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Concerns Mount Over Payback After Strikes; Obama To Speak At U.N. On ISIS; Pentagon Assessing Airstrikes In Syria; CDC Predicts Major Spike in Ebola Cases

Aired September 24, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Terror alert, law enforcement across the country on heightened alert. Homeland security warning home-grown terrorists may attack inside the U.S. Retaliation for U.S. strikes inside Syria. This morning our first look at the damage there.

And, who is the terror leader killed in the attacks?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning President Obama delivers his message to the world. Will he be able to rally support at the U.N., and will the Arab allies who join the U.S. in the strikes be able to hold onto power?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We do no have an opportunity to send a very clear message that the world is united.

CUOMO: A special edition of NEW DAY starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, September 24th, 6:00 in the East. Kate's on maternity leave. Brooke Baldwin here.

BALDWIN: Good morning.

CUOMO: Thanks for being with us, my friend.

BALDWIN: You got it.

CUOMO: We are following major developments on air strikes in Syria and the fall out. Overnight, no new strikes confirmed, so what is going on there now, as the president and the Pentagon have made it clear the campaign far from over.

But the urgency, switching from over there to over here. Serious concerns about terrorists in the United States. Could the strikes in Syria inspire lone wolf extremists to strike inside the U.S.?

BALDWIN: One of many questions we'll be asking this morning. We also know more today about the alleged terror plot that was being hatched overseas by the al Qaeda cell, Khorasan, but it was a leader of yet another terror group that was confirmed killed in those strikes. All of this coming today, big, big day at the United Nations,

President Obama preparing to take center stage at the U.N. General Assembly to really start to shore up additional support against ISIS for this fight overseas.

We're covering the fight against ISIS from every angle, beginning with justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, with more on the possibility of a home-grown terror threat. Pamela, good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you. Law enforcement agencies across the country are on heightened alert for lone wolves in the U.S. who may want to retaliate in the wake of the strikes against al Qaeda operatives and ISIS in Syria.

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BROWN (voice-over): Across the country this morning, law enforcement on heightened alert. Homeland Security and the FBI warning that the air strikes in Syria may embolden home-grown extremists to strike.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's why we're worried, and doing everything we can to address the violent messages and to counter those messages.

BROWN: The bulletin warning law enforcement agencies to be vigilant asking them to scrutinize social media and be on the lookout for changes of behavior or appearance of extremists they may be tracking like if they suddenly drop off the radar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lone wolves are very difficult to identify and confront. They're moving on a very ideological path that they believe in.

BROWN: This, as we learn more about the alleged plotting by the al Qaeda group, Khorasan, that pushed the U.S. military to strike them Monday night. A U.S. intelligence source says the group had already acquired materials and was in an advanced stage of planning to carry out an attack in the west and the U.S. or Europe, but no specific targets are known.

Senior officials tell CNN that in July, security and international airports was increased after intelligence suggested Khorasan was creating easily concealed bombs for western recruits to smuggle on to airplanes.

What makes the threats of Khorasan attacks so worrying is their ties to al Qaeda's master bombmaker in Yemen, Abraham Al-Asiri.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The concern is that Al-Asiri has trained a number of apprentices in these techniques and these apprentices, some of them have migrated to Syria. The fear is that some of them have joined this group, Khorasan, and are helping them develop these new techniques.

BROWN: Al-Asiri is thought to have built the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard an airliner from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. And a plot to blow up planes using explosives in printer cartridges.

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BROWN: And U.S. officials say they targeted a training camp and command and control facilities linked to the group. Officials are still assessing the results of the strikes, trying to figure out if they were able to take out the key leaders in the Khorasan Group -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It will take some time, but it's important information. We'll stay on it. Pamela, thank you very much.

Now, no president likes to build up expectations, but this is a major moment for President Obama. He will be addressing the world at the U.N. General Assembly. He needs action to come out of this assembly.

The stakes -- a massive broad coalition that makes this a regional war or wind up owning the conflict himself. CNN's Michelle Kosinski live at the White House. I'm sure they feel the weight of the situation.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: All right, Chris, President Obama addresses the U.N. as a leader of a coalition at war against ISIS and he has been able to gather Arab allies, gain significant bipartisan support at home, that's pretty good platform from which to tell the world.

OK, this threat is big. Here's how it affects you and here's what you can and should be doing about. That said, the plan as it stands right now is admittedly a lengthy one. It's open-ended.

There's no guarantee of success or even what the end game looks like and you have countries like Syria and Russia, asking, well, where is the international legal justification for doing this in Syria.

There's no U.N. resolution authorizing the force. Still, there is significant support out there. I mean, more than 40 countries have pledged to do something in the fight against ISIS.

So President Obama will be looking for greater commitments and he's going to chair a session of the U.N. Security Council looking for a resolution to help stop the flow of foreign fighters to the region -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Michelle, I mean, this is getting to be a very complex situation because although it seems as though the president's case is very strong right now, given these strikes, they don't like one word, it's war. If they don't like a phrase even more, it's American war. We'll have to see what comes out of it. We'll know today -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Chris Cuomo, thank you very much. While the president is preparing to make his case for the air campaign against Islamic extremists, both in Syria and in Iraq, Pentagon officials are still assessing the effectiveness of that first round of air strikes, Monday night into Tuesday morning to determine exactly how much damage was done to the al Qaeda group, Khorasan as well as ISIS. So let's bring in our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. Barbara, good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brooke. As the U.S. assesses the damage, many Syrian refugees and Syrian civilians, rebel groups are welcoming the action against ISIS, but of course, many Syrians are not.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Piles of rubble now lay across parts of Western Syria, after the U.S. and Arab allies unleashed attacks. Airstrikes on ISIS and another brutal terrorist group enraging jihadists on the ground.

The U.S. and Arab allies are relying on precision bombs from fighters and bombers to stop ISIS. In the first round, firing against a training area, and other targets, specifically aimed at stopping its ability to command its army of fighters.

Like the bombing of this ISIS finance center near Raqqa. The target? A communications array on the roof, hoping to stop its flow of money and communications. And here, only a portion of a suspected ISIS command center destroyed.

Another specific target, selected to stop ISIS leaders, from talking to their troops. On the ground in Syria, protests, some civilians chanting -- down with the coalition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the night we got attacked by a coalition.

STARR: This Dutch Islamist walks through the rubble of a building in Western Syria, and declaring revenge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will get the victory.

STARR: U.S. military commanders now watching closely for how ISIS reacts.

LT. GEN. WILLIAM MAYVILLE JR., PENTAGON DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS: They will adapt to what we've done and seek to address their shortfalls and gaps against our air campaign.

STARR: And now, we've learned another terror leader, this man, the head of the al Nusra front, also an al Qaeda-linked organization may have been killed. The U.S. has not yet confirmed that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: And everyone is now waiting and watching to see of course when the next round of air strikes unfolds -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Barbara, thank you very much. Chris to you.

CUOMO: All right, thank you very much. We've been told an attack on the U.S. and western interests was imminent, which was somewhat of a shock to many people. Now just how imminent? What is the ongoing concern? Is this about retaliation? A lot of questions.

Let's bring in CNN law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, former FBI assistant director, and Mr. Bobby Ghosh, managing editor of "Quartz." Tom, let me start with you. This came as a shock, fair statement, who is Khorasan?

What do you mean imminent threat on the U.S.? We thought this was about ISIS or whatever you want to call those thugs over there. How much of a surprise was this?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Chris, I don't think it's that big of a surprise to law enforcement and the intelligence services. It's really not a new group. It's just you know, old, it's got like an all-star team of al Qaeda, older fighters that have just regrouped under a new name temporarily in Syria.

Which gives them a safe haven to train and prepare explosives and get their act together in terms of trying to get people to get on planes and come attack either in the west or the U.S.

So it's really not a new threat or not a new group or new techniques. We've had Al-Asiri, the Yemen bomb maker for years trying to perfect his use of PETN. He did the underwear bomb. He put explosives in the body cavities of his own brother. And he got blown up.

He put the explosives in the 2010 printer cartridge effort to ship printers to the United States that had explosives in the packaging. It's not new and the techniques aren't new. It's more of the same, but a new name for the same group.

CUOMO: And I'm going to talk to Bobby about that name in a second because it matters in our terror vocabulary. He's a bad guy we need to know. I would argue it is new, Tom, in that for people like me and people watching the show.

The idea that because of what's going on over there, you may have lone wolf extremist types who identify in some way or coordinated some way now attacking back here in the U.S. because of what's going on over there. How serious a threat is this?

FUENTES: Well, that's an ongoing threat and it's always been serious. You're right. That threat is heightened now because of the airstrike campaign beginning. But we've had this constant drum beat of leaders overseas trying to encourage lone wolves all along.

Everything from "Inspire" magazine that comes out of Yemen that every month has an article about how people can use their cars or use everyday things to kill other people without having to train for explosives or firearms.

We've just had the arrest by the FBI a week ago in Rochester, New York, the guy that was going to kill soldiers when they returned. We had the woman in Denver a couple of months ago who was bent on going to join ISIS overseas, the idea of this, and the idea of the lone wolves has been a continuous thing.

CUOMO: Right. The idea is in the abstract.

FUENTES: No, they has been more than abstract. We've had actual people, probably, the bureau has probably arrested two or three people a year going back.

CUOMO: Right, but now it seems that it's more imminent than that I agree with you 100 percent, Tom. Are we following the story more? Paying more attention or giving it more attention or does it seem as if the dynamic is heightening the threat in the United States?

BOBBY GHOSH, MANAGING EDITOR, "QUARTZ": We're paying more attention and we're being asked to pay more attention. A couple of days ago we heard from the administration that they feel several people have come back from Syria and the FBI is watching. The administration puts that word out that we should be paying close attention.

CUOMO: I tell you what, the UNGA is going on right now. The U.N. General Assembly, we keep talking about. They always lock down when the city when the president comes. They always lock down the U.N. It's never like this. Do you think that's feeding into this?

GHOSH: It must be, there is a heightened sense, heightened concern all over the country and not just here. You're seeing things in Australia, in Britain, in the highest state of alert that it's been in many, many years. All over Europe. So yes, there's an anticipation that there will be an attempt to strike back.

CUOMO: What do we know about this leader, the name that's come up now, why Khorasan is so important because of how terror experts have been following this name wherever he goes, goes the urgency? Tell us about him.

GHOSH: Muhsin al-Fadhli is in his 30s. He's been close to Osama Bin Ladin. In fact, he's thought to be one of only a handful of people who knew about the 9/11 plot before it was actually executed. That gives you a sense of how close he was to the al Qaeda high command.

He's a sort of trained -- he's very good survivor. He's managed to stay under the radar for a very long time. He's been looking clearly for a place where he can operate freely and the lawless part of Syria is the ideal spot for it because he's surrounded by confusion and they thrive on that.

That's a good place for him to recruit because there are lots of westerners coming in and people from all over the world coming into Syria to fight the jihad. He's right there to say come follow me and I'll show you a way to fight.

CUOMO: So he's somewhat a pied piper. Tom, let's end on this. Right now in the U.S., what is the threat, what's the best information you're hearing about what the dynamic abroad is bringing potentially home to roost here?

GHOSH: Well, the potential as mentioned, that people from the U.S. and other countries could go to Syria because it's really a safe haven now, almost a failed state. So that gives them the great opportunity to train and learn the craft of being a terrorist.

But, you know, it's more easy for them to come to the U.S. or back to the west undetected. And the reason I say that is because you have a person from the U.S. can fly to France or Germany or one of the European countries make their way without ever having to show a passport again, all the way over to the eastern part of Europe.

And then go by water or land to Turkey into Syria, train, go back to Europe and fly back here. There will be nothing in their travel documents to show they ever went to Syria. It's much harder to track who is going in and out of Syria, than it is to track people going in and out of Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan.

CUOMO: So the availability of people who could do bad things has increased in risk. The question is what exactly would they be wanting to do here? That's what we have to find out.

Tom Fuentes, thank you very much. Bobby Ghosh, thank you for helping us understand the situation. Because as we learn how effective the strikes were against this Khorasan group in Syria, that will have impact on what the threat is at home as well. So we'll be following that for you.

And of course, the man who is in control of this situation, ostensibly is President Obama, and he is trying to extend the coalition. Warning Arab nations that airstrikes on extremist groups in Syria and Iraq could go on for years so they should be part of this situation.

We're going to break down what he says the mission is and the possible repercussions. We're going to be joined live on NEW DAY, by Secretary of State John Kerry, the man at the center of all this for an exclusive interview.

We're also going to speak with Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby. He'll tell us how effective the attacks were. White House spokesman, Josh Earnest got a message of what the White House is going to try and pass on to the world, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

You talk about an all-star team of bad guys, we have the all-star team of good guys talking about what will happen next, what should happen, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark as well. If anybody understand this part of the world, it is him.

Plus, exactly what did we target in the first round of airstrikes Monday night? Why as it so quiet overnight? What does that mean? We'll get answers for you right after the break.

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BALDWIN: A little later today, President Obama will be making his case at the United Nations General Assembly for a broader coalition to fight ISIS and other Islamic extremism. All of this as law enforcement agencies are beefing up security over concerns of retaliation. Now, as far as the strikes are concerned, they were against more than

a dozen targets, they were carefully selected to try and cripple ISIS' communication and money. What exactly got hit? What were the targets? How effective were the strikes?

With me now is CNN military analyst, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

So, Colonel Francona, shall we look at the map? And before we even talk specific target, I guess my first question to you is it was very quiet overnight the second night. How do you read the quiet?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, you know, either they there were less strikes or no strikes. I think that the Pentagon is still assessing what they did on the first night. They put a lot of firepower in the first night, a lot of targets. It's one thing to hit the targets, but you really have to go back and look at the pictures and see, did we achieve the objective? Did we destroy enough? Did we do what we wanted to do?

If not, then you have to put them on the re-strike list and go back and hit them again.

BALDWIN: Walk with me as we assess. So, it's three waves of strikes, Monday night into Tuesday morning. This was more of the Khorasan strike, right?

FRANCONA: Right here, yes.

BALDWIN: In Aleppo. And then near Raqqa, which has been the ISIS stronghold. Those are other multiple strikes.

What was hit?

FRANCONA: Well, in -- OK, west of Aleppo was the Khorasan group and that was probably driving the timing here, because they had all of these guys in one place at one time. They knew there was an imminent threat. They were planning something. They said let's hit them now rather than wait. I think that was probably a good thing to do.

So, those were the targets there. It really had nothing to do with ISIS, this is a separate issue. ISIS is over here, concentrated in the Raqqa area. Raqqa is their self-proclaimed capital. They want Baghdad to be the capital of the caliphate eventually, but Raqqa is it for now.

They also hit areas along the Euphrates River. This line here goes, the Euphrates River into Iraq. This is the resupply route for troops, supplies, weapons that go into Iraq. And so, they tried to interdict that.

This center dot here is Dayr az Zawr, that's the big oil center. This is where they have a lot of the illicit oil activity going on. So, sales, they keep the refineries going. And up here is to take pressure off of the Kurds.

BALDWIN: Training compounds, headquarters, command and control facilities, finance centers, supply trucks. All targets?

FRANCONA: That's mostly concentrated in the Raqqa area. And that's what they need to get back and hit if they didn't get them the first time.

BALDWIN: So, looking ahead, first obviously you have this first phase before we even get into the potential second wave, which we don't quite know what that plan is.

But when you mentioned firepower specifically 48 U.S. and allied planes used, more than 160 bombs and missiles, all in night one -- that's pretty active.

FRANCONA: That is, that is. And normally, in these kind of campaigns, since we're dealing with an area where there are no ground troops and these guys are pretty dispersed and they're not really a traditional state, traditional target set, it's difficult to go back night after night or during the day.

So, normally, what you would do is you would start a bombing campaign and keep it going 24 hours and try to keep up that cycle. But these targets are so elusive that they have to determine what they've hit and go back again.

So, I think what we're going to see is probably watch this roll down into Iraq and start to degrade them in Iraq. Giving the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga a chance to regroup and push these guys back.

The goal of this isn't just to kill them here. The goal is to eliminate them everywhere. We've got to take the territory away from them. You cannot allow these guys to have territory.

BALDWIN: You said something a minute ago. I just wanted to follow up on. You said no ground troops.

FRANCONA: None in Syria.

BALDWIN: How does that work? We know that Congress said yes to you know, training moderate Free Syrian Army. But how does that work? You have this campaign from the air, what about the ground?

FRANCONA: Yes, that's the problem. And this is the issue with Syria, because the soonest we're going to see ground troops that we have trained and vetted and equipped, might be as long as 18 months.

BALDWIN: Eighteen months.

FRANCONA: Maybe as short as a year.

Many of the guys know how to fight. They just need to be trained on the specific weapon set. But the numbers are not there.

BALDWIN: Are you concerned about that lag time?

FRANCONA: I'm very concerned about the time and I'm concerned with the numbers, and I'm concerned that we're -- we have now started a campaign here, that we really can't finish, because we need that other component. We can do it in Iraq. But we can't do it yet in Syria, unless somebody else is willing to put ground troops in there.

BALDWIN: We know Christiane Amanpour will be sitting down and interviewing the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the top of the 8:00 Hour, Eastern Time. You have to imagine the questions she'll be asking perhaps that will be included.

What will you -- just from a military standpoint -- what will you be listening for in that conversation?

FRANCONA: Well, I want to hear where we're going from this. What was -- OK, we understand the goal of the first night was to stop the Khorasan planning and to start the degrading of ISIS in Syria. But you know, this is one big target set and we have to figure out what, what we're going to be doing in Iraq.

If it follows the plan as I see it, they probably want to start with the Iraqi piece and roll these guys out. They have to start taking back territory. Right now, we've not really taken any territory back from ISIS. We've only stopped them from taking more.

BALDWIN: OK. So the question, looking ahead, what are the additional future waves of this campaign. What does that look like?

Colonel Francona, I really appreciate it as always, your expertise.

And there are a lot of questions about the overall strategy, what exactly success looks like against ISIS.

So we have two former NATO commanders who will be joining us live coming up. General Wesley Clark and Admiral James Stavridis, the admiral minutes away.

And a stunning report from U.S. health officials who say 1.4 million people in Africa could be become infected with the deadly Ebola virus, 1.4 million in the next four months. We will take you live to Liberia, next.

You're watching NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

Listen to this -- the number of Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone could go as high as 1.4 million by January, if no one intervenes, and the more it spreads over there, remember, the better the chance it comes here.

Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is in Liberia where the number of cases has spiked in the last week, in the last few weeks.

So, how bad are the new scenarios?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: These new scenarios -- you don't have to go to the new scenarios for bad, Chris. It is just bad right now.

So, let's talk about right now and talk about the scenarios. We just heard a new report, there have been almost 6,000 cases of Ebola with almost 3,000 deaths.

And the scenarios -- let me talk about them for a second. These are scenarios where if the world does not do anything more, than what they are doing right now, and if people's behaviors don't change on the ground, if West Africans' behaviors don't change, we could have 20,000 cases by November and by January, between half a million and 1.4 million. And the death rate has been about 71 percent.

But again, these are scenarios, if the world doesn't do more and if West Africans don't change their behaviors. Hopefully, neither one of those things will come to pass -- Chris, Brooke.

CUOMO: We get what it would take for it to get better and there's going to be that question about what does the rest of the world do. But let me ask you something, you are there, in Liberia, I know you wanted to go. I know you're very passionate about this, in spreading the word.