Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room 20150225 : vimarsana

Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Lets get to the breaking news. Three men living in new york they are now in custody at this hour accused of trying to join isis. One suspect was arrested today at new yorks jfk airport before a flight to turkey. Court papers say the men allegedly discussed carrying out attacks here in the United States and one suspect is said to have spoken about shooting president obama. Senator chris murphy of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is standing by live along with our correspondents and our analysts and the u. S. As the u. S. Helps Iraqi Forces Gear up for an offensive against isis i will speak with the u. S. Army chief of staff. But lets begin with an extraordinary terror bust today. Our justice correspondent pamela brown is joining us. Whats the latest youre hearing about this plot . What were these men allegedly planning . Very disturbing here wolf. The fbi arrested these three men, these three Brooklyn New York men, on Material Support charges. They allege that at least one of the men had boasted about wanting to kill president obama. Also wanting to allegedly blow up coney island. Of course a big u. S. Landmark. They also allege according to the fbi that the other man wanted to kill federal agents wanted to shoot and kill the fbi with an ak47 and kill other Police Officers. According to the criminal complaint we have been reading through, if they werent able to follow through on their original plan of wanting to go over to syria and fight with isis they would carry out these plans in the u. S. In the homeland. One of the men, jaraboev posted about allegedly wanting to kill president obama. Very alarming post. He says to shoot obama and then get shot ourselves, will it do. That will strike in the heart of infidels. That post brought the fbi to the front door of this man. They apparently according to an nypd press conference today, identified themselves as fbi agents but even after that initial interview, apparently jaraboev then called people overseas with isis including an isis administrator of a website who then convinced him to come over and fight overseas allegedly, and then according to this criminal complaint, jaraboev also spoke to one of his friends, saidakhmetov to join him to go to isis and saidakhmetov was arrested allegedly for wanting to travel to turkey, then go fight with isis in syria. We have seen these Material Support cases before but what is so alarming here is the fact that we have information that these men wanted to launch an attack in the u. S. If they couldnt make it to syria, also the fact they were conspiring. This isnt just one person wanting to provide Material Support. This was a conspiracy according to Law Enforcement officials. I should mention the third man in this case wanted to allegedly provide support by financing their trip. He allegedly bought the tickets for these two young men to go to turkey. So very alarming. Its taking place, the arrests today, just as we are getting new information about how widespread these extremists might be throughout the United States. Thats right. We heard director james comey director of the fbi, say there are homegrown violent extremists in every state, all 50 states. He talked about the fact that isis is sounding the siren through social media to tell people to come join them. In fact we just talked about this issue a couple weeks ago when i interviewed michael steinback, head of the fbis Counter Terrorism division. He talked about the fact there are groups of people here in the u. S. That are interacting with isis overseas and what we see today with this case is a reflection of what we have been reporting about. Its very disturbing information. Pamela brown, thanks very much. Lets get some more details that are coming in on these alleged isis wannabes. Evan peres is joining us. What are you hearing from your Law Enforcement sources . This case really represents an escalation of this threat from isis. Until now, we have been hearing about isis and we have been hearing about their recruits most of them have come from around the country and you know they are trying to reach syria to join the militants. In this case we are talking about new york and thats something that we hadnt seen before. Im told by Law Enforcement officials that there are other cases they are investigating. They expect they will be able to bring charges against other individuals who are planning to join isis or trying to carry out attacks here in this country. One of the things they are watching is jfk. Jfk is a point of departure for a lot of flights to europe which is a conduit for people trying to get over there. I want you to listen to what james comey, the fbi director said today about the growth of these suspected extremists throughout the United States. Listen to this. Those people exist in every state. I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago, it was 49 states alaska had none. Which i couldnt quite figure out. But alaska has now joined the group so we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states. Thats obviously very disturbing when he says its as widespread as it is. That was sort of startling to me to hear that from the fbi director. Reporter well yes. You know one of the things we have been focusing on today is in these charges against these three men, they talked about carrying out an attack against the president or perhaps maybe hijacking a plane and taking the airplane to isis in syria. A lot of people think that these people you know frankly werent very smart discussing some of this online. The truth is you know it doesnt take a lot of smarts to carry out some very deadly attacks. We saw here in new york where you had somebody who was deranged who attacked Police Officers. And so one of the things that the fbi, what the director there was talking about, he was trying to urge people around the country, Law Enforcement in particular to keep an eye out because the fbi is not really able to keep a handle on all of these people. They are going to need the help of people around the country to let them know when one of these guys is planning to do something. Evan we have some live pictures coming in from the federal courthouse in brooklyn. You see whats going on. Two of these three suspects are about to be arraigned there. We believe they will be charged with providing Material Support for terrorists namely isis. A third will be arraigned in florida. Potentially, if convicted of this charge they face up to 15 years in jail, is that right . Reporter thats right. The investigation is continuing. We know that the fbi arrested one of these men last night and then decided to go and arrest the other one who was still at home, was planning to travel later, and the other one in jacksonville. We know that the fbi spent all night, had agents interviewing these men and one of the other things theyre trying to figure out is whether there are others that these men were working with were talking to. They are interested in those people as well. Deborah feyerick is inside the courtroom right now watching whats going on. She will be coming outside and briefing us. This is the federal courthouse in brooklyn. We will stay in touch with her, obviously, get the very very latest. Evan perez, thanks very much. We are also learning of another threat to upscale shopping malls. This morning, coming from the u. S. Embassy in amman, jordan. Our pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is working on this story. What are you hearing about this u. S. Warning to all americans who are in jordan right now, or planning on visiting jordan . Reporter well the u. S. Embassy in jordan has issued a statement warning Americans Embassy personnel, their families american citizens in jordan for the coming days to stay away to avoid what they are calling high end shopping malls in amman, jordan. There are a few of them there and they are warning them to stay away from them. They say there is a threat. They say the timing and the exact type of threat is not known but that there is credible information that there is a threat in amman. Jordanian officials certainly have ramped up security in that country in recent weeks since the capture and killing, of course of the Jordanian Air force pilot by isis and the rising sense that there is an isis threat against jordan. So that seems to be the foundation for some of this. But still, another disturbing development, yet another Embassy Today overseas warning american citizens they must be careful. Barbara, i want you to stand by. I know you are getting other information about isis activities in iraq. We will have that later. I want to bring in democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut right now. Hes a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, thanks very much for joining us. Pretty shocking when you hear these three guys who live in brooklyn arrested the suspicion getting ready to go over to syria to align themselves with isis and potentially come back here and launch plots or attacks against the United States. What are you hearing about this . First of all, credit goes to our Law Enforcement personnel who were able to find these guys and bring them to justice. Weve got to be vigilant because they are likely the tip of the iceberg. Radicalization is pretty easy these days when you have imams and organizers able to Contact People through facebook through twitter, through other social media platforms. I think we want to be careful about not getting too far ahead of ourselves here. Right now it looks like this threat may have been a little more aspirational than it was operational. But this is real and its why weve got to make sure that our strategy against isis in the middle east significantly degrades them without providing more recruitment fodder for folks that are trying to organize in the homeland right here in the United States. One of these three guys was arrested at john f. Kennedy airport in new york getting ready to board a flight to turkey. Once youre in istanbul its not that hard to cross that border get into syria and align yourself hook up with isis. That seems like there was a pretty specific plot at least in this individuals case, right . Well we know that there are americans who are moving into that fight. We know there are europeans who are flooding into turkey into syria, into iraq and one of the most important conversations were having is with our allies in europe to make sure they are doing the things necessary to try to track these individuals to make sure they dont use whats called the Visa Waiver Program to come back into europe come into the United States. We do a pretty good job of figuring out who is moving over there to make sure they dont move back here to threaten us but our allies have to step up and do the same thing as well. The other very very worrisome development in this Justice Department memorandum that was released outlining the charges was that one of them said that if he couldnt get to syria to hook up with isis he was going to go to try to kill the president of the United States. Another said he would simply try to blow up coney island or kill as Many Police Officers or fbi agents as he possibly could. That sounds pretty ominous to me as well. These guys clearly werent really smart about their intentions given that they broadcast them on social media such that they could be pretty easily picked up by Law Enforcement. Its a reminder about why information information gathering is important. Im not somebody who has been a fan of how we conducted some of our surveillance activities under the patriot act but so long as a court is overseeing some of the operations we are doing to gather this information, this is another reminder of why we have to be constantly vigilant and why republicans and democrats have to come together in washington around making sure that Law Enforcement have the tools available to root this out. As long as isis is there, it doesnt take someone actually traveling across the ocean in order to become radicalized. They can simply use that fight in order to do damage to us without ever leaving the United States. When you have these three guys working together would you call them lone wolves or part of some sort of isis conspiracy . Well i dont think we know enough yet. I certainly dont know enough yet about what their interaction was with isis. Frankly, it shouldnt matter in the sense that whether or not people are working with isis or acting on their own, they present the same kind of threat. As your reporter said it doesnt take much today in order to carry out an attack that would kill a large number of americans. Weve got to be vigilant whether these are lone wolves or whether these are people communicating with isis. Thats why isis is a threat because they are inspiring attacks against the United States and against other countries, regardless of whether they are actually reaching in to the United States with direct contact. Senator, i need you to stand by. We will have a lot more on the breaking news thats unfolding. These three individuals arrested today. 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But we are watching this very very closely right now. As soon as she comes out, we will go there live. In the meantime we are back with democrati