Obama Weighs Options on ISIS Threat; The Next Generation of ISIS Terrorists
WHITFIELD: Children across the U.S. are headed back to school this time of year. They're learning their math and their ABCs. But in Syria, some kids are being sent to ISIS camps to learn the Koran and how to shoot a gun. And it's all part of building an Islamic State known as a caliphate. Nick Payton Walsh looks at the children of ISIS.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ISIS wants their caliphate to span generations, so ideas are crammed into minds that are often too young to understand. Like these weapons, absurdly held and manipulated by limbs that cannot control them. Yet still, ISIS films and boasts of their youngest. Mohamed (ph) has now fled to safety in Turkey, but was aged 13 when ISIS said he should attend their children's camp in the Syrian city of Raqqa. His father didn't agree. "They didn't threaten me," he says, "but they threatened my father. When he prevented me from going to jihad and the camp, they said they'd cut off his head. We stayed in the camp for a month," he says. "Every morning we exercised, jogging and such and had breakfast. Then we studied religion, the Koran and the life of the prophet. Then we took a course on weapons, the Kalashnikov and other light military stuff. It's rare testimony from schools where boys learn Koranic verse by rote, as you hear in this ISIS video and from which few escape and about which fewer talk. "I understood some things, such as praying and worship, he says, but many words I didn't understand like infidels and apostates and why I should fight them. Everybody pledged allegiance. Everybody who went to the camp pledged allegiance to Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi." They take an oath, yes, seen here, but are also indoctrinated into ISIS's barbaric system of justice. "They ordered us to come at a specific time," he says, "and a specific place to watch heads being cut off, lashing or stoning. We saw some of these scenes. We saw a young man who didn't fast during the holy month of Ramadan, so they crucified him for three days. And we saw a woman being stoned to death because she committed adultery." This boy has learned his lines, but they, too, know death too young. "There was one of my friends," he says, "who went with them for a battle, and he was martyred in (inaudible) when he fought the Free Syrian Army rebels with ISIS. He was my age, 13 or 14 years old." Merely a year into its creation, so much ISIS has already damaged that cannot be undone. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.</s>WHITFIELD: Recruiting young people is only part of the brutality being tied to ISIS. How is the U.S. going to deal with this militant group? As I mentioned a moment ago, Secretary of State wrote about ISIS in the "New York Times" today. Here's another part of what he said. This from Kerry: "Already our efforts have brought dozens of nations to this cause. Certainly there are different interests at play but no decent country can support the horrors perpetuated by ISIS and no civilized country should shirk its responsibility to help stamp out the disease." Those words from Secretary Kerry. Let's bring in General Spider Marks -- he is CNN's military analyst and a former senior intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. Good to see you.</s>GEN. JAMES SPIDER MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hi Fredricka, how are you?</s>WHITFIELD: I'm pretty good. So just before this Labor Day weekend, the President has taken some flak for saying he doesn't have a specific strategy for ISIS when asked about it. Do you take him literally that there's no strategy or is it simply no strategy that he, the White House is willing to make public?</s>MARKS: No, I think he -- this is well-deserved flak that he's getting. The President of the United States should not and he did stand up and say I don't have a strategy, I'm not prepared for this engagement that we're faced with, this challenge that we're faced with. The tone of this engagement is being set by ISIS. When you're reactionary and when you're executing tactical air strikes, which is what they are, these are tactical air strikes, you're letting the enemy in this case set the tone of the engagement. And that's exactly what they're doing. We don't have a strategy and we can't establish a strategy or we can't execute appropriately until a strategy's in place because we don't know what right looks like, we don't know what the horizon needs to look like. And we need to know when we're there. We can't do that without a strategy. So it's absolutely essential.</s>WHITFIELD: When we talk about this strategy, are we talking strictly militarily?</s>MARKS: No.</s>WHITFIELD: Is diplomacy off the table? What should be incorporated in this strategy?</s>MARKS: Strategy must entail all elements of power. Diplomacy, economics, military, there are coalitions that have to be built along each one of those verticals and they have to be synchronous. Our diplomacy has to be in support of -- our economic posture has to be in support of our alliances and our coalitions. And it has to support -- and our military efforts have to support those as well. Right now, what we have is a military effort that's being executed magnificently, but we don't know what the desired end state is. And we're now cobbling together, which is ok, if you're going to cobble -- cobble it together as quickly as possible. But let's get something labeled as a strategy and then everybody can walk and execute their tasks synchronously off the same page. It has to be done.</s>WHITFIELD: When you hear the President, Secretary Kerry, even the ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, all used the word "cancer" in talking about the spread of ISIS and that's what it's like. Can you infer any kind of real immediacy here, or is this something because this, you know, conflict particularly in Syria has been going on for a couple of years ISIS has been able to, you know, grow thrive, over the past couple of years, is a solution whether it's militarily, diplomatically -- is it a solution that needs to be or a strategy that needs to be put into play in a matter of weeks, months? Or is this really, you know, just a long-term project?</s>MARKS: Well, it is very much a long-term project. I think the analogy of a cancer is absolutely spot on. We've been trying to attack cancer for years and years and years. We have a strategy. We have research. We have development taking place. Yet we continue on a tactical level to go after that horrible, insidious disease. ISIS, not unlike cancer, needs to be attacked on multiple levels and you start now. If you don't have anything in place now, you start now. But you realize of course, Fredricka that this is going to be a long-term engagement. What we're doing now might provide some pause and give us some good insights, but we have to establish what the bounds need to look like so we can operate very effectively and establish the momentum that we can use to our advantage.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much. We're going to give this conversation some pause, General and let you get some hot water to take care of that throat.</s>MARKS: I know. My apologies.</s>WHITFIELD: I'm sorry. I totally know what that's like. I get it. General Marks, good to see you. Thanks so much.</s>MARKS: Thank you Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: Ok. All right. There are hundreds of Westerners, by the way, including Americans fighting for extremist groups around the world. Coming up in the next hour, we'll actually meet one youth worker in Minnesota who is trying to help kids at risk, trying to prevent them from being radicalized. Also, still to come. There's plenty of secrecy about the latest iPhone, but there are also plenty of leaks. I bet you can't wait to hear about the latest rendition of the iPhone. Our tech guy has what you need to know next. ,