Iraqi Forces Continue to Advance Toward Mosul; French Village Welcomes Its First Calais Migrants
ALLEN: Welcome back to our viewers around the world. We're coming to you live from Atlanta. This is CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Natalie Allen.</s>VANIER: And I'm Cyril Vanier. Here are the headlines this hour. The U.S. Senate's top Democrat says FBI Director James Comey may have broken the law by revealing a new batch of e-mails belonging to a close aide of Hillary Clinton. The blistering letter by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accuses Comey of deliberately hurting the Clinton campaign. The federal law bars U.S. government employees from all political activity.</s>ALLEN: Saudi Arabia says it has busted two separate terror cells that were plotting attacks. Authorities arrested four Saudi nationals who had ties to ISIS and four Pakistani nationals from a cell alleged to planning to bomb a World Cup qualifying match earlier this month in Jeddah.</s>VANIER: Italian authorities are working to get aid to two central regions rocked by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake on Sunday. At least 20 people have been injured. This follows two tremors last week and a quake in August. That one killing almost 300 people.</s>ALLEN: Paramilitary forces in Iraq are fighting ISIS militants west of Mosul in support of the Iraqi Army. Officials say 20 villages in that area have been liberated. Meantime, Iraqi forces continue their push toward Mosul, but ISIS is putting up strong resistance with reports of civilians being used as human shields.</s>VANIER: Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is embedded with Iraqi troops near the front lines.</s>ALLEN: And of course the team with him to get this dangerous job done, photojournalist Scott McWhinnie and producer Ghazi Baqis (ph) were also with Nick for this report. Here it is.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last phase of lifting ISIS' dark curse from Iraq begins here. Trying to hit a specter of fleeting enemy lit only by the glow of Mosul's city limits. Barely two kilometers away. Iraqi Special Forces trained by the U.S. target with a tank here, where they are attacked from during the day, putting us to use Humvees as cover when they move. The commander Major Salam has fought ISIS in Fallujah, Ramadi, and now the end is near. "Where did the artillery land," he asked? Just visible in the distant light of Mosul. This is the global tip of the spear in the war on ISIS. Surging forward on a thin strip of land into ISIS territory. And as we see, in the same area in daylight, constant counterattacks. Here, they can see ISIS just beyond the berms. The incoming is from behind it. A truck that pops out, opens fire and vanishes. (on-camera): ISIS is less than a kilometer away firing at Iraqi Special Forces position. This is a constant day in, day out. (voice-over): "Where is it moving," he asks? As fast as it emerged, the truck vanishes. But here, there are yet tougher hours ahead. Dark has just fallen, and the sky is alight with ferocious firepower. ISIS have attacked the berms. Suicide bombers, rocket- propelled grenades. It is constant, exhausting, closer and closer to the roof we are on. We simply do not know where in the town around us ISIS may have broken through. (on-camera): So far toward this Iraqi Special Forces position, now it seemed to try and stop those coming down the road. (voice-over): ISIS despite being in their end days still able to conjure the terror of omnificence that began their savage rule. The wounded start coming back, but we cannot film them. A steady stream. The unit we were with earlier on the roof had been hit. Rockets struck, many of them asleep, tightly packed in a room. The blast killed 14 soldiers. Many limbs torn clean off Major Salam is shown the weapons of the dead. He pauses in emotion. "You guys are heroes," he says. "And none of you should be affected by this. Those suicide bombers are nothing." Two kilometers from Mosul City, and seven left to the center to go. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Baswir (ph) near Mosul.</s>ALLEN: You know, they didn't know what they were going to see as far as resistance. But ISIS, you know, being their tactics are just brutal and wild and they really kind of have a fight up ahead, but hopefully they'll keep moving toward Mosul. All right, here. Well, dozens of young migrants gathered at a makeshift church in the French migrant camp known as the jungle for a final service before that camp's complete demolition.</s>VANIER: Thousands of refugees have been sent from Calais to shelters across the country, but hundreds of minors are still living in temporary housing in the camp, and aid workers are concerned about the welfare of those young people.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We know that there are more than 1500 minors at the CAP, temporary reception centers. But we also know that there are a few in the jungle. Yesterday around ten people had to sleep outside the CAP, unaccompanied minors. And we also know that there were some security problems inside the CAP and it would be worth investigating that. There are still people who are hiding out in the area and who come back here during the day to have access to food, water, things like that.</s>VANIER: And so migrants are now facing the reality of life outside of Calais. 40 refugees were sent to a welcome center in Southeastern France.</s>ALLEN: But as CNN's Zain Asher explains, their arrival is making some of the locals uncomfortable.</s>ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From the squalid camp in Calais to Champtercier, a picturesque village at the foot of the French Alps nearly 1,000 kilometers away. 40 migrants, mostly men from Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, arrived here in the middle of the night. Welcomed by aid workers and a few of the town's residents, the men sat down for hot coffee and tea after their long journey. Zarif (ph) who recently fled Afghanistan said leaving Calais was a nightmare.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night, all the jungle is finished. People do fire and the house is all finished.</s>ASHER: Zarif (ph) and the others are now settling in at this empty lunch while they apply for asylum in France or elsewhere.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe I stay here. Maybe I'm going back to Afghanistan. I don't know.</s>ASHER: Champtercier is small. Home to about 700 people. Some of them welcomed the refugees with open arms, but some are uncomfortable with the influx of new arrivals.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): My house is 400 meters away from the holiday resort where the migrants will be housed and where I go past on my morning walks. And I don't know if I'll be able to continue this in the future because I don't feel safe.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I can understand that people are afraid. People are always afraid of what they don't know, afraid of strangers, but you have to be able to control these emotions.</s>ASHER: It's not clear how long the refugees will stay, but more are due to arrive. Up to 100 will make Champtercier their home, while authorities consider the applications for asylum. Zain Asher, CNN, Atlanta.</s>VANIER: All right. We've got a lot more coming up on the show. Namely, everyone has been waiting to hear whether Bob Dylan would show up to accept his Nobel Prize.