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Attack On Pakistani Police Academy Kills Dozens; Tribal Leader: ISIS Fighters Fleeing Into Syria; France Begins Clearing Calais Migrant Camp; Clinton Leads Trump In New CNN/ORC Poll; Trump: "I Believe We're Actually Winning"; Mosul Battle May Rush ISIS Fights Home to Europe; AT&T, Time-Warner CEOs Defend Merger Deal Aired 1-2a ET

Aired October 25, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00] ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, dozens are dead, after militants storm a police academy in Pakistan. Cadets were sleeping when gunmen burst in and started shooting.

ISIS fighters are fleeing Mosul as coalition forces close in. Why some worry more terrorist maybe headed to Europe, next.

And French authorities begin to clear the Calais refugee camp. The migrants are given two choices, stay in France or go back home. Hello, and thank you for joining us. I'm Isha Sesay. This is NEWSROOM L.A.

An attack on a police training facility in western Pakistan has killed at least 59 people and wounded more than 100. Cadets were sleeping when gunmen burst into the barracks and began shooting. Two of the militants blew themselves up. Security forces shot and killed a third attacker. One cadet described the first chaotic moments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three or four militants came directly into our barracks. They just barged in and started firing point blank. We started screaming and running around in the barracks.

SESAY: Well, our Sophia Saifi has the latest from Islamabad, and she joins us now live. Sophia, what more are we learning about what exactly happened here?

SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: Well, Isha, we know that this started at around 9:30 on Monday night, when this compound which had around 700 cadets sleeping in their various hostels. We've been told by the home minister of Baluchistan province, where Quetta is located, that three militants stormed in, they threw grenades and they attacked the policemen who were in the watchtower at the entrance of this academy, and then went in and started an attack on these young men who lived in this hostel, who are training to become police cadets. Then there was a siege which lasted up to six hours, the entire area was cordoned off, we had the military come in, we had fire military troops come in, there was not much information coming in during those six hours of that siege. However, this morning, early - in the early hours of this morning, the siege, the operation was called to an end, and we have now got the death toll that you earlier reported. Isha?

SESAY: Because Sophia, last night when we spoke, there had been no claim of responsibility. At this stage, who is the finger blame being pointed out? Whose thoughts have been responsible for something like this?

SAIFI: Well, the Chief of the Paramilitary troops, the Frontier Corps, has actually blamed it squarely on a militant group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, it's a group which is known, it's base in the province of Punjab, but it's known to operate in Quetta and basically has been attacking many members of the Shia minority of the city. It's not unusual for them to actually, you know, take part in such attacks in that city, however, there has been no claim of responsibility, there has been no response from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, but that is the group that security forces are now blaming for this attack.

SESAY: And bearing in mind, they are making this claim that this group is responsible, as yet we don't know what evidence they have to support that, but that's the claim right now by the government. What will be the likely response from authorities there in Quetta in light of this attack?

SAIFI: Well, normally, there's an investigation, we know that the prime minister has, you know, cancelled all of his appointments. He's, you know, flying in right into Quetta, as we speak. There'll be an investigation that's on-going, but with such situations that claim -- you know, even when there is a claim of responsibility, you don't -- you see some retaliation, you hear about, you know, the masterminds of these attacks being killed in the months ahead, but for the days ahead, there's going to be a lot of uncertainty, there's going to be a lot of questions that are going to be asked. One of the questions that are being asked right now is how is it that a police academy which has 700 young cadets sleeping there, had such lax security that just three militants could just enter and, you know, take control of an entire compound. So, we're going to see these questions be answered in the days to come, Isha.

[01:04:57] SESAY: Yeah. Indeed. We shall be watching closely. Sophia Saifi joining us there from Islamabad, many thanks.

And now, to the battle from Mosul, an Iraqi tribal leader says hundreds of ISIS fighters are fleeing the city and crossing into Syria. But the terror group is still putting up strong resistance to the Iraqi-led offensive. Peshmerga fighters battle ISIS for control of Bashiqa, which sits on a key ISIS supply route. Michael Holmes is near Mosul and joins us now with the very latest developments. Michael, good to have you with us. The Iraqi-led coalition forces are making remarkable progress. Can they keep this pace up? What are you hearing?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Isha, it has been indeed a dramatic week of significant territorial gains by Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The Iraqi military is saying more than 80 towns and villages have been liberated even if many of those were empty. But there has also been some fierce ISIS resistance, in many cases, more than expected losses on both sides. But the main fight and the most bloodshed is almost certainly yet to come.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Overwhelming force meets fanatical resistance. Coalition and Iraqi air power along with nearly 100,000 troops, Kurdish Peshmerga, the Iraqi army and several militia against perhaps 5,000 ISIS fighters. But those fighters have had two years to fortify their crown jewel. In the first few days of the campaign, the attacking forces found dozens of tunnels, some of them nearly a mile long. They lost men to snipers and booby traps, and they faced the deadliest of ISIS weapons, vehicles laden with explosives barrelling through the dust. Many ISIS fighters were taken out by missiles or coalition air power, others found their target. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi says the campaign is progressing faster than expected, and in some places, forward units are just seven kilometres from the outskirts of Mosul. But every village and every town has to be fought for. The church bell rings again in a Christian town, children thank their rescuers, but homes are ruined, streets littered with booby traps. For people returning home for the first time in two years, are escaping the brutal grip of ISIS, mixed emotions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't live there. No water, no electricity. Damage everywhere and explosives as well.

HOLMES: ISIS has yet again shown, it is a resilient enemy. Its fighters penetrated deep into Kirkuk, a city under Kurdish control, launching a fierce attack that went on for a day and left nearly 100 dead, an attack that quite deliberately drew Kurdish troops away from the front lines. No one expected this battle to be quick or decisive.

ASH CARTER, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Mosul will be recaptured. It's going to be a difficult fight, we don't know exactly how the battle will go, but we knew - know what the outcome is.

HOLMES: But even the first week in open plains and deserted villages, proved a hard slog. Defenses inside the city will be much tougher. Intelligence sources say, ISIS has already begun to use civilians as human shields. Many already executed, and if hostage taking continues, airstrikes will be difficult sometimes impossible in the city. Commanders here expect this campaign will last deep into the winter. If it does, the trickle of civilians already escaping Mosul could become a flood. Aid agencies fear they will be overwhelmed by perhaps hundreds of thousands of desperate people. Maybe mixed among them, ISIS fighters and suicide bombers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And Isha, the push toward Mosul continues just after 8:00 a.m. here. One important battle is to take the town of Bashiqa, strategically very important that was surrounded by Kurdish Peshmerga a day or so ago, but progress held up by ISIS suicide vehicle bombs and also snipers. Now, late yesterday we saw multiple rockets and mortar fire being poured into the town, no doubt to prepare for those Peshmerga to enter, and encircling of Mosul to continue. One other worrying development, is a senior - a tribal leader, Sunni tribal leader, saying that going out of Mosul in towards ISIS territory and into Syria have been dozens and dozens of ISIS fighters, their families and even leaders. Isha?

SESAY: And Michael, a question being raised by some military analysts is whether these Iraqi-led coalition forces can hold on to the territorial gains they've made. What's your sense of that?

[01:09:57] HOLMES: Yeah, well, so far they have been able to, but one disadvantage of such a rapid progress that they have made is they're not doing what the Americans during the main part of the war used to call clear and hold, go through a town or village, clear it of the enemy and then hold it. A lot of this is being going so quickly but - I mean, there was that one horrible case yesterday, report that Iraqi forces went through a particular village. Locals who were still there came out and welcomed the Iraqi military as liberators, the Iraqi military kept going, left no one behind, and ISIS fighters who have been hiding in the village while all these is going on, came out, rounded up those who've been celebrating and killed them, 40 or so people, we're told. So, those are the risks of a - of a rapid advance that we're seeing. The holding, not necessarily going on and some ISIS fighters are being left behind. Isha.

SESAY: Uh-hmm. Which raises many more risks down the road. My friend, be careful out there. Michael Holmes there joining us from Iraq. We appreciate it, thank you.

Well, a sprawling migrant camp in France nicknamed "The Jungle" is about to be demolished. On Monday, more than 2,000 migrants were evicted from the area, some has called home for years. CNN's Melissa Bell has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Long before daybreak, the line began to form. Hundreds of migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, ready for a fresh start.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope I see a new life better than jungle.

BELL: Their dream had long been of the UK. It was a dream they had to leave behind as they left the jungle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They close their way, we don't have any way, we must stay here in France because the way is closed and they will finish the camp, we don't have way.

BELL: Instead those who lined up today were put on buses to Normandy, Britney and Aquiten, not what they've wanted, but all they felt they were likely to get.

The resignation of those who've left the camp today is matched only by the defiance of the very many who decided to stay put. The Jungle looks tonight much as it did before the evacuation began. The difference is the tension in the air, and that is the tone being set this evening by those who were determined not to give up on their dream of making it to the United Kingdom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going U.K. U.K. my family. Yeah. This France no good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need go here.

BELL: You don't want to go to France?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I don't like France.

BELL: The French authorities say there is no choice, and the police presence here has grown more visible every day.

Many of those who've decided to stay inside the jungle and defy that order to evacuate, are the Afghan migrants. Tomorrow comes the real test of their resolve when the French authorities move on to second phase of this evacuation with the dismantling of the Jungle itself. Melissa Bell, CNN, Calais.

SESAY: Well, Ruben Neugebauer is a crew member and spokesperson for Sea-Watch, a German-based humanitarian group. Ruben, thank you so much for joining us. So, these migrants and refugees are being cleared out of the jungle, as it is called there in Calais. What does the future hold for them as they are spread out amongst different areas of France?

RUBEN NEUGEBAUER, CREW MEMBER AND SPOKESPERSON OF SEAWATCH: It's quite difficult future for them because what we can see here in France is a typical approach that the European Union takes on migrants. European's politicians are trying to shut down the refugee influx by all means necessary, abandoning even the most basic values they claim to protect. So now, those people again have no chance to arrive, somewhere they have brought all over the country to some other places, but actually there's no way for them to actually arrive at a certain point of time and to build up a new life.

SESAY: Yeah. Will this stand that the French government is taking? Will it serve you're your view, will it serve in way as a - as a deterrent to those fleeing from war-torn countries, many of which make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, will this put them off?

NEUGEBAUER: No, for sure, not. And what we have seen in the last week is a lot of people coming over the Mediterranean route because those people flee for reasons. They have to escape Libya or other countries of origin, and they will not be stopped by the fences of European union, because actually they are not coming because Europe is welcoming them so warm. They are coming because they have a reason and the approach of the European union to just set up fences, and this is the same in the Central Mediterranean Sea, where they tried to cut down the influx as it is in Calais where we have the Jungle and we - where we have the problem that people cannot move over the channel to the U.K, where they actually want to go, most of them.

[01:15:12] And also there's another similarity between the Central Mediterranean Sea, where we have a lot of people coming this week, and the situation in the Calais 'Jungle,' what we have just seen, is that the civil society has to take over the responsibility at that point where the state fails. So, there's a lot of volunteer organizations, the civil society organizations that take over to take care about that people.

SESAY: Yeah. And with this event in Calais, with this dismantling of the 'Jungle', do you think it will affect the path chosen by migrants looking to settle in Europe? I mean, what do you see the impact of this down the road?

NEUGEBAUER: Most of those people have actually reasons to try for U.K. I mean, some of them, there is the language, the reason, some of them they already have family there. So actually, it would be much easier if one would let - just let them get to a point where they can arrive actually and where they might have a chance instead of just putting them somewhere else, and I think actually freedom of movement is a basic right, that should be accepted for everyone. Actually, also for those people in the 'Jungle' for (INAUDIBLE) coming from Germany, we had times where we had the Berlin Wall, and where everybody tried to fight down this wall, because it stopped people from moving freely. And I don't see much of a difference to the situation we have now with the Calais 'Jungle' and the eviction there and with the fences that are set up again all over Europe.

SESAY: Yeah. Ruben Neugebauer, we really appreciate you joining us to share your perspective on the situation playing out there in Calais and, of course, in the Mediterranean. Thank you so much.

NEUGEBAUER: Thanks a lot.

SESAY: All right. Time for a quick break now. It was one of Donald Trump's most talked about comments at last week's presidential debate. Now, Clinton supporters are turning that nasty woman remark into a battle cry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH WARREN, UNITED STATES SENATOR: Nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart, and nasty women vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hey, I'm Don Riddell with your CNN WORLD SPORT headlines. There are so many cliches about athletes in competition. "No pain, no gain," "Giving it 110%," or how about, "leaving a piece of yourself out on the field"? Svetlana Kuznetsova did exactly that in the WTA finals on Monday and it worked.

[01:20:56] The Russian had only managed to qualify for Singapore because she won her tournament in Moscow on Saturday, and that meant a hurry 10-hour flight, but she didn't seem too tired winning the first set against Agnieszka Radwanska. After losing the second, Kuznetsova resorted to some fairly drastic action, hacking off some of her hair. She said it was hitting her in the eye, and it had the desired effect as Kuznetsova won the grueling three-setter. And Tuesday will be the beginning of the end to one of the two longest championship droughts in baseball. This year's World Series pairs the Chicago Cubs who famously not won the World Series 108 years, and the Indians whose streak, well not as long, still impressive - or unimpressive if you will, 68 years. The Cubs will send leftie Jon Lester to the mound for game one. Lester is 3-0 with 0.43 ERA in his three previous World Series stats, all of which came with Boston. The Indians are throwing their ace Corey Kluber at first pitch set for 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time at Progressive Field in Cleveland. That is a quick look at your sports headlines, I'm Don Riddell.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: All right. Let's talk politics. There are just two weeks left until the U.S. presidential election. In a new CNN/ORC poll, Hillary Clinton tops Donald Trump by five points as you see there among likely voters, giving her a boost, younger people, women and minorities. But as Jim Acosta reports, Trump insists he is the candidate who's winning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Don't believe the polls, Donald Trump says, believe him.

TRUMP: And watch the polls, because this is part of the crooked system.

ACOSTA: As Trump explained to farmers in Florida, the latest election polls conducted by the mainstream news media are part of a bitter harvest, seeding doubts about his ability to win.

TRUMP: These are what they call them dark polls, they are phony polls put out by phony media, and I'll tell you what, all of us are affected by this stuff. And what they do is they try to suppress the vote. This way, people don't go out and vote.

ACOSTA: For Trump, the polls are now part of the conspiracy to deny him access the White House, or as he described it, roughly, seven times in one minute, a rigged system.

TRUMP: We are going to fix our rigged system. It's a rigged, broken, corrupt system. It's rigged, it's broken, it's corrupt. They want me to take that back. Let me tell you, folks, it's a rigged system. We're in a rigged system. We're in a broken and corrupt system. And Bernie Sanders was in a rigged system.

ACOSTA: The latest CNN/ORC poll finds Trump trailing Clinton by five points.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: We are behind.

ACOSTA: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway conceded what aid say privately. Trump will have to come from behind to win.

CONWAY: Her husband campaigning for her, the current president and first lady, vice president, all much more popular than she can hope to be, and she's - but she's seen as the incumbent, so our advantage going in, we were behind one, three, four points in some of these swing states that Mitt Romney lost to President Obama. Our advantage is that Donald Trump is just going to take the case directly to the people.

ACOSTA: But it's a case Trump sometimes mishandles, such as when he traveled to Gettysburg to layout his vision for his first 100 days in office only to spend the first 10 minutes attacking the women who accused him of sexual assault.

TRUMP: All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.

ACOSTA: Just today, Trump brushed off one his newest accusers.

JESSICA DRAKE, TRUMP ACCUSER: He grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission.

ACOSTA: Pointing out she has starred in adult films.

TRUMP: One said, "he grabbed me on arm." And she's a porn star. Now, you know, this one that came out recently. "He grabbed me and he grabbed me on the arm." Oh, I'm sure she's never been grabbed before.

ACOSTA: And for republicans who are dissatisfied with the national news media, the Trump campaign is offering alternative programming. On Donald Trump's Facebook page, his top advisers, even as his campaign manager are offering their own campaign analysis, but Trump campaign officials say, "Don't call it Trump TV." Jim Acosta, CNN, Tampa, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: And least to say, Carlos Watson is back here with me. He's the editor in chief of the daily digital machine, OZY. So, I mean, when I hear this, when I hear the Trump campaign is, you know, well, spinning it, because that's what they do in light of the data.

CARLOS WATSON, MNBC CONTRIBUTOR AND EDITOR IN CHIEF OF OZY: Right. Uh-hmm.

SESAY: I'm still - I'm trying to figure out what it's all about. Is it about setting the stage for day after the election? What's going on here? I think they don't really feel like they have a choice. I mean, you saw Kellyanne Conway two or three weeks ago. Kind of embarrassing at one point after one of the debates, I think the second one, when asked whether or not she was in it to the end, she waivered. You never want your campaign manager to do it. Now, she walked it back subsequently, but I think ever since that everyone has been told no matter what happens, you got to stick with the ship until it's going down. But there's trouble. Remember, you didn't see Ivanka Trump out there, who may be the most popular Trump of them all. She clearly could have been out in the immediate aftermath of the Billy Bush tape. You didn't see her for another dozen days, really. Same thing with his wife, Melania, and contrast that with Bill Clinton in 1992, where Hillary immediately goes on 60 Minutes in the aftermath of trouble there, or Maria Shriver in 2003. Arnold Schwarzenegger dazed before he's going to run for governor of California, huge scandal comes up and she steps up. And he didn't get that kind of support from his surrogates, whereas Hillary Clinton has got a half dozen key people, including President Obama in the field. SESAY: And according to one of the polls, according to the ABC poll, Hillary Clinton is leading Trump 20 points among women. He needs those powerful female surrogates in the form of Melania and Ivanka, but he doesn't have them. You mentioned Hillary, she does, amongst them Elizabeth Warren. Take a listen to what she's been saying on the campaign trail.

WATSON: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: He thinks that because he has a mouth full of Tic Tacs, that he can force himself on any woman within groping distance. Well, I've got news for you, Donald Trump, women have had it with guys like you. And on November 8th, we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: I mean, she - I mean, she's -

WATSON: Do - I mean - do - I mean, do you have your nasty woman t- shirt yet? I mean, a lot of women I know, they're not adorable deplorable, they're doing nasty woman.

SESAY: I can't own a t-shirt sadly in this race, so I have to sit on the sidelines, but -

WATSON: Yes.

SESAY: -- I will say, she has taken being an attack dog to a whole new level.

WATSON: She's been incredibly important. I think immediately after Trump sewed up the nomination, she really took the democratic fight to him, set the tone that we weren't going to be passive in the way that many of republican primary opponents were, and really was helpful there. One of the really interesting things that's happening really quietly, Isha, here is not only Hillary seemingly on her way to the presidency, but we're about to see a surge in the number of female senators, and Elizabeth Warren could become incredibly important in the senate and part because democrats take the majority, but in part because a whole group of very progressive women from places like Illinois and elsewhere, may end up joining the senate and may look to her first even before they looked to President Hillary Rodham Clinton.

SESAY: Yeah. I mean, you have an Elizabeh Warren and a Michelle Obama on the campaign trail for you, I mean, does Trump campaign have any kind of counter attack to that.

WATSON: They really haven't managed to pull anyone else out. And I think that was kind of one of his last hope, if he was able to grab someone who could have been a validating force, an unexpected one, so not Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie who had been along for the ride.

SESAY: But you - yeah. And they don't help with women. And that's what he needs. He needs to fill on that female vote.

WATSON: They don't - they don't - and he dint get any of that. And, you know, you even look, he's actually lost a number of members of congress who have unendorsed him, and then in cases including Kelly Ayotte, you know, the senator from New Hampshire. I think Trump is in a really tough place. The only couple of things, and I think they're really crazy longshots, but you have to ask yourself if there are something unfortunately that happened in terms of terrorism. You have to ask yourself about weather, but we haven't really seen weather affect the presidential campaign in a half century. And then last but not least, if there's some major WikiLeaks scandal, way beyond anything close to what we've seen before. But even then, so much early voting has happened, Isha. And many of the cases and some of the states, almost half the voters will have cast their vote by Election Day. So, even if there is a last-minute surprise, it may be too late to affect Florida, North Carolina.

SESAY: The president is also in Hillary Clinton's camp as you know and he's been out there hitting the campaign trail. He was in California on Monday and paid a visit to the Jimmy Kimmel show.

WATSON: Uh-hmm.

SESAY: He is just loving this. I mean -

WATSON: He's having a great time.

SESAY: -- he's counting down to leaving, you know, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and he's loving this moment. Take a listen to him a little earlier on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, ABC'S JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE HOST: When you watched the debate and you watched Donald Trump, do you - do you ever laugh? Do you ever actually laugh?

OBAMA: Most of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Have you ever seen an incumbent president on the campaign trail and approach it with such gusto?

WATSON: You haven't, or not in modern times.

SESAY: Yes.

WATSON: Because remember that Al Gore didn't want Bill Clinton.

SESAY: Bill Clinton, that's right.

WATSON: And so, even though Bill Clinton's popularity rating was sky- high, I wouldn't put him out there. Papa Bush really didn't use Ronald Reagan very heavily. So, a lot of the two-termed presidents, and of course, John McCain didn't use W, really at all. So, know, this is the first time he's having a good time. In part remember how disrespectful Trump was.

[01:30:00] Do you remember the racist birther thing? This is great comeuppance. And especially if Trump ends up under 40, which is an incredibly low mark. If he stays at 38, I think President Obama will say not only did Trump lose but a lot of what he stood for is roundly rejected.

SESAY: And that is important to his legacy.

WATSON: Especially to see it validated to see the person he wanted to win does that. Don't count out President Obama after the election. There could be a number of things that he ends up getting through. Another poke in Donald Trump's eye.

SESAY: We shall see. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Come back and see us.

WATSON: I will.

SESAY: I will wear your nasty woman T-shirt next time.

WATSON: My three sisters will loan me theirs.

SESAY: Next on NEWSROOM L.A., the scene is beautiful and toxic. ISIS sets a mountain of sulfur on fire and it is suffocating people near Mosul.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.

(HEADLINES)

[01:35:13] SESAY: The Iraqi-led fight to retake Mosul from ISIS is in its second week. There's fierce militant resistance. Peshmerga forces are fighting for control for a town and moving closer. An Iraqi tribal leader says hundreds of ISIS fighters are fleeing into Syria.

South of Mosul the skies are dark, the air heavy with toxic fumes. ISIS fighters set fire to a sulfur factory before fleeing and it has made breathing dangerous.

Senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It could be waves rippling against a shoreline on another planet. Neon streams catching the light, but this hauntingly beautiful scenery is toxic. The yellow rock formations are raw sulfur crumbling and melting under intense heat. It may look volcanic. But this is man- made.

(on camera): When ISIS withdrew from this sulfur factory, they placed explosives inside what was a massive mountain of sulfur as well as placing explosives over an expanse of around 4.5 kilometers of this factory, sending toxic poisonous fumes into the air.

(voice-over): Hundreds of people living in the area had to seek medical attention for trouble breathing, burning eyes and choking. Hospitals ran out of oxygen.

(on camera): I have no idea how the fast majority of these workers out here are able to deal with the smell and the burning in one's eyes without having proper protection. Most people don't have gas masks on but they are working tirelessly to try to bring this under control.

(voice-over): Across this other worldly landscape there are bulldozers, firefighters trying to stifle the flames with loads of dirt. This is a battlefield that has no rules or boundaries.

(on camera): And this is just one of the many ways that ISIS are trying to use whatever it possibly can to try to not only impede the advance of the security forces towards Mosul but also in doing so cause maximum damage and maximum impact on the civilian population. If this is a sign of the lengths is will go to out here it's terrifying to imagine what it plans for Mosul itself.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: As Iraqi-led forces prepare to seize control of Mosul, officials are warning of a new potential security threat, a wave of ISIS fighters returning home to Europe.

For more I'm joined by CNN contributor, Michael Weiss, in New York. He is the co-author of "ISIS: Inside the War of Terror."

Michael, good to have you with us.

Are these fears as a result of the Mosul offensive justified in your view?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR & AUTHOR: Yes, they are. ISIS likes to distract from its battlefield losses by waging attacks that frankly no one is expecting them to. We see this at the local or national level. Look at what they have done since the offensive to retake Mosul has got under way. They waged an attack in Kirkuk. They claimed although there has been some contradictory are reporting about this that they sacked a town in Anbar Province. This is a way to draw material away from the front live.

With respect to attack abroad, whenever ISIS suffers a battlefield loss, they like to wage an assault on a western or regional city. What you are hearing from E.U. officials is be on guard or on alert for attacks in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain. These are the major targets in continental Europe for ISIS terrorism.

SESAY: Michael, when we talk about attacks waged by ISIS are we talking about ISIS directed or ISIS inspired in the aftermath of Mosul?

[01:39:49] WEISS: When it comes to coordinating these things with respect to the military dynamics on the ground I would say it's more ISIS directed. They have been sending operatives in Europe back as far as 2013, even in advance of the so-called caliphate. And the European security services underestimate the number of fighters that have come back with some training who are now in effect sleeper agents, scattered throughout the continent.

SESAY: Michael, when we talk about the potential attacks are we looking at a wave of fighters making their way to Europe or as you see it when you look at the par dime if you will, are we talking about people who are already in Europe who would spring up from a sleeper cell, so to speak?

WEISS: I think it's more the latter. I think it's difficult to move from Syria or Iraq into Europe. Turkey has more or less secured the Turkish/Syrian border. They have taken 1200 kilometers of terrain from is. But going back three years how many people in Raqqa or elsewhere made it across the border and are laying in wait? This is the danger.

SESAY: As you lay out the threat so clearly and frighteningly how do European authorities meet this when you talk about people who months gone by everybody made their way to Europe and are lying in wait as you paint the picture?

WEISS: Every time they sack a town in Aleppo, they manage to capture tranches of digital information and valuable human intelligence which can allow them to crack down and wage these dragnet operations against jihadis scattered throughout Europe. The more we squeeze them on the battlefield the harder it becomes to keep their spies and sleepers abroad. It's the old IRA saying, "The police have to be lucky all the time. We just have to be lucky once." The matter of five or 10 operatives we don't know about they could be plotting any number of attacks, ranging from a siege and suicide bombing to an assortment of gun and knife attacks. We're seeing it in North America now from inspired operatives. This is what worries the FBI. But in Europe they have a colossal problem on their hands. France has graduated fighters to ISIS and several hundred have returned to France and are now in Europe. Where are they? They are running around and plotting terrorism.

SESAY: Terrifying. Terrifying, indeed.

Michael, we appreciate the insight and the deep perspective. Thank you very much.

WEISS: Sure.

SESAY: Very frightening.

Time for a break. Now that their merger deal has been announced, AT&T and Timer-Warner set out to convince investors and regulators they can make a go of it.

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[01:46:31] SESAY: Investors are responding with skepticism to the merger of AT&T and Timer-Warner. Both companies' stock fell Monday. AT&T plans to purchase CNN's parent company for $85 billion. The company's CEO's argue the corporate marriage makes strategic sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL STEPHENSON, CEO, AT&T: We are not naive to think this won't be a rigorous process. It will be a rigorous review, fully expected.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: RIGHT.

STEPHENSON: To the extent that there are concerns, those are remedied with conditions but we are prepared to go down that path.

JEFF BEWKESS, CEO, TIME-WARNER: When they see that it increases competition this is not legacy companies getting together. This is a disrupter trying to bring more competition and more choice for people that don't just want to have one or two capable or other local choices. They also want a third or fourth choice of their subscription packages. They want more packages, including cheaper ones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Timer-Warner and AT&T are no strangers to mergers that didn't work out.

"CNN Money's" Claire Sebastian reports, they expect this deal to benefit from lessons learned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You ain't heard nothing yet.

CLAIRE SEBASTIAN, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In 1927, Warner Brothers, "The Jazz Singer" was the first feature-length talking picture.

(SINGING)

SEBASTIAN: And this was the world's first telephone call in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, two different legacies trying to become one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Typically and historically big combinations of different companies of content and distribution fail because the culture is difficult to assimilate and combine and make one and one equal three instead of one and one equal one and a half.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Time-Warner has grabbled with these mergers before. In the 1980s, Timer-Warner was merged with Time, Inc., the publisher of "Time" magazine. In the 1990s they added Turner Broadcasting and CNN. That is a crucial selling point in this latest deal. In 2000, they tried to move online with AOL.

(SINGING)

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): It was billed as a merger to lead the convergence of Internet and media, a bet on the future. Just nine years later, Timer-Warner spun off AOL for around 2 percent of the original price.

ANNOUNCER: You got mail, baby, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mistake was thinking that Timer-Warner was a content provider and AOL was a distribution pipeline. AOL was a portal.

SEBASTIAN: This time around, Timer-Warner and AT&T will be kept as separate entities and the companies operations don't overlap, unlike another deal AT&T attempted in 2011.

STEPHENSON: We tried to buy T-mobile. That was a horizontal integration. That was a problem the government had was that a competitor was viewed to be taken out of the market.

SEBASTIAN: Government opposition killed that deal, costing AT&T $4 billion.

(on camera): The key to making this work, analysts say, is not just learning the lessons of past deals. It's about recognizing that the way that media is distributed has changed for good and one thing matters more than anything, mobile.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The era of the individual media mogul it's about who can get the content to the new consumer via mobile.

[01:50:05] SEBASTIAN (voice-over): If the deal is approved by regulators, experts says, we could see more tech and media tie ups singing the same tune.

(SINGING)

SEBASTIAN: Claire Sebastian, CNN Money, New York.

(SINGING)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: Donald Trump upset some voters when he called Hillary Clinton "a nasty woman." Now some are embracing the label and throwing it back in Trump's face. We'll explain when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: So the U.S. presidential debates are over but there are certain moments that will long be remembered, like when Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton "a nasty woman." Now her supporters are embracing that label.

Jeanne Moos reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four little words.

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Such a nasty woman.

MOOS: Thrown back into Donald Trump's face.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Get this, Donald, nasty women are tough.

MOOS: Hillary supporters put on their "nasty" T-shirts.

WARREN: Nasty women are smart.

MOOS: They put on their "Make America nasty again" hats.

WARREN: And nasty women vote.

(CHEERING)

MOOS: No wonder Hillary is laughing. First, there were the remixes.

(SINGING)

MOOS: Then there were the jokes.

[01:55:13] UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: Oh, yeah. So nasty. Also quick reminder, no one respects women more than me.

MOOS: Then the merchandise from the "such a nasty woman" throw pillow to "I'm with the nasty woman" T-shirt.

"SNL" made this joke.

UNIDENTIFIED SNL COMEDIAN: Go to HillaryClinton.com and buy a limited edition nasty woman mug.

(LAUGHTER)

MOOS: Soon someone was selling one on Etsy.

Singer Katy Perry bought a T-shirt on a website. Its creator had it on line before the debate even ended. She sold 10,000 items.

WARREN: We nasty women are going to march our nasty feet.

MOOS: We saw no nasty slippers but there is nasty woman perfume.

Hillary fans can carry your stuff in this nasty is the new black tote.

Jeanne Moos -- TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.

MOOS: -- CNN --

TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.

MOOS: -- New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: We're going to leave the nastiness right here.

You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, L.A. I'm Isha Sesay. I'll be back with more after this.

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