may have a better idea of how many times he was shot at. CNN has exclusively obtained audio that could be from the last moments of Michael Brown's life. The shooting was recorded unintentionally by a man who happened to be on a video chat. So you'll hear his voice talking as the gunfire plays in the background. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty.

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are so fine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just going over some of your videos.

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How could I forget?

(END AUDIO FEED)

CABRERA: So a very short duration there. CNN has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this recording. We're working to do that. And law enforcement officials tell CNN that the FBI is working to verify this audio clip.

But I want to bring in CNN legal analyst, Sunny Hostin; and Frank Piazza, the president and founder of Legal Audio, and has testified as an expert witness in multiple trials.

Frank, let's start with you.

What can we learn from that audio we just heard?

FRANK PIAZZA, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, LEGAL AUDIO: Well, I suppose you want to know certain things about how it was recorded, the authenticity, meaning, do we have an original version of that audio? I mean, what we're hearing today has been transferred around, passed around from organization to organization. So part of what we need to know is did that audio come directly from the source.

CABRERA: And we know the FBI is working to figure that out.

Sunny, I'm going to turn to you because now that we have the audio. There's been a lot said as far as witnesses on the scene and you wonder, does it all match up?

So I want to flashback just a moment. Here again, from the prime eyewitness to the shooting, Dorian Johnson. He details how there was a gunshot and a scuffle between Darren Wilson and Brown at the car initially and then he says that Brown moved away from the car. Here's more from Johnson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DORIAN JOHNSON, WITNESS: And I see the officer proceeding after my friend Big Mike with his gun drawn and he fired a second shot and that struck my friend Big Mike and at that time he turned around with his hands up, beginning to tell the officer that he was unarmed and to tell him to stop shooting but at that time, the officer was firing several more shots and so my friend hit the ground and died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: OK. Let's quickly listen to the audio of the shooting again.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty.

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are so fine. Just going over some of your videos.

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How could I forget?

(END AUDIO FEED)

CABRERA: So do they match up, the audio and the witness accounts?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: They seem to. Again, we do need the authenticity of the tape for it to be admissible at trial or even the grand jury but they seem to match because what he's describing is a pause. He's describing shooting his friend, turning around, hands up, and then more shots. And that is going to be crucial because, while you can, as a police officer, of course, shoot to effectuate an arrest or to apprehend someone, you are trained to de-escalate. So if, indeed, his friends was turning around and using what is the universal symbol of surrender and then he continues to shoot after that pause, that is going to be very, very crucial for a prosecutor.

CABRERA: On the flip side, it could also line up, I suppose, with the supporter of Darren Wilson's claims that the officer says that he thought that Michael Brown at some point started charging him.

HOSTIN: Right. Right. I think those are the two narratives that we're hearing. We're hearing a narrative not really from Officer Wilson because we haven't heard directly from him. We haven't seen his account in any police reports. We're hearing everything third- hand in terms of what he thinks. But we have heard from not only Dorian Johnson but also from other witnesses that, in my view, the ones that I've reviewed seem to indicate a certain consistency in terms of this surrendering. And I think that's going to be really crucial here.

CABRERA: We have sound of that. Let's play that real quick.

TIFFANY MITCHELL, WITNESS: The kid finally gets away and he starts running, as he runs, the police get out of his vehicle and he follows behind him shooting. And the kid body jerked as if he was hit from behind and he turns around and puts his hands up like this, and the cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground.

PIAGET CRENSHAW, WITNESS: Saw Dorian was ducking out from the police and he's running shooting. As the police approached Michael maybe not more than 3 feet away, he then shot again. Michael then turned around like almost in awe, like how he had just gotten shot that many times. He looked down and he tried to put his arms up. Once he put his arms up, the police shot him and he went down.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There was a gap?

(CROSSTALK)

MICHAEL BRADY, WITNESS: Yeah. Yeah. And on top of that, there was also a gap from the officer pausing as he was shooting, because, like I say, I'm looking at the window and he shots a couple of times. And by the time I gets outside, he is shooting again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So to your point, there are multiple witnesses that describe a little bit of a pause in the shooting.

HOSTIN: By my account? We just saw four people, really --

CABRERA: Four -- just those that we talked to.

HOSTIN: -- saying the same thing.

CABRERA: Right.

Frank, I want to just ask one last question.

PIAZZA: Yes.

CABRERA: How would investigators go about trying to determine if this audio is legitimate?

PIAZZA: There are a few things that have to happen before you can take the audio, and analyze the audio as you hear it in a linear kind of way. You have to really confirm that you have the actual original piece of audio that came. So I understand this was a video chat. So we want to make sure that who -- whatever the provider was, if it was Google or Skype or a third-party video chat, we want to make sure that we received it from them precisely. I know we hear a man's voice in the background. There's somebody on the other end. We want to see if we could line up the other end with them. There's a time and date stamp. There's a lot of metadata in the recording that we'll look at. And then, once we're sure we have what we think is the original recording, then we'll do the analysis on the actual playback of it.

HOSTIN: And timing is going to be crucial because we know this incident happened around noon. If the recording was at around noon, that's going to be very significant.

CABRERA: All right. Sunny Hostin and Frank Piazza, thanks to both of you.

Up next, as ISIS recruits Westerners, the program that allows people into America without a visa is raising some fears that the terrorist group could exploit it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: We've been addressing the threat of ISIS terrorists potentially bringing their holy war to the United States. Now just to be clear, the group's primary goal, which the U.S. hopes to somehow thwart, is to build out the state from its stronghold from Syria as an Islamic states to encompass both Iraq and Syria. Now that said, the group speaks as if it is spoiling for a fight with America.

We will have to read a few subtitles here but this is what the group's official spokesman said before his recent death during a battle in Syria. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ISIS MEMBER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So there at the end he says we'll raise the flag of Allah in the White House.

Joining us now from Boston, Juliette Kayyem, a CNN national security analyst, and she has worked in the Obama administration. We've been asking this question a lot, Juliette. How easy would it be for ISIS terrorists, especially those of European descent or even American recruits to slip into America undetected?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Look, it's about as easy as it is to cross into Mexico. Our borders are porous. But we have to put the ease of the ability of someone from ISIS to do it with either the likelihood or the immanency of them doing it. I think in some of the discussions going on, we tend to think their ability to across the border means that they are going to attack the next day. We have to be cautious about our borders and check who is coming in and leaving in a lawful manner but there is no suggestion right now that there's an imminent attack that should make us rethink our entire visa system.

CABRERA: A congressional leader called attention to the fact that people with passports from 38 countries, mostly European countries, now can enter the U.S. without visas for up to 90 days. In fact, here's the quote from Congressman Matt Thornberry, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He says, "They can come here to the U.S. homeland without a visa and they can bring what they learned about bomb making and about assassinations with them."

So, Juliette, is there a security gap here?

KAYYEM: It's not a security gap. It's a choice we've made as a country that our citizens will be able to travel to those same 38 European countries in the same way that their citizens can travel here. And it's not just for tourism. This is a global economy that survives and thrives on the movement of people and ideas and things. We've essentially made that choice with those countries.

So, to say that we need to start an incredibly onerous visa system with countries that are our allies simply because .0001 percent of their population may have allegiances to ISIS is just a balance that is far outweighed by the need to have the ease of transportation that makes us a globally competitive nation.

What we need to do is use our intelligence in a wise fashion to target on individuals from those countries who are suspicious because they have been to places that they ought not to have been or they have been missing for several months. But I would think that changing the entire visa system with the European nations is a very onerous and burdensome and unnecessary response to ISIS at this stage.

CABRERA: All right, Juliette Kayyem, thank you for your expertise.