ISIS Claims Baghdad Blast That Kills 200; Two People Injured in Dhaka Turned Out to Be Suspects
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hundreds of extra officers out in force.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do have technology that folks will not see.</s>COSTELLO: This, after terrorists launch a string of attacks overseas. Iraq reeling from a market explosion, CNN in Baghdad this morning. Plus, controversy hits the presidential campaign trail. Backlash growing over a Trump tweet evoking anti-Semitic imagery.</s>COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: A tweet is a simple tweet and the bottom line is you can read into things that aren't there.</s>COSTELLO: And Hillary Clinton can't shake the e-mail scandal, her meeting with the FBI. Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.</s>COSTELLO: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me on this Fourth of July. Security ramped up across much of the country. This as ISIS delivers a chilling message overseas. They are ready to kill and defenseless civilians are a prized target. ISIS now linked to three major attacks just in the last week. The most recent also the most deadly. At least 200 killed by a massive truck bomb that ripped through a busy shopping area in Baghdad. The blast so massive it incinerated some 81 people. Their remains will have to undergo DNA testing just to be identified. Iraq's prime minister chased from the scene by furious residents. They say the government has shown its powerless to stop ISIS and its terror attacks on the innocent. We're covering all the angles and our correspondents and experts are scattered around the globe. Let's begin, though, in London with CNN's Nic Robertson. Hi, Nic.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, hi, good morning, Carol. We just heard from the Iraqi authorities that they have now increased the death toll in that horrific attack in Baghdad. They're now saying 215 people died when what we understand was a refrigerator truck packed with explosives detonated around about midnight. That market area, a bustling market area, busy because this is Ramadan. Busy because it's the end of Ramadan and people are out buying gifts for their families. It's a clothing market, electronics market, perfume stores, and all those stores keep their goods in the apartments around and above their shops. And those are the premises that were -- that caught ablaze during this attack. And that's what one of the reasons that the death toll is so high. Officials, families still trying to find loved ones there. 81 people incinerated so badly that officials say that they will have to be identified through DNA analysis. This was claimed by ISIS. It is an absolutely sectarian attack. This is a predominantly Shia neighborhood. ISIS is Sunni. They're trying to create a situation in the country that divides and separates the country along sectarian lines so that ISIS can try to control the west of Iraq that make it too difficult for the government to control that area and we saw where the prime minister, going into that neighborhood, just the anger and animosity that the government cannot protect people. Baghdad has many, many checkpoints surrounded, a so-called ring of steel, yet they weren't complex and strong enough to stop this bomb load of -- this truckload of explosives getting in. The government has now made a decision to ban the use of explosive detectors that have already got a failed track record, ban the use of them, to checkpoints around the city. 215 people now confirmed dead.</s>COSTELLO: You mean the bomb detectors were faulty?</s>ROBERTSON: It has been known that the bomb detectors that have used in Baghdad that they purchased towards the -- about seven or eight years ago and continue to purchase despite the fact that they were proven not to be credible in many cases, that they've continued to be used. It's not clear why, potentially giving people a false measure of protection. But now the government has taken this decision no more fooling ourselves into thinking that we're safe because we have these detectors. They're not working. Get rid of them. They need to tighten up the security. That's the message coming from the leadership. And it's a message people are clearly feeling is coming too late, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: No wonder people are furious. Nic Robertson reporting live for us this morning. Thank you. We also have new video out of Saudi Arabia to show you. A police robot has detonated explosives around -- found inside the car of a suicide bomber. The man killed himself just outside of the U.S. consulate this morning as Saudi police approached him. Two officers were wounded. Police became suspicious of the man when he appeared to be wandering aimlessly in the parking lot of a nearby hospital. It's not clear if the bomber is linked to a terrorist group. Police now say two people injured in that horrific cafe terror attack in Bangladesh are suspects. This as CNN talks to the father of one of the attackers, who says he learned his son was involved after ISIS released photos of the terrorists. All of this happening as Secretary of State John Kerry offers FBI help to the Bangladeshi government. Let's go to Dhaka now where that attack took place. Alexandra Field is there. Hi, Alexandra.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Carol. The father of one of the 18-year-old attackers breaking down in tears when he tried to express to me his deep felt grief, his sorrow, his condolences towards the families of the 20 people who were slaughtered, packed to death and stabbed inside that restaurant and the two police officers who lost their lives fighting off the gang of assailants who stormed that cafe on Friday night. The father of this 18-year-old, Saameh Mubasheer, that's the name of the man who went into that restaurant with a group of assailants, that he had no idea that his son had become radicalized. He said he didn't see any signs of radicalization, didn't see any signs of extremism. In fact he said his son had left the house at the end of February. They had not heard from him since. They had been working with law enforcement agencies to try and track him down but over these past few months they became suspicious. They became fearful that he may have taken up with an Islamist group of some sort. He describes his son as being 18, impressionable and immature. We're hearing from officials here in Bangladesh that all of the attackers were Bangladeshi. We are told that they are all of upper, middle class backgrounds, each of them highly educated. ISIS claimed responsibility for this attack. They posted pictures on the Internet of the men that they purport to be the attackers as well as horrific pictures of the victims lying in pools of blood inside that restaurant. But officials here in Bangladesh say they are not ready to determine who carried out this attack and they are focused on the possibility that it was carried out by a domestic terror network. That said, U.S. intelligence officials are looking at ISIS as key perpetrators behind the horrific massacre here, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Alexandra Field reporting live from Bangladesh this morning. Despite the recent string of horrific terror attacks, the U.S. military says ISIS is actually losing ground in places like Iraq and Syria.</s>COL. CHRISTOPHER GARVER, SPOKESMAN, OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE: As we take terrain away from them and we defeat them, and they have not won a battle in Iraq in the last seven months, ever since the fall of Ramadi last year, they have not won a battle and only lost ground, they're trying to remain relevant on the global stage and trying to show as they attract crazies and sickos from across the globe, they're trying to show that hey, we're still a viable threat.</s>COSTELLO: With me now, CNN contributor and co-author of "</s>ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror," Michael Weiss. Good morning, Michael.</s>MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So supposedly ISIS is targeting civilians in a big way because it lost ground in places like Iraq and Syria. You know, Iraqi forces just retook Fallujah. So what do we take away from that? Are we winning or losing?</s>WEISS: Well, it's true what Colonel Garver said. The so-called caliphate has been steadily shrunken over the last two years and change. The problem with this is ISIS is now reverting back to for, what it used to be which is the gorilla style insurgency. The attack in Baghdad, I'm sorry to say, is very characteristic for Iraq. This has been the case for 13 years. This is exactly what they do. The targets were well chosen as Nic Robertson was saying, this is a Shia predominant neighborhood. The founder of ISIS was a genocidal maniac who thought all Shia Muslims were marked for death. He wanted to kill and extinguish the entire community. There's also a strategy behind this, a very Machiavellian one, which is by attacking the Shia, you saw what this crowd was doing to the prime minister. You destabilize the Iraqi government. You also -- the definition of brutalization is turning people into brutes. You force the Shia into the arms of these radical Islamist militias which then conduct reprisal attacks against Sunnis and the Sunni minority community of Iraq is thus driven into the fold of</s>ISIS. COSTELLO: Didn't al Qaeda sort of try the same thing?</s>WEISS: Well, the difference between ISIS and al Qaeda -- I mean, there a few differences in terms of doctrinal, you know, sort of interpretation of jihadism but one of the starkest ones, and this goes back to when Zarqawi first met bin Laden. Bin Laden's mother is a Syrian Alawite. The Alawis are an offshoot of Shia Islam. Al Qaeda never really wanted to declare all-out war against the Shia. The reasons having to do with pragmatism as much as theology, you know.</s>COSTELLO: I mean, about destabilizing governments.</s>WEISS: Yes. Absolutely.</s>COSTELLO: Right? That was their --</s>WEISS: Absolutely.</s>COSTELLO: That was their plan but that didn't quite work for al Qaeda in the end, right?</s>WEISS: No, but the difference here again is al Qaeda had a few hundred operatives scattered throughout the world. ISIS has got 20,000 guys on the ground in Syria and Iraq and another 20,000 now scattered elsewhere, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, an untold numbers of networks inside Europe and Turkey. But look, the emphasis on foreign operations, there's a fallacy I think in the press that this is a new strategy. It's not a new strategy. This has been the strategy since 2004 when AQI was formed. Zarqawi in 2005 tried to perpetrate a chemical weapons attack in Amman, Jordan. That was interdicted at the very last moment. He successfully perpetrated a series of hotel bombings which the Jordanians to this day considered their 9/11. There's always the goal to export jihad abroad. Now we consider abroad, Paris, Brussels, Orlando. Abroad for ISIS consists of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, you know, the near region as well.</s>COSTELLO: So what's the answer?</s>WEISS: Well, look., I mean --</s>COSTELLO: Well, I ask you that question knowing that's a difficult question.</s>WEISS: Yes. I only got like, what, 30 seconds?</s>COSTELLO: Yes. Yes.</s>WEISS: You know, they have to be defeated militarily on the battlefield. But look, I keep banging on about this. The geopolitical and social grievances that have fueled ISIS, beginning with the invasion of Iraq but now, you know, the cropping up where this perceived U.S. support for illegitimate sectarian, authoritarian regimes, whether it's Bashar al-Assad in Syria, again perceived support, not necessarily the reality, or the Iraqi government. I mean, you know, why did the government buy bogus or faulty bomb detectors? I'll tell you why. Because someone was making money. Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in world. And so when Prime Minister Abadi comes out and says, well, we're going to stop buying these devices that don't work which are not saving anyone's lives, do you think any -- the average Iraqi is going to be gratified by that sentiment? You know, this is -- and ISIS knows this. I mean, ISIS operates in plain sight in Baghdad. They're running car dealerships from last I heard to make money.</s>COSTELLO: What?</s>WEISS: Yes. Everything is for sale, particularly in the Middle East. They worked with the Assad regime in Syria, they work with Iraqi officials in Iraq. I would not be surprised in the least that this truck bomb got into this area in central Baghdad because somebody -- some cash changed hands.</s>COSTELLO: Michael Weiss, thanks so much. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump breaking his silence after outrage grows over a campaign tweet that sparks charges of anti- Semitism.