Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Airstrikes in Syria Overnight

Aired September 23, 2014 - 04:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We do have major breaking news this morning. The U.S. launching airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria overnight. We have some brand new details just in.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. We want to welcome to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

The military officials saying the targets hit were mainly in the ISIS strong hold of Raqqa and mostly buildings and other so-called hard targets. The aim here, to degrade ISIS command and control, its resupply and its training facilities. Now, the airstrikes represent a significant escalation of the terror group. That campaign has so far confined mainly to targets in Iraq.

BERMAN: Now, the strikes overnight begun with the sea launched tomahawk missiles, 47 of them, followed up by bombers, fighter jets, drones. The U.S. is not alone in launching these airstrikes. The American military officials say the partner nations involved in the airstrikes are Arab countries. They include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar.

Now, Qatar is involved in the strikes. We do not believe they were actually dropping bombs but are involved in the operation. We have complete coverage.

Let's start with senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns.

And, Joe, we have new information from CentCom about the scope of these strikes.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. And this is just the beginning of what is expected to be a long campaign.

The latest information from Central Command, this was a mix of fighter, bomber, drone, or remotely piloted aircraft and tomahawk land attack missiles conducting 14 strikes against ISIS targets. The Pentagon says the strikes destroyed or damaged multiple targets in the area of Raqqa, Dayr az Zawr, Al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal. The targets included ISIS fighters, training compounds, headquarters, and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armored vehicles.

They used a total of 27 tomahawk missiles launched from USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Philippine Sea, as well as fighter airplanes from the Air Force, Navy and Marines. Remotely piloted aircraft and bombers as well. The U.S. said the allies from Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE participated in those airstrikes, we're told, all aircraft safely exited the strike area.

Separately, CentCom says, and this is very interested, the United States apparently has also taken action to disrupt the imminent attack, they call it, plotting against the United States and Western interests conducted by a network of seasoned al Qaeda veterans, sometimes referred to as the Khorasan group who established a safe haven in Syria to develop external attacks, construct and test and improvised explosive devices and recruit Westerners to conduct operations.

Those strikes, CentCom says, were undertaken only by U.S. assets and U.S. Central Command says they conducted a total of eight strikes against the Khorasan group and those targets were west of Aleppo, including training camps and explosives and munitions production facilities, communications building and command and control facility. So, a very, very busy night for the United States and allies in that area -- John and Christine.

BERMAN: Very busy, indeed, Joe. As you see, the eight strikes against Khorasan, that's near Aleppo, all the way in the western part of the country coupled with 14 strikes against ISIS. Not just centered in Raqqa, but three cities as well. This is a significant operation. Again, not to mention allies and Arab nations involved in the strikes as well.

JOHNS: Right. An enormous swath as you can see in the country trying to make a statement in the early days and hours of this campaign in Syria.

So, the United States says it is only the beginning. But they certainly made a statement.

BERMAN: All right. Joe Johns, we will check back with you in a little bit because this information is coming in frequently. We are getting updates, throughout the morning. So, our thanks to you, Joe.

ROMANS: All right. Let's move to our reporters in the region now.

CNN's Arwa Damon live this morning for us in Turkey. She is right in the border with Syria where she's been covering the refugee crisis setoff by the advance of ISIS forces in Syria.

Arwa, what is the latest there?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, before we start with what's happening around me, let's go with some information that we have from an activist that CNN spoke to that is inside Raqqa City, in and of itself. He was saying that he himself personally welcomed these airstrikes,

that he would dance in the streets, but that he was too afraid, because ISIS had by and large evacuated a lot of these buildings that the U.S. targeted, and they had begun, he was saying, to take over people's homes, really embed themselves within the civilian population. He did also however say that he went to the market and claimed to have seen some ISIS fighters killed some wounded close to one of the hospitals.

Now, around me is one of the border crossings that the Turks had opened up in the last few days because of ISIS' advances, significant advances, into the northern part of Syria, the Kurdish part of Syria, rapidly taking over a series of villages.

There are right now a few hundred refugees waiting to cross on the other side. We can see them. This is about as far as the Turkish authorities will allow us to go at this stage. The border crossing has been slowed, up until now. We are told to expect it to reopen very shortly. As refugees come across, they are being issued identification, and children also vaccinated.

Turkey has really struggled along with the various international aid organizations to try to deal with the scope of this sheer volume of refugees coming across. The U.N. and Turks authorities saying that they registered at least 130,000 so far. The Syrian Conservatory for Human Rights putting that number up as high as 200,000.

Now, we also spoke with a Syrian Kurdish official inside the town of Kobani. That is the last town in this area that ISIS has taken over that has managed to stand against them. They had received some reinforcements from Kurdish Turks, or rather Turkish Kurds who had gone along to fight against them. They said they managed to make gains along the eastern and western fronts before the U.S. airstrikes begun. Once the U.S. airstrikes have begun, the southern front, where they were losing ground to ISIS fighters, they believe they will be able to make gains there as well in the upcoming hours.

ROMANS: So, Arwa, a lot made of the coalition that the partners that the United States has in this military -- this military campaign against is in Syria, Turkey not among them. Explain to us the significance of that. Up until last night, Turkey was feverishly negotiating the release of the hostages held by ISIS.

DAMON: Right. And Turkey has been saying it was reluctant to join the coalition exactly because of the fact that ISIS had 49 Turkish hostages. Amongst them senior diplomats and their families who had been living in Mosul. And only this weekend were they able to negotiate their release. Exactly how that transpired, unclear, at this stage.

But Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, coming out on Sunday, saying, now that the hostages released, they did feel as if they could possibly take a more aggressive stance against ISIS. It is unclear the role Turkey can play.

We did also hear from an individual who is part of the smuggling rings, the foreign fighter smuggling rings from Turkey into Syria. CNN speaking to him a few days ago. He was saying in the last few months since the U.S. airstrike campaign began against ISIS in Mosul, that Turkey had also made it much more difficult for foreign fighters to transit across the border. But Turkey, along with other key players in the region, can continue to play a very vital and significant role.

In all of this, it is important to remember this is not a battle that is going to be won by military force alone. The root cause that ISIS type of radical ideology is thriving and nourished needs to be addressed as well.

So, while the U.S. is building the coalition of Arab nations standing alongside it, key countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt are going to have to try to get their clergy, their Islamic clergy, because that is the birthplace of the Wahhabi ideology, the Salafi ideology, to try to stand up to give these young radical Muslims an alternative to ISIS, so that we don't see more young people flocking toward ISIS, because that organization is going to try to play this as being the crusaders, the infidels targeting Islam.

ROMANS: All right. Arwa Damon for us in the border, right there on the border with Syria -- thank you, Arwa.

BERMAN: Just bring you all up to speed, the air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria have begun overnight. Fourteen separate strikes involving 47 tomahawk missiles, as well as aircraft, drones, fighters and bombers.

I want to bring in our CNN military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

Colonel, thank you so much for being with us.

As you look at the scope of these strikes overnight, 14 strikes against ISIS targets, not just in Raqqa, but other cities as well, combined with eight separate strikes against this Khorasan group, all the way in the other parts of the country. What strikes you about the scope of this operation?

COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Pretty wide ranging. The Khorasan part kind of surprised me. I think it surprised a lot of people when they heard the announcement from CentCom.

The other targets make perfect sense. The Euphrates Valley, all the way from Raqqa, down to the border, Dayr az Zawr, important city on the Euphrates. Hasakah up in the north.

So, these are the targets they need to hit. So, they hit the command and control and storage facilities. The targets they knew about and it was good to do it now because ISIS has already started to disperse all of these assets.

So, they were able to catch them probably before they moved them, and it's important to do that. Also, they probably went after where they think these guys are

staying. There have been a lot of drone activity around Raqqa in the past few days, and drones are really good at finding people. If they could find where, say, Abu Baghdadi --

BERMAN: The leader.

FRANCONA: -- the leader, is sleeping, wouldn't that be nice at 2:00 a.m.

ROMANS: So, tell us what an operation like this looks like. First of all, there has been this intelligence for a period of days and weeks now, and then you got tomahawk missiles which cleared the way. And then you got fighter jets that are dropping. Tell us what the stage is looking like here.

FRANCONA: You're right. The first thing is the land, the two lands, the tomahawk landed missiles because if they're not manned. If you lose one of those, it's not that big of a deal. So, you use that to take out the power.

They probably knocked down the power initially. It is back up now. That area has a lot of hydroelectric power generation capability. So, you take the power down and it takes down any communications and air defense they might have. And then you follow that up with a package.

Now, normally, you would bring in what's called SEAD aircrafts, the suppression of enemy air defense. And that would be used to put down any air defenses that might come up against you. I'm sure there were some of those, but there are really are no Syrian air defenses in this part of the country, because the Syrians have congregated their entire air defense network against Israel.

So, this is kind of open skies, although there's a lot of anti- aircraft artillery, which is very dangerous. So, you have to fly above that.

Then, you bring in the strike package just to drop the bombs. That's the payload.

BERMAN: We should note U.S. officials received no resistance from Syrian forces or anti-aircraft.

FRANCONA: From the Syrians.

BERMAN: From the Syrians. That's what they said. They also said they did not give a head's up to the regime of Bashar al Assad.

ROMANS: The Syrians say otherwise.

BERMAN: The Syrians say otherwise.

I want to talk about --

FRANCONA: Who will you believe?

BERMAN: That's always the question here.

I want to talk about the coalition now involved in these air strikes. Five Arab nations, along with the United States -- we are talking about Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and also Qatar is not involved in the air strikes per se but in a support role.

FRANCONA: Astounding.

BERMAN: Why?

FRANCONA: I just didn't expect it. I thought this was going to be an American operation and we were not going to be able to convince any of our Arab allies to drop bombs on another Arab country, particularly another Sunni country.

BERMAN: Why is this significant?

FRANCONA: Arabs have the habit of not dropping bombs on each other at the behest of the West. And we did not to portray this as a Western operation. Once again, the West bombing Syria as Arwa put it, crusaders attacking the nation of Islam.

So, it's very important to have the Arabs on our side to do this. And not just one country, but five. This was a major victory for the administration. They said they were going to put together a coalition and they did it.

ROMANS: It speaks volumes about the threat of ISIS and how ISIS is different than what we've seen before.

FRANCONA: What will be important is in the next few days to see the popular reaction in the Arab countries. We know what the government said. We want to see what the people say. If the people back up their governments, I think that we may have turned the corner and people realize how bad of a threat this organization is.

BERMAN: All right. Colonel Rick Francona, great to have you here with us. We will check back in with you.

ROMANS: Coming up, much more on our breaking coverage of those airstrikes in Syria. We're going to go live to another country in the region battling these terrorists -- ISIS terrorists. A live report from Iraq in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Welcome back. We continue now with breaking coverage of the big story overnight, the U.S. and Arab allies launching airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. Missiles, bombers, fighter jets, drones, all hitting targets in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, and elsewhere in Syria. It is a significant expansion of the battle against this Islamic militant group, that the president warned ISIS about in a speech earlier this month.

Until now, the airstrikes against the terror group have been confined to Iraq. But now, you got these strikes in Syria, several locations in Syria.

CNN's Anna Coren is live in Irbil. She is in Iraq for us this morning where the ISIS threat has first been felt so, so keenly.

And we know, Anna, that ISIS has been able to cross back into Syria and regroup. It has been led by recruitment and training and by supplies coming from Raqqa. This is a significant expansion.

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, without a doubt. It is a real step up in this war against ISIS. As you say, the border between Syria and Iraq. Not recognized by ISIS. It is porous. This is their Islamic state, the caliphate as far as they're concerned, and their de facto capital is Raqqa in Northern Syria. That's obviously pounded by 50 strikes conducted by the United States and those Arab nations, taking out buildings and important infrastructure to ISIS.

But, Christine, as we know, these air strikes are not going to win the fight. Here in Iraq, there have been carrying out for some six weeks. That's how long the air strikes have been going on for. And there have been 190 to date according to U.S. Central Command, plus those several French airstrikes over the weekend.

Yes, they have contained ISIS, but they haven't pushed them back substantially. Or we have not seen ISIS scouring off retreating. This is where the problem lies. And I think the difference, too, Christine, is that there are actually troops on the ground. We have Peshmerga and Kurdish forces, as well as the Iraqi security forces.

Yes, there are questions over their capability, but certainly at least you do have boots on the ground. In Syria, you don't. You have the Kurdish militia currently fighting with the ISIS militants around Kobani, the area we've seen the flood of refugees, some 200,000 refugees crossing into Turkey. But, other than that, you have a bunch of rebel groups fighting each other.

You have al Qaeda and you have is and the Syrian military. As far as having a military presence or Syria, they don't have it. They will train up the moderate rebels over the coming months. That will take time.

You know, President Obama's strategy was never going to be perfect. But it's not going to be achieved by airstrikes alone -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Anna Coren for us this morning in Irbil, Iraq -- thank you so much for that, Anna.

BERMAN: And it will be interesting to see if his new round of bombing against ISIS targets in Syria disrupts perhaps the flow and coordination in Iraq where Anna was just standing.

Coming up, we have more of the breaking news coverage of the first U.S. airstrikes in Syria against these ISIS targets. An unusually large broad coalition of Arab nations joining in this. We will go live to one of those nations. The UAE involved in this operation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: All right. Our breaking news: the United States and several Arab nations now carrying out airstrikes in Syria against ISIS. Now, these strikes focused on Raqqa, which is the de facto capital of the ISIS's self-declared Islamic State, but also three other Syrian cities as well.

It began with tomahawk missiles -- 47 launched from the sea against the Sunni extremists, followed by bombers, fighters, drones. The sites hit a building in the governor's compound, a post office, recruitment center. Also Humvees, troops were also targeted. No word at this point on casualties.

One of the big story lines we're following, the size of this coalition, at least five Arab nations involved in the strikes.

Our Becky Anderson is inside one of these nations, in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

God morning, Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.

It is fascinating to see these five nations confirmed by U.S. CentCom this morning as having participated in or supported the actions against ISIL in the past few hours. Who are they? Well, one is the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, where we are here. Saudi, Bahrain and then you got Qatar, a country that is at odds with the other three of late. They have been hosting as you are well aware, the Muslim Brotherhood and rise of that. That has been upsetting the other three nations who are involved.

But that seems to be bandaged at present. We are not sure how Qatar is involved. We'll find out in the hours to come.

The last country is Jordan. I can tell you I already spoken to the minister of state there. He has confirmed that Jordan has flown air strikes over Syria and their planes are back safely. They say their own territory has been infiltrated by ISIS, and with that, they decided to get out and support this U.S.-led coalition.

It is absolutely crucial and critical we underline just how important these nations are in getting on board with this U.S.-led coalition. You have been talking about that over the past hours or so.

Sunni Arab support from the five nations against a group who is fighting in the name of Sunni Islam. That being is, of course. I know you have been discussing whether the governments reflect the will of the people here in the region.

Let me give you a sense of how things feel here. If this is a quick -- a very brief and quick and effective operation -- I think you will retain the support of people, certainly here in the UAE and Saudi and Bahrain.

As I say, it has been a real concern about the rise of extremist violence here. Not least through the Muslim Brotherhood who have been hosted of late in Qatar which caused a rift. This is brief, quick and effective, then I think that the U.S. will retain the will of the people.

If it goes on longer and more get involved, the likes of Iran covertly or overtly perhaps, then I think things might change a bit. We are yet, John, to find out exactly how, for example, UAE is involved. There are many bases to be used by the U.S. here, the Persian Gulf here on the border. Saudis already said they will train militarily and technically these Syrian moderate fighters.

We are getting the flesh on the bones as it were through the day, but fascinating to see those who have signed on and is crucial as you pointed out. The will of the people is reflected by the governments here against the group fighting in the name of Islam that these majority populations.

BERMAN: All right. Becky Anderson for us in Abu Dhabi, a capital of one of these nations -- now part of the crucial and fascinating coalition involved in airstrikes against ISIS. Thanks, Becky.

ROMANS: All right. Coming up, more on our breaking coverage on these air strikes in Syria, airstrikes in Syria. Details on how the operation is being carried out in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)