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U.S. Airstrikes in Iraq Kill "Dozens" of ISIS Militants; Turkish Government Suspects ISIS in Attack; No Claim of Responsibility for Turkey Attack; British PM Denounces Post-Brexit Racism. Aired 12- 1a ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:13] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. We'd like to welcome our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause in London.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Amara Walker in Los Angeles. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin with breaking news just one day after the deadly attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport. The U.S. is striking back at ISIS. Iraq's defense ministry says dozens of militants were killed in the desert outside Fallujah when U.S. war planes hit a convoy of more than 500 vehicles.

Iraqi officials say the operation started Monday night and it is still ongoing. A U.S. official says the strike required the precision of American aircraft because there were a lot of civilians in the area.

Let's bring in CNN military analyst Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Rick -- you know, this operation was a planned operation. I know this happened, you know, just after the Istanbul attack. But this is not a reaction to Istanbul -- right?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Correct.

I think the timing is coincidental. We have been watching Fallujah for some time now since the battle started, you know, three, four weeks ago. We expected at some point the remaining ISIS fighters were going to make a run for it. They're going to try and get up to Mosul to set up the defenses there.

So it's just a matter of time before they left. And, of course, we have had that area just completely ringed surveillance sensors, airborne sensors, drones. And it didn't matter what time of day or night they went, they were going to be detected.

And once they were out in the open, virtually dozens of aircraft came in on them. This was a joint operation -- it was very well done -- the U.S. Air Force, Iraqi army aviation and Iraqi air force. Almost all precision guided munitions. WALKER: Yes. Tell us a little bit more about that as we take a look at this black and white video of the airstrike. I mean there is a succession of flashes there. What kind of missiles -- I know you kind of went through that a little bit. And how -- can you talk about how these airstrikes were carried out?

FRANCONA: Yes. Well, of course, it's all being tightly controlled by the combined air operations center. They are watching virtually everything that is going on and they're telling the pilots which targets they should go after and which weapons they should employ but for the most part the pilots are using laser-guided weapons.

The Iraqis when you see these missiles coming off in front of the camera those are hellfire missiles coming from Iraqi helicopters. They're going after armored vehicles and heavy weapons. So we see that -- also if you notice in the video you see the tiny little flashes going along the road those are clustered munitions and those are bomblets dropped out of a larger bomb that go after individual vehicles. So this was very well done and caused a lot of damage to an ISIS convoy.

WALKER: If you can also talk about the big picture here in terms of where ISIS stands -- you know, where this fight against ISIS. I mean it's been almost two years since the U.S.-led coalition launched airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. How much territory has ISIS lost thus far? Are we talking about half, most of its territory? Where do things stand?

FRANCONA: You know, you can use numbers like they lost half of their territory. But a lot of that territory, there is nothing in it. It's lost a lot of empty space.

What is significant are the towns they have lost -- they've lost Ramadi, Tikrit and now Fallujah. And Fallujah was the first time they took. So this is very significant. And this is the last remaining ISIS stronghold in Anbar Province. This is the location from which all of those attacks in Baghdad -- remember that rash of suicide bombings we had in the city itself. That was launched from Fallujah.

So this is going to eliminate that. And this is going to push ISIS back on the defensive and it's going to force them further north. Now what you're going to see is the Iraqi army reorganizing and moving up the Tigris Valley for the eventual liberation of Mosul. It's going to take a long time but we can see that they set up the battle properly and are moving up there.

WALKER: Yes. A lot of momentum building towards retaking Mosul.

Lt. Col. Rick Francona. Good to have you on. Thank you for that.

FRANCONA: Sure thing.

VAUSE: Meanwhile the death toll from the terror attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport now stands at 42. More than 100 wounded remain in hospital. Friends and families are saying goodbye to those killed in Tuesday's attack. Hundreds of mourners turned out on Wednesday for the funeral of an airport customs official. And authorities defending their decision to reopen the airport so quickly after the attack -- they say Ataturk security far exceeds international standards.

CNN's senior international correspondent Ivan Watson joins us now from Istanbul. He's at the airport. So Ivan beyond saying that they believe ISIS is to blame it seems the government isn't releasing a lot of details about the investigation and who these three suicide bombers may have been.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, thus far we don't have a lot of clarity on that. But what has been startling is how quickly the airport is back up and running. There is constant stream of traffic coming in and out of the airport night and day -- John, despite the fact that it just recently endured a triple suicide bombing.

[00:05:12] So that says something about how quickly the Turks have been determined to get this major gateway to their commercial capital back up and running again and perhaps also to send a signal to the people who carried out this deadly attack that their economy -- this major part of the economy will not be stopped. But as far as the investigation goes, at this stage we know far less about the men who actually carried out the attack on this airport two nights ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: An urgent operation underway to identify the three suicide bombers who carried out the coordinated attack at Istanbul's busy Ataturk Airport. Surveillance video capturing one of the men dressed in jeans, hat, and black winter coat despite temperatures near 80 degrees.

And tonight officials revealing new details of the attack. The three terrorists arrived at the airport by taxi around 10:00 p.m. local time. Within minutes one of the attackers blows himself up at the entrance of the international terminal.

Amid the chaos, a second attacker enters the arrival hall, takes out his AK-47 and can be seen running through the terminal before apparently being shot by a security officer. He falls to the ground. Seconds later, the terrorist blows himself up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw a lot of people running around. They were all covered in blood.

WATSON: Security cameras captured the terror as a third attacker starts shooting. Investigators say he panics and blows himself up outside a security check point.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: The despicable attack at Istanbul's international airport yesterday that killed dozens and injured many more certainly bear the hallmarks of ISIL's depravity.

WATSON: Intelligence officials are pointing the finger at ISIS despite no one claiming responsibility, now more than 24 hours after the attack. Investigators also interviewed and released the taxicab driver, one of the last people to see the attackers alive.

President Obama promising to go after the terror network.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will not rest until we have dismantled these networks of hate that had an impact on the entire civilized world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: And John -- overnight we got grim news there was another victim of this attack, a 22-year-old Turkish woman gravely injured who succumbed to her injuries in hospital bringing the death toll up to 42. Of course, there have been hundreds of people wounded and many, many more psychically, emotionally scarred by this terrible ordeal -- John.

VAUSE: Of course, the fears that that death toll might still continue to increase. Ivan -- thanks. Ivan Watson, live for us at Istanbul airport.

James Gelvin is a history professor at UCLA. He joins me now from Los Angeles.

Professor Gelvin -- President Erdogan says these attacks should be some kind of turning point in the fight against terrorism. As terrible as it was, do you think that would be likely?

JAMES GELVIN, HISTORY PROFESSOR AT UCLA: Well, in this war against ISIS we have seen so many turning points that another one, one would give it to them. The point is this. The point is that ISIS is on the ropes in Syria and in Iraq. It's not doing very well in its various other places like Libya and other places that it has expanded to.

And this is a tactic now that they have adopted which is very different from the tactic that they originally set out to adopt which was to win victories on the ground in Syria and Iraq and to establish a territorial caliphate.

VAUSE: So with the exception of the murders of at least five Syrian activists can you recall if ISIS has claimed responsibility for any of its attacks inside Turkey?

GELVIN: They haven't as far as I know and this would, of course, be fitting a pattern. But of course, the absence of them claiming it can't be made into definitive proof that they were behind it.

VAUSE: So, sorry, I'm having a bit of trouble hearing you -- Professor. But why is it that ISIS is not claiming responsibility for these attacks and simply letting others infer that they were the ones responsible?

GELVIN: I have been reading a lot over the last day or so about why ISIS does this or ISIS does that. The point is that we don't really know why ISIS does what ISIS does. We have very little information on them. We don't know if there is a coherent strategy that they're following in any of this. We don't know why they would claim one or another of an attack and not claim attacks in Turkey.

[00:10:10] I've read that they are trying to sow confusion. I've read that they don't want to anger the Turks. If the attack itself doesn't anger the Turks I don't know what would.

VAUSE: ISIS does have this long list of countries that it wants to target and has carried out attacks in other places as well. But Turkey is the country which is in the firing line the most. Is there any other reason for that apart from simple opportunity?

GELVIN: I would put opportunity up front. We don't know what ISIS' thinking is. We don't know how they choose their targets. ISIS is right across the border in Syria. There are Jihadis who are coming through Turkey, crossing that border and the border is fairly porous. So I think opportunity would probably be high up on the list of possible reasons.

VAUSE: Professor Gelvin -- always good to speak with you. Thank you, sir.

GELVIN: Thank you.

WALKER: We're going to talk more about the investigation into the Istanbul terror attack. Steve Moore is here, a CNN law enforcement contributor, also a retired supervisory special agent for the FBI. He's here with me now. Thanks for coming in.

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks.

WALKER: So obviously, the priority is to find out who these attackers were.

MOORE: Absolutely.

WALKER: That sounds like it's going to be a challenge. If you look at the surveillance video, it looks very grainy. There are body parts now so do they go through a DNA database? I mean --

MOORE: Well, you're going to get DNA off the bodies but ISIS has not been kind enough to submit their DNA to us. But you can find strange things from the DNA. You can actually find out ethnically where they might be from. You know, these ISIS fighters are from all over the world. That might help you determine where they came from.

The other thing is this --

WALKER: How can you find out ethnically where they came from?

MOORE: The DNA can be traced.

WALKER: Oh, from the DNA -- ok, got it.

MOORE: From the DNA -- yes. So this cab driver can tell the police where he -- where he picked them up. Even in Turkey especially in Turkey maybe, there are cameras all over the place -- automatic teller machines, security cameras. We might be able to -- or they might be able to track this person or these people as they arrived at the cab. We don't know how far back we can go.

The other thing is it would be naive to think that we don't have some people who are reporting on ISIS at least post incident. And we might be able to find out from them or from future captures or from future document exploitations after we take down a cell, who these people were -- that's what happened in Belgium.

WALKER: When you look at the details of how this attack played out. I mean, you know, they started shooting with their AK-47s before blowing themselves up. Does this speak to major coordination here and some training?

MOORE: Well, it speaks to training, yes because they were all on the same page. It's not like they handed them guns and a suicide vest and say do what you want. They had a coordinated attack. They went one, two, three -- they didn't just all three blow up at once.

Likely what they were doing is channeling all those people you saw running towards another bomber. That's how they work. The shooting beforehand -- I don't want to comment on the efficacy of their tactics because I don't want to give them any idea of whether their stuff is working. But that's new and that may be a tactic that they're -- I know this sounds horrible, but they're just trying out.

WALKER: Yes. That is horrible. I want to also ask you about the fact, you know, that the airport opening five or six hours after the fact. And I also heard some analysts, security analysts and criminal analysts saying that, you know, that is a little concerning because that's a crime scene there. How can you clean up a crime scene that quickly?

Do you think that some evidence, forensic evidence may have been compromised because the airport was opened so quickly?

MOORE: I have worked a lot of bomb scenes overseas in Indonesia and in Pakistan. The problem is that weeks later you are finding body parts you didn't know were there.

On one hand I really applaud them trying to get back to business, back to normal. That fights terrorism because they're trying to disrupt. So the quicker in our new world in our new reality, the quicker we can get back to our normal lives the less effect terrorism has on us. I applaud that.

I would really hope they did everything they could to get the DNA. And remember we're not talking about their hideout. We're talking about where the attack happened and believe it or not, that's a lot less information than you're going to get from where they planned it and where they made the bombs.

WALKER: Of course, the world is applauding Turkey's resiliency.

MOORE: Of course -- yes.

WALKER: There's so much more to talk about. We will have you back next hour. MOORE: Can't wait.

WALKER: So we look forward to that. Steve Moore -- thank you for that.

[00:15:00] All right -- happening right now in the Philippines -- we want to take you live to President Rodrigo Duterte. He is being sworn in as the country's 16th president. He won the election -- the Presidential election in May by 16 million votes. Duterte flew to Manila from his southern base for the inauguration ceremony where Benigno Aquino III is formally turning over the seat of power.

Let's take a listen briefly.

RODRIGO DUTERTE, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: On the international front and community of nations, let me reiterate that the Republic of the Philippines will honor treaties and international obligations.

On the domestic front, my administration is committed to implement all signed peace agreements in separate constitutional and legal reforms. I am elated by the expression of unity and moral progress.

WALKER: All right. Rodrigo Duterte there, the new president of the Philippines. Quite a controversial figure as well. He has said some controversial things about rape and the like and has even been compared to Donald Trump in the United States.

All right. We're going to take a short break now.

Up next: taking on a common enemy. What U.S. President Barack Obama is promising in the global fight against ISIS.

VAUSE: Also ahead, the race to fill the political vacuum in the U.K. We'll have an update on the contenders. Who is running and who is not? Who is just wishing to be the new leader? And who has a real chance? More when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: ISIS fighters are on the run right now in Iraq and have just suffered some heavy loss. Iraq's defense ministry says dozens of militants were killed when American air strikes hit a multi-truck convoy near Fallujah. It comes just a day after terrorists attacked Ataturk Airport in Istanbul killing at least 42 people. U.S. intelligence officials suspect ISIS was behind the massacre.

Now, President Barack Obama was in Canada Wednesday where he vowed to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

I'm joined now by U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman. He is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and former chairman of the subcommittee on terrorism. Great to have you here, Congressman.

REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to be with you.

WALKER: Thanks so much for making the time. You know, I want to first talk about the anti-ISIS policy here in the United States and I know that you have been calling for a more robust anti-ISIS policy. So what do you think needs to change?

[00:20:02] SHERMAN: In our bombing campaign we are getting more robust. This convoy we hit today, three or four months ago, we wouldn't have hit it. And the thinking was even if you are carrying ISIS supplies, you're carrying ISIS oil for export you might be a civilian driver. Well, you know, during World War II we hit every train in occupied France that we could hit.

WALKER: Why would this not have happened three or four months ago?

SHERMAN: Because we had a policy of zero civilian casualties and even the people working for ISIS if they were truck drivers well maybe they're civilians. It's hard to distinguish what is and what is not a civilian.

WALKER: Has that changed now?

SHERMAN: That has obviously changed now.

WALKER: And what is the policy?

SHERMAN: There is no clear policy but it appears to be you hit the strategic target just as we did in World War II. And you try to avoid civilian casualties. This isn't a Donald Trump thing where you say you'd deliberately go after civilians who are related to ISIS fighters. You try to avoid but if you see a strategic target you hit the strategic target. We also need to change our policies in the cyber world as well as in the air war.

WALKER: We will definitely get into that in a bit as well. But I wanted to show you some sound from an interview that Barbara Starr, our Pentagon correspondent, who got an exclusive interview with the U.S. Air Force's intelligence chief and he said that essentially the U.S.-led bombing campaign if he had to give it a grade, the campaign against ISIS he would say it would be a failing grade. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. ROBERT OTTO, U.S. AIRFORCE: Right now, the problem is not having enough fighter jets to drop bombs. The problem is having enough legitimate targets that we can strike that can put ISIL on their heels.

We are tracking targets off of probably a couple dozen spread sheets and it's not coordinated between all of the agencies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Ok. So that's quite concerning to hear that from the intelligence chief of the U.S. Air Force. Why isn't there coordination between agencies? And he's also saying that there are not legitimate targets that are being identified. It's a problem, is it not?

SHERMAN: A number of the sorties we have had in this effort had been on the order of 20, 30 a day. At the height of the war against Saddam Hussein we were talking a thousand a day or several thousands a day.

As to targets, it depends on how you define. Up until recently we have defined it as a strategic target with a zero percent chance of killing any civilian even one who's working for ISIS. If you define it that way you have very few targets and very quickly they become non-targets as if a civilian walks in.

If you define it the way we defined it in World War II, that you hit a strategic target doing their best to avoid civilian casualties. Now you've got a lot more targets.

WALKER: Defeating ISIS is really going to have to be a multipronged approach. You can't just defeat them on the battlefield. You also mentioned online propaganda. But also what we're seeing is every time that, you know, ISIS has losses on the battlefield, the reality is that we see them export their terror outside their territory.

That is the new reality. So what -- what can be done to defeat ISIS on those fronts that we just talked about? Not just the battlefield?

SHERMAN: First we've got to take down their web pages, their Twitter accounts, et cetera. Gradually we have been able to do that. Twitter is now cooperating far more than they did a year ago. And so they are going to one-on-one discussions rather than a broadcasting approach or -- then what we need to do is we have to have a message that reflects an understanding of Islam.

You can't argue Islam if you don't know Islam. And there is no one at the State Department -- we have tens of millions of dollars being spent on getting our message out but our message is being written by people who don't know Islam.

We have not hired a single person because they've memorized the Koran. And finally we have to get volunteers particularly those familiar with Islam to talk one on one. And we have to have a way for people to come forward and say look, I'm going to go into a chat room and I'm going to be talking to potential terrorists.

I'm not a terrorist because who wants -- I mean I'm a congressman. If you look at my Web page and if I'm going on to Islamic extremist chat site you assume it's because I have terrorism sentiment. But we have to have Muslims around the world particularly here in the arguing one- on-one.

WALKER: Yes. Absolutely there needs to be more of a grass roots effort for that.

Great to have this conversation with you, Congressman Brad Sherman. Thank you for your time.

SHERMAN: Thank you.

WALKER: All right.

Well, the U.S. presumptive Republican presidential nominee is attacking his Democratic rival again over the rise of ISIS. Now Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton did not do enough to stop the terror group when she was secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[00:25:12] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ISIS was formed during her tenure. ISIS is now worse than ever. You see what happened yesterday. You see what is going on generally.

ISIS is looking strong. ISIS is signing up people over the Internet. They know how to use the Internet better than we do and we do nothing about anything. They are taking our youth. You know why they're taking our youth? Because they look like they're winning. We have to give them a big, fat, ugly defeat. We have to defeat them -- fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Well, a new Fox News poll finds that Hillary Clinton is in the lead to become president. 44 percent of the registered voters surveyed across the U.S. say they would vote for the Democrat. 38 percent say they would vote for Donald Trump.

Mo Kelly joining me now. He's the host of "The Mo Kelly Show" and "The Mo Kelly Experience" radio programs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Good to have you. Thanks for coming in.

MO KELLY, RADIO HOST: Good to see you Amara.

WALKER: All right. So let's start with what Trump had to say about ISIS. I mean just a few seconds he was saying we need to give a big, fat, ugly defeat against ISIS. He says that he would deliver that if he were president. Has he specified exactly how he would do that?

KELLY: No. And that applies to everything, his economic policy, his foreign policy, his domestic policy. He wants to evoke feelings of strength. He wants to project strength but he is not receiving any intelligence briefings. He's not giving any specificity as far as what we should do and we had the strikes today. And he would have known that if he would have intelligence briefings. It's a lot of bluster but there are not a lot of specifics.

WALKER: Does his base support care about the fact that they're not getting specifics?

KELLY: No. They don't care. It's about a feeling that Donald Trump evokes within them. They want a projection of strength. They want to see America strike back, strike hard, strike fast but in the final analysis we have had many conversations.

It's more than defeating ISIS as far militarily. You have to do it in economic infrastructure and you have to do it as far as ideology. Unless you have that three-pronged approach which Donald Trump is not addressing, it's all for naught.

WALKER: It was remarkable also to see President Obama while he was in Canada during a news conference basically go on a tirade against Trump. He did not mention him by name but clearly this was referred to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Let's listen to what the President had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: They don't suddenly become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes. It's not the measure of populism. That's nativism or xenophobia, or worse. Or it's just cynicism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: What are your thoughts on what we heard from President Obama? I mean you were saying you don't think this is going to be helpful at all to Hillary Clinton.

KELLY: No it was good news, bad news. It's nice that he wanted to redirect his message to talk about Donald Trump without definitively recognizing Donald Trump. But let's talk about what was on our minds in America. We're thinking about Istanbul. We were already thinking about Orlando. We are wondering about what is going to happen with terrorism.

Even though that was an economic trade summit if you are going to pivot and talk about Donald Trump then you need to talk about the things which are most closely connected to Donald Trump. We wanted to hear something about the war on terror. He needed to give us that. He didn't. And if anything I think he served more of a purpose for Donald Trump in that moment than he did himself.

WALKER: Very interesting take. Mo Kelly -- we're going to have to leave it there.

KELLY: All right.

WALKER: Thank you for coming in. Thank you for that.

KELLY: Thank you.

WALKER: Let's head back now to London and John Vause standing by -- John.

VAUSE: Amara -- thank you.

In his first appearance before parliament since the Brexit vote, David Cameron had a sobering message for lawmakers. We'll have those details in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:32:00] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN "Breaking News." WALKER: We are following breaking news out of Iraq, where U.S. war planes have hit an ISIS convoy of more than 500 vehicles. Iraq's defense ministry says dozens of militants have been killed. U.S. officials would not comment on the causalities, but one source telling CNN, American planes were needed to carry out the precision strikes because there were a lot of civilians in the area.

In the meantime, investigators in Istanbul are trying to identify the three suicide bombers who detonated their explosives at the busy Ataturk Airport. They killed 42 people Tuesday and wounded more than 200. Similarities to other attacks in Europe have authorities focusing on ISIS.

CNN's Randi Kaye has the story from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shot them again.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Istanbul, Brussels, Paris. Three different cities, three well-coordinate attacks, all strikingly similar. At both the Istanbul and Brussels airports, a group of three men carried out the attack. In both cases, got to the airport by taxi. All had explosives.

In Istanbul, they wore suicide vests. In Brussels, explosives were hidden in their luggage which they pushed through the airport before detonating.

At Brussels airport in March, none of the men carried guns. But in Istanbul, they did. There, this terrorist was caught on surveillance video running and firing his weapon before he was shot by an airport police officer. Squirming in pain, in appears he shot again. Seconds later, he blows himself up.

(on-camera): Though no one has officially claim responsibility for the Istanbul attack, it's a familiar strategy. Shoot civilians dead, then detonate a suicide vest, a tactic quickly becoming ISIS' favorite way to terrorize the west.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The primary difference from a more typical suicide bombing or suicide attacker is that they are heavily armed usually. And they go into a place, whether it's a theater, or a nightclub, or a restaurant and they try to kill as many people as they possibly can before detonating their explosive vests.

KAYE (voice-over): These types of fighters are called Inghimasi, often referred to as suicide warriors.

WARD: They are combining being an excellent fighter and being able to, you know, kill as many as possible on the battlefield with also being willing to give your life for the sake of God in one of these operations.

KAYE: Before Istanbul, we saw Inghimasi at work at the Bataclan Theater in Paris.

(GUN FIRE)

In that attack last November, ISIS fighters, heavily armed and wearing explosives killed concert goers at random. 89 people died in that attack. One attacker was killed by police gun fire in his own explosives. The two others, blew themselves up.

[00:35:07] WARD: For them, the mission is not complete if they don't commit suicide at the end. If they are captured alive somehow they do not believe that they reap all of the spiritual benefits and rewards from the operation as they do if they die at the end of it.

KAYE: A heavily armed terrorist who wants to die. A deadly combination for anyone who gets in his way.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: British lawmakers are stepping up to fill the political vacuum in the wake of the Brexit vote. MP Angela Eagle is expected to announce her challenge to incumbent Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership of the Labour Party.

For the conservatives, former defence minister Liam Fox, leader Boris Johnson and British Interior Minister Theresa May will announce their bids to succeed Prime Minister David Cameron.

Meantime, the EU is standing firm with European Council President Donald Tusk insisting Britain's access to the single market requires the free movement of people across borders.

And Mr. Cameron delivered that message to parliament on Wednesday. In his first appearance there since the vote, he added he has no doubt there will be difficult economic times ahead. And the British prime minister is denouncing the rise of racism after the Brexit vote.

Police say online reporting of hate crimes has increased by 57 percent and the prime minister has promised to take action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We will not tolerate hate crime or any kinds of attacks against people in our country because of their ethnic origin. And I reassured European leaders who are concern about what they had heard was happening in Britain. We are a proud multi-faith, multi-ethnic society and we will stay that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Here's a look at an incident on a tram in Manchester which has prompted outrage online.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boy!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How old are you? How old are you? How old are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are extremely ignorant and not very intelligent. Do you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off the tram now!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can get off the tram now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How old are you, 16? What are you, 16?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off the tram now.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a baby there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off, then. You're a disgrace. You're a disgrace. Absolute disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Manchester authorities say all these hate incidents are taken seriously and will be treated with zero tolerance.

Let's take a look at the financial fallout now from the Brexit vote. The Asian markets, well, they are extending their gains after last week's Brexit plunge. The Nikkei there up almost one percent. Hong Kong up by more than 1.5 percent. Shanghai Composite down by a quarter of a percent.

And in Australia, the ASX 200, up by more than two percent.

Andrew Stevens joins us now from Hong Kong with more on this Brexit.

What Brexit, Andrew? Of all the post Brexit, I've got buying frenzy. There is not one that was viewed as very likely?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN ASIA PACIFIC EDITOR: No. It was -- certainly panic seems to be over for now, John. I mean, if you look at the Asian markets, they are playing follow the leader to the European and the U.S. markets.

Quickly, take a look at what happened in Wall Street overnight. To the Dow, on a bit of a tie, up 1.6 percent. It's up more than three percent over the past two days. So you see there, the panic is over.

It's also being helped by a number of expectations coming about. What's the central banks are going to do. That's what happened in Europe, too. You see the big, big gains across Europe.

Central banks, investors really making the call that in Britain, there's going to be further monetary easing and also in the U.S. Wall Street is expecting the Fed Reserve not to raise interest rates this year at all. So that's helping sentiment.

So don't get too carried away, because if you look at what has happened since the vote, it's only London, perhaps ironically, which has now wiped out all the losses it made.

Take a look at the big four markets around the world and how they've come back, but not all of them all the way. As you see there, only London now up 1.3 percent. The rest of the markets are still down from where we were at the beginning.

And there is, I should add this caveat, John. There is still caution, because there's still quite a lot of the man for these safe haven assets, bonds in particular. Not the same amount of buying in bonds, but still a fair bit of bond-buying pressure. And that indicates, there are still nerves out there. There is, as we have been talking about volatility and it is expected to continue. And we were saying yesterday, it's all going to depend on pretty much news of the day.

[00:40:12] VAUSE: Yes. And I guess the question is, you say the panic might be over, but others say, well, this is just the eye of the storm and there is much worse to come.

STEVENS: Well, it really all depends on where we go from here. Does -- and the big question -- the $64,000 question, of course, is what happens to Europe. The initial panic -- Britain alone falling out of the EU in itself is a containable event if you like as far as the financial markets are concern.

But the real fear underlying that big sell-off on the market is what does this mean for the future of Europe as a whole. Are we going to see recession in Europe because the clamour for European nations to pull out of the union may be overwhelming. That was the real fear. So that's still very much alive.

There are still plenty of people who are very, very disillusioned by Europe if there is a strong movement for those countries to hold their own referendums and perhaps pull out. That is where you get the game on as far as more huge volatility in the market. People getting out and basically people looking for risk aversion. That means watch bond prices go back down again and watch gold go up.

What's the safe haven currencies? Either dollar go up and also the yen. So they are the sort of markets we will be looking at now.

VAUSE: Asia-Pacific editor Andrew Stevens live for us in Hong Kong. We've been calling him all weekend.

Andrew, thank you for that.

We'll take a short break. When we come back, our top story, American air strikes on an ISIS convoy near Fallujah a day after the deadly terror attacks on a busy airport in Istanbul. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WALKER: Welcome back to our viewers all around the world. I'm Amara Walker in Los Angeles, where it is 9:43 in the evening.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause in London.

We're following breaking news this hour. Just a day after the deadly attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, the U.S. is striking back at ISIS. Iraq's defense ministry says dozens of militants were killed outside Fallujah when U.S. war planes hit a convoy of more than 500 vehicles.

Iraqi officials say the operation is ongoing. A U.S. source says the strike required the precision of American aircraft because a high number of civilians were in the area.

WALKER: Now the death toll from Tuesday's bombings at Istanbul Ataturk Airport has gone up to 42. 239 people are wounded. Most of them are still in the hospital.

Turkish authority says the three bombers arrived at the airport in a taxi. Analysts think they took advantage of a weak spot in security at the arrivals hall. No one has claimed responsibility, but Turkey and U.S. CIA officials are pointing to ISIS.

VAUSE: David Cameron is back in the UK after the EU Summit. Mr. Cameron faced parliament for the first time since the leave vote. He had a very blunt message about the challenges ahead. He also had very blunt message for the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, told him to step down.

Corbyn overwhelming lost a no confidence vote by his Labour Party on Tuesday. We will find out later today though the challenges will be for the leadership of the Labour Party. Meantime, in Brussels, Scottish First Minister Nicolas Sturgeon met with EU leaders. She's looking for ways to keep Scotland within the European Union.

WALKER: U.S. President Barack Obama met with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts in Ottawa, and reassured them that cross-border ties will remain strong even if Donald Trump is elected president. Mr. Obama went off on what he called a rant and without naming Trump disputed the idea that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is a populist. The leaders also defended free trade and announced a new plan to generate more environmentally clean power for North America.

That is our time for this hour, thanks so much for watching. I'm Amara Walker in Los Angeles.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause live in London. Stay with us.

"World Sport" is up next. And we'll be back with another hour of news from around the world, including that breaking news out of Iraq. That huge airstrike on an ISIS convoy. You're watching CNN.

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