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Bangkok Police Searching For Suspect Seen On Security Footage In Connection To Monday's Deadly Bombing; Officials Say There Are No Survivors From Crashed Flight; U.S. Military To Pitch In To Battle Wildfires Raging In The West; Investigators Sifting Through Hillary Clinton's Personal E-Mail Server; Paramedic Describes Bangkok Bombing Scene; U.S. Trains, Arms Syrian Rebel Forces, Few Armed Fighters Produced; Political Solution Needed for Syria's Civil War; Israel Offers to Exile Palestinian Detainee; Amazon Brutal Place to Work. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired August 18, 2015 - 01:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN HOST: Searching for clues in Bangkok after a deadly blast in the heart of the capital.

Plus, trained, armed and well-funded but incredibly outnumbered. The CNN exclusive report on the American-backed moderate (ph) rebels.

And Donald Trump finally gets specific about his immigration plans, including the deportation of millions and even a change to the U.S. constitution.

A warm welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. Great to have you with us.

I'm John Vause, CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

We begin this hour in Bangkok Thailand where police are searching for a man seen on security camera footage. He may be connected to a deadly bombing at a popular tourist area.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

VAUSE: This video shows crowds of pedestrians during evening rush hour as the bomb exploded on Monday. At least 22 people have died, including citizens from China, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. More than 100 people were hurt.

Police say they brief it was a pipe-bomb. They also say they received a warning about this attack, but it was not specific about where or when the bomb would go off.

Let's go to CNN's Anna Coren. She is following developments from Hong Kong.

So Anna, what more do we know about the person who may be in this security camera footage, and what's lead to which, what are the leads the authorities are now chasing?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, police have just released a photo of the man that they are looking for. And we are working to get that photo so our viewers can see it.

But let me describe it to you. It is of a young man wearing glasses. He is dressed in a yellow shirt and he is carrying a black backpack. He's also holding a plastic bag. Now, he has seen on the CCTV footage before the blast carrying this backpack, then he is seen after the blast with no backpack. Hence, police want to question him about the bombing. And they put this photo out and released it to the public. And they are hoping that somebody may be able to identify him. They're not saying that he is a suspect as such, that he is involved in the bombing, but certainly, this is the man they want to speak to right now.

As for an organization or somebody claiming responsibility for the attack, that has not happened, John. And, as for a motive, it's been described by the head of police in Thailand as a vicious and cruel attack that was obviously designed to create carnage and specifically aimed at of, not just Thais, but also the international tourists who frequent this shrine.

It is a Hindu shrine, the Erawan shrine, which is in a very busy intersection surrounded by luxury shopping malls, five-star hotels. It's a Hindu shrine, and while Thailand is mainly a Buddhist nation, it is popular among Thais, but also foreigners, in particular Chinese tourists. So, as you mentioned, some of those, of the 22 that have been killed, are Chinese nationals, John.

VAUSE: Yes. It's interesting that the photograph of this suspect, he's wearing a yellow shirt. That could be purely coincidence, but we know in the past, the yellow shirts have been up against the red shirts, which are seen as the elites and the establishment, like the military who are now in control. And there has been rising political tensions and violence in Thailand in recent months.

COREN: Absolutely. And, John, as we know, Thailand has been in political violence, instability for decades. But certainly, in the last few years, we have seen a military coup that took place in May of last year. The military took over after so much political unrest. And since then, John, it's been relatively quiet. There have been a number of bombings, four bombing, in fact, but nothing on this scale. And that is really what has shook not just Bangkok but all of Thailand.

And then you make reference to the political dispute between the red shirts who backed a former prime minister and then the yellow shirts, who are very much the conservatives, royalists. They have been at each other for years now. And there were those mass demonstrations on the streets of Bangkok back in 2010, where the red shirts got into huge conflict with the military and it resulted in 90 deaths.

So, sadly, violence and political turmoil, military coups are not uncommon in Thailand, even though it is one of the most popular tourist destinations certainly in Asia, if not the world. There is this undercurrent, this underbelly within Thailand. But as I say, since the military took over in May of last year, it has been relatively peaceful until now.

VAUSE: You make a good point, I got my shirts mixed up. I thought the yellow shirts were the essentially, with the populist movement. The red shirts were in fact the ones against the military and the establishment. So, thanks for the correction, Anna. We appreciate it. We move on.

Turning now to U.S. politics and the race for the White House, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump spent part of Monday serving jury duty. He drew a huge crowd in front of the courthouse in New York, but for some reason, he was not picked to serve on a case.

Meantime, Trump's Republican opponent were fuzzing judgment on his plan for illegal immigrants. It includes a deportation of millions of immigrants who came to the United States illegally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I appreciate the fact that Mr. Trump now has a plan, if that's what it's called, but I think that the better approach is to deal with the 11 million people here illegally in a way that is realistic.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump's eight-page plan is absolute gibberish. It is unworkable. Mitt Romney said his biggest mistake as a candidate for president was embracing self-deportation. That hurt our party. Donald Trump's plan is forced deportation. It is not going to workable. It is unworkable. We are not going to force - deport 11 million people. This is worse than self-deportation.

We have two problems with Trump, Hispanics and women. And this plan really is just incredibly unworkable. And I think it's going to hurt the Republican Party. We're going backwards on immigration, not forward as a party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: On the parts of Donald Trump's immigration plan include a massive and expensive wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. But Mr. Trump says that (INAUDIBLE) won't cost the United States a penny. We get more from Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Close to 700 miles of the 2,000 mile border with Mexico is already fenced and heavily monitored. Finishing job, it was a state of the art wall and all it would take to secure that border could cost close to $33 million per mile, based on one government estimate. Whatever the cost, Trump says no problem.

TRUMP: I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. FOREMAN: If Mexico won't play along, Trump proposed a torrent of fees

on Mexican citizens, corporate CEOs and diplomats who visit the U.S., possibly tariffs and cuts to foreign aid, too. But Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner, and all of that could cost the U.S. as well. So his opponents are not impressed.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And this is not a negotiation of a real estate deal, OK? It's international diplomacy and it is different.

FOREMAN: Trump also wants to deal with the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

TRUMP: They have to go.

FOREMAN: The deportation rate has been 400,000 per year. And to get all those folks, deportations would have to soar almost 2800 times higher. And even if he is talking about only those with criminal records, it's not clear how he would find them or fund it.

And then, there is the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, which says all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States. Trump wants to change that, arguing that if two people are here illegally and have a baby, that child should not automatically be a U.S. citizen. But legal scholars say that would require changing the constitution. So even many proponents of the idea admit --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will be litigated. There isn't any doubt about it.

FOREMAN: In other words, Trump can say he will end the birthright rule, but he can't do it, even if he were president.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Staying with politics, investigators are sifting through the personal email server used by U.S. Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. They're looking for classified messages she may have sent or received on that unsecured server. They say 305 emails have caught their attention so far. Mrs. Clinton is insisting she did nothing wrong and says the controversy is completely political.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And, you know what? It's not about emails or servers either. It's about politics. I will do my part to provide transparency to Americans. That's why I've insisted 55,000 pages of my emails be published as soon as possible. I've even offered to answer questions for months before Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[01:10:11] VAUSE: So far, investigators say they've examined about 20 percent of the email server.

A short break here on CNN. When we come back, Indonesian officials confirm their worst fears at a plane crash site. The debris found belong to that missing passenger plane and there are no survivors. More details when we come back.

Also, days after a deadly explosion in Tianjin, China, residents there still worried that they are still in danger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chemical experts say it's impossible to know exactly what this is or what if any danger it may pose without further testing. But we do know around here there's a lot of it scattered about, and it's sitting close to thousands of homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:14:30] VAUSE: Well, for the first time in nearly a decade, U.S. military soldiers will join firefighters battling wildfires scorching huge parts of the west. California and Washington have seen the worst of it.

Paul Vercammen has more now reporting in from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the west, triple digit temperature, wind, the ravages of drought, creating the perfect firestorm. More than 25,000 firefighters now battling blazes in ten states. The national fire preparedness level at five, as the highest. Almost two dozen fires scorching Washington State alone, near (INAUDIBLE), a really resident praised crews for sparing his home in the face of roaring flames.

[01:15:10] DAVID D'ARMOND, RESIDENT: They came quick. It came hot and heavy. And then the winds kicked up and it just was unstoppable.

VERCAMMEN: Other residents not as fortunate. Dozens of structures and more than 50,000 acres burned, a thousand residents evacuated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought it was this little fire. And the wind got faster and faster.

[01:00:11] In California, over 13,000 firefighters are trying to extinguish almost two dozen stubborn blazes, a southern California heat wave, feeling this fire in (INAUDIBLE) where firefighters tried to save a fully engulfed lodge.

(INAUDIBLE) was suspected arson fire caused, major traffic jams, walls of flames exploded over the road. Aerial support on this, the Lincoln fire, came from Canada. Two super scoopers from Quebec now helping out in southern California. This plane gipping in to the water to reload, well, residents continued on their quest to cool off in dangerously hot fire weather.

And 200 active military personnel have join the firefight in the Pacific Northwest. A fire official telling me, they will free up more experienced crews to go into hazardous complex fire conditions, and the soldiers will focus on mopping up, digging fire, watching for and putting out spot fires.

Paul Vercammen, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: OK. Let's stay with the fires for a little longer. Pedram Javaheri, (INAUDIBLE) is with us.

So OK, people want to know, when's it going to rain? So when will it get better?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it's going to get cooler in the next three days. So the next two days are very hot. Third day gets cooler. So at least some improvement there. And the national inter-agency, John, for fire center in the U.S. says that on the scale of one to five, the severity of this year's fire --

VAUSE: Six?

JAVAHERI: No. They want to throw a six, it might have been. But it is a five. And they are saying that it has the potential to exhaust all of their resources across the area of the United States. So, it's a pretty expansive issue.

And you ask me he question of when is ti going to rain? Look at the next five days. Light up the map. Paint the picture. Just about everyone east of, say, Utah begins to see some rain showers. Back to the west, bone dry conditions, and that's a major concern across this region, where just in the east you're tapping into monsoonal moisture. But back to west, again, dry condition.

And this is actually the soil moisture contest. Look at the northwestern corner of the U.S. The areas indicated in the brown, that is the soil moisture, zero to two percent of normal while around portions of say Iowa, the blues and greens that is indicative of 100 percent of normal in the moisture content in the soil. So you put that in place, it is an absolute tinder box across portions of the northwest. While fires, 76 of them, considered large fires of at least 300 acres. That has consumed over six million acres of land. By the way, that is roughly the size of the country of Israel or the state of New Hampshire, how large it is as far as how much land has already been consumed over this region.

So with all the fires, we have air quality alerts, mainly for eastern portions of Washington, Oregon, western Idaho as well. And look at the satellite imagery over the past couple of days. Want to stop it for you on Monday. That's all the cloud, right, you kind see the hazy color in eastern Washington. You see a little signature of plume right there in northern California. That's how expansive it is, from 22,000 miles up, you are able to see the fire and weights of smoke of it from space. But Seattle, a historic year, 12 days of temperature about 90 degree Fahrenheit. That 32 Celsius. That is quadrupling what is average for Seattle three days typically, john. The northwestern corner of the U.S. sees about 90 degree days and they have gotten12 of them so far this year, so.

VAUSE: They're feeling it tough right now.

JAVAHERI: So I think in the next two to three weeks, we finally begin to see, hopefully a trend that is cooler. But the rainfall doesn't look like it is coming.

VAUSE: Cooler in September but still no rain.

JAVAHERI: Yes.

VAUSE: (INAUDIBLE) El nino.

JAVAHERI: Hopefully, it is simple theory.

VAUSE: OK, Pedram, thank you.

We turn to Indonesia now where officials say there are no survivors of a Trigana service flight which crashed in the country's remote Papua region. Rescue teams at the ground site have located the bodies of all 54 people who were on board. Helicopters are on their way to the area as well. The plane went missing on Sunday after it lost contact with air traffic control.

For more on the recovery efforts, let's bring in our Kathy Quiano. She joins us on the line from Jakarta.

So Kathy, this is now a recovery operation. How long will it be before they can remove all of the bodies from the crash site?

KATHY QUIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on the phone): You're right, John, it's a recovery operation. We have just confirmed what all the search teams have found the black box that's the plane that went down in Papua. This just came in now. And this is after rescue teams reached the remote crash site, and they found, as you said, 54 bodies. It's a very, very steep mountain slope. There are no survivors here. And they have found the black box and have started the process of evacuating, (INAUDIBLE) bodies from the mountain slope to the Oksibil airport where it was expected to land on Sunday.

Now, teams at the crash site reported that there are no large pieces of debris from the plane. You see very small pieces of wreckage thrown over the mountain slopes. The process now will be hoisting these bodies that have been put into body bags, using a helicopter that's equipped with a long line or rope, where each of the choppers now will have to get each body to the Oksibil airport. Earlier, bad weather hampered recovery operations. Officials now say they hope to finish it before bad weather closes in again -- John.

VAUSE: And Kathy, The flight data recorders, or the black box, that will be crucial, because right now, they still don't have much of a clue as to why this plane crashed. QUIANO: That's right, John. And as soon as the evacuation process is

finish, it should be the priority right now. The investigation will begin. And they will have, they will start looking for clues and any evidence of what happened to this plane, which veered and crashed into a mountain well just minutes before it was supposed to land in Oksibil. They'll have to find out if weather was a factor, if anything on the plane was not working. There was no distress call from the plane when it lost contact with the tower just ten minutes before it was supposed to land, John.

VAUSE: OK. Kathy Quiano on the line from Jakarta with the very latest (INAUDIBLE). And all 54 people onboard that flight died. No survivors and they have recovered the flight data recorders.

Chinese authorities say there were hundreds of tons of sodium cyanide at the site of last week's massive explosions in Tianjin. And they're still cleaning up those toxic chemicals.

Will Ripley is in Tianjin. He joins us live with an update.

So Will, what's the latest now on that environmental cleanup?

RIPLEY: It really is a massive operation under way here, John. You think about the fact that there are thousands of homes. These in particular are under construction. But there were other units where people were living and they are now displaced.

And the problem is this. We're standing more than half a mile from the blast zone, but the force of the explosion was so strong it propelled barrels of chemicals, some of them unknown, into this area, and nobody knows what the danger is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY (voice-over): With terrifying force, the fireball sent shock waves through Tianjin, leaving massive destruction, piles of debris and something else. Small mounds of unknown chemicals, emitting heat and what looks like steam when exposed to water, raised fears of what could happen when it rains.

SHI WEN JING, HOMEOWNER: We're not going to move back until we know we're safe because there are so many kids in there.

RIPLEY: She Wen Jing is one of thousands of blast zone homeowners now homeless. Families and the government don't know the full list of toxins propelled through this bustling Chinese port city. Do you feel safe going back home?

JING: No. No. No. Because the chemical stuff is all over. I saw - it was like a firework, you know, exploding, flying through everywhere. Some parts might fall to our home.

RIPLEY: More than 2,000 Chinese soldiers and hundreds of biochemical experts are working to neutralize the threat searching up to three kilometers from the immediate blast area taking air, soil and water samples. These stray chemicals sitting in an unsecured area, less than a

kilometer from the blast zone. Do you know what this is? Do you know it poses a danger to anybody?

Tianjin's chief environmental officer tells me searchers have not yet entered residential areas due to safety concerns about broken glass. He says they will begin searching those areas if needed.

Chemical experts say it's impossible to know exactly what this is or what if any danger it may pose without further testing. But we do know around here there's a lot of it scattered about, and it's sitting close to thousands of homes.

Chow Wei Jun owns an apartment under construction next door. He takes us through a dark ravage building. He was supposed to move into in less than two months. He wonders if it will ever be safe.

After the explosion, he says, I worry about the pollution, the water and soil, the whole structure of these buildings. Like most Chinese homeowners, Chow and his family saved for years to buy an apartment, unaware it was sitting near a hazardous chemical warehouse, now the focus of a criminal investigation by China's highest prosecuting authority.

Are the officials corrupt or what, asks homeowner Lui Shu Que (ph). She and others are demanding the Chinese government buyback their apartments, afraid of living next to what they call a ticking time bomb.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY: Within just a couple hours of us notifying the Chinese authorities about this, John, they did send a cleanup crew, and they cleaned up the chemicals that we had identified. We also in the last hour or so have seen what appear to be hazardous material workers scanning this parking lot. We can see some barrels that appear to have landed in there as well.

But this is such a massive operation. And such a large area affected. It's really hard to know how long it will take to fully contain the chemical threat and even identify what the danger, what the danger is, John.

[01:25:23] VAUSE: OK. Will, thank you. Will Ripley live for us from Tianjin, wearing a face mask because of the concern about the environment there and the toxic chemicals in the air.

Thanks, Will.

A short break here. When we come back, we'll head to Bangkok where we are hearing more about that deadly blast. We'll talk to a paramedic to work to save lives in the aftermath of the blast.

Also, the U.S. has invested millions in rebel forces to fight ISIS in Syria. You will hear from one of those recruits in an exclusive report just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:29:23] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. Wherever you're watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm John Vause. The headlines this hour.

Bangkok police say they're searching for a man seen on security camera footage who hey be connected to Monday's deadly bombing in a busy tourist area. At least 22 people were killed, more than 100 injured in a popular Hindu shrine. So far, no claim of responsibility.

Indonesian officials now say search and rescue teams, they found the black box of the Trigana air service flight which crashed in the country's Papua region on Sunday. The bodies of all 54 people on board have also been located. They were no survivors. Helicopters are on their way to the area to recover the victims' remains.

[01:30:00] The black box has been found from the Trigana flight.

Hundreds of people who lost their homes in last week's explosions in Tianjin, China, are demanding government compensation. Authorities are still trying to sweep the site for dangerous chemicals. At least 114 people were killed. 57 missing, most of them were firefighters.

More than 300 documents from Hillary Clinton's e mail server may have classified information. But there's no indication any of the material was marked classified at the time she sent or received it. The Democratic presidential hopeful used the server while she was U.S. secretary of state.

We have more now or our top story, the deadly bombing in Bangkok, Thailand. The government says whoever planted the bomb was targeting tourists. It exploded at a Hindu Shrine, was not far from several international hotels as well as up-market shopping centers.

Marko Cunningham is a paramedic with the Bangkok Free Ambulance, and was on the scene rescuing the survivors and joins us now via Skype.

Marko, tell us, what were you doing at the time, and can you describe the home you heard the blast? What did you think?

MARKO CUNNINGHAM, PARAMEDIC, BANGKOK FREE AMBULANCE: OK, I have an area I work, and it's next to the area where the bomb dropped. So I didn't hear the bomb blast, it's about two or three kilometers away, but I went to it because it was a big case, with quite a few injuries. At first we thought it was an RPG or CNG had exploded in a taxi, which they often do in Thailand. And so I went to it. But when I got there I realized that was not the case. And then when I parked my motorcycle ambulance and walked across the road, I'd seen the shrine was just like shredded into pieces.

(AUDIO PROBLEM)

VAUSE: Unfortunately, Marko, we're having a few problems hearing you right now. We're trying to get that worked out.

Because Marko was on the scene very, very quickly, and what he has described is bodies shredded by the power of this blast. He treated as many of them as he could. And he did say it was one of the worst scenes he has seen.

We'll try to get Marko back. Maybe we can continue talking with him.

In the meantime, police say they believe it was a pipe-bomb. I asked CNN intelligence and security analyst, Bob Baer, about that a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY ANALYST: I doubt that it's a pipe-bomb. It could have been, but with that many deaths, it's usually a sophisticated pipe-bomb. A couple other things is they attacked a tourist site. It tells me that this group wants to hit at the economy, the Thai economy. This can do a lot of damage, especially if there's a follow on. This really comes as a surprise. There's an Islamic insurgency in the south. But they haven't been attacking tourists up until now. If this is a change in tactics, that's fairly dire.

VAUSE: I want to talk about that pipe-bomb. Three kilograms of explosives in a pipe-bomb, would it be this powerful? We heard about huge slabs of concrete blown away and this death toll which is expected to continue to rise.

BAER: A pipe-bomb will send out shrapnel. It would definitely kill some people. But when you're taking down concrete, it's an explosive that pushes. It's a bit slower, and, again, the number of deaths is very high for a pipe-bomb. I think at the end of the day, we're going to find out it was something else, but I could be wrong.

VAUSE: Do you make anything of the warning the police say they received. I always think if they call ahead, they're not coming.

BAER: I don't know, warning, there's a lot of violence in Thailand. Whether it was connected with this, the fact that the police have no clue who is behind this bombing doesn't tell me that they can really associate with warning. You know, all these reports, the early reports are often inaccurate, and I think we're going to find out a lot by tomorrow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Bill Baer there.

Let's go back to Marko Cunningham, who is a paramedic who works for Bangkok Free Ambulance.

So, Marko, can you describe the injuries that people had suffered?

CUNNINGHAM: Absolutely horrific. The injuries were so serious that it was very difficult to prioritize the patients. They were all in comatose states and with huge lacerations. And so triaging them was almost impossible. Just every single person was on top of the list of triage. So the people that seemed to survive were the ones that ended up underneath the dead people. So I'm guessing that the person in front of the blast took the blast and the person behind was somehow saved. And so we had to remove dead bodies from the living people underneath, but I've never seen injuries this bad before. I've been to a few bomb blasts before. This bomb was technically, I don't know the word, vicious. And it was designed to cause maximum damage and death. Very unlike the bombs that the Thailand political groups use, which normally just to cause mayhem. This one was just purely designed for death and destruction, it was a shocking thing.

[01:36:00] VAUSE: The power of the blast. There's some reports that limbs were blown around the area, that a hand was found on a fifth floor balcony?

CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, I can believe it. I've seen a lot, but never seen injuries as vicious as these injuries. Bones just cut through with I don't know what, the blast, most of the people were naked, because their clothes were ripped off from the blast. So many bones were broken. It was incredible the power of that blast. It really shocked me more than anything.

VAUSE: Marko, very quickly, how shocked are people there? You obviously live in Bangkok and talk to a lot of people. How shocked are they that something like this could happen in the heart of the capital?

CUNNINGHAM: People are shocked at something this serious. But we've had lots of bomb blasts before. Tsunamis, building collapses. It's a shock. But it's something that we deal with here living in Thailand.

: OK. Marko Cunningham, a paramedic for Bangkok Free Ambulance, a New Zealander as well, living there.

Marko, thank you for sharing your account of what happened.

When we come back, Syrian rebels, an expensive but crucial part of the U.S. strategy to combat ISIS, and when we come back, an exclusive report, we'll talk to one of the fighters and the challenges they're facing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:40:41] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. We go to Syria now where government forces have bombarded a rebel-held town yet again after a series of deadly airstrikes over the weekend. This video shows the devastation after the first round of shelling that struck a market on Sunday. The Human Observatory for Human Rights says that hundreds were wounded. The United States has spent millions to vet and arm rebels to fight ISIS in Syria, but so far the program has only produced a handful of trained fighters.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh interviewed one of those rebels for this exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(EXPLOSION) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what nearly $1 million worth of pro-American Syrian rebel looks like. These are the first pictures of the mere 54 moderate fighters the U.S. has painstakingly vetted, trained and equipped with these fancy weapons. But there aren't nearly enough of them yet to worry ISIS.

(EXPLOSION)

PATON WALSH: In fact, some of them were recently detained by al Qaeda after a firefight leading to claims the $41 million program was a failure.

One of them, Abu Skanda (ph), in Syria is speaking out.

(through translation): Nearly 17,000 men wants to join. But the training is slow. We need it to be faster. 30 days instead of 45 days. More trainees. Our training in Jordan did 85. There should have been 500 there and another 500 in turkey. We are thankful, but it needs to happen faster.

PATON WALSH (on camera): These men are an essential part of America's anti-ISIS strategy, inescapably vital. Without allied Syrian rebels to go on the ground and clear out is, everything else is pretty much pointless. And as of now, inside Syria, there are just about 40 of them.

(voice-over): Here they are entering Syria recently after training days before being attacked by rebels from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra front. Some have been released.

And despite the awful start, Abu Skanda (ph) is determined to fight on. The Americans follow him, using a GPS on his wrist and in his vest when he targets airstrikes for them.

ABU SKANDA (ph), REBEL FIGHTER (through translation): I go to the front line of ISIS and give locations for the war planes to bomb. We have advanced satellite location devices to target anyplace on the front line whether we see it or not. There are daily drones. I speak to the Americans every hour, a total of four hours a day.

PATON WALSH: One hurdle in recruiting for the Pentagon is that their unit is only allowed to fight ISIS --

(SHOUTING)

PATON WALSH: -- not most Syrian rebels' first and worst enemy, the Assad regime. But Abu also insists he will fight the Assad regime.

SKANDA (ph) (through translation): The second rule is that we fight whoever is fighting us. We will take arrows from ISIS and face Assad. Are we going to sit still and not fight Assad? We will stay in our homes. We don't want to cry on TV. We want Assad regime to be stopped.

PATON WALSH: After the vetting, the confused aims, one thing is clear, his unshakeable enthusiasm for the fight against ISIS and the regime that lies ahead.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The U.N.'s humanitarian chief has been in Syria the past few days. He says the violence against villages is unlawful and unacceptable.

As our Hala Gorani asks, Steven O'Brien says there is just one solution to end the prolonged civil conflict.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHEN O'BRIEN, U.N. HUMANITARIAN CHIEF: There is no military solution to this. There is not even a humanitarian solution. We can do our best to try and save the lives and protect the civilians, but almost anything we do is never going to be enough. And I have to plead to all the generous donors that we do need even more. The job is incredibly far from done. And we have little funding to do it with, with all the brave international workers.

[01:45:10] HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We'll get to that in a moment. But in your discussions with the government, was it ever brought up that the government was somehow willing to hold discussions with any form of the opposition? It's now so fractured, and so many of the groups are armed. And if so, what form would that take? And how do you trust an interlocutor that, on the day of your visit, bombed a suburb killing 100 civilians?

O'BRIEN: Well, let there be no doubt, of course, when you have conflict and humanitarian need these days, and it's a huge amount around the world that does arise in conflict. Of course all the people you speak to are partial. They're part of a fight, part of an argument, which they are using war to try and settle. This is always going to fail. And there is only one chance we all have, and that is to try and find a political solution. It is clear to me that as part of the U.N., and we work as one, that secretary-general special envoy absolutely is trying everything he can to pull together these workshops, a form of proximity discussions which are going to define the issues of agreement so we can try to find a political way forward. In the meantime, we all have to work ceaselessly to try to save lives and prevent the human loss.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Stephen O'Brien, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief on CNN a little earlier.

A Palestinian prisoner is in his 53rd day of a hunger strike as he protests his detainment by Israel without trail. Israel has offered him but it comes with conditions which his lawyer says conditions are unacceptable.

Oren Liebermann has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Israel offered to release Mohammed Allan, if he would leave. He's in the hospital receiving salts and electrolytes. I was an unknown name until recently. Now everyone here knows who Mohammed Allan is,

(on camera): Palestinian lawyer, Mohammed Allan, the newest face of resistance for Palestinians.

(SHOUTING)

LIEBERMANN: Israel has held him since 2014 without charge or trial on suspicion of involvement in terrorism and membership in jihad. A claim his lawyer and family deny.

Allan began a hunger strike in mid June, only drinking water. An advocacy group says there are many held on detention, they are held for six months at a time, renewable as deemed necessary.

Hunger strikes have been a common way to protest detention. The Israeli Medial Association says more than 1,000 prisoners have gone on hunger strikes over the past several years, but Mohammed Allan's refusal to eat put a highlight on the force-feeding law.

QADURA FARES, PALESTINIAN PRISON SOCIETY: They are against the international barometers, the international agreements.

LIEBERMANN: This law, just passed by the Knesset in July, allows the government to force-feed hunger strikers if their lives are in danger.

(SHOUTING)

LIEBERMANN: But the new law has been criticized inside and outside the country. The U.N. called it a, quote, "cause for concern." The Israeli Medical Community says it's equivalent to torture.

(SHOUTING)

LIEBERMANN: Palestinians have held near daily solidarity protest the outside the hospital where Allan is being held and treated. There have been additional protests in Jerusalem and Gaza.

(on camera): We asked about this I.V. drip with fluids, vitamins and minerals, and asked if that qualifies as force-feeding. His lawyers say that is a gray area. But right now, they won't fight it.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: When we come back, Amazon, popular with online shoppers, not so popular with some employees. They say it is a brutal place to work. Those details up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:53:24] VAUSE: Well, one of the biggest and most popular online retailers apparently isn't so popular with some former and current employees. A "New York Times" report portrays Amazon as a brutal place to work, but the executives are saying not so fast. They are fighting back, saying the view from the executive floor is pretty good.

Here's Kyung Lah.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amazon, shipping whatever, wherever with an effortless click of your finger, but some 100 current and former employees claim it's not so magical for Amazon's white collar employees, describing to the "New York Times" a cutthroat, dog- eat-dog workplace, pushing out workers viewed as weak, for getting cancer or having children.

A former employee, according to "The New York Times," a saying around the Amazon campus, "Amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves."

People claiming to be ex-employees reacted and commiserated across social media. On Reddit, one writes, "When I went to the bathroom, I would hear at least one person crying, at least once a day. There are thousands of us in Seattle alone." On glass door.com, a networking site, Amazon's positive reviews carried this concern, "Advice to management, remember, that the employees are people and not machines."

Amazon's own produced videos called "Inside Amazon," showcases employees who call the job challenging and cutting edge, but --

UNIDENTIFIED AMAZON WORKER: You either fit here or you don't. You love it or you don't. There is no middle ground really.

[01:55:05] LAH: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the visionary, responded to "The New York Times" article in an e-mail to his more than 100,000 employees, writing, "I don't recognize this Amazon," adding Amazon would not tolerate callous workplace behavior.

But tech analysts say this behavior has been around at Amazon for years, and frankly, other startups.

John Sullivan advises fortune 500 companies and has studied Amazon for a decade.

JOHN SULLIVAN, BUSINESS ADVISOR: They live in a different world. But when you have to be first, like an eBay, like an Amazon, you have to have this kind of people. And I would say, shame on them, if they were surprised.

LAH: Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Amazon didn't really answer the charges though, that it was a brutal place to work, did they?

Anyway, thank you for watching. I'm Vause.

CNN NEWSROOM continues next with Rosemary Church and Errol Barnett. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:04] ERROL BARNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Police say they're searching for a man who may be connected to this bombing in Bangkok.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: In Indonesia, crews have reached the wreckage of the Trigana Air crash.