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The Lead with Jake Tapper

ISIS Threat; White House Security Breach; 200,000 Kurds Flee ISIS in Syria; Search Intensifies for Cop Killer Suspect; New Search Warrant in Missing Student Case

Aired September 22, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: ISIS says Americans should be attacked. How close is the Pentagon to dropping bombs on ISIS targets in Syria?

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead. Until now, ISIS has carved out a safe haven amidst the chaos of Syria's civil war. But the Pentagon says it's ready to take out ISIS targets wherever they are, whenever they get the word.

The national lead. He got in the door. New information that the man accused of breaching White House security not only had a knife in his pocket, but much, much worse in his car.

Also in national news, more than 1,000 volunteers now searching for missing UVA student Hannah Graham as an arrest warrant is issued for a person of interest in the case. But are we any closer to finding out what really happened?

Good afternoon. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We will begin with the world lead. It is not only a call to kill. It comes with instructions. ISIS, that mutated form of al Qaeda in control of huge chunks of Iraq and Syria, is now issuing a new sick threat in an audiotape calling for lone wolf attacks against Americans, British, the French, anyone in the U.S.-led coalition.

An ISIS spokesman even offered instructions on how to kill random civilians. Quote: "Smash his head with a rock or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car." This comes on the day that the Obama administration acknowledged that some Americans fighting with terrorist groups in Syria have returned to the United States.

For the past six weeks, the U.S. has been launching airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq. Now the world is waiting to see if the U.S. military will open up a new front and take the fight into Syria.

Now, the military says it's ready to go. They're just waiting for the president's call.

Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, has new information on those plans -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Jake. The Pentagon waiting for that final authorization from the commander

in chief and then planes will take to the skies once and if they get that. They are looking at a very lengthy target list inside Syria. The possibility exists they are going to go far beyond the Iraq/Syria border, go all the way into Northern Syria to a place called Raqqa, a town in Northern Syria that is currently the ISIS stronghold.

If this all goes down, look for U.S. warplanes along with coalition aircraft to go against ISIS training camps, leadership, weapons depots, anything that they can find that will stop ISIS in its tracks. Two sets of targets, the ones that will make that fundamental long- term difference to ISIS planning more operations in the area, and also striking along the border, perhaps, the nearer-term targets, to stop ISIS in its tracks, keep it from expanding its influence and its operations -- Jake.

TAPPER: Barbara, the U.S., of course, has already been flying surveillance drones over Syria. Have those missions been able to identify anything?

STARR: That has been going on indeed for several days. Those drones have been picking up radar signature video from what they do believe are ISIS targets. This is forming the basis of the U.S. target list that U.S. pilots will go after if and when they get the word to proceed.

But when these airstrikes start, if they start, don't look for the drones necessarily to be launching missiles against targets. This is most likely, we are told, to be manned aircraft, the manned aircraft, the fighters, the bombers able to deliver much heavier weapons, more power, more lethality and they will be precision weapons. There's a good deal of concern of course always about inadvertent damage to civilians -- Jake.

TAPPER: Of course. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you so much.

Let's talk about this more with retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, a former CENTCOM commander and author of the new book -- quote -- "Before the First Shots Are Fired."

General Zinni, good to see you, as always.

Taking the fight to ISIS in Syria, the Pentagon says it's ready to go with airstrikes. So, theoretically, we could see U.S. or French warplanes dropping bombs in Syria at any time. But the question of course is in the mess of a civil war in Syria, with the brutal Assad forces, the terrorists of ISIS, al-Nusra, not to mention the Free Syrian Army, are airstrikes in Syria clearly the right thing to do? Will they make the situation better?

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.), FORMER CENTCOM COMMANDER: Well, I think it all depends on the targeting.

As Barbara pointed out, I'm sure we now because of our surveillance have picked up a number of targets. That will continue. We have plenty of bases in the region. Obviously, carrier-based air can reach the Syrian targets. So can longer-range bombers.

This is all about getting the signals intelligence, the imagery from satellites and maybe even some information on the ground if we have human intelligence on there. So the key is going to be targeting. There's no shortage of bases to operate from. And this is an area we can easily cover with our airpower.

TAPPER: Of course, there are a lot of towns in Syria that ISIS has taken over. How do you go after ISIS terrorists in those towns without hurting the innocent civilians who are living in fear and terror?

ZINNI: I think they're going to have to make some very difficult decisions.

ISIS no doubt will do much like Hamas did and I'm sure try to locate some of their command-and-control and their troop locations in amongst civilian populations.

Obviously, some of the conventional weapons that they have, like tanks and armored personnel carriers, they might be more easily engaged. And that may be vulnerable. So, I think it won't be too big a task to take out their conventional capabilities, easily identified. It may be harder to root out personnel and command-and-control facilities.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about this interesting story that broke over the weekend, ISIS releasing 46 Turkish hostages who had been held in Iraq, including children. The Turkish government said that they were freed without a ransom, without any military action. Do you buy that?

ZINNI: I find that hard to believe. ISIS doesn't release hostages just out of goodwill. I think they either want something from Turkey or maybe privately something was done like ransom payments. But I can't imagine they'd give up the hostages for no reason at all.

TAPPER: Obviously, this is speculative. But Turkey has been very reluctant to help the U.S.-load coalition, even though they border obviously with Syria. A lot of the kidnappings have taken place actually on the Turkey side of the border.

Could it have anything to do with that?

ZINNI: Well, possibly.

Obviously, they may have been waiting for the release. They may have been working something to get these 46 out. So we will see now what happens. If they open up their bases, if they close down some of what obviously must be going on in some of this oil smuggling, and obviously Turkey's being used as a transit point to get into the Syrian areas by those coming from Europe, the United States and other wannabe extremists.

TAPPER: I want to get your reaction to something that former the director of the Defense Department and the CIA, Leon Panetta, said on "60 Minutes" last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, CIA DIRECTOR: I really thought that it was important for us to maintain a presence in Iraq. The decision was that we ought to at least try to maintain 8,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops there, plus keeping some of our intelligence personnel in place to be able to continue the momentum.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, obviously, General, you opposed the war in Iraq in 2003. But that decision having been made, do you agree with Secretary Panetta that not leaving some troops, some U.S. troops there was a mistake?

ZINNI: I don't.

If you're using that as a reason that that would have prevented what ISIS did, I think you're after the wrong rationale. There's a reason ISIS was easily able to get in. And it had to do with the will to fight of the Iraqi military. No amount of equipment and training puts in your heart the will to fight.

The Maliki government did not deliver in creating a more inclusive environment, in sharing power and resources, alienated the Sunni population. Their refusal to provide arms to the Kurdish Peshmerga created a situation that I doubt seriously 8,000 advisers and trainers and intel gatherers would have made much of a difference.

TAPPER: General Anthony Zinni, as always, very interesting. Thanks so much for your time, sir.

ZINNI: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Much more ahead on THE lead, including the Baltimore Ravens owner who's holding a hastily scheduled news conference on the whole Ray Rice mess after a report on ESPN claiming the Ravens knew about that elevator video literally within hours of it happening. We will have that coming up.

Plus, he jumped the fence and made it through the front door of the White House and now we're learning he had 800 rounds of ammunition in his car and several run-ins with police in his past.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

More now on our world lead. The images are nothing short of heartbreaking. But the world needs to see them to get the full picture of this humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Middle East over the growing ISIS threat. You can hear the cries of a baby caught in the middle of this madness as hundreds of thousands of Kurds flee Syria to cross into Turkey.

They're on the run as ISIS terrorists quickly gain new ground and close in on their villages. This map shows you the 20-mile stretch where Kurds from the Kobani area are trying to escape the brutal assault from ISIS terrorists. And the Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga wonder how long they can hold their ground without much more international help than they're currently receiving.

In the latest issue of "The New Yorker" magazine, Dexter Filkins examines what the Kurds are up against, not just in Syria, but Iraq, and what is stake if they lose the battle against ISIS. The article is called "The Fight of Their Lives."

And Dexter Filkins joins me now live from New York.

Dexter, good to see you, as always.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: So, you spent time in Kurdistan. You spoke with a former commander of the Kurdish army. Describe for us, what are these fighters up against as they try to take on ISIS?

DEXTER FILKINS, "THE NEW YORKER": Well, ISIS is the strongest army in the Middle East right now.

And they are -- and they have shown themselves to be unstoppable. You know, they -- they have a very particular M.O. They bombard an area with artillery and then they send in waves of suicide bombings -- bombers until the defenses crack. And then they roll in with their trucks.

And nobody's been able to resist that so far. The Kurds are pretty tough guys. And they fight. The Kurds fight. And so, if anybody can do it, they can. But I think that they feel like they need some help. They feel like they need weapons, for one thing.

TAPPER: How long can they hold their ground, do you think, unless they get that help that you're talking about, weapons or even ground troops from other countries?

FILKINS: Well, they lost a lot of ground to is in August. ISIS took the Mosul dam, they pushed the Kurds out of a bunch of villages. That made the Kurds pretty angry. But they basically needed the American air strikes to help them take some of those areas back. And I think they probably still do.

When I was there -- and I was there pretty recently -- the Kurds hadn't -- that arms pipeline that we promised them, the United States has promised them, it hasn't really started to flow yet. So, they don't have much.

They've got these -- I spent a lot of time with them. They got these old Kalashnikovs from the 1970s, you know? So, they want to fight and they're pretty happy to fight, but they need more than what they have, you know?

TAPPER: If ISIS is able to take control of Kobani, how significant would that be? FILKINS: That's the area in Syria, right?

TAPPER: Yes.

FILKINS: Well, it's -- would be pretty significant because I can't imagine that ISIS, which is Arab, is going to tolerate the presence of any Kurds. So, they're either going to kill them or they're going to chase them out. And, you know, that whole northeastern sector of Syria is Kurdish.

And so, you know, again, the Kurds are really tough. That part of Syria is controlled by a different Kurdish group. It's called the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party. They are tough as nails. They fight. They've been fighting in Turkey for a long time. They have women fighters. They're really tough.

And I'd be surprised, actually, if ISIS was able to push them out much father.

TAPPER: Dexter, one of the things you get across in your story really well is how much the Kurds in Iraq want independence and how much the U.S. is depending on them to fight and push back ISIS. Will they continue to do what the U.S. wants if the U.S. refrains from supporting their independence bid?

FILKINS: Well, I think the U.S. will support them, you know? But that's the tension. So the White House has been pretty clear about this. They say, look, we want to help you guys. We love the Kurds, everybody loves the Kurds. But we don't want you to be independent. We want you to stay part of Iraq.

And it's -- the whole thing is kind of ironic because when you look at Iraq which imploded, as we know, it got a little better, you know, in 2010, 2011, then it imploded again. The Kurdish region, the northeastern corner, it's pro-western, pro-American, it's largely secular, it's democratic, it's prosperous. They're sitting on an ocean of oil.

It is an island of calm in the middle of that chaos. So, you know, they're good friends to have. They're loyal friends. And so, it's a bit of an odd situation to be in with them because we're trying to thwart their demands while at the same time, we're trying to help them.

TAPPER: Yes.

FILKINS: You know, it's like a lot -- it's like a lot of things in politics. It cuts both ways.

TAPPER: Indeed. The story is called "The Fight of Their Lives" in the issue of "The New Yorker" -- Dexter Filkins, thank you as always. Good to see you.

FILKINS: Thanks. Thanks.

TAPPER: Coming up next, 400 police officers hunting for the suspect accused of killing one of their own. Are they any closer to finding this man who is an expert at disappearing?

Plus, a first look at the man last seen with a University of Virginia student before she vanished. Police now say he's a wanted man. What evidence do they have against him?

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TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD.

We're following some law enforcement stories in the national lead. People in one northeastern Pennsylvania community are afraid to leave their homes and with good reason. An alleged cop killer and known survivalist is on the run despite an intense manhunt that includes the FBI.

Eric Matthew Frein is believed to be hiding out in the woods about 30 miles outside Scranton. Frein is wanted for a deadly ambush that killed one Pennsylvania state police officer and injured another. He's considered extremely dangerous.

And law enforcement officials were reminded of that when they found an AK-47 and a bag of ammunition near where Frein was believed to have been hiding out.

Joining me live from Pennsylvania where the manhunt for Frein continues is CNN correspondent Alexandra Field.

Alexandra, the search has been going on for days now. Has the search area changed at all? Are they narrowing it down?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we're hearing from officials today, Jake, is that the search area is actually getting smaller. For the last week, they've been focused on a wooded area, it's mostly woods, a few homes in it, a few square miles today. They say they're shrinking it even further. And that's a sign of their confidence that the subject is within reach.

But they're reminding us that this is a delicate operation. Eric Frein is believed to be armed and dangerous. They want to move carefully as they try and move in on him. This week has been fraught with tension for the people in this community. They've been gone from being told to shelter in place, to have been kept out of their homes while searches are conducted.

So, today we're also hearing from the governor in Pennsylvania who's trying to calm some nerves by telling people he's confident that the suspect will be captured, and he's also telling people that he's confident that civilians are not the primary target here.

TAPPER: Well, that's --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TOM CORBETT (R), PENNSYLVANIA: He had the opportunity to shoot civilians at the Blooming Grove barracks at the same time that he shot the police officer. So, it is our conclusion that he is aimed totally at police officers because there were unarmed civilians right in the exact same location during the course of the shooting. And he chose not to shoot them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Police believe that Frein is targeting law enforcement officials but they still want everyone in this community to really be vigilant, to stay in their homes when they're able to, to not venture out into the woods, just take some serious precautions here, Jake.

TAPPER: Alexandra Fields in the part of Pennsylvania, where they are shutting down the schools out of an abundance of caution -- thank you so much.

Plus, now, we're going to go to Charlottesville, Virginia, where police are retracing their steps in the search for a missing student from the University of Virginia. They executed a second search warrant at the home of Jesse Matthew. That's a person they're interested in talking to about the case. Authorities are searching for 18-year-old Hannah Graham. She's been missing since September 13th.

CNN's Athena Jones is following it all.

Athena, why do police want to talk to Jesse Matthew?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jake.

Well, they want to talk to Jesse Matthew because they say he's the last person seen with Hannah Graham in the early morning hours of September 13th right here on this pedestrian mall here in Charlottesville.

They're not calling him a suspect at this point but the fact of the matter is they don't know where he is. They're hoping to step up the pressure on him, get him to talk about what he knows about the night that Hannah Graham disappeared.

S, what they've done today is they've released a photo of Jesse Matthew. They've also released a wanted poster. He's wanted now on reckless driving charges. They're hoping getting his image out there will help the public help them track him down -- Jake.

TAPPER: Athena, why are police using this reckless driving charge against them?

JONES: Well, this is interesting. Jesse Matthew voluntarily walked into the Charlottesville Police Station over the weekend, on Saturday afternoon. He asked for a lawyer. He was given a lawyer. He spoke with that lawyer, and then he left. Not long after that, he was pursued overtly or overtly monitored or surveilled by the police here.

They say at one point, he started driving so dangerously, at such high speeds, that the police had to stop their pursuit of him. And so, now, they don't know where he is. That's what led to these reckless driving charges and this wanted poster. I should mention, the wanted poster said that as of 5:00 p.m.

yesterday, they believe he was reportedly in possession of his sister's 1997 light blue Nissan Sentra. They're saying anyone who has information about Matthew, they want them to call the Charlottesville Police Department.

But one more thing I should mention, Jake, that the police chief, Timothy Longo, told me this morning he doesn't want the community to get tunnel vision and just focus on Jesse Matthew alone. Just because they have a name and a face and a person they want to talk, he doesn't want people to stop looking for Hannah Graham. He wants anyone to come forward with any information they have about that night -- Jake.

TAPPER: A very sad story in Charlottesville, Virginia -- Athena Jones, thank you so much.

Coming up, he's now being called a threat to the president. New details on the fence jumper who made it through the door of the White House, including a recent arrest he has for gun possession and the map police found with the White House circled upon it.

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