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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

A Look at Firepower Used in U.S. Attacks on ISIS in Syria; Who is the Khorasan Group?; Concerns About Whether or Not Air Strikes are Effective Enough

Aired September 23, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

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ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S.-led air strikes in Syria last night were a powerful show of force.

This latest attack against ISIS involved Tomahawk cruise missiles that were fired from United States ships in the region. It also involved coordinated bombings using aircraft from multiple different countries

I want to bring in CNN's Tom Foreman to give us a virtual look at the firepower that was unleashed on ISIS.

So, Tom, could you take me on a tour through the gear and show me how it all happened?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really involved a tremendous amount of firepower. Take a look at just some of the aircraft that were involved here and what they're capable of doing. These are some of the most state-of-the-art things you'll find in the world.

For example, the F-22 Raptor, this is a stealth aircraft, speed over a thousand miles an hour, range of 1,800 miles, so it's anywhere from $200 to $400 million per aircraft, depending on how you compute the research and development, warheads of a thousand pounds or more. That's just one of the planes that was in the sky there.

You had Tomahawk missiles, as you mentioned. These are tremendous weapons because they are launched from so far away, and these led the attack traveling at a subsonic level but still very fast, very hard to stop, range of over a thousand miles, warhead of over a thousand pounds or more.

And this is where this is all coming from. I'll show you first of all, if you look for a moment, the launch of these Tomahawks we've been talking about today. This matters because you can launch these from so far away that you cannot be attacked while you're doing it. This is why cruise missiles have been used so much, especially against enemies like this that don't have the capability of reaching out far.

But the launch sites for all this, they were far away. The areas that are being targeted are all up in here, but down here, we have in the Red Sea the USS Arleigh Burke launching from down there. Over here in the Arabian Sea, the USS Philippine Sea, launching from over there. So tremendous distances to try to hit the targets up here, and yet -- this is really important -- if you look at the way these laid out, Ashleigh, over here, this was almost all cruise missiles.

Why is that all cruise missiles over there? That's all cruise missiles over there because this part of the country over here is still in large part in the hands of the Syrian government.

They have real air defenses. They really can shoot planes down. That's one of the reasons that the U.S. had to be very cautious going in here and so did the coalition forces, because they're dealing with a real government and hostile airspace.

It has been years since we have flown into hostile airspace. When you're bombing in Iraq over here, that's airspace where you have cooperative deals. This is a very dangerous area, so almost all missiles here.

The aircraft come into play as they moved more toward the central area here, and certainly when you get over here toward the Iraq border over in the easternmost part of the country, that's where you not only had more aircraft, but that's where the partners from the other Arab nations came in.

This was almost all U.S. over on this side because of those air defenses.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: Trying to do the math on the last time we flew through hostile airspace, and I think it might have been 10 years or so.

Tom, that's just awesome stuff, thank you. Thanks for doing that, so illustrative.

There's a terror group that you may never have heard of, and it was targeted by the U.S. in the air strikes last night. It's a branch of al-Qaeda known as Khorasan.

They were actively, apparently, plotting to carry out some imminent and nasty attacks against the United States here on American soil.

We're going to dig into the details of what they were plotting and exactly who they are, coming up.

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BANFIELD: While ISIS is dominating the headlines, there is a second terror group in Syria that you may not have even heard of until today. It's called the Khorasan Group.

Some say it's an even bigger threat to the United States than ISIS is in the homeland. Why? Because, according to the U.S. government, they've been actively plotting imminent attacks on U.S. soil and in Europe, in ways that we've all been afraid to imagine. What do they want? Apparently a repeat of 9/11. The U.S. conducted eight strikes against targets of the Khorasan group in a small town 20 miles west of Aleppo. It's an area controlled by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The group was in the advanced stages of its deadly plans.

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REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: In terms of the Khorasan Group which is a network of seasoned al-Qaeda veterans, these strikes were undertaken to disrupt imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western targets.

These terrorists have established a safe haven in Syria to plan external attacks, construct, and test improvised explosive devices.

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BANFIELD: CNN's justice reporter Evan Perez joins me live from Washington. This group is so secretive, Evan, what exactly do we know about the Khorasan group?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Ashleigh, we know this is a group of al-Qaeda veterans that have come from -- some of them from Pakistan, some of them from Yemen, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen which has attempted attacks against U.S. airliners.

What they're focused on is external threats, external attacks. Unlike the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria focused on the Assad regime, these guys are trying to attack the U.S. and Western allies.

They do that by trying to perfect undetectable bombs, things that could be hidden in your cell phone or on your laptop or in toiletries or in clothing. They've been working on these new bomb designs, and the U.S. believes they were very close to producing something that they could launch an attack against us.

BANFIELD: I mentioned this early on in the program, but it appears that their leader, who's really closely tied with bin Laden's deputies prior to 9/11, might have even known about 9/11 before anyone else did, other than the top echelon.

But he's about, what, 30 or so years old now --

PEREZ: Thirty-three years old. This guy's been on the radar for the U.S. officials for many, many years. His name is Muhsin al-Fadhli. U.S. officials believe he's in Syria where he's gathered up an all- star series of bomb makers.

He is blamed for 2002 attacks against a French ship in the Persian Gulf and against U.S. troops, Marines, in Kuwait. So they know that he has been involved in attacks.

He's been mostly a fund-raiser, and they now believe he's leading this Khorasan Group against the U.S. and against western targets, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Apparently there's a $7 million reward out for him.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: I just want to touch again on -- you mentioned this issue about the notion that they've been refining and fine-tuning their ordnance.

Has anyone in the administration indicated what kind of an attack was so imminent -- what operation was so far down the line that they needed to do this strike because they felt that if they didn't do it now, the toothpaste was out of the tube and they would not be able to track it?

PEREZ: That's exactly the point. I think they've gotten to a point, according to the officials we've talked to, that they weren't sure anymore that they could detect it if it goes any further. That's the reason why these targets were hit overnight.

Now, they haven't said what specific attacks they were, but these guys are focused on aviation. That's their number one target. So the view was that it's either flights within Europe or to Europe or to the United States.

The point is they had already gotten the materials to construct these types of devices. And the fear was you can't wait until something blows up over New York or Washington. You have to hit them now, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Evan Perez, thank you for that.

So the big question now after we've been watching -- maybe it is shock and awe. Whatever happened in Syria last night, is it enough to actually get the job done, degrade, destroy ISIS? Or is there something more need, like people on the ground, fighting mano a mano?

We'll dig deeper on that in a moment.

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BANFIELD: The United States and several Arab nations rained bombs on ISIS militants in Syria overnight. Fourteen strikes damaged or destroyed a variety of targets. The United States sending a message that it won't stand by idly while ISIS carries out a rampage of terror. But will air strikes be enough to destroy ISIS even as grandiose as they seem from the pictures that we're just getting?

Joining me from our Washington bureau is CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Thank you again to the both of you.

I have this question to pose and I want you both to weigh in. Now that the air strikes have begun, and by some witness accounts ISIS members went running for the hills, I think that effectively means went running for cover in civilian populations. How do you continue this shock and awe when effectively all that potential collateral damage is now in the mix? And, colonel, I'll start with you.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, Ashleigh, that's a real big question in this case because this is the standard way of fighting in this part of the world. You blend into the civilian population when you find that your normal way of fighting has been disrupted by a superior force. So, you know, you can go back all the way to Lawrence of Arabia. You can go back even further than that. And we saw it in Iraq up close and personal when we were fighting there. This is the way they do business. So I am very skeptical that the air strikes are going to be sufficient to do the job of degrading and destroying ISIS. I think we have a long way to go. It's a great first step. But there's a lot more that has to happen if we're really going to get to that point.

BANFIELD: So that's within the civilian populations. And, Peter Bergen, I haven't even touched on what Colonel Rick Francona calls the cavernous ravines and valleys of the Euphrates area, the Euphrates River Valley, where presumably a lot of these ISIS fighters could have already long since been secreting away a lot of gear and certainly their persons. Don't you need person-to-person combat to get to those people and those munitions?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, yes, but the constituency for that kind of operation in the United States is close to 0 percent. I mean not even President Obama's most right wing critics are suggesting sort of substantial ground forces.

Now, you know, we have had ground forces in Syria. We had the unsuccessful operation on July 4th to rescue the American hostages. And it would be hard for me to imagine that there aren't some limited number of special operations forces already in Syria. After all, how do you conduct air strikes, how do you have the intelligence to do these strikes without that? But, you know, of course, air strikes are not sufficient. But the idea - I mean but that doesn't mean that they're not, you know, helpful. After all, ISIS was obviously quite surprised by these 20 air strikes overnight. There's no indication that they had any kind of planning for this. And so, you know, they've taken a big hit again.

We've seen with the drone attacks in Pakistan that attacks from the air can really inflict a lot of damage. They inflicted a lot of damage on al Qaeda central. So while -- if the goal is to destroy, that's a very big goal. If the goal is degrade, that's a much easier goal and more manageable from the air.

BANFIELD: So, colonel, if you could weigh in on the strategy here. The attack last night began with a round of tomahawk missiles. There's two schools of thought on that. Number one, what Tom Foreman said was that if you're going in towards Aleppo, well then you're in unfriendly airspace, unfriendier airspace, where, you know, Assad has, you know, firepower. He's got anti-aircraft. He's got a, you know, an air force of his own to take down coalition planes. If you're over in the eastern part of the country, well, there's the potential for anti- aircraft gear there as well.

So my question to you is this. Now that the campaign has begun in earnest and there's this much talk about it, are we not to presume that ISIS commanders are doing their level best to get every single piece of anti-aircraft gear they can readied for nightfall?

LEIGHTON: Well, yes, if they have it, they will absolutely use it. And, of course, we know, Ashleigh, that they have stolen a lot of equipment. They've captured a lot of equipment in their march, you know, through northern Iraq. So when you use tomahawk missiles, basically what you're doing is you are cleansing the air, if you will, when it comes to military strikes and especially air strikes. So you're going in there with those because, as Tom Foreman mentioned, you have to protect yourself against a strong air defense net.

And the way the Syrians built up their air defenses, they concentrated them in their populated areas. So around Damascus and around Aleppo, their two biggest cities, that's where they concentrated everything, and, of course, along the coast as well. In the eastern part of the country, they really had negligible air defenses because there was no real resource that they wanted to protect. And the other thing was that they wanted to protect themselves against Israeli air incursions. So that's how they defined their air defense system and that's why we're dealing with it in the way we're dealing with it right now.

BANFIELD: Well, speaking of nightfall, it's coming up on 8:00 at night in Syria. And it was a very long night last night. I'm going to ask the two of you to stick around and answer this question for me after the break -- where does Mr. Al Baghdadi sleep and the rest of those commanders because, again, presumably, the coalition forces want to know those locations and bomb those locations. So coming up after the break, we're going to get into the people instead of just the big hard targets and how to get to them.

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BANFIELD: We've got some breaking news I want to bring to you from three of our CNN correspondents who have been working their sources. Our Pamela Brown, our Evan Perez and our Deborah Feyerick have more information now on the specifics behind this Khorasan group and the kinds of attacks that they were planning to carry out on American soil. Apparently plans in place both larger, sophisticated attacks, as well as smaller, less sophisticated attacks. Bombs on airplanes, quote, "just one option" that they were looking at, plots against the U.S. discovered by the intelligence community just within the last week.

Apparently the source we spoke with could not confirm the intended target, but said it involved a bomb made of, number one, clothes that were dipped in explosive material, number two, toothpaste, and, number three, a nonmetallic detonator. Fascinating material.

And with that, just this last notion, Colonel Cedric Leighton, if I could ask you to weigh in on the notion of how to find the commanders now that the bombing raids have begun and presumably they have scattered, how to find them, where they are, where they sleep, where they work and actually get to the commanders of ISIS, the head of the snake? How do you do it, Colonel? LEIGHTON: It's very, very difficult. And so you bring all the

intelligence pieces to bear that you possible can. And I think of the hunt against Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq as an example of exactly how we did that. It involved all the sources. It involved a painstaking effort that took months to actually put together. And when we finally got him, it was based on information that came from other sources such as couriers and people like that.

BANFIELD: Right.

LEIGHTON: So you're looking at who's connected to whom in this case, and it's a big, big deal.

BANFIELD: Big, big deal, big, big job. Thank you both, Peter Bergen, Colonel Cedric Leighton in Washington, appreciate your insights in all of this.

Thank you for watching. My colleague, Wolf Blitzer, is live at the United Nations. He takes over now.