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NEW DAY SUNDAY

ISIS Tries to Recruit Somali Americans; Kurt Busch Will Not Be Allowed to Race in Daytona 500

Aired February 22, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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


CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: He meets with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javed Zarif. They are going to join other world powers who have been in talks since Friday, actually, as next month's deadline moves for an agreement there, but a deal could bring an end to tough sanctions against Tehran and possibly a warming of relations with the west.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Ash Carter is on his second and final day of a surprise visit to Afghanistan. Today, Secretary Carter visits with U.S. troops in Kandahar and then heads to Kuwait for meetings with American military leaders and Kuwaiti officials. Just four days ago, rather, yes, four days ago, his confirmation was happening. He said he made the trip to Afghanistan to assess the security situation personally. Now on Saturday, Carter said the United States is considering slowing a planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country to ensure that progress sticks.

PAUL: As we mentioned, al Shabab is the Somalia-based terror group that is calling for attacks on western malls already. It has an ominous presence in Minnesota, though.

BLACKWELL: It has tried to recruit men in Minneapolis to join its ranks, and now ISIS seems to be copying that tactic. Let's get more now from CNN's Brian Todd.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christi and Victor, 19-year-old Hamza Ahmed is charged with providing material support to ISIS. We spoke to the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, who told us this case represents an ominous pivot in terrorist recruitment in that area, with ISIS now targeting young Somali Americans, displacing a dangerous al Qaeda affiliate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: Moments before takeoff at New York's JFK Airport, Hamza Ahmed was grabbed by federal agents, escorted from his plane. Law enforcement say he had taken a bus all the way from Minneapolis to catch a flight to Turkey with a lethal goal in mind.

ANDREW LUGER, U.S. ATTORNEY: He is charged with trying to join ISIL to fight with terrorists.

TODD: Ahmed's lawyer won't comment. A law enforcement source says the 19-year-old posted these tweets, saying he wanted to become a jihadist and quote, "be a martyr." Ahmed is a Somali American from Minneapolis. The U.S. attorney there tells CNN they believe he represents a dangerous shift in terrorist recruitment.

LUGER: We think that ISIL has pretty much picked up on the successes, to use that phrase, that al Shabaab had, and improve upon it and try to recruit more young men and some young women from the Somali community in Minnesota to join ISIL.

TODD: Al Shabaab, the vicious al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, had previously recruited around two dozen Somali Americans in Minnesota to fight with them inside Somalia. Young people who had showed so much promise, like Jamal Bana (ph), a handsome 20-year-old engineering student. After he left home mysteriously, his parents saw a picture of him on the Internet, dead in the streets of Mogadishu, a bullet wound to his head. CNN has investigated these cases for more than 5 years. Somali community leaders are still frustrated.

OMAR JAMAL, SOMALI COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: We are still losing them. Is it a terrorist hotbed in the Midwest here in the United States? It is.

TODD: Why? Community leaders tell us it's a lack of opportunity and identity.

BOB FLETCHER, CENTER FOR SOMALIA HISTORY STUDIES: Most of these kids are torn between two cultures. They are Americans, but they don't feel totally accepted as Americans. They know they have a Somali history, and many do not have a father.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a concern that the minority of retainees who do come back, become involved in terrorism, are also the most dangerous terrorists.

TODD: U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger denies that Minneapolis is a terrorist hotbed. He says he is fighting the recruitment with outreach programs, getting young Somalis into sports competitions, helping them get jobs.

We're hearing there could be some mistrust in the community. People saying how can I trust his outreach program when he could be spying on me, surveilling me.

LUGER: I can't spy on somebody who I'm helping be a mentor by providing funds to their soccer program or something like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: U.S. attorney Andrew Luger denies that Minneapolis is a terrorist hotbed. He says he is fighting back with outreach programs trying to get young Somali Americans into sports competitions, and helping them get jobs. But Luger and other officials might have to work through another problem. Law enforcement sources and analysts tell us many Somalis in those communities don't trust each other. There are competing factions, rivalries among Somali leaders. Getting them to trust each other and then getting them to trust outsiders from the U.S. government are huge challenges in trying to fend off terrorist recruitment. Christi and Victor. PAUL: All right, Brian Todd, we appreciate it. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring back CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. Tom, there has been some skepticism and you expressed some this morning that al Shabaab could actually pull off an attack at the mall of America similar to the one we saw in 2013 in Kenya because of resources, and where they are geographically. I wonder if the hotbed report we just heard from Brian of the recruitment in Minnesota tempers that skepticism, because there is this recruiting angle, they are so close to the Mall of America.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: That recruitment, Victor, has been going on for several years, and it was even to the shock and dismay of the kids' own parents, and that's the sad part of this whole story, is that Somalia refugees came to the U.S. They wanted their children to have an opportunity to achieve the American dream, and many of them, high school kids, were recruited by Shabaab recruiters, some in mosques, some in the community, and the parents had no clue that their kids were being not only radicalized, but preparing and actually making trips to Somalia until they were gone. The FBI and the local police there have a great relationship, great outreach program, not just the U.S. attorney's office, with the Somali community. The parents are being very cooperative. The imams and local community leaders are extremely cooperative, they know what it means to have these young men travel to Somalia and often get killed there either as suicide bombers or come under suspicion and get shot in the head like the one that Brian showed in the peace. This is a little bit of a different situation. You have an entire community trying to prevent this from happening.

BLACKWELL: Is there any indication that this work, the mentoring, the sports programs, that it's working? Are there trends in one direction or another with the recruitment there in Minnesota?

FUENTES: It helps, but you don't know what is in the mind of some of these kids, even with a mentoring program or even with success. I mean, if you look at the Boston marathon bombing case, you have someone who was captain of the university wrestling team, on a full- ride scholarship. His American friend said he was just like one of us, going to parties, smoking pot, drinking alcohol, chasing women, and, suddenly, he ends up committing a terrorist or allegedly committing a terrorist act, and it's completely baffling. This is someone who had been assimilated, became a U.S. citizen.

For these kids to be believed that they are not accepted or don't have opportunity, that's not the whole story. They are being recruited and told this is your religious duty to go and fight, you know, in Somalia, to help al Shabab gain control of that country. And so far, Shabaab, as I mentioned earlier, they have attacked in Uganda, they attacked across their border into Kenya, but they have not extended their attacks beyond that, because really, it's going to take a safe house, it's going to take the ability to get the attackers plus their weapons AK-47s and grenades into that location. For Kenya, it's extremely easy. They have a porous land border and they can travel by boat from the Indian Ocean, leaving the shores of Somalia and just going a few miles down the shore and landing on the beaches of Kenya and making it to a safehouse. I think it's a much different situation. I really don't think they have enough infrastructure of terrorism for a large-scale coordinated attack. And I know the Westgate mall attack was only four people, but, still, I don't think they can do it.

BLACKWELL: Tom Fuentes, we will continue this conversation throughout the morning. Thank you so much.

FUENTES: Thank you.

PAUL: Meanwhile, an ongoing feud between the boyfriend of Bobbi Kristina Brown and the Brown family seems to be intensifying now. Just ahead, why the family said it has not allowed him to see her in the hospital.

But NASCAR champ Kurt Busch loses an appeal to race. What is the next for the champ now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Let's take a look other stories developing now.

Minneapolis police officer who was shot after responding to a burglary is doing well this morning. The police chief says he is in fair condition.

PAUL: Officials say the officer was not targeted personally. But they say he was shot simply because he's a police officer. A suspect has been arrested in connection with the burglary. Authorities are investigating whether there's some sort of a link with the shooting now.

And Nick Gordon, the boyfriend of Bobbi Kristina Brown, lashing out after he says he has not been allowed to visit her in the hospital. Now, the Brown family fired back, saying Gordon could visit but he had to meet certain conditions, they didn't specify what those conditions were. The 21-year-old Bobbi Kristina is being treated in an Atlanta hospital this hour. She has been in a coma since being found face down in a bathtub last month.

BLACKWELL: Still ahead, from living life in the fast lane, to getting sidelined right before NASCAR's biggest race. Kurt Busch loses his appeal to overturn a suspension following accusations of domestic abuse against his girlfriend. What is next for this race car driver? And we hear from his former girlfriend about what she said happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Buck's path took him from the streets to the studio. Here amongst the tights and tutus at the New Ballet Ensemble, an innovative teacher instigated the cultural clash that would make his style of (inaudible) unique.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first day I saw Charles Loback (ph) in the studio, I saw a man who was more fluid than anything I've ever seen a ballerina do, and I guess that is anarchy I just said that, that Plisetskaya or Pavlova didn't have the same fluidity in their arms as Charles, but, literally, they didn't. It was uncanny what I saw. He improvised to his own music that he brought in to let me show you this. I thought he was brilliant, and then I changed the music and put classical music on, and it changed him. It changed the fluidity of his movement. It slowed him down. And gave him longer balances, the aspiration to add an extra turn, to point his foot, to extend his line.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told them I didn't want to wear tights because I wasn't going for that stuff in ballet. It was majority girls who (inaudible), you rarely see guys on point, and I was like that is interesting because in juking (ph), we always on point.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we started this and I started explaining it to potential donors, literally someone called my father and said, doesn't she know that hip-hop is the downfall of civilization as we know it? No, I don't know that, because they are wrong! So my idea was how do I change this generation, this mindset so that they can see the beauty? Because this is folk dance. I think Charles is removing the fear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: 11 minutes until the top of the hour now. When the Daytona 500 gets under way later today, one of NASCAR's biggest stars will noticeably be absent. Kurt Busch has lost his second appeal to overturn his suspension from NASCAR.

Let me tell you how we got here. There was a simple court that found that he likely committed domestic violence against his former girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll. She spoke with "Good Morning America's" Michael Strahan, and listen to what she said happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA DRISCOLL, EX-GIRLFRIEND OF KURT BUSCH: He was saying some really weird and crazy things, very paranoid, and he popped up out of bed and grabbed me by the throat with one hand and with the other hand, he grabbed my face and he smashed my head into the wall three times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We have to say here that Busch has not been formally charged with a crime. Meanwhile, the suspension upheld by NASCAR means that Busch cannot race or participate in any of the sport's events. Let's bring in bleacher reports Kristen Ledlow now. This does not mean he is done with racing?

KRISTEN LEDLOW, CORRESPONDENT, BLEACHER REPORT: No. It's an indefinite suspension. As of now what it means is that he has exhausted all of his current legal options. Filing that initial appeal, and then filing an appeal of that decision, that was his final shot at it. So from here on out, kind of what you're looking at is potentially taking it through the court system in order to get NASCAR back on board, but as far as NASCAR is concerned, with the Daytona 500, you know, here and upon us, they couldn't have waited any longer in making this decision.

BLACKWELL: Big day. If not the biggest day for NASCAR. What are the fans saying?

LEDLOW: It's interesting. It's a black and white issue always with domestic violence, and it's one that charges a lot of highly charged emotions, and NASCAR fans are already a very emotional and highly charged bunch. So we are seeing kind of both sides. Some are standing behind their drivers. Some even protesting and, you know, across the country saying that they stand behind him regardless. And then some, like yesterday, he shows up at his garage and someone has written Ray Rice on his garage as well, so it's interesting to see both sides of it. Again, no formal criminal charge yet.

BLACKWELL: We have to think after the Ray Rice debacle with the NFL, what role is that storyline playing in this one. I know Kristen will dig into this one. Kristen, thank you so much.

LEDLOW: Thank you.

PAUL: So now that NASCAR has made the decision, can he turn to the courts? We want to bring in HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson. So Joey, help us walk through this, because she is right, a lot of fans are wondering, what can he do? Are there legal steps that he can take to overturn the suspension in any way?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Christi. Listen, this is about domestic violence obviously, and certainly something that is near and dear to your heart. But I think certainly NASCAR has learned from the NFL that this is something that needs to be taken seriously, and they have their own internal rules and their own internal guidelines, and those guidelines very clearly provide for there to be an appeal to a three-panel body, which he did do on Saturday, and, thereafter, to one person, that is the -- that would have the final say. Of course, the chairman at any time could lift this, but the reality is these are governed by internal rules. There's no outside entity that can now dictate to NASCAR that he needs to be returned. Of course, the concern is, as mentioned, he has not been criminally charged at all. This all emanates from a protective order in family court where he was found by a preponderance of the evidence to have engaged in an act of domestic violence. So in terms of his remedies, they have been exhausted, and he will not be allowed to participate in the Daytona 500.

PAUL: Listen, there is another race car driver by the name of Travis Cavell, who pled guilty to domestic abuse back in 2014 and was never suspended by NASCAR. So do you think that Busch's case might be a product of the whole post Ray Rice world in the sports arena?

JACKSON: Without question. When you look at someone who you mentioned and you see it there, this driver who in fact pled guilty and endured a two-year probationary period and was allowed to continue to race, and that is in a criminal court, and you look at this particular case involving Busch, where there's nothing criminal, at least not yet. Of course, we know the Delaware authorities are evaluating that very closely. We should also point out the standard of proof in the family court proceeding. Again, was it more likely than not he engaged in domestic violence as opposed to a criminal court, where it's beyond a reasonable doubt. But when you look at the disparity and treatment between Kurt Busch and you look at, you know, Travis Cavell, you have to wonder what is going on here, and I think the answer to that question is this is post Ray Rice. You're looking at sponsors who take this very seriously. You're looking at fans who take this very seriously, and, of course, a mass public that does. So I think NASCAR had to treat it that way. There is no one person that is larger than the sport. We learned that with Ray Rice. We learned that certainly, you know, as it related to the running back of the Minnesota Vikings and what happened with him. And so as a result of that, Christi, it is what it is. NASCAR sets its own rules, its own judgment. He cannot go to a federal court and say install me, put me back in, and by any measure, look, we are talking about the Daytona 500 which is upcoming, and so as a result of that, his avenues of appeal are exhausted at this point, we will see what happens moving forward.

PAUL: We certainly will. Joey Jackson, always appreciate your input. Thank you.

JACKSON: Thank you, Chrsti.

BLACKWELL: The terror group al Shabaab is calling for attacks on some of the biggest and most popular malls in the world. One of the potential targets, in the United States. The Mall of America. It is beefing up security. We will have much more on that at the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: This morning, a new terror threat against the U.S. A Somali-based terror group known for bombing a mall in Kenya or shooting inside a mall in Kenya, now threatening to attack western malls, including here at home.

PAUL: And ISIS releases a new propaganda video. It shows what appears to be Kurdish Peshmerga fighters paraded in cages. Even interviewing them.

BLACKWELL: And 12 Texas men and women will soon decide the fate of the man accused of killing American sniper, Chris Kyle. Could an Oscar win tonight influence that jury?

PAUL: So glad to have your company. I'm Christi Paul. Good morning.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you this morning.

PAUL: An al Qaeda-linked terror group is calling for attacks on malls, and they're talking about malls right here in the U.S., as well as in Canada and the UK this morning. Now, the Somalia based group Al Shabaab has released a video, and you see this still image from it here that we are showing you. Obviously, we are not going to show you the full video.

BLACKWELL: But in English, the disguised speaker urges the attack. CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the video, but two of the potential targets, Minnesota's Mall of America and Canada's West Edmonton mall, they say they are taking