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Mother Pleads with ISIS to Release Son; New Information on American Jihadist; USC Player Fabricated Heroic Story; 15-Year-Old Catherine Bellis Youngest to Win A U.S. Open Match

Aired August 28, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Christiane, based on your conversations with people in the administration here and also on the ground in Syria, where do things stand?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, mostly based on my conversations with the players on the ground in Syria, I have been told by the new leader of Syrian moderate opposition forces, the Free Syrian Army, FSA, that in May, in this spring, this past spring, they went to Washington. They spoke to President Obama and members of his Cabinet. They spoke to Congress. They tell me that they warned explicitly of the rise of ISIS, of the threat of ISIS and they asked explicitly for help.

They said they were not given a particular understanding -- they were not given what they hoped they would be given and that is the equipment to fight, and they felt also they weren't taken seriously.

I understand also, and there are reports, that other delegations of the moderate opposition have been talking to other members of the U.S. administration, including the U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power.

Again, nothing came of it until ISIS took territory in Iraq and has now carved out this massive terrorist state, and of course, until they committed this barbaric act of publicly executing and beheading James Foley.

So now the administration and its Western allies and allies in the region are facing a conundrum, facing not just a group of insurgents. Analysis says and experts say that these is people are not just a bunch of fanatic insurgents.

They are kind of like an army right now in Syria and Iraq, and they are having their ranks swell and the expertise of former Iraqi army officials under Saddam Hussein, and experts say they are conducting themselves as well as this fanaticism that we're seeing.

But on the ground like an army, with a structure, and that is very, very difficult to counter, and it's going to take a very coordinated counter strategy by the United States and its allies.

BERMAN: They have a military structure, a financial structure, a pseudo governmental structure. That's what the world is facing right now. Christiane Amanpour, thanks so much. We're going to talk to you again

in a little bit. You can watch "AMANPOUR" on CNN International weekdays at 2:00 and 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

So new information about American ISIS fighter, Douglas McCain, how long did authorities really know about his association to ISIS? We'll tell you about the latest findings about McCain's past.

Plus this is an unbelievable story, a football star's bizarre web of lies exposed. Days ago, he said he was a hero. Now he says his heroic tale was all made up. We'll have the details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: New information this morning on Douglas McCain. He is the American citizen turned ISIS fighter. We're learning when he first caught the attention of U.S. intelligence and the path he took to extremist Jihad. Dan Simon tells us about McCain's past.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: American Jihadi fighter Douglas McAuthor McCain first crossed investigator radar in the early 2000's. What attracted his attention is his association with other people with radical beliefs, one a high school classmate who died in Somalia fighting alongside Al Shabaab militants in 2009.

The FBI in Minnesota, McCain's home state, says Jihadi recruiters have taken a vast of interest in their troubled youths.

KYLE LOVEN, FBI SPOKESPERSON: The recruiters are very aware that they have a pool of potential travelers here in Minneapolis.

SIMON: Still, no indication then that McCain, who studied Arabic at San Diego City College, was involved in anything nefarious. According to law enforcement, he seemed to radicalize gradually in the years since converting from Christianity to Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He grew to have like really strong Muslim beliefs. I know his religion was very important to him, but those people -- the ISIS people, they don't -- they don't represent what my cousin's beliefs are.

SIMON: Despite being on a terror watch list, U.S. authorities did not discover McCain was headed to the Middle East until after he arrived, and exactly how and why he became radicalized bewilders those who knew the 33-year-old.

While living in San Diego, McCain worked for a program assisting people with disabilities. Justin Filley was one of McCain's clients at the program where two years he says McCain help him with day-to-day activities and spent time with him.

JUSTIN FILLEY, FRIEND OF DOUGLAS MCCAIN: He was just a genuine fun guy, you know. We would do like fun things together, hang out. SIMON: Filley says they became close, but lost touch after McCain told him that he was going back to Minnesota. Eventually he was unable to reach him.

FILLEY: Just a scary picture to imagine, you know. I miss him a lot, and it's kind of sad right now.

SIMON: Now he and others are deeply puzzled about what would cause a one-time care provider to fight for a terrorist group.

Dan Simon, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Our thanks to Dan for that. A lot of questions still remaining about Doug McCain.

All right, let's give you a look at your headlines at 7:39 in the East. The Israeli military has closed the area around its border crossing with Syria after being seized by Syria rebels backed by al Qaeda-linked fighters. It had within under control under the Assad regime. This raises concerns about the conflict widening in the region.

The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution concerning the intense fighting in Libya and is demanding an immediate cease- fire. The Security Council's resolution includes sanctions against those involved in the violence between rival militias. Libya's ambassador to the U.N. called the resolution a milestone, but has also warned of a full-blown civil war.

A search-and-rescue mission is under way for the pilot of a fighter jet that crashed yesterday in Virginia. The Air Force National Guard F-15 went down in a rugged area of the George Washington National Forest on Wednesday morning. The plane was headed for Massachusetts to Louisiana when the pilot reported some sort of in-flight emergency. They are still looking for that pilot now.

The sister of Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzokhar Tsarnaev has been arrested for an alleged bomb threat against a woman in New York City. Ailina Tsarnaev is charged with aggravated harassment. Police say she phoned in a threat to a woman who is said to be her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend saying, quote, "I know people who can put a bomb on you." This young woman is due back in court on the 30th of September.

CAMEROTA: That family continues to fascinate me, I must say. Three homicidal violent children. What's going on in that house?

PEREIRA: I do not know. That's an interesting twist.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's get over to meteorologist, Indra Petersons. She has some amazing video out of California where the surf is up -- Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: People keep talking about California, yes, they get surf. Not like this. Talking about a category 5, Marie out in the water. Look at the surfs, 25 feet high with the surfers propelling and diving off of the top of this.

This is known as the wedge right out towards Newport Beach if you're familiar with that area. This is unbelievable. Even some of the most experiences surfers around the world were struggling with this strong waves out there.

Keep in mind it's also damaging, not all fun and games. Look at pier out towards Vatalina Island and boats overturned as well as vehicles. That is the concern as we go towards the holiday weekend.

We still have Marie and Cristobal out there so both coasts do have the threat for the strong wind currents as well as that high surf and now even a tropical disturbance is developing here right in the golf to around Corpus Christi. Still looking for that threat of danger in the water.

Talking about high surf. There's Cristobal. Still the surface high is 12 feet in the Atlantic. That is the concern as many of you are heading out for this holiday weekend.

The rip current, of course, is going to be high as well out there so be watching that. Just keep in mind Labor Day weekend, in the northeast, it's going to look better the first half of the weekend and the second half of the weekend starts to get some showers.

Midwest, not too good. Maybe Sunday will be OK and, of course, California is always looking pretty good. The Pacific Northwest also seeing showers out there. I literally cannot get enough of this video. Truly incredible but keep in mind the danger.

BERMAN: California always looking good except for giant waves.

PEREIRA: Depends on who you talk to. Look safe from away back on shore.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Indra.

All right, it was a huge lie. It turns out USF football star, Josh Shaw is no hero. He now admits he did not injure himself jumping from a second floor balcony to save his drowning nephew, so how did he get hurt, and why did he lie?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Shall we talk about a controversy that's brewing surrounding a top college football player? USC cornerback, Josh Shaw, captured national attention with quite an amazing and heroic tale of how he rescued his 7-year-old nephew from drowning in a pool.

He claimed that he sprained both of his ankles leaping from a second story balcony to the concrete below in order to rescue him, but now, now Shaw admits the entire story was completely fabricated saying, quote, "On Saturday, August 23rd, 2014, I injured myself in a fall. I made up a story about this fall that was untrue. I was wrong to not tell the true. I apologize to USC for this action on my part."

Well, USC has suspended Shaw. It's still not clear why he lied.

Let us discuss. We'll bring in "Time" senior writer, Sean Gregory and CNN Sports Andy Scholes. Good morning, Gentlemen.

Sean, got to start with you. How big of a deal is this for this young athlete and for Trojan football?

SEAN GREGORY, "TIME" SENIOR WRITER: He's the captain, a key defensive player, and for his career, I mean, he's a talented guy and now you bring some questions, can you trust this player? You see this all the time, character issues. This is a pretty bad thing to lie outright and to make up this tall tale that everybody kind of jumped on is not good.

PEREIRA: Andy, what sounds like it might have been a little white lie to cover up something that we're not sure of why we would have needed to lie in the first place, follow the bouncing ball, it's now a big deal because USC blew it up and said, look, what our guy did.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Athletes have been known to lie about injuries they suffered off the field. I remember Moises Alou said he tore the ACL on a treadmill when rumors were he fell off a motorcycle. Nobody investigated him and went offer Moises Alou back because he said, I did it to myself running on a treadmill.

Shaw in this case made up a heroic tale of how he severely sprained both of his ankles and everybody would want to talk about this and learn more about the heroic tale and that's where Shaw found himself in a problem. He thought he was telling this to the USC Sports Information Department.

But, of course, they made a big deal of it, as they should if the story would have been true, and that's where this thing really spiraled out of control for him and he ended up having to fess up to the whole deal.

CAMEROTA: Sean, here's a clue I believe of why he fell off that balcony. A neighbor reported seeing a man run across or scale a balcony. Later, as officers interviewed a female resident of the complex, she responded that sounds like my boyfriend, Josh Shaw.

It seems as though he was doing something at his girlfriend's apartment on -- scaling a balcony maybe to peak in, spy at her, something, and he fell off and said he was trying to rescue his 7- year-old nephew from drowning.

GREGORY: Yes, that's plausible, if that's the case, why not tell the truth. That's understandable. I mean, I fell.

CAMEROTA: I fell.

GREGORY: His lawyer said there was no alcohol involved, but you think that could have happened. But, you know, now we have a case, you know, where USC was so quick to pump up the story. Now let's be transparent and let's find out what happened.

BERMAN: I would say this is a big lie, epically stupid lie. Can USC let this kid play before the end of the season? I don't know how bad the injuries were from not rescuing his nephew in the pool, and assuming he is better, can they let him back on field?

GREGORY: It depends on what he did, I think. If it was a relatively innocuous thing and it was an accident, I think they will bring him back after a few weeks. What is also interesting here, it's the USC -- the web site had the story, and so when something is on a team web site or school web site, you take it (inaudible).

And AD from USC said they vetted it 12 times with a bunch of different people so what was going on was the whole family in on the lie? There are so many questions.

PEREIRA: Tell me about this guy, Josh Shaw, a senior for the team. Was this guy getting some attention to the NFL? What kind of future does he have and does this now you talk about, Sean mentioned it puts into question character. You think this I this is going to really be a mark on his record?

SCHOLES: Well, yes, but at the same time the NFL doesn't really have a spotless track record when it comes to keeping, you know -- having marks on your record really doesn't keep you from playing in the NFL. We know that.

He is considered an NFL prospect, always a highly touted football player, originally went to Florida and transferred back home closer to USC. We have to wait and see. Like Sean just said so many questions unanswered.

Shaw's lawyer said he did fall from the balcony at the apartments, the same apartments where there was a police report for a break-in, so there's still a lot of dots not connected until Shaw speaks and we get the true story of what happened here we don't know the extent if there was any criminal activity going on.

So we really don't know if this was a whole accident or if he was doing something long or something wrong I should say and tried to cover it up with a terrible story. I don't know what he was thinking.

PEREIRA: Lesson to all of us, you lead with the truth, there's nothing to hide really because here now people are going to dig and try to find out what exactly was the cause of his fall and all the circumstances, Alisyn, like you were talking about. Sean, Andy, thank you. What a story. Let us know what you think about it on Facebook. I'm sure there will be a discussion there.

A little bit more sports for you today, Andy, the tennis phenom who shocked the world back in action today, Cici Bellis taking the court with far more eyes on her in Queens.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: And she's done it! PEREIRA (voice-over): A lot of love on the tennis court for the newest teen queen of the U.S. Open. The 15-year-old Catherine Bellis defeated the tournament's 12th seed in three sets, making her the youngest player to win a U.S. Open match since Anna Kournikova's win in 1996.

Bellis, who goes by the nickname "CI" was an underdog going into Tuesday's round. Her match wasn't even supposed to be televised originally, ranked 1,208th in the women's tennis association, she earned a wild card by capturing the U.S. Tennis Association's under 18 girl's national championship.

CATHERINE BELLIS, 15-YEAR-OLD TENNIS STAR: I went into the match, you know, thinking it was going to be a great experience. I never thought I'd come out on top winning. I'm still speechless.

Just having everybody out there supporting me, the atmosphere was so cool. It was just unbelievable. It was definitely giving me more energy when more people came and more people were like cheering. It was just making me play better.

PEREIRA: And Twitter lit up with thousands of tweets commending her performance and her historic upset victory. One tweeting out requesting the only thing I upset when I was 15 was my parents." Tennis pro Billie Jean King says this could be the start of bigger things for Bellis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A different ball game to win the juniors and to have that step up into the pros. I hope it will continue for Bellis, just because you have one big win you have to be careful. See how good she can be, give her time to develop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Let her have time to develop, Bellis will have to pass on the $60,000 prize that goes to first round winners at the U.S. Open in order to maintain her amateur status. If she gets on, those are bragging rights --

CAMEROTA: They're worth every single thing.

BERMAN: She won't maintain amateur status very long.

PEREIRA: Let's celebrate after.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Next up on NEW DAY. Breaking news out of Ukraine, this is serious, the stakes between Russia and the rest of the world even higher. Russian troops, 1,000 of them, heavily armed fighting in Ukraine this morning. What does this mean for that situation for Vladimir Putin, for the United States?

CAMEROTA: And a mother directs a desperate video message to ISIS in an effort to free her son. Will this plea work? We'll ask a former CIA counterterrorism official. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking new information, another American allegedly killed while fighting for ISIS, this as the mother of an American hostage pleads with the terror group's leader to her son's release. Will this plea work? >

CAMEROTA: And breaking overnight, Ukraine says Russia is invading, a pro-Moscow rebel leader are fighting alongside his. Ukraine calling for an Emergency U.S. meeting. What will the U.S. do?

PEREIRA: Wrongly arrested. The photograph that has gone viral, a producer on his way to an Emmy party in Beverly Hills is arrested and held for hours Police thought he had been involved in a robbery. Was it because he was black? He joins us live.

BERMAN: Your NEW DAY continues right now.