U.S. Hits Terrorists in Somalia; Islamic Group Issues Fatwa Against ISIS
BANFIELD: The dust has now had time to settle on an apparent U.S. air strike targeting ruthless jihadis in a lawless and battle scared country. And this time, we are not talking about Iraq and we're not talking about Syria. We're talking about Somalia, the unhappy home of the al Qaeda-linked terror group al Shabaab. As the world first learned on CNN, U.S. forces carried out an operation, that's the Pentagon's term for it, aimed at al Shabaab's leader who was meeting with his top lieutenants in the group's stronghold south of Mogadishu. One Somali official tells CNN, quote, "I never heard such a huge and deafening blast." The question today is, however, is this man dead? That's Ahmed Godane. Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he wounded? Is he unscathed? Did he get away? We hope to find out in a White House briefing that's scheduled for just a little later on this hour. A Pentagon briefing scheduled for this afternoon. But in the meantime, I want to bring in CNN's global affairs correspondent Elise Labott, who's in Washington, D.C. Elise, I think a lot of people have been expecting to hear daily news of strikes against groups like ISIS in either Iraq or Syria and instead we're hearing about Somalia and al Shabaab. Why this group? Why now?</s>ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, U.S. officials are very sensitive to the idea that because everything is going on with ISIS and the U.S. has a lot of attention focused there, that it can't walk and chew gum at the same time, if you will. And they say al Shabaab main (ph) continues to be a very potent threat, not just to Somalia but the region and to U.S. interests there and that this target of opportunity presented itself, which is this meeting of the leader of al Shabaab, Ahmed Godane, and some of his top commanders. And targets of opportunity like that don't happen all the time, Ashleigh, so they went for it.</s>BANFIELD: And tell me a little bit about this leader. His name may not be in common parlance amongst a lot of Americans but that doesn't mean that the administration isn't really aware of him.</s>LABOTT: That's right. Well, since he took over al Shabaab, he's really pushed for a much more militant group that will expand its influence outside of Somalia. And you've seen al Shabaab in recent years undertake attacks in the Westgate Mall in Kenya, and in Uganda, and so really al Shabaab was on the backfoot (ph) in 2011. But since then, instead of being this kind of local militant group in Somalia, it has really expended its influence outside. And so he is one of the people that have been pushing for the group to become more closely aligned with al Qaeda. So now if, in fact, he has been killed and we haven't had that confirmation from the U.S., I think they want to wait to see if they have some DNA evidence there. It remains to be seen what the future of this group is. Do they stay with their affiliate with al Qaeda? A lot of members of the group have pledged their support for the aims espoused by ISIS. And so it's really unclear what the future of the group would be.</s>BANFIELD: Well, since we're talking about terror groups, how about this -- since I have you, as well, this big terror bust in Saudi Arabia. What can you tell me about that?</s>LABOTT: Well, the Saudis just announced 88 men arrested, 59 of them have been arrested in the past and they were either in the final stages of planning a plot or about to execute a plot. Most of them were Saudis, a few of them Yemenis. But, you know, this goes to show that even though Saudi Arabia was in the news several years back for militancy and terrorism in Saudi Arabia, you haven't heard about that, but these are continuing threats that the Saudis face, and they say that this is the project of months-long surveillance on these individuals, 88 of them arrested today, Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: Elise Abbott reporting live for us, thank you for that. And now to fighting terror on another front. Elise alluded to it. It is the group ISIS. That is an organization that uses some pretty slick Internet postings, believe it or not, showing pictures of corpses that are smiling. Corpses that are smiling. Jihadi fighters happy in death. All of this in an effort to lure people to join the cause, showing the glory. But a former jihadist shows us how he's fighting back now against all of these myths that are hooking in recruits.