Egypt Launched Second Wave of Airstrikes on ISIS
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Thanks for joining us. A freight train carrying crude oil has gone off the tracks, it's burning out of control right now, it's happening in Southern Virginia. The governor there has declared a state of emergency. You see the fireball right there. We're working to get as much information as we can on this breaking story. We're going to bring you the latest details shortly. Also tonight, a dangerous night on the road in places where snow rarely falls, like it's falling tonight. That and even more snow in New England. We'll have the latest on all of it. We begin though, with yet another country joining the battle against ISIS. Drowning to it by yet another ISIS horror chef (ph). Egypt bombing ISIS targets in Libya for a second time late today, after the kidnapping, beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians there. This is from one of those ISIS propaganda videos; the victims being led on do the beach to their death. Barbara Starr joins us now from the Pentagon with the latest of this airstrike. What kind of new targets, where there actually going after, do we know?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Anderson. The Egyptian government is saying it went after a number of ISIS targets, training camps, other ISIS facilities in and around the Eastern Libya City of Derna. This is a well-known stronghold of militants in Libya. Now they say they are ISIS. They are clearly adherence to ISIS. At this point, we don't know if they're central members of the ISIS organization. Egypt also denied in any claims that there were civilian casualties, saying the strikes were surgical and precise against very specific targets that they went after earlier today. Anderson.</s>COOPER: But I want to be clear, that's coming from the Egyptian government, not U.S. officials, or outside information, correct?</s>STARR: Yes, that's right. I mean, I think it's exactly what you would expect the Egyptians to say at this point. They have no evidence of civilian casualties, and that they took great care to be surgical, you know, this is a case where we will see if there are any credible claims, sort of emerge in the coming hours and days.</s>COOPER: Right. We should point out we don't have people on the ground obviously there due to security concerns. Is there any indication, Barbara, that these strikes are the beginning of a wider campaign against ISIS targets in Libya by Egypt?</s>STARR: Well perhaps so, the Egyptian government making it very clear how very angry it is at this mass murder of 21 Christian Egyptian men who went into Libya looking for work, very low-wage work. The Egyptian government, moving very quickly to begin these airstrikes. The question is going to be, as our own Ian Lee has pointed out, how long can the Egyptian military keep it up. They have some limited stocks of bombs and the kinds of emission that they need to drop to get after these targets and destroy them. The question is going to be, are they going to need resupply. Is that resupply going to come from the United States?</s>COOPER: It's also interesting to try to understand how much direct connection these groups in Libya have to ISIS central, if you want to call that, operating in Iraq, operating in Syria. I understand, the U.S. is looking into who carried out this latest killing.</s>STARR: Well, that's exactly right. You know, as far as this take goes, they are looking very closely frame by frame especially at a man in the center of the tape. He's wearing camouflage. Not the type of black loose-fitting gear that you see others in the tape wearing. So they're looking to see who he might be, why he speaks such good English. But also, is this a sign that ISIS fundamentally is expanding to Libya, and there are signs of them or their adherence also in places like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Anderson.</s>COOPER: Yes. Barbara Starr, appreciate the update. We're obviously not showing the video. But you look at that spill image of all those people lined up in a beach, you see a man burned alive earlier. You watch one Arab country after another bombing ISIS and listen to cleric Sunni and Shia condemning ISIS. They prod a prayers and you might have asked yourself, what the terror group actually hopes to achieve, signally without a single ally elsewhere in the world. The answer, maybe just to terrifies the harsh they create. Joining us "New York Times" David Kirkpatrick, and CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, who's just written an item for CNN.com about the kind of war that ISIS hopes to start. So, David, these killings, what's the reaction been like on the ground in Egypt?</s>DAVID KIRKPATRICK, THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER: Well, it's very, very morose. I think a cloud is really hanging over the whole country. I feel like anywhere in the country you walk into a room you're going to see people looking a little bit hang-dog today. It's just -- it's such a shocking thing to see not only the loss of life, but a killing in this way. This kind of yet, gruesome theatrical brutality really takes a toll on people.</s>COOPER: Peter, it's hard to understand, I think, for a lot of people what ISIS is hoping to achieve with these kind of killings. I mean, if you're looking from at it rationally, you might think that they would try to get support across the Middle East, rather than what it seems like they're doing, which is alienating themselves and growing a list of enemies.</s>PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Means it's not an effective strategy to keep adding to your list of enemies. And now we've added -- ISIS has added the Egyptians, previously the Jordanians, the United States, and a very large coalition, pretty much every ethnic and religious group in Syria and Iraq. And so from a rational point of view, so what's the point here. But when you think about it in the way they think about the world, they really believe that we're living in the end times, a sort of apocalyptic view, that the final battle for the soul of Islam is being played out. And in fact, their English language magazine is called "Dabiq" which is town in Syria which the Prophet Muhammad said would be the place where the final battle between Islam and the crusaders would take place. And, you know, ISIS has that town. And in their view, that final battle is coming, too. So they don't really -- they're not behaving in a way a rational group would. They're behaving in a way of sort of an apocalyptic death cult in some would called them. And I think that's a very good way describing them.</s>COOPER: An apocalyptic death cult. So in -- if they're thinking about the world in those terms, Peter, the people that they are actually trying to reach out to, I mean, this kind of brutality, this kind of horror in terms of gaining new recruits, I mean, that's what it's all about. It's not about attracting a mass audience.</s>BERGEN: I guess not. I mean, you know, you have thought that it would repeal a lot of people. But even in the United States, we've seen, you know, teenagers in Colorado and teenagers in Chicago trying to join the Islamic state. Luckily, they were, you know, headed off at the airport before they could do that. But the point is, is that, you know, in some people's mind, the Islamic state is creating the perfect caliphate, despite all this terrible violence. And that -- you know, that accounts for the fact that they're the most successful terrorist group in terms of recruitment arguably in the modern era.</s>COOPER: David, I mean, in terms of Libya itself, I think a lot of people kind of haven't, maybe paid that much attention to it, since the Benghazi attacks, certainly even since Gaddafi was overthrown. How chaotic now has it become?</s>KIRKPATRICK: You know, the funny thing is, there's still money there. There's still Libyan Central Bank with about $100 billion in cash reserves, and it continue to pump out money to civil servants, to teachers, to doctors, to municipal workers. So the country continues to grind on in a way, even though there's been a total collapse of authority. You know, each little city is its own city state now. And each town is controlled by its own militia. And what we -- what we have really are two coalitions of militia. And that's all it is. There is no central authority in either one, really, fighting against each other for control of the country, ultimately for that bank.</s>COOPER: Peter, is there an understanding how -- or among people you talk to, how much the ISIS affiliates in Libya are connected with core ISIS in Iraq, in Syria?</s>BERGEN: Well, I think the beheadings of these Egyptian cops actually points to a rather tight relationship. Because in this English language magazine, "Dabiq" we saw pictures of these prisoners. And then we saw this video from ISIS central. And to me, that indicates that there are very much in touch with the folks in Libya. Of course, go back to the first Iraq war, Anderson, you know, the United States found that the largest number of foreign fighters that went into Iraq by overwhelming numbers was from eastern Libya, the very place where this is all playing out. So that link between eastern Libya and Iraq and Al Qaeda in Iraq has been there for almost a decade.</s>COOPER: David, is that what you're hearing as well from deeply talk to either Egypt or elsewhere about the connection?</s>KIRKPATRICK: Yes, especially in Derna in eastern Libya. As I understand it, you know, there are now three different groups around Libya who have pledged loyalty to this Islamic state. The group in Derna is actually, I think, partially or largely a group of returnees who have been fighting with the Islamic state in Syria. So that's -- that's an especially connected group. I'm not sure how deep the connection goes in Tripoli of Kenya where these people were apparently executed in the western part of the country.</s>COOPER: David Kirkpatrick, I appreciate you joining us, and Peter Bergen as well, thank you.</s>COOPER: Well, coming up next, another act of terror, another city in Europe, another possible connection to ISIS being investigated. We're going to go Copenhagen where police killed a gunman after his deadly rampage at a free speech meeting and outside a synagogue. Also our breaking news, we'll talk to people on the scene of that tanker train explosion, which not only shot flames high into the air, but also caught part of a local river on fire.