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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Group Seeks to Expose ISIS Funding Sources; Environmental Protest on Wall Street; Afghan Soldiers Missing From U.S. Base in Massachusetts

Aired September 22, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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


KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The convoy advance team recorded this explosion as it led back to the border.

Back in Henning's hardscrabble hometown in Northern England, well- wishers have tied yellow ribbons to street signs. No one is talking. All are hoping.

Now with ISIS threatening to execute Henning, there's a sense that time is short.

DR. SHAMEELA ISLAM-ZULFIQAR, AID WORKER: It's really difficult. I'm just dreading it -- you know, we know the deadline is coming up. We know that we've got a very small -- you know, time is running out.

PENHAUL: But nobody is giving up.

ISLAM-ZULFIQAR: I have a message for ISIS. As your sister in Islam, I would implore you and beg of you, please spare the life of this innocent man.

PENHAUL: I asked her how to think of Henning in his hour in need?

ISLAM-ZULFIQAR: Just that smile, his concern and care for everyone around him and his beat of his beautiful golden heart.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Beautiful, golden heart.

So ISIS is organized and ISIS is bankrolled, taking in millions of dollars a day or more. Where is the money coming from, and perhaps more importantly, how can the cash flow be cut off in yet, say, another front in this war?

Details on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: When it comes to hitting ISIS where it really hurts, the smart money says follow the money. Creating a radical Islamic caliphate isn't cheap, but for now at least, ISIS has plenty of funding.

The U.S. estimates that the group takes in perhaps at least $3 million every day, and it gets much of that by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the black market, oil that they have just taken.

Kidnapping for ransom generates more income as does the extortion of even the smaller businesses under ISIS's control, and then there are the deep-pocketed sympathizers in nearby states whose governments are said to be allies in the fight against is, yet they are shelling out money to ISIS.

And all of this brings me to CNN national security analyst and former homeland security adviser to the second President Bush, Fran Townsend. She's now part of a new effort called the Counter Extremism Project, devoted to exposing ISIS's patrons.

Fran, thanks so much for coming in. First and foremost, who are these rich patrons of evil, and do they even know what they are supporting all the time?

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Not all of them do understand it. I'll tell you, we learned a lot. In the united against nuclear Iran, wee learned that oftentimes there are shell companies and cutouts.

So you talked about $3 million a day in oil. That's typically passed -- it's not like it comes in a barrel that says ISIS on it. It's typically through shell companies and cutouts.

And so what happens is, if you can work, just using open source, working with other governments, working with private individuals to identify these shell companies and confront the individuals buying it, whether they're turning a blind eye, that is, they really do know and don't care because the oil is cheap, or whether they don't know at all and you lay it out for them, you can actually cut off that flow of funding.

BANFIELD: Let's just say, for instance, there are some of those -- they are literally called "angel investors." I hate to use the term "angel investors," but if they know what it is they are investing in, if they know exactly what ISIS is up to, and they are happy to cut the check, what exactly are they getting out of their investment?

TOWNSEND: Well, look, if it's $3 million a day, the oil on the black market, there is money to be made. And we've seen this historically in sort of sanctions-busting cases. They're not in it for the cause.

BANFIELD: They are in it just it --

TOWNSEND: That's exactly right.

BANFIELD: So this just a business deal for them. There's nothing to it. They don't care about the caliphate. They're not ultra-religious. They are not thinking that this is us against the crusaders.

TOWNSEND: That's right. It's not necessarily about that. I mean, some maybe, but for the most part it's about cheap oil.

And so when you expose it, you've got the opportunity for them to save -- allow them to save face and say, I didn't realize where that money was going to go. I'm going to stop it.

BANFIELD: So some have said, once they've realized they have created a Frankenstein by funneling all of that money, basically juicing the organization, many of them realize there is really not much that they could do about it.

Yet they could. They could provide you with all sorts of information as to who their snake-oil salesman was, who set up the wire transfers, perhaps where the wire transfers went. Are they willing to do that?

TOWNSEND: You know, often they are. Because once they realize somebody knows what is going on and has the power, the leverage, to expose them, they understand that it's in their interest to be helpful.

On the other hand, if all they do is just stop feeding the money to the organization, you've still achieved something and accomplished something.

BANFIELD: I have to wrap, but I've got to ask you, when you were in government, you had all kinds of access to classified stuff.

You're not in government now. Do you get any access to that classified stuff, or do you find it easier now that your hands aren't tied by certain things like the Constitution?

TOWNSEND: You know, it's not -- so I'm no longer in government, as you point out, and so we'll -- but as an organization, the Counter Extremist Project, will work with governments around the world.

We don't have access to their tools, but in many ways, the public -- the power of the public/private partnership is incredibly important because we bring a different set of tools, the ability to work in the media, the ability to get the word out, and counter the extremism narrative, which is incredibly important.

BANFIELD: It's great to talk to you about it, and thank you so much. Fascinating work, keep us posted. Fran Townsend, joining us live, thank you for that.

A Florida man shot and killed a teenager in an altercation that started in an argument over loud music. It's probably why you might remember this trial, that jury deadlocked on whether Michael Dunn, on the left, committed first-degree murder against Jordan Davis on the right.

Now a brand-new jury is getting together, and they're going to hear part of that case again. the part the first jury just couldn't decide. We'll update you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: I want to take you live downtown to Manhattan's financial district. That's the area of Wall Street and effectively that's a very large group of people that are doing what they call flooding Wall Street. In fact, the hash tag in this protest is " #floodwallstreet." A lot of these folks are trying to disrupt business as usual, they call it, when it comes to climate change and the relationship with big business in the United States. Effectively, what the effort here was was to try to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.

To our knowledge, that has not happened, but this was an effort to disrupt all of the traffic in the area. There are a lot of people -- you can't hear it from this -- it looks like a helicopter shot from WABC, our affiliate here in New York, but they are chanting, "What do we want? Climate justice."

In fact, you might think, wow, that pictures looks somewhat similar, although a day old, because there were 300,000 people who flooded the streets of Manhattan a lot farther north than the financial district, way up near Central Park, in fact, in the city's Upper West Side.

There was a protest began yesterday, and ultimately with a lot of star power, likely Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, et cetera, there were 300,000 people showed up, again, the mission climate change, all of this as the Clinton Global Initiative gets under way in Manhattan.

Our business reporter, in fact, CNN's business correspondent Alison Kosik, is somewhere -- I'm squinting, trying to figure out exactly where she is in that mass. But I've got her on the phone anyway.

Give me the - give me the feeling if you would, Alison, from street level. I know you've spent most of the morning out there. Has anything changed? Has it grown? And is everything peaceful at this point, Alison?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): (INAUDIBLE), Ashleigh, if you hear me?

BANFIELD: I can hear you. Go ahead. It's a little tricky, but we'll see what we can do.

Alison, can you hear me?

KOSIK: Hi, Ashleigh. Yes, I can hear you a little bit. As you can imagine, it's very loud here in the financial district of Manhattan. What's happening now is right down the street from the New York Stock Exchange, hundreds of protesters are literally in the street on Broadway. (INAUDIBLE) they're chanting, "this is what democracy looks like." They're chanting, "whose street? Our street." They were (ph) supposed to make it to the New York Stock Exchange. The ultimate goal of these protesters was to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. They may very well make it there, but for now, they've been sitting here in the street for an hour.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: It's tricky to make out what you're saying but what we can certainly get a feel for is the volume down at street level. We've got the helicopter shot above you, Alison, and we can see a lot of signs and a partially unfurled banner. I do know that the organizers had planned to unfurl a 300-foot banner. They also plan to inflate a 15- foot carbon bubble. Not sure what that's going to look like, but they wanted to inflate that according to that statement that came on that #floodwallstreet.

The police department, by the way, is prepared for this. They said that they've got adequate detail in place, but some of the organizers, they didn't obtain any permits for this Flood Wall Street protest and they said that they were expecting a lot of these people to -- and I'm going to quote them - "be arrested in droves." One of the protester actually saying that they're willing to be arrested in order to drive home the link between global capitalism and worsening climate change.

Again, all of this on the heels yesterday of the People's Climate March in New York City, which drew out 300,000 people to the streets. Pretty peaceful, though. Very little to report on in terms of mass arrests from yesterday's protests. We'll watch to see what happens down in the financial district again at 12:47 Eastern Time. That's Wall Street, folks, and that is what effectively is #floodwallstreet.

Three soldiers from Afghanistan go missing in the United States. We've got details on the search for them. And, by the way, why were Afghan soldiers on Cape Cod in the first place? It's a good reason. You'll find out why, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Live picture for you downtown, in the financial district. This is effectively one very large march under the hash tag - basically this is #floodwallstreet. It's as simple as that. The connection to climate, no mistake here. No accident. This is a climate protest on the eve of tomorrow's United Nation's summit on climate change and the day after a massive People's Climate March in New York City in which, you know, upwards of 300,000 people took to Manhattan's northern streets, up near Central Park. This is down in the Wall Street area.

The protests you're seeing on your screen right now had a mission to try to disrupt Wall Street, to try to bring the message of the connection between what they say is global warming and global business. In fact, there have been a lot of very high profile people who have been taking part in marches on the street. Yesterday's, People's Climate March in New York City brought out the U.N. secretary-general. Ban Ki-Moon actually marched along with Vice President Al Gore and comedian Chris Rock and Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Rufalo and a lot of prominent folks taking part in yesterday.

Today you're starting to see that banner being unfurled. It's a 300- foot banner, we're told, is being unfurled and then also a 15-foot carbon bubble. So we'll continue to watch that. We've got Alison Kosik in place to tell us know if there's any disruption or any major problem. But a lot of these protesters have said on that #floodwallstreet that they are willing to be arrested and to expect massive arrests. The police have also said that they have, quote, "an adequate detail in place" to deal with all of this.

Switching gears now. The United States military, local police and state officials are searching for three Afghan army soldiers here in the U.S. They're missing from a U.S. base in Massachusetts. And as strange as it sounds, this is actually the second time in a week that Afghan security trainees here in the United States have vanished. Deborah Feyerick is following this story.

This is a very unusual story. Before I ask you what the latest is on the search, perhaps you could explain why they're here in the first place.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is so interesting. And the U.S. military does this very often. In this case, it's U.S. Central Command. And what they do is they invite people over for team building exercises essentially. They invite members of other nations, six nations all together, 200 people taking part in these exercises. And really what they're doing is they're going over peace-keeping operations, they're trying to enhance the readiness of these particular officers. Three officers, however, a major, two captains, were on a shopping trip during down time at a (INAUDIBLE) mall.

BANFIELD: You know, start again, a shopping trip?

FEYERICK: A shopping -- this was on Saturday afternoon. They were supposed to be on a chaperoned shopping trip and basically vanished. They simply disappeared. So nobody knows exactly where they are. The Massachusetts National Guard, they're the ones who are in charge of investigating. They say that it does not appear that they pose a threat. But this is a very serious issue. You have to keep in mind, the Afghanistan defense ministry is investigating. The U.S. military is involved. The FBI has been alerted because these are missing people.

BANFIELD: They were chaperoned?

FEYERICK: They were allegedly being chaperoned.

BANFIELD: And -

FEYERICK: But there's only so much you can do when you're in a changing room, you know?

BANFIELD: Yes.

FEYERICK: But who knows what the circumstances are. But it's the intent. Look, these people may have just been -- may have decided that they wanted to seek asylum, which is what happened in that earlier case. Or they could have decided that there's something more sinister that's going on, and that's really what the authorities have to rule out.

BANFIELD: So - and that's where I want to go to here. I mean, look, if they're trying to seek asylum, I guess I get it. Life here is pretty good here, certainly compared to life in Afghanistan. Vetting the kinds of soldiers that come from the Afghan army to United States soil, what kind of guys are these?

FEYERICK: Well, these -- look, these are senior people. They are people who spoke English. They are vetted at the highest levels. They're usually hand-picked. They do go through a vetting process. They can't get a visa if they don't -- if they aren't cleared. We've got three, Major Jan Mohammad Arash, Captain Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Captain Noorullah Aminyar. All of them seem to be at a high level. But, again, this is some very sort of let's say tricky week here in the United States. You know you have the United Nations General Assembly that's in town. You also have the Jewish holiday, so security is going to be beefed up all over the country in terms of the synagogues. And so the fact that you've got three guys who are missing, not exactly what you want at this particular time.

BANFIELD: And let's remind, you know, these are friendly forces. Let's make no mistake.

FEYERICK: One hundred percent. One hundred percent.

BANFIELD: But at the same time, we've also had, you know, green on blue attacks from these friendly forces. So it's a little difficult in this day and age to determine exactly who has altruistic intentions.

FEYERICK: Which is why you have so many people looking for them.

BANFIELD: All right, Deb Feyerick, thanks so much.

FEYERICK: Of course.

BANFIELD: And keep us updated if you hear -- shopping in a mall?

FEYERICK: You know, down time

BANFIELD: Couldn't they have gone bowling on base or something? I mean -- anyway, thank you for that.

We are flat out of time. Thanks so much for joining us. Please stay tuned, though. My colleague, Wolf Blitzer, is going to pick up right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from the United Nations General Assembly here in New York City.