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Homegrown ISIS-Related Terror Bust in U.S.; ISIS Video Shows Execution of 30 Ethiopian Christians; New Jersey Police Pull Woman from Car before It Explodes; Pot Enthusiasts Celebrate Cannabis Cup. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 20, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:12] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The FBI has just made a homegrown terror bust. At least six people arrested in two different states for allegedly plotting to travel to Syria to fight along with ISIS. The sting happened in Minnesota and California, targeting this group of friends who under the watchful eye of federal terror agents allegedly radicalized and did everything they could to get out of the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW LUGER, MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL: They never stopped plotting another way to get to Syria to join ISIL. They were not confused young men. They were not easily influenced. These are focused men who are intent on joining a terrorist organization by any means possible. People often ask who is doing the terror recruiting in Minnesota, and when will we catch the person responsible? But it is not that simple. In today's case, the answer is that this group of friends is recruiting each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, the plan from this group of friends unraveled when it was leaked to the FBI by one young man who had a change of heart.

As the ISIS recruiting drive continues, so does the group's brutality. This terror group releasing new video, showing the graphic execution of 30 men. Again, the target was Christians.

Joining me is Fawaz Gerges, author of "The New Middle East: Protests and Revolution in the Arab World," professor of Middle East studies at the London School of Economics.

Fawaz, wonderful to have you on, as always.

FAWAZ GERGES, PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS & AUTHOR: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Here's one of the differences. Unlike some of the other videos we have seen, this shows two different kinds of killings, one by shooting, one by beheading, in two very different locations. We're talking hundreds of miles in difference between one group of 15 and the other. What's this about? Is this about ISIS trying to make everyone feel like they have the entire country of Libya covered?

GERGES: Well, partly so. They want to tell the world that is has major bases in Libya, and in a way, it's true. Outside of Iraq and Syria, ISIL or ISIS basically exists in terms of bases, in terms of cities, in terms of towns in Libya. But the question is, sadly, Brooke, we're no longer really surprised by ISIL's viciousness. This is very sad because ISIL has mastered the art of savagery. The truth is they're killing poor migrant African workers in Libya. They're showing they can brutalize them. They're trying to show that they are worthy of their masters in Iraq and Syria. They're basically following in the footsteps of the caliphate. They want to show basically they exist and Libya now is definitely part of the ISIL caliphate in the Middle East.

[14:35:16] BALDWIN: But to your point, the viciousness is not new. What appears to be new is this territory grab of Libya. Is this realistic? Is it truly the next move to spread this caliphate to Libya?

GERGES: Well, you know, this is their strategy. Their strategy is to spread their influence. It's to control more territories. It's to show the world that ISIL is winning. It has resilience, it's spreading. The truth is, it exists now in Libya, even though not really all over the country, as you said. They control two or three major cities. The reality is what we need to focus on is that Libya is in chaos. There are two rival governments. War lords and militias control the country. You have mafia networks. You have human traffickers. On top of that, you have ISIL. The question why ISIL or ISIS has made it to Libya, is because as a social parasite, it's in conflict zones. As long as the situation remains chaotic in Libya, I expect ISIL to spread its influence in the country. The same way in Yemen, as you know. Given that Yemen now is descending into all of out conflict, I expect the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is another branch of al Qaeda to spread its influence, it's spreading its influence in Yemen as well.

BALDWIN: That's right. We've been reporting on the spreading of ISIS in Yemen since I believe it was November. But in Libya, because of this spreading, people are fleeing. Because of the violence, Libyans are fleeing in fear. In fact, right now I'm sure you know all about these -- this deadly ship wreck. Hundreds of asylum seekers want out of Libya. They want to head to Italy. They're now feared drowned. Is this -- how out of control is this humanitarian crisis, Fawaz? What can be done?

GERGES: You know, Brooke, you really have asked a very important question. When you have chaos, when you don't have a centralized authority, when you have merchants of death, when you have mafia networks, when you have war lords controlling the country, Libya now is a base not only for extremists like ISIS and ISIL, but Libya now is a base that basically exports fighters, exports arms to its neighbors. Tunisia is a case in point, as you well know. The two extremist who basically attacked the museum were trained in Libya. You go to West Africa. You go to Algeria. People are terrified that Libya is becoming now an exporter of terrorism of arms. Now, of course, the human traffickers. Libya is also a station for migrants. You have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of desperate young men and women who are trying to make it to Europe and Libya is the place. And human traffickers who deceive and manipulate and basically rob these poor migrants and put them on vessels, vessels that wreck on the high seas, as we've seen over the weekend. In the past year, almost 1,000 migrants have died as a result of basically Libya being the base for these particular migrants. Now another 950 migrants, according to one witness. It tells you about the scale of this humanitarian crisis. And it tells you how pivotal Libya has become, not only for the exports of extremism and arms and fighters, be up even for ISIL. That's why resolving the conflict in Libya basically bridging the divide between the two rival governments, establishing a centralized authority --

BALDWIN: Is so incredibly important.

GERGES: -- to take care of the situation in the country.

BALDWIN: I had to talk about Libya today with you, Fawaz Gerges. Thank you so much.

GERGES: Thanks for having me, Brooke.

[14:40:27] BALDWIN: Coming up next, a rescue just in the nick of time. Police pull this woman from this burning car. Here they go. Minutes before, it explodes. Up next, we'll talk to the officer who was there on the scene.

Back after this quick break.

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BALDWIN: Just in the nick of time. That is exactly how some New Jersey police officers are describing this harrowing rescue of an unconscious woman from her burning car there on the side of the road. Investigators say the 45-year-old, who's now facing DWI charges, got trapped after crashing her car. Officers had to use a knife to cut her out of her seatbelt as smoke was there rising from her vehicle. Moments later, you'll see it, the explosion, the flames just after officers pulled her to safety.

I have Sergeant Nicholas Cifelli with me who was on the scene last Thursday. He helped the officers who pulled the woman from the burning car.

Sergeant, thank you so much for coming in. What a day.

SGT. NICHOLAS CIFELLI: It was harrowing.

BALDWIN: You said you were a volunteer firefighter. You've been a cop for 18 years, to see something like that, rare.

CIFELLI: Very rare, yes.

[14:45:00] BALDWIN: Take me back to the scene. I mean, here we are. What did you first see when you rolled up?

CIFELLI: As I first walked up to the scene, I saw Officer Ehrenburg and Ferriola working on her, trying to remove her from the vehicle before this happens. I have nothing but admiration for these two officers who worked tirelessly and remained calm and cool under pressure to remove her from that vehicle.

BALDWIN: She is 100 percent unconscious as they, what, they pull her, cut the seatbelt?

CIFELLI: They cut the seatbelt, and they had to work to untangle her from the vehicle to pull her out of there before the fire entered into the passenger compartment.

BALDWIN: How many minutes? You see the edit. How many minutes between pulling her out and boom?

CIFELLI: I believe it was 20 seconds.

BALDWIN: 20 seconds?

CIFELLI: Somewhere along those lines, yes. And they did a tremendous job. The individual seen at the back of the car there, I believe that's the individual that actually called us and alerted us to the vehicle.

BALDWIN: So somebody pass the -- saw the car, picked up the phone and called 911?

CIFELLI: He actually called 911. He was following her. As we were coming upon it, he told us the car crashed. The first officer there pulled up to this moments after the car crashed and overturned into the ditch.

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, I just have to ask, I mean, you go into your job. You've been doing this for 18 years. You're risking your life every single day. And just knowing that recently in the headlines have been issues, officers and questions around police brutality. I just wondered if you had a message for people watching, just in the wake of everything that we've seen.

CIFELLI: This is more typical of our dealings with the public. Quite honestly, this doesn't happen all that often. Like I said, these two officers do this every day, maybe not to this extent, but they're always out there for the citizens, and they work hard at what they do. It's nice to see this for a change.

BALDWIN: That's why we wanted to have you on.

Sergeant Cifelli, thank you so much.

CIFELLI: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I really appreciate it.

Coming up next here, today is April 20th. Yes, that is 4/20. Officer, you with me on this?

He's shaking his head and laughing.

For marijuana enthusiasts, it's an unofficial holiday around the globe. We're live where it's legal, Colorado, where people are celebrating at the -- yes, this exists. It's a thing -- the Cannabis Cup.

We'll be right back.

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[14:52:03] BALDWIN: There are pot festivals, and there's the annual 4/20 celebration in Denver. Colorado's voters unleashed a wave of pot tourism when they legalized marijuana. This weekend saw two days of nonstop smoking and partying, leading up to today, this unofficial counterculture holiday, linked to the date 4/20. April 20th, a long- time reference to marijuana.

So we sent Ana Cabrera there. She's been out with some of these festival goers.

I'm just going to let you take it away, Ana. You tell me what you're seeing.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Brooke. This is officially called the Cannabis Cup here in Colorado, which is ground zero of this marijuana legalization movement. We're literally seeing tens of thousands of marijuana enthusiasts here mingling with hundreds of cannabis companies that have converged from all around the country. They are marketing their pot shops. They're marketing pot products, stuff like the I-puff, which is essentially a vape pen, similar to an e-cigarette, where you'll put the THC-infused oils to consume cannabis that way. And that's just the beginning. All this marijuana marketing is entertaining, to say the least.

We've been here now for a couple of days reporting. I want to show you what we ran into yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: I want to show you this particular product. This is an incredible company that specializes in pot pipes. I want to show you this special contraption.

Go for it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to hit this, build up suction. I'm going to light this end. When the hit gets to where you want it, give me a thumbs up. I'm going to pull this carb. It's going to shoot the smoke down your throat.

CABRERA: We're going to watch this process here.

This is a company giving examples of how their products work. You can see he's lighting the marijuana on one end. The participant

here is sucking in. Now he's going to really get a big shot of that smoke as he releases the chamber.

(CHEERING)

CABRERA: We're told it's supposed to be a really smooth hit. How did it feel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Felt amazing, actually.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Amazing. It is wild. It's whacky. It's hard to report out here and keep a straight face.

(LAUGHTER)

I have to tell you, though, officially it is illegal to be selling the products on site if they are pot products. It's illegal to be giving away free samples of pot. But people are allowed to consume cannabis on site. If they bring their own, that's OK. They can try out some of these different devices that way. We're also seeing a lot of people sharing with each other as well -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: I mean, I'm sure it's quite the sharing culture where you are, Ana Cabrera. Enjoy it, or something.

CABRERA: Everybody's happy.

(LAUGHTER)

[14:54:39] BALDWIN: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

Thank you, Ana Cabrera.

Make sure you tune in tonight 9:00 eastern, for Dr. Sanjay Gupta's special, "Weed 3: The Marijuana Revolution."

Coming up, the Baltimore Police Department facing growing outrage. They're scheduled to hold a news conference and perhaps start answering some questions after this mysterious death of a 25-year-old man who died in police custody. We'll take you to Baltimore live.

Also, we're keeping an eye on the breaking weather news today. A tornado warning in the Atlanta area.

Stay with me.

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BALDWIN: Let's get an update here on our breaking news. This tornado warning in Atlanta.

Tom Sater, what are you seeing?

[14:59:17] TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Some good news. We have torrential downpours, but the tornado activity has been what we call radar indicated. We don't believe that we've actually seen a funnel come down, touch the ground, and become a tornado. We still have a tornado watch. This is until 8:00 p.m. and includes the Atlanta metro area, up toward areas of South and North Carolina. Just recently, a severe thunderstorm watch has been indicated and issued to areas to the north. Charlotte, you're not in either box, however, you're not out of this yet.

Earlier, we had a tornado indicated and it was issued by the National Weather Service. What we have now, it has moved on. Again, we don't think we've seen any circulation. We've had golf-ball size hail with this. They're racing off quickly to the east-northeast.

The threat of tornadoes will stay in this region. But a little later on, the enhanced threat will be in your area, the Piedmont areas of Virginia, Delmarva, and that's where we have wind and possibly some hail damage, up your way, all the way towards Pittsburgh as well.

BALDWIN: OK. Keep your eye on it for all of us.

SATER: We will.

BALDWIN: Tom Sater, thank you so much.