our senior international correspondent nic robertson has details now. >> reporter: what we could learn from this, the fact the vice president wasn't there at this important prayer service is that the government's been lying. they've been saying that he's at his job, he has no intentions to defect. yet now we see if the situation was normal, he would have been there with the president, with the other government officials and he wasn't. it doesn't mean we know where he is, however. what rebels are telling us is that there are commanders who have been trying to get him out of the country. they've lost communications with them and they don't know exactly where the vice president is. he's trying to get out of the country to jordan, they say he's been trying to get out for the past week. they are concern, they say if his family are captured, then he may be forced into surrendering. but no indication of that so far. but these pictures, these images of president bashar al assad appearing at this tiny mosque close to his presidential palace tell us quite a lot. this is a rare appearance by him

nic robertson joining us from our bureau in abu dhabi. is the latest on the vice president's whereabouts? >> reporter: well, the latest seems to be the denial from the government that they say he hasn't gone, he's been loyal to the regime throughout this crisis, and, indeed, sort of commenting on the most recent u.n. appointment of a new u.n. representative to syria. so, the government's trying to play the game that he's still there. but interestingly, one of the free syrian army spokesmen said, look, tomorrow is a day, the end of ramadan tonight. tomorrow there would be a big prayer service. you should normally expect to see farouq al sharaa standing up there with the president. they say they don't expect to see him. indeed, they dare the president, they dare the government to show him on tv because they don't believe the government has him. that he is on his way out of syria, even though the free syrian army say they've lost contact with the commander helping him with that escape. >> al sharaa is really the most powerful sunni muslim fi

nic robertson, cnn. >>> now to the severe fire danger. this map showing red flag warnings in oregon, idaho, montana, utah and washington. this is utah where a new wildfire ignited as fire crews contained two other fires started by lightning. mandatory evacuations remain in effect today in several communities threatened by wildfire. >>> it is a dilemma some on medicaid face either having less access to a doctor or being turned away all together. will this change under the affordable care act? you've been busy for a dead man. after you jumped ship in bangkok, i thought i'd lost you. >>> surfing is my life now. but who's going to .... >>> tell the world that priceline has even faster, easier ways to save you money. . . on hotels, flights & cars? you still have it. >>> i'll always have it. so this is it? >>> we'll see where the waves take me. sayonara, brah! ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] you've been years in the making. and there are many years ahead. join the millions of members who've chosen an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan insured by un

no confirmation yet, but as nic robertson reports, we may find out for sure in hours. >> reporter: perhaps the best indication where the vice president is may some sunday at prayer service in damascus for the end of ramadan. normally the vice president and the president will be in attendance. if he isn't there, that will be an indication that belies what the government has saying that he's never thought about leaving the country, that he's in his job and commenting on the conflict, praising the choice of the new u.n. representative to syria, backing what the representative has called for, for unity at the u.n. security council. all the government's efforts indicate the vice president is still in his job. if he's not at the prayer service, that will be a strong indication the government doesn't control him. the free syrian army say they're helping him get across the border to jordan. however, they've said they've lost contact with the commanders that are helping him try to escape. and for that reason, they say they're not quite sure where he is, that he hasn't made it to jordan yet. they sa

cnn national correspondent nic robertson is following the story from abu dhabi. what is the latest on the vice presidential departure, nic? >> well, no word, and it is troubling the free syrian army who are trying to get him out of j jordan, but they say he has been getting out of the country, and they are trying to help him, but they are afraid that if some of the family is captured, he may be forced to surrender, but the pictures of the mosque of the eads prayer, where the president would sit next to the vice president is very telling not because it is a rare appearance of assad, but because he held the prayers at the palace and not the big mosque in the center of the country, but the political world here seems to be shrinking, and the changes at the ministerial level yesterday as well, and for bashar al assad, this image, he is not projecting powerful and in control the way he'd like to. this is very damaging for him, randi. >> and what do you think about that? will al assad bow to the pressure? how will he react to all of this? >> well, so far he plans to carr

let's get more from nic robertson. what is the latest on the vice president's where abouts?> reporter: it's still not clear. they are saying he left damascus a week ago. they have been trying to get him across the border into jordan. they haven't been able to do that. they want to get him and his family safely out of the country. he wants to leave. they are trying to make it happen like they did the former prime minister a couple weeks ago. you have the state news agency saying he worked diligently for the government since the beginning of the crisis then he welcomes the u.n.s new choice of envoy and hopes they get the unified support. you have on one hand, the free syrian army saying he's on the way out. we are trying to get him out, but lost contact with the commanders doing it. on the other side, saying he's back at his job, supporting the things happening. >> al-sharaa is considered one of the last figures of the guard. he was a confidant of his father. if there is true, how much of a blow would his defection be? >> it would be a very, very big signal to whoever he thoug

nic robertson explains. >> the project that the government agency is funding and in the east of saudia is valueded at $130 million, and it could create as many as 5,000 jobs for women, and something they hope to replicate in as many as 40 other cities across the country. why are they doing this? why are they creating women-only environments? well, they say that the strictures of shia law, and islamic law in the country mean that men and women cannot work side by side, and until now, the many female graduates of the country that has been producing have been going into the education sector, and what the government is trying to do here is to open up other business sectors, textiles, food processing and such like. and also, saudi arabia realizes it is falling behind the region in the number of women or the percentage of women in the country employed in saudi arabia is only 15% of the women represented in the workforce in a country like united arab emirates, or here, it is close to 60% of the women in the workforce, so that the difference in discrepencies there are very large. saudi arabia

. >> and cnn's nic robertson joins us with a new and potentially alarming development in the civil warc, what you're discovering is al qaeda might be playing a role here. >> reporter: well, certainly they claim an expectation that al qaeda would exploit it. it's certainly not a got of experience across the border in the east to iraq and evidence it's come across the board enand organizations or cells rather operating within syria. the former ambassadors who we talked to earlier in this year said they were already seeing indications of it and the fighting on the ground does seem to begin to bear that out. al qaeda taking the evidence of bomb making, roadside bombs, bashar al assad's forces and the evidence does seem to be there now. >> reporter: and nic, when's the suggestion, though? if al qaeda then is helping the syrian rebels, what does that suggest for future relations with that country? >> well, it's one of the very problematic parts of the sort of mosaic of opposition forces that there are. you have people in the opposition. remember, it began as street protests and because the r

nic robertson, thank you. >> paul ryan is hitting the road solo today. a enthusiastic welcome in his home state of wisconsin, wiping tears before taking the stage to thank supporters. >>> gabby giffords is back home after 19 months after being shot from a political event. they moved back to tucson yesterday, they say permanently. she had been spending her time in houston in rehab. her husband, mark kelly, tweet,ing, gabby has been waiting for this day for a long time. >>> the police responded appropriatery when they fatally shot a knife wielding man near times square. it happened in broad daylight over the weekend. 51-year-old darius kennedy threatened officers with an 11-inch knife and repeatedly resisted attempts to arrest him. >>> stocks are set to fall today. what's driving the slowdown on wall street and what it means for you, coming up next. i'm one of six children that my mother raised by herself, and so college was a dream when i was a kid. i didn't know how i was gonna to do it, but i knew i was gonna get that opportunity one day, and that's wha

i want to bring in nic robertson who is live from london and nic, tell us who the suspects are and arezens and what do we know about them? >> well, two of them are believed to be chechens and although when they were picked up they didn't have identification documents on thel, and they were picked up yesterday, and the other man was turkish origin and picked up today by the police, and the indications are that the police are maybe will get other people. they say that they are searching through a computer database, and computer that they have found during their investigations, and they also say that they are searching for explosives as well, suzanne. >> and nic, tell us how the operation or the arrest went down, because they are calling it one of the biggest operations against al qaeda. >> yes, and it also sounds like it was not an easy arrest either, because the two operatives who were traveling on a bus about 160 miles north of the town of kadiz in the south of spain according to the spanish, might have been on a bus headed towards france, but when the police try to get them off of the

cnn's nic robertson has a preview. >> deb, what the saudi authorities are trying to do here is put morearely 15% of women are in the workforce in saudi arabia. that compares very poorly with the rest of region. 60% or almost 60%, for example, here in the united arab emirates. why are they putting women directly into the workplace for men? because islamic law says you can't do that and this is the saudi solution. the government agency funding the project says it's going to cost $130 million to create this women-only work environment. they're saying that there is space for perhaps up to 50 different businesses that could employ as many as 5,000 women at this one particular site in the east of saudi arabia. they're saying that they will perhaps, if this works, then replicate it in as many as 40 other sites across the country. an effort to redress the balance of the female to male workforce, a recognition as well that while saudi arabia puts a lot of money on certain -- certainly a lot of money into female education, over-producing female graduates of the unemployed female workforce, 80% of

nic robertson is following this story from london.ng on this. what more are we learning about this threat? >> reporter: we know the police seized a computer that they're scanning to find out if there's more information to give them leads to other people they may want to arrest. they also believe a large quantity of explosives is missing, although they captured some explosives. they say two of the men that were arrested, believed to be chechen origin, had al qaeda training in afghanistan and pakistan. one was a senior al qaeda figure, also had a lot of chemicals experience, believe he was a master bomb maker type that they have experience in making car bombs and shooting, a lot of al qaeda techniques. what worries spanish officials is that these two men were on the road when arrested, taken off a bus, put up a fierce fight before they were arrested. police believe they were planning to attack a base about 60 miles from where the explosives were found and that they were going to use a motorized paraglider to deliver the massive explosiv

nic robertson has more from london. good morning, nic. >> reporter: good morning, carol.led off a bus yesterday headed northwards in spain from a southern city, were believed to be russians or chechens. they didn't have any documentation documents them, but the apartment that they left behind in cadiz, according to police, had had explosives there. the police are now searching for those explosives, but what the interior minister, what the police are telling us now is that these two men pulled off the bus had had training in explosives, in weapons in pakistan and afghanistan, may have been connected to a pakistani jihadi group, and that they had plans on how to fly light aircraft, and the police telling us that they believe they could have been using some kind of motorizes paraglider to move enough explosives to blow up a bus, to fly that potentially into possibly a spanish or u.s./spanish military base, naval base on the coast in southern spain. so, the spanish authorities taking this very, very seriously, carol. >> nic robertson reporting live for us this morning, thanks

i want to go straight to our senior international correspondent, nic robertson, has been gathering the background, and how close were they to pulling off some kind of attack? >> well, one of them was believed to be turkish. he was arrested today. two of them believed to be chechn chechnyan, or of russian decent. they didn't have any identification papers on them when they were arrested. they were on a bus traveling north, but they put up a ferocious resistance to being arrested when they were caught. how close were they to being caught isn't clear. but these two men on the bus had both had training in afghanistan or pakistan jihadi camps and are believed to be affiliated with the terrorist group lashkar-e-tayyiba, so these men very, very well trained in explosives and weapons according to spanish officials. >> so they're in spain. this is where they're caught, in southern spain. were they planning on attacking spain, other parts of europe, somehow targeting the u.s.? do we know? >> what the spanish are saying right now is they think that these men were trying some kind of aerial attack

it's also where nic robertson is live covering the summit and joins us live. nic, when i ahead some of the things that the syrian former prime minister had to say, it sounded pretty clear to me that's just about calling bashar al assad a filthy liar for the things he said about the conflict saying it's just a bunch of terrorists out there. this man said, not true. i was there. i saw what's going on and it's horrifying. >> reporter: and i think we'd expect him to say that. look. this former prime minister according to reports that we hear was forced in to taking over the job as prime minister and pretty much since he got the job trying to get out of the country. that's the scenario we're told and we would expect him to sort of convince people standing in the middle to join the opposition, but the reality is there are assessments that said assad still controls the security forces. we haven't seen any major, major large-scale cracks in that. he hasn't used by barely a fraction of the stockpile of weapons. so while the prime minister is perhaps the more authoritat

outfront tonight nic robertson who has done extensive reporting on al qaeda and seth jones, author ofnting in the shadows." nick, what do you know about these men in spain, where they come from and where they are trained? >> two of them, the ones arrested pulled off a bust yesterday believed to have got both al qaeda training at camps in pakistan and afghanistan. believed to have tize to the group responsible for the attack in 2008, a very deadly attack in india. the third man is turkish. he was arrested today at a house. in that apartment police say they found some explosives but sniffer dogs that went in detected a lot of explosives. the other thing about these guys they have been practicing using paragliders and security authorities are concerned they might have been getting ready for an air borne attack on a joint u.s. spanish military base nearby. >> one of the suspects reportedly had explosive and chemical training. how serious of a risk is this? is this sort of surprising to you that there is anything new in what the training entailed? >> i don't think the plot is surprising. w

britain insists the money won't pay for weapons but nic robertson is following the money and i askedwill go to. >> what the british foreign secretary has made clear is this equipment is for civilian use, not military use. there will be assessments made of how it is being used. $7.8 million worth of equipment and training. satellite communications equipment. radio equipment. trauma kits. medical kiltts. training for syria activists. training for citizen journalists so they can record and document cases of human rights violations. so there will be potential in the future for prosecuting syrian generals for war crimes. one contentious issue, he did say the british government would be sending bulletproof vests for civilians in syria who are helping out in the humanitarian situation. that clearly leaves the possibility open. gunman can take these bullet-proof vests away from the civilians and use them in the conflict. likely britain will get criticism for that. >>> now sudan, where all 25,000 people living in a refugee camp in darfur fled after fighting broke out. david mckenzie's reporti

nic robertson, thank you very much. >>> massive, new security measures for coalition troops in afghanistan after a number of attacks by afghans wearing security uniforms. we'll tell you what exactly is being done. ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. you tell us what you want to pay, and we give you a range of coverages to choose from. who is she? that's flobot. she's this new robot we're trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. wow! look at her go! she's pretty good. she's pretty good. hey, flobot, great job. oops. [ powers down ] uh-oh, flobot is broken. the "name your price" tool, only from progressive. call or click today. >>> welcome back. a u.s. drone strike in the north waziristan district of pakistan. at least five militants were killed in the

nic robertson is on the scene.tay in constant touch with you as well. >>> young undocumented immigrants are lining up today to take advantage in a big change in u.s. immigration policy. in just a minute i'll ask one of the top campaign advisors to myth romney, we're talking about ed gillespie, if his candidate is worried about losing hispanic votes. and during our 6:00 p.m. eastern hour, we'll listen live as the first lady, michelle obama, joins her husband live on the campaign trail in iowa. you can feel. introducing the all-new cadillac xts. available with a patented safety alert seat. when there's danger you might not see, you're warned by a pulse in the seat. it's technology you won't find in a mercedes e-class. the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays] in he presented himself asdent obamasomething different. i had hoped that the new president would bring new jobs. not major layoffs, not people going through major foreclosures on their homes. he

our senior international correspondent nic robertson is in saudi arabia covering this story for us.ver there because a lot of these islamic countries totally disagree when it comes to syria? >> reporter: yeah. iran is already creating waves here, wolf. the majority of the 57 states that make up the organization of islamic corporation say they want syria suspended from that organization -- from this organization. iran has said that this is not the time. quoted as saying this is not the time. there should be muslim unity, hold hands together, build bridges to solve this, president ahmadinejad has laid his views out. around that table there are powerful sunni states. saudi arabia to name the largest. you have qatar, kuwait, many gulf states. many of the other states here that want a strong message sent to president bashar al assad and that is over the heads of the iranians. so there is not the unity everyone here at the conference has talked about that they want. and it's the iranians causing a problem, wolf. >> the other issue involving the iranians is this nuclear problem. we know sa

nic robertson has the story. >> reporter: right now saudi arabia stacks up poorly.nd just put women on the factory floor in the work force next to women. islamic law doesn't allow for that. that's why they are spending $130 million to create this women only work environment. up to 50 different businesses they are talking about to get women into the workplace. they are trying to expand the sectors that women can work in, textiles and pharmaceuticals. right now a lot of woman have been forced to work the education sector. the education sector is full of women working in it and female education, they can't teach boys. 95% of women are employed in the government sector. of those, 85% are employed in education. the market is saturated. they are losing many of those people. they are leaving the country to find jobs elsewhere. this isn't just about finding employment for the educated women. also hoping to put less educated women into the workplace. critics will say it isn't moving fast. the leadership would say this slow pace in the future would bring about change empoweri

nic robertson, thanks for being with us.be part of a bigger sort of -- >> you can mark this as progress in saudi arabia. the saudis are used to throwing money at the problems, cutting checks for social unrest. does this suggest they are worried about the future and role of women and creating a revolution. >> that's a yes, i think it is. >> is saudi arabia responding on their own limits terms and only under pressure. you wonder how far they are willing to go. >> you have 5,000 empowered women. >> still ahead, the musical drama "sparkle" opens this week, featuring the final appearance of the late whitney houston. while t.d. jakes says her final performance is magical. we're back in a moment. at purina one, we believe small things can make a big difference. like how a little oil from here can be such a big thing in an old friend's life. we discovered that by blending enhanced botanical oils into our food, we can help brighten an old dog's mind so he's up to his old tricks. it's just one way purina one is making the world a bett