joining me to talk about this, phil mudd, former cia counterterrorism official. phil, i want to start with the issue of ransom. when you hear word that the family of this man itself paid ransom to try to win his release, what does that say to you? >> there's a difficult choice here for a government official. the federal law says you can't provide material support to a terror group. if you think in my judgment this won't happen the department of justice will walk into a family that's grieving and say we'll bring charges against you for supplying money, i can't imagine that happening. >> forget charges. what about the idea the government itself needs to do more? you heard congressman delaney calling for a hostage czar here. we heard from weinstein's daughter way back when bowe bergdahl was released in a hostage swap, she was criticizing what the government is doing here. let's listen to what she said. >> it's true that sergeant bergdahl is a soldier and deserves the respect of anyone that serves in the military, but my father is just as deserving a freedom as sergea

we begin with phil mudd, his book is called "the head game." >> the transformation that i think isÑia real struggle is to understand intelligence is notw3 secrets it's knowledge. it's information thatñr helpsÑi you solve a problem. so theÑ losing someÑi traction, i think, in the knowledge world because a lot of them still believe knowledge is secrets. >> rose: we conclude with brian grazer his book is "a curious mind: the secret to a bigger life." >> i knew thatñr i grewÑiñwiñr up i such aÑi little provincial world and i wanted to make it bigger and create larger opportunities for myself and i thought by learning about other subjects my world would expand and you just never know when these dots or how these dots everÑi get created and connected and that opportunity would occur. >> rose: phil mudd and brian grazer when we continue.Ñi >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new y

let's bring in cnn counter terrorism analyst phil mudd. let's start with the arrest of the alleged al qaeda commander responsible for allegedly plotting attacks here on american soil. mohammad al faraq, went from the university of manitoba to pakistan ended up trying to train people to attack u.s. troops. you remember this guy? >> this is from 2007. i was on detail from the cia and the fbi. we had three guys as your reporter mentioned going over to pakistan. if i were at the agency or the bureau today, this is news for celebration. pretty simple reason why. if you look at a case like this i think most americans would say the significance of this case is that this guy, an american is going to come back home and conduct an attack. instead you should look at him as a force multiplier. what we called at the business at the cia a facilitator. he's not going to burn himself by coming back. he's going to serve as the conduit or known in pakistan who understands the west how you travel how you stay out of the clutches of law enforcement and he als

joining us to discuss, phil mudd, also the author of a new book just out "the head game." eat to have you, phil. i don't know when you found time to write a book when i don't have time to do anything. this important -- your book applies to this exact discussion that we're having and discussion of the effectiveness of al shabab and what is al shabab. who is this mastermind? does it matter who the mastermind is because so often we talk about you take out the leadership and it doesn't matter because someone else fills that void. does it matter with al shabab? >> it makes a difference. when you look at terror groups you can divide anymore into segments. guys on the street fighting. not people who will come back to new york and washington and explode something. you have to worry at the leadership level about the small number of groups who have leaders who have vision to say, look, our only mission isn't a local mission. it's not in kenya or somalia. a bigger al qaeda mission to go after the head of the snake, that's new york and washington, inspire people in that group to attack

now mike rogers and phil mudd sits on the advisory board for the national terrorism center. me start with you. a lot of people watching will say, come on the u.s. government they know so much of what's happening. you have a compound that was under surveillance for monies of hours, multiple americans there, a high value hostage. an american who was working for al qaeda with a million dollar bounty on his head. and people will ask and you're going to tell me they didn't know those guys were there? >> i'm sorry. um going to tell you that. let's go inside the room and break this down. you get intelligence that says the enemy is concentrated at a compound at a place where the security services can reach. you start looking at the compound to look for patterns of life. >> they're doing this by drone. >> correct, you can do it from the air. one of the questions you have typically in the part of the word women and children sleeping in one place, men in another. i minimize the risk to civilians, so i'm going to look and see what the pattern of life is over hundreds of hours. now the n

cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd is here to discuss and author of the newly released book "the phil, great to see you. the saudi led air campaign is in its 12th day. folks said this would be fast and swift and get done. it's in its 12th day. a question to what degree of success even though the saudi ambassador told wolf yesterday they've had huge success. what do you think the view is from the u.s.? >> i don't understand how people can talk about quick success. you look at counterterrorism campaigns around the world talking about philippines and indonesia and our campaign in afghanistan still ongoing 14 years later, 12 days is less than a blink of an eye. i think there is success here in terms of stemming the onslaught of houthi rebels. if you are watching people like this, the rebels speak, they hate airpower. the problem and this is where pakistanis come in, the problem is what happens after. once you stop the advance through the capital, what's the government when the president isn't there anymore? >> that's where the focus probably is for u.s. intelligence and that's where

our counter terrorism analyst phil mudd is with us in "the situation room."ia counter terrorism official. walk us through some of the fertile ground i know you have a map here that you can show us where isis is beginning to penetrate and get some -- gain some strength. >> contrast this with al qaeda. look how quickly just in the course of a year or so isis has spread. let's start with the heartland here. you are talking about the headquarters of isis up here in syria and iraq. you keep going geographically you look at a place like yemen in the south, heartland also for al qaeda a place you would expect isis to expand to. also geographically you are looking at sinai peninsula but then you start moving. geographically you are going into libya where we saw the attempt on the hotel, murder of a few people a few months ago. keep going into africa. tunisia, where we saw the attack relatively recently just a few weeks ago and further algeria, a place where we had a civil war back in the '90s, also a lot of foreign fighters going into iraq. finally we have isis talki

i want to go straight now to a counterterrorism official phil mudd. they put this video out because they are politically savvy. this is a bold attack. this is miles from damascus. what is that significance? >> you look at this and i think the first reaction you have is there's a humanitarian disaster and a potential threat to the assad regime. i would say take a step back. you go east south to iran you have an iran-backed houthis and go to syria where we have isis moving in next to damascus. where are they getting close to? a shia-backed regime across the region. you don't just have civil wars. time and again you have regional implications. the sunnis versus the shia. >> and then you have iran on one side. >> that's correct. >> and so if isis were to grow to succeed, this could be just one pr element and may not be a true story but if they are growing and you see the assad regime in danger due to isis, you end up where the united states is in a position of backing bashar al assad. >> i think there's going to be pressure to say if we want oppositionist

i'm joined now by cnn justice correspondent evan perez and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd.nk you both for being here. he said so many disturbing things. these men charged. evan take us through for our viewers who are not so familiar with these cases. who are these six men who were charged with trying to join isis. >> what's disturbing here is that what he's describing the u.s. attorney in minnesota is describing a larger recruitment network. he said this is a group of nine all together. these six have been stopped from traveling overseas to join isis. he also mentioned that there is one who disappeared a couple years ago and who has been the driving force trying to lure these young men, peers, friends, cousins, brothers all of them he's trying to bring them over there and isis' chief recruiter for the somali community and trying to bring them over there to join in the fight and what the u.s. attorney there was saying is what he hopes is that this case represents a break from that recruitment because as you remember carol, a couple years ago, five years ago, there was a big

let's bring in cnn counter terrorism analyst phil mudd and senior fellow at the foundation for defense of democracy's daviv ross. this talk of a truce floated in this propaganda magazine from isis is it potentially real? is it just a tactic? what's your take? >> it's just a tactic in the sense they don't actually expect the united states will take them up on this offer of a truce. in fact in the piece, they even provide a number of conditions the u.s. is not going to ever agree to including ending support for all governments in the region ending support for israel and he says that's just a start. they don't actually think the u.s. is going to sit down and talk to them. >> so why even propose such a thing? >> i think there are a few reasons. there is not a simple reason that they would propose it. but one is to appeal to segments like those who are against the war, fed up with it people can say look isis has proposed a truce, it can add fuel to that narrative. a second thing, there's another purpose to this article. it's not just about the truce. it's also about the narrative. isis has

and now i want to bring in phil mudd former cia counterterrorism official. he managed the iraq analysis at the cia. and retired general, james spider marks, who served as the senior intelligence officer in combat during the iraq war. james, you just heard our reporter in erbil who was there and witnessed this. and he said it was shocking that isis could get into this heavily fortified area. you know a city that's considered safe an american stronghold. but you say that they clearly have the ability to do this. >> isis as the momentum. what that means is they can choose the time and place of their engagement. and when you do that you put everybody else on your heels. so we really shouldn't be surprised with the fact that understand that erbil, most likely has a very large presence of peshmerga. we have a presence there, in the form of intelligence and exchanges that we have as a matter of routine, but what really needs to take place is if we want to prevent this type of terrorist activity you have to have increased presence on the ground. i'm not suggesting t

joining us now, national security analyst, tom bergman, and counter terrorism analyst, phil mudd and r cnn intelligence analyst bob baer. phil explain the kind of surveillance the work that goes into disrupting some sort of potentially very significant international terror cell like the cell the italians busted today supposed he destined to go after the vatican. >> this is a big one. i'm used to looking at a terror control with a handful of people. when you think about, for example, international communications. this is a huge investigation for any service. let me tell you why. your first question is what is the extent of the network. do i have time to figure out where the documents are coming from. where the money is coming from. whether they have access to training weapons explosives. how are they communicating overseas and are there networks that go elsewhere in europe, the united states. so it's going to take you months or in this case maybe years to understand the full extent of a net work that's that grod with this many people. there is one question, one risk you've got to deal

cnn counter terrorism analyst phil mudd former cia official national security analyst peter bergen andlligence and security analyst bob bair former cia operative pap 23-year-old man, naturalized u.s. citizen. what's the appeal of these kinds of individuals to actually leave the united states of america, fly to turkey cross into syria, train with a terrorist group and come back to the united states with instructions to kill americans? >> we talked about the appeal being isis propaganda ideology. you can lead a simpleler life overseas allowing you to practice islam at its forms. look at this case compared to others like the zrntsarnaev brothers involved in the boston marathon killings. each case human beings involved. a brother who convinced this kid, young man, to go over. also we had a religious figure evidently in isis who persuaded him to come back home. in almost all cases i saw, where a youth was involved with ideology that was this sort of heinous, there's a human being involved in telling him, look this ideology might look ugly but it's okay. >> not the first time. it almost happ

. >> phil mudd there's word now that it's not just the iranians helping the houthi rebels there is worde you heard that? >> i've heard that. back when i joined the agency as an analyst, you had a constellation of camps. saudi arabia iraq egypt and then you had russia allied with countries like india and significantly, for this case iran. iran obviously is in with the houthis. the shia organization. i think what you're having here is a bigger picture that has to do with global power politics and putin's power plays. i'm wondering if we're going to start define the world of camps. whose in with putin and who is in with the united states? i think that's starting to happen. >> guys stand by. we have more breaking news coming into "the situation room." we'll take a quick break and be right back. toenail fungus? don't hide it... tackle it with fda-approved jublia! jublia is a prescription medicine proven to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. once applied jublia gets to the site of infection by going under, around and through the nail. most common side effects inclu

joining me now to talk about this we have cnn analyst peter bergen and phil mudd and bob bauer.er cia operative and we have retired general mart hurtling. we hear from president obama and he reveals that this site had been under extensive surveillance pretty much 24/7 surveillance. should they have been missed? was there a way to figure out they were there? >> well brianna, no, there's not a way to figure it out. this is what we called the denied area in operations. you can't put people on the ground your can't put clandestine video coverage of the place. you can watch the front door you can't put acoustices in the building. it's a hit-or-miss when you're surveilling for umthe air. for years they hunted for hostages and the military and cia insisted whenever we could is to put cameras on the ground to see who's inside. whether it's a heat signature or acoustices. it wasn't possible in tribal areas of pakistan. it's an unfortunate accident. >> what about afterward? what about after this drone attack? was there -- tell us about the difficulties in trying to figure out exactly what

joining me to talk about this is former cia counterterrorism official phil mudd. wow.and we know that secretary of homeland security jeh johnson has said that he's very concerned about the lone wolf threat. how do you combat this effectively? >> i don't think you can. by the way, i wouldn't consider most of these folks lone wolves. a lone wolf is somebody in my world who doesn't communicate or doesn't travel or doesn't try to speak with isis. as soon as an individual starts to communicate or travel and becomes part of a broader network as an intelligence professional that's a vulnerability. that's something i can look at and see if i can exploit. what we're seeing here is really interesting though from my perspective. in the early post-9/11 years we saw virtually none of this. what you would have is al qaeda guys in places like pakistan trying to recruit operatives either to conduct attacks out there or to train them in pakistan to come back here. right now we're seeing typically young people who never even travel out there, which makes it harder for us to find a vulne

analyst and senior research fellow at counter terrorism strategy at the new america foundation, phil muddgame." philip, what's "the head game" about as it relates to terrorism? >> terrorism is the same problem you face in everyday life. there's a ton of data coming in data from human sources, communications. same thing you have when you buy a house, a ton of data. >> you say the data is no good. >> don't get to -- >> don't do it that way. >> don't start with the data. start with what question you're trying to answer. if you've got 25,000 people going to fight with isis that's piece of data. the question isn't whether they represent a threat the question is what are those 25,000 people mean for security in new york city? very different question. start with the question not the data. >> you're saying -- you've got the data 25,000 people in syria and iraq but you're a lot more worried about the 12 people that come back to new york city. >> that's right. the question you've got to start with is not whether al qaeda is proving to be a huge magnet for foreign fighters from europe and united sta

and former cia counter terrorism official philip mudd and cnn intelligence and security analyst and former cia operative, bob baer. this is the question philen in two days. what is the allure here? some people might think this is nuts that they would want to make this trek whether it's to syria or that they would want to do something at home inspired by isis. >> this game has changed so much since i was at the front table at the agency in 2001-2002. back then we were chasing a relatively small terrorist group that didn't own space. they didn't own geography. they were focused on the 9/11 attacks. fast forward to 2015 isis owns geography. they're not focused only on attacks, they are focused on building a society, a culture. you need women for that culture. there's another major change. we never talked about social media in 2001-2002. we talked about guys in the tribal areas of pakistan who were the 9/11 architects. social media enables people to participate in the al qaeda movement women in philadelphia women in new york in ways that we couldn't have even anticipated just a decade plus ago. big changes. >> there is some allure there has to

mudd. he is the author of an important brand new book just coming out this week entitled "the head game." there you see the cover. philsh teens, a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old presumably wanting to go support -- fight for isis. what's causing these teens to join a terror group allegedly like this? >> i think naivete. it's like we are in the third stage of the war. we started with the core of al qaeda. the guys who are the architects of 9/11. we move to the home growns starting in 2007, 2008. people not al qaeda members, but people who are emotionally driven to go to iraq. now we have naive 14-year-olds that have been told, there's a place i can go. the brits have said -- they have more cases than we do -- that they will not charge people this young. there's an interesting question for the white house and the department of justice. if you get a 14-year-old, my judgment is the department of justice should come out saying those individuals would not be charged, not just because we are soft and fuzzy because you want a message that says, if your kid is in trouble, don't worry, there won't be a federal charge. >> we see y