Details of Ramadi Situation; Authorities on Alert for Terror Attacks on New Years Eve; Numerous US States Prepare for Post-Storm Flooding
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Battle for control, the Iraqi government says Ramadi is liberated, but local leaders say ISIS still controls parts of the city. Millions of people are under flood warnings in the U.S., and in parts of Missouri, the water could reach historic levels. And a top North Korean official said to be one of Kim Jong Un's closest comrades, has died. We will look at the circumstances surrounding what happened. Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. This is CNN Newsroom. A big win for Iraq, a major blow to ISIS. Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi raised his nation's flag in Ramadi Tuesday. The city is still about 25 percent under ISIS control, but as Elisa Labott reports, Iraq's military is calling it a victory, and setting its sights on other areas that ISIS still holds.</s>ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL CORRESPONDENT: As Iraqi forces evacuated civilians from Ramadi's city center and swept for explosives left behind by the militants, pockets of resistance remain. Tribal leaders charged with holding Ramadi, tell CNN ISIS still controls a quarter of the city, now mostly in ruins. Still, the U.S.-led coalition said it was confident the Iraqis would hold the area.</s>COL.  STEVE WARREN, SPOKESMAN, ANTI-ISIS COALITION: We don't think the remaining enemy has the -- has the oomph to push the Iraqi security forces off of their positions.</s>LABOTT: Iraq's prime minister arrived in Ramadi under heavy guard the day after the army declared the city liberated. Today, he saluted the troops, promising to take the fight to Mosul, and push ISIS out of Iraq entirely by the end of next year. Today, the coalition boasted 10 ISIS leaders have been killed in recent air strikes, including Sharaf Al-Mudan (ph), who had direct contacts with the suspected ringleaders of the Paris attacks days before the siege, and was believed to be planning more attacks against the West.</s>WARREN: Without leaders to be able to facilitate the activities, your ability to conduct activities goes down. We haven't severed the head of the snake yet, and it's still got fangs. We have to be clear about that. There is much more fighting to do.</s>LABOTT: In Syria, the coalition has now helped secure a hydroelectric dam from ISIS grip for the first time since 2012. Located near the eastern city of Manbij, it chokes off a key supply route from ISIS headquarters in Raqqa. But despite the battlefield losses, one retired general warns ISIS is growing as a worldwide threat.</s>MARK KIMMITT, FORMER US ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: While they may not be doing ground military offenses, they are still controlling the social media, they're still attracting a significant number of recruits, and I think their new strategy for inspiring attacks worldwide is proven very effective for them.</s>CHURCH: Elise Labott reporting there. Well New Year's Eve is just hours away in some parts of the world, and police are looking out for any possible end of the year terrorist threats. Jim Sciutto shows us why authorities are on alert.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With New Year's fast approaching, authorities across the world on alert for terror, from Belgium, to Bangladesh, to New York City.</s>JAMES O'NEILL, NYPD CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT: People should feel safe this New Year's Eve because we're there. You're going to have one of the most well-policed, best protected events at one of the safest venues in the entire world.</s>SCIUTTO: Police in Belgium arrested two men Tuesday in connection with a plot they say to attack historic sites in the Belgian capital on or around New Year's Eve. A senior Belgian security official tells CNN the target was Brussels Central Square, the Grand Palace, the plot inspired, though not directed by ISIS. Police conducted several terror raids Sunday and Monday, seizing military uniforms and ISIS propaganda, the Belgian government raising the threat level to 3 out of a possible 4, meaning an attack is likely. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, the U.S. Embassy warned U.S. citizens of possible attacks on New Year's Eve. New York says there is no credible threat to the New Year's celebrations, but it is dispatching 6,000 officers to Times Square, where more than 1 million people are expected on Thursday night. The secretary of Homeland Security encouraging New York Police Academy graduates to be vigilant on their new beats.</s>JEH JOHNSON, US HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: In the face of this current threat to your country, to our country, I encourage you to build bridges to the communities in this city that the Islamic State is attempting to target for recruitment.</s>SCIUTTO: Underscoring the homegrown dangers, a British couple were both convicted today of preparing for acts of terrorism, after investigators seized stockpiles of chemicals and bomb-making materials at one of their homes, and this video, showing them testing an explosive device.</s>LAURA NICHOLSON, SOUTH EAST COUNTER TERRORISM UNIT: It is clear that a radical and violent Islamic extremist ideology was the motivator for these offenses.</s>SCIUTTO: On the battlefield in Syria, the coalition announced that air strikes killed ISIS leader Sharaf Al-Mudan (ph), who officials say had direct links to the mastermind of the Paris attacks, and was actively plotting more terror. Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.</s>CHURCH: The storm has passed, but the governor of Missouri says the threat is far from over. Parts of the state will likely see historic river flooding through early next week. It's one of 13 states currently under flood warnings across the U.S. Missouri's governor has activated the National Guard to help first responders in evacuated areas. Alina Machado reports.</s>ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: High water is already covering several roads in and around West Alton, Missouri. And just 70 miles from here, the situation is much worse. There are several homes and businesses already underwater in Union, Missouri. Authorities there telling CNN they had to rescue at least two people who were caught up in rising floodwaters. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is asking people to please avoid driving through roads that are covered with water. Listen to this.</s>JAY NIXON, MISSOURI GOVERNOR: Just this morning, we were informed of an additional three flood-related deaths. This brings the total number of fatalities in the storm to 13, 12 of which were caused by vehicles being swept from flooded roadways. Now that the rain has moved out, the threat has changed, but it is not by any means over.</s>MACHADO: And that is why the mayor of West Alton, Missouri, has asked residents to leave. He has issued a voluntary evacuation order, and so far most people have left their homes. Alina Machado, CNN, West Alton, Missouri.</s>CHURCH: And earlier, CNN spoke with Linda Horn about how the floodwater is affecting the roads in Missouri. She's a spokeswoman with the Missouri Department of Transportation.</s>LINDA HORN, SPOKESWOMAN, MISSOURI DEPT OF TRANSPORTATION: We're dealing with rising rivers all across the state of Missouri. We currently have over 225 roads that are closed in the state, and our worst situation is that Interstate 44 is closed in the middle of the state, cutting near Rolla, Missouri, and we are expecting a spot on Interstate 44 to close in St. Louis before morning. And those two closures on Interstate 44 are making it not only very difficult to get around Missouri, but also very difficult for travelers trying to get through our state and travel in the Midwest, the ability to get, say, from Illinois to Oklahoma. And so we're having a tough time dealing with truck traffic and through travelers trying to get through the state of Missouri.</s>CHURCH: And in some areas, these floods could be unprecedented. Let's turn to our meteorologist, Pedram Javaheri, to learn more about this, and to get an idea of just how extensive this flooding is.</s>PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it is incredible. You know, this is something that you typically don't see take place to this nature, to this extent when it comes to the time of year that it is. Typically the first week of winter no one is talking about this historic level of flooding. That happens in association with incredible snows, the spring melt, and of course the summer rains across this region. And you take a look, think about the 18 million people that are dealing with the flood watches and warnings that are in place over this region. In fact, when you talk about river flooding, officials even say Ban Ki-Moon in the past has made references to river flooding as a slow motion tsunami almost in progress, because you have the water just traverse downstream over a several-week period. And if you take a look, the moisture very limited over this region, so everything that has come down pretty much all transpired. But I want to show you what has occurred in the past several days, when you bring back in the Mississippi River Basin, its tributaries, tremendous tributaries across this region that funnel in a lot of water. And you go in, in the past three to seven days, we've seen somewhere between 15 to 30 centimeters, or 6 to 12 inches of rainfall. This was all amid all the tornados, the severe weather, about 70 Tornados respond across this region. The moisture associated with those storms was incredible, and again, all coming down in the form of rain, typically in the cold season you bring this down in the form of snow, and snow does a great job, actually, of absorbing the moisture. So the runoff typically in the winter season is limited, the water levels typically want to drop. This time around it certainly hasn't felt like winter. And if you take a look at the gauges, and of course the levees that are in place over this region, here's what it looks like. We think the flooding will continue downstream over the next several days. By the time you get down to the Arkansas River, southern portion of the Mississippi River, we're talking January 2nd, January 3rd before all of the water is funneled downstream. And, of course, with a lot of tremendous stress placed on these levees we know a lot of them are beginning to really overtop, and that's the issue. The good news with this, for some people, is that once you have an overtopping occur, you're releasing some stress associated with the flooding. But, of course, if there's too much stress on this, levees fail and you have widespread damage. And this is something that's happened back in 1993 it was, where a significant flooding occurred over this region. And we know of $15 billion in losses that happened because of the flooding of 1993. There about 100 plus levees were overtopped, as well. So a very serious situation beginning to take place across this region. If you take a look, over 400 river gauges that are reporting flooding across portions of the Midwestern, the central, the southern United States, and this pattern continues over the next several weeks. And unfortunate too, when it comes to weather-related fatalities in the United States in the past 30 years, flooding is number one. About 81 people every single year lose their lives due to flooding. Tornados come in second there, at number two, with the hurricanes and lightning strikes being very close. And I want to kind of point out something here, too, because when it talks about flooding, in 2014 alone, and you go back several years, Rosemary, and look at flooding, the vast majority of flooding fatalities, about 66 percent of them, occur when people are driving. You have about 12 percent of the people falling in, about 3 percent fishing, walking accounts for about 7 percent of flood-related fatalities. But you can see what happens when you're displacing people, because of the water coming down, you're potentially telling people they need to evacuate, and if people do not heed caution or go down roadways that you've heard are closed, on the order of hundreds of roadways, now people are placed in danger, as well, so it's something to take very seriously as early as possible with these waters beginning to rise.</s>CHURCH: Yeah, that is a wake-up call, just looking at that breakdown there, Pedram. Of course we've heard from authorities saying do not go out in your cars, particularly at night, because of all the water. It doesn't take much water, does it, to cause problems for people in vehicles particularly.</s>JAVAHERI: Absolutely, yeah. Just about ankle-high water, if it's moving at about 3 to 5 miles per hour, that will begin moving your vehicle. You bring that up to your knee height, and you're talking about this vehicle having no chance at all, yeah.</s>CHURCH: Absolutely right. Many thanks to you, Pedram. We'll talk again soon.</s>JAVAHERI: Thank you.</s>CHURCH: Want to turn to eastern China now, where the state-run Xinhua news agency is reporting rescuers have found eight workers in a collapsed mine. The miners have been trapped for five days. Rescue crews can now talk to them using an intercom system, and they're delivering food and other provisions to them as well. The mine in Shandong Province collapsed on Christmas Day, killing one worker. Nine people are still missing. The rescuers have not been able to reach the miners as yet. Investigators are working to find out what caused that collapse. Donald Trump calls Bill Clinton's marital indiscretions fair game, and now the billionaire is inviting the media and his rivals to investigate his own personal life. Plus, the new charges the so- called affluenza teen and his mother will face as they're brought back to the United States. We'll have that for you next. Do stay with us.