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CNN Live Event/Special

New Al-Baghdadi Video: How Can We Ever Defeat ISIS?; Venezuelan Opposition Leader Guaido Calls On Supporters To "Cover The Streets"; Guaido Declares The "Start Of The End Of Usurpation"; Guaido's Message to Venezuelans: "This Is The Moment"; Maduro Government Spokesman: We Are Confronting Small Number Of Traitorous Military Personnel. Aired: 7-8a ET

Aired April 30, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: We welcome our listeners on Apple Podcast as well. Clarissa is with us. Clarissa, CNN hasn't been running much of this video at all. I think we're just running a still, right?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: CLARISSA: Still.

FOSTER: But we've had special permission to run a section of it without the sound, if you can just - we want to give you the opportunity really to talk about what's significant about it.

WARD: So I mean if we take a look at this clip and I think what is very striking about this is his physical appearance, first of all. We've been hearing rumors he was injured. He's been killed according to the Russians. He's been killed according to rumors once on the internet. Well, here he is very much alive. He's significantly heavier than he was in the sermon that he gave in Mosul on the pulpit. His beard is gray with henna on the ends. One can only assume that perhaps that was in order to create a disguise to move around at some point.

But I think what's really striking is the difference in the image between the man who we saw at the pulpit in the mosque of Mosul back in 2014 announcing the creation of the caliphate, appointing himself as the caliph. And then the man we see today or in this general period of time, who is wearing some kind of a military type of vest, he has a Kalashnikov next to him, he's basically - and you heard Bob Baer say the same thing in that introduction there.

He's sort of rebranding himself. He's no longer necessarily the spiritual leader. He's the guerilla leader. He's the insurgent leader and that is speaking to the shift in ISIS' tactics as well. "OK, we may no longer be in control of the caliphate, but we can still inflict damage." And then, of course, during the video, he goes on to list all the countries where they are doing that.

FOSTER: Brian, we can also make this comparison or people have made this comparison and what do you make of that?

BRIAN KLAAS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, I think that both of these figures here are people who ended up on the run for a long time and I suspect that both of them will end the same way, which is that they will be killed. I think that Baghdadi even though he's alive right now, I suspect it is only a matter of time. It took quite a long time for the U.S. to kill bin Laden. It was about 10 years since September 11.

And I think that point that you just made, Clarissa, is really important that before he was able to go into Mosul out in the open, he was able to proclaim the existence of this Islamic state. They were able to control territory. Now, he's in a hidden location. They're having to obviously be very clandestine about it and his political power is both weakened in terms of territory and there's infighting within ISIS.

And so I think this degradation is significant. I think that's the thing that we need to focus on is that there will continue to be a degradation of it. It will continue to weaken them. Yes, they will exist. There is still a threat. But I think that we need to focus on the fact that there is consensus in the West, this ideology is vile, filled with hatred and has a shelf life.

I do disagree with the idea that you cannot defeat an ideology. I think you can. I think you degrade it over time in its ability to spread it and I think that's --

BONNIE GREER, PLAYWRIGHT AND COLUMNIST, THE NEW EUROPEAN: I didn't say an ideology, I said an idea.

KLAAS: Yes.

GREER: Which is different. I mean you're actually right about the ideology but again I want to go back to the fact that if you look at these two pictures of Al-Baghdadi, Al-Baghdadi summons up two or three tropes that we've lost in the West that we buried in the West. One is the resurrection of the king.

Now, this plays out to people who believe this cult to be more than something of this world. This man has been gone for five years, the king has returned. It's a good idea. It's a great idea to have land, land comes, land goes. But all of the idea of ISIS as the conqueror of the evil West is not going to go away.

It's a boys' cult. It's about men and that's what so stunning about the work that Clarissa does, because every time she moves in the space of these guys, you get to see what's really going on and we don't deal with it. We refuse to deal with it. We keep thinking about it appear. It's not up here, it's in here.

And this man even his very name makes me laugh, Al-Baghdadi. So all of this is part of the whole idea of men and boys, and that the Islam, their perverted idea of Islam and it's perverted is an idea that will conquer the evil decadent West and it's not going to go away unless we understand that.

LIAM HALLIGAN, COLUMNIST, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The optics are very al Qaeda, of course, and we know that Al-Baghdadi came up through al- Qaeda of Iraq. This is a low point for them and they want to be defined. They want to time this after Sri Lanka to put the fear literally of God, of their God in many Western people just as the death count from Sri Lanka is up above 250. Now, mainly Christians, of course, with churches and tourist hotels being targeted.

Look, not so long ago before Mosul fell in Iraq where he announced the caliphate in 2014 as Clarissa said, before Raqqa, the de facto capital of the caliphate fell. This was 34,000 square miles. That's an area the size of Indiana. This is big, Portugal, if you're watching from Europe, and now they

have no territory. Now, Western intelligence tells us there are still 15,000 maybe 20,000 ISIS fighters still at large in Syria and Iraq and they will come again.

And that's why he's in his battle fatigues rather than his theocratic dress because he's saying and he actually does say on the tape, this is a war of attrition, the battle will go on, and because he's trying to recruit people. That's what this is all about.

[07:05:41] WARD: It's all about signaling to his followers.

GREER: Exactly.

WARD: This is not intended really for a Western audience.

GREER: Exactly.

WARD: This is intended to try to boost morale among ISIS fan boys who have been reacting with some excitement online and in the various platforms where they communicate because for them it is a big deal. It's been nearly five years that we have not seen any video of this man. It's been nearly five years that we've heard endless speculation that he may have been killed, he may have been injured and there he is sitting looking plump and very much in control.

HALLIGAN: And referring to Sri Lanka.

WARD: Casually looking through folders ...

HALLIGAN: Yes.

WARD: ... referring to Sri Lanka. Looking through folders being handed to him by deferential followers on his various (rely up) or his states that are - his sort of franchises across the world, if you will.

HALLIGAN: Yes.

WARD: I agree, it's posturing but to the specific audience that he's speaking to ...

GREER: It's the religion.

WARD: ... it carry something.

GREER: And it's summoning up as Hitler did in his last days, which is interesting. The idea of the werewolves. The people who come out of the bushes now come out and come out and do your work. So they're always the troops and they're the hidden troops, so he's summoning up the ones who are now in the back and coming for this. It's totally mystical. It's a totally mystical idea.

FOSTER: These are the places he referenced in his message, Brian. What did you make of that? Because he's also stepping into Al-Shabaab territory as well, isn't he?

KLAAS: Yes. Well, and there's ISIS affiliates all over the world. I mean, the Philippines, Indonesia has significant chunks, but I think that this global reach, one of the things that's part of this new phase is the returning fighters. Right now there is no territory. There are a lot of places that are going to have people trying to renationalize into the places they came from.

So this is also destabilizing impact, because there's countries like Tunisia in a fragile Arab Spring fragile democracy that has thousands of people that are going to try to come back now that they have no place to be in Syria or Iraq. And the question how do you deal with somebody who has a passport who is legally a national of your country, but you know - but may not be able to prove in court has committed terrorist offenses abroad.

And so I think that is one of the big challenges that will - this new phase of sort of post caliphate phase will pose to both Western countries and non-Western countries as they try to deal with the security risk associated with that.

FOSTER: And the intelligence services are on to this, aren't they? They're very aware that these very dangerous people are trying to return home and they probably won't be locked up as far as the evidence.

WARD: And, yes, what we see are countries that are politically hamstrung in how to deal with this, because you have a sort of Sophie's Choice, if you will. Do you take these people back knowing that perhaps you won't be able to present the evidence in court to secure a conviction or do you say you're not going to take them back as the U.K. as said and enter this sort of bizarre legal limbo where you're no longer abiding by your own liberal democratic values.

HALLIGAN: Which is a propaganda coup for your enemies.

WARD: Which is then a propaganda coup and which then alienates Muslims living within your own borders. So there is a very difficult line to be walked here. The other thing that is so difficult to know for intelligence and security services, especially when they're looking at the brides, the ISIS brides who are coming back, you don't know the difference between an extremist and a violent extremists.

When is somebody crazy and when are they an actual threat, as in they can blow people up? Because security services don't have the resources to be just looking for everyone who might be radicalized. What they need to find, specifically, are people who are ticking time bombs, who actually might commit acts of violence and it's a very difficult thing to predict. GREER: But that's why I say ISIS is an idea, because ISIS challenges

us in the West and I'm going to use that term so fashion, we're going to use it. ISIS challenges us in the West to look at our norms, look at our institutions, look and see if they're strong enough.

There are these very, very questions of citizenship of nationality or Western notions, are we going to adhere to them and then find a way to work within them or are we going to react to the reality of ISIS and the security and all that? And we're constantly, everyday, being challenged. And we don't have the leadership. We don't have the leadership in the west to stand up and say, this is a western value and this is what we're going to do.

We're constantly on the defensive. We're constantly pulling back fighting and ISIS moves forward because it says to its young men and women, those people are weak, those people are corrupt, they don't have anything at the basis of what they are. So they can therefore change it and alter it because they're scared of us and we have to make the decision of how we're going to hold of our institutions, because we do have institutions.

The young lady, the ISIS bride, who was not allowed back in, that was an own goal for British Security Service, total own goal for the home office. This young lady should have been brought in, taken to a safe house and talk to. We don't know what the story is, but the fact we caved because we scared.

[07:10:56] FOSTER: Liam, this is what he said, if we look at a couple of his messages, this is what he says in reference to the caliphate. "The battle of Baghouz is over, but it did show the savagery, brutality and ill intentions of Christians towards the Muslim community." And that's a call to these people that spread around the world.

HALLIGAN: It is a call. It's a recruiting sergeant. It's also an indication that this message is a tit for tat. This is in the wake of Sri Lanka, which itself was because of the fall of Baghouz in Syria where the caliphate was literally on its last legs before it was overcome.

I was very struck by this notion which Brian mentioned that now the fight is coming back to the western world as you have jihadist fighters coming back to their countries of origin often in the west. That challenges our institutions. It also challenges our own social cohesion.

GREER: That's our institution.

HALLIGAN: It challenges the relationship between white Brits ...

GREER: It's the same thing.

HALLIGAN: ... and first, second and third generation ...

GREER: It's the same thing.

HALLIGAN: ... Muslim immigrants to the U.K. and in the States.

GREER: It's the same thing.

HALLIGAN: That's what's happening. But now western resources are stretched, not just our moral and our kind of cultural resources. We're stretched because we're going to have to keep troops on the ground, whatever Trump says, if you still got 15,000 to 20,000 ISIS fighters at large in theater where the caliphate was, but we're going to have to up our game too in the western world as people come back and the intelligence networks and the ISIS cells spread around our cities and towns threatening citizens living here wherever they originally came from. This is a call to arms to people he wants to recruit. It's also a threat to the west.

KLAAS: But it's also unbelievably hypocritical and lack of self awareness in that statement. I mean, saying that there's this savagery and brutality of the west. This is a group I think we really need to hammer this home.

HALLIGAN: Yes.

KLAAS: We're talking about this today. This is a group that rapes, enslaves and murders people by the thousands including fellow Muslims in their own religious community, including Christians, including these groups that are defenseless. That they have taken over and I think as we talk about how it challenges our values, I do think it's important to underscore that we are absolutely in the right in this fight against these people and that it is an absolutely morally bankrupt ideology.

So while it may be effective for some extremists, for some people who are loners, for some people who are being targeted by it, this is an ideology that I think does have it stays number because the west ideology is better than its --

WARD: I think you're exactly right, but there is one point that he brings up in that message that I think can be very dangerous which is this idea that ISIS has tried to propagate. This is a clash of civilizations that Muslims and Christians or Muslims and westerners or Muslims living in Muslim countries that aren't under Sharia law, that they can never peacefully coexist.

GREER: Exactly.

WARD: And everybody who lives - most people understand that that is absolutely not the case, but what happens when you have this escalate giving tit for tat, when you have what happened in New Zealand and you have what happened in Sri Lanka, there are people and forces at work on behalf of people like Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi who wants to create a wedge, you want to push things to a precipice where you can't row it back.

FOSTER: I'm going to bring up - because to that point when he talked about Sri Lanka, he talked about Crusaders. "As for your brothers in Sri Lanka, they have put joy in the hearts of the monotheists with their immersing operations that struck the homes of the Crusaders in their Easter."

GREER: This is a millenarian cult. This is 1,000-year battle. This isn't about us sitting at this table talking about how we're going to deal with who's coming back. This is going to last 1,000 years. This is how they see it. We're at the beginning of the struggle and until we come out of our bubble and really look at the way these people see the struggle, we're not going to defeat this.

I'm going right back to what I said at the beginning. This is a cult. It's a millenarian cult and this is the first part of 1,000-year struggle and that's how they see it.

[07:14:59] FOSTER: (Ester Teleso) says, "We can and we will beat them." (Philly) says, "ISIS is a product of failed U.S. policies in the Middle East." Have your say on our Facebook page. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:16:48] FOSTER: We're going to bring you some breaking news because Juan Guaido, the opposition leader, how do we find him?

WARD: Opposition leader.

FOSTER: Opposition leader in Venezuela currently calling for protesters to hit the streets. We're going to go to Nick because Nick is the expert on this subject in a moment. In the meantime, Brian, I mean you've been following developments in Venezuela very closely. Guaido was under a lot of pressure and his supporters were looking for him to make a move. I mean what are you looking for in this development?

KLAAS: Well, what's really important when you have regime change talk and you have somebody trying to instigate it is whether the military defects. You see this in the Arab Spring, you see this in basically every time that there is a revolution or a coup. You need to get military brass on your side.

So it's striking that there's a very direct call in the statement for the military to join him in the streets to basically defect from their posts and join them. If that happens, it would be possible that the regime would collapse very quickly, but there's no guarantee that that will happen because there have been attempts by people within the Venezuelan military to call for that and they have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

Partly by design because regimes like Venezuela, authoritarian regimes often try to sweeten the deal for their soldiers to ensure that they will not defect in moments of political crisis.

FOSTER: Venezuela's Vice President of Communications has said, "We inform the people of Venezuela that at this moment in time we are confronting and deactivating a small number of traitorous military personnel who position themselves to promote a coup against the Constitution." What do you make of that? So is a coup underway if the government is suggesting it is? WARD: Well, I think it's, obviously, the government is going to call

it a coup right away and try to quash it as soon as they can whatever is happening. I think it's too early to say exactly what's happening. All we saw from the video that Guaido posted on his Twitter account were that there were some military elements with him.

How broad is that support? How deep is that support? What is this going to look like? He call for people to take to the streets, originally, protests have been called for tomorrow. Now, they seem to want to get underway today giving the impression that maybe there's a kind of hurried element to all of this. It's still very early in the morning in Caracas.

FOSTER: Yes.

GREER: It's about six.

WARD: Yes, it's about --

GREER: About six in the morning.

WARD: Six or seven in the morning.

FOSTER: Yes.

WARD: So it'll be very important to see how the day plays out.

FOSTER: I'm just going to Nick. Nick is in the newsroom. He's been following developments. What can you tell us, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are a lot of things that are different about this, Max, than what we've seen over the past few months or so. Yes, we've seen standoffs like this where Guaido calls people out onto the streets and they met with tear gas. But today is different for a number of reasons.

Firstly, because when he appeared, he appeared alongside a man who's supposed to be under house arrest, Leopoldo Lopez, not in the picture we're showing just there but he was on the screen just about - they're shaking hand with another supporter there. That man supposed to be under house arrest and according to Guaido supporters got out because the military led him out of that sort of custody area where he was being held.

Now, that shows certainly parts of the military not doing what they're supposed to. What is also different is we haven't seen Juan Guaido, the opposition leader, who's recognized as interim president by dozens of other countries. We haven't seen him standing without many songs behind him. A limited number, fine, but some of them are wearing blue armbands, which suggests they see the possibility they may need to differentiate themselves with other Venezuelan military they might be in confrontation with in the hours or days ahead.

What's also difference is we've heard from the Venezuelan government saying that this is, quote, a coup. Now, they've used inflammatory language a lot in the past but using that at this particular moment does just they perhaps perceive the severity of this. Now, what Guaido has also done here is a seemingly sort of like the touchpaper of tomorrow's nationwide called protests 24 hours early.

[07:20:36] And there are two schools of thought about this. One, yes, possibly the opportunity presented itself and they've decided to seize the moment early but I don't see that happening here. Leopoldo Lopez is released from house arrest way too complicated to pull off that number of military on the street, not something you can suddenly do overnight. What seems more likely what we've seen them do before is sometimes cause events that may let people out on the streets or inspire popular anger happening before those protests are supposed to occur to ensure greater attendance, to ensure a reason for people being out there.

You're seeing pictures there - that's Leopoldo Lopez actually being hugged there by the man in the blue shirt. A very striking image for Venezuelans. He was sort of the Juan Guaido mark one put under house arrest a number of years ago. Now he's out, this is clearly a sign that opposition old and new are congealing together and moving forward quite what we see in the hours ahead.

Here's Juan Guaido making another address there, frankly, a master of social media here but somebody who's not managed to take his sort of international support into practical application of power inside the country. What's key in the hours ahead is whether or not we see these protests we've seen in the past, get tear gas, get met with a government force and then filter away. The message sent that they're able to muster troops out on the street or whether they stay where they are with the people come out and join them. It's still very early in the morning on a Tuesday in Caracas at this point and whether that kind of sense of popular momentum builds towards tomorrow's protests.

What's distinguished these Venezuelan protests so far is they come out, they make a noise, they voice a lot of strong good intent and then after a number of hours, they go home. This is very different though because they're talking about the beginning of the end and operation freedom, the government are calling it a coup. We haven't seen military in these numbers and really the point for President Nicolas Maduro here is does he decide this is the moment where he has to use force and stamp his mark on the situation or as many say he's seen in the past, using force may actually worsen the situation. Is it perhaps time for him to see if this saunters out or peters out in the hours ahead.

That's the key question and incredibly volatile moment here in Caracas. And one I think I have to say I did not suspect, it did seem that Juan Guaido's movement was beginning to flag. But often they surprise you, they surprised us with his return to the country which was done through a commercial airliner through Panama. Nobody knew about that. Everybody was trying to work out what he was trying to do and he sneaked on the plane at the last minute and flew in and nobody could stop him.

Here he's managed to get his kind of predecessor released from house arrest appearing alongside him at a dawn photo shoot on social media with many Venezuelan military defectors. Those scenes there on the bridge, you're seeing, Max, that is quite common in Venezuela. The flags, the tear gas, people on the street.

What is uncommon is to see a Venezuelan soldier there. You're seeing from the - what looks like the National Guard having a cigarette, hanging around with the protesters. This is a new part of today. You can see those soldiers there. They are armed. They are being teargassed. They're not using those weapons to fire back and I think this is the point of key interest today. Does this turn into another episode in the up and down kind of sine wave of Venezuelan resistance to Nicolas Maduro or do we see some kind of element of conflict here, which takes this to a much more regrettable darker stage, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Nick, thank you and also we're going to be wanting the U.S. reaction.

GREER: Oh, I was just about to say it's 7:23 on the East Coast, United States. Trump is up. It will be interesting to look at his Twitter feed. I will --

FOSTER: Indeed.

GREER: ... anything past him in this.

FOSTER: And in the past there's been, obviously, references to oil supply in relation to that.

HALLIGAN: So I mean under - just to say that which way the Venezuela military goes has been this hot source of huge speculation. There's been a kind of proxy cold war going on if we're honest with Russians backing Maduro. This is a country which is under a lot of definitions who got the biggest oil reserves in the world and yet ordinary people are dealing with an inflation rate of over 350,000%. That's why we've seen millions of people fleeing out of Venezuela in search of food, medication, keeping their families together.

[07:25:00] FOSTER: When it comes to the military, it's all about the military surely, I mean whether or not they all defect to Guaido's side, right?

KLAAS: There tends to be a tipping point in the situation. So if you get a few big figures military brass, then the rank and file soldiers will often follow. If the authoritarian regime decides to use live rounds on protesters, there will be a massive pressure for soldiers to defect because they did not sign up to kill their own people.

FOSTER: Yes.

KLAAS: So it's a very fraught situation but what tends to happen is it's exactly what Guaido is trying to do right now, is to bring people out into the streets to give the impression of the popular revolution and it basically give the impression to the soldiers. You're on the losing side, if you stick with Maduro. And if you don't defect now, there's going to be a real problem for you in Venezuela.

GREER: Watch Donald Trump. FOSTER: Clarissa, you cover many of these events. I mean there is a

tipping point always, isn't there? As we're taking these live pictures, what's your final thought and what you're looking for?

WARD: Well, I think what Bonnie said watch Donald Trump, because the U.S. has taken a pretty aggressive proactive stance in this conflicts, recognizing Guaido as the leader of Venezuela. It is hard to believe that he - if this is the beginnings of a coup, it is hard to believe that he would be acting without the tacit knowledge of certain people within the White House.

So it'll be very interesting to see is the White House willing to put its money where its mouth is so to speak and if this does turn ...

FOSTER: And go in, do you think?

WARD: Well, not necessarily go in but if this does become bloody, if this does devolve into some kind of an internecine conflict, how is the U.S. going to address that? It's one thing to voice support for protesters. It's another thing to actually get involved in a potentially bloody conflict.

FOSTER: We'll be following this story throughout the day. Thank you for watching. We'll be back again, same timeslot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong. This is CNN NEWSNOW. In Venezuela, Juan Guaido says he's been meeting with members of the military about what he called the final phase of operation freedom. He called on Venezuelans to stand with him and take to the streets immediately.

Guaido is recognized as the country's interim president by dozens of other countries. A spokesman for President Nicolas Maduro's government called it a coup attempt and said the government is deactivating a small number of traitors in the military.

A new ISIS video appears to show the terror groups leader Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi alive and well. If genuine, it's his first known video appearance since 2014. Off-camera the speaker praises recent bombings in Sri Lanka. He also claims responsibility for dozens of attacks in several countries.

Well, Sri Lanka's President tells CNN intelligence services believe that Easter Sunday bombers had very clear links to ISIS. He said the terrorist group trained the Sri Lankan attackers and that connections between ISIS and extremists in the country date back 15 years.

Well, Japan's Emperor Akihito has stepped down, becoming the country's first monarch to abdicate in two centuries. A short time ago we watched the ceremony as the 85-year-old thanks the people of Japan for supporting him. The Emperor has cited his health as the reason for stepping down. His son Naruhito will be inaugurated as the Emperor on Wednesday. We'll have more in a live report from Tokyo on NEWS STREAM in about 30 minutes time. That is your CNN NEWSNOW. WORLD SPORTS starts right here on CNN.

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