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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Stopping Jihadi John; American Blogger Killed; Missouri Murders; Is U.S. Changing Timeline to Retake Mosul?; Police: Gunman Killed Himself After Rampage

Aired February 27, 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: An American blogger and journalist hacked to death today with a machete.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead. He was a critic of Islam who stood up for free speech abroad, and he was slaughtered with knives and machetes today. His wife was forced to watch him die. The U.S. State Department says he was killed because of his beliefs.

He was middle-class. He was university-educated. He even liked "The Simpsons," but he became a terrorist who sawed the heads off innocent people -- now new details on how British agents may have missed their chance to stop Jihadi John.

And the national lead, a trail of tragedy across rural Missouri. A gunman kills seven people. Authorities still don't know why. We will go there live.

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

Some breaking news right now in our politics lead. Amid what seems like a rash of terrorist threats, in minutes, U.S. lawmakers will vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, funding that will dictate whether or not thousands of workers, people charged with keeping you and me safe, will be put on furlough. The deadline is midnight. We will bring you the results of that vote this hour.

But let's shift now to our world lead, a horrifying story out of Bangladesh. Islamic extremists swore they would murder American blogger Avijit Roy if he ever returned to that country. And today a group of attackers delivered on that threat. They hacked Roy to death with machetes as his wife looked on.

Roy often spoke out for secular freedom and against extremism of any kind, the same kind of written protests that motivated warped terrorists in France to gun down cartoonists at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo." Just hours ago, the U.S. State Department condemned Roy's murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: He was taken from us in a shocking act of violence. This was not just an attack against a person, but a cowardly assault on the universal principles enshrined in Bangladesh's constitution and the country's proud tradition of free intellectual and religious discourse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's now go to CNN's Ravi Agrawal. He's in New Delhi, India.

Ravi, good to see you.

People protesting Roy's murder say that authorities have 24 hours to arrest this band of murderers. The U.S. State Department seems to think that Roy was killed because of his beliefs, because of what he stood for, his blogs. Have police there identified any suspects at all? Have they come up with a motive for this absolutely brutal killing?

RAVI AGRAWAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the motive was clearly to shut this man up.

The police are saying that their list of suspects begins with Roy's Facebook page. About a year ago, Roy wrote a book that was called "The Virus of Faith," and that book was launched at the book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Now, fast forward one year and once again Roy was at the book fair. He walks out of the book fair and he is assassinated. Now, on his Facebook post one year ago, he had all of these death threats from people who were very unhappy with his book. One of those death threats said that Roy was based in America and that's why they couldn't get to him, but they would get him when he came to Bangladesh. It looks like that's come true. And that's what Bangladeshi police are going to be looking out for.

TAPPER: So, Ravi, what's in this book? I think a lot of people watching are not familiar necessarily with Roy, with his blog, with his book. What was he writing about that would have offended anybody?

AGRAWAL: Well, Roy was a critic of Islam. On the one hand, this is a guy who grew up a Muslim in Bangladesh, but he really saw a sort of crisis right at the heart of Islam.

He sort of believed that the very teachings of the Koran, if interpreted in the exact way that they are written, can lead to, you know, people enacting certain things that are incredibly violent. And he writes very candidly about that in his essays and in his book.

Clearly, he really upset a lot of people in Bangladesh. And, remember, Bangladesh is about 90 percent Muslim. So a lot of people there are very upset with his kinds of writings, even though he really sort of came across as a very secular-minded person. He recently wrote about the attack in Paris on "Charlie Hebdo," saying that that was, you know, just a form of religious extremism that needed to stop.

A few weeks later, he's assassinated.

TAPPER: In an assassination that looks very much similar to the "Charlie Hebdo" killings in some way.

I also want to ask you, Ravi, Roy's wife, not only did she watch her husband die in this brutal fashion, but the assailants also left her in critical condition. Do you have any update on how she's doing, if she's expected to survive?

AGRAWAL: Yes, we do.

So, she made it to the hospital alive. She was severely wounded. Remember, this was a machete attack on both of them. But it seems like Roy was the main target and the attackers then ran away. She is injured. We know that she has a severed finger, but we are told by Bangladeshi police that they expect her to survive.

And maybe when she's able to talk about this incident, maybe she will be able to identify some of those attackers.

TAPPER: Ravi Agrawal, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let's bring in CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

Jim, is the Obama administration putting any pressure on the government of Bangladesh to find these killers? They killed an American.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, the State Department has offered to give help if they have been asked. It would be standard since an American citizen has been killed here for U.S. law enforcement to get involved, the FBI, et cetera.

But I'm told that this is a positive relationship between the U.S. and Bangladesh, particularly on extremism issues. In fact, there's a partnership program between two cities of Dhaka and Portland, Oregon, specifically on countering violent extremism. It's a good relationship, not one where you would need to put undue pressure to chase the killers down.

TAPPER: Well, that's good to know.

Jim, let's turn to the other top story today, the ISIS butcher identified as Jihadi John. Long before ISIS was even born, he had connections to the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. He ran with a crowd of extremists. And British intelligence knew about him and had talked to him, interrogated him, but somehow he managed to slip off their radar. This also happened in France with the terrorists who carried out the "Charlie Hebdo" killings.

Are the British acknowledging, as the French did, that they screwed up?

SCIUTTO: They are not acknowledging, but there are certainly very hard questions being asked there both from U.K. lawmakers, but also by many U.K. publications, because it was a number of years that they knew about him going back to 2009. They questioned him multiple times over those years. They even reportedly tried to recruit him as an informant. He

refused, but they possibly missed signals of what he would eventually become.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MOHAMMED EMWAZI, ISIS MEMBER: This knife

SCIUTTO (voice-over): To the outside world, his face is always obscured by his now familiar black mask. But new details show that Mohammed Emwazi, the terrorist known as Jihadi John, was a familiar face to British authorities for more than five years.

The scrutiny began in 2009, when Emwazi was detained in Tanzania on suspicions he intended to travel to Somalia to join the al Qaeda- linked Al-Shabaab. Both British and Dutch investigators interviewed him, say friends, and his then fiancee.

RAFFAELLO PANTUCCI, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: There was a community of people in West London from the late 2000s sort of onward who got very excited about the conflict that was happening in Somalia. And we saw a number of them going out there to fight and some of them rose up to quite senior positions within Al-Shabaab. Mohammed Emwazi seems to have known some of these people.

SCIUTTO: British authorities detained him again in 2010, preventing him from returning to his birthplace, Kuwait. "I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started," Emwazi wrote in a June 2010 e- mail to the Muslim advocacy group CAGE.

In 2011, British court documents obtained by the BBC claim that Emwazi associated with members of an Islamic extremist group that funneled money, fighters and equipment to Somalia. Emwazi was never charged with a rime.

Today, British Prime Minister David Cameron defended Britain's domestic intelligence service, the MI5.

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: In my almost five years' experience of prime minister, I think they are incredibly impressive, hardworking, dedicated, courageous and effective at protecting our country. All of the time, they are having to make incredibly difficult judgments.

SCIUTTO: They make those difficult judgments in the face of daunting numbers. Britain has thousands of suspected jihadis and jihadi sympathizers. And a senior British diplomat tells CNN that the profile of jihadi recruits has expanded to include rich and poor, educated and uneducated, and, more and more, men and women.

Emwazi's case has an alarming parallel to the attacks in Paris. The gunmen who stormed the magazine "Charlie Hebdo," the Kouachi brothers, have been known to French security services for years, and put on, then taken off surveillance only months before their deadly rampage.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SCIUTTO: British authorities lost track of Emwazi in 2013, when, after changing his name to Mohammed al-Ayan, according to his friends, he was stopped again trying to travel to his birthplace in Kuwait. It was several months later that police determined he had indeed traveled to Syria and then it was in August last year that he first appeared in his first of many, sadly, ISIS videos.

TAPPER: All right, Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

Today, law enforcement said we are entering an even more potentially dangerous era of attacks at home.

CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown just sat down with the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder.

He told you he is preoccupied by this threat, especially that of lone wolves.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

And, of course, one of the questions I wanted to ask him was about Mohammed Emwazi, as we were just hearing about the ISIS recruit known as Jihadi John. Holder wouldn't confirm his name, but vowed to spare no resource to find anyone who harms Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, good afternoon.

BROWN (voice-over): Attorney General Eric Holder is vowing to bring to justice at any cost terrorists such as the high-profile ISIS recruit known as Jihadi John.

EMWAZI: You now have 72 hours.

HOLDER: We will find you, we will hunt you down and we will hold you accountable.

BROWN (on camera): but in a war zone like Syria, can you really do that?

HOLDER: Whether it's through the use of our military, through the use of our law enforcement capacity, if you harm Americans, it is the sworn duty of every person in the executive branch to find you and hold you accountable. And we will do that.

BROWN: Do you think that we would go as far as sending in our U.S. troops to find him and hunt him down?

HOLDER: I wouldn't put anything off the table.

BROWN (voice-over): The influence of ISIS here in the U.S. is just one concern for law enforcement. Just last week, terror group Al- Shabaab called for attacks on U.S. shopping malls, like the Mall of America in Minnesota. (on camera): You look at people going through airports, you go

through body scanners., a lot of security. You don't have the same kind of security at the malls. As the nation's top law enforcement official, would you recommend more security at easy targets like malls?

HOLDER: It would be the responsible thing for the operators of these malls to increase their capabilities when it comes to keeping people safe or going just about their normal everyday lives.

BROWN (voice-over): And he says his biggest terrorism concern is another attack on U.S. soil like the Boston bombing.

HOLDER: It is the thing that keeps me up at night, worrying about those lone wolves, those one or two people who, for whatever reason, decide to do something like we saw in Boston, other threats that we have prevented. It's something that gives me great concern.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we learned this week from the FBI director, James Comey, that there are open investigations on homegrown violent extremists in every state. So, I asked Holder if the Justice Department is being more aggressive in prosecuting these types of cases. And he said, yes, that the agency has moved more resources to combat the homegrown threat.

He says the threat landscape has changed pretty dramatically since he took office six years ago, Jake.

TAPPER: Frightening stuff.

Pamela, thank you so much.

It could be the biggest and bloodiest battle against ISIS yet, the fight to reclaim Iraq's second largest city. But can Iraqi forces, the same ones who ran away last time, can they do it without U.S. troops at their side? The future of the fight against ISIS and what it could mean for preventing attacks here at home, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

More now on our world lead. After coming under heavy criticism for revealing plans to launch an all-out offensive against ISIS in the town of Mosul as early as April, today, we are learning the Obama administration may be changing its tune on that timeline.

Let's go live now to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Barbara, what have you learned?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, you know, you remember it was just a few weeks ago that a senior U.S. military official, under orders to brief reporters, told all of us on one of those official Washington background briefings it could be as soon as April or May that Iraqi forces would begin the fight to retake Mosul or whenever they were ready, but they put April out there.

Today, the Pentagon says no date certain on the calendar and in fact, that the newly installed defense secretary, Ash Carter, isn't really even looking at the calendar, that this will happen when the Iraqi forces are ready to do it. But one of the biggest clues about why it's not happening any time soon, a number of things, the U.S., Ash Carter, would have to do to get U.S. troops ready as well. More training for Iraqi forces, more surveillance of Mosul to pick out those ISIS defensive positions, where they want to strike and most importantly, Ash Carter just a few weeks on the job, would have to make a decision about recommending to President Obama whether there should be a small number of U.S. ground troops going along with those Iraqi forces.

Just yesterday, the director of national intelligence, the top intelligence official in this country, said the Iraqi forces are still beset with problems -- Jake.

TAPPER: Barbara Starr, thank you so much.

For more now on the war against ISIS and the terrorist threat in general, let's bring in Admiral James Stavridis. He's the former NATO supreme allied commander. He's dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and also author of the book "The Accidental Admiral: A Sailor Takes Command at NATO."

Admiral, good to see you, as always.

I have been communicating with a soldier in Iraq working on training the Iraqi army as so many thousands of U.S. troops over there are. Here's what he told me. Quote, speaking of the Iraqi troops, "These guys have no discipline or structure. I have no faith in these guys. There is no way they will take back Mosul without U.S. forces forcing them forward."

That sounds pretty pathetic. Is that what you're hearing from your military colleagues?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: I'm hearing an awful lot of concern and it's so tragic in the sense that we poured so much time, energy and money into training the Iraqi security forces. Now, I don't think it's quite as bleak as you are hearing from that particular soldier, and I think the key is, can we sweep up enough competent elements from that old Iraqi security forces to put some thousands together.

I think we probably can. But it's not going to happen tomorrow. This is going to take several months at a minimum. We've got some big decisions ahead.

TAPPER: Why do you think they announced ahead of time that they were going to retake Mosul in April or may and now they are walking it back? That has a gang that couldn't shoot straight quality to it. STAVRIDIS: I think it was a mistake. Putting it out there, the only

rationale I can think of is that you're trying to build a sense of narrative, momentum, but I think it's backfired and also, it lands on top of the new secretary of defense who needs time to take a breath, to be briefed, to understand what's going on before he makes coherent recommendations. So, I think it was a mistake.

TAPPER: ISIS making a lot of moves that seem specifically aimed at making this war a bigger war, going after those Christians from Egypt, burning alive the Jordanian pilot. Now they have kidnapped 220 Christians. Do you think they are trying to make this a bigger, broader regional war, bringing in other countries? Is that what their aim is?

STAVRIDIS: I think first and foremost, Jake, this is how they put fuel in the car, by being the biggest, the baddest, the most evil, the smashers of the idols and the icons, the burners of the prisoners, the rapers of women. This is how they entice other people, as sick as that is, to come join this cause.

I think reason number one is to continue that flow of jihadis. Reason number two, your point, it fuels a broader war, broader conflagration. I think they see opportunity in that.

TAPPER: Let's talk about Jihadi John. We learned his identity this week, Mohammed Emwazi. We heard the attorney general earlier talking about how he wants to get him.

How realistic is that given how little intelligence we have on the ground in Syria?

STAVRIDIS: I think it is realistic over time that we can find him, as we did bin Laden eventually, who was maybe the toughest and most elusive target. But it's not going to happen quickly and you make the point that is the correct one, which is we have got to get boots on the ground. We have to get eyes in the problem and we are going to have to do it in Syria, especially if we are going to go after people like Jihadi John.

TAPPER: Has there been progress in getting intelligence assets into Syria that maybe the Pentagon and State Department aren't talking about?

STAVRIDIS: I think that's correct. Particularly this was a mistake on the part of the ISIS, when you burn a Jordanian pilot, Jordan really steps up. Those are the Arab countries who can get in there and cooperate with us and provide us those eyes on the ground to take on targets like Jihadi John. So, big mistake on the part of ISIS.

TAPPER: Is there more cooperation going on from the Arab countries that we do not know about? Because obviously, they are the ones, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, they are the ones in the direct line of fire from this horrific group.

STAVRIDIS: I think there is a fair amount of visible work going on that we see, the strikes that the Arab air forces are undertaking, but I think below the surface, yes, there's a lot of help. We talked about intelligence. I think finances, we are seeing the Arab governments, particularly the Gulf States, go after the finances and really, that's I think the midterm thing that they can do the best is cut off the financing to this group.

TAPPER: Admiral Stavridis, thank you so much. Always good to see you. Thank you for coming by.

STAVRIDIS: Always a pleasure.

TAPPER: Door-to-door massacre in Missouri. When it was over, eight people were dead. And now, police are combing through six different crime scenes to try to figure out the big question here. Why? How one girl's phone call may help answer a lot of questions.

Plus, any minute now, the vote that could be a short term fix to fund the Department of Homeland Security. That's a live look at the house floor. We'll monitor the number coming in from the Hill. Will it be enough to prevent a shutdown?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Some breaking news now on THE LEAD. Right now, you're looking at law makers voting on whether or not to fund the Department of Homeland Security. This is funding that will dictate whether or not thousands of workers, people charged with keeping the nation safe, will or will not be put on furlough. The deadline for some sort of solution to this problem is midnight. We will bring you the results of that vote when they come in. They have just started to vote, so no conclusion yet.

Welcome back to THE LEAD. The national lead now, it is in every sense of the word a massacre. We are just getting new information from police on the gunman who went on a door-to-door shooting spree in a small town in Missouri, murdering at least seven people before killing himself. We now have his name and we know he was related to at least a few of the victims.

Joining us now live from Tyrone, Missouri, is Kathy Sweeney. She is from our affiliate KFVS.

Kathy, thanks for joining us.

What do we know about the shooter? Who was he?

KATHY SWEENEY, KFVS REPORTER: Jake, the shooter has been identified as 36-year-old Joseph Aldridge. He lived a few miles down the road in Tyrone. We are actually in Houston, Missouri, at the Texas County Justice Center where the sheriff just had a news conference a short time ago.

Aldridge lived with his mother, 74-year-old Alice Aldridge. She is the elderly woman authorities say was found dead of natural causes in one of the residences. And again, six crime scenes, very confusing, four victims identified right now as Aldridge's cousins, two married couples also living close by, in fact, all the victims lived within a three-mile radius of each other.

Now, there is no word on the identity of the three other victims. We are told they are not related to the suspect, Joe Aldridge. But again, as the sheriff pointed out, this is a community of 50 people. Everybody knew everybody.

So, there is some kind of connection between Aldridge and those other three victims but authorities just aren't saying what it is right now. And there is a female victim shot and not killed. She is expected to be OK -- Jake.

TAPPER: Kathy Sweeney live for us in Tyrone, Missouri, thank you so much for that.

Let's now talk to Sergeant Jeff Kinder. He's the public information officer for the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He joins us on the phone.

Thank you so much for joining us. What more can you tell us about the shooter? The county coroner told "The St. Louis Post Dispatch" that perhaps finding his mother dead, even of natural causes may have set the gunman off. Is that the working theory now on possible motive?

SGT. JEFF KINDER, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL (via telephone): You know, we are examining a lot of different avenues now. I hadn't heard that, but, you know, I guess that probably is a motive (ph).