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ISIS Repelled in Iraq Battle; U.S. Terror Kill List; Obama to Speak on Fight Against Extremism; A Look at the ISIS End Game

Aired February 18, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: An ISIS attack denied. A major offensive by the terrorists met by Kurdish fighters on the ground and coalition strikes from the air. What is the end goal for the terror group, and what's next?

I love my father and my brother, but that's a little of what Jeb Bush is expected to say next hour, a major policy speech as he looks to lay out his own vision ahead of a possible presidential bid, what he says about his family legacy and President Obama.

Cold is an understatement, folks. Another blast of arctic air is on the way, if it can get much colder. It's expected to force the temperature to lows not seen in two decades. Who is getting the brunt of it?

Good morning. Thanks for joining me. I'm Kate Bolduan. John Berman is off again today.

We begin with breaking news out of Iraq at this hour. After hours of deadly fighting near the northern city of Erbil, Kurdish fighters have fought back a major ISIS attack. The battle was followed by air strikes pounding ISIS targets from the air.

Plus, there's new information this morning about the secret U.S. kill list for top ISIS leaders. Number one on that list, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but it also includes Jihadi John, the masked militant who allegedly beheaded a number of ISIS hostages seen in those gruesome propaganda videos.

Later today President Obama will be speaking at the White House summit to counter violent extremism. The top of his agenda, the barbaric attacks carried out by ISIS and how to prevent the terror group from recruiting jihadis right here in the United States.

Let's begin -- let's stay on this big story. Let's get to the battle first near Erbil. Ian Lee is joining us from Cairo.

Ian, you have been watching this very closely. What more are we learning about that battle there?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, it was a very intense battle between the ISIS militants and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. For hours there, close-quarter fighting, the air strikes couldn't hit them because they were afraid they could hit the Kurdish fighters as well. So for hours, these two sides were going at each other. After about five hours, they split a bit, and that's when coalition air strikes were able to pound the ISIS militants again and really put an end to this offensive.

But what we know, though, is ISIS launched a multiple fronts on this attack, crossing the Zab River, Kurdish forces repelling them back across the river. This is a strategic point for both sides. Both would like to control it. It's about 25 miles from the Kurdish city of Erbil, and if ISIS fighters would have broken through that line, they wouldn't have much stopping them on the way to Erbil, although that didn't seem to be what their goal -- what their outcome is.

As Kurdish fighters are surrounding the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul where we are hearing that ISIS is trying to probe Kurdish lines, really, it seems, to relieve the pressure on Mosul and try to strike back at the Kurds.

But what really is astonishing, during these few hours where air strikes were unavailable, on one side you had the Kurdish fighters that don't have heavy weaponry. They do not have one armor.

One weapon they have is a 1941 artillery piece, against ISIS militants who do have armor, who do have heavy weaponry, and yet these Kurdish fighters were able to push them back.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Much of that weaponry, they said early on, was stolen from the Iraqi military as ISIS moved in.

Ian Lee, thank you so much, following that developing story out of Erbil in Iraq.

Let's talk about this as well. The U.S. has a list of ISIS militants it wants dead. For that, let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

So, Barbara, how big is this list? What are you hearing?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. Well, it's a target list, if you will. Why are we talking about it not so much as a target list but a kill list? Because frankly the U.S. has no forces on the ground, of course, inside Iraq or Syria to capture ISIS top operatives. They're going to be, the U.S. hopes, the victims of coalition air strikes.

About two dozen names are constantly rotating on this list, we understand. One, number one on the list of course is the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This is the reclusive leader of the organization. He is number one. He's the one the U.S. wants to get the most, right now.

They are struggling, make no mistake, to try and get the crucial intelligence they need about where he's located, about where other top operatives are located, and fundamentally who are top commanders in ISIS right now.

It's a murky command structure. So they're not -- it's not like they're going after everybody all at once. They are trying to isolate who are the top operatives, and if they could take them off the battlefield, would it make a difference, they hope, to ISIS's capability? That's who they are going after.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Are you getting any sense, Barbara, on why we're learning about this kill list? You can assume that there would be a target list, as the administration wants to take on ISIS and try to degrade and destroy ISIS, but why do you think we're learning about this kill list?

STARR: You're right. Let's be very candid and clear here. This type of list has existed for some time. Make no mistake. When the U.S. starts air strikes, the targets it goes after are both the buildings, the weapons, the arms depot, the things on the ground, ISIS formations on the ground.

But also we've seen it in Iraq. We've seen it in Afghanistan. They try and look for the most high-value targets they can. Nobody thinks that it is going to change the situation on the ground if these people are gone because other people constantly come in.

They may be less experienced. They may have less loyalty from the rank and file. But ISIS is an organization that constantly recruits new people.

I think you're seeing perhaps people just more willing to talk about it but also being very candid. The struggle to get the intelligence to really identify that ISIS command structure, it's a big problem. It's a very big intelligence challenge. And it's something they're working on all the time. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Especially in Syria where there are a lot of blind spots for the United States intelligence gathering there.

Barbara Starr, great to see you. Barbara, thank you so much. Barbara is at the Pentagon for us.

And over to the White House today, at the White House, the president is going to speak about the fight against extremism both at home and abroad. It's the first time that he's really going to be speaking at length since the gruesome killings of 21 Egyptian Christians by ISIS, put together in a highly produced, very horrific video that they put out.

Already today, though, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, he said this is everyone's fight. Everyone has a stake in taking on ISIS.

Our White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski is joining us with a little preview of what we're going to be expecting to hear from the president.

So what do we expect to hear from the president, Michelle?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, he's going to have to strike a balance. This is a community-based push, but the dynamic here is what has become interesting.

Because you have the White House for days now never mentioning the words Islamic extremism, but today in all of these local programs they're looking at around the country, they are all focused on Muslim communities.

So the result is kind of annoyance from both sides. You have some saying the White House needs to just talk about Islamic extremism because Muslims are the ones who tend to be led into or more susceptible to this rhetoric that ISIS is trying to recruit for.

But then Muslim Americans saying, hey, we're being stigmatized and we're being singled out, and they're planning, some of them, a protest outside the White House today.

So you can see the tensions, the issues on both sides there. That said, the summit itself, they are bringing up some really practical ideas here. Again, it's all about the communities.

So we're hearing from these communities where they actually have pilot programs, although ones that have only been a couple months in existence. But, for example, in Minneapolis, they are really focused on the schools, giving kids more to do, lots and lots of job training, but they say they need more mentors, trying to get involved and get teachers to recognize early warning signs, for example, and then in L.A., a teacher training so that they are more empathetic toward Muslim students as well as trying to find programs to improve the quality of life in general in these communities.

So I think, Muslim Americans, what they will find is that this summit is not about law enforcement or trying to crackdown or be suspicious of Muslims but that people who are working on these programs are really focused on trying to build opportunities in these communities, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Michelle Kosinski, a lot to cover at the White House today for sure. Michelle, thank you so much.

And Michelle mentioned it and we're going to talk about this coming up as well, Islamic extremism or violent extremism? What's the difference and why does it matter in this conversation? That's ahead.

Plus this, it's Jeb Bush's turn to tackle foreign policy. We're going to hear from him next hour. But we also have a preview of what he's going to say, what he says to set himself apart from his father and his brother.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: From beheading Egyptian Christians to burning a Jordanian pilot alive as well as launching new attacks in Iraq, ISIS doesn't have a problem killing and threatening everyone around them in the Muslim world. That's on top of, of course, threatening the West.

So what is the terror group's end game then? National security analyst Peter Bergen is joining us right now to discuss.

Peter, this is something that -- a question that you have raised, a topic that you have been talking about, is also the subject of a new cover story for "The Atlantic," where they look at this question kind of in-depth.

If you are at war with everyone, even another terror group, al Qaeda, then what is this group's end game?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's a very good question, and I think that it's not a rationale strategy to make a world of enemies, and ISIS has made, not only as you said an enemy of al Qaeda in Syria, but has brought 60 nations into the coalition against ISIS, has brought the Arab world as a result of its burning of the Jordanian pilot, has angered Egypt with the killing of these Egyptian Christians.

But if you look at really kind of more deeply into beliefs, they believe that they are in a cosmic struggle between good and evil. They believe that they're on the good side, and they really believe that they're in the end of -- that we're in the end times, that the apocalypse is coming.

The name of their magazine, "Dabiq," which is sort of an English- language magazine is a reference to a term in Syria where they believe the final battle between the forces of Islam and the forces of the West will happen, and they believe that they're precipitating this.

In fact, in their view, it wouldn't be horrible if there were Western boots on the ground in Syria, because that would confirm the prophecy that they believe to be true.

BOLDUAN: When you put it that way, Peter, and you also, I think, also said that they are like an apocalyptic cult, it does raises the question of how do you take them on, in what ways, because you're not dealing, as you say, with a rationale actor?

It's interesting that you raised this, because it kind of gets into, if you will, the psychology, the psyche of ISIS, at the same time that the White House is hosting this summit. The summit is about combating violent extremism. This administration has taken a lot of heat because it has resisted any references to religion in their discussions of ISIS, calling it a "fight against Islamic extremism" and so forth is something that they have absolutely avoided and really danced around. "The Atlantic," in their cover story on this issue, put it this way - I want to get your take - They wrote this, Graham Wood did, the writer - "The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe, but pretending that it isn't actually a religious group has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it." What do you think? BERGEN: I would sort of largely agree. I mean, look, Islam is a very

big tent, just like Christianity is and you have Islam people who are (INAUDIBLE) mystical pacifists, but you also have this extreme fundamentalist (INAUDIBLE) strain, which is what ISIS is, and to pretend that's got nothing to do with Islam, just doesn't make any sense. It would be like saying the Crusades had nothing to do with Christianity, or the settler movement in Israel isn't propelled, in part, by certain Jewish fundamentalists who believe that there is a God given right to that land in Israel. And I think we live in an increasingly secularized society, and for some reason that means that we don't accept people's deeply-held religious beliefs. And ISIS certainly believes these things. They are, of course, completely insane. But that doesn't mean that they don't believe (INAUDIBLE) has something to do with Islamic theology in these beliefs.

BOLDUAN: Why do you think, Peter, that -- Why does the language matter here? I mean, Fareed Zakaria asked President Obama this when he sat down with him pretty directly because he had been taking heat for not saying that religion has a part in it. The president at the time, with Fareed, said he didn't want to quibble over labels. How does the choice of words, the language, impact the fight against ISIS? Why does it matter?

BERGEN: I think George Orwell, a long time ago, pointed out that how we describe things is important for the truth of the matter. I think that it is simply a fact that these are Islamist, which is a different word than Islamic. Islamic is about the religion. Islamist is a very highly politicized view of this, which has a theological strain. These are Islamist extremist militants. They are extraordinarily violent. They make up probably 0.0001 percent of the Muslim population. But they are entirely Muslim and they do believe they have certain Islamic beliefs that are related to things that are in the Koran or related to things the Prophet Muhammad is supposed to have said, and to pretend otherwise is simply just not to accept the facts.

BOLDUAN: Peter, stick around, I want to continue talking about this and also want to bring this point up. It's being called "disturbingly effective." ISIS exploits the power of social media, sending up to 90,000 tweets a day to recruit terrorists. What can be done to stop the propaganda machine? We're going to look into that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: The fight against ISIS on the battlefield is one thing, but fighting their intense online recruitment campaign is another challenge. "The New York Times" is reporting that the terror group and its supporters are sending as many as 90,000 tweets and other social media messages a day. 90,000 a day. U.S. officials say they are now retooling their efforts to counter the online propaganda, but Kyung Lah explains they may need more than just retooling.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The boy appears only 10 years old. He stands before hostages holding a handgun. Next to him, a bearded ISIS fighter reciting religious verses. CNN cannot verify the authenticity of the video, but the boy fires the gun. The hostages slumps to the ground. Just one video in the arsenal of the online war waged by ISIS. The terror group is known for boldly flaunting its presence. Recent images show dozens of armed vehicles driving through Libya, including police vehicles in Benghazi waving the ISIS flag. Another recent video believed to be from ISIS showing hostages paraded through Iraq in cages, just weeks after ISIS burned a Jordanian pilot alive in a cage, trying to top the horror of the beheadings and murders of these innocent hostages. And then there's this: ISIS' last known Western hostage appearing to predict his own death.

JOHN CANTLIE, ISIS HOSTAGE: Hello. I'm John Cantlie. In the last film in this series, we're in a city that's been at the heart of the fighting since summer 2012.

LAH (voice-over): We know ISIS' propaganda via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is notorious for shock and horror, but Muslim activists say it's also disturbingly effective.

SALAM AL-MARAYATI, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: The problem is you have violent extremist recruiters who use online mechanisms to lure people into thinking that committing acts of violence is somehow glorious or godly.

LAH (voice-over): It's admittedly an uphill climb of catchup. ISIS, for months, has been using fighters speaking English to connect with Westerners, especially teenagers, on those same social media sites this 50-page guidebook for prospective ISIS recruits looking to travel to Syria, how to get there, who to call, and what to pack. It's a world that oddly tries to portray normalcy, the softer side of ISIS, educating future fighters. Among this group of children, a Caucasian boy with red hair. Terrorists seeking to redefine civilization one propaganda video at a time. Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Kyung really lays it out there. And let's get back to that really eye-popping number of 90,000 tweets and other social media messages and purely the propaganda that ISIS puts out on a daily basis. Peter Bergen is still with us.

Peter, you have been an expert on terror networks for years now. Have you seen anything, in terms of this kind of social media scale, the way they're allowed to -- Their capability of reaching out so far, so quickly, so often?

BERGEN: I think it's really a function of just the age we live in. We live in a social media age. The parent organization in this group, al Qaeda in Iraq, was the first group to really take advantage of broadband video and would send out videos of its beheadings early on in the 2005-2006 time period. So this is a group that, for the past decade, has been very comfortable with the use of whatever technology exists to help with their recruitment and spread their terror message.

BOLDUAN: The administration and other allies are looking into right now how do they counteract it when you're talking about 90,000 messages going out a day. Peter, it's great to see you. Thank you.

Still ahead for us, is ISIS using Libya as a feeding ground for recruitment now? Hear how the terror group is setting its sights on the troubled nation as a gateway to wage war in Europe.

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