A Look Into ISIS's Brutality In Northern Syria
ATIKA SHUBERT, HOST: Tonight, we bring you a view of the war on Syria unlike any you've seen before.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As part of their terror tactics, eyewitnesses were telling us that they would leave some of the bodies of people they'd executed lining the checkpoints.</s>SHUBERT: Arwa Damon visits a town, which until recently was a militant Islamist stronghold. She sees the mass graves that illustrate the sheer horror of what is taking place there. Plus...</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What were they saying about the Islamic state, he's asked. Say the truth. Save yourself.</s>SHUBERT: Ben Wedeman brings us videos of actual interrogations by these militants along with insight into how they operate. CNN is shining a light on Syria's brutal reality.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN London, this is Connect the World.</s>SHUBERT: Well, tonight we're bringing you two exclusive reports on the brutal reality of the Syrian civil war, a conflict in which the lines between the good, the bad and the ugly are often blurred. For months, reports have been emerging from northern Syria about atrocities being carried out by a rebel group of al Qaeda inspired extremists. The group is known as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and they want to impose a fundamentalist version of Islam on people under its control. Now it's been battling the Syrian government, but it has also been fighting other rebel groups. The brutality carried out by ISIS roces is so extreme that it has been highly dangerous for a journalist to report from areas under its control. But now as ISIS is being forced out of some towns, CNN's Arwa Damon, her producer Raja Razek (ph) and cameraman Clayton Nagel (ph) travel to the northern Syria town of Addana to witness the devastation that's been left behind. Now we should warn you, some of the images in this exclusive report are disturbing.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This grave has been dug up before, the bodies unidentified, reburied in the same spot. In video filmed at the time, gruesome images of the corpses of four men. It's among many mass graves rebel fighters unearthed after they recaptured the town of Addana from radical fighters who once were their allies. Now, weeks later, a family hopes for closure. "We a foot and a shoe and a jacket," Ayoush Ali says. She's with her neighbor Mohammed Ismaili. It's his two younger brothers that are missing, one might be here. "He just went out to get tomatoes and sugar," Mohammed recalls still disbelieving. And his wife wanted socks for their kids. "It's the same jacket," Mohammed says. The site is next to a former prison run by ISIS, the Islamist State in Iraq and Syria. Its walls lined with bullet holes, some from clashes, others, we are told, from executions. Masked ISIS fighters, as seen in this rare video posted to YouTube, used fear to rule; anyone caught filming them killed. This was the main ISIS checkpoint leading into Addana. And as part of their terror tactics, eyewitnesses were telling us that they would leave some of the bodies of people they'd executed lining the checkpoint so that every single car coming through would be forced to slow down and could not ignore that brutal message. ISIS is a group so merciless that even al Qaeda has reportedly distanced itself from it. Abu Jamal is telling us that ISIS had beheaded one of the main key rebel commanders here and they came in the early morning when the market was really busy and placed his head on top of the garbage heap that was in that very same spot. And they turned around and told everybody that would be the fate of anyone who dared speak out against them. Their harsh, intolerable rule caused other Islamist and moderate rebel groups to launch an offensive against them earlier this year. "So we had to leave the fronts with the regime," Abu Jamal says, "and fall back to fight ISIS to liberate the already liberated areas another time. But ISIS still looms large in Syria, consolidating its forces and imposing its reign of terror. In this Video filmed later shows Mohammed, he realizes it's not two but three of his brothers that were murdered by ISIS. He thought one of them was in jail. Arwa Damon, CNN, Addana, Syria.</s>SHUBERT: And Arwa Damon joins me live now from the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Arwa, first, tell us a little bit about your experience crossing over into Syria. It's still very dangerous there. Give us a brief glimpse of what that was like.</s>DAMON: It was slightly unnerving just because of the unexpected. We hadn't been back in such a long time. And of course ISIS deliberately targets journalist, foreign and Syrian alike. It's so difficult to be speaking to people about what it is that they've gone through, because it is so unimaginably horrific. But I actually think the hardest part in all of it is when Syrians ask how is it that the world can just sit back and watch what is happening to us, when they question the international community's humanity, that's really difficult Atika.</s>SHUBERT: You talked to many people there. And I want to get your sense. For example, the FS -- the leader of the Free Syrian Army, the loose affiliation of mostly secular rebel groups has now been sacked because he couldn't have any victories on the ground. It seems like the rebel groups can't get themselves together. You talked about the hopelessness of the Syrian people there. Does it look like the rebel groups are going to make any sort of headway?</s>DAMON: Well, that's been one of the biggest challenges for the Syrian rebels and the opposition, the fact that they are so fractured. What we saw happening is that the former leader of the FSA, General Salim Idriss, has been replaced by General Abdullah Bashir. This is part of an effort to reenergize the FSA, because even though the Free Syrian Army at this stage is the largest of all of the rebel groups, it's viewed as being the least effective. Its new leader reportedly has very close ties to other fronts. And that is part of a hope and an effort to try to consolidate movements on the battleground, to try to really bring everyone together when it comes to the opposition so that they are on a shared military and political track. But of course until they are able to accomplish that, groups like ISIS are going to be able to very easily take advantage of the situation and the chaos.</s>SHUBERT: Yeah, it's a very complex situation there. And I can just imagine what it was like for you going across the border. Well, thank you very much. We will come back to you, Arwa, after this break. We will take a look at the inner workings of ISIS with exclusive footage of the group's interrogation method in a town formally under their control. A report by our Ben Wedeman coming up next. And later in the show, how an Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot diverted this plane to Switzerland to seek political asylum. Also ahead, ruling out the red carpet, the BAFTA Awards are handed out in London. And we'll tell you which stars to took home the hardware this year.