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ISIS Claims U.S. Hostage Killed; Interior Minister Calls It P.R. Stunt; Jordanians Support Air Campaign; White House Deeply Concerned About Hostage Report; Susan Rice to Speak at Brookings Institution; Marie Harf States Secretary Kerry Continually Trying to Bring Hostages Home

Aired February 06, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We're following breaking news: a claim by ISIS, with no proof, no confirmation, that an American hostage has been killed.

The report is being met with a great deal of skepticism. The State Department here in Washington says it's investigating but is not commenting further. ISIS claims an online post -- in an online posting that the female hostage was killed by a Jordanian air strike in Raqqa, Syria, that's an ISIS stronghold. Again, ISIS offered no evidence of the death of the woman believed to be an American aid worker. ISIS posted pictures of a collapsed building where it says the woman was being held. We're seeing it here for the first time.

Is this an attempt to strike back at Jordan for avenging the death of one of its fighter pilots? Is this an effort to weaken or to splinter the U.S.-led coalition? That's what Jordan's interior minister is telling CNN. And I'm quoting him now, "This is another P.R. stunt by ISIS. They tried to cause problems internally in Jordan and haven't succeeded. They are now trying to drive a wedge between the coalition with this latest low P.R. stunt."

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh is joining us from Amman, Jordan with more on the reaction to this claim. And let's repeat, this is a claim by ISIS with no confirmation, no evidence that a Jordanian air strike over Raqqa in Syria, that's an ISIS stronghold, wound up killing this young American woman aid worker. What else are they saying there, Jomana?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you mentioned, Wolf, this is exactly what the interior minister is saying. He's calling this a P.R. stunt and lies. This -- there has been this feeling in Jordan over the past couple of weeks that ISIS is trying to embarrass this country, trying to corner this U.S. ally. We saw this happen with the hostage negotiations with that situation with the Japanese hostages a couple of weeks ago. And there was this feeling that Jordan was being thrown into this, put in a position where it was asked to release a prisoner that ISIS was demanding because they wanted to put Jordan in that tough situation, that difficult situation with Japan, a close ally of Jordan and also a major aid donor.

Then, there was this feeling again, like we're hearing now from the interior minister, Wolf, that they really are trying to put Jordan in that position as the country is really -- as the -- as the foreign minister, yesterday, described it to you. They are upping the ante. They are really going after ISIS with these increased air strikes that we've seen over the past couple of days. And, of course, questions about here. Is it trying to drive that wedge between members of the coalition?

BLITZER: You know, a lot of analysts had suggested, Jomana, that when Jordan decided, in revenge, for the brutal murder of that fighter pilot that Jordan went ahead and executed, hung Sajida Al Rishawi, she's the known terrorist who was convicted in Jordan, was on death row, if you will, for so many years going back to 2005 when she tried to blow herself up and kill a lot of people in Amman, Jordan, that Jordan would seek -- that ISIS would then, subsequently, seek revenge for the execution of this female terrorist by killing the American female hostage. That's what a lot of analysts were bracing for.

And now, ISIS, as we've been reporting, is claiming that the Jordanian air strike, this latest Jordanian air strike wound up killing this American female hostage. But a lot of people are taking all of that with a grain of salt. And nowhere more so than where you were in Amman, right?

KARADSHEH: Absolutely, a lot of skepticism about this. And as you mentioned, Wolf, what people would point out here, as we heard from the interior minister, there was a feeling here last week that ISIS was trying to destabilize this country with what it was doing. Of course, Jordan viewed as a great enemy of ISIS and other extremist groups.

When they put Jordan in that position of releasing Sajida Rishawi, as you mentioned, or they said they were going to kill Muath Al Kaseasbeh, the pilot, there was this feeling that they wanted to destabilize the country by having his tribe, of course, the tribe is very important in this country, rise up against the government and blame them for what happened.

Of course, now, many analysts will tell you that this seems to have backfired, at least for the time being, in this country. But definitely a lot of skepticism, at this point, about this claim by ISIS. And, of course, it's unclear how they would know that it was a Jordanian fighter jet that struck these targets if -- as they claim.

BLITZER: All right, Jomana, we're going to get back to you. But I want to go to the Pentagon right now. Barbara Starr is standing by. Barbara, CNN, like many other news organizations, we are not naming this American female aid worker who's being held hostage by ISIS. We're not giving details at the request of her family as of now. But what are you hearing over there at the Pentagon?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, across Washington, at this hour, from the White House to the Pentagon to the CIA, all agencies are looking at every scrap of information to see if there's anything they can verify or corroborate about this. And, right now, the official word is, no. There's nothing to corroborate, no proof of the ISIS claim.

There is, obviously, a good deal of worry and concern about this young woman. There has been every single day that she has been held in captivity. Let me stop there and say what we've been talking about. I think we have to be very aware, her family likely watching the news coverage at this hour, very compassionate towards them. They are going to be looking for answers. And, for right now, there simply are no answers about her fate.

All of this discussion about ISIS motivations, what they have done, what they said they'd do, I think it is very it's fair to say, here at the Pentagon, officials believe that there is no action that could dissuade ISIS from whatever it is that they intend or want to do for their propaganda purposes, for their belief. That these videos that they come up with, these propaganda messages they come up with. This is, right now, one of ISIS's continuing strengths, their social media and propaganda campaign. They believe at least that they are gaining benefit from it so they're being more and more horrifying all the time. That remains to be seen.

You know, it did backfire on them. Jordan now very much in the forefront, right now, of the anti-ISIS air campaign. Other nations as well, the Arab world -- across the Arab world, condemnation of what ISIS has done. So, their propaganda may be about to turn around and blow up in their face. You know, we just simply don't know, at this hour, will they come out with another social media message? Will they come out with proof of their claim? Everyone is waiting and watching to see -- Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll see. This is a fast, fast-developing story. We're going to get back to you, Barbara, as well.

I want to point out that President Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, she's getting ready to deliver what's being described as a major speech here in Washington at the Brookings Institution. There you see some live pictures coming in. She hasn't started speaking yet. She's going to be speaking on the president's new national security strategy. Under law, the president, every year, has to detail with what that strategy is.

The White House, earlier today, released a very, very lengthy, nearly 30-page, document outlining the strategy all over the world. We're going to see what she has to say about this latest development, this ISIS claim, and it is only a claim, that a Jordanian air strike today wound up killing a female American hostage over Raqqa in Syria.

Once again, we'll monitor, we'll go there live if she starts speaking about this latest development. Susan Rice, the president's national security adviser, she's going to be delivering this speech at Brookings shortly.

In the meantime, I want to go to our Correspondent Phil Black. He's joining us from Erbil in northern Iraq right now. Phil, I assume most people who deal with ISIS don't believe anything they basically say, so they're taking this, obviously, very skeptically.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, the people here, in response to any outlandish act or claim by ISIS, tend to respond with little surprise because these are the people who have very busy fighting ISIS every single day on the front lines across northern Iraq. It is interesting to note that while ISIS has maintaining this propaganda war so fiercely lately, its military campaign in northern Iraq has not been going so well.

Remember, last year, they charged across the border from Syria claiming a lot of territory very quickly. Well, since then, Kurdish fighters on the ground, with the help of international air power, have done a great deal not only to stop that advance but roll back many of those territorial gains that ISIS had made. To the point where Kurdish fighters on the ground now believe they are winning this war. They are winning the fight against ISIS, they say. That does not -- that does not mean, for a moment, that victory is imminent, that ISIS is about to be defeated once and for all in northern Iraq.

But, as I say, territory has been reclaimed. ISIS still holds the city of Mosul. That's a key territorial piece of land for ISIS to hold. But, increasingly, steadily, Kurdish fighters are choking that city off by its -- from its supply lines across the border in Syria. It is looking tougher there for ISIS as it is across this region -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Phil, I want you to stand by for a moment because we're just getting in some comments from the White House spokesperson, Eric Schultz. He's traveling with the president aboard Air Force One. He's telling reporters, and I'll be precise, that the White House is, quote, "deeply concerned about the reports that this American female hostage held by ISIS has been killed by a Jordanian air strike." That's the ISIS claim. But Schultz says the White House has, quote, "no indication to corroborate those claims." Presumably, we're going to be hearing more along those lines from the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice, who's getting ready to deliver remarks on U.S. national security over at the Brookings Institution.

We also heard, earlier, no confirmation at all from the State Department. Deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf, the White House obviously concerned about these reports but no confirmation whatsoever. We're going to continue to follow the breaking news but let's take a quick break. Much more after this.

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BLITZER: Let's get back to the breaking news we're following. A claim by ISIS, with no proof, no confirmation, that an American female hostage has been killed in a Jordanian air strike. Here's what the deputy State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, said here in Washington about the claim just moments ago.

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MARIE HARF, DEPUTY SPOKESWOMAN, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: I cannot confirm those reports in any way. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know --

HARF: Obviously, people are looking into them but cannot confirm them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Do you know if the -- if the woman in question is alive still?

HARF: We're just not going to get into specifics about Americans being held overseas for privacy of them, of their families. Obviously, as you can imagine, these are very sensitive situations. So, we're just not going to get into these details.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it -- is it your understanding that the Islamic state was holding an American woman --

HARF: We've said --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- without identifying whom?

HARF: We have said that there are a number of Americans being held overseas, including still by the Islamic state. I'm not going to get into further details than that. But I will say, broadly, that secretary Kerry, our team in this building, across the U.S. government, are putting every effort behind finding any Americans being held overseas, every intelligence tool, diplomatic tool. The secretary has reached out to over four dozen countries about Americans being held overseas or at large to try to bring these people home.

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BLITZER: All right, Marie Harf, the deputy spokeswoman over at the State Department.

Let's bring in our panel of experts. Our terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank is joining us, our political commentator Peter Bienart, who's an expert on the region, he's joining us as well. Also joining us on the phone, retired Lieutenant Colonel James Reese. He's a CNN global affairs analyst.

Colonel Reese, this is a claim by ISIS. They have not released any evidence that a Jordanian air strike killed this American female hostage. We're not releasing her name at the request of the family. But what's your analysis? Is it possible ISIS may be telling the truth?

LT. COL. JAMES REESE (RET.), CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST (via telephone): Wolf, it is. It is plausible. And down at CENTCOM right now, with the coalition, when they do these planning targets or these bomb runs, all of those aspects of the prisoner and the hostages are all taken in effect with the operational planners and the intelligence analysts going through nit-pick detail to make sure that they don't target anything they have. But we all know that this intelligence, especially in Syria, is not as good as we have in Iraq now. So it is plausible and it could be unfortunate, but sometimes that's the collateral damage that happens in these wars. BLITZER: What's your analysis, Paul Cruickshank?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I think it's very convenient from the ISIS point of view that she would be in this building alone without any other guards. And ISIS is saying that no ISIS fighters were killed in this strike. And hit by a Jordanian aircraft. I mean it seems very, very convenient for propaganda purposes, from the ISIS point of view. So I think we should be very, very skeptical about the specifics of this claim.

BLITZER: You're also seeing -- you have some information, Paul, I take it, on the watermarks that we're seeing on these images?

CRUICKSHANK: Yes, there originally seemed to be a disconnect between the -- what they were saying, that the strike was today, and then the caption on the actual photographs, which, in the normal Islamic calendar, would be yesterday. But, actually, ISIS has just released their own version of the Islamic calendar. And so that disconnect has actually gone away now. We don't believe that there is now a disconnect between those two things, Wolf. Important to clarify that.

BLITZER: Yes, it seems very convenient, Peter, that ISIS, all of a sudden, is saying this woman is killed by a Jordanian air strike, that she's the only person, the only casualty inside that building. What's your analysis?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. I mean you could imagine that ISIS feels somehow that, you know, by having the American hostage killed by a Jordanian plane, that that would cause some kind of rupture, some kind of conflict between the United States and Jordan. You know, it's hard to know how sophisticated an understanding ISIS has of what the politics inside the United States or inside Jordan are. But given the way they've handled the Jordanian pilot and how disastrously I think they handled the politics where they were clearly trying to weaken the Jordanian government and ended up strengthening it, I think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that they somehow thought that putting out this story would cause a backlash inside the United States because an American hostage was supposedly being killed by a Jordanian pilot. I think that's actually -- that's nonsense. That's not the way people in the United States will react by and large. And so I think it's potentially misinformation made from a kind of crude calculation about what might work inside the United States.

BLITZER: Because, Colonel Reese, and you know the region well, I had been told as soon as the Jordanians went ahead and executed that female terrorist who was convicted, Sajida al-Rishawi, they hung her, a lot of the experts that I was speaking with, Middle East experts, said, you know what's going to happen next? The ISIS terrorists, they're going to go ahead and kill that American female hostage as revenge. You kill an ISIS female, you're going to -- they're going to go ahead and kill another female, sort of, you know, whatever they want to do to make their point. You can kill females. We're going to kill females as well. You buy that theory?

REESE: Actually, Wolf, I don't, especially on the American side. The American hostage, I believe, gives ISIS more blue chips for down the road that they want to save, they want to show, they want to use for propaganda. Just killing her doesn't really do anything. So, yes, I don't buy that analysis. I understand the mentality behind it, but I don't think I would buy that, especially from the American side. (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: But, remember, Colonel Reese, they did behead I think at least three or four Americans already and they posted those videos online. So why not go ahead and kill another American?

REESE: Again, because she's a woman and I believe that gives them more propaganda use in showing her, you know, what they consider women -- especially the infidel women, and really turn it into a complete, you know, show of mercy - you know, there we -- she would rather be dead than having what's happening to her by ISIS. So it's a tough call. But I think both sides are plausible, but I do think that keeping her alive gives them more blue chips for propaganda.

BLITZER: All right. And, once again, we have not confirmed that she is dead. This is a claim, simply a claim by ISIS that a Jordanian air strike wound up killing this American female hostage.

Let's take another quick break. We'll resume our special coverage right after this.

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BLITZER: Once again, the breaking news we're following here, ISIS claiming - claiming that a Jordanian air strike today killed an American female hostage in Syria. No confirmation, no corroboration. U.S. officials are clearly taking this with a huge, huge grain of salt. A National Security Council official just saying moments ago, we are deeply - obviously deeply concerned about -- by these reports. We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIS' claims.

Let's go to our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. He's monitoring what's going on as well.

Jim, clearly it's a very disturbing report. We believe that this woman is the last American hostage actually being held by ISIS, right?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. That's been our information. I think the key questions here, one, is, you have to take the ISIS claim, the ISIS story here with deep, deep skepticism. One, they have an enormous ax to grind to blame this on the Jordanians and claim that those were the circumstances of her death. Two, the timing of her death, there's no proof that it happened in this strike or when it happened. Remember, with the Jordanian pilot, there was questions and only established by Jordanian intelligence analysis that in fact he was killed some 30 days before that death video came out. And, remember, during that time, those 30 days, ISIS continued to have a hostage negotiation in effect with the Jordanians claiming that he was alive.

So a fair question to U.S. officials is, when was the last time they got proof of life, if any, for this American hostage? I have asked that question, but like this entire story really, U.S. officials are refusing to comment in general except to say that they don't have anything to independently corroborate this video yet.

But, you know, there's -- we know this group is one that is intensely focused on its propaganda value. And we have to look at their motives here and take their statements with the deepest skepticism.

BLITZER: Yes, the Jordanian government clearly insisting this is a low PR stunt by ISIS, clearly trying to divide the coalition, if you will. If that in fact is their attempt, I don't think it's going to succeed. The United States and Jordan, for example, are, as you could correctly point out, are intimately, very, very closely cooperating in these latest round of air strikes in the aftermath of that brutal murder of that Jordanian fighter pilot, right?

SCIUTTO: No question. And you've seen that because, of course, there were questions. How would Jordan respond to that horrible murder of their pilot? Would they be cowed by it? Would the Jordanian population question their country's commitment to this campaign? The opposite happened. You saw enormous public support. In fact, calls for blood in response to that killing. And you saw Jordan step up immediately with now two days of more muscular air strikes against ISIS targets.

And it's interesting as well, looking at the Jordanian viewpoint, because just a short time ago, Nasser Judeh, the Jordan foreign minister, he tweeted out that, in addition to the comment earlier saying that this is a PR stunt, he said that, you know, this is an old tactic, in his words, used by terrorists and other groups to claim that hostages were killed in air strikes. And he's right there, this wouldn't be the first time that someone, a group like this, has made a claim like that to its own benefit. And I think we have to keep that in mind as this story goes forward.

BLITZER: We certainly do. All right, good analysis, Jim. Stand by. We're going to get back to you.

Lots of breaking news happening right now. We're trying to get some confirmation, if possible, of this ISIS claim, and it is only a claim with no evidence backing it up at all, that a Jordanian air strike has killed this young American female hostage. Much more right after this.

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