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Multiple ISIS Plots at Different Stages?; ISIS Second in Command Killed in Syria; Belgian Police Admit Warning Signs Missed; Cruz Accuses Trump of Planting Tabloid Story; Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 25, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:55] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. intelligence compiled from electronic intercepts, informants, plus evidence gathered in apartment raids suggests that multiple ISIS plots are being planned in Europe. So why has Belgium lowered its terror level?

Let's bring in CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, CNN political affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier, and CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruikshank.

Paul, first to you. Because at the same time the terror level is being downgraded, there are all these raids happening really across Europe, not only in Belgium, but also in France and Germany. Let's start with those arrests of the two men in Germany. What are you hearing about that?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: New details from a source. Briefed by German investigators. There was a key arrest in the town of Giessen yesterday. There was a man who was lingering at a train station there with a bag and police thought he looked a little bit suspicious so they went and asked for his identity papers, his passport. If they saw that he was actually flagged as not being allowed to enter Europe, the Schengen zone, because he had participated in some criminal activities, they then took him into custody. And they examined his cell phone.

When they examined his cell phone, they recovered a number of text messages on that cell phone. One of those text messages contained the name of the Brussels metro bomber, Khalid el-Bakraoui. Another one sent at 9:08 a.m. on the day of the Brussels attacks. Three minutes before that bombing said simply in French, "fin," which means it ends. German investigators do not know whether the metro bomber himself sent that. But this individual receives that text message.

The story doesn't end there, though, Pam, because they also discovered a hospital bill on this man dated March 18th for treatment in Germany for a wound. They believe that he may well have served that wound in a raid in Belgium. Their working assumption at this point is he was in that same safe house as Salah Abdeslam on March 15th, Tuesday of last week, when it was raided by Belgian commandos and French police.

The hospital bill then dating from March 18th, three days later, in Germany. They also recovered a train ticket showing he had recently traveled from Brussels to Germany. All of this linking him to potentially this cell in Brussels, Pam. BROWN: Well, it's all these spider web here.

Peter, all these loose ends we're hearing from Paul. All these people that they're rounding up, they're still trying to find. Some they may not even know about who are linked to this network. But at the same time, the terror level was downgraded. What you to make of that?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think it's very puzzling. I mean, of all the times to lower to alert, we have people that are still on the loose in Belgium itself, according to Belgian authorities, why would you lower it?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Just as the State Department is warning Americans to take care overseas and we're coming up on the Easter holiday weekend, which of course militants like to try to hit on significant dates in the Western calendar.

BROWN: And I know what's on people's minds today is that the fact that this key ISIS commander was taken out. Will that spur more attacks in Europe in sort of in response to this? And you broke this news, Kim, that he was taken out in this U.S. operation. What can you tell us about that?

DOZIER: Well, it was a U.S. special operations raid over the past few days inside Syria. It's the kind of raid that's been quietly going on, taking out several members of the network. This man known by nom de guerre Haji Imam, was a chief financier. He also helped with external and internal operations. That means operations inside Syria and Iraq but also the kind of operations that got carried out in Brussels, in Paris.

[13:35:09] But when the Pentagon Defense Secretary Ash Carter was talking about it this morning, he wouldn't go so far as to say that there was a direct link between this man, a known link in terms of him ordering the Paris and Brussels attack. But they do know that he was key --

BROWN: But there's some connection clearly in term of he was part of the external operations network. Clearly a key player in the ISIS infrastructure.

What you do you think, Peter, in terms of how this might change the thinking or impact ISIS cells, operatives, that are in Europe right now and perhaps in the United States?

BERGEN: Well, they might be further impelled to -- you know, to act. But I mean, you know, the fact that this leader of ISIS was taken out. One individual is obviously not going make a difference. But I mean, obviously this comes in the context of cumulative number of leaders that have been captured or killed by U.S. forces. Arguing against that, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who founded Al Qaeda in Iraq which the parent organization of ISIS, was killed in 2006.

And look at where Al Qaeda in Iraq now ISIS is today. So, you know, if you can take out the network of the middleman managers, that is -- that's the way to destroy an organization. It seems that the United States is moving in that direction. But, you know, this is still a pretty large network.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Go ahead.

DOZIER: I was going to say Carter did acknowledge that. He said, look, they can reconstitute. They will replace these leaders. But they were touting the fact that in the past month, they've taken out the cabinet. It wasn't just this guy. It was also the minister of War known as Omar al- Chechen. And another fighter who was paying the different fighters on the ground. So they've taken out several senior leaders. The idea is a la Iraq back in 2006 and 2007 that the U.S. special operations network builds up speed to break them down faster than they can reconstitute.

BROWN: And put the squeeze on them and so forth.

Thank you so much, Kim Dozier. We appreciate it. Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much.

And coming up, the Belgian prime minister says he wants to collaborate with the U.S. to fight terror in Europe. What does that look like? Our panel back in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:42:09] BROWN: Breaking news just into CNN. We have just learned about another ISIS terror attack. This time in a soccer stadium in Iraq south of Baghdad in the Babel Province. At least 25 civilians were killed. And even more wounded after a person wearing a suicide belt blew himself up among the crowd.

This, as we deal with what's happening in Brussels and Paris before that. Demonstrating the very real threat posed by hidden ISIS terror cells. Raids like this one in a Brussels neighborhood are keeping up the pressure on the terror groups. But how well prepared are the counterterrorism forces in Europe to stop the next attack?

Let's bring back our panel, Paul Cruikshank, Peter Bergen and Kimberly Dozier.

Fist to you, Paul, in a situation like this, it's easy to do the Monday morning quarterback and point your finger at the Belgians. But you have a lot of sources over there. You've been talking to people in Belgium. It seems as though some, you know, key warnings were missed before the terror attack especially in the wake of Paris when the country was on such high alert. What do you make of that? What is your take on this idea of this intelligence failures?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, I think it's clear at this point that there were intelligence failures because the Interior minister yesterday, Jan Jambon, offered his resignation yesterday for those failures, taking ministerial responsibility for those if not personal responsibility but that was refused by the prime minister, Charles Michel. So the Belgians I think are acknowledging some failures that they didn't properly follow up on some information. There are two different narratives, though, a little bit coming out

from Turkey and Belgium about what exactly was shared. Did the Turks really provide as much as they're saying? I don't think we got to the bottom of all of that yet, but clearly there were some failings and that there have also been shortcomings with the information sharing between the different Belgian agencies as well. That being said, Belgian police and security services are working around the clock. They have many very good people but the reality is Belgium is just a small country with limited means, limited technical means. And limited manpower.

And it's bearing the brunt of ISIS' entire international terror campaign right now. And so this is a country that needs help from other partner countries and they are very glad now the FBI are helping. They've been also working with the French. Much better cooperation between those two countries in the wake of the Paris attacks, Pam.

BROWN: So, Peter, on that point, though, clearly, coordination with other countries is very important. But what is the solution here? Because this problem isn't going away.

[13:45:04] And we know that Belgium is a hotbed for this kind of activity as well as other countries. What is the solution to prevent further attacks?

BERGEN: Well, first we've got to know who the foreign fighters are who come to Syria, and if you look at the numbers of Europeans who have gone, it's 6900 is the estimate. Right now Interpol has a list of 5,000. Not all those are Europeans. Some are from Arab countries. So the point is, if you don't know who the foreign fighters are, you're not going to know who the next perpetrators or terror cells. And so it's about getting countries to share information.

Now what's complicated about that is, you know, in some of these countries this is not necessarily a crime. Some countries don't have laws on the books against this. And, you know, some countries are also reluctant to share with a lot of other countries information about their own citizens. And so the first solution is getting better information to Interpol about who these foreign fighters going to Syria are.

BROWN: But -- so, say, someone goes over to Syria, comes back into the EU zone are they cross-checked against terror watch list? Because my understanding is there's nothing necessarily in place to flag those people every time they try to cross back into the EU zone.

BERGEN: They should be.

BROWN: But they're not, right?

BERGEN: Well, because we don't know -- I mean, obviously we're never going to know 100 percent.

BROWN: Right. Exactly.

BERGEN: But there are people that have gone but are not known to law enforcement.

BROWN: That's true.

BERGEN: Or that the country -- the host country is not reporting in -- you know, to everybody else. And that's really the solution.

DOZIER: However, I did speak to U.S. military officials in Europe who are part of the ISIS coalition -- anti-ISIS coalition. And they said what they try to do is gather with U.S. intelligences' help the names of known European citizens who are fighting on the side of ISIS in Iraq or Syria and share those with European countries, with Europol, with Interpol. So that they have at least that name on their radar and can watch for them coming back to Europe.

Of course coming back to Europe might mean that they've decided to defect from ISIS or they could be becoming one of these sleeper cells.

BROWN: And part of the problem, too, for officials as these people leave and come back so quickly, they're back before officials even realize they had left in the first place, and then before you know it, they're plotting attacks.

And now we snow, Kim, that there is a connection between the Brussels network and the Paris network. What does that tell you about ISIS' sort of growing capability to continue to operate even after a big terror attack?

DOZIER: Well, that it has planned ahead far in advance that it understood it would probably be under military strain inside Iraq and Syria, and so to keep recruiting and to maintain its popularity, it had launched these various cells long ago, recruiting people from their home country. Used to be that sometimes when they brought a foreigner to Syria, they would put them in the front lines and use them as cannon fodder. Now it seems they're giving them expertise and saying, go home. You night not necessarily need an order from us. Use your expertise to carry out violence where you live.

BROWN: And what really struck me about Brussels is that these people were apparently communicating in different countries. You know, we have the guy in Germany who was just arrested, linked to Brussels. I mean, it's really all over Europe. A massive problem.

Thank you so much, Peter, Kim, and Paul. We appreciate it.

And just moments ago, Ted Cruz escalated his feud with Donald Trump, calling the Republican frontrunner a rat? And sleazy. The details up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:52:32] BROWN: And now to the very latest in the knockdown, drag- out fight between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Cruz just responded to a salacious tabloid reporter in a news conference in Wisconsin. He's now accusing Trump of planting the story. All of this after the back and forth attacks over their wives. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The next day, the "National Enquirer" published a story. It is a story that quoted one source on the record, Roger Stone, Donald Trump's chief political adviser.

Let me be clear, this "National Enquirer" story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear. And it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen. It is attacking my family. And what is striking is Donald's henchman Roger Stone had for months been foreshadowing that this attack was coming. It's not surprising --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Ted Cruz clearly fired up there. Our correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is covering the Cruz campaign. She joins us now from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Sunlen, the Cruz-Trump feud doesn't show any signs of simmering down.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You can definitely say that this feud really went into overdrive today. This was just a remarkable press conference that Senator Ted Cruz just had. Very hastily arranged, I should say, from the Cruz campaign, arranged at the last moment.

And what was really remarkable is it was very clear that Senator Cruz wanted to address this himself. These tabloid stories. He came out to the podium. An aide placed a small sheet of paper at the podium of some prepared remarks. Something I just haven't seen the Cruz campaign do before. And when Senator Cruz transitioned to talking about this tabloid story and these allegations, he looked down at that piece of paper, clearly wanting to get the language right here when he was connecting Donald Trump to these tabloid allegations.

And it was interesting, going forward, I asked Senator Cruz time after time again, really tried to get -- pin him down on this, if he would, given that he's called Donald Trump a rat, someone that he has now nicknamed sleazy Donald Trump, if he would definitively say today, yes or no, whether he would support Donald Trump as the nominee if he becomes the nominee going forward.

[13:55:02] And Senator Cruz would not definitively say but he kind of inched closer to basically saying no. He says, I do not make it a habit of supporting people who attack my wife -- Pam.

BROWN: Wow. Sunlen Serfaty, thank you so much. And this saga will continue, no doubt.

And this statement just came in from Ted Cruz posted on his Facebook page. It says, quote, "The smears are completely false, they're offensive to Heidi and me, they're offensive to our daughters, and they're offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack. Donald Trump's consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow." And by the way, this Tuesday, CNN hosts the next Republican

presidential town hall in Wisconsin. That's this Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time only on CNN.

Well, that's it for me. Wolf is back on Monday. And I'll be back at 4:00 Eastern Time on "THE LEAD." The news continues right after this. Stick around.

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