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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

ISIS Leaders Planned Airport Attack; ISIS Bombers from Russia; U.S. Airport Security. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:25] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're going to begin with the breaking news coming out of Istanbul, Turkey, the airport there specifically. An attack that we are now learning was extremely well planned, and that's a quote. It comes from a senior Turkish government source. And the planners, none other than ISIS leadership itself, although ISIS still has not claimed that responsibility.

The attackers coming to Turkey from Raqqa in Syria, the self- proclaimed capital of ISIS, about a month ago. They rented an apartment in Istanbul. And one of them left his passport behind in that apartment.

And that led investigators to another piece of the puzzle, the attackers' nationalities. It turns out one of them came from Russia, specifically the Black Sea region of Dagestan. Another came from Uzbekistan. And the third suicide murderer hailed from Kyrgyzstan.

The death toll has now climbed to 43 people and there is a strong urge for swift justice in the form of raids and arrests throughout Turkey.

CNN's Alexandra Field is live at the airport in Istanbul. And CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance joins me live now from Moscow.

And, Matthew, the story got a lot more complicated all of a sudden with these nationalities now coming out and these are caucus regions that have been troublesome before and now are troublesome in connection with ISIS.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. In fact, there are thousands of people from Russia alone, according to the government's own statistics, particularly from those mainly Muslim areas of southern Russia, like Dagestan and like Chechnya, where there's been lots of Islamic insurgency in decades gone past. Thousands of people from that region have now joined ISIS according to the government's own figures and this is a very sort of poignant reflection of just how infiltrated Russian nationals have become inside the ISIS hierarchy.

It's the same story in the former Soviet republics of central Asia as well. Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan, both of the nationalities said by the Turks at this point to be of the attackers. They've both got big problems with Islamic insurgency, and both got big populations or bigger numbers of people that are joining the ranks of ISIS. And so it's a problem for the Turks, as we've seen. It's also a problem for the countries of central Asia and the former Soviet republics as well.

BANFIELD: Well, the, you know, the leadership has reached out, you know, President Putin has reached out to the leadership in Turkey and has, you know, expressed the condolences, which is standard. It went the other way just a short time ago. But, at the same time, what can the two of those leaders do together when given these people left those caucus regions and presumably went for their training down in Syria.

CHANCE: Yes, or perhaps in other countries in the region as well. You're right, there's been a sort of detente between Russia and Turkey over the past 48 hours really. Back in November Turkey shot a Russian war plane that was bombing ISIS positions and other rebel groups inside Syria. It shot it out of the sky. And since then, the relationship between Moscow and Ankara deteriorated severely. Russia cut of all charter flights to Turkey, banned all imports of Turkish food.

But there was an apology that came to Russia from - on Monday from President Erdogan of Turkey and since then it's been a complete about turn. They've spoken on the telephone. Putin has announced that the food can come back in, the flights can resume, carrying Russian tourists to Turkey. A big boost for the Turkish tourism industry.

But in terms of the Syrian civil war, the two countries are still on both sides - they're still on opposite sides of the conflict there. Russia is a strong backer of Bashar al Assad, Turkey is still its biggest - Assad's biggest opponent in the region. And so there's still a lot of opportunity to these two countries to - to clash.

BANFIELD: It is just extraordinarily complicated and gets more so by the incident and by the day.

Matthew, stand by, if you will.

I want to go to Alexandra Field, who is outside of that airport. Hard to believe that it is still operational. We're 48 hours since, you know, the attack, not even 48 hours since the attack. And the raids have begun. We have seen this play out every other place where there's been a big attack, whether it's in France or Brussels or elsewhere. But that's what's happening there now, isn't it?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ashleigh, the forensic investigation was rapid, happening in just a few hours before they were able to open up this airport, but the investigation into the people who carried out this attack and who they could be connected to will proceed well beyond that. And you're right, we did see it in Brussels, we did see it in Paris, where there were weeks, months even of on-going raids. And those types of raids to ferret out any sort of terrorist operations or cells have begun here.

[12:05:21] They've launched these counterterrorism operations and we know that a series of raids conducted in the last few days have resulted in the detainment of 22 people, 13 of them picked up after authorities visited 16 different locations in Istanbul, and then nine more picked up in the coastal city of Ismir (ph). It is not clear specifically why authorities were looking for the people that they did bring in for questioning, how much these people could know about this attack specifically. They'll certainly want to know that. They'll also want to know whether or not these people could be having any information about other attacks that may have been in the works. These are always the standard questions that result after an attack of this magnitude, an attack of this scale.

Authorities are now focused on talking to people who may have known these suspects, like the taxi cab driver, who dropped off the three bombers at this airport. They questioned the taxi cab driver. He provided a statement. He has since been released.

Ashleigh, we also have to imagine now that the apartment that these three men had rented, had been staying at for the last month while they were Istanbul after leaving Raqqa will be a key part of the investigation. It is the spot whereas, as you point out, they did find one man's passport. They'll want to talk to anyone who was in that area, people who saw these men coming and going and could have more information about their whereabouts or their possible connections in this city.

BANFIELD: Yes, my guess is that the forensics from the airport itself, the explosives, the kind of ordinance they used, the powders that they used, this will all be part of the puzzle as well.

Quick question for you, and I don't know if this is too soon to ask this, Alexandra, or whether you could get a beat on it just 48 hours since the attack. The people in Turkey, how are they reacting to this? Are they targeting any particular groups? Is there anger towards immigration like we've seen in other countries? Is - I mean, it's a predominantly Muslim country, but what are they saying and what are they doing and how are they reacting to what now has befallen them?

FIELD: Look, there's a great deal of sadness. There was, of course, the - a memorial at the airport today. The funerals are happening right now. Don't forget that fact that you've got 100 people nearly who are still in the hospital, so a lot of thoughts are with these people.

When you step back and you look at the scope of this attack, the magnitude of this attack, the fact that it happened here at one of the busiest airports in the world, where security was at such a high level that it actually exceed international standards. Yes, how do people react to that? Well, you have to look at the fact that this is a country that has seen eight suicide bombings in the last year alone. Authorities have pointed to ISIS in three of those attacks.

So this doesn't come as a huge shock to people here. Yes, there is certainly sadness to see this happen, but there has also been a show of strength, a show of resolve, and that speaks to the fact that they opened up this airport so quickly and that people returned to it so quickly. Authorities reopened the airport five hours after these deadly attacks that killed 43 people. And, frankly, we have seen a huge amount of traffic going into and out of this airport in the last 36 hours. So people are not being stopped by it. They're recognizing this as a reality. They know that there have - that they are being targeted right here in Turkey and that it has been continuing to happen here, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well, listen, the sooner they can return to normal, the better for them. They rely on tourism in that country and this is just a blight for them and for their future with regard to tourism.

Alexandra Field doing the work for us live at Ataturk Airport. Thank you for that.

And before we continue, I do want to give you this warning about a video that we're about to show you. It is extraordinarily disturbing, but it is also very insightful. It shows one of the airport attackers shooting an undercover police officer on sight when that officer dared to ask to see the man's ID. And this is all according to Habaturk (ph) TV.

It appears that he didn't just shoot one time either. You can very specifically see the length of the attack, the atrocity. When we show you the video, you can see the bomber is wearing a black backpack. And he comes out of an elevator. He's on the left. And the officer, undercover, confronts him and is shot. You can see him fall right there. But now, while that officer is down and trying to get back up, he shot again, it appears. And it appears he is shot yet one more time as now the attacker gets back into the elevator. Just unbearably cold hearted.

That rampage went on to take 43 lives. And my panel today includes three brilliant people who know the ins and outs of ISIS and the war on terror and the tactics that they're taking. Joining me now, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, author of "United States of Jihad," CNN contributor Michael Weiss, co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror," and Maajid Nawaz, a former jihadist and now founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counterterrorism extremist think tank.

[12:10:03] Thank you to all three of you for joining me to talk about this.

It's so - it's so upsetting to have the video evidence, not only of the hand to hand combat that these murderers went through as they exacted their vengeance, and then also to see the - the suicide bombing at the moment that it happened. I want to talk about specifics of how we got to that moment.

Peter, I'll start with you.

Now we know where they're from, but it doesn't seem to be a huge surprise to any. Is it any more insightful to helping us get a handle on this crisis than it was before we knew who they were? PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think it, you know, I think for a lot of viewers it might be slightly surprising that these Russians and Uzbeks and Kyrgyzstanis were involved in this attack. I think a lot of people might think of ISIS as a predominant Arab organization with a large western European contingent. But, in fact, Russia has supplied more fighters to ISIS than any non-Muslim majority country. It's also supplied from the former - former Soviet Union leaders of the group, a guy called Omar Lachechen (ph), who was killed in a drone strike back earlier this year, who was the leader of ISIS in northern Syria, ran its prison in the defacto capital of Raqqa, where foreign hostages were killed.

So Russians have played an important role, as well as members of the citizens of the former Soviet Union, both as foot soldiers and as leaders of the group. And I think this attack simply underlines that fact.

BANFIELD: And, Michael, I have heard you call these kinds of fighters from these caucus regions some of the most fierce, dangerous and deadly. Why is that?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, because they have decades of experience fighting insurgency, a brutal insurgency I might add, and resisting also a rather brutal counter insurgency. I mean Chechnya was essentially razed to the ground in the '90s in - under two scorched earth campaigns. The Islamization of the Chechen separatist movement really began at that point and the Russian government has accused a lot of these guys of being linked up with al Qaeda. The caucus, emirates, which seems to have at least graduated some of the fighters who have gone off to fight in Iraq and Syria, are now - is now a cleaved (ph) organization. It's split into two. And one of the wings of it has declared allegiance to ISIS. So ISIS has got a woliath (ph) or a province inside Russian federation territory.

I'll give you one anecdote that was relayed to me by an ISIS defector from their internal security service. He said that the Chechens ands and Russians and the Dagestani, everyone in Syria refers to everybody from the former Soviet Union as Chechens because most of the guys are from Chechnya and that is the sort of - the catch all for how fierce these guys are. At one point, a contingent of them came to Raqqa to parlay with the Amir (ph). So the ISIS leadership, the Arabs essentially, and they were so feared by the Arabs that the ISIS leadership sent snipers to the rooftops of the buildings to target these guys in case they tried to do a coup or they opened fire on their own men or their own nominal superiors. So in a sense they've been running their own show on the ground in Iraq and Syria. And there's a battalion called the Uzbek battalion, which played a very prominent role in defending Fallujah, which, of course, is the Iraqi city that has now fallen to pro-Iraqi government forces. But, yes, there's no doubt these are some of the baddest, toughest fighters you're going to find in ISIS.

BANFIELD: So - and I - and it's chilling to hear that. But at the same time, I think of them as fighters. They have a political beef. And, Maajid, maybe you can help give me some insight. We hear varying degrees of this story from whichever leader decides they want us to know a certain thing about ISIS. Either they're losing ground and their real estate is getting smaller and we're winning the war against ISIS, or they're replenishing their troops at alarming numbers and there seems to be no shortage of men who are willing to die in these suicide attacks for their cause. And at the same time, Maajid, we're hearing that there are a bunch of thugs that aren't particularly religious. So I do not understand, help me understand it if you can, why you can replenish all of those recruits with people who really don't care about Islam and don't feel like dying for it, it's going to give them 72 virgins. What exactly will they die for?

MAAJID NAWAZ, FORMER JIHADIST: Well, these are inaccurate diagnoses. And I think that actually the truth is that it's a bit of everything. There are people in ISIS who are novices to the religion of Islam, but we know that the leader, the so-called caliph (INAUDIBLE), has a Ph.D. in Quranic Exegesis. So I don't think, you know, catch all answers that offer just one perspective on ISIS or any jihadist organization are accurate. The reason they're able to attract and continue to attract fighters from across the world is because frankly the truth is, we're in the midst of a global jihadist insurgency, ISIS is the tip of the iceberg, any defeat against ISIS in Fallujah, next will be Mosul, and any other city in Iraq or Syria, and even eventually their capital, Raqqa, will only ever be a tactical gain against what is a correct diagnosis, which is the global jihadist insurgency.

[12:15:11] We know that because even when bin Laden was killed, ISIS emerged and we must not think here that if we kill Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the so-called calif (ph) of ISIS, or even if we defeat ISIS organizationally, that another jihadist group won't emerge to claim that throne. We already know that the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, known as Jabhad al-Nusra, is gaining. ISIS losses are their gain. They are able to both attract the defectors who run from ISIS because of the defeats, but also they're able to gain popular support inside the rebels within Syria by demonstrating a more relative level head when compared to ISIS as the jihadist van guard. So we've got to diagnosis this correctly. And, you know, to recognize this as a global jihadist insurgency, the (INAUDIBLE) of the age within the Middle East today, any form of default form of resistance against Arab dictators unfortunately is currently jihadism.

BANFIELD: I - it's absolutely fascinating. And like I said earlier, there is no simple explanation. As you just said, it is very complex to try to understand this enemy that morphs, it seems, on a regular basis.

I have to leave it there. Peter Bergen, Michael Weiss, and Maajid Nawaz, thank you very much for your insight today. Appreciate it, to all three of you.

NAWAZ: Thank you.

BANFIELD: I'm going to pause right here, but when we come back, how safe can airports actually be and what cost is it to make them the safest they can be? The former head of the TSA is going to weigh in on making these airports harder to target.

And, remember, you can watch LEGAL VIEW any time. Just log on, cnn.com/go. You can find me on Twitter @cnnashleigh or on FaceBook.

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[12:20:38] BANFIELD: Next week, Fourth of July, not the biggest air travel week of the year, but it's certainly up there with the heavy travel days. No doubt what happened in Istanbul and in Brussels back in March certainly going to be on people's minds as they pack up and head to the airport. And I want to show you some figures, some real statistics. This is the size of the security machine at one of our nation's busiest airports, Atlanta, 178 armed police officers just at Hartsfield-Jackson. O'Hare in Chicago, same number of armed airport cops. Add to that 260 unarmed airport police. A very big presence there. And then here's LAX, more than 570 armed police officers assigned to Los Angeles Airport.

The secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, at a Senate hearing this morning said security is beefed up all over the United States.

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JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Since Brussels, we have enhanced security at airports around the nation. Since the Brussels attacks in March, our TSA Viper Teams have been more visible at airports and at transit centers generally. The American public should expect to see this July 4th weekend an enhanced security presence at airports, train stations and other transit centers across the country.

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BANFIELD: Rene Marsh is our aviation and government regulation correspondent. She's live with me now.

So, Rene, I'm sure that you've seen that video this morning that came out where one of the armed attackers in Turkey came face to face with an armed guard. And it didn't work. He just shot him in cold blood three times. And I know that we always hear from our government that they're stepping up security in these important days like Fourth of July, but the soft target areas seem to remain soft no matter what. Why is this going to be any different?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVT. REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know what, you're absolutely right, Ashleigh, the vulnerability is almost impossible to get it down to zero. Wherever the security line ends, that is where the vulnerability begins.

You mentioned a lot of airports throughout the country, they've talked about increasing their police presence, especially around the perimeter of the airport. And the question is, you know, is that good enough to prevent that sort of attack here in the United States, or is it just optics. Part of it is optics. And I spoke with several law enforcement officials who say that's actually OK because a terrorist want to cripple people with fear so that they stay in their homes. And so if there is this increased presence, law enforcement says that would make people essentially comfortable and allow them to go on with daily lives. But the other part of this is, they say the increased presence adds

another layer of security. Yes, we saw that video there where that armed guard, unfortunately, was shot down. But law enforcement will tell you that it adds a layer that at least the response is there to respond to the threat as soon as possible. So instead of 40 people killed, perhaps that number is ten.

BANFIELD: Rene Marsh standing by at Reagan for us today, doing live reporting, thank you for that.

Joining me now also live, John Pistole. He ran the TSA for more than four years. He's also a former FBI deputy director, knows a thing or two about security.

Thank you so much for being with us, deputy director.

I wonder if when you watch the videos that we're now seeing, where we can actually see in real time a suicide bomber who shot and struggling on the floor detonate himself, and where we can watch in real time an armed security agent coming face to face with a terrorist and not able to fell him before he, himself, is felled, is that insightful to our security regimen? Are we able to learn anything from this that will help us to - to not become lambs to that kind of slaughter?

JOHN PISTOLE, FORMER TSA ADMINISTRATOR: I think it's more a - probably just a notion of where we are in the social media world and CCTV cameras, being able to capturing all those things. What is helpful is to know more about nationalities, as you've already reported on, and their modes of planning, who was the bombmaker, what were their instructions to the bombers and the attackers. But as Rene covered and as you've mentioned, the difficulty becomes, at what point do you have a cue, a line forming, and is that at the curbside, where people are drop off, or is it the TSA security checkpoint? So those are some of the areas that are being ramped up as Secretary Johnson mentioned, as the TSA airport police work together to try to buy down risk, recognizing that you simply cannot eliminate all risk. There's just no 100 percent solution here.

[12:25:35] BANFIELD: No, there's not, but we can certainly do our damndest to try to limit it.

And I wonder to that end, occasionally I am at an airport in the New York area or elsewhere and I see a very strong military presence. I see actual troops in fatigues, rifles at the ready. And I see more than one team of two at various stops along the way, usually close to curbside. And I wonder if that is going to be more of a reality than just a special occasion, because I've seen it in a lot of other countries where that is just the norm. You just - you have troops. Troops are at the airport. It is almost a militarized state when you get to these airports. Is that where we're headed? Do we need it?

PISTOLE: Well, it is a possibility. It's almost always the airport police and some - some airports have a dedicated police force. Some use the local, the city police and things as a share of responsibility. On occasion there will be ramped up security, often times National Guard who are deployed as opposed to active duty military, but that is a possibility given the frequency and the severity of the attacks that we've been seeing here with Brussels and, obviously, now with Istanbul.

So the question is, how do you best - best buy down risk, and that is through a visible presence. TSA has the Viper Teams that Secretary Johnson mentioned, a Visible Intermodal Prevention Response teams. Those are a combination of TSA armed officers, federal air marshals, coupled with the airport police, and they serve as a visible deterrent to the random and unpredictable both in the airport, public side, but also curbside. And that's really the challenge. So is it to parking ramps, is it to the public access sites for vehicles, there's all number of access points that are vulnerable in some respect. So law enforcement, TSA, the Department of Homeland Security have to work together to try to utilize limited resources, frankly, in a way that buys down risk, again, without trying to eliminate risk, because that just shuts everything down. That's the only way you do that.

BANFIELD: Well, Mr. Deputy Director, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us about this. Sorry that it's under these circumstances, but that seems to be the norm for us now as well.

PISTOLE: Enjoyed it.

BANFIELD: Sir, thank you.

PISTOLE: Thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I just want to add this as well, that the - the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was testifying in congress in front of a Senate committee on Capitol Hill and has released some information that I think people might find surprising. One of those who was injured in the Istanbul airport attack, it turns out, is an American citizen, injured, not killed. So an American is among them. But we understand from what the secretary has told Congress, that the injuries are minor.

So, again, an American citizen among those injured in the Istanbul airport attack. We'll continue to follow that story as well.

So just to what we were discussing with John Pistole, you might have thought that police at major U.S. airports are at the very least armed, and in most cases, of course, you'd be right. But in one huge American city with two super busy airports, the police force there, not necessarily not only not having weapons on them, the officers have been given instructions to, quote, "run and hide," end quote, if trouble starts. I'll repeat it, "run and hide" when trouble starts. Yes, we investigated this. And, yes, you're going to get the answers as to what is going on in Chicago, next.

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