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The Lead with Jake Tapper

ISIS Arrests in New York; Interview with Adam Kinzinger

Aired February 25, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: A terrorist cell in New York City.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The national lead. We're still waiting for a first glimpse at two of the men the FBI says pledged their lives to ISIS and schemed all kinds of deadly mayhem. They allegedly wanted to hijack a jet and fly it to the terrorists in Syria. The FBI even says it has one of them on tape talking about gunning down New York's finest with a machine gun.

More on the national lead. One of them wrote on social media that he wanted to become a martyr. He wanted to assassinate President Obama.

Plus, we have seen this movie before, a nasty snarl of crackling rain and wipeout-inducing ice bearing down on the Southern part of the country. Last year, it brought major cities to their knees. This time around, are they ready for it?

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

We are going to begin today with our national lead.

Just minutes ago, the FBI issued a bulletin to state and local law enforcement telling them, be on your guard. This comes as we learn that three men, New Yorkers, are now behind bars for allegedly trying to join ISIS and plotting to commit acts of terror here on American soil, including potentially trying to assassinate President Obama.

According to a court document unsealed just hours ago, the FBI collared three Brooklynites. Two of them wanted to join the so-called ISIS caliphate. The third tried to finance that terror pilgrimage to Syria. The Department of Justice says these men comprised a terror cell in New York and were actively conspiring to join ISIS, provide cash to the terrorists, and if neither of those plans worked out, they would unleash chaos right here in the United States.

Let's go right now to CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown.

Pamela, these men first came to the attention of law enforcement last summer. If you read the complaint, it's really quite remarkable, the heinous acts that they were plotting allegedly to carry out.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And according to officials, the intent was there, but whether or not they could carry out their plans is an entirely different story, Jake.

But this case is especially concerning, because for one of the first times in an ISIS-related case, we are seeing a level of organization, according to the FBI, among multiple individuals living in the U.S. and wanting to launch an attack here if they couldn't link up with ISIS overseas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The FBI says two of the three Brooklyn, New York, residents were intent on waging jihad in Syria with ISIS or launching an attack in the United States. A third associate was allegedly helping finance their mission.

Court documents allege Abdurasul Juraboev expressed his desire to pledge fidelity to ISIS in an Uzbekistan online chat last summer, saying, "To shoot Obama and get shot ourselves, will it do? That will strike at the heart of the infidels."

That alarming post brought FBI agents to his front door. Juraboev allegedly admitted to them he would harm President Obama, but did not have the means to do so, and said if ISIS ordered him to, he would also plant a bomb on Coney Island in New York City.

JOHN MILLER, NYPD DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: They came as federal agents, as members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They identified them as such.

BROWN: Even after the FBI interview, court documents reveal, Juraboev then began communicating with an ISIS Web site administrator in Iran, who encouraged him to join the terrorist group overseas. Later communications revealed Juraboev and his co-worker, Akhror Saidakhmetov, began coordinating travel to Turkey, the gateway into Syria.

Juraboev allegedly telling his friend, "Once you cross the border of the Islamic State, someone has to receive you there."

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: To prove a conspiracy, you only have to show that there's been a material effort or forward step in furtherance of the conspiracy. And, clearly, those communications would indicate that there has been a forward step in the conspiracy.

BROWN: The complaint says both suspects purchased round-trip tickets to Turkey with the help of their friend Abror Habibov, who allegedly provided more than $1,000 for their travels. Saidakhmetov allegedly told a confidential informant if he was detected at the airport, they could kill a police officer and use the officer's gun to shoot other law enforcement officers that arrived on the scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And the FBI says it arrested Saidakhmetov, as we know, at the JFK Airport today. And they say he was trying to board a flight to Turkey at that time and then join ISIS. Federal agents arrested Juraboev at his Brooklyn apartment and that third associate in Florida. The one in Florida appeared in a courtroom today, Jake, and the other two are expected to appear before a judge as well.

TAPPER: Pamela Brown, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

I want to go now to CNN national correspondent Deb Feyerick. She's in Brooklyn outside the federal courthouse, where two of these three men are set to be arraigned potentially any moment.

Deb, what can you tell us?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We can tell you that they are going to be arraigned within the next 45 minutes.

The judge came out and told everyone who was in the court. It's a packed courtroom, as you can imagine. There's another terror trial going on upstairs on a higher court. Very interesting. He's an alleged al Qaeda operative, the ideology that he shares very much similar ideology to the ideology of the two men who are scheduled to be arraigned.

We want to tell you that they are Uzbek nationals. They do have legal residence here in the United States. And one of the reasons, as Pam was mentioning, that they had a sort of plan B, Jake, is because the 19-year-old, he didn't have his passport. His mother had actually confiscated his passport, fearing that he would travel or try to get to Syria, so he was planning other attacks here in the United States.

And they included joining the U.S. military, perhaps funneling information to ISIS, and then if that didn't work, he was simply going to open fire on the troops. His other plan was simply to get an AK-47 and attack police officers, as well as FBI agents.

It's the 24-year-old, his colleague and co-worker, he was the one who said that he had plans to shoot President Obama. All he needed was the go-ahead from an ISIS member communicating via the Internet. These two men were tracked online. They ultimately took down their social pages, according to the FBI indictment against them, and they were sort of maintaining silent communications.

The 30-year-old man, also a Brooklyn resident, he, Jake, got his money running kiosks at local malls in Savannah, Georgia, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is alleged to have given the younger man, the 19-year-old, $1,300 to purchase tickets. He even went to a travel agency in Coney Island essentially to help him buy that ticket.

The boy wanted more money, he said, because he had to repay a debt to his mother, according to these court documents. Again, they never made it to Syria. The 19-year-old picked up today at JFK Airport, he had a ticket to get to Turkey. And it was interesting because he ultimately did get his passport travel documents through the help of a confidential informant.

When he told his mother that he was out of here, that he was going to go to Syria and fight with ISIS, as was his duty, his mother actually hung up with him. He was arrested at JFK. The other man, the 24-year-old, he was also arrested. They are scheduled to be in court, Jake, within the hour.

TAPPER: All right, Deborah Feyerick live for us at the Brooklyn federal courthouse, thank you so much.

The FBI also says that one of these suspects had a backup plan if he wasn't able to get to Syria to stay in the U.S. and kill or at least attempt to kill the president of the United States.

Michelle Kosinski is live for us at the White House.

Michelle, I don't know how seriously this threat should be taken, but has there been any reaction from the Obama administration or the Secret Service so far about this threat?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have reached out to the White House on this. This news was breaking as the president was taking off for a trip to Miami to talk about immigration. We haven't heard anything directly from them yet.

But the Secret Service did weigh in. They said that this is a Joint Terrorism Task Force case, multiagency, and the Secret Service is involved in that. What they said was that the U.S. Secret Service "will take all appropriate steps based on that investigation. The USSS takes all threats seriously and is not in a position to discount threatening statements until they are fully investigated."

So, there is no one out there who wants to say they are not taking this seriously. What we have heard from analysts today is that these are boastings online that anyone could make. They are not the greatest things on earth to write online, and, obviously, it's what will gain the interest of law enforcement out there, or somebody else who might be reading it prior, but it's not enough to make an arrest at that time.

Everything is case by case. But this case took some time past those postings online before it really got to the deep end of the investigation and finally the arrests. But it was interesting to hear other people within the administration over the past few days talk about threats and how difficult it is to really get to them before they start to progress, because lone wolves out there, that's what everybody's concerned about.

So, so far, the line from the administration is, well, we're waiting for the investigation, we're participating, we're not going to say that this wasn't serious. We are taking all of these sorts of things seriously.

We heard from the New York press conference, though. It sounded like they were taking such online postings pretty seriously, especially one from the other young man who said that he was willing to go and find a machine gun to target police officers or FBI agents here in the U.S. -- Jake.

TAPPER: Michelle Kosinski at the White House, thank you so much.

These arrests in New York may be just the beginning. Could they reveal even more plots in the works, more plots being perhaps more carefully crafted right here in the United States? The FBI says it is tracking homegrown violent extremists, but wait until you hear just how widespread this problem may be. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

We're going to continue following breaking developments out of New York, three men from Brooklyn apprehended by the FBI. Court documents say two of them were trying to join ISIS, the third one was trying to help them do so. And if those two could not make their way to Syria, they intended to kill police and FBI agents and even aspire to assassinate the president.

Let's go now to CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd. He's a former CIA counterterrorism official. Also with us, Robert McFadden, a former special agent in charge for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Robert, let me start with you.

How serious a threat do you think these guys were?

ROBERT MCFADDEN, FORMER MILITARY INVESTIGATOR: Well, from what we know right now, very serious.

Well done by the FBI, JTTF and all their partners. It sounded like they were all over these three and their cell. I mean, you have human sources or confidential informants, electronic means, tapping into the Internet, so very well done.

But, you know, Jake, the thing that happens right now, I mean, while the high-fives are going on about taking this cell down, the intelligence part of it is going on full-speed ahead. And that's paramount. And you talked about this in the lead-in to the segment, about how important it is to find out how broad or not this cell is. So, that work continues as we speak.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Phil, I don't want to make light of this case. Obviously, we all take it seriously. But if you read the court documents, at least one or two of them don't seem like the sharpest tools in the shed. Now, maybe that's just because these court --

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Come on, Jake.

TAPPER: Maybe that's just because these court documents show how they were caught, but am I wrong for thinking, for maybe not taking them as seriously as I should just because they seem kind of dumb?

MUDD: Look, as we used to say in the business, we don't always catch the smart ones.

But before you discount these guys, you've got to realize that as soon as they access a weapon, as Robert said, at the bureau, if the Joint Terrorism Task Force isn't up on them, and you miss this case and they murder two people, nobody cares anymore how capable they were. They went from wannabes to terrorists in the space of 24 hours.

So, I would agree some of these court documents will reveal and we have seen this for 15 years after 9/11, that the people we catch aren't always the sharpest tools. That doesn't mean they can't murder people. All you got to do is get a weapon.

TAPPER: Fair enough.

Let me ask you, Robert. This is the first time I can recall hearing Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan mentioned in one of these types of cases. Obviously, the threat of Islamic terrorism in Eastern Europe is very real. I guess you combine this with the Tsarnaev brothers, who had roots in Dagestan, it's coming here, too.

MCFADDEN: Look, interesting part about this, I don't want to create any kind of false connection before we know more. However, there is something known as the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan that really essentially received exile in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, upwards of 2,000 were there. They fought next to al Qaeda and the Taliban, for example, against Ahmad Shah Massoud before 9/11. They show up in other places around the world.

Now, granted, these individuals, too young really for that time frame, but there are a number, small but still lethal, that come from Uzbekistan roots that show up in places like Iraq, Syria and even Yemen. First time, though, I'm aware of that ethnicity being part of a recent plot within the United States.

TAPPER: I want you both to take a listen to something that James Comey, the director of the FBI, said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Those people exist in every state. I have home-grown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago, it was 49 states, Alaska had none, which I couldn't quite figure out. But Alaska has now joined the group. So we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Phil, this appears to be, if you talk to law enforcement at least, the new normal.

MUDD: Boy, I tell you, it is. Back early in the days after 9/11, we could focus on a target that was in some ways a bigger threat, that is the strategic target of al Qaeda and the 19 hijackers, a target that had taken down four aircrafts simultaneously.

Back in about 2008 roughly, Jake, I remember saying it's not al Qaeda anymore. It is an al Qaedist revolution, because you started seeing people on college campuses and basements saying this ideology is interesting to me, I have never met an al Qaeda member but I would like to think about joining the organization. We are seeing that again in this case.

The problem, though, is in the past year or two with the dawning of what's happening in Syria and Iraq, the ideology is accelerating once again. So 15 years into it, I would say we don't have the kind of strategic problem we faced in 2002, but we've got a problem that's harder for an intelligence organization because it's so dispersed.

TAPPER: Robert, these court documents are written carefully and for public release, but as you alluded to, there is assuredly a lot the FBI is not telling us about other people that may potentially be involved with this cell or other ones.

MCFADDEN: Yes, that's right. I mean, the ongoing investigation, nothing along those lines will be revealed, of course, because obviously the sensitivity. Typically, though, just some supposition here, though, you have a group of guys, in this case known wolves or wolfpack. More often than not, it's just them. Yes, they may have ties, connections to conduits from Islamic state and other groups, but usually it's confined to the group that has been taken down so far but we'll see.

TAPPER: Robert McFadden and Phil Mudd, thank you both so much. Appreciate it.

The world lead now: a small victory in the war against is. One town no longer in its control. But will this one fight, this one fight, be enough momentum to defeat and destroy the terror group?

Also, snow, ice, sleet, freezing rain. This time, it's the South is getting pounded by a dangerous winter storm, the South. And the worst is yet to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

More now in our world lead today. New video showing ISIS quite literally digging in. Iraqi security forces unearthing what they say are ISIS tunnels, attempts to burrow into the key city of Ramadi. Overnight, the coalition bombing campaign against the terrorists continued in earnest -- nine air strikes in Syria, six in Iraq.

Let's get right to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Barbara, is the coalition making any progress?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Jake, at this point nobody is counting is down and out. The Iraqis making some progress but I think the big question still remains, what comes next on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Iraq says their defense forces have nearly liberated al Baghdadi, the town in western Iraq that ISIS has gripped for weeks. It's just a few miles from the Al Asad Air Base where hundreds of American troops are on a training mission. For now, a victory for Iraqi units.

Just outside Irbil, Italian, German and Dutch troops training front line Peshmerga forces. It's still unclear whether the next big battle will be to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

Amid worry, Iraqi forces still are not ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you go in there and it's going to be tough fighting, and if you lose, or even if you have a stalemate, it looks like victory for is.

STARR: Iraqi forces could first take on ISIS in Western Iraq, which is less populated. But still an area with ISIS threats. A crucial hurdle for Iraqi success, the need to include Shia, Sunni and Peshmerga fighters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's going to be critically important that Baghdad gets its act together, that the Iraqi army gets its act together as a multi-sectarian force.

STARR: Iraqi forces say they blew up the ISIS tunnels fighters were using to reach government buildings in the western city of Ramadi. Elsewhere, ISIS still on a brutal offensive.

Activists are reporting in northern Syria, 150 Christians kidnapped and threatened with execution after ISIS swept through several villages.

Secretary of State John Kerry says ISIS will have to be confronted directly on the ground across Syria.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: A number of countries in the region have spoken of their willingness under the right circumstances to commit troops to that effort.

STARR: In Jordan, the U.S. embassy advising citizens to avoid shopping malls due to quote, "credible threats". As ISIS threats continue to churn online, the Pentagon working on classified efforts to challenge ISIS in cyberspace, tracking its encrypted web and social media accounts.

DR. ARATI PRABHAKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY: That work is just beginning and I think because it's live and we're in a war time situation, we are not -- that's not going to be an area that we can talk about in a lot of detail.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: But back to that ground battle, if it is going to unfold in the coming weeks and if U.S. troops are going to be involved in it on the ground, President Obama is going to need to see a recommendation from the Pentagon in the coming days -- Jake.

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

While all this is happening, we continue to learn more about the three ISIS hopefuls, the men whom the FBI say pledged their lives and their financial resources to the terrorists' mission of creating anarchy here in the United States.

Let's bring in Republican congressman from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger.

Congressman, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R), ILLINOIS: Yes.

TAPPER: So, you -- I want to talk about these three New Yorkers arrested. You had an arrest in your district of somebody accused of trying to bring material support to ISIS. What's going on here? We didn't see this huge group of Americans trying to join al Qaeda. What's going on with ISIS?

KINZINGER: Yes. In Rockford, Illinois, in my district, we had this pretty recently, just a few weeks ago. We didn't have it with al Qaeda because we were defeating al Qaeda. Ever since basically, you know, we knew al Qaeda was in existence prior to 9/11, but it wasn't really a big deal at that point. We had had some terrorist attacks in people's minds but we didn't understand how big of a deal it was.

On 9/11, we woke up to the threat al Qaeda presented to us and went to war against them. And you could argue with the tactics we used and places that we went, but there was no doubt we were killing members of al Qaeda and we were on the offense.

With ISIS right now, the perception, real or not, the president may argue with me, but the perception is we are not winning the war, we are losing territory. And it's just like in Chicago when the Bears are good, everybody's a Bears fan. Right now, when ISIS is appearing to be successful, they are expanding into Libya, then you have folks prone to this kind of jihadism, maybe that haven't actually signed on the dotted line for ISIS yet that at home radicalize themselves and say I want to be part of this successful movement.

TAPPER: Do you think ISIS is defeating the coalition at this point?

KINZINGER: I don't think they are defeating the coalition. But I think they are gaining ground. So there's a lot of areas that the coalition isn't engaged in. Libya, for instance, we are finding out they are joining forces in Libya. They are probably going to expand into Sinai if they haven't already. We are seeing all over North Africa. The other concern now is Afghanistan, as we are withdrawing from Afghanistan, ISIS is making a play to get built in into there.

So, while they're not defeating the coalition they are definitely gaining ground because the coalition I don't think is engaging robustly enough. This is going to be a long term fight. We know that.

But I think frankly, we need to step up our ability to organize our allies like Egypt. We have to call Egypt an ally in this. And probably put some more assets on the ground imbedded with some of the native forces.

TAPPER: Well, we actually -- CNN reported yesterday, the administration is sending to Iraqi troops to fight ISIS -- 10,000 M-16 rifles, 10,000 laser sighted scopes, 200 mine-resistant vehicles or MRAPs -- to prep for this pending offensive. You served with Air Force Special Operations in Iraq. For an undertaking of this size, do you think that's enough or are we going to need to send more?

KINZINGER: It depends. I mean, I can't say I have been in all those detailed negotiations but I think we need to send whatever is necessary. By the way, that, Jake, that includes to the Peshmerga forces. A quarter of a million forces in the Kurdish Peshmerga that are defending a 1,000 kilometer border with ISIS and we are also asking them not just to defend that border, but also now to make gains into ISIS controlled territory.

So, both the Iraqis and the Peshmerga need to be directly armed by us. And we have to ensure with the Iraqi military that we have strong leadership embedded with them, which probably includes American forces, American advisers, because, with strong leadership, the Iraqis will fight. When their leadership melts away, like we saw in Mosul, your average soldier may have been eager to fight, but, if his captain runs away, he is going to run away, too.

TAPPER: Obviously, recruiting has been a big issue. And the West has been stymied at ISIS' ability to bring in recruits. I want you to listen to something that Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier today about ISIS recruits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It's not just kids from Britain. There are several thousand people from Russia. There are multiple hundreds of people from France, from Germany, from Australia. The Australians are in the targets now. This is a spreading cancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The State Department clarified Kerry's remarks, went on to say that the number of Russians in ISIS is in the hundreds, not the thousands.

But if you include former Soviet states, then the number easily exceeds 1,000. The three men arrested today from Uzbekistan and Kazakstan -- the Tsarnaev brothers obviously had family roots in Dagestan. In the wake of the Paris attacks, a lot of attention on Western Europe's ties to ISIS. Does intelligence have enough assets, enough language speakers to deal with the threat in Eastern Europe?

KINZINGER: I would say no.

And I think this has been part of our problem, frankly. We learned this on 9/11, that we rely too much on not HUMINT, human intelligence. And I think even in the last few years, we have seemed to shy away from that. Look, I support the use of drone strikes against terrorists, but sometimes when you do a drone strike against a terrorist, you are unable to capture him and get even more intelligence from that. You don't have the language speakers. That's always been a tough thing.

And so I think we need to step that up. We need to understand, look, military force is going to be important in this. Military force isn't going to solve all this problem. Intelligence plays an extremely important role in that. And, again, showing to the folks that would be bent towards this kind of jihadism that if you join ISIS, it's going to cost you your life, or at least, no matter where you are, your life is at risk.

People start making different calculations at that point.

TAPPER: Congressman Adam Kinzinger, thank you so much.

KINZINGER: Yes. Thank you.