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CNN TONIGHT

Kaci Hickox Released From New Jersey Quarantine; Gingrich Critical of Radical Islam; New ISIS Video Shows Hostage John Cantlie; New Revelations About ISIS Brutality; How Do We Stop "Lone Wolves?"

Aired October 27, 2014 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It's 11:00 p.m. on the East Coast. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Tonight, could your state quarantine you against your will? You may be surprised to find out what some governors are doing to fight Ebola.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich says Islamic extremism is a virus just as bad as Ebola, and he calls President Obama's response to terror delusional. He's here with me tonight.

Also, who are the people being recruited into radical Islam, and what do they have in common? We're going to talk to the terror expert who calls ISIS recruits loner idiots. Let's begin now with the very latest on Ebola.

Joining me now is CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, what is the latest information on the patient in Maryland that is new tonight?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is the patient was transferred over there to the University of Maryland Medical Center. This came at the request of the Department of Public Health. We don't have much information about the patient. We don't know what sort of prompted or inspired that transfer.

But we are hearing now just over the past little bit of time that the initial assessment now at the hospital says that the symptoms that the patient has are not suggestive of Ebola. Obviously, we won't know for sure.

But Don, it's a reminder. A lot of people come back from West Africa. You can have some fever, some symptoms because of lots of different things. A little bit of foodborne illness.

Malaria is something that's more common. So there are lots of other things but they're going to sort that out over the next several hours.

LEMON: All right, Sanjay, I want you to stay right there with me because I'm going to show you the state governments have a lot to say when it comes to who faces quarantines and what could make a big difference when it comes to stopping the spread of Ebola. Here's CNN's Rosa Flores.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The forced quarantine of nurse, Kaci Hickox, isn't the first time public panic over contagious diseases has led to mandatory quarantines in the United States. San Francisco's Chinatown was given a year-long quarantine order after a suspected case of the bubonic plague in the early 1900s.

This black-and-white video shows men most likely the health department committee, checking for disease and then there's Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the late 1800s. This startling historic illustration shows how a smallpox outbreak forces people into isolation hospitals.

(on camera): Perhaps America's most famous quarantine happened right behind me, on Ellis Island, 12 million people were processed. More than 2 million would be hospitalized or quarantined.

(voice-over): CNN's review of quarantine and isolation statutes across the country reveals that all 50 states have the power to isolate and quarantine. At least five states specifically detail their power to treat the sick involuntarily.

At least four states mean business. Violating the order is a felony. Wisconsin could have the stiffest fine, $10,000, Mississippi the longest jail sentence, five years.

GOVERNOR DANNEL MALLOY, CONNECTICUT: Pre-emptive action is the right approach to have taken and to take now.

FLORES: The governor of Connecticut isn't taking any chances and an apparently healthy family of six is in mandatory quarantine with friends in West Haven. Even though the family arrived from West Africa, they say they did not come into contact with Ebola, according to city officials.

Some pointing to Nigeria's aggressive monitoring strategy to stop Ebola want tough travel restrictions. But civil libertarians say that's a step too far.

JAY STANLEY: We see politicians running around with their arms in the air saying we need to do something, anything about this threat and putting in place, quote/unquote, "tough measures."

FLORES: The Centers for Disease Control is not recommending mandatory quarantines for everyone traveling from West Africa.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Deeply concerned about the Ebola situation.

FLORES: But a pen stroke could change that if President Obama exercises his executive power, allowing federal authorities to detain and medically examine people traveling between states or entering the country.

(on camera): What prevents the government from overstepping its powers?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Whenever a citizen is incarcerated or confined, you can go into court and say to a judge I've been locked up without good cause and I want a hearing on the issue.

FLORES (voice-over): Nurse, Kaci Hickox fought back and will be quarantined at home. Others might not have that choice. Rosa Flores, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Joining me now is Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil of the NYU School of Medicine and also Dr. Gregory Ciottone of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

Back with me, of course, our very own, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Dr. Debbie first -- Sanjay, let's start with you. Should we have set federal guidelines that every state follows so that there is a clear policy here?

GUPTA: I think that would probably be a good thing. You know, the CDC does make guidelines and recommendations, but that's all they are. They're not enforceable. There are no mandates around that.

But look, you know, people -- this is confusing. You know, one state's treating something differently than another state. If you're sort of tuning in and out of this, you think, well, what's the right answer here? Is there a right answer?

And obviously, pathogens, you know, they don't respect borders. People can cross from one state over to the other. So what happens if you're a resident of New Jersey and you go to Idaho?

You know, are you going to be under New Jersey's sort of rules or Idaho's rules? I think it gets confusing.

LEMON: What should it be, then, Dr. Gupta, so everyone is on the same page? New Jersey has one. New York has another. You know, South Carolina has another. What should they be? What should those guidelines be?

GUPTA: I think the science really does matter here and you know, again, you want to be dismissive of the fear around this. But I think the science matters. The Doctors Without Borders, for example, have been doing this sort of work for decades in West Africa and they have very clear guidelines here.

These are not unequivocal. One of the things they say is that quarantine is neither recommended nor warranted. Now, obviously the CDC has gone a little bit further than that saying let's stratify people into high risk all the way down to no-risk groups.

And based on that it's going to basically give you your level of how closely someone should be monitored. But they also say unless you're symptomatic you don't specifically get quarantined. You may limit your public activity.

You may not travel as much if you're in the high-risk group, but you're not quarantined. Those seem like pretty good rules based on real science and experience from -- LEMON: So what about this Kaci Hickox, this nurse that was released

from the University Hospital in Newark today and she was privately transported back to her home in Maine. She says she never had a fever, doctors, or a symptom.

So was this all an overreaction? Dr. Devi, to Sanjay's point, if you don't have any symptoms or you're not showing any signs, then you should not be under very stringent isolation sort of quarantine.

DR. DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, I think there are a couple of different things to consider. So in terms of whether she was infectious, whether she could get other people sick without a fever, the answer is no.

But should we look at this quarantine in terms of the public's concerns, protecting the public? I think what we learned from Dr. Spencer is that you know, he followed the guidelines that he was given. There wasn't very clear instruction.

But if he had had symptoms then it could have potentially spread through the subway when he had symptoms, not beforehand. But here in Kaci Hickox's situation I feel bad for her. She got a raw deal. But I think it could have gone very differently if people approached her and asked her to voluntarily quarantine herself.

If she was greeted by people who said you've been -- you know, you've out of the loop for a while, but let's bring you up to speed on what's going on --

LEMON: And Doctor -- it seems like Dr. Ciottone is sitting there raring to get in because I think you think there should be some self- isolation, some sort of quarantine when workers come back, correct? Is this an overabundance of caution, do you think?

DR. GREGORY CIOTTONE, BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER: No. I don't think so. In her case in particular I can understand the concern, I mean, you know, at one point, she apparently had a fever. Now, whether she did or she didn't we can argue. She probably in fact didn't.

But when you combine what she had done in the last several weeks with now she has a fever, I understand the concern and why immediately she was isolated. Now, you know my stance on this. We talked about this last hour.

But I think that, yes, we do need to have a strict quarantine for those health care workers who have been returning from West Africa because I'm not convinced that the personal protective equipment is doing the job it should be doing.

Whether it's putting it on, taking it off, et cetera, because there are health care workers getting sick, however, at the same time, I think we need to demystify quarantine.

And this is my concern I had with what the CDC said today about when people come back as heroes from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, which they absolutely are. We don't want to turn them into pariahs.

My response to that is quarantine is not turning somebody into a pariah. The CDC knows better than anybody the role the quarantine can play in outbreaks, preventing epidemics.

This is not as your earlier piece showed. This is not the first time the U.S. has dabbled in quarantine. We first did it in the 1600s for smallpox. We did it more recently with the gentleman who had multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and was flying back and forth.

We've dealt with quarantine in the past. It doesn't have to be -- it can be in your home. It can be very comfortable.

LEMON: Thank you very much, Dr. Ciottone, Dr. Devi, and as always Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

When we come right back, Newt Gingrich says radical Islam is a virus much like Ebola and he does not think President Obama has the right description. He joins me next.

Plus the new revelations about the brutality of ISIS, how are they recruiting westerners and who's most susceptible to their message?

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LEMON: Nurse Kaci Hickox was harshly critical of her quarantine in New Jersey, in a New Jersey hospital. She was isolated on Friday after traveling from West Africa. Hickox called her quarantine extreme and unacceptable and said she felt that her basic human rights were violated.

Joining me now is Newt Gingrich, CNN contributor and former speaker of the House. Thanks for coming on, Newt.

NEWT GINGRICH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Glad to be with you.

LEMON: I want to get your reaction to what Rush Limbaugh said on his show today. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, HOST, "THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW": One week before the election once again New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has caved and is seen as -- we need to quarantine Chris Christie is what needs to happen here, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You're laughing. Why?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, remember that about 80 percent of Rush's background is an entertainer and it's a pretty funny line. I think it's a little bit of a nonsense line. I thought from what I read of the New Jersey quarantine it was a little bit rough, a tent and a toilet but no shower? I mean, you know, you could ask people, for example, to self- quarantine by staying home. You could pay their salary for 21 days. They could work from home with iPads and laptops and what have you. I think the New Jersey version may have been a little bit extreme.

LEMON: Let's move on because Army Major General Darryl Williams and approximately ten other personnel now in controlled monitoring in Italy after returning from West Africa and additionally, CNN's Barbara Starr has learned that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are debating whether to recommend all troops returning from West Africa be placed in a 21- day mandatory quarantine. With 4,000 troops authorized to travel to West Africa, is that realistic?

GINGRICH: Sure. I mean, go back and look at how we've handled epidemics in the past. We were very prepared even with SARS as recently as 2009. We were very prepared to use quarantine. I think this is a version of Ebola -- I'm going to emphasize this.

This particular version of Ebola is the first time we've ever seen it in large urban areas. More people have contracted Ebola in the last six months than all the previous history of the disease to the best of our knowledge. And I think we have to be very careful about the people who keep telling us oh, everything is fine.

LEMON: So think we've been lucky here in the United States that it's just been health care workers so far?

GINGRICH: Well, I think we've had -- first of all, I don't think it's been particularly lucky for the two nurses who got it because the Center for Disease Control recommendations were wrong and they now know they were wrong, and they've had to fix them. We've been playing catch-up with this disease now since last December.

LEMON: You know, Samantha Power is headed over to West Africa. Do you think Samantha Power should be quarantined for 21 days when she returns?

GINGRICH: I think that she ought to be very, very careful and it depends on just how controlled she is and the environment she goes into. But I think this idea of having VIPs drop in is not a very good idea and I wouldn't recommend it.

LEMON: OK, let's talk now about last week. We're going to talk about this terror attack. Last week the two lone wolf terror attacks in Canada and the one on the streets of New York with the hatchet.

All three targeted military and law enforcement officials and the mere definition of a lone wolf attacker is that they are working alone, that they don't have to tell anyone what they are planning or what they are doing, what their motivation was behind it. How can the homeland security forces brace for these types of attacks?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, I think that we need to recognize that radical Islamism is in many ways a virus much like Ebola. It doesn't spread from Syria to Iraq to Libya. It spreads on the internet. The man in Oklahoma City recently who cut off the woman's head, the army major who got up and yelled "Allahu Akbar" and began shooting people at Fort Hood.

The cases you just described, lone wolf is only accurate in the sense that they are self-initiated and uncoordinated, and I think we're going to have more of them. What bothered me about the president's reaction was he said, gee, we don't know what their motivation is --

LEMON: Let's play it and then we can talk about it. Here's what the president said last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We do not yet have all the information about what motivated the shooting. We don't have all the information about whether this was part of a broader network or plan or whether this was an individual or series of individuals who decided to take these actions.

But it emphasizes the degree to which we have to remain vigilant when it comes to dealing with these kinds of acts of senseless violence or terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK, so this is your response to what he said. "President Obama's statement on Canadian killings verges on delusional. He can't bring himself to tell the truth about radical Islamists."

GINGRICH: Sure. Look, remember, this is an administration, which defined the Fort Hood attack as a workplace incident, which it clearly wasn't. The major who got up, carrying a card in his wallet that said he was a soldier, a warrior of Islam, having been constantly in touch with a radical cleric, yelling "Allahu Akbar" and shooting people, that's not a workplace incident, that's terrorism.

LEMON: What do you want to hear from the president about radical Islam?

GINGRICH: I want the president to say we're up against a worldwide movement, that we've had two people from Minnesota, for example, killed in Syria, one of whom had clearance for ten years to work on the Minneapolis airport.

We're lucky he decided to take his terrorism out in Syria and not at the airport. That we are faced with a movement which spreads on the internet, it spreads in our communities. We're probably going to have to adopt some pretty tough new laws about certain kinds of behavior.

Recruiting for ISIS ought to be illegal, and people ought to go to jail. Any kind of funding ought to be closed down. And this is going to really infringe on a number of so-called charities that have now somehow magically ended up giving their money to terrorist groups.

LEMON: You --

GINGRICH: I think we underestimate how pervasive and how real a problem this is. LEMON: You realize that by having this conversation, right? It may be deemed as Islamophobic or anti-Islam or anti-Muslim or bigoted in some way. Do you understand that?

GINGRICH: Yes, and I think that's incredibly stupid. These are people, when you go to their web sites, they are -- I always describe it as radical Islamist. I'm not describing all Muslims. I'm not describing people who are appalled by this.

But I would suggest to you that there is a very deep tradition of very anti-western behavior, that cutting off people's heads is nothing new --

LEMON: So you think that just by having a conversation it should not be deemed as bigoted in any way because it's a legitimate conversation?

GINGRICH: Why is the accurate description of the behavior of people who are murderers and who are torturers and who are currently raping women, selling them into slavery, why is the accurate description of their behaviors somehow immediately impugned as though it's the motive?

These are not Norwegian Lutherans. These are not Indian Buddhists. These are people who have a particular background. They advocate the establishment of a caliphate. They're very honest about who they are. It's only western elites who are afraid of it.

LEMON: I get your point, point well taken. So let's talk -- because I'd be remiss as a journalist not to ask you about the midterm election coming up. I want to get your reaction --

GINGRICH: I knew that was coming.

LEMON: To this new CNN/ORC poll. It says how Congress is handling its job, 13 percent approve, 85 percent disapprove, and satisfied with the way the U.S. is being governed, 25 percent say yes, 75 percent say no. What's your prediction? What's going to happen on Tuesday?

GINGRICH: Well, I think based on everything we've seen up until now, the Republicans will win the Senate. There will be somewhere between 51 and 55 seats. They will gain seats in the House. They may in fact pass their modern high, which would take picking up 14 more seats.

They're going to gain a huge number of state legislative seats and it will probably be about a wash in governorships. We started this psych well a lot more governorships than the Democrats.

But overall, by the time it's done, which may be as late as January if Georgia goes to a run off, will certainly be as late as December because Louisiana is going to a runoff, by the time it's done it will be seen as a decisive Republican victory. Not a gigantic tidal wave --

LEMON: In the Senate? GINGRICH: But a continued -- the Senate will clearly be -- Mitch McConnell will be the next Senate leader and I think Harry Reid will be the minority leader or will be replaced by Chuck Schumer or somebody else.

LEMON: All right, well, thank you for that. I will get my sleep now because I'll be in Louisiana on Tuesday night. That's where I'll be reporting from. Newt Gingrich, appreciate it.

GINGRICH: Good to be with you.

LEMON: ISIS releases another video showing one of the western hostages it's holding. Is the terror group changing its strategy? We're going to hear from two experts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: ISIS released a new video today of British hostage, John Cantlie showing him in the Syrian border city of Kobani. And the video portrays Cantlie as a reporter in the field, describing Kobani and saying that it's mostly under control of the terrorists.

But bear in mind that Cantlie is a hostage and in his first ISIS video he made clear he was being coerced. Joining me now is Lieutenant Colonel James Reese, CNN military analyst and a retired Delta Force commander.

And Neil Shortland also joins us, he is a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Colonel Reese, let's take a listen to this piece of video and then we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CANTLIE: Hello. I'm John Cantlie. And today we're in the city of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Colonel, do you think that he was -- Colonel Reese, do you think that he was in Kobani and when do you think this was filmed?

LT. COLONEL JAMES REESE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I do or he may not have been in downtown Kobani. As you know, there are several villages near Kobani to the east and the west where it is. We did see some of the video where they said that is has their own drone.

But people have got to remember, you can go buy a drone for a couple hundred dollars now and put that up in the air with a Go-Pro and film just like they did to make it very professional, and they did a nice job on the production of that propaganda film.

LEMON: I think our Nick Paton Walsh said based on certain things in the video it looks like it was shot about a week ago. I don't see Nick's direct quote here. But he said it looks to him that it was shot about a week ago.

REESE: Yes, he did. And again, basing it off some of the things nick saw that were happening, also based off the U.S. air drop of supplies that were in, that made Nick's assumption of when the filming was done.

LEMON: OK. So Neil, do you think that this video is a change in strategy for ISIS using hostages not in execution videos but to relay their messages? They're using a photojournalist, you know, in a way that he would normally do his job.

NEIL SHORTLAND, CENTER FOR TERRORISM AND SECURITY STUDIES: I think that's exactly what it is. I think this very much lies in with a new element of their propaganda playbook. I mean, if you look at the message they're communicating here, it's not really one that we should be surprised about.

Kobani as we know has become a much larger influence piece in itself as a battle between the U.S. and the Islamic state. So we're not too surprised about the message, but the idea of using a western hostage in this case really did increase the impact that this specific piece of propaganda had.

The message of IS being a profound fighting force, tactical successes, has been repeated in a lot of their propaganda previously, but it's the element they've added of the different messenger here that seems to have really made this piece stand out from the prior ones.

LEMON: How much of this do you think is a response to the western media reporting that ISIS is losing Kobani, Neil?

SHORTLAND: I think it's an absolutely natural progression from that. I mean, if you look, Kobani, I believe it was October the 4th was around when we were saying that it was about to fall, highly likely it was going to fall, there was a big momentum behind it from the IS surge.

That is coming to a stalemate now, and as we know, there have been winds with the Kurdish retaking a significant hill. At the same point we now have the U.S. dropping weapons in there. They almost had to respond in a way with a propaganda piece like this in order to re- establish themselves and show how effective they are.

And what they did and what John Cantlie said in there that was very interesting is the idea of integrating doubt by saying, for example, that the western reporters weren't anywhere to be seen.

Trying to make it look as though reports coming out of the western media aren't quite as accurate as the ones on the ground they're reporting and that's their traditional propaganda.

LEMON: Does this influence western youth, like disenfranchised youth or loners looking for a cause, Neil?

SHORTLAND: I don't know if this piece would as effectively as some of their other pieces. I mean, as we know, one thing that IS have done unbelievably well is they've manipulated the messenger to suit their target audience.

And that is one of the ways in which these kinds of things resonate. So when they're looking at recruiting foreign fighters, disenfranchised youth, a lot of their pieces put front and center these young individuals.

If they're looking at recruiting females, and I know that's been a lot of the talk recently, in the propaganda pieces they're putting females front and center.

They're very, very good at changing the nature of the communicator in order to increase the impact it has on the kind of person they're trying to communicate directly with.

LEMON: OK, Colonel Reese, you know, John Cantlie as I said in my introduction to you, he has said in his initial video that he was coerced and now ISIS is using him. He's a hostage now. He's been there for two years.

He was captured in 2012, portraying a news reporter. So do you think that he is still -- obviously, he's being coerced here. But Stockholm syndrome, would that play into this at all?

REESE: Yes, Don, you know -- I mean, I'm a retired Delta Force operator and one of our major missions was hostage rescue. And through the years we conducted hostage rescues in Iraq, several of them. We could see these hostages after the fact, after months, after years.

You know, and they're put through all types of mental turmoil and stress that they have to deal with and think about being held hostage for two years. And now your hostage -- the hostage takers, the people that are holding you want you to do something.

And if you do it, they're not going to beat you anymore or they're not going to threaten you to death. So why wouldn't you try to put on a great perspective? And that's where the Stockholm Syndrome comes in and we've seen this through years, as a former Delta guy, you know, rescuing hostages.

LEMON: Well, let's talk about this because we also learned more about ISIS and their hostage methods from a "New York Times" article this weekend. It detailed the mental and physical anguish of foreigners being held by ISIS. You likened this, though, these ISIS methods, to al Qaeda. How so?

REESE: Well, al Qaeda has -- they have moved their messages along. We saw very early on they were brutal and ISIS has started to get brutal. And now as they start to develop they start to see some blowback back from the brutality across the board.

Even from some of their ISIS members or from the Sunni extremists that are supporting them. They start to see some blowback, so they start to look for, different ways of messaging other than the brutality.

LEMON: How much, Neil, does this get through to the hostages? Are they aware of -- do they think that westerners are aware of their plight? How much of this are they seeing? Do they know about?

SHORTLAND: Sorry, could you repeat the question? I lost the connection there.

LEMON: The hostages, how much are they aware of if westerners -- do they think westerners are aware of their plight? How much of this gets through to them? Do they know about media coverage? What the government is trying to do, so on and so forth?

SHORTLAND: Quite frankly, I have absolutely no idea the degree to which hostages' access to information such as this is controlled or not by IS that's kind of operational security. It isn't really released to the open source.

LEMON: Colonel, what do you think? Do you think they're aware of that we know about their plight?

REESE: Well, again, Don, from our experience what we've seen in the past is the hostage takers try to control the information that the hostages have. But at times, you know, there are people that are guarding the hostages that will start to slip them information. But to watch, you know, CNN every day, I don't think that's happening.

LEMON: But their captors certainly are watching news reports and they're very aware of it.

REESE: Absolutely.

LEMON: Colonel Reese, ultimately, do you think that Cantile -- Cantlie, excuse me, they're going to share more of these videos, we're going to see more from him in the coming months or weeks?

REESE: Yes, Don, I do. I think what we're going to see is a little change here. I mean, again, it's impressive. I mean, they are taking -- if you really take a look at how they're using the video. They're taking that just right from the U.S., the Navy SEAL videos, the Marine Corps videos, the Army Ranger videos.

All those things that addressed the younger generation and watching the video when they jump around and the plates coming out from different parts of town to show, and the ISR type of thing, the drone over top. That attracts the younger generation, really draws them into what they're doing.

LEMON: Lieutenant Colonel Reese and also Neil Shortland, thank you, Gentlemen, we appreciate it. ISIS effectively recruits Americans with videos that have all the production values of a Hollywood action movie. So what will it take to fight back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The latest ISIS video has the high production values we have come to expect from the group including images of the heavily damaged city of Kobani filmed by what a caption called an ISIS drone.

The terrorists have become masters at using online propaganda and social media to spread the word of their cause and recruit young westerners to jihad. CNN's national correspondent, Kyung Lah has more now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The propaganda videos have all the high production of American TV. Complete with English from a Canadian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I originally come from Canada.

LAH: Even the action movie special effects western audiences know. Then there's this one, a movie trailer. "Coming soon," it ends. While this may verge on near parody, ISIS and its social media message have been surprisingly attractive and effective.

Authorities say Ottawa gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau wanted to go to Syria. He was in the Canadian capital trying to get a passport. It's not yet clear what motivated his attack.

Just days ago three unidentified teenage girls, two age 15 and one 17, after apparently talking online with ISIS recruiters fly from Denver with plans to join ISIS. They're stopped in Germany.

Douglas Macarthur McCain grows up a basketball-loving kid in suburban Minneapolis. He joins ISIS in Syria and died there, all westerners and not isolated cases. Intelligence experts say 1,000 westerners have joined ISIS, more than 100 of them American.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: ISIS is reaching out to people on social media, in real-time, interacting with them in real- time.

LAH (on camera): The way law enforcement has traditionally dealt with homegrown terror, surveillance, busts, indictments, well, here in Southern California Muslim-American leaders say in the age of social media, you simply cannot arrest your way out of this problem. If you want to defeat it, help must come from the community.

(voice-over): After the Boston marathon bombing, the Muslim Public Affairs Council rolled out the safe spaces initiative. Modeled after a gang prevention program, the idea is to work on prevention in places like mosques, intervene, and if necessary call the police.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm Crazy Loco from Pasadena and Pink Lady.

LAH: These men who claim to be Los Angeles gang members shot video of themselves in Syria fighting for the Assad regime, not ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still gang banging (inaudible), homey, got the g- dog, homey.

LAH: But the root of the problem is the same, the disenfranchised latching on to a radical idea. Now the community leaders say the U.S. government appears to be changing its strategy.

SALAM AL-MARAYATI, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: Surveillance hasn't worked. Profiling hasn't worked. So let's try this.

LAH (on camera): Are you encouraged by that change?

AL-MARAYATI: Yes. Very encouraged, but I just feel like it's not happening fast enough.

LAH (voice-over): ISIS moving at the speed of social media, law enforcement fighting to keep up. Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Coming up, the man who says terror recruits are, and I'm quoting here, "loner idiots." Is he right?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Is ISIS directing lone wolves in the west and what will it take to stop the next one? Joining me is Arsalan Iftikhar, he is a senior editor of "The Islamic Monthly" magazine.

Thank you for coming on and talking about this, Arsalan. I don't know if you heard my conversation with Newt Gingrich, but a little earlier in the show, he said that radical Islam is a virus spreading like Ebola. What's your reaction to that?

ARSALAN IFTIKHAR, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE ISLAMIC MONTHLY" MAGAZINE: Well, first of all, Newt Gingrich once said that President Obama was a Kenyan with an anti-colonialist worldview and supported Michele Bachmann's McCarthyist witch hunt against Hillary Clinton's aides that happened to be Muslim.

You know, anything that Newt Gingrich says, I take with a container of salt. I think what it's important to keep in mind is what we're seeing now with ISIS, especially in their recruitment of lone wolves, who are tending to self-radicalize.

We're seeing a shift in sort of the terrorist recruitment methodology over the last ten years. Whereas al Qaeda traditionally, people would go to terrorist training camps and you know, have a graduation ceremony with, you know, fake certificate.

But now essentially young teenagers who are disenfranchised who are sitting in their mom's basement on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter and essentially self-radicalizing without any sort of contact with a centralized terrorist organization.

So I think it's a little bit different of a paradigm when you're looking at ISIS --

LEMON: But Arsalan --

IFTIKHAR: When you're looking at ISIS compared to what we saw with al Qaeda.

LEMON: We are talking about Newt Gingrich, he did say radical Islam. And in that same statement he said he's not demonizing all Muslims or -- he's not just talking about -- you don't think that radical Islamists are an issue right now? That it's spreading faster than before?

IFTIKHAR: Well, I think extremism of any sort is troublesome in any free society. I mean, CNN's terrorism expert, Peter Bergen, wrote an op-ed on CNN saying that right-wing extremists in America have actually caused more damage and killed more Americans than jihadists have.

The New America Foundation found that only 26 Americans have been killed by jihadist terrorists in the last 12 years. You have more of a likelihood to die from drowning in your bathtub and getting struck by lightning than you do being killed by a jihadist.

I think it's important that we take care of this issue. But I also think it's not -- it's important not to overblow it the way that Newt Gingrich did.

LEMON: Let's talk about these so-called lone wolves, and especially when you look at what happened in Canada last week and also the hatchet attack here. And they said they were self-radicalized and they were converts.

IFTIKHAR: Right.

LEMON: Do you think ISIS knew the names of someone like Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Zale Thompson before last week?

IFTIKHAR: No. And I was actually on "Meet The Press" on NBC News yesterday and I actually said, and I quote, "that all the money in my pocket" that ISIS had never heard of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau before they did this. That's actually part of why they've been successful, Don.

It's something that a lot of counterterrorism experts have come to term the new jihadi cool, which is essentially a global street gang where you have young disenfranchised, you know, teenagers and men in their early 20s and 30s who many times have rap sheets a mile long.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was arrested on drug possession and criminal mischief and things like that and like a global street gang they're putting their message out and seeing if anyone would take the bait.

In the case of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau he did, I don't think it had anything to do with ISIS Central in Syria and Northern Iraq. But I think that that is something, the sort of online aspect of the counterterrorism is something the American government is more focused on these days.

LEMON: Let's talk about -- I had a fascinating conversation with my colleague, Fareed Zakaria, last week. There was breaking news. It didn't get to air here, but he makes a really good point. He also writes about it.

That there have been long periods, centuries of time where Islam has been peaceful but that there is what he calls, and this is a quote, a cancer of extremism in Islam today. Do you agree? Is radicalism more inherent to Islam now than it was in the past?

IFTIKHAR: No. Not at all, Don. And actually, I was on your show a few weeks ago on the same topic of whether Islam is more inherently violent of a religion than anything else. And I think it's absurd for anyone to say that any religion is more violent than anything else. I think we human beings are fallible.

I think that it is Muslims that have problems. I think it's Christians, Jewish people, Hindus, Buddhists. I think it is we humans and our interpretation of religious scripture.

Every religion on the face of the earth, any theologian would tell you, teaches us the concept of the golden rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you and loving thy god and loving thy neighbor. So again, I will push back until the day that I die --

LEMON: But Arsalan, you have to say at this moment in time, when you look at now, when you look at what's happening in the news and you're looking at radicalism, you're looking at people.

You can understand why someone might have that sentiment when you consider the what appears to be overwhelming evidence that there is a -- there's violence going on, whether it's Islam or someone who's misinterpreting the doctrine or what have you but it is happening. You can't deny that.

IFTIKHAR: And I'm not, Don. But what I'm saying is put it in a little bit of context. I quoted you the statistic in the New America Foundation that said 26 Americans have died in the last 13 years from jihadist terrorism. That's two people a year.

You again have a five times more likely chance of getting struck by lightning. What you don't -- what the media doesn't cover is the fact that five out of the last 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners were Muslims.

You don't look at the 1.7 billion Muslims around the earth that are contributing to society like here in America with soup kitchens and free health clinics. So when we talk about media -- yes, I understand, I'm a journalist. I understand if it bleeds it leads.

But we have to add some nuance to a lot of these meta narratives that are going on because we don't want any demographic group to have any sort of collective guilt placed on it by the actions of a few.

LEMON: Arsalan, thank you very much. I would like to continue the conversation, but I've got to get to a break because we're almost at the end of the show. Thank you. Let's have this conversation again. Please come back on.

Tomorrow night, a CNN special report, witness the Iran hostage crisis, the Americans who were beaten, tortured, and humiliated during 444 days of imprisonment in Iran 35 years ago tell their story of anguish and hope to CNN tomorrow night, 9:00 Eastern. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Each week we're spotlighting the top ten CNN heroes of 2014. This week's honoree is working to save the endangered lions of Africa. Meet Leila Haza.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEILA HAZA, CNN HERO: Sixty years ago there were probably half a million lions in Africa. Today there are less than 30,000 lions in all of Africa. If we don't do something soon, there are going to be in lions left, maybe in 10, 15 years. Who knows?

I spent a year living in the Masai community to understand why people were killing lions. It brings a huge amount of prestige to the warrior, and they were killing lions in retaliation for livestock that were killed.

They started opening up and telling me stories. That's when it clicked. If we want to conserve wildlife, we have to integrate communities. Our organization hires Masai warriors, and it converts lion killers into lion guardians.

When we first hire lion guardians, they don't know how to read or write. We provide all of that literacy training and the technical training. They track lions so they can keep very accurate ecological data on lion movement.

The lion guardian model is founded on Masai cultural values and it is just being tweaked a bit to the 21st Century. We never even really imagine that we could transform these lion killers to the point where they would risk their own lives to stop other people from killing lions. When I first moved here, I never heard lions roaring. But now I hear lions roaring all the time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Make sure you go to cnnheroes.com to vote for CNN Hero of the Year, who will receive $100,000. All ten will be honored at "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," hosted by Anderson Cooper on Sunday December 7th. Make sure you tune in.

I'm Don Lemon. Thank you for watching. Our live coverage now continues with Errol Barnett and Rosemary Church at the CNN Center in Atlanta.