z . good evening again from the united nations where there is breaking news tonight and history in the making tomorrow. that is when president obama will become the first american president to chair a meeting of the council. he will do it as a nobel peace laureate. tonight, with the help of five other countries, the u.n. is doing just that. sunni countries for the first time taking military action against a sunni extremist threat. a lot to cover tonight including fresh airstrikes and a new warning about the possible

attacks here in the united states. chief correspondent jim sciutto has more on the first hour. there are the first round of airstrikes, what more do we know about this coalition? >> well, the coalition is big in the region. and this is one of the president's goals going in, the region. he got the help. five countries, many of them bordering syria and many of them under direct threat of isis, not just taking part in support roles but directly with strike aircraft dropping bombs on isis targets. they're going to assure they're going to be in it for the long haul. >> in terms of the next steps though, how many targets are there actually? >> it is a great question, this time last night keep in mind it is past 4:00 a.m. syria time these strikes taking place overnight. this time last night there were multiple strikes under way. it is quiet so far, i am told tonight it is the bomb damage assessment. they're looking to see what success the strikes had last

night. and that is important at this stage. yous s also saw at the first w of strikes, the convoy or two here speaking volumes about what could be the next steps. as big as isis is, and there is a safe haven it is a fairly scattered group that can scatter when it has a campaign under way. >> it is a group that doesn't need a command base, they can do it with cell phones and radios. >> they don't need the big centers like an army does. they can move around, that is going to be a challenge for this campaign. >> half million dollar cruise missiles to take out a vehicle -- >> that is very interesting as you came to those targets just at the ends of yesterday's strikes. if you see it now early in this campaign where does it say about where it is going? >> jim, stick around, i also

want to bring in our justice correspondent, pamela brown, what have we learn? >> reporter: we learned they brought help across the country on heightened alert, against lone wolf attacks in the wake of isis in syria. and this bulletin said in the wake of the initial assessments the strikes disrupted the active plotting by al qaeda operatives. but as a result there is a concern that it can contribute to violence here in the u.s. lone wolves have been a concern by intelligence officials. the bulletin is calling on law enforcement to scrutinize social media to look for alarming behavior, regarding violence. >> and not to be confused this is not talking about people who have experienced fighting overseas or in iraq or syria, maybe people who have not

traveled overseas, but who are here already. >> these could be people that don't have ties to terrorist groups, even the fort hood shooter had concrete ties. >> he tried to reach out to anwar al-awlaki. >> and think about the strike last week, those were not folks returning from strikes in syria but folks radicalized on line. they took to arms in a very violent way. >> and this also is in the wake of the crisis calling for lone wolf attacks in the united states. so you have that coupled with the strikes overnight and the concern is that individuals could be self-radicalized in the homeland. about 100 yards behind me in the sculpture garden here, there is a statue called let us beat swords into plow shares. the aim after world war ii, where they were using force in limited ways to prevent larger

disasters. over the years, members of the organization have done nearly as much war making as peace-keeping. and as jim acosta, so are modern presidents including the current one. >> reporter: for president obama it is the war on terrorism 2.0. meeting with his own coalition of the willing of arab partners during the meeting of the united nations mr. obama warned the new fight won't be over soon. >> because of the unprecedented effort of the coalition i think we now have an opportunity to send a very clear message that the world is united. >> reporter: and the battle is only beginning as the u.s. and its partners are not only taking on isis but in a speech he discussed earlier this month, administration officials said they used this to size up khorasan for a potential strike. >> we also took strikes to disrupt the plotting by seasoned

al qaeda in syria who are known as the khorasan group. >> reporter: it is also a new day for the president who once won a nobel peace prize after building his political career promising to get the u.s. out of dumb wars. a vow he reiterated a year ago. >> i was elected to end wars, not start them. i spent the last four years doing everything i can to reduce our reliance on military power. as a means of meeting our international obligations and protecting the american people. >> reporter: now, mr. obama is playing terrorist whack them all, considering the countries he targeted as president. one fellow democrat complained too much power has been yielded to the commander in chief. >> if congress allows the president to begin this campaign against isol, without congress

authorizing it, we will have created a horrible precedent. >> reporter: the strikes created a tough zone regarding the u.n., it was up to the ambassador, samantha power, to note that the strikes were coming. the uncertain aftermath hanging in the air when the president visited bill clinton. >> as he strives to stop bad things from happening around the world the rest of us are supposed to do more to make good things happen. >> and jim acosta joins me now. what should we anticipate? >> well, this should be a big speech and the president will address the danger felt by these relatively new terrorist groups, isis and khorasan. and that the president is going to emphasize the need for building the coalitions. you know, earlier anderson when he met with the representatives, a question was tossed at him. how do you feel about being a wartime president. he didn't really say anything,

he smiled. obviously, this is a new question he will have to address at some point. but the other thing he will be doing is chairing a meeting of the u.n. security council. >> which never happened with a sitting president. >> only the second time he has done that and it has not happened with any presidents except president obama. going to get trained in the middle east and come back and potentially pose a threat to americans here at home, while the president is going to be talking about a coalition to address that challenge make no mistake the coalition he is building in new york is a coalition to go to war. >> all right, jim acosta, thank you very much. make sure you set your dvrs so you can watch us. up ahead, the u.s. terror alert, warning of possible lone wolf attacks here in the united states. and a disruption of what was an imminent plan. we'll be right back.

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for the tennis shoes that got torture tested by teenagers. the internet of everything is changing manufacturing. is your network ready? and coming to you live tonight from the united nations where president obama will be speaking tomorrow and also chairing a meeting of the u.n. security council the second time president obama has done that. breaking news tonight continuing airstrikes on targets in syria, new warning to u.s. law enforcement about potential lone wolf attacks on u.s. soil. plus, the u.s. officials saying the airstrikes have disrupted what was an imminent plot by the al qaeda-connected group khorasan. >> reporter: what makes the khorasan terror cell in syria so dangerous to the united states is they have one objective. carry out a major terror attack

in europe or america. multiple sources tell cnn the group had the materials and was operational. >> the intelligence reports indicate that the khorasan group was in the final stages of plans to execute major plans to execute certain targets and especially in the u.s. homeland. >> reporter: the intelligence sources said the plot included clothing dipped in explosive material or explosives contained in non-metallic devices like tooth paste tubes. >> you could possibly get some of these devices like bombs through airport security and they could be quite catastrophic on an airliner. >> reporter: the u.s. official told cnn the plot could involve a bomb on a concealed plane. if there was no information, they would choose a target in their compound. >> it is far from clear whether the plot has been neutralized. they may have been able to take

out training facilities. but if they haven't been able to take out the key bomb makers, they could accelerate this plot. >> reporter: terrorists describe this khorasan as the new central, a small hard core group of veteran operatives many of whom have fought in afghanistan or chechnya. their leader was part of the 9/11 planning and knew of the hijackers and the plot to fly planes into the building. his bodyguard was captured by the assad regime. a source said he was focused on exterior operations. >> we did have a targeted note. >> reporter: experts say it was put together by al-asiri, responsible for both the printer bomb and the cartridge, they have connections with recruits. >> we will not tolerate safe

havens for terrorists. >> reporter: the attack was much further along than anyone was comfortable with. debra feyerick, cnn, new york. >> and he was fighting for al nusra front and ended up blowing himself up inside an attack. joining me now, fran townsend, and peter was the first journalist to interview osama bin laden. philip, what do you make of the threat posed by the group, khorasan. many consider it in terms of the direct threat to the u.s. people noticed the government are talking about it as a more dangerous group in some ways in the short term than isis? >> reporter: well, i think the better comparison, anderson, is to al qaeda and the arabian peninsula. right? you know they have the capability and intent.

and they really are focused on attacks against the u.s. and western interests outside the united states and attacks on the homeland. and they have real capability. it is not clear whether the u.s. government believes the khorasan group was actually formally trained by al-asiri, the bombmaker in yemen. but clearly they were far along with the bomb-making techniques. and they were concerned they would lose track of either the facilities or not get the capability to disrupt the attacks either at home or around the world. also, anderson, it is not clear how many people are in that group. we assume based on what you're hearing, we talk about dozens, not single digits. >> well, that is actually the question i was going to ask you. i was trying to get answers from u.s. officials on that all day, how big a group is this? nobody will actually say. peter bergen, do you have a sense of the size of this group? the fact nobody is saying

anything, it sounds like it could be very small? >> anderson, my intuition is, it is not large. but it is interesting, the isis parent organization was al qaeda and iraq. they have never tried to attack an american target since 2005 when they blew up three american hotels in amman, jordan. so isis historically as a group has not had the capability to do anti-american attacks and not really even much of an intention perhaps until recently. so the fact that khorasan which is basically an out-growth of al qaeda central is planning these things is part of al qaeda's long-term plan to attack american targets and aviation and fran is actually right. it is very similar to al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. these are essentially branches of al qaeda central, which has always had america in its main target sight. >> philip, when a senior u.s. official uses the word imminent

to describe the threat posed by khorasan what does that actually tell you? i mean, you say that word should not be used lightly. they say it is imminent, but the reporting we were getting was no knowledge of an actual target or actual time frame. >> well, if you're sitting at cia and you're giving talking points to the director of cia or more importantly the president of the united states, when you're giving them intelligence that leads to the use of force and an announcement by the president of the united states, the american people and you use that word imminent that suggests to me we had intimate knowledge of what was going on in isis. and in this khorasan group, enough knowledge to understand that a plot was maybe a week out, month out, two months out. you do not tee up the president of the united states to talk to the american people about imminent plots and to strike targets in syria without significant knowledge of what is going on in khorasan. you just don't do it. >> peter, what do you make of this u.s. officials now warning

local authorities really essentially to be on the lookout for lone wolf attacks? again, you know, the person from homeland security security i talked to, lisa monaco in the last hour, said it was not based on any specific intelligence about a pending attack but it just seems to be a sensible precaution to take. >> i think it is a sensible precaution. and just last week we had a yemeni american who is in rochester, new york, who is alleged to kind of have been inspired by isis and kind of put together a half-baked plot, to target america. he didn't have any formal ties to isis, we have seen examples, i think it is only prudent to send that kind of message around and the fact that this happened essentially, the plot has been stopped that fits into this kind of category. >> anderson, everything we've known -- >> go ahead.

>> every one of these plots, whether it is the computer cartridge, all the al-asiri information we've gone we've gotten through the assistance and help of the saudi intelligence service. so when they talk about an imminent threat the people who have the greatest penetration into al-asiri and bomb-making network are the saudis. frankly that is because he tried to blow up the minister of interior, and they devoted themselves to developing really assets against them. so i suspect some of the information we're relying on in terms of the khorasan threat is coming from either the saudis or other intelligence services. and philip in light of the targets and bombing, i know you made a point that it is one thing to strike buildings, another thing to strike down the individual group or bombmaker, the leaders of the small groups and it is going to take a long time potentially. >> let's get a sense of time frame here. we're talking about this

bomb-maker, al-asiri from yemen. the december bombing, attempted bombing over detroit, the airline bombing, the underwear bombing, that is now nearly five years ago and we still have not gotten this guy. al-zawahiri has been on the ground, 14 years after we start to talk about bombings in syria we cannot talk about the significance of these bombings without stepping back and saying look, the kind of targets we want are successful operatives who have evaded us for now a decade or more in al-zawahiri's case. if we think we're going to degrade them in 24 hours, that is nuts. we're going to be in this two to five years because the kind of operatives with the good operational security, they can evade us. this is not about buildings, it is about people. we're going to be at this for a long time to find these people. >> and i talked to rear admiral

kirby. we'll talk more later in this hour. he said it will be 18 months at least to identify, the vet, to train some 5,000 so-called moderate syrian rebels. it will take perhaps that long to try to get the new government in syria to revamp the new government of iraq to get them in there. again, we're talking about the open-ended conflict here. peter bergen, fran townsend. thank you very much. just ahead in the hour we'll talk more about questions and how long the operation may last. whether it will work. our military experts weigh in next. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing

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well, it is difficult to say this early on how long the military campaign will last. no one is saying it is going to be quick. there is this, and there is that, the even bigger question, will it work? how will we know if it has? a short time ago i spoke to rear admiral john kirby about the challenges. >> we've seen them adapt as we put pressure on them from the air and just as importantly, the iraqi forces put pressure on isol on the ground. they changed their tactics and the way they changed their forces there. we fully expect they will react in similar ways in syria, we anticipate that. we're an adaptive enemy, too. we watch, learn, change and i can assure you we'll do that. >> joining me now is retired general mark hurdling who was commander in iraq in 2007 and 2009. back with me, retired air force

lieutenant colonel rick francona. they talked about adapting to the targets, beyond airstrikes, what do you expect to see? without the u.s. ground troops, some sort of ground force that is able to operate and take advantage of whatever the u.s. is able to do from the air, how does isis actually get defeated? >> well, it -- john brought up the point that both sides in a fight, and this is the history of war fare, anderson, both sides have to adapt. the one that adapts faster is the one that is going to win. that is what i think we're doing. we have 14 years of war in this category. you know, i remember watching your program tonight when i went to iraq in 2007 i got some very good advice from my commander in europe as i got ready to take my division over. he said mark, you're not going to be able to kill your way out of this. you're going to have to fight hard but there has to be diplomatic and economic efforts involved, too. and i think this is a

residentiresult of what we're seeing on the ground. the coalition force is not a muslim force, they have to fight this much as anyone from the west has to do. there is a lot of diplomatic efforts going on in this. we have to strangle isis diplomatically and militarily. >> well, general hurtling, that raises the question, is the iraqi government, the new president, besides the words they're saying which all sound promising are they really able to do that political work? are they able to reach out to the sunni groups to try to get this from isis. because as we know from nouri maliki, the former prime minister, they were not. >> there were indicators that they can's anderson. but the question is, and you're asking the right questions, will they? and even if they can and they would like to it is still going to take time. you're talking about reestablishing trust with hundreds of sunni tribal shakes,

all within the provinces of the northern and western part of iraq. that took us -- we made some efforts at that over the 18-month period of time when i was in northern iraq. we saw some growth. that has been lost over the last four years and it has to be overcome by this new government. it won't happen in days, weeks, months or even years. it will take a long time. >> right, and colonel francona cable news loves everything to happen quickly on a 24-hour news cycle. potentially we're talking about years here and a lot of very hard work. the hard work really begins not just tomorrow and the next day but months from now. >> yes, and although we started this air campaign in syria, i think the point that you make is very good. there is no great forces on the horizon yet. and if we're talking an 18-month window before we're able to get these proxy ground forces in there, the free syrian army

we're going to train on the ground in saudi arabia, i think we're in for a very long and disappointing air campaign. because we're run out of viable targets you can strike on the ground. at one point once this shifts from fixed targets, buildings, hardened facilities from large targets that we can actually strike without having people on the ground then what do you do? you start this war of attrition and start to take out large strikes like toyota. now, i think we can do things very well in iraq. i think we're on the right path in iraq. the general brings up a great point with the new inclusive government but it will take a lot of time. we're trying to buy that time in space right now with the atta attacks. iraq, i amcautiously. syria, i worry about. as the general said you can't

kill your way out of this. there has to be a long-term solution. right now we're just pushing this down the road in syria. >> there are so many moving pieces. >> go ahead. >> what i say is, you bring up a very good point. right now we're seeing the big effects of big explosions and great video game-type action. there is a long slog in front of us. and it will take ground forces and take time. and an iraqi counterpart once told me general you have the watch but we have the time. this is a century-old struggle between various aspects of the islamic faith and various cultures over there. we have to adjust to them slightly. we can't put them on our time line and it is not going to be fast. >> and syria is not a static thing. there are things happening there all the time. what is the assad government going to do in the meantime? is he going to take advantage of what we're doing to isis? there is a whole lot of things that could happen there that we have not foreseen. >> right, there are a whole lot

of players here with the ideas and they're all going to react in some ways we can't predict. colonel, thank you for joining us. and just ahead, iraq's prime minister sat down for an exclusive interview with christiane amanpour. and tonight we have been talking more about the need to reach out to sunni groups. is he really willing and able to do that, next. se when healthcare gets simpler. when frustration and paperwork decrease. when grandparents get to live at home instead of in a home. so let's do it. let's simplify healthcare. let's close the gap between people and care. ♪ who's going to do it? who's going to make it happen? discover a new energy source.

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there is a new u.s. terror in effect, warning about potential attacks on u.s. soil. the terrorist group al nusra said their leader was killed in the strikes in syria. earlier today, the justification of the strikes was written to the u.n. secretary general. the strikes were launched in defense of iraq and were therefore legal. she pointed out that iraq had asked for help in fighting isis. now earlier today, iraq's prime minister sat down for an interview with christiane amanpour. they talked about the airstrikes in syria. christiane amanpour joins me now, i'm fascinated to hear. because this is the first interview i've heard with this guy. >> it is the first one, particularly it is massively important because it is the person it all rests with.

if there is not a political solution in iraq all of this is for nothing. interesting they used the word, defense in the united states. that is what everybody is starting to say, this is about defending ourselves or people against isis. so i asked him was he pleased with the strikes going on into syria and also the countries that joined the coalition. >> i am happy that they see the dangers which we have been seeing for the past three years. i mean, we have warned in the past two years. this is a danger. this is a blood game. it is going to end in a blood bath if nobody stops it. nobody was listening. they thought everybody was immune from this danger and only iraq and syria were on the spot of this danger. but now we're happy, i'm happy that everybody is seeing this danger. >> you're going to be meeting with president obama one-on-one, what will you tell him? >> well, i think we need to gather support. although the united states has

supported us all along, they stood with iraq. but we need more concrete support on the ground. >> do you mean ground forces? >> no, i mean air cover, on the ground, i have to see that effect on the ground. we want -- you see, the united states, and their culture, they have their own vision. we have our own. if our armed forces have not received the support they are expecting because if our armed forces are going to have an offensive in a certain area they will expect air cover to support them. >> you know, it is amazing to hear him say the united states needs to do more here. they have a military of 250,000 personnel. it is crazy that they are not able to have -- >> right, which fled -- >> they're not able to fight isis with 250,000 people is insane. >> they were set up by the united states -- >> paid for and funded and years and years, trained.

>> so the bottom line is, i put that to him, do you not feel this personal pressure now that it rests on your shoulders to give your forces something to fight for? because clearly they didn't think they had anything to fight for so they ran away from isis and would rather join isis than nouri maliki at the time, the divisive government. i put it to him that way. and he said he understands and has to bring the sunnis back. he believes, he feels he has made good progress. but as we know the sunnis have not fled back to the government in a show of confidence. they still need to be persuaded. so he really has a huge job there. and he did accept that nouri maliki made a lot of mistakes. >> particularly if you're a sunni tribe sitting in iraq and you see in government now propped up by shiite militias, the army of which shiite militias are working hand in glove with that plays into the

distress that the groups have. >> that is right, he says he wants to see the end of all militias, the sunni, the shiite, pushed by isis -- >> i want to put out for my birthday i'm not going to get that. >> he said i'm the prime minister, here is the important thing. as much as we think that isis and the sunnis are dominant, the shiites are really afraid that the bath that the shiite are -- he said this is very, very difficult to me. i have to walk a really fine line. >> it is understandable why they feel that. there are the sunni groups which are supporting isis and fighting hand in glove with that so there is the desire to come back. >> if this man doesn't sweuccee >> crucial, and fascinating to see just how different he is from nouri maliki. >> very much associatiso.

he didn't want to criticize nouri maliki. he said yes, i'm obviously much more inclusive. and that he did make mistakes. >> thank you very much, christiane amanpour, i want to bring the panel from the ground in iraq. ben wider man, and ben, it is interesting to hear christiane, what she heard from the prime minister today. it is essential for the government in baghdad to convince kurds to convince sunnis to support the central government. and that they will reach out a hand financially, and in terms of power. >> yeah, and the question is, anderson, can he do it? there are so many divisions within southern iraq, within baghdad. between of course, the sunnis and the shiite and of course here in the northern part of iraq in the regional -- the kurdish regional government, there is support for the united

stat states. this is really the one spot in the region where the americans have allies they can depend on. keeping in mind, of course, that during the entire time the united states was in iraq, not a single american soldier was killed in this part of the country. so they do have a solid support here, kurdish officials tell us this evening that they're fully behind the american effort against the islamic state. but they have real doubts about the ability of haider al-abadi, and the new government to really change the fundamental problems on the ground. the mistrust that exists. and christiane was right to point out that the iraqi army really has failed in its responsibility to hold onto territory. in the end, it does depend on the shiite militias which many sunni have bitter memories about during the war, basically with the civil war we saw 2006, 2007,

2008, anderson. >> yeah, and again, as christiane was saying it all rests on the iraqi government living up to these promises that they are making. david, in a piece you wrote for "the new york times" today, the strikes and the iraqi forces have made almost no progress in actually loosening isis's grip on more than a quarter of the country. does that say more about the airstrikes and their effectiveness or more about the state of the iraqi army? >> well, it is something about the nature of airstrikes and something about the effect of the military. it is about the hearts and minds of the people of iraq. and this is a fight in these sunni areas of iraq. and what we're seeing is that the sunni tribes that played a big role several years ago in helping the united states force out al qaeda and iraq, those

sunni tribes have not yet gotten off the sidelines. they have not really joined this effort in part because they're still quite suspicious of this new government. as always, there is a great deal of blood by the tribes who feel deceived and abused by the central government in baghdad who suspect it is in connection with the groups. and the political problem, until you build that credibility is solved it is very hard to get them engaged in the war effort. so you see iraqi army units operating in areas like anbar that are really kind of isolated behind enemy lines. because the population is now with them. >> and we've seen iraqi military units being abandoned in the face of their forces. ben, i know you spoke to one kurdish official about the central iraqi army. what did he tell you?

>> he said there really is no iraqi army. that their experience is that there are some units, individual units that they have confidence in. but by and large they have seen the situation -- sort of the military power backing the baghdad government, is essentially shiite militia, the shiite militia which -- really conducted a blood bath against some of the sunni tribes until the americans managed to convince them to come on board. they have very little confidence in the iraqi army's ability to fight the islamic state, anderson? >> i mean, that is devastating and terrifying given that again, it all rests on the iraqis' abilities to get their facts together. you can watch christiane amanpour's interview with haider

al-abadi on cnn.com. just ahead, a new terror alert ahead, we'll take a closer look at the possible fallout from president obama, a lot more ahead. a believe this! watch this. sam always gives you the good news in person, bad news in email. good news -- fedex has flat rate shipping. it's called fedexne rate. and it's affordable. sounds great. [ cell phone typing ] [ typing continues ] [ whoosh ] [ cell phones buzz, chirp ] and we have to work the weekend. great. more good news -- it's friday! woo! [ male announcer ] ship a pak via fedex express saver® for as low as $7.50. [ male announcer ] ship a pak via fedex express saver® "hello. you can go ahead and "have a nice flight."re." ♪ music plays ♪ music plays

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director of the dartmouth dickey center. you have been all along, the threat of isis, and what do you make of the launch of the air strikes? >> well, i support the president's efforts here. and i think that isis, while not an imminent threat to the united states at home is a profound threat in the region:therefore it deserves our attention. we should take the measures necessary to get the iraqis back in the fight and make the region own this problem. so i do think that these air strikes make sense. >> the fact then that before this week, we really hadn't heard much about the threat posed by this group, and suddenly the united states is trying to take them out in the air strikes. everybody is wondering did the group pop out of nowhere. how long have u.s. officials been concerned about the group?

>> well, u.s. and officials have been worried about this for some time. i remember hearing about it from european officials last spring. the knowledge that the bomb technology in yemen would be exported to syria where it could much more easily be smuggled across the turkish border and used on a western airliner something people have been worrying about for a while. the actual cell that would carry that out isn't clear. really only when james clapper, director of national intelligence, mentioned khorasan, a few days ago, people begin to focus on this group. >> peter, what about the possibility of drawing the u.s. into wars, exact plly what the s wants. >> you have to think in the short term, yeah, the threat goes up. you know, as, as daniel and others have mentioned.

isis was not focused primarily on the west. it was focused on, trying to gain territory in the region. it hadn't made the shift that al qaeda made in the 1990s when it started to focus attacks on the west. in the short term you are seeing the terrorist alerts going up, the terrorist threat has gone up. you could say isis was a long term threat to the united states that the u.s. would have to deal with anyway. what strikes me and would strike a lot of americans is, that, there has been this fracturing of jihadist groups and a sense we are fight, bombed three separate jihadist groups, none of which the average american knows very much about at all. >> dan, how much do you've think the u.s. really understands this region. understands all of the players, understands how to actually affect change the way that they want it. i mean -- not just the u.s. track record in the past, but, but moving forward?

>> well, an incredibly complex region. and you know it's been the graveyard of many u.s. initiatives in the past. i think at the moment, the objective of, diminishing isis and degrading its capabilities, and also striking at groups like khorasan that plot against the west. those are fairly limited objectives. i think getting this region to a place where it is no longer conducive to, to jihadist groups like this, where -- there is actually a real resistance, viable states, where there are economies that are thriving. that's obviously an enormous tall order. a column made the point that obama is the latest to realize history does not give the occupant of the oval office choosing what kind of presidency he wants to conduct.

>> not the way president obama would have wanted things to turn out. the thing that worries me, though i totally understand the rationale for going after isis and khorasan and al nusra right now. george w. bush made an important point after 9/11 which is to say there is a reason these ideologies are growing. they're growing because of a political environment, in the arab world where people feel have very repressive stagnant government. one of the things you seen the new alliance that the united states is developing with the arab allies and with, with the leader, of egypt for instance is that we are in bed with the same group of people who were repressing their opposition, preventing political descent. leading people to go down this road to jihadism again. and the underlying roots of this are not being addressed. we are making same old problems we were making before 9/11.

>> peter barnhard, appreciate it. peter benjamin as well. appreciate it. we'll speak with a man in syria first to report the air strikes by tweeting about it. i will talk to him next. ♪ (dad) there's nothing i can't reach in my subaru. (vo) introducing the all-new subaru outback. love. it's what makes a subaru,a subaru. for over 19 million people. [ alex ] transamerica helped provide a lifetime of retirement income. so i can focus on what matters most.

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>> sign of the times, a half-hour before the pentagon announced the u.s. carried out air strikes in syria, twitter

user, posted this quote. huge explosion, shook the city what might be air strikes in raqqa. the man who posted that on twitter, his tweet is believed to be the first report on the strikes. i speck to hoke to him earlier. take us through what happened, explain what it was like when the strikes took place. i was sitting on the balcony and all of a sudden there was a flash, light, and then i heard the sounds one after another, less than a minute four or six i counted. >> did you think at first that this was attacks from the assad government? or did you know it was not them? >> i knew it wasn't the government because raqqa hasn't witnessed any air raids at night before. never. so this is the first time.

just two days after the first tweet, president obama will be here to make history yet again sharing the security council making the case we expect to take on isis. that does it for "360" stay with cnn. cnn tonight starts now. >> this is cnn "breaking news." >> good evening, everyone. this is "cnn tonight" i'm don lemon. we have breaking news tonight. law enforcement on heightn't alert for lone wolf attacks in the united states after air strikes over syria. learning of details to put undetectable bombs on planes, possibly using a toothpaste tube or clothing dipped in explosives. so how imminent was an attack look that from the group khorasan. >> very concerning. plus america at war. bombs raining out of the skies over syria as u.s. fighter jets along