Rescue Operations Continue in China; Detailing the Fight Against ISIS
CURNOW: That's the sound of heavy artillery fire in Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's defense minister says pro-Russian separatists tried to advance on Ukrainian troop positions near the town of Marinka, but he tells the Reuters news agency that Ukrainian forces halted the advance. Observers say it's the worst fighting the region has experienced in months. Well, rescuers China are struggling to find survivors two days after a cruise ship capsized in the Yangtze River. I want to show you this animation. It shows the route the Eastern Star was taking when it overturned in the country's longest river. Now, more than 410 of the more than 450 people onboard are still missing. At last report, 14 survivors had been rescued, and 26 bodies recovered. Let's get an update from our David McKenzie. He is in Jianli County in China. Hi there, David. We were just hearing that rescuers were trying to drill holes in the hull. Give us some sense of what's happening there with the rescue operation.</s>DAVID MCKENZIE: Well, Robyn, the rescue operation is continuing. This hospital behind me there had hoped that there were many more survivors coming in, but the survivors have really not come in today, and it's a really grim task, though, with some hope left, that they might find someone perhaps trapped in an air pocket, deep air pocket, deep inside that hull on the Yangtze River. They've expanded the operation, the search operation, by more than a hundred kilometers down river of the vessel that overturned. That indicates to me just how far they're hoping potentially to find survivors and potentially those who have been lost. And, yes, they're drilling into the hull. They're cutting it open, trying to get divers in. There have been some amazing tales of people getting out, of being -- tapping and calling and even whistling from inside the hull, but it's been very difficult today to get answers and very little hope, in fact, on the scene, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: I know that many families have got a lot of questions. There's some anger at the information that authorities are giving them about how this happened. Do we know -- I mean, I know it was a storm, some severe weather, but how did a storm overturn such a huge ship?</s>MCKENZIE: Well, that's the question right now is, whether it was a storm or a tornado. According to some officials in China, how could it have lilted the ship over in such a fast way that the captain and the mechanic got off the ship, and, yet, so many people presumably are still trapped there? So that is the question. Why wasn't an alarm sounded? Why did the alarm come out from the shore so many hours later? It does seem there was an extreme event of weather on the scene, but we have spoken to some families here who are coming in now from neighboring cities to try and get a sense of where their loved ones are. Let's listen to one man.</s>THE INTERPRETER: I have gone beyond the sadness. I am preparing for the worst while still holding onto hope.</s>THE INTERPRETER: One thing I want to do the most is to see my mom.</s>MCKENZIE: Well, certainly, that man, Mr. Woo (ph), his mother and his aunt and his two uncles were on board that vessel, so they're all here trying to get any sense of what happened, and the anger and sadness is certainly rising, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: Dave McKenzie, thanks so much. David there outside that hospital in Jianli Province. Thanks for that update. Well, a provincial Iraqi official tells CNN, ISIS has shut the gates of the Ramadi Dam. That will prevent water flowing to towns east of the city. Now the official says ISIS is planning to attack once the water level has dropped enough, and is also trying to, quote, kill people with thirst. The fall of Ramadi almost three weeks ago is why -- is but one recent example of the group's relentless drive. CNN's Jim Sciutto takes us back to when ISIS first appeared on our radar.</s>JIM SCIUTTO: When a few thousand lightly-armed ISIS fighters swept through Iraq a year ago, they caught Baghdad, the US, and the world off guard. Since then, the terror group has grown into an international threat with an alarming capacity for brutality. Executions meant to shock and horrify.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our mass will continue to strike the necks of your people.</s>SCIUTTO: Spurred into action by ISIS' alarming advance, less than two years after he withdrew all US forces from Iraq, President Obama launched an ambitious air campaign. Deployed some 3000 US military advisors and trainers and vowed to wipe out the group.</s>BARACK OBAMA: Our objective is clear. We will degrade and ultimately destroy</s>ISIL. JOE BIDEN: They should know. We will follow them to the gates of hell.</s>SCIUTTO: But nine months after the campaign began, ISIS still controls hundreds of square miles of Syria and Iraq. Its map of control and influence virtually unchanged in the last several months and marked by new ISIS victories in Ramadi and around the crucial Baiji Oil Refinery. All this, in the face of an international anti-ISIS coalition comprising some 60 nations and Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands.</s>JOHN KERRY: ISIL continues to commit serious, vicious crimes, and it still controls more territory than Al-qaeda ever did.</s>SCIUTTO: Crucially, ISIS has already achieved the goal contained in its name, establishing an Islamic state. It runs hospital, schools, and a business empire with an estimated daily income in the millions of dollars, and ISIS fighters and supporters appear to be true believers, devout to the point that they would sacrifice anything for a terrorist group some compare to a cult.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They believe that are, you know, the true Army of Islam that is coming to save Islam. That also kind of explains their wiles and their brutalities as well. Anybody who stands in our way, this is what we will do to you.</s>SCIUTTO: Driven by that intense commitment, ISIS has shown a remarkable ability to innovate. To break through Iraqi defenses, it built giant suicide truck bombs on the hulks of US-made and US-supplied armored vehicles. Beyond Iraq and Syria, ISIS is now expanding its influence with armed affiliates in Libia, Egypt, Yemen, and signs of new support in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and ISIS has attracted more than 22,000 foreign fighters from a hundred countries, some 4000 of them Westerners including approximately 180 Americans.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I were to say that we had it under control, then I would say that I knew of every single individual traveling, though, I don't, and I don't know every person there, and I don't know everyone coming back, so it's not even close to being under control.</s>SCIUTTO: Coalition members are holding an urgent meeting in Paris on the fight against ISIS but no urgent change to the strategy, and that is sparking disappointment from the Iraqi leader Haider Al-Abadi who said they he has heard a lot of talk of support but hasn't seen much on the ground. Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.</s>CURNOW: Well, a new CNN and ORC poll shows most people in the US are not happy with President Obama's handling of ISIS. Sixty-three percent disapprove of his strategy, bringing down his approval rating by eight percentage points since February, but only seven percent of people surveyed say the situation in Syria and Iraq is the most important issue facing the US. And authorities in the US City of Boston are investigating the police shooting of a man believed to be radicalized by ISIS. Officers killed Usaama Rahim after he lunged at them with a knife which they later displayed to the media. There it is there. The 26-year-old was under surveillance as part of a terror investigation. He was approached after making several threats against police on social media. A second man has been arrested in connection with that case, and he's due to appear in court on Wednesday. Well, still to come here at the International Desk, using Gaza's Ruins as a means to a better life. How a group of young men are practicing the street sport known as Parkour, helping and hoping to get out and see the world. And the thrill of seeing wildlife up close can turn dangerous in an instant. We'll look at both human and animal behavior in safari parks. Stay with us here at CNN.