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Wolf

Son Was Recruited by ISIS; Eleven Presumed Dead in Military Helicopter Crash; Terror Group Uses Children as Propaganda; AP Sues State Department for Hillary Documents; Netanyahu's Election Fight

Aired March 11, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I know you had a chance to speak with family members, his family, Musallam's, tell us what they told you.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, family was just devastated. I mean, they paint a very different than the accusations that ISIS made in this video, calling Mohamed a warm and caring person, funny. He was a volunteer firefighter, and they say that he just fell prey to ISIS recruiters online.

Take a listen to what his father told me just last night.

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SAID MUSALLAM, FATHER OF MUHAMMAD MUSALLAM (via translator): Mohamed told me and his brother that ISIS took him. They sent him money through the Western Union. They said you will have girls, money, cars, villas, paradise. But after he finished his training and spent time, and after he trained and went to Deir ez-Zor, he discovered that there is nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: And, Wolf, he said that he tried to help his son get home. He wired him money, he tried to enlist the Red Cross. He had seen him on a Skype call. He didn't even recognize him. He had grown a beard and was armed.

After about a month, he heard that his son was picked up by ISIS, trying to cross the border to get home. And now this devastating video, Wolf, his brother told me that he saw it. He was devastated. But he will not show it to his parents, who refuse to believe that their son is gone -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Only 19 years old, right, Elise?

LABOTT: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

BLITZER: I said, only 19 years old, Mohamed Musallam, a young man indeed, a tragic story.

Elise, we'll get back to you shortly. I know there's a big election coming up in Israel in six days. You'll have the latest poll results that are out there. Stand by for that. ISIS is known for using children as propaganda tools. They even refer to these little boys as "cubs of the caliphate." Just ahead, we'll talk with our analysts about the motive and the message behind these very disturbing images.

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BLITZER: Want to go to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. News conference just beginning on the crash of a U.S. military helicopter with 11 service members on board.

QUESTION: -- do or should do or should they just kind of stand down right now?

What should they do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First and foremost, I've seen some incredible citizens come out today. We've had citizens that have brought us food, water, soda. We've had a lot of local businesses that have donated food to us. It is extremely appreciated. We've shared that with the members of the armed forces that are here.

And that's a gesture that you don't see. In this community, we're very tight. That's just a reflection of just how tight this community is. I'm proud of our citizens.

At this point, our traffic is open. We don't have any traffic problems right now. Navarre Park is closed. The park on the south side is also closed. But other than that, the citizens have been tremendous. And we're really proud to serve the citizens of Santa Rosa County.

QUESTION: Should they walk and look themselves?

Or do you have enough people --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. We certainly have enough people. And also for boaters. The Coast Guard is out there; they have closed the waterways. We've had some people that try to go out on kayaks that may not be aware for whatever reason and we're just asking them to stay off the water at this time.

QUESTION: Do you guys have any Florida dive teams, anything with the local agencies that -- ?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not that I'm aware of right now, no.

QUESTION: Has anyone identified the (INAUDIBLE) -- ?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't speak to that at this time. QUESTION: Now this community is no stranger to Navy, Air Force flying over.

How devastating is it to hear that there was an incident, just as a person who's lived here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The military is such a huge part of our community. We're surrounded by three, four different major military installations. It's really a way of life here In Santa Rosa County. If you have the Blue Angels flying over to the special ops guys and the jets -- I'm proud to be a citizen of this country because I live here and I get to experience it first-hand, just how big the military is. It's an awesome thing.

We're proud of what they do. And we're proud to serve our soldiers.

Any other questions?

QUESTION: Can you say and spell your first and last name for me, please?

Sure. It's Deputy Rich Aloy, R-I-C-H A-L-O-Y.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

BLITZER: All right. So there's the latest reaction we're getting, very sad story, 11 U.S. service members, Marines and soldiers, apparently killed in a pretty shocking accident last night overnight.

There you see a picture of one of those Blackhawk helicopters. There were two routine training exercises but there was heavy fog. We don't know the cause of this crash; 11 members of the U.S. military presumed dead. Much more coming up on this and other news we're following.

We told you about the latest shocking video from ISIS that shows a child shooting and killing a man accused of being an Israeli spy. Of course this is not the first time ISIS has used children as part of its propaganda campaign.

The terror group has released video showing militants training kids in physical combat. It shows the kids wearing black and holding up ISIS flags. The militants refer to these little boys as, quote, "cubs of the caliphate." That's a reference to the way ISIS fighters call one another "lions."

Let's bring in our CNN global affairs analyst, Bobby Ghosh. He's the managing editor of "Quartz," and Paul Cruickshank, our CNN terrorism analyst, the co-author of the book, "Agent Storm: My Life Inside Al Qaeda and the CIA."

Bobby, what is ISIS trying to accomplish by using these little boys, these kids in these videos?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, they're doing two or three different things, Wolf. One is that they use kids because kids are much more easy to manipulate or to motivate to do things like this. The message they're sending to the wider world is twofold. One is, look, our cause is so pure that even children can respond to it and children are drawn by it.

And the flip side to that is, our resolve is so great, we are such warriors that even our children are willing to wield a gun in this cause. It is a message that only makes sense to the sort of perverse mentality that they have.

But that's what they're trying to accomplish and they're of course also trying to tell everyone -- to add to the general degree of terror that they're trying to spread.

BLITZER: We've also seen, Paul, as you well know, these ISIS videos showing children in school.

What are they trying to do, indoctrinate these kids at such an early age in order to become, in effect, ISIS fighters?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERROR ANALYST: That's absolutely right, Wolf. They're trying to brainwash these young kids to become future ISIS fighters, future soldiers of the caliphate. To some degree, they're trying to blunt some of these young kids and involving them in these terrible crimes.

And the propaganda message is also the caliphate is here to stay; it's a multigenerational project and here are the next generation that are going to fight for ISIS in Syria, in Iraq and beyond.

BLITZER: You heard, on that horrible story, that young Israeli Arab man, 19 years old from East Jerusalem, he was recruited, his father says, by ISIS, Bobby, they told him, you'll have a great life, lots of money, women, villas. You heard the father say that.

So the 19-year-old, he sneaks out. He gets to ISIS territory and then they accuse him of being an Israeli spy and they kill him in a brutal video which is too brutal to even show on television. We at CNN have decided not to show still pictures of that video, murder of this young man or certainly none of the video.

But what's intriguing is what the father said, Bobby. They made all these promises to him on social media, especially this promise of young women. Just come with us, you'll have a great time. This is pretty common, isn't it? This is what's going on to recruit these young men.

GHOSH: Absolutely. That is the message they've been sending consistently for a couple of years now. Come join this fight. It's being portrayed as a great adventure. And the underlying sentiment is you can come and do all these things. You can kill people in the name of your cause. You can have a house. You can have -- we'll find you a wife, you will have money.

And the most important thing is, you can get away with it. There's no consequences. Big part of ISIS' message is, look, we're successful, nobody is standing up against us, which is why the recent military activities against them are so important. You need to change that narrative.

For a lot of people, the biggest part of the attraction is you can go and do all these things and nobody is going to throw you in jail, there are no consequences.

BLITZER: Yes. They're very successful in this propaganda on social media, promising all these young men.

Paul, you've gone through, you've monitored these social media sites. They promise them everything. You'll have a lot of fun, just come over and join the fight.

CRUICKSHANK: That's absolutely right, Wolf. But the most important thing that ISIS says in these social media postings and their propaganda is that it's their religious duty to go and join ISIS. These are the people who are brainwashed in a radical interpretation, a distorted interpretation of Islam, who believe it's their religious duty to go and fight with ISIS.

They believe they will be rewarded for doing that in the afterlife by God, that by joining this struggle, it's part of an end-of-day struggle for the religion. Most of these young men and young women who are going to join ISIS are religiously brainwashed.

BLITZER: Paul Cruickshank, Bobby Ghosh, guys, thanks very much. A horrible, horrible story unfortunately continues.

On a very different story that we're monitoring here at CNN, up next, Hillary Clinton may have been hoping her news conference yesterday would put an end to all the questions about her use of her private email system while serving as secretary of state. That hope, though, certainly has been dashed if, in fact, she had that hope.

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BLITZER: There's a new twist in the Hillary Clinton email controversy unfolding here in the United States. The Associated Press today filed a lawsuit against the State Department. The AP wants to force the release of email correspondence and government documents from Secretary Clinton's time as the secretary of state.

Today's legal action comes after repeated requests under the Freedom of Information Act, including one made five years ago; those requests went so far unanswered. At a news conference at the United Nations yesterday, Ms. Clinton said she used private email as a matter of convenience but that she fulfilled the request to turn over her work emails.

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HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: The State Department sent a letter to former secretaries of state, not just to me, asking for some assistance in providing any work-related emails that might be on the personal email.

And what I did was to direct my counsel to conduct a thorough investigation and to err on the side of providing anything that could be connected to work.

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BLITZER: Let's discuss what's going on. Joining us to discuss this other question surrounding this entire email controversy, our CNN political commentator, Michael Smerconish; he's the host of "SMERCONISH," which airs Saturday mornings 9:00 am Eastern here on CNN.

We also have our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

Gloria, there's a lawsuit now that's going on from the API. I take it -- and you agree with me -- the controversy continues; it hasn't been put to rest.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the Clinton people knew themselves that their responses yesterday were not going to quell any of the controversy. The AP lawsuit today specifically requests, Wolf, materials related to her private calendar, to correspondence involving long-time aides.

And you know this is going to stir up a whole hornet's nest here, not only among Democrats but also among Republicans, particularly on the committee investigating Benghazi, who are going to be interested to see what the AP gets.

So this is going to completely continue, specifically because Hillary Clinton made it clear yesterday that she and her counsel, as she put it in your clip, are the deciders. They're the ones who chose which emails to reveal and which emails not to reveal to hand over to State Department -- and that remains a problem.

BLITZER: But the State Department says that was her prerogative; like other officials, it was her right to make that kind of decision.

BORGER: And that's what she said.

BLITZER: Michael, you and I and Gloria, we remember the '90s.

Is there a possibility the Republicans now could overreach in their quest for all this stuff?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST: Absolutely. And I agree with what Gloria just said in terms of her assessment. This is a legitimate issue. There are still many questions that I think require answers.

But the Republicans could easily overplay their hand. I take note, Wolf, of the fact that Trey Gowdy has already said he doesn't think it's just one. He thinks it's at least two visits that this will now necessitate before that House Select Committee on Benghazi.

So much of the country, politically speaking, is already dug in with regard to Secretary Clinton. They're for or against her. Those who are neither are, I think, going to pay close attention to the way in which this is now handled and if they perceive that the Republicans are ganging up on the secretary, it will turn them off as voters in 2016.

BORGER: I agree.

SMERCONISH: Not that they're asking for it, but my advice to the GOP would be, keep your powder dry and let the media now investigate.

BORGER: Yes, I totally agree with you. We went through this, as you'll recall, during impeachment, of course, where you had the obvious issues with President Clinton, then-President Clinton, and then you had the Republican overreach, which seemed to turn the public in another direction.

And I think there are people I've spoken to on the Republican side of the aisle, who are giving Republicans the same advice, Michael, that you're giving them which is kind of, hold off and let this story play out a little bit.

BLITZER: But there are, Michael, legitimate questions still out there. She said yesterday there were about 61,000, 62,000 emails; half of them basically were government-related. She said she handed them all over to the State Department. The other half she said were personal and they decided to delete -- to destroy, in effect -- all of those emails.

That's raising a lot of questions, isn't it?

SMERCONISH: It is, and she worked feverishly not to use the D word although you're using it, I think, properly in your explanation. "The New York Times" in its first sentence used the D word. I'm sure she thought it sounded too much Rosemary Woods-ish.

But here's one of the practical concerns that I have, Wolf. I took a look through my email trash bin just before beginning this conversation and admittedly I'm not the secretary of state, but so many of my emails are neither entirely professional nor entirely personal. I may interact with a colleague and make a personal statement. I may interact with a friend and make a professional statement about my work at CNN.

I'm not assuming she's any different than the rest of us in that regard.

So weren't there some emails out of the 60,000 that contained both the professional and the personal, and if so, what became of them?

That's just one question.

BORGER: Michael, just to add to that point is the question of whether it was embarrassing, really, the point here. None of us want our embarrassing emails aired, but some of those embarrassing emails may actually have something to do with policy or with people --

SMERCONISH: Right.

BORGER: -- that for archival purposes that historians might find very interesting that are now lost.

BLITZER: Yes. We'll see where the story moves but we thank both of you for joining us.

And don't forget, for our North American viewers, don't miss "SMERCONISH" -- that's the name of the show. It airs Saturday mornings 9:00 am Eastern only here on CNN.

Still ahead, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the election fight of his career in only six days.

Will he be re-elected? We're going live to Jerusalem for the latest poll numbers.

Plus more on the man who potentially could replace him.

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BLITZER: The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu potentially could be out of a job pretty soon, he's up re-election in only six days and even his supporters admit there's a real danger he could lose that election. Let's go to our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott once again. She's joining us live from Jerusalem.

I know there are new poll numbers showing that he's slightly behind his party -- slightly behind. Isn't he?

LABOTT: Wolf, in Israel, you know, it's not even slightly. I'm going to look at this Israeli Channel 2 poll released yesterday, and it has the Labor Party chairman, Isaac Herzog, and the Labor Party ahead of Likud, which is prime minister's party, by about four seats.

You know the Israeli parliamentary system revolves around forming a coalition. Whatever party not necessarily gets the better seats but whoever has the power to coalesce everybody around them would be able to form a government.

Now, if Netanyahu was neck in neck, if Likud was neck and neck with labor, then he might still have a chance to form the government as Tzipi Livni was offered the chance too in the last election. She won a few less (sic) seats than Netanyahu, a few more seats, but then in the end Netanyahu was the one that formed the government.

So it really depends on who all the other parties are willing to form a coalition with, but it definitely looks like Prime Minister Netanyahu is slipping in the polls and we don't really know where those voters are going, Wolf. They're just going away Likud. And there is a sense of momentum now that is turning way from the prime minister. BLITZER: Yes. It looks like he's losing some support every day. He might have gotten a little bump from his controversial address before the U.S. Congress last week, but that bump has clearly gone away. Hasn't it?

LABOTT: Well, you know, he got bumped and everyone looks at everything in seats. How many seats in the Knesset, in the Israeli parliament, the party would get and maybe he got seat or two for a day or so, but then the polls started dipping again. So now the fact he is behind four seats after this stunning speech that he went and really doubled down and put so much political capital on is really amazing -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Tell us a little bit about the opposition leader, Isaac Herzog?

LABOTT: Well, Isaac Herzog is the Labor Party chairman. He's been in the opposition for a very long time. This is -- a lot of people call him the most boring politician in the world but he's uncharismatic, mild-mannered, but he's really rising in the polls. He's an attorney by trade, the son of a former president of Israel, has a real long legacy here.

Some people compare his family to the Kennedys here in Israel. He's a former retired army, in the army, and also basically has been working in the national security cabinet. He has a long and illustrious career in politics but very little known.

You know, Wolf, I talked to a lot of Israelis and they say they don't want to vote for Netanyahu. They're kind of tired of the whole security platform, but they don't know Isaac Herzog.

So he told me in an interview just recently that he understands he has a lot of explaining to do to voters about who he is, but he's confident, when Israelis go to the polls they'll vote for him -- Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll see if he becomes the next prime minister of Israel.

All right, Elise, thanks so much.

I'll be back 5:00 pm Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

For our international viewers, "CNN NEWS CENTER" is up next.

For our viewers in North America, "NEWSROOM" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.