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U.S. Strikes in Somalia; President Obama's Foreign Policy Woes; NATO Prepares to Take on Russia; FBI, Apple Now Investigating Celeb Hacking; Story Behind North Korean Interviews
Aired September 02, 2014 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM, terrorists targeted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The leader of al Shabaab , Ahmed Godane, and his deputies were holding a meeting of their top commanders.
COSTELLO: Breaking overnight, a secret U.S. drone strike in Somalia, the Pentagon launching missiles and a mission.
So why are we attacking an al Qaeda off shoot when ISIS is such a clear threat?
Also, hacker hunt. Nude pictures stolen from celebrity phones. The FBI now on the case.
UNIDENTIFEID FEMALE: Agents will be interviewing the alleged victims and will likely be in touch with Apple in an effort to find out who the hacker or hackers are.
COSTELLO: The mystery man hacker reportedly called Original Guy on the run this morning.
Also -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This woman sitting next to me knitting just tried reclining her seat back.
COSTELLO: A seat back spat at 30,000 feet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She said something to the effect I don't care about the consequences, put this plane down now.
COSTELLO: Yet another in-flight fight forces a plane to land. Are these people out of line or over cramped?
Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. New this morning, the U.S. military launches clandestine strikes and
the target is thousands of miles from the hot spots that have dominated the headlines in recent weeks. A regional governor in southern Somalia says an apparent drone struck a small village held by the terrorist group, al-Shabaab. There you can hear it.
That militant group linked to al Qaeda carried out the brazen dayside attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya last September killing more than 60 people.
U.S. military offensive comes just a day after al-Shabaab fighters disguised as government troops laid siege to a prison where dozens possibly hundreds of their comrades were being held.
Our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott joins us from Washington.
So, Elise, why attack al-Shabaab now?
ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, the administration is kind of sensitive to the idea that there are a lot of global threats going on and they attacked Somalia -- and not going after ISIS, for instance, in Iraq in a greater way. Officials telling me they can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Al-Shabaab continues to pose a great threat to the region and to Somalia specifically and also the U.S. interests and officials say they saw a target of opportunity with a big meeting of the leader of al-Shabaab, Ahmed Godane and his top commanders and they had that target of opportunity that doesn't present itself very often and they went for it -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So how much of a player is al-Shabaab across the region? And is it a direct threat to the United States?
LABOTT: Well, increasingly, this leader of the al-Shabaab, Ahmed Godane, has been pushing the group to extend outside of Somalia. And you saw that attack that you spoke about, about that West Gate mall in Kenya. They also launched attacks in Uganda. And they have threatened to extend their attacks to U.S. interests throughout the region. And so the U.S. does consider it a very big threat right now. The Somali military and the African union are launched in a very big offensive to flush the group out from the region and so this is one of the concerns.
COSTELLO: All right, Elise Labott, reporting live for us this morning. Thanks so much.
As you know, President Obama is not just facing critics on Capitol Hill. He's also taking heat from every day Americans. A "USA Today"/Pew Research Center poll shows widespread dissatisfaction with the president's handling of crises in Ukraine and in the Middle East. More than half of Americans feel the president is not tough enough on foreign policy and national security.
Yet here's the quandary. Much of the country is divided over America's exact role in the world. The same poll shows 39 percent of Americans feel the United States does too much in helping to solve the world's problems. Thirty-one percent say the United States does too little.
So let's head to the White House and check in with CNN's Michelle Kosinski.
Michelle, today the president leaves for Europe to shore up alliances and meet with fellow members of the NATO military coalition. Tell us more.
MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. You know, the last NATO summit was in 2012 in Chicago. Does anybody remember that one? Maybe not. But just look at all the attention now on this upcoming summit, as the West tries to deal with threats from Russia and ISIS.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOSINSKI (voice-over): How is President Obama ending up in the sleepy Baltic capital of Estonia this afternoon? Just take a look at its neighbor, and Russia' unceasing actions down the road in Ukraine. And suddenly this added on meeting with leaders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is at the heart of what the NATO alliance is for, as the White House put it, to reaffirm our ironclad commitment to collective defense.
Now once again just as we commemorate the start of World War II, NATO matters. Ukraine is looking to join. NATO's secretary-general is proposing creating a rapid response military force ready for emergency defense in 48 hours, something the White House supports.
This summit now will also look at what to do next about Russia, as Europe draws up new sanctions. Yet another crisis looms to be discussed by the West and that is ISIS. With thousands of foreign fighters, with Western passports currently fighting in Syria, Britain's prime minister now with Europe has vowed to act.
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: A firm security response with the military action to go after terrorists, international cooperation on intelligence or uncompromising action against terrorists at home.
KOSINSKI: President Obama at home, while airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq continue, had a bit of a rough, long weekend in the press following those words on Syria.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't have a strategy yet.
KOSINSKI: With some head-turning reaction from both parties.
