[Tapper:] Hello there. I'm Jake Tapper. Welcome back to THE LEAD. In more world news, intelligence officials have long worried about ISIS and other terrorist groups recruiting and luring Americans or those with western passports to the battlefield of the Middle East to wage jihad. It is no secret from the slickly produced videos and from intelligence reports that westerners are among the ranks of ISIS fighters including Americans, the man who talks to the camera in those horrific videos showing the murders of journalists, Steven Sotloff and James Foley. He spoke with what sounds like a British accent. Today, new information about three Denver teenage girls, who are believed to have communicated with ISIS, and who were stopped by authorities in Germany last month while allegedly trying to join the fight in Syria. CNN's justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, joins us now with details on how these American teenage girls from Denver became radicalized Pamela.
[Pamela Brown, Cnn Justice Correspondent:] Well, Jake, U.S. law enforcement officials I've been speaking with say this case is particularly alarming. We are now learning the Denver teams were interacting online with other westerners, who had already made it to Syria and were trying to convince the teens to do the same. And officials say this case yielded a wealth of information that shows just how ISIS is using westerners already in its ranks to recruit others through social media.
[Brown:] CNN has learned hardened jihadists currently fighting with ISIS overseas had direct contact with three Denver teens, 15 and 17-year-old sisters and their 16-year-old friend, using social media to lure them to jihad.
[Daveed Gartenstein-ross, Foundation For Defense Of Democracies:] These were role models to them and people they could be in contact with and social media who was more immediate and allows you to immerse yourself in an extremist environment being used as a recruiting platform.
[Brown:] A law enforcement official says some of the jihadist recruiters were westerners fighting in Syria. They were encouraging the girls to join ISIS even giving them a road map of how to go from Denver all the way to Syria and eventually link up with the brutal terrorist group.
[Gartenstein-ross:] If their interest is extremism rather than simply reading an article or posted a message board they can interact in real time with other people through tweets and this is very immersive to them.
[Brown:] In October the teens made it half way to Syria before they were stopped by authorities in Frankfurt, Germany. After the teens didn't show up for school their parents alerted authorities, who found a treasure trove of information on the teen's social media profiles.
[Rita Katz, Site Intelligence Group:] The recruitment was done online. We were able to compare social media postings of the same girls before they became radicalized and after they were radicalized.
[Brown:] The SITE Intelligence Group tracks international terrorists and analyzed the teen's online activity.
[Katz:] The same girl that was asked one day how many hours of music do you listen to on a daily basis and she used to say, I don't know. I can't count, but I dance and I listen to music hours and hours and then a few months later she was asked how many hours of music you listen to she said music is forbidden.
[Brown:] U.S. officials say this case is a unique opportunity to track efforts by terrorist groups to recruit westerners. ISIS members have successfully played a role of recruiting several Americans online including Minnesota native, Douglas McCain, who was killed in Syria in August. SITE Intelligence says the Denver teens were communicating with both men and women recruiters.
[Katz:] The girls were in communication with ISIS sisters online, women that are dedicated to recruit women.
[Brown:] And this case reflects a relatively new phenomenon of American teens being lured through social media to fight in Syria. Jake, at this point the girls have not face any charges and the case is ongoing Jake.
[Tapper:] Pamela, why haven't they faced any charges?
[Brown:] I've been asking officials that question for the past several weeks as I've continued to focus on this story, Jake, and essentially the federal system is just not equipped to bring federal charges, terrorism charges in particular against juveniles. And I think that is sort of inhibiting authorities from being able to bring federal charges against the teens. They don't want to send the wrong message. In this case it was the parent, who went to authorities and I think they don't want to deter parents from doing that. Worried that their child might be arrested and it's really interesting because in talking to authorities, Jake, there are other similar cases with American teens, who have been radicalized, and we don't even know about them yet because they weren't charged Jake.
[Tapper:] Interesting. Pamela Brown, thank you so much. An Israeli border police officer is now in custody arrested for the death of a Palestinian teen. A warning that the video we're about to show might be disturbing to some videos. That 16 year-old Palestinian teen was killed back in May along with another teen. Surveillance video from today shows a crowd ducking from gun fire and then you see a teen fall to the ground. The same thing happened about an hour later when the second teen passed the area. Only CNN cameras were rolling that day, capturing the gun fire on film. Israeli police initially said only rubber bullets were fired, but now autopsy results show one teen was hit by live ammunition. The situation on the ground in Israel in the Palestinian territories has remained tense. Earlier this week, an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv and three Israelis were stabbed in a hitchhiking post in the west bank. Wolf Blitzer is now here with a preview of "THE SITUATION ROOM." You are going to be talking foreign policy with some key members of Congress today.
[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Host, "the Situation Room":] We have Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is going to be joining us. It's very disturbing you showed it. We'll go in depth a little bit on this video. These three American sailors, they get off a U.S. warship, the USS Ross. They're in Istanbul and all of a sudden they're mugged by this crowd of young Turks. You saw them putting their bags on their heads and shouting death to Yankees and down with Americans and all of that. It's pretty disturbing remember Turkey is a NATO ally. We're going to speak with Chairman Royce and see what's going on.
[Tapper:] Eight hundred thousand American tourists visit Turkey every year. Wolf Blitzer, we'll be watching in 7 minutes on "THE SITUATION ROOM." Coming up next, an all-star line up to honor troops and veterans, but some performers are being criticized today for going too far. What they say that has some people upset next.