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The Lead with Jake Tapper

U.S. Targets ISIS in Syria; Interview With Rear Admiral John Kirby; U.S. Attacks al Qaeda Offshoot

Aired September 23, 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: America at war again.

The U.S. government says terrorists had imminent plans to attack the U.S., and they are not talking about the terrorists of ISIS.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead, airstrikes in Syria targeting the dangerous, but little known branch of al Qaeda said to be nearing the execution phase of a massive attack possibly on U.S. soil. So just who are these guys and what were or are they planning?

Plus, a relentless air assault against ISIS command centers, training compounds and key ISIS strongholds, will it be enough to truly dismantle and destroy ISIS, or could it fuel more flames of extremism?

Plus:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: At least five Arab allies joining the U.S. in taking on ISIS. But now that the battle in Syria has begun, what is the endgame and is this coalition in it for the long haul?

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

Breaking news at this hour. The Pentagon says terrorists in Syria were in the final stages of plans to execute major attacks against Western targets, potentially including the U.S. homeland. Instead, the United States government says it is taking the fight to them. American forces led three waves of airstrikes in Syria overnight, joined in various ways by five Arab nations, and the Pentagon says this is only the beginning.

Joining me with the latest is chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

Jim, more airstrikes to come?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Jake, the answer is, no question.

The Pentagon says that this is just the beginning of a sustained campaign, one of America's Arab allies, the UAE, releasing a statement today saying that these were just the first strikes. And we learned today why the urgency. And that's because there's not one but two terror threats emanating from Syria, ISIS, which we are very familiar with, and al-Khorasan, which we were not so familiar with, both of them with plans to attack outside of Syria, including in the West, including on the U.S. homeland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Under the cover of night, the American war with terror groups in the Middle East entered a new, more aggressive phase, striking ISIS in its home base inside Syria.

OBAMA: Last night, on my orders, America's armed forces began strikes against ISIL targets in Syria.

SCIUTTO: And there was another surprise target, a little known terror organization known as the Khorasan group, an al Qaeda offshoot which officials say was in the final stages of planning attacks on U.S. targets, including on the homeland. Even more alarming, the group was recruiting Westerners to carry out the attacks.

LT. GEN. WILLIAM MAYVILLE JR., JOINT STAFF DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: We have been watching this group closely for some time. We believe the Khorasan group was nearing the execution phase of an attack either in Europe or the homeland.

And we know that the Khorasan group has attempted to recruit Westerners to serve as operatives or to infiltrate back into their homelands.

SCIUTTO: The operation began with a devastating barrage of more than 40 Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, those cruise missiles aimed mostly at Khorasan targets.

More than 40 fighter jets and bombers, crucially, including aircraft from four Arab nations, continued the through the night, taking on a broad array of ISIS positions, the strikes focusing on the ISIS stronghold in Raqqa in and the north and eastern parts of Syria.

While the Pentagon is still assessing the damage, it called the strikes a success. Video released shows punishing blows to an ISIS command post and training camp. The assault is an unprecedented collaboration between the U.S. and Arab partners with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates carrying out airstrikes, Qatar supporting the air campaign.

OBAMA: I also made clear that America would act as part of a broad coalition. And that's exactly what we've done. The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone.

SCIUTTO: And it will be a sustained fight, the U.S. and its partners vowing this was only the beginning.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: I think the airstrikes will certainly disrupt ISIL, may damage the Khorasan group, which is very significant, but it won't degrade ISIL very much and it certainly is not going to defeat them. We have to be realistic about what we can hope to achieve.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: So will this coalition grow? The British prime minister said he will meet with American officials here in New York to see what other support Britain can offer, although Britain has had issues with the legal basis for airstrikes inside Syria.

And I saw the Turkish president, Erdogan, speaking as well. He said the airstrikes were a positive step. Turkey will look to what it can contribute, but no public commitments so far, still, a coalition with strong regional partners, Jake, something of a surprise, something of a surprise, something of a diplomatic achievement for the Obama administration.

TAPPER: Absolutely. Jim Sciutto at the United Nations in New York, thank you so much.

Breaking news now. The wife of ISIS hostage Alan Henning saying that she just received audio of her husband pleading for his life. She appealed to his captors to release him.

We're now joined by Rear Admiral John Kirby, the press secretary for the Pentagon.

Admiral, are you concerned that ISIS may retaliate against some of the Western hostages it is holding, such as what we just heard about this one hostage from the U.K.?

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, we have remained concerned about the fate of the hostages that we know that they have. It's not something we have ever taken lightly. Certainly, it's something that we have never stopped thinking about.

As you know, we did attempt one rescue not long ago over the Fourth of the July weekend. So, it's something we're watching very, very closely, as closely as we can.

TAPPER: We're all learning about the terrorist group Khorasan over the last week. What can you tell us specifically about the threat that the U.S. government says it posed to the United States?

KIRBY: Well, I'm a little leery of getting into the specifics of intelligence matters here, Jake.

But what I can tell you is that we do know and had good, specific information that they were in the endgame, very close to finishing their planning on a plot to attack Western targets, either in Europe or in the U.S. homeland. I think that part was a little unclear. But we know that they were very, very close to the end. And that drove some of the urgency for the strikes that you saw last night.

TAPPER: And how close did the U.S. come to destroying the ability of Khorasan to carry out these attacks?

KIRBY: Well, we're still assessing the results of the strikes.

I can tell you we hit what we were aiming at and what we thought would be valuable in terms of targets, in terms of their -- the command-and- control facilities that they might have and some munitions-making capability that we know that they had. We know we hit those targets. We know that we have degraded some of their capabilities.

We're still assessing the full results. And so I don't think we're quite ready to call it right now, but we know -- we know that we were effective.

TAPPER: With the understanding that these are preliminary numbers, can you tell us anything about either the number of ISIS terrorists or Khorasan terrorists that were killed? And, in addition, what about any civilian casualties? We have heard some chatter about that as well.

KIRBY: We don't have the exact number of terrorists that might have been killed.

And I want to stress that the goal overnight was not so much people killed, terrorists killed, as it was disrupting their command-and- control and their leadership capabilities, their sustainment capabilities, their training capabilities.

And we know that we hit those targets. You have seen the videos yourself. On civilian casualties, collateral damage, we have no indication that we caused any civilian casualties or collateral damage right now. Again, that's part of the battle damage assessment phase, which is what we're doing today, is getting a much clearer picture of exactly how effective we were.

As I said, every indication so far -- and I checked this before I came on with you -- is that we were very successful, very effective, and still have no indication of any civilian casualties.

TAPPER: In terms of going after command-and-control, do you know of any high-value terrorist targets that you were able to get?

KIRBY: None yet, no, Jake, no, we don't.

TAPPER: How long do you think this military command is likely to last? Will I be talking to you about this every day for the next two months or the next two years?

KIRBY: Are you talking about specifically in Syria or just in the region?

TAPPER: ISIS in Syria and Iraq, I suppose.

KIRBY: Yes, I think we're going to be talking for a while, Jake. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

I think we have been very clear-eyed the threat that these folks pose in the region and to American interests, elsewhere, too. We have all been saying that this is going to be a long, difficult, complicated struggle. It's been characterized in terms of years. I think that's accurate. Couldn't put a number on that. But I think you and I are going to be having conversations about this for a while.

TAPPER: And, lastly, Admiral, how much of the Arab countries who have joined the coalition, have much have they been able to contribute when it comes to intelligence on the ground in Syria, in Iraq?

KIRBY: I think you can imagine that we have been consulting with our Arab partners in the region about their knowledge of these groups.

And as we talked about last week or so, when we were standing up this train-and-equip mission for this moderate Syrian opposition, we're grateful for the Saudis for coming forward with a training facility, but we're also going to tap into their knowledge, their local knowledge of the moderate opposition and how well they are doing, how well-organized they are.

We know that these regional countries have knowledge and information, and we're certainly going to tap into it the best we can.

TAPPER: Rear Admiral John Kirby, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

KIRBY: My pleasure. Thank you.

TAPPER: A terrorist group said to be planning another 9/11-type attack, developing bombs the airport security cannot detect -- next, how this al Qaeda offshoot was planning to do it and why the U.S. felt it was time to act.

Plus, new concerns airstrikes in Syria could put the U.S. at risk for retaliatory attacks -- what law enforcement is planning right now just in case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

We're going to continue with the world lead, of course, and U.S. airstrikes on a splinter group of al Qaeda said to be plotting terrorist attacks possibly on the U.S. homeland with those plans in their final stages, we're told.

But what more do we know about this actual organization, Khorasan?

CNN's justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, joins me now -- Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, U.S. officials have known about this group, Khorasan, and that al Qaeda operatives in Syria were plotting attacks since at least this spring, but recent intelligence suggested that they were in the end game of planning an attack possibly against the U.S. by using Western recruits, and U.S. officials say they had to act fast to disrupt them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Bombs falling in the night, targeting groups U.S. officials say were planning to attack the United States. Crosshairs, an al Qaeda offshoot called Khorasan.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERROR ANALYST: This is the A-team of al Qaeda, extremely experience operatives who put together plots before, including the leader of this group who was on the inside of the 9/11 plot.

BROWN: U.S. officials say the group was in an advanced stage to launch attacks against targets in the United States or Europe.

CRUICKSHANK: Intelligence points to the fact that this group was trying to target commercial passenger jets in the West, possibly also including the United States by testing and developing new generations of explosive devices which they could get on board aircraft or that they could hide inside electronic equipment or inside toiletries.

BROWN: A U.S. intelligence source says one of the plots involved a bomb made up of toothpaste, a non-metallic detonator and clothes dipped in explosives, though no specific targets were selected. Senior U.S. officials tell CNN that in July, a threat prompted increased security on international flights to the United States. What makes the threat of Khorasan's attack so worrying is their ties to al Qaeda's master bomb maker in Yemen, Ibrahim al Asiri.

CRUICKSHANK: The concern is that al Asiri has trained a number of apprentices in these techniques and these apprentices, some of them have migrated to Syria. The fear is that some of them have joined this group Khorasan there and helped to develop these new techniques.

BROWN: Al Asiri is thought to have built the failed underwear bomb brought aboard this plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, and is behind a plot to blow up planes using explosives and printer cartridges. Now, as initial smoke clears in Syria, the question remains, did the air strike stop Khorasan's plot?

CRUICKSHANK: What's not clear yet is whether the leadership has been taken out, whether the bomb makers have been taken out, and whether the operatives they were recruiting into these plots were taken out. If all of those people are still around, it's possible that they could still carry through with this plot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And U.S. officials say they are still assessing the results of the strike are still trying to figure out if they were able to take out the key leaders in the Khorasan Group, but they did say, Jake, that they were able to take out a training camp in command and control facilities linked to this group -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown, great reporting, thank you so much. Joining me now to continue the conversation on Khorasan and the larger

terrorist threat to the U.S., CNN's national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, and transnational terrorism expert Robert McFadden.

Robert, we just heard that the U.S. raised its terror alert in July because of this group Khorasan. How close did actually come to pulling this off or is the jury still not even out yet on that?

ROBERT MCFADDEN, TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM EXPERT: Well, with Khorasan, and I would actually refer to it as not so much an offshoot but actually al Qaeda from what we know al Qaeda central dispatch from senior ranking operatives into Syria since the beginning of this year. If it's following that playbook of al Qaeda's modus operandi, say for east Africa, the USS Cole, 9/11, there's certain sequential parts to the plot.

And what we're hearing from the Pentagon spokesman and other senior officials was in that final phase, likely, where operatives would be dispatched to go operational.

TAPPER: Juliette, you're a former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. What are people at DHS doing right now to try to figure out how to fend off any sort of strategy by this group Khorasan that uses clothes dipped in explosive material, nonmetallic bomb parts and something hidden in a toothpaste tube.

What could be done to stop a group using such technologies?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, DHS has two roles. One is it's just a consumer of intelligence that's coming from foreign intelligence agencies as well as the CIA. So, it's part of the intelligence community and assessing what they are finding out. But, then, of course, we have -- the department has operational components, which include transportation, port security. So, all of those pieces will be ramped up and intelligence will be shared to try to stop any potential attacks.

Of course, there are a million plus people in the sky at any given day and we are only as strong as our weakest link in terms of airline security, so what happens in Africa is obviously relevant to us. So, it's also getting with the international community to make sure that they are focusing in particular on mass transit system, whether it's ports of airports.

TAPPER: Robert, we know that one of the leaders of Khorasan, Mushin al-Fadhli, was one of the operatives behind September 11 when he was only 19 years old. What else do we know about him and the other leaders of this group?

MCFADDEN: Well, Mushin al-Fadhli is a Kuwaiti citizen of Yemeni ancestry and as you just mentioned previously, he had some kind of facilitation and financing role probably involved for the Cole. I know myself is working the USS Cole investigation, we weren't aware of him individually and actually heard about him while he was on trial in Kuwait. But very long time now with the core organization. Very much trusted

because al Qaeda core remains the masters of departmentalization, so someone like Mushin would have been trusted to the top of the organization.

TAPPER: Julia, it seems like when the U.S. moves to eradicate one of these groups, another one forms. Al Qaeda, ISIS, Khorasan, do these airstrikes make any of an impact, is this just something that the United States has to get its head around that we're going to be fighting Islamic extremism in perpetuity?

KAYYEM: I think we do have to get our head around the fact that the United States has never known a time without an enemy and this enemy is different. So -- and in counterterrorism, the way to think about it is a delayed attack is success. A disrupted attack is success. But that you may never get to no attack, right? So, it looks a little bit like whack-a-mole.

Where I do think we're in a different space is what we're seeing played out between ISIS and al Qaeda and its affiliates like Khorasan is a competition between these Islamic terrorist groups for people, resources, legacy, popularity and the capacity to hit the United States. And we are sort of like the ping-pong and I think the decision made to take out both players, simultaneously, even though their enemies last night was really a smart stroke in terms of their sort of mutual capacity to attack us.

So that's where this is a little bit different, that we are in a competition. We're sort of the bull's-eye in the competition between these two Islamic enemies.

TAPPER: Robert, quickly if you could -- we're told that ISIS only has 40,000 or so fighters. Why is this going to take years to accomplish? Why not just a matter of months?

MCFADDEN: Well, because you're dealing with a military as well as a political entity that is straddling two different countries. The airstrikes and rallying support of the Sunni neighbors will have a big impact, such as Kurdish Peshmerga. Look, for the longer term, one, tactically, it's going to imbed itself into the urban populations like in Raqqa and Mosul. But the longer term comes from staunching that flow of fighters, the money, diplomatic efforts and other so-called cerebral efforts to strangle this group. And that will take some time.

TAPPER: Robert McFadden and Julia Kayyem, thank you so much for your expertise. We appreciate it.

The U.S. didn't do it alone. Five other Arab nations joined in Syria. What message does that send to the world and will these countries be next on the ISIS target list? Or were they already on the list?

Plus, the war on terror now focus on ISIS in this latest al Qaeda splinter group Khorasan? But are there more terror groups out there with serious capabilities. My guest ahead, Senator Marco Rubio, he says yes. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

More now on or world lead. Putting rivalries and power struggles aside, five Arab nations joined the United States in the campaign against ISIS and other targets in Syria. The U.S. government says Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirate, Bahrain and Jordan all took part in the air strikes with Qatar playing a supporting role but pulling this impressive group of foreign partners together was no small feat.

Joining me now live from Amman, Jordan, is Marwan Muasher. He's a CNN Mideast analyst and former Jordanian foreign minister.

Mr. Muasher, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. How important was it for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to build this coalition and get these regional and Muslim allies to support the air strikes participating in them even?

MARWAN MUASHER, CNN MIDEAST ANALYST: It is very important. As you know, the United States does not have particularly a good record in the region in terms of military -- in terms of militarism or intervention in the region. It is not just important to the world but to the countries of the region to defeat them themselves to understand that this is a fight that must be taken by the region, by the international community and not by the United States alone.

I cannot emphasize enough that as the United States may take the military lead in undermining ISIS and hopefully eliminating them in the future, the nonmilitary aspect of this problem has to be the responsibility of the region itself. This is a cultural war as much as a military one and one that must be won by countries of the region that seek moderation against those that seek barbarism and radicalism.

TAPPER: Is has been said about the military campaign, that airstrikes alone will not be enough, the Iraqi, Syrian, Kurdish fighters, probably, according to military experts, not entirely up to the task of being the boots on the ground. Do you think that in keeping with this alliance, this coalition, that Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries need to put boots on the ground should it come to that?

MUASHER: I doubt that this will be the case, Jake. Just as the U.S. public has a huge reservations about boots on the ground, about U.S. military boots on the ground, I think people of the region themselves also have a huge reservations about sending their armies into another territory. Having said that, I think there are other ways in which these nations can be of huge help to the United States, providing air bases, providing logistical support, providing intelligence information to the U.S. Army and the networks, particularly with the Sunni tribes that Jordan has and other countries of the region have.