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iDesk
Latest ISIS Fighting in Syria; Pakistan's Deadly Heat Wave; Tainted Meat Seized in China
Aired June 25, 2015 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LYNDA KINCADE, ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT, CNN INTERNATIONAL, ATLANTA: Hello, and welcome to the International Desk. I'm Lynda Kincade at the CNN
Center.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
We begin in Syria where ISIS has launched two attacks, one in the Syrian city of Kobani and another at a smaller city near the Turkish border.
Witnesses say many civilians have lost their lives. The attacks come in the wake of recent losses by the militants in their stronghold province of
Raqqa. According to a Kurdish official, ISIS infiltrated Kobani from the east and west and also set off two vehicles bombs near the border with
Turkey.
Analysts say the attacks look like an effort to divert the attention of Kurdish forces from Raqqa.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
Let's go to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh now. He's watching developments in Syria from nearby Lebanon. Nick, it appears in the first attack that the
terrorists may have disguised themselves as Kurdish fighters to sneak into Kobani. What can you tell us about that?
NICK PATON WALSH, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN INTERNATIONAL, BEIRUT: One Kurdish official is telling us that in fact the opening scenes
this morning, when those ISIS militants infiltrated Kobani, were residents expressing shock that the men they had seen dressed in YPG (ph), that's
Kurdish military groups, fighting groups, their uniforms, in fact began opening fire upon on them.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
In fact this Kurdish official is saying eyewitnesses have told him that, in fact, some of these individuals had gone around knocking on doors, speaking
in Kurdish, telling people to come out into the street. So he described a substantial loss of life as these men opened fire, these ISIS militants
that is, disguised as Kurkish fighters.
And at the same time two -- or preceding it -- there were two vehicle bombs that detonated in that particular city. Closed circuit television shows
what looks like a white truck, pretty close to the border area, detonating one device, I'm told two. There was a motorcycle perhaps used as well.
There's been a lot of debate as to quite how these vehicle devices got into the city, suggestions they may have crossed in from Turkey. That's been
thoroughly denied by the Turkish. In fact too considered unlikely by the Kurdish official I spoke to.
Bear in mind the geography there extraordinary flat, open terrain. Entirely possible they could have got in those areas entirely on the Syrian
side of the border. The Turkish side is pretty well fortified, perhaps even more so since the decisive win there by the Kurds inside Kobani. But
the Turkish Foreign Ministry referring to 63 wounded treated on the Turkish side. Obviously here ISIS trying to show they are able to set conditions
and take Kurdish civilian lives at will. Linda.
KINCADE: And ISIS militants are reportedly trying to prepare for a Kurdish defensive in Raqqa. Is there much to those reports?
WALSH: Well the theory had been that now there's been a substantial move by the Kurds across northern Syria -- they took Kobani last year, or reheld
Kobani, I should say, cleared ISIS out of it -- they have just moved into Tal Abyad, which has been held by ISIS for some time. It is a direct route
north from what ISIS call the capital of caliphate, Raqqa, and a key part of their supply route for getting fighters and things into Raqqa to
continue what they refer to as to save their caliphate. Now they taken Tal Abyad. The thought perhaps was they would take further towns south from
there and perhaps begin to harass or threaten the capital of Raqqa. There are some who perhaps see this morning's move toward Hasakah, where they're
attacking Syrian regime targets, as a separate fight but one still interlinked because they are in often Kurdish-held areas.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
And the attack this morning against Kabani as a bid, like ISIS often does, to show that it can set the conditions on the battlefield, it can choose
where it fights, it can surprise its enemies and, perhaps more immediately here, that it's able to distract the Kurds from any more immediate or
longer-term goal they may have to try and pressure Raqqa. Of course this is so vital, both symbolically and operationally for ISIS. Linda.
KINCADE: And as the Kurdish forces creep towards, does it seem that ISIS fighters are
getting nervous? Is this why, is this why we're seeing these sorted isolated, symbolic attacks elsewhere?
WALSH: Well I can't speak for the sense of mood amongst ISIS fighters, also they're very distant to Western media. But the key issue I think is
they like to show when they make obvious losses in territory that are able to push back in different directions. An analogy was made, I think by a
U.S. official once, they're like a shark moving forward. They have to constantly be on the move to stay alive, to breathe in fact almost.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
It isn't clear what the internal dynamics in ISIS are now. They had that very symbolic win in Ramadi where that took that key Iraqi Sunni city just
in the past few months. They are clearly losing ground to Kurds in the north. They are on the receiving end of coalition air strikes on a daily
basis. But at this stage, there is no obvious sign, apart from that constant change of territory, that we're seeing a definitive down curve in
ISIS momentum at this stage, Linda.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KINCADE: OK, we'll have to leave it there for now. Nick Paton Walsh in Beirut, Lebanon. Thank you very much.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
The heat wave in Pakistan has reached a heartbreaking milestone. More than 1,000 people have died in Sindh province and the country's largest city of
Karachi is at the end of its tether. People are dying so fast and in such great numbers morgues cannot keep up. More than 600 bodies have been
brought into this facility in just a few days. And power outages mean the refrigeration system is not working. And not far from that morgue is a
graveyard in Karachi where of the victims of this heat wave have been buried. Saima Mohsin went there and spoke to a grave digger who says he's
working day and night.
SAIMA MOHSIN, CORRESPONDENT, CNN, BANGKOK: At one of the city's central graveyards there's no room for the dead. Mohamed (inaudible) is a grave
digger here. He's struggling to find places to bury people, carving out this thin sliver of soil between two graves, to bury someone's loved one.
MOHAMED (inaudible), GRAVE DIGGER, PAKISTAN (through translator): The situation here in on the brink, he tells me. There's just no room and
we're scraping out bits of land on the edges to find somewhere, anywhere. With hundreds dying, we have to find somewhere for them to be buried.
MOHSIN: He sounds dejected and defeated. Now people are opening up old graves and burying their dead them.
MOHAMED (through translator): "I bury eight to 10 people a day and I'm working day and night, 24 hours."
MOHSIN: As we walk through the cemetery, I notice how cool it is. It's a gift of the trees, he says, salvation from the sun. In fact we found
several elderly people seeking shelter here, a bizarre place to find refuge, some struggling to breathe in the heat. Splash water on your face
on your face, he says, splash water or you'll die. This graveyard is one of the closest to the hospitals and the morgue where patients and the dead
are taking over. There's no room for them there and there's no room to find a final resting place here.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KINCADE: That was Saima Mohsin reporting there.
In China a roughly half a billion dollars' worth of smuggled meat has been seized in a month-long crackdown. Some of the meat seized in a recent raid
was rotting and one frozen batch was said to be more than 40 years old. Ivan Watson reports on this from Beijing.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
IVAN WATSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN INTERNATIONAL, BEIJING: Butchers here, as you can see, are making kabobs and they've been
telling me that their meat is fresh and safe and they don't do any tricks like adding water to beef which, he says, some other people do to try to
raise the weight and try to make more money off of sales. Now we're here in this popular Beijing market because another food safety scandal has
rocked this country and created some real outrage. And the details of it are frankly very revolting. You've had customs agents who conducted raids
in at least 14 different provinces across the country. They have confiscated more than a 100,000 tons of frozen meat which they say is not
safe, and they've arrested more than 20 people that they say were involved in smuggling unsafe and, in some cases, rotting meat. Now some of the
customs agents, they discovered that some of the meat is believed to be older than the customs agents themselves, some of it dating back to the
1970s.
WOMAN (through translator): I don't feel good about this. The meat is on your dinner table. Was there any inspection at all? Think about it. We
could be eating bad meat.
WATSON: This isn't the first time that Chinese have learned about a really disturbing food safety scandal. The worst of them probably took place in
2008 when it was discovered that a chemical called Melamine was being added to baby formula, to babies' milk. Thousands of children got sick, at least
six infants believed to have died as a result of this. Now the Chinese legislature, it has passed a new law that will go into effect in October,
and it's supposed to make more strict penalties for people who add inedible substances to food. But in the meantime, this latest scandal involving 40-
year-old rotting meat, well, that's only going to further shake confidence that people have in the food that they serve on their dinner tables and the
food that they eat in restaurants. Ivan Watson, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
KINCADE: Still to come, a plane crash last weekend that left scattered debris and the pilot dead, but a passenger and her baby were nowhere to be
found until now.
We've got some breaking news in the U.S. at the Supreme Court. We're going to join CNN U.S.A.
(CNN DOMESTIC SIMULCAST)
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