[Blitzer:] We have some breaking news now on ISIS and its recruitment right here in the United States. Our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, is joining us. What are you learning?
[Evan Perez, Cnn Justice Correspondent:] Wolf, we have had a fourth member of this ISIS recruitment group that was that was arrested in Brooklyn in February. They've now added a fourth member to this group. His name is Dilkhayot Kasimov. This is a group of Uzbek and Kazakhs who were arrested in Brooklyn, Wolf, with the intent to travel to Syria and also helping fundraise for the recruitment of people to travel to Syria to join ISIS. The prosecutors, federal prosecutors say that this group falsified travel documents. They basically said that they were going to Syria for vacation. And instead, they were going to join ISIS. And so now, they've added a fourth member to this indictment.
[Blitzer:] You're also getting new information about those two women in New York City who were arrested last week seeking to build some sort of explosive device. What are you learning?
[Perez:] That's right, Wolf. Well, one of them, the husband did an interview with New York One over the weekend. In it, he accuses the federal government of framing his wife and says this was all something that she was being led into by the FBI. And I've got to tell you, you know, we see these indictments now almost daily. We've been covering these stories here on THE SITUATION ROOM. And the criticism is growing against the FBI for doing some of these sting operations. Now, in their defense, the FBI says that if they don't do this and one of these people carries out an attack it will be on them for not stopping these. And they believe that this is the only way because even unsophisticated people can kill people with carrying out attacks. We saw what happened in the last two days in Kenya where, you know, people with not a lot of money can carry out deadly, deadly terrorist attacks.
[Blitzer:] There was shocking news coming out of Britain. But a 14- year-old and a 16-year-old picked up for suspected terror activities?
[Perez:] Right, exactly. And the British authorities have not said exactly what those activities were going to be. But they said they picked them up over the weekend. Now, this is in Manchester, which has also been the scene of several other ISIS young people who are trying to travel overseas to join ISIS, Wolf. So this has been the center of recruitment in Britain, which reports up to about 2,000 people who have tried to travel to Syria and Iraq to join with these terrorist groups.
[Blitzer:] Evan, stand by for a moment. I want to bring in our panel: our national security analyst, Fran Townsend; our national security analyst, Peter Bergen; CNN military analyst retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling; and our counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd. He, by the way, is the author of an important brand-new book just coming out this week, entitled "The Head Game." There you see the cover right there. Phil, let's talk a little bit about these two British teens, a 14- year-old and a 16-year-old, presumably wanting to go support fight for ISIS. What's causing these teens to join a terror group, allegedly, like this?
[Philip Mudd, Cnn Counterterrorism Analyst:] I think naivete. Look, it's almost like we're in the third stage of this war, Wolf. We started with the core of al Qaeda, the guys who were the architects of 911. Ideologues for the movement. We move to the homegrowns starting in, I would say, 2007, 2008, 2009. People who are not al Qaeda members, maybe even not ideologues, but people who are emotionally driven to go to a place like Iraq. Now we have naive 14-year-olds who say, "Hey, I've been told by somebody that if I want to go live a perfect life, there's a place I can go." One comment on this, Wolf. It's an interesting debate. The Brits in some of these cases, the Brits have said and they have a lot more cases than we do that they will not charge people this young. I think there's an interesting question for the White House and the Department of Justice. If you get a 14-year-old, my judgment is the Department of Justice should be coming out saying, those individuals would not be charged, not just because we're soft and fuzzy but because you want a message to families that says, "If your kid is in trouble, don't worry. Call us. There won't be a federal charge."
[Blitzer:] And we see these young women also arrested and charged in New York, Fran Townsend. The surveillance that's going on, now you're hearing from the defense lawyers, entrapment by the FBI. What do you make of this?
[Fran Townsend, Cnn National Security Analyst:] You know, Wolf, we hear this whenever there's a sting operation. And first of all, if you just stick with kind of the pure facts and numbers, the FBI has gotten quite sophisticated with these sting operations. They have they're getting legal advice very early on in the investigation. The lawyers who are with them step by step about what they can and cannot say. And by and large, these cases are upheld when they get a conviction, like in the 90th percentile. And so it's very rare it's frequent that the defense lawyers make this allegation, rare that they actually win it with a defense in court.
[Blitzer:] Are we seeing more of these arrests now because more activity is going on? Or more young people simply want to join forces with the terror organization?
[Perez:] Well, I think what's happened is that once you saw ISIS came on the scene, the FBI started doing investigations. They saw a lot of people going online to learn more about them. The full investigation sometimes takes a year, a year and a half to get to this point. And you know, a lot of them never get to this point. Because people change their minds or, you know, they like Phil was talking about, you know, parents intervene. And that's what I think the Justice Department hopes happens. By doing these arrests, they can dissuade more of these young people from doing this.
[Blitzer:] How hard and Peter, you study terrorists all the times is it to track these young people? They may be thinking of doing something. They may be online, social media saying nice things about ISIS. And then somebody from the FBI comes in and starts talking to them, pretending to be an ISIS supporter. What happens then?
[Peter Bergen, Cnn National Security Analyst:] Well, according to FBI officials I've talked to, I mean, social media is a great boon. I mean, there's a disadvantage that it's recruiting people. But it's perfectly legal for the FBI to monitor Twitter and Facebook. And these are kids, and they seem to not understand that what they're doing is very public. So I think most of these cases are actually emerging out of social media postings. Not all of them but most of them.
[Blitzer:] How worried should U.S. officials be right now, General Hertling, that so many of the U.S. counterterrorism capabilities in Yemen have disappeared with the collapse of the regime there; the U.S. leaving its embassy, abandoning the embassy, all U.S. military personnel out? What's going on over there, that this is the home of AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has a lot of capabilities. They're making no secret of their desire to strike the U.S. homeland.
[Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling , Cnn Military Analyst:] It's a combination of two things, Wolf. First of all, you do have the lack of capability now because of the giving up of embassy and having all the forces drown out of there. But there's also the factor of having the civil war between the forces of the Houthis and the Hadi government is distracting both of them from going after AQAP itself. So they're in a free roaming condition right now. They can go around and cause a lot of damage without a whole lot of people paying attention to them. And you add to that the fact that we now have an economy of force in that region where we're putting the priority in helping the Saudi Arabians hit Houthi targets. And we've taken our eye off that ball, too.
[Blitzer:] Phil Mudd, the U.S. government has basically told hundreds if not several thousand Americans who are still stuck in Yemen right now that they're on their own. But now we're told that India has offered to help. They're sending some planes in once in a while. Do you expect other countries to join the effort? And why can't the U.S. send in a plane or two to try to get some American citizens out of there?
[Mudd:] Well, I think at some point when you warn people again and again in a civil in a civil war environment, they have the responsibility personally to leave. You know, I feel for these folks. But you can't sit there in Yemen and say, "Hey, I didn't know that something bad was coming down." When you're asking foreign governments, including the Indians, to help, which I think is one thing you have to consider. I hope they do. But every time you're go into that environment, if you're the Indians, the Saudis or somebody else, you're also putting your own forces, all of your special forces, at risk. That's asking a lot for a foreign government to say, "Hey, we don't want to get our own folks, but if you choose to put your forces at risk, we'd be happy to see that happen." I think we're going to see some tragedy here soon. It's not like we didn't have any warning.
[Blitzer:] We also saw, Fran, what al Shabaab did at that university in Kenya, slaughtering 147, mostly students, most Christians. They separated out the Muslims. They were also threatening to attack U.S.- Canadian shopping malls. Is this a serious threat based on what you know?
[Townsend:] Absolutely. And Wolf, it's not really new. You know, al- Shabaab has been under tremendous pressure. They lost a leader. There's another leader that's at the top of the wanted list. But these cross-border operations remember going back to the Westgate Mall. And so this has been an ongoing threat, particularly to our allies in Kenya. And I think you're going to continue to see it. I know that the White House is very focused. Sources are telling us that they've been meeting about this, that there's a target list in terms of the leadership of al-Shabaab that is continually updated. But I expect you're going to see the administration looking to put additional pressure and working with the Kenyans to put pressure on al Shabaab.
[Blitzer:] Peter, you want to respond to that?
[Bergen:] Sure. I mean, al Shabaab has been losing ground in Somalia quite a lot over the last several years. But they're certainly capable of doing what they did at this university, at Westgate Mall. That's quite within their capabilities going forward.
[Perez:] It cost no money. It costs no money and very little manpower to do it.
[Blitzer:] It's very limited what the U.S. can do right if, in fact, they're going to if they want to die in the process of doing something like that. But obviously, it's a great trick. Stand by. Just ahead, we're following other breaking news on the terrorist threats. New information about an angry dispute between two pilots in the cockpit only minutes before takeoff.