FBI Asking for Help Identifying Possible American Jihadist
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of news out there. Let's get you to "THE NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. I saw you moving to it a little bit, Carol.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I was.</s>CUOMO: Looking at the limbo stick.</s>COSTELLO: Yes.</s>CUOMO: That limbo stick --</s>PETERSONS: There you go.</s>COSTELLO: Thanks, guys. Have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now. Happening now in the NEWSROOM, hunt for a cold-blooded ISIS killer. The FBI wants your help in finding him. They think the man in the black mask may be an American. Plus rolled back, big box behemoth Wal-Mart cutting health insurance for 30,000 part-time workers, but this might actually be a good thing? We'll tell you why. And save Excalibur. The Ebola dog that's stealing everyone's heart this morning. Spain is threatening to euthanize him but he's showing no symptoms of Ebola, nothing. Nada. See the Twitter campaign that's going viral live in the CNN NEWSROOM. And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The FBI makes a bold and unusual move and asks you and your neighbors, do you know this ISIS terrorist, hiding behind a mask? In a gruesome propaganda tape released last month he appears to execute captured Syrian soldiers who are unarmed but even more chilling, it sounds like he may be American. So now the feds are asking you to listen carefully.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They lie. They're lying. We are the harshest towards the Kuffar. And the flames of war are only beginning to intensify.</s>COSTELLO: Now just to be clear, this is not the same man shown in recent beheadings of prisoners including two Americans. He spoke with a British accent and the FBI believes it has identified him. Joining me now, CNN chief -- CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown. She's in our Washington bureau with more. Good morning, Pamela.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Carol. The FBI is turning to the public for help now after weeks of trying to figure out the identity of this ISIS terrorist who we heard speaking fluent English and he also speaks Arabic in this ISIS propaganda video. And the big concern here is that this may be someone with a Western passport who slipped through the cracks.</s>BROWN (voice-over): The FBI is asking for the public's help identifying this jihadi speaking in what sounds like an American accent in an ISIS propaganda video.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flames of war are only beginning.</s>BROWN: For weeks the FBI has been using facial recognition and voice analysis trying to trace his accent and comparing what they find to other Americans the intelligence community has been watching. FBI director James Comey told "60 Minutes" there are about a dozen Americans currently fighting in Syria but he's even more worried about the Americans not currently on his radar.</s>JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: I don't know what I don't know.</s>BROWN: The effort is part of a broader public appeal by the FBI to identify Americans seeking to join jihadist groups fighting overseas. It comes on the heels of a 19-year-old Chicago man arrested Saturday. CNN has learned that Mohammed Khan wasn't on the FBI's radar until very recently.</s>CULLY STIMSON, NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Without this digital footprint, I don't think this young man would have come on our radar screen at all.</s>BROWN: The FBI says Khan was in contact with someone online who was allegedly trying to help him get into Syria to fight with ISIS. When police arrested Khan at Chicago O'Hare's international airport, FBI agents were simultaneously searching house but Khan's family members refused to talk to reporters.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What should we know about your son?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, we want privacy.</s>BROWN: Notebooks found inside Khan's home also indicated he paid $4,000 for a round trip ticket flying from Chicago to Vienna, Austria, then into Istanbul, Turkey.</s>STIMSON: It tells me probably that he was trying to evade being caught by purchasing a round trip ticket versus a single one-way ticket, by spending more than the el cheapo ticket you could get and also by not going direct so that he is more likely than not, not raising a red flag for intelligence services.</s>BROWN: And Khan is expected to appear back in court for a detention hearing in Chicago tomorrow. We have reached out to his attorney several times and have not heard back -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown reporting live from Washington this morning. The FBI has put together this wanted poster and they want it plastered on every TV and computer screen in America. Take a look. Can you identify that man in the mask? If you can, and that seems rather difficult to me, you can call 1-800-CALL-FBI. So let's talk about that effort now. Paul Cruickshank is CNN's terrorism analyst and Tom Fuentes is a CNN law enforcement analyst and former assistant director of the FBI. Welcome to both of you.</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thank you, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So, Tom, if I look at this FBI poster I can't identify this man. Can anyone?</s>FUENTES: Well, I think if someone's a family member or close friend or classmate, by his mannerisms, maybe not in the poster it wouldn't be that easy but if you see the video with him, and -- you know, his expressions, the way he tilts his head, the way he speaks, the way he moves, all of that together might help somebody say oh, yes, I know who that is.</s>COSTELLO: You know, in watching the video of this man, the mask is very tight. It sort of outlines his nose and the shape of his face. Is there computer technology that can sort of enhance that in any way, Tom?</s>FUENTES: No, they've tried to use various facial recognition type technology on that. It's -- it really takes a better, clearer picture, requires a clearer picture to analyze and they need to have somebody to compare it to right now so just having the face covered like that by itself, if that person is not already on record somewhere is going to be very difficult.</s>COSTELLO: Paul, the FBI, it's really trying to rally the public's help through these posters and this video. So why so much concern about this one man?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, there's so much concern, Carol, because he committed a war crime on tape, but also they just don't know who this guy is. The FBI director James Comey on "60 Minutes" on Sunday said they've identified all 12 Americans they believe are part of ISIS. Well, they don't know who this guy is. So the fear is he could have an American passport and he could return to the United States to launch some sort of terrorist attack. What they don't know most causes concern for the</s>FBI. COSTELLO: And Tom, they say his accent sounds North American, whatever that is, but Americans do have -- they do sound different in different parts of the country. This guy sort of sounds Midwest to me. What does he sound like to you?</s>FUENTES: He doesn't sound American to me, to be honest. That's not my area of expertise, but I've listened to thousands of hours of wiretaps of people and -- you know, and have heard various accents and various languages. It sounds like someone who was taught English to me but that's me.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Paul, this man speaks both Arabic and English fluently, does that at all help narrow the search?</s>CRUICKSHANK: I think it does help narrow the search. I've been speaking to Arabic speakers on this. They say he sounds like he could be perhaps from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, perhaps even Saudi, or also perhaps even Sudan, not so much Egypt or morocco or Algeria, a place like that, when he speaks Arabic. So that does help narrow the search. Helps them try to identify perhaps who this is.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. OK, so Paul thinks he might be from Syria and he speaks English rather well, right, so maybe ISIS is pulling a fast one on America by scaring it into thinking that this guy executing innocent Syrians is American? Tom, you want to take that one?</s>FUENTES: I think that's possible. But I think that Americans are going to be scared just in general if --</s>COSTELLO: Yes.</s>FUENTES: You know, if they know that we have people from the U.S. that have traveled there and that could come back and we have people here who have never been there and might be inspired to go ahead and commit a terrorist act here without even going.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Tom Fuentes, Paul Cruickshank, thanks to both of you for your insight as usual.</s>FUENTES: Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: Top stories this Wednesday morning. Gay marriage bans in two more states fall, add Nevada and Idaho to the list, that makes 30 states that allow same-sex marriage. Ferguson, Missouri, police are reportedly planning for riot if a white cop is not indicted for shooting an unarmed black teenager. Reuters is reporting police are meeting with the FBI three times a week. The grand jury is expected to make its decision next month.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Black people getting shot by the police --</s>COSTELLO: A routine traffic stop for a seatbelt violation turns violent in Indiana. Police smashing through a passenger seat window and using a stun gun on a man as a 14-year-old boy in the backseat recorded it all. Lisa Mahone and her boyfriend Jamal Jones claiming excessive force, false arrest and battery. Officers say they fear for their own safety after seeing Jamal reaching into the backseat. Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson in court next hour expected to plead not guilty to child abuse charges. Peterson is accused of severely whipping his 4-year-old son with a wooden switch. If he's convicted he could face up to two years behind bars. And blood moon. If you were up around 6:30 Eastern this morning, you saw this. Big, red moon. The magic is happening because the earth is between the sun and the moon. If you missed it, no worries, you have two more chances to catch a blood moon next year. NEWSROOM is back in a second.