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Families Await Information on Missing Americans in Brussels Attack; ISIS Becoming Global Threat; Presidential Candidates Weigh in on Brussels Attacks; U.S. Accuses Hackers of Working for Iranian Government. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 24, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:19] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Two days after the terror attacks in Brussels, the U.S. is still trying to determine the fate of missing Americans. At least 31 people were killed in the attacks. 330 people were injured. The U.S. State Department says about a dozen Americans were injured. So far, officials have not confirmed any fatalities.

For the families of the missing, though, the wait for information is understandably agonizing.

CNN's Michaela Pereira has this part of the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CAIN, FUTURE FATHER-IN-LAW OF VICTIM: It's horrible beyond imagination.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Family members and friends of the missing in the Brussels terror attacks still holding on to hope that their loved ones will be found.

Alexander Pinczowski and sister, Sascha, were on the phone with their mother while checking in for their Delta flight to JFK.

CAIN: The phone sounded like it went under water and went dead.

PEREIRA: 21-year-old Bart Adam (ph) was set to fly to see his girlfriend in Georgia. She decided to call. No one answered.

EMILY EISENMAN, BOYFRIEND MISSING IN BRUSSELS: It's been the worst days of my life. I just -- I guess I didn't know how much one person can love another. Until -- until you don't know where they're at.

PEREIRA: Andre Adam, also at the airport, with his wife, Danielle, awaiting a flight to Miami. Danielle was found injured, but her husband is still missing. Their daughters captured in this Facebook post. She says each ring makes us hope for information.

This missing couple from Tennessee, Stephanie and Justin Schultz, who ere walking back from the security gate after dropping off Stephanie's mother, when the bombs went off. On Wednesday, there was hope that the couple had been found. Justin's brother said his family was contacted by the State Department, and told the couple was on the injured list. But later, a Belgian social worker called his mother, saying that information was incorrect. The brother tweeting, he was disgusted by the mistake and to keep praying, as their family hopes they're found alive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with those families.

And the terror attacks in Brussels, they clearly are a stark reminder that ISIS can strike at any time in Europe, here in the United States, elsewhere around the world, whether on the battle fields, soft targets like airports, metro stations and Europe.

The U.S. Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter, says more needs to be done to defeat this terror group.

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ASHTON CARTER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's not enough that we defeat them in Iraq and Syria. What Brussels tells us is that they have sympathizers, people who are Belgians, or French, who live there already. And therefore, an important part of the fight is also going to be a homeland security and intelligence and a law enforcement fight. Now, that's not what the Department of Defense does. But that's important, as well.

The other thing I think that the Brussels event is going to further signify to Europeans is that they -- as we have been accelerating our campaign to defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere, they need to accelerate their efforts and join us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Ash Carter speaking with Carol Costello at West Point.

Coming up, a call for better intelligence sharing as world powers try to beat back ISIS. We'll get our military analysts to weigh in on the problems right now with the system and ways to change it to make it better. Stay with us.

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[13:38:50] BLITZER: Brussels, Paris, Istanbul, San Bernardino, California, all examples of how ISIS is extending its reach beyond the Middle East and is becoming a global threat.

Let's discuss this and more. I'm joined by retired major general, CNN military analyst, James "Spider" Marks; and CNN terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank.

Very disturbing information, Paul. Let me start with you, and Spider will weigh in.

Representative Devin Nunez of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, obviously well-briefed by the U.S. intelligence community, he says that the explosions in Brussels at the -- near the ticket counters where there were U.S. airlines there, train station, not from the U.S. embassy, may have been targeting Americans. Here's the quote from Nunez, "From my vantage point, it does look like an attack on Americans. It looks like it was targeted towards Americans to some so degree."

When you hear that from the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that the suspicion -- it's only a suspicion now -- that Americans were targeted, would that be unusual? Would that be extraordinary, Paul?

[13:39:48] PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, ISIS would clearly want to kill Americans in any attack. I mean, that's the holy grail for them, the United States leading the anti ISIS coalition. It's much more difficult for them to get operatives into America, so trying to hit Americans overseas is sort of the best bet for them. I have not seen overriding evidence yet, Wolf, that Americans were singled out in attack. You couldn't really know who was going to be in that metro car underneath the European parliament in Molenbeek. And according to the CCTV footage, they went to different parts of the airport. I dot think we know yet for sure where exactly they were in the airport and whether they were trying to target Americans per se. But a lot of Americans and a lot of westerners that travel through Brussels airport, it's a big international hub, so they clearly knew that Americans would likely be caught up in this attack.

Wolf, one extra note on that, during the Paris attacks carried out by exactly the same cell as the Brussels attack, when they were in the concert hall, the attackers, once they finished their original killing, killed a lot of the people, then started asking themselves, where are the singers, where are the American singers, the rock band, the Eagles of Death Metal, because they wanted to find them to kill them, because they said they wanted to kill Americans, too, because the Americans were bombing them in Syria and Iraq -- Wolf?

BLITZER: You know, Spider, usually, at least in France and Belgium, these terrorists, they do look to try to make a statement, whether going after a kosher supermarket or Jewish day school in Belgium, at that theatre, the concert where there was an American rock band performing at the time, whether the "Charlie Hebdo" journalist, going after them. They want to make a statement. The suspicion is that all the U.S. airlines were based at that terminal, which was exploded, if you will, whether United or American, Delta. And that's the fear that maybe the Americans were being targeted. When you hear that, Spider, what do you think?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, these are California killers, aren't they? It doesn't matter who they are targeting. And the United States being caught up in this is clearly, as Paul indicated, a Benefit to them.

I need to go back and comment on what Paul said at the very end of his descriptions, is that ISIS and these other forms of radical Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans, just like they want to kill Brits or Spaniards or French, because they can. It's not because we are engaged in some form of an operation to bomb them in both Iraq and Syria. The narrative that what we do has some mitigation, that we could be more peaceful or we could back out of the Mideast, that might in some way mitigate what they do against us, is false. It doesn't matter what we do. We are part of an infidel community that they need to go after and we need to approach it in that way. The only way this atrophies in any way is, overtime, it collapses from the inside, but we have to contain it, we have to work from the outside very aggressively, and be very, very strong with our allies, primarily, as we all know, in terms of intelligence-sharing, picture of what we can do. Intelligence is about actions, what actions can we take that we can go against these guys very, very aggressively. So there is a whole array of elements of power that need to be involved.

BLITZER: And clearly, we don't know if Americans were specifically targeted. What we do know is about a dozen Americans were injured, many of them very seriously. And there are several other Americans, including diplomatic personnel, and their families, some retired military personnel, as well, who are missing right now and may be dead. None of the 31 officially has been identified yet by Belgian authorities.

We'll stay on top of this very worrisome development.

All right, guys, thank you.

Guilty of genocide. That was the verdict today from an international war crimes court against former Bosnia Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic. He was convicted for crimes against humanity and murder. The genocide conviction was tied to his approval of a plan to exterminate thousands of Muslim men and boys in the massacre of Srebrenica. The court also said he was responsible for attacks on civilians in the early 1990s. Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He's 70 years old right now.

[13:44:45] Coming up, the politics of terrorism after the attacks in Brussels. Donald Trump says waterboard. Ted Cruz wants more police patrols of Muslim communities. Hillary Clinton says they're both inciting bigotry. So who is right? We're going to talk about that and more when we come back.

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BLITZER: In the wake of this week's terror attacks in Brussels, some Muslims in various Western countries are becoming increasingly targets of criticism and anger. Here in the United States, some of the presidential candidates are aggravating the situation by calling for more surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States.

Let's discuss with my next guest, Harris Zafar, the national spokesman for the Amadiyya Muslim Community, among the oldest, largest Muslim- Americans organizations.

Harris, thank you for joining us.

Give me your quick reaction to the terror attacks in Brussels. HARRIS ZAFAR, NATIONAL SPOKESMAN, AMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY: Well,

Wolf, everyone has heard of the condemnation of the Brussels attacks. Not only extending prayers and condolences but rejecting any attempt to justify it to Islamic round. Anyone who claims that wholly treating Muslim-Americans as suspects is a good idea clearly has no genuine interest, nor any idea how to win this war on terror because you can't win by marginalizing the strongest ally's assets you have in this war which is Muslim. So if our goal is to make and keep America safe, you only do that by uniting people, which is why this perfect case study exists with this platform calls true Islam in the extremist. To undermine the groups, the terror groups like ISIS. I think that's why thousands of people are now beginning to turn to trueIslam.com to support this effort. Instead of dividing people and try to exploit the deaths of innocent people to gain political points, I think it's time to talk about concrete steps to bring ISIS to its knees.

[13:50:39] BLITZER: Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump, told Cruz, they proposed intensifying the monitoring of Muslim communities, mosque, around the United States. When you hear that, special patrol of Muslim communities, what goes through your mind? What's your reaction?

ZAFAR: Well, it shows that we have not learned of the heinous mistakes of the past with the African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mormons. Now an entire group like Muslims. Because of the acts of the insane people in different parts of the world. And so it's really scapegoating and it shows they don't know how to bring about an end to ISIS. There's really three things on my mind to bring an end to ISIS. First, we have to stop the hypocrisy of selective outrage and grieving. And completely ignoring the scores of people that ISIS has murdered in similar attacks in Istanbul, Libya, Tunisia. You not only imply Muslim victims aren't world as much, but you create this false Christians. ISIS is at war with humanity, which is why the largest amount of victims have been Muslims. We're all in the same boat. Number two, the Muslim leadership has failed across the world. That's true. The secular leadership in Muslim countries needs to step up and play an active role in restraining and containing ISIS through force. And then finally, like the president has said, and others have said, in order to protect penal from becoming sympathizers, you need to be united and undermining the brutal ideology they use for recruitment, which is why efforts like ours are so important as it provides real opportunities for us to partner to solve this scourge of terrorism which affects us all.

BLITZER: Harris Zafar, thank you for joining us. You make an excellent point. Most of the people killed by these ISIS terrorists are not Jews, they're not Christians, they're Muslims. They're fellow Muslims who have been killed, unfortunately, by the thousands in recent years.

And we appreciate you joining us. Harris Zafar, the national spokesman for the Amadiyya Muslim Community here in the United States.

Up next, the U.S. Justice Department makes a major announcement, indicting hackers linked to the Iranian government. We'll bring the details when we come back.

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[13:57:16] BLITZER: New developments today in the battle to combat cyber attacks. U.S. officials say seven hackers have been indicted for a series of attacks on dozens of banks and they say the hackers were working on behalf of the Iranian government.

Our justice reporter, Evan Perez, joins us.

Evan, when did these attacks take place? What kind of disruptions did they cause?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: These took place between 2011 and 2013 and there were a total of seven Iranian hackers. Two companies were indicted in this action today by the Justice Department. They're accused of targeting 46 different banks, some of the largest names on Wall Street, including the stock exchanges, were targeted in these denial of services attacks.

Here's Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, describing the kind of damage that was done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Online services were disrupted. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were unable to access bank accounts online. These attacks were relentless, they were systemic and they were widespread. They threatened our economic wellbeing and our ability to compete fairly in the global marketplace, both of which are directly linked to our national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And they here, Wolf, was these people were tied to the Iranian National Guard, Revolutionary Guard, and that's the connection to the Iranian government.

BLITZER: As you know, hackers targeted a small dam about 30 miles north of New York City. What can you tell us?

PEREZ: This was a very small dam. It's called the Bowman Avenue Dam. The dam was disconnected. It was actually not functioning at the time. At the time this hacker was able to get in, they got access to control systems that would have been able to regulate the water levels and could have caused a lot of damage. In the end, it did not, but it really woke people up at the White House as to potential damage that can happen from U.S. utilities that are vulnerable.

BLITZER: Do they accuse Iran of being involved in this dam hack?

PEREZ: Absolutely, the same group. They were tied to the RGC.

BLITZER: The Revolutionary Guard. In additional to the individuals indicted, is the U.S. going to do anything to go after the Iranian government right now? We all know about the Iran nuclear deal. PEREZ: Right, exactly. That's the big question. A lot of sensitivity, certainly about the State Department, about what they can do. These seven Iranians now are wanted people. If they leave Iran, there will be arrest notices. The larger question is one of a strategy that the Obama administration has been pursuing, which to name and shame countries that carry out these attacks -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Evan, thanks for that update. Evan Perez reporting.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

The news continues right now right here on CNN.