[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Take a look at the breaking news we're following right now. Ominous pictures, these are live pictures just outside of Oklahoma City where there is now a tornado warning. Look at those clouds. We're going to monitor the situation for you, get an update as soon as we can. But those are pretty ominous pictures right now Oklahoma City right now. But let's get back to the other news we're following. Republican Senator James Risch of Idaho, a member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee is still with us. Senator, there's a lot of fear about this fanatic Islamic terrorist war against Christianity right now, Christians in particular. First of all the news out of Italy today that there was an al Qaeda plot to go after the Vatican. How serious do you believe this was, because they rounded up a whole of bunch of people in Italy today?
[Sen. James Risch , Foreign Relations Committee:] Wolf, this is really serious. It shouldn't surprise anyone. This is coming out of Europe. Europe is much different than the U.S. in a lot of ways, not the least of which it's a much softer target. It is easily penetrated and there are large groups of radical people that are moved into Europe and can move in and out of there fairly easily. We're probably going to see more of this in the future. The intelligence agencies over there and the law enforcement agencies move a lot more publicly than we do here in the U.S., and as a result of that, you saw this rollout today that actually caught the attention of a lot of news agencies and they intended it to be that way.
[Blitzer:] You hear about an al Qaeda plot against the Vatican, against the pope. That's serious obviously, but in recent weeks and months, but we've seen these terrorists behead Ethiopian Christians, Egyptian Christians, we've seen Christians being beheaded and thrown overboard on these ships that are trying to escape North Africa or Middle East, heading to Europe. Is there, based on the intelligence you're privy to, some sort of direct war on Christians right now by these terrorists?
[Risch:] Wolf, I don't think you need to rely on intelligence for that. They say so publicly. If you look at what they've put on the Internet and everything else, it's both Christians and the Jewish populations that they target. And there is good reason to believe that these radicals they are the radical edge of Islamic culture that have targeted and will continue to target Christian people for the reasons that they state in these deep philosophical things that they publish on the Internet about why they're doing this and that they're going to continue to do it.
[Blitzer:] Let's talk about Yemen for a moment. ISIS just released some training video claiming to be shot in Yemen, showing militants in desert fatigues. The video was release as a threat to the Shiite Houthis there. CNN has not confirmed the authenticity of the video. There is some Yemeni dialogue in the video. What does this mean, the presence potentially of ISIS in Yemen? We know the Houthis are there. We know AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is there. But as far as you know, is there a serious ISIS terror presence in Yemen now as well?
[Risch:] Well, ISIS has gotten such, Wolf, that their tentacles go out and reach everywhere. I would say more than Yemen, Libya has been a target of theirs for establishing these training camps and for expansion. But they're going to expand all over the Middle East because of the deteriorating conditions there, the loss of any ability of the Yemeni government to take control of its country, just as happened in Libya. So, this is going to permeate in a lot of different areas in the Middle East, as you recall about the time in 911. It was pretty much concentrated in Afghanistan because it was so lawless. Well, there's becoming more and more lawless areas in the Middle East and as a result of that, they're able to move more freely and they're able to establish beach heads in these countries that are broken, that have failed governments.
[Blitzer:] Yes, these are failed states right now whether it's in Libya or Yemen or Somalia. Unfortunately, there's a whole bunch of them right now. Senator, thanks very much for joining us.
[Risch:] Thank you, Wolf. Glad to be here.
[Blitzer:] Thank you, James Risch, of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee. Coming up, massacres of Christian by ISIS and news of a possible al Qaeda plot to attack the Vatican. Why are the jihadists targeting Christians? Our terror experts are standing by. As organizers vow new protests in Baltimore over a death in custody, police now say Freddie Gray should have received medical aid at the scene of his arrest and should have been buckled into the van that took him away. And thousands of people are evacuated as a massive volcano erupts. We're going the take you close to the scene.