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Obama Comments On Anti-ISIS Strikes; Goal to Stop ISIS' Ability to Command, Train, Resupply; Khorasan Group Targeted with Airstrikes

Aired September 23, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. I want to welcome our viewers from around the world for this special edition of NEWSROOM. We're about to hear from President Obama about the war on ISIS as it escalates to a new level.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from the United Nations. The U.S. assembling a coalition of Arab allies and together launching overnight air strikes inside Syria. Turns out, ISIS is not the only target of this new U.S.-led military offensive.

COSTELLO: We'll take you the White House as soon as the President begins speaking, but first I want to bring you up to speed.

A senior U.S. military official tells CNN the first wave of the aerial bombardment was a flurry of tomahawk missiles launched from aircraft carriers. Then fighter jets and other warplanes rained down even more bombs. The goal, taking out ISIS' ability to command, train, and resupply its militant fighters. The U.S. is the only non-Arab member of this coalition. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar all assisted and in just a few hours the U.S. expands the mission to target an al Qaeda offshoot. The Pentagon says the group Khorasan plotted an imminent attack against U.S. and Western interests.

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REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Early indications are we hit what we were aiming at and we greatly disrupted this group's ability to continue the plot and planning that they were doing for attacks either in Europe or here on the homeland.

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COSTELLO: CNN has deployed its vast resources of reporters and analyst around the world to break down all angles of this breaking story, but first let's bring in Wolf Blitzer. He is live at the United Nations. Hi, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Carol. I want to go right to the White House. Michelle Kosinski, our correspondent there, is standing by.

Momentarily we'll hear from the president. We're told he'll speak for about 10 minutes or so before boarding Marine One to fly to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington then come up here to New York for the U.N. Is that right, Michelle? MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, we haven't gotten the 2-minute warning yet so it could be several more minutes before we hear from the president. We got a little bit more guidance that he'll speak for approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

We don't expect him to take questions, but that doesn't mean that they won't be yelled that out and he may or may not answer to give us a little more detail that we are all hoping at this point.

He's doing this just before he leaves for the U.N. and we expected those U.N. meetings to be so pivotal in organizing the coalition, in changing the game and shaping things moving forward in the fight against ISIS.

And now this has happened. So it's a much different atmosphere, at least as regards this that he goes to the U.N. He still wants to continue to build the coalition, but now it's begun in earnest in Syria.

And remember that was a big milestone, something that had been debated for such a long time, not only now, but last year in regards to Assad and his use of chemical weapons. So now we're seeing this really happening and Arab partners involved, five of them, some of them at least contributing airstrikes.

What we expect the president to say is maybe a reaffirmation of the goals of this mission, something the White House has laid out many times before. Possibly spelling out some of the success that the administration feels it has seen so far.

As well as the success of putting that coalition together and putting it together so quickly. Possibly also he'll spell out how long this could take. Not in the form of a timeline. The White House has hesitated to do that in this case.

But to say again that this is going to take a long time, maybe see what has been accomplished so far and remember when you're talking about building the coalition further, the White House up to now has been saying that it still need to assess the situation fully and look at the intel.

To see what would be expected and needed of each of the countries that do come on board what we want to know is more about this Khorasan threat and the timing of airstrikes the way they begun as they did.

Was it Khorasan and that supposedly imminent threat that really pushed this over the edge at that moment or was this sort of a broader plan as the Pentagon identified those targets -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Michelle Kosinski standing by at the White House. We are going to get back to you.

I want to get some quick analysis, Gloria Borger is joining us. She's our chief political analyst from Washington. Gloria, the president has got a lot of audiences where he's about to speak right now.

The American public, the international community, he's got a lot of critics at the same time. So he's got to walk that delicate line.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: He does, Wolf. Stepping back I really think you have to say this is a legacy moment for this president not, perhaps, the legacy he intended as a very reluctant warrior, but the one that he's going to have.

Part of that legacy will be the job that he did in uniting these Arab nations to work with him on these airstrikes. This is a president who less than about two weeks ago told us about the severe threat of ISIS.

Got congressional approval for a narrow authority and I think this is a moment that this is a president who can't get Republicans and Democrats to unite on much of anything managed to get an international coalition that includes Arab states to unite on striking ISIS in their backyard.

So I think this is really a legacy moment for him and as he heads into the midterm elections, I think it's going to have an impact as the country will rally around this president.

BLITZER: All right, Gloria, stand by, the president getting ready to walk out of the oval office and then head over to the microphone over there on the south lawn of the White House. You see Marine One right behind the president.

Once the president leaves the oval office there's Marine One, he'll walk over to that little podium over there and make a statement. Carol, all eyes will be on the president, of course.

And let's not forget, at the top of the hour, there will be a Pentagon briefing on what the U.S. military and the Arab coalition partners actually managed to achieve in these initial rounds of airstrikes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It will be fascinating. We can listen to both of those events and to see what really has been degraded within Syria so let's talk about that because the war has escalated against ISIS.

Targets have been falling on Syria and Christiane Amanpour is here to talk about this. So the promising element in all of this is that five Arab nations have joined the United States in the fight.

The big question hanging out there is will the strategy ultimately work? We know airstrikes over Iraq have sort of contained ISIS, but it hasn't -- but they haven't degraded ISIS.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. They're sort of degrading and containing, but they're not defeating and causing surrender and retreat.

And we've had plenty of our own CNN reporting on the ground from Iraq, from Kurdistan and also around the region. Basically what's happening now is an initial phase of a bombing campaign to do as much damage as you can from the air.

But we've seen and we've reported for decades about interventions and things like and we know that just from the air doesn't always work. It did once, Kosovo, but that's a whole different story.

But in these situations when you're going after terrorist groups and insurgents you also need some kind of force on the ground. Now, there are no, as far as we know, as far as I've been indicated, no special forces on the ground. So that --

COSTELLO: That was confirmed by the U.S. military. No American boots on the ground.

AMANPOUR: Correct. But Special Forces play a very special role. Fighting, yes, but also intelligence and close degrading and defeating and hunting out various positions and flushing them out.

If this doesn't happen, according to the military experts, as a second, third, fourth phase of all of this, this won't work because they also haven't yet stood up what could be an indigenous ground force, and that is the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, which they are trying to do now.

COSTELLO: I was just about to bring that up because people are probably wondering what about these moderate Syrian rebels? We are in the process of training them. Are some of them ready to fight right now?

AMANPOUR: Let's give you the facts and figures. These people have been fighting for three years. They have basically held Assad and then ISIS, al Nusra, all these weird groups that have been popping up.

They've sort of held them at bay, but they've never had enough support from the west or anywhere else to defeat them and push them back so they're holding their own, holding the line, but they don't have enough to convert.

And they haven't been given up until now the kind of heavy weaponry, the kind of real training, the kind of equipping and arming and standing up. This is not just giving a few AK-47s. It's not even giving a few anti-tank missiles.

It's a long, thorough training and equipping process that you then field this army into the field.

COSTELLO: OK, so that sounds like it will take a really long time. So the air strikes have started over Syria and they're taking out command-and-control centers and supply facilities.

AMANPOUR: Well, we don't know what they've taken out.

COSTELLO: Supposedly. We'll know at 11:00 Eastern Time when the Pentagon delivers its briefing.

AMANPOUR: These are fixed targets, that's what I've been told by military.

COSTELLO: So after the airstrikes take care of those fixed targets, when will the fighting begin on the ground in earnest? AMANPOUR: Well, the idea, according to the president, is to degrade and defeat ISIS. So by doing that, you have to flush them out and force them to retreat and force them to abandon this fight. That hasn't started happening in earnest even in Iraq and this is a six week air campaign already in Iraq.

So, again, unless there is that second phase -- and I've talked to now retired, but former military commanders who say -- and they use the words we need the political will and the strategic patience and the coherence comprehensive strategy that includes many moving parts.

And that is something that without this will not fully, fully work. But very interesting, they're getting lots of Arab states on board, you've seen this. They're also getting a lot of Arab and Muslim leaders to delegitimize the idea of ISIS.

So refusing to call them ISIS or ISIL or IS. Saying hang on, these aren't Islamic. These don't operate in my name. This is not a state. You're seeing a coordinated European and Muslim effort to not call them that anymore.

COSTELLO: All right, let's head back to the United Nations because the president, I believe, is about to speak in about 45 seconds or so, Wolf?

BLITZER: That's right, Carol. I'm going to be curious to hear if the president actually uses the word "war" in his formal remarks. We expect them last for about 10 minutes.

Jim Sciutto is with me. Jim, very quickly as we await the president, what are you hearing about the separate U.S. strike against this target, this Khorasan target in Eastern Syria?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We're hearing that U.S. officials were concerned these plots were imminent. That they were entering the execution phase. That in particular they had the intention of using improvised explosive devices hidden in either toiletries taken on to planes or hand held electronic devices.

This is a great concern. They didn't have the time or the date of the attack, but they were concern that it was approaching and that's why they chose to strike now.

BLITZER: It sounds like it was pretty imminent. I wonder if the president is going to specifically get into that in his remarks now.

SCIUTTO: You would want him to. Remember, the administration have been back and forth as to how imminent the threat from ISIS was. You remember some conflicting messages and recent pullback saying listen, if we didn't address them that it might become an imminent threat. But here they're saying that Khorasan, indeed, was an imminent threat separate from ISIS and forcing them to act now.

BLITZER: And Khorasan is primarily interested in going after targets outside of Iraq and Syria unlike ISIS. SCIUTTO: It's a great point. ISIS focussed for now, although, they have the aspiration of attacking outside of Iraq and Syria, focused for now on establishing and strengthening that Islamic State.

Here you have a group taking advantage of the mayhem in effect in Syria to establish a safe haven and focus on those attacks outside against western interest.

BLITZER: All right, the president has just walked out of the oval office, a brief few steps over to the south lawn of the White House to address not only the American people, but indeed the entire world on what the United States is about to do.

We expect him to speak for about 10 minutes and not necessarily answer any questions. I'm sure our journalistic colleagues will shout out some question from there. Then the president heads to New York. Here's the president.

OBAMA: Good morning, everybody.

Last night on my orders, America's armed forces began strikes against ISIL targets in Syria. Today, the American people give thanks for the extraordinary service of our men and women in uniform, including the pilots who flew these missions with the courage and professionalism that we've come to expect from the finest military that the world's ever known.

Earlier this month, I outlined for the American people our strategy to confront the threat posed by the terrorist group known as ISIL. I made clear that as part of this campaign, the United States would take action against targets in both Iraq and Syria so that these terrorists can't find safe haven anywhere.

I also made clear that American would act as part of a broad coalition, and that's exactly what we've done. We were joined in this action by our friends and partners: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar. America's proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these nations on behalf of our common security.

The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone. Above all, the people and governments of the Middle East are rejecting ISIL and standing up for the peace and security that the people of the region and the world deserve.

Meanwhile, we will move forward with our plans supported by bipartisan majorities in Congress to ramp up our effort to train and equip the Syrian opposition who are the best counterweight (ph) to ISIL and the outside regime.

And more broadly, over 40 nations have offered to help in this comprehensive effort to confront this terrorist threat to take out terrorist targets, to train and equip Iraqi and Syrian opposition fighters who are going up against ISIL on the ground, to cut off ISIL's financing, to counter its hateful ideology, and to stop the flow of fighters into and out of the region.

Last night, we also took strikes to disrupt plotting against the United States and our allies by seasoned Al Qaida operatives in Syria who are known as the Khorasan group.

And once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people.

I've spoken to leaders in Congress, and I'm pleased that there's bipartisan support for the actions that we're taking. America's always stronger when we stand united, and that unity sends a powerful message to the world that we will do what's necessary to defend our country.

Over the next several days, I will have the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Abadi of Iraq and with friends and allies at the United Nations to continue building support for the coalition that is confronting this serious threat to our peace and security.

The overall effort will take time. There will be challenges ahead. But we're gonna do what's necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group, for the security of the country and the region and for the entire world.

Thanks. God bless our troops. God bless America.

BLITZER: All right, so obviously a little bit shorter than we anticipated. The president making it clear what the U.S. objective is right now to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS.

The president going into specific details on this Khorasan plot to go after U.S. targets in the homeland. Jim Sciutto, I was obviously impressed that the president singled out those five Arab countries for praise -- Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, for their direct military involvement in this U.S.-led operation.

SCIUTTO: That's right. We now know that four of those countries, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain excluding Qatar took part in kinetic strikes. They dropped bombs as part of this joint military action.

And the president emphasizing in his short comments that in his words that this is not America's fight alone, emphasizing this broad coalition with those Arab partners.

This harkens back to his speech at West Point laying out his foreign policy vision saying that the U.S. can no longer be the world's policemen on its own, it's going to look for regional allies.

So while there was a U.S.-led military action it had partners on the ground. It's a goal the president said he had and you can say that he accomplished it. He got the regional buy in.

BLITZER: Gloria Borger, the president was obviously very pleased by the bipartisan support he's received. He's been on the phone speaking to congressional leaders.

He says he's getting that kind of support and he was encouraged to launch these strikes by the sort of lopsided votes in the House and Senate last week authorizing the president to provide some arming and training of Syrian opposition forces.

BORGER: Right, Wolf. And you can also tell that it was focused on next steps in terms of arming the Syrian rebels because that is the next step with the boots on the ground. And he made the key point that he has 40 nations with him, yet another coalition.

That are willing to help in that because that is, of course, you know, one thing to do the air strikes, the next thing is the follow-up and it's very clear that he's now focused on that part of the mission.

BLITZER: And there's no doubt, and I want to go back to you, Carol, there's no doubt that this is just the beginning. It's going to be a long, long struggle. The U.S. has been bombing ISIS targets in Iraq now for several weeks, more than 200 air strikes.

ISIS is still very formidable in Iraq. In fact, they've been moving closer and closer taking over some villages near Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. They still retain Mosul so they have a really entrenched position in Syria. No one should get carried away thinking this is only going to be a few days. This could go on weeks, maybe months or longer.

COSTELLO: And you know Americans are not known for their patience so it will be interesting how long Americans will put up with all of this. That's a big question lingering out there.

Let's go back to the south lawn and check in with Michelle Kosinski. Christiane Amanpour is sitting beside me, Michelle, she pointed out the president's speech wasn't 10 minutes. It was quick and done.

KOSINSKI: We were told it would be between 5 and 7 minutes. What we heard was in the beginning sort of a checklist. This is something the president and members of the administration like to do, kind of let's review what we've said and how we've accomplished it.

First saying I said that we were prepared to conduct airstrikes in Syria, that these terrorists would find no safe haven. OK, that's begun. Then reiterating they did form this broad coalition.

I think what also jumped out was saying this Khorasan group, calling them al Qaeda. That's part of the authorization by which the president targets these terrorist groups, the 2001 authorization, targeting specifically al Qaeda.

Well, these groups are offshoots of al Qaeda, but the administration likes to emphasize that link even if it was a prior link because that's the justification for going after these people even inside Syria, at least according to them.

COSTELLO: All right, Michelle Kosinski reporting live. You see the president boarding the helicopter. He is on his way to the United Nations in New York City. That's where Christiane Amanpour joins me. So the president is going to obviously speak to many leaders at the United Nations. What might those conversations be like?

AMANPOUR: Well, they're going to talk about what's happened, the next steps and to continue to solidify the coalition. He said very importantly that he's going to be speaking to the prime minister of Iraq, the new Prime Minister Abadi, who has a huge political task to fulfill if this is actually going to work, if it has a chance of working.

Prime Minister Abadi of Iraq's big political challenge is to have an inclusive government after the last ten or so years of divisive sectarian authoritarian government by his predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, who is blamed for what happened and for the rise of ISIS in Iraq.

Because yes, the base was in Syria, the vacuum created by inaction over the last three years allowed ISIS to flourish in Syria, but it's the political dysfunction, the sense of disenfranchisement by the large Sunni minority that allowed them to get anywhere near taking Mosul and other such places.

I thought very interesting the president added to his list of to-dos, which is very important, we have to cut off ISIS funding. Very, very important. And a lot of these Arab nations in the coalition, specifically some of them, are blamed for either turning a blind eye, allowing their wealthy donors --

COSTELLO: Turkey?

AMANPOUR: Not Turkey in this case. These are the Arab nations allowing these people to be funded.

COSTELLO: But isn't the oil that ISIS steals --

AMANPOUR: It's in Raqqa which is in Syria and it sells it on the black market and that's Bashar Al-Assad who's allowed ISIS to sell that. So that's a lot of money. But they're also sympathetic religious types, people who believe ISIS is somehow their ideological match, who have been funding all sorts of nefarious groups in Syria.

That has to be stopped because ISIS has a lot of money. The other thing that has to be stopped, which the president said just now, is the flow of foreign fighters into Syria whether it's from the region, whether it's from Europe, whether it's from the United States.

There's something like 15,000 foreign fighters, several hundred from the United States, several hundred from Europe and as officials say to us, this is a new kind of threat. They don't need visas to come back and attack us.

All they need is a plane ticket because they're Americans, Europeans or whatever. They can come back to the homeland and attack without having to go through the visa problems. So that's a big problem.

Then stop their hateful ideology and that's something that Arab nations are going to have to get on board. They're already starting. You're seeing imams, world leaders refuse to call them "IS" for instance night now saying these are not Islamic nor are they a state.

We're going to call them by different name. So there's an attempt to tamp down their ideology as well because their success has attracted a lot of recruits.

COSTELLO: There's so many working parts to this strategy.

AMANPOUR: But that's what a campaign is.

COSTELLO: The president says it's a long slog so when long slog -- how long is that slog?

AMANPOUR: Several years. And he said in his speech when he announced it to the people of the United States, he said -- I believe he said that it will be my successor who's still finishes this off.

COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour, stay right there. I want to bring in CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes, and Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalism and Political Violence. Welcome to you both.

Peter, I want to start with you and talk about this Khorasan group that the United States targeted within Syria and who they are and why we haven't heard more about them?

PETER NEUMANN, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR STUDY OF RADICALISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE: Well, Khorasan are essentially senior operators from al Qaeda which until recently used to be based in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Now, they've come over maybe a year ago. The problem with them is even though they are a small group, they are some of the most experienced operators by al Qaeda.

They have in some cases several decades of experience of attacking the west. They want to attack the west. They're incredibly highly skilled and they're the most imminent direct threat for the U.S. homeland.

ISIS is not imminently targeting the U.S., but the Khorasan Group is working on bringing down airliners on attacking the U.S. homeland. That's why they're in the short term as important as ISIS.

COSTELLO: Wolf Blitzer, I want to bring you into this conversation as well because the president did briefly mentioned this group in his short remarks.

BLITZER: He certainly did and it's very significant. Tom Fuentes, you're a former assistant director of the FBI. You hear the president of the United States saying the U.S. went after this target presumably because there was a specific, hard information that these Khorasan terrorists were plotting some sort of attack against the U.S. homeland. It's pretty extraordinary when you think about it.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You're right, Wolf. And what we're talking about with Khorasan is basically an al Qaeda all- star team. You have al Qaeda from Pakistan and Afghanistan joining up with al Qaeda members from the Arabian Peninsula which is Yemen, which includes the main bomb maker from Yemen.

And they've traveled to Syria and formed up there figuring they have a great safe haven at the moment to conduct training and to prepare for the next operation. It's not really a new group, it's a new name of a group that's already existed.

These al Qaeda elements and it's not a new strategy for them. They've been targeting the U.S. for as long as I can remember, for many years, the 2009 underwear bomber, the 2010 printer cartridge bombings, other plots that were disrupted.

I would like to add one thing. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is pretty clear had been infiltrated by Saudi intelligence. The printer cartridge attempt was -- we had the actual shipping documents provided by them to look for those particular bombs.

So, you know, I would speculate here that Saudi intelligence, U.S. intelligence have some penetration into the Khorasan Group to know that they've done this plotting and have a current plan going on.

BLITZER: So let's talk a little bit about the coordination between all these various -- I think it's fair to call them splinter groups from al Qaeda. Peter, what's the relationship between, for example, Khorasan and ISIS or ISIL, whatever you want to call it, between Khorasan and al Nusra, another terrorist group inside Syria right now. How much coordination is there?

NEUMANN: Well, this can be quite complex. I'll try to break it down. So there's ISIS which emerged as a new group last year which basically split from al Qaeda because they had a different strategy. They said let's not for the time focus on attacking America, let's set up our own state and expand our own state.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, did not agree with that, they state by themselves the official al Qaeda affiliate in Syria is called al Nusra and Khorasan used to be a part of al Nusra.

So they are the old al Qaeda guys, which are not agreeing with ISIS on their strategy and which want to attack America first. That is their strategy and that's why they are so imminently dangerous.

BLITZER: And the one thing they all have in common, even though they disagree amongst each other maybe with strategic or strategy, if you will, they all hate the United States, they all hate the west, right?

NEUMANN: Absolutely. Al Qaeda hates the United States of America in the short term. ISIS hates the United States of America maybe in the medium to long term. So that's the difference, but the ideology is exactly the same.

BLITZER: And Tom Fuentes, if Khorasan is plotting terror attacks, they probably have a decent sanctuary inside Syria right now. We don't know the full extent of the bomb damage caused by this U.S. strike against that this Khorasan target inside Syria right now. But if they do have a sanctuary that's very similar to what al Qaeda had in Afghanistan before 9/11. FUENTES: That's true, Wolf.

NEUMANN: That's why they've come to that particular part of the world because they know there's a sanctuary and also in addition to that they have the opportunity to hook up with foreign fighters from all over the world which are not known by intelligence and law enforcement services.

So this is a potentially very dangerous nexus here between foreign fighters coming from all over the world who are young, who are new generation and the most senior operatives who have two decades of bomb making experience.

BLITZER: Tom Fuentes, you want to add a quick point?

FUENTES: Yes, also it's much easier for them to dispatch their bombers from Syria because they can smuggle them through Turkey into Western Europe either over land or by small boats across the Mediterranean where U.S. and Saudi intelligence have locked down Yemen pretty well.

It's harder for them to get out of Yemen to go wage attacks or to ship bombs out of Yemen. But from Syria they've got a great opportunity to spread their terrorism without being detected.

BLITZER: Tom Fuentes, Peter Neumann, guys, thanks very, very much. I want to take a quick break. Jim Sciutto, you're here with me. We're getting the first official statement from the government of the United Arab Emirates.

SCIUTTO: That's right. They're now the third country from the Arab region to confirm participation in these strikes. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying they've confirmed the UAE Air Force launched its first strikes against ISIS targets last evening.

Note the phrase "first strikes" telegraphing that there will be more strikes to come not only from the U.S., but also from one of its Arab partners at least.

BLITZER: And the operation -- the UAE statement says the operation was conducted in coordination with other forces participating in the international effort against the ISIL. That statement from the UAE Foreign Ministry.

All right, let's take a quick break, much more of the breaking news. We're standing by at the top of the hour. The Pentagon about to brief all of us here in the United States and indeed around the world on what was accomplished in these initial air strikes against ISIS inside Syria.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This region has been hostage to these terrorist organizations and we cannot let them continue strengthening and spreading without doing nothing against them.

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