[Keilar:] This week's horrifying attack in Ataturk airport in Istanbul is being traced back to a troubled part of the world not always associated with ISIS. The three suicide bombers are said to be from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and a section of Russian known as Dagestan. Dagestan in the Russia's northern caucus region. It drew attention more recently after the Boston bombings because Tsarnaev brothers briefly lived there. And that is where the alleged mastermind of the Istanbul attack is from, a militant nicknamed Akhmed on-armed. Joining me now to talk more about this, an ISIS'presence in Turkey is James Jeffrey. He is a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey. He is now a visiting fellow at the Washington institute. And Ambassador, is there anything about this region specifically that makes it a hot bed for terror or place where ISIS is recruiting some of it's really some of its most vicious soldiers?
[James Jeffrey, Former U.s. Ambassador To Iraq And Turkey:] Yes. Well, first of all, under Stalin and Soviet Union, these Islamic areas of the Soviet Union were under constant oppression. The Germans tried to recruit during World War II from these areas. And subsequently, we have seen in Crimea and other areas and not to speak about the war in Chechnya in the 1990s and then again a decade ago, Moscow has cracked down repeatedly on these areas but it really hasn't been able to calm them. It relies on local strong men. There's a very strong Islamic flavor there. There is influence from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. So it is another breeding ground for terror as we have seen. And there are a lot of recruits who are active with ISIS and Syria right now from that region.
[Keilar:] ISIS recruits. It's frequent that we hear about them coming in and out of Syria or Iraq. A lot of them passing through Turkish airports. Recently you had Turkey stepping up the airport monitoring. Do you think this attack was retribution for that?
[Jeffrey:] It certainly is. Turkey have crosses like some agreed to a very expanded U.S. operations here and some special forces out of Turkey in to Syria and particular against ISIS. And Turkey itself has partially closed the border to ISIS. Turkey has been involves in artillery duels with ISIS along the southern border. So it's a much more active Turkish role against ISIS. Turkey has other fish to fry. Kurdish PKK insurgence and the Assad regime. So its attention has not been fully on ISIS. That's going to change after Istanbul.
[Keilar:] It's interesting, you know, some people in Foreign Service, the Foreign Service community will say that Turkey sort of talks out of both sides of its mouth a little bit. It allows the border to be porous so that ISIS fighters have gone over and taken on Assad. And yet at the same time these allows U.S.-led airstrikes to come out of Turkey. How do you think this attack on the airport is going to change how they treat the border?
[Jeffrey:] They will try to tighten up the border. The problem, Brianna, is that Turkey is absolutely committed or has been to the struggle against the Assad regime for all kinds of religious, regional and geopolitical reasons. And the people who are fighting Assad come from all over the Middle East and all over the Muslim world and they don't carry I.D. fighters. I'm an ISIS fighter. I'm an al-Nusra Al Qaeda fighter. I'm with Islam or one of the other groups. They basically look like scruffy young men passing across the border. And it is very hard to determine who is going to support which group. And if Turkey cuts it to all groups, then the fight against Assad will end almost immediately. That's the conundrum Turkey is in.
[Keilar:] So they may nominally tighten the border. But we are talking about a 500 mile border. And as one person described to me, it sort of like Nebraska. This is something that without these physical barriers, it's pretty much impossible to really tighten up.
[Jeffrey:] Well, I know the border well. I have traveled along it. And right now the U.S. and Kurdish Syrian allies are about to cut off much of it at a place called
[Keilar:] Yes. And when I said Nebraska, I meant to make that clear, that it is the landscape. It really It is not particularly mountainous as a physical obstacle to transport across the border. Former ambassador James Jeffrey, thank you so much.
[Jeffrey:] Thank you.
[Keilar:] And coming up, dangerous amounts of algae. It's so thick it's being compared to guacamole. It's blanketing Florida beaches. It's causing a state of emergency. We have CNN's Jennifer Gray live.
[Jennifer Gray, Ams Meteorologist:] Yes, Briana. This is unbelievable. Look at it. It's very thick goop. And it's in all the rivers and canals in this part of the state. It is a huge problem and residents are furious. They want answers. Of course we'll have a full report coming up after the break.