[Church:] Back to our breaking news in the United States now. Police in Charleston, South Carolina say nine people are dead after a white gunman opened fire at a predominantly black church. The shooter is still at large. Police say he is in his early 20s and was wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans. The police chief says he believes this was a hate crime. The shooting happened Wednesday night at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. And this video shows people praying outside the church after the shooting. A vigil for the victims is also planned hours from now at another Charleston church.
[Barnett:] Now to other stories we are following, ISIS is claiming responsibility for four car bombings in Yemen's capital. In an online statement, the militants said they targeted pro-Houthi locations in Sana'a. There are conflicting reports on how many were killed, but the health ministry says at least five people died.
[Church:] Syria's civil war is posing a growing threat to people who live in neighboring countries. In the Golan Heights, the Druze are an ethnic and religious minority that have been caught in the middle as wayward rockets and mortars fly over the border. CNN correspondent, Oren Liebermann reports.
[Oren Liebermann, Cnn Correspondent:] Smoke rises from a Syrian town less than a mile from Israeli frontier. The militant, Al Nusra Front controls the town and the region they are taking fire from the Syrian regime. As we watch the fighting one shell hits near a Druze village of 2500. For the Druze the war in Syria has just come a little closer. The Druze is an ethnic and religious minority, [inaudible] secretive spread throughout the Middle East. Most are in Syria, some in Lebanon and Israel. On Tuesday smoke billowed, but the Druze refused to flee.
[Mondi Safadi, Israeli Druze:] We want to stay in their houses and their place.
[Liebermann:] Mondi Safadi, a Druze from the Israeli Golan says he has spoken to the Free Syrian Army as he tried to keep the fighting away from Hadir. Druze in the Golan, many of whom are loyal to the Syrian regime and have families in Syria have rallied for the Druze in Syria after a video claimed to show Druze sheikhs killed by Al Nusra in Syria, which CNN could not independently verify. A member [inaudible] Israeli Druze says the community in Israel has pledged millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Syrian Druze as they face threats from Al Nusra and ISIS known here as Daesh.
[Mk Ayoob Kara, Israeli Druze:] They need supporting machines and system to fighting. They need medicine, other things, but they are not need people. The Druze going to prepare 100,000 soldier now to fighting Daesh. It's a big army. They are going to prepare it.
[Liebermann:] Israel has military vehicles near the frontier fence and a field hospital to help injured Syrians, but the military faces a dilemma, how to help the Syrian Druze without getting pulled into the conflict?
[Church:] Oren Liebermann reporting there and he joins us live now from the Golan heights. Talk to us, Oren, about the fighting today on this day right now.
[Liebermann:] Rosemary, we have heard sporadic firing of mortars and off to my left near the Syrian Golan, a small town there that's the center of the fighting today between the Syrian regime and rebel forces. What's so important about this area is the mountain behind me, the highest mountain here, it's a strategic outlook, it looks over Southern Syria. On a clear day you can see Damascus and the village at the base of the mountain came under fire a couple days ago. There is a working agreement to stay away from that village. But the Syrian civil war that has been raging for years, difficult to predict how it goes and the Druze watch this very carefully.
[Church:] They certainly do. Oren Liebermann, watching it very carefully too there from his vantage point in the Golan Heights. Many thanks to you.
[Barnett:] Now Pope Francis is bringing climate change to the forefront. Coming up next, a look at the controversial letter that has the world talking.