ISIS Sleeper Cells?; ISIS Smuggling Fighters Into Europe
BLITZER: We're learning new details about ISIS recruitment tactics and how they're being used to lure Westerners to join the terrorist forces, including three teenage American girls. Our justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, is working the story for us and is getting new information. Pamela, what are you finding out?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, U.S. counterterrorism officials I have been speaking with today say this case in particular is alarming. We're now learning these Denver teens were interacting online with other Westerners who had already made it to Syria and were trying to convince the girls to do the same. Officials say this case yielded a wealth of information that shows just how ISIS is using Westerners already in its rank to recruit others through social media.</s>BROWN (voice-over): CNN has learned hardened jihadists currently fighting with ISIS overseas had direct contact with three Denver teens, 15- and 17-year-old sisters and their 16-year-old friend, using social media to lure them to jihad.</s>DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: These were role models to them and people they could be in contact with. And social media, which is both more immediate and allows you to immerse yourself in an extremist environment being used as a recruiting platform.</s>BROWN: A law enforcement official says some of the jihadist recruiters were Westerners fighting in Syria. They were encouraging the girls to join ISIS, even giving them a road map of how to go from Denver all the way to Syria and eventually link up with the brutal terrorist group.</s>GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: If they're interested in extremism, rather than simply reading an article or reading posts on a message board, they can interact in real time with other people through tweets. And this is very immersive to them.</s>BROWN: In October, the teens made it halfway to Syria before they were stopped by authorities in Frankfurt, Germany. After the teens didn't show up for school, their parents alerted authorities, who found a treasure trove of information on the teens' social media profiles.</s>RITA KATZ, DIRECTOR, SEARCH FOR INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST ENTITIES: It's literally a case study of recruiting through the Internet.</s>BROWN: The SITE intelligence group tracks international terrorists and analyzed the teen's online activity.</s>KATZ: The same girl that was asked one day how many hours of music do you listen to on a daily basis and she used to say, I don't know, I can't count, but I would dance and I listen to music hours and hours, then a few months later she was asked how many hours of music do you listen to, she said music is forbidden.</s>BROWN: U.S. officials say this case is a unique opportunity to track efforts by terrorist groups to recruit Westerners. ISIS members have successfully played a role recruiting several Americans online, including Minnesota native Douglas McCain, who was killed in Syria in August.</s>BROWN: And this most recent case reflects a relatively new phenomenon of American teens being lured through social media to fight in Syria. Sources say there are other cases involving radicalized American teens that we don't even know about because it's difficult to bring federal charges against juveniles. The teens in this case, Wolf, have not been charged.</s>BLITZER: Pamela, thanks very much. Let's get some more now. Joining us, our terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, BuzzFeed Middle East correspondent Michael Giglio. He's reported extensive on ISIS recruiting. And CNN counterterrorism analyst, the former CIA operative Phil Mudd. Phil, how difficult it is it for intelligence, law enforcement officials to monitor this type of social media recruitment, if you will?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Look, you can't monitor this -- 330 million Americans, you want to sort through the haystack of Twitter, Facebook, their e-mail accounts? You have got sort of social issues related to that, legal issues related to that. Do you want to follow people in America like that? You have also got the volume problem. The easier way to do this and the way that might have worked in this case is you don't want to look at 330 million Americans. You want to look at the recruiter and see who is being filtered through the recruiting process so you don't have to sort of through that haystack. You can only focus on a few people overseas who are pulling people from Denver in.</s>BLITZER: Why, Paul, is this social media recruitment so effective?</s>CRUICKSHANK: Well, Wolf, it's the interactivity which is key. These youngsters aren't just passively soaking up jihadist propaganda, but they're interacting in real time with ISIS fighters from the West here in Syria and Iraq, in some cases people they know and they constantly encourage them to go and travel to Syria, constantly trying to reinforce this ideology. It's like this virtual radical echo chamber, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Mike Giglio, you recently interviewed an individual who claims, claims that he alone smuggled more than 10 ISIS fighters into Europe, I assume from Syria. This is one of the scenarios intelligence and law enforcement communities have been deeply concerned about, as you well know. Tell us what you're learning about the various smuggling operations of these ISIS fighters from Turkey or Syria into mainland Europe.</s>MICHAEL GIGLIO, BUZZFEED: Thanks, Wolf. Yes, so this is a human trafficker based in Turkey, who, for the last four years, has been sending refugees from Turkey by boat to Greece. He told me that over the summer he struck up a friendship with someone in ISIS who was posing as a refugee in one of his boats. The guy admitted that he was an ISIS fighter and told him that he was going over to Europe to wait for orders. And the man, the smuggler himself is an ISIS supporter and he sent the guy, later received a phone call from him and said, send our brothers too. He said over the next three months he sent about 10 ISIS fighters who were clients directed to him by this original fighter into Greece.</s>BLITZER: Do you know where these 10 fighters may have wound up?</s>GIGLIO: The smuggler told me that after Greece, he believes they're moving deeper into Europe, but that he doesn't know for sure. He just knows he sent them to Greece with the other refugees.</s>BLITZER: Did they have like a plot in their briefcase, if you will, ready to go?</s>GIGLIO: I don't think so. He was only telling me what he knew. I think the details he got were pretty sparing. His opinion -- and I want to just say this is just his opinion -- was that they were waiting for orders for an attack. But he said he didn't know for sure. And I think it's pretty important that I say I don't know for sure either.</s>BLITZER: Yes, because, Phil, this sounds like sleepers potentially being smuggled into Europe waiting for that order to do something.</s>PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yes. I didn't see many sleeper cells. What I saw were circumstances like this, which is more worrisome. Sleeper cells might have connectivity to a center of operations for al Qaeda that you can follow. When you've got a kid who's 15 years old, who decides over the course of months, that's your time frame to collect intelligence in a country of several hundred million people.</s>BLITZER: That's the problem. Paul, what do you make of this report that Mike just told us about, that maybe this one smuggler claiming ten ISIS fighters were smuggled into Greece and maybe elsewhere in Europe right now.</s>CRUICKSHANK: Well, Wolf, it's certainly a concern that ISIS could take advantage of the fact there's so many refugees going from Syria and Iraq to Europe right now to take advantage of those trouble (ph), to try and get operatives into Europe to try to launch attacks. ISIS have signaled that they will attack the west at some point. Their spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, has made this abundantly clear. So this could be one way they could do it. The biggest concern, though, is about operatives with European passports. It's estimated about 1,000 Europeans are fighting with ISIS right now, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Did this smuggler, Mike, suggest that any of these ISIS terrorists may have not necessarily have Europe as their final destination but maybe the United States?</s>GIGLIO: No, he didn't. They were Syrian or Iraqi nationals, and they were all posing as Syrian refugees, planning on either blending in with Syrian refugee populations in European countries or applying for asylum there. He didn't say anything about the United States.</s>BLITZER: All right. Phil, let's talk about Elise Labott's report you heard here in THE SITUATION ROOM, that the president now considering a new strategy: Don't only go after ISIS, but simultaneously go after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as well. It sounds complicated.</s>MUDD: You know, in the era of complexity, which is what we're dealing with, my experience in The Situation Room at the White House is that you've got to boil it down to simplicity. Put yourself in the shoes of a Syrian oppositionist. The Americans are -- from their perspective, several years behind the curve. We're saying go after ISIS. Their objective is Assad. We're saying, "Assad is in our sights. Yet, please only focus on the ISIS objective." You've got to be stepping back if you're in opposition, as saying, "What are we up to here with our partners, the Americans? They don't share an objective, and they're three years behind the curve." I think in the White House, you've got to step back and say, "Where are we going here?" Because over the long-term, this position is not tenable.</s>BLITZER: As you know, Paul, there's a report out there that ISIS may be discovering some sort of merger with another terrorist group, the al-Nusra Front, and that the Khorasan group, another al Qaeda splinter group, if you will, they may be brokering this kind of merger deal. What do you make of this?</s>CRUICKSHANK: Wolf, what we do know is that the Khorasan group tried to do this before when they were dispatched from Pakistan by Ayman al- Zawahiri to Syria. One of their tasks was to try and mend fences between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra. So it's possible that they're trying to do this again. And the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS have both been hit by U.S. air strikes means that the atmosphere might be right for some kind of reconciliation. But I think it's premature to talk about a merger. There's a lot of bad blood between these groups. They have been fighting each other for the last year. And Al Qaeda threw ISIS out of the global al Qaeda network in February. So there may be some cooperation at the local level. But I think premature to talk about a merger. But in fact, there was greater cooperation between these two groups. That would be very worrying for all our security, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: It certainly would be. Mike, let me ask you about another story we reported earlier here in THE SITUATION ROOM. You're joining us from Istanbul, Turkey, right now. Earlier, three American sailors from the USS Ross -- that's a warship -- and dock in the NATO ally of Turkey. They were assaulted. We're showing our viewers the really awful pictures. They were taunted. They got bags thrown over their heads. This group called the Turkish Youth Union later claimed responsibility for it. Tell us what you know about this, because to Americans, you see three American sailors on shore leave in civilian clothes, not wearing any uniforms, and they're getting these bags thrown over their head. They're being hit. They wound up OK. They're back on their ship, but what do you make of this?</s>GIGLIO: You know, if America is watching that, and I saw the video, I would say that's not something to worry about. This is a very fringe group. This is a very rare instance. Walking around the streets of Turkey, I mean, this is not something that's common at all. Any kind of aggression towards Americans like this. I mean, you have groups in every country. I really don't think this is something to be alarmed about.</s>BLITZER: There are some people who suspect -- who worry that maybe there were some elements in Turkey who may actually welcome this kind of assault on three U.S. sailors.</s>GIGLIO: I mean, like I said, there might be. But I think the majority of Turks would be disgusted by this. And it's really not something that's common here at all. And again, this is a real fringe group. I think it's -- it's almost a shame they get so much attention for this video.</s>BLITZER: Phil, what do you think about it?</s>MUDD: Look, if you're in an American decision-making position, you can analytically -- I agree with this, analytically say this is a fringe group. In the wake of Benghazi, when there's so much political pressure on the administration to respond to allegations they did not protect Americans, you're going to look at this and say, with all the violence, insecurity in the Middle East, are we sure -- are we sure we don't have a problem in Turkey? And I'm not sure what the answer is.</s>BLITZER: It's a NATO ally. And already, they had been told earlier U.S. military personnel, even though Turkey is a NATO ally, don't wear a uniform. If you go on shore leave, just wear civilian clothes. And obviously, this is going to escalate those kinds of fears. We'll see what happens. Hopefully, the Turkish government will take action against those who acted against these three American sailors. Mike, thanks very much. Always good to have you with us. Phil Mudd, thanks to you, as well. Paul Cruickshank, appreciate it. Just ahead, a private pathologist now set to appear before the grand jury looking into the death of Michael Brown. Could his testimony lead to the indictment of a police officer who shot the teen in Ferguson, Missouri? I'll talk about that and more with the Brown family attorney, along with our panel of experts.