I want the actor to do his best. Thats not the say im going to leave the movie and act as his friend. Maybe during the course of the movie, with mr. Putin, i felt like i was keeping him interested. I was making him think, and about everything, across the board, about whats going on in the world today, and i think he said some very pregnant things about the United States and about russia. Rose Michael Weiss and oliver stone, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Glor the Russian Ministry defense announced friday a russian airstrike may have killed the leader of i. S. I. S. Abu bakr albaghdadi. It is far from the first time the leader of the Islamic State has been reported killed or wounded and the report remains unconfirmed. So how likely is it that baghdadi is dead and, if so, what would i. S. I. S. Look like without him . Michael weiss is an Investigative Reporter for cnn and the author of isis inside the army of terror. Michael, good to see you. Sure, thanks very much. Glor so the big qualifier is we dont know whether this was actually accurate but it was interesting because the ministry came out and said hes dead and then came out and said well were looking at reports hes dead. What do you make of all this . Brought about by the defense that the ukraine said it shot him down. I dont know because all of raqqa is crumbling. It is true russia occasionally bombs in the Euphrates River valley but its not their main endeavors. This has been more about propping up assad against other rebel or opposition groups including those backed by the United States. The areas that ive heard baghdadi travels in include baj in northwest iraq recently taken over by shia militia groups. The key area, the third capital of i. S. I. S. Is abukamal on the asyrianiraqi border. I. S. I. S. Relocated its media propaganda to this town where he is more likely to hang out. Its been the gateway from syria to iraq for over ten years. Glor you talk about the i. S. I. S. Propaganda, part of it is the russian propaganda. Yes. Glor their involvement and their willingness to be seen involved is big. Yes, and a part of the Russia Military doctrine is information war fair preseeds kinetic measure. They lie and lie very well well, sometimes not so well but this would be a piece of what is the russian strategy at the moment particularly with the donald Trump Presidency which is to bring the United States into the russian camp or russian orbit in their definition of a socalled war on terror. So america stop with democracy promotion and regime change, lets link arms and go after the terrorist, namely islamic terrorists. So for them to take credit and pound their chest and say we got the worlds number one bad guy is a piece of that. But theyre already walking back their own assessment, hes dead to we may have killed him. There was a russian airstrike, the pentagon confirmed that, but what and who they were hitting, we have no idea. Glor but we think its much smaller than theyre saying because the initial report was 300 people and baghdadi doesnt travel in groups of 300 people. No, he does not. There are probably less than five people on the planet who know where he is at any given time apart from his own personal entourage including his many wives and i have to be honest, sex slaves and chattel he is keeping. This is one of the most guarded men in the world. He does not talk on cell phones. When the Sharia Council has met before the suggestion to him was to lock your devices into leadlined boxes on they cannot be intercepted. Russia has human and its signal intelligence. The warlord president of chechnya has sort of more than hinted that hes been dispatching spice into i. S. I. S. To join i. S. I. S. From the caucuses and chechnya, in particular, to gat evidence and so on and so forth. I. S. I. S. Claimed they executed some of these spice one of them which is memorably eulogized sort of authenticating that view. So i. S. I. S. Is infiltrated by various intelligence agencies including Russian Security services but i dont think they have better detail and information than what the coalition has because the coalition exclusively is going after this group. Glor how do baghdadis travels and secrecy differ from bin laden and zarqawis . Zarqawi was a little sloppier. You have to remember the reason america was able to get zarqawi is the jordanians had been following him since his debut as a wanna be jihadi who had gone to afghanistan twice and come back. The u. S. Was able to reverse engineer where he was by doing these opportunistic raids into other areas and gathering this digital information. American special forces are doing the psalm thing now trying to find out where baghdadi and the inner sanctum of i. S. I. S. Is. Thats what i mean. America has a more true presence in the caliphate than russia has. If this information had come out from, say, iran or some of the shia militia groups in iraq, i would still treat it with a huge barrel of salt, but i would be more inclined to believe that version than the russian version of events. Glor speaking of the kill, we are coming up on the third anniversary of the declaration of the caliphate from baghdady. I guess this strike would have happened exactly one month before, may 28th, june 28th, 2014, was the declaration. He is and they are in a much different spot than three years ago. Absolutely. They have lost most of the terrain that they at one point held. I would air view that i. S. I. S. Surprised and impressed itself in 2014. They bit off more than they could choose, took huge swaths of territory, which i think is why their collapse has been more precipitous than we ants paid. But lets not confuse the shrinking expense in syria and iraq with diminished capability to strike in the west and conduct terror operations. The former headquarters of i. S. I. S. s c. I. A. , theirer Foreign Intelligence Branch was retaken by turkey in a town called albab in aleppo. Theyve gone outside syria through turkey, im told, one guy wound up in europe, according to my sources. Cant confirm but thats what i get when i talk to people inside i. S. I. S. Territory. Just this week, it was reported they are surging in afghanistan in such a way they blew up a shia mosque in kabul on ramadan, well a piece of their genocide project with all shia. Theyre becoming internationalized. Theyre anticipating their collapse in syria and iraq and looking to establish networks and cells elsewhere. Glor i was going to say, after baghdadi was reportedly killed again, after this may 28th date, there was the attack in kabul, in tehran, in london. Yeah. Glor it all continued unabated. Exactly. Again, i. S. I. S. , its a miscon accepts and sometimes the media plays into this wrongly. It has always been i. S. I. S. s strategy the do what they are doing now, to hit london, to hit paris, to hit brussels, to hit the United States. The difference was zarqawi never got that plank of his global conspiracy off the ground nearly so well as these guys. So while it is true they are probably emphasizing or trying to accelerate foreign attacks as they continue to lose ground in syria and iraq, this is always part of the grand plan, and they have already made preparations for when raqqa falls, and mosul falls to fan out, thats why you see them in Southeast Asia and trying to make inroads. Attacking iran for them had been unprecedented. In fact, they blamed bin laden and al quaida specifically for preventing sunni jihadis from attacking iraq. Glor tehran, that surprised you . It didnt surprise me. It surprised me it took that line. When al quaida and i. S. I. S. Broke ranks with each other 20132014, that to me signaled the safeguard, the stopping mechanism that al quaida h. Q. Had placed on what once was its affiliate in iraq and was no more and namely that safeguard was dont go after the iranians and theres a letter written by the i. S. I. S. Spokesman to czar wa which that said for years you told us the avoid the hub of shia in iran, so now all bets are off and they feel brazen and reckless enough to hit the islamic rep lek at home. Glor you mention places like mosul, theyre not giving those places up. Their idea is fight to the last man but thats as defined by leadership. Theyre leaving a garrison of hundred or maybe more fighters to really bleed and cause the immense suffering of not just the civilian population but incoming shia militia groups, Iraqi Security forces, armier, and any american troops. The brass ring is killing americans for them. But whilst doing this and also plunging the country into the state of chaos and disarray, they are forwardthinking, theyre preparing for the future. And one of the, in terms of territory in this part of the world, anyway, its a return to the cow patches in the countryside, the Euphrates River valley. So thats where they were able to repair in 2009, 2010 when they had more or less been strategically defeated in iraq. There was a joke amongst People Living with them saying what emirate . This is the emirate of the desert you crated. Theyre prepared to do that over again and wait out the United States when it says Mission Accomplished and goes home. Glor so you lose mosul and iraq, its a shifting battlefield. I have a map here and if we could zoom out i could show you the enormous badland area in syria and iraq where people dont live. You have bed owen treebs. These guys can hold up much like al quaida in the mountains of afghanistan and pakistan. Glor the u. S. Is putting focus on southwestern syria. Yeah. Glor why is that . This is an interesting state of affairs and marks a bit of departure in the way america is now involved itself in syria. Senior white house official stated it as such. We are now at a point in the war where our antii. S. I. S. Strategy is colliding with irans expansionist strategy. What do i mean by that . Its been reported in the guardian, elsewhere, the israelis certainly believe it, the brits i know for sure believe it and the americans are coming around to the idea that its true, iran is looking to construct a land bridge or a direct line of communication so that they can literally drive men and material from tehran to the mediterranean coast, assads original. They moved southward because the americans are too chockabloc in the north. The american foot frint deterred iran from Northern Syria now theyre going through southern syria, but again america has an Opposition Force its backing, there are about 200 vetted Syrian Rebels america has been relying upon to fight i. S. I. S. In that area. And three times now iranianbacked militias, these guys are trained and armed by the i. R. G. C. , three times they had provoked our forces and three times the u. S. Struck them from the air. And the u. S. Has made it very clear if they continue to antagonize our forces in the southwest, we will continue to strike back. I want to talk about what i. S. I. S. Or Islamic State would look out without abu bakr albaghdadi. Hes 46 years old, yeah. Where would it go next and how capably would it continue on with what it has been doing now . I think with anything weve learned in the last almost 15 years about this organization, it has evolved, it has metamorphsized time and again, but its proven to be incredibly resilient. He would be, in effect, depends on which counterterrorism geek youre talking to, either the fourth or third man in charge to have been bumped off. I would be very surprised if they havent got somebody next in line or a series of candidates next in line. The difficulty is baghdadi claims he is a descendent from the house of the prophet of muhamad. I. S. I. S. Doesnt have many people like that. They can rewrite their covenants. There is a core to i. S. I. S. , and when push comes to shove, theyre happy to rewrite laws to accommodate reality. Im less interested in who heads the organization than the middle cadres that are filling it out. The trend in the last 18 months to two years, i call it the europeanization of i. S. I. S. , but thats almost a misnomer. A lieutenant of people from russianspeaking territories, central asia, the former soviet republics coming in and because these guys have served in the military of their native countries and theyre pretty bad as if you ask american soldiers who have seen them in action, theyre the ones we have to be more worried about. I. S. I. S. Is changing from the predominantly from the arabic to a lot of russian speakers, french speakers, french speakers. Glor and remain far more capable to strike france or europe than the United States. Yes, yes graphically. So sews logically, culturally, the United States has had a much better record of muslim independenintegration. Most muslims in the United States if they see something say something. They would not abide by one of the paris attackers cooking up chemical weapons in the apartment next door. In europe, i lived in london two and a half years, i understand the difficulty of state multiculturalism in that country, its easier. Popopulations come over who dont feel a part of their own system and recreate their native lands in european soils. I. S. I. S. Is using those constituencies and communities to recruit and radicalize. We see it time and time again. You dont have to have gone to syria and have weapons training and made your way across the continent. You can stay where you are and watch videos on youtube or twitter and get instructions for how the build a pipe bomb, a rudimentary weapon or buy a knife in the u. K. And go on a stabbing spree, weve seen that,ta. Here its proven to be more difficult but not impossible and we have to be on guard for it coming here. Glor the indoctrination, whats the message . What are they telling their treen eyes about whats happening in europe and the u. S. . They say this is a war against islam perpetrated by the crusaders zionists of the United States. The crusaders from baghdadi not long after they declared their caliphate is today the global muslim community, but not shia, facing an International Conspiracy headed by the United States, backed by russia and of course the jews and abetted by iran and the rafida which is the bigoted term used to describe all she. I cant the groups claiming to be fighting i. S. I. S. , albeit i. S. I. S. Not muslims, are at war with islam. If youre a kid and angry at western Foreign Policy, you know, its very, very easy to get access to this cooped of information and pro propaganda. Its true twitter accounts get taken offline and you tube videos get taken offline but these guys have gone to ground more than physically. Theyre using telegraph and encrypted messaging to get their propaganda out there. Glor its interesting when they try to confirm whether Something Like this is true, the first place they look is social immediate yarchlt. True. Russia, first few weeks in syria they kept producing videos they hit i. S. I. S. Then you had groups debunk the videos and say youve provided us the evidence to disprove what you said. We located this video and terrain as 100 miles away from where you said it happened, and it happened two tuesdays ago, not yesterday. This is why im reluctant with the m. O. D. And their statements. Glor and their response is typically faster to confirm a death, it typically happens within days. Yeah, depends. It can take much longer. The main way or the easiest way to confirm the death of a jihadi figure is when his own organization confirms it and then, you know, writes his obituary. We havent seen that with baghdadi yet. And again, you know, if he were dead and i. S. I. S. Were driven into some kind of internal disarray, it could take months before they acknowledge the fact but i have seen no evidence to suggest that hes been taken out of the field. In fact, theres a good report in the guardian by my friend martin shlaf who was in one of the areas where baghdadi was hanging out before iraq was taken, the incoming militia said we feel hes here. This has the making in terms of the infrastructure and the safe houses, this looks like a place a top dog would have been hiding very recently. Glor you heard that with bin laden a lot. I lost count of the number of times that the former leader of the main insurgency in the caucuses was said to have been killed by the fsb. Rumors of my death have been greatly exam rated never more so than the war on terror. Glor Michael Weiss, isis inside the army of terror. We appreciate it. Sure. Pleasure. Rose oliver stone is here. Hes used films such as platoon, j. F. K. And last years snowden to challenge the prevailing narrative. For his latest project stone charts another contrary course to let russian president Vladimir Putin to explain the world as he sees it. Over the course of nearly two years the two men sat down for a series of wide ranging conversations. Stones goal he says was to listen to president putin and see if we can understand what he wants. Heres a look at the president putin interviews. All right, ready . Action a lot of western people dont know much about you. We would like to know about your background and where you calm from. Your critics say that russia is a traditional authoritarian state. In a hot war with russia, is the u. S. Dominant . Most americans think rust is as bad as the u. S. When it comes to surveillance. F. B. I. , c. I. A. And n. S. A. Believed russia hacked the election. People say trump is in the kremlins pocket. Rose im pleased to have oliver stone back at this table. Welcome. Thank you, charlie. Rose so its all over. Tell me how you feel about it. It was about 20 hours altogether with him over two years, four different visi