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American Morning

Suicide Bombing Near Tel Aviv Bus Station; American Hostage in Iraq; Targeting Al Qaeda

Aired January 19, 2006 - 09:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Soledad O'Brien in Washington, D.C.
Facing a Friday deadline, the mother of Jill Carroll, the American journalist who is being held in Iraq, speaks directly to her daughter's captors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY BETH CARROLL, JILL CARROLL'S MOTHER: Taking vengeance on my innocent daughter who loves Iraq and its people will not create justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien in New York.

Living with a new look. How is the world's face transplant patient doing? We'll take a peek.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm in a car and I can't open the door. And the water is coming in and we're sinking!

(END AUDIO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: And the desperate 911 call from a young girl stuck in a sinking car. We'll tell you what happened ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody.

We've got a split show for you this morning. Miles is back in New York and I'm in Washington, D.C.

And Miles, as you well know, I'm here because we've been talking to the mother of the American journalist who is kidnapped. Her mother pleading for her daughter's safe return. We're going to have my full interview with Mary Beth Carroll, the mother of Jill Carroll, just ahead this morning -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. We'll see that very shortly.

In the meantime, we have a little bit of breaking news, a story coming out of Israel. A fierce explosion in Tel Aviv, it happened near a central bus station and a pedestrian mall. There are reports of perhaps 20 injuries.

Guy Raz joining us live in Jerusalem with the latest.

Guy, what do we know?

GUY RAZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Miles, we know now that this was indeed a suicide bomber. We were just able to confirm that with Israeli police.

It happened about 20 minutes ago near the old bus station in southern Tel Aviv. Now, that's a largely disused bus station. It's an immigrant neighborhood, a mainly working class area, the site of two very deadly previous two suicide bombings in the past five years.

Now, so far, we understand at least 10 people have been wounded. But if you can see some of those pictures coming out of that site at the moment, it appears as if those numbers will rise, Miles.

The first suicide bombing inside Israel this year. It happened just about 20 minutes ago.

We can confirm it was in fact a suicide bombing. We don't know who was behind it. We will presumably get that information in the coming hours, as well as perhaps, as often happens in these kinds of cases, the death toll as well -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Guy, just sort of set the political stage for us. Remind us. Of course Ariel Sharon still ailing, Israelis trying to get used to life without him. And then on the Palestinian side, some threats by the Palestinian leader for possibly resigning if he doesn't get his way.

Give us a sense of what the mood is there, politically, right now.

RAZ: Well, politically, both Palestinians and Israelis are experiencing something of a transition. In some ways, upheaval.

On the Palestinian side, you have parliamentary elections coming up in seven days. And the militant Islamist group Hamas is widely expected to take the lion's share of votes in those upcoming parliamentary elections.

Now, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is essentially the representative of Fatah, the dominant Palestinian movement. And he is essentially now threatening that if Hamas makes his task impossible, he simply will not continue to serve as the president of the Palestinian territory.

Mr. Abbas, of course, wants a negotiated two-state settlement. Hamas does not officially and formally recognize the state of Israel.

On the Israeli side, you still have the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in a coma in a Jerusalem hospital. Ehud Olmert, the caretaker prime minister, now essentially preparing for his own elections on March 28. Israelis go to the polls to elect a brand new government. And all polls show that Ehud Olmert, now serving as the acting prime minister, and his party, the centrist Kadima movement founded by Ariel Sharon, will also take the lion's share of votes on that side of the movement.

So, of course, this bombing today happening in the midst of the political turmoil, as well, on both sides of this conflict -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. It will be interesting to see how that impacts things on both sides.

Guy Raz watching it for us in Jerusalem. We'll get back with him later as we get more details.

Now to Soledad in Washington.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles. Thanks.

We're learning more this morning about Jill Carroll. She's the American journalist who's being held hostage in Iraq. It's been almost two weeks now.

Insurgent video of Jill Carroll is airing on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera. Her mother told me exclusively in an interview just about two hours ago that the family remains strong but they are anxious, obviously, and very determined, too.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: My daughter, Jill Carroll, was taken hostage on Saturday, January 7 in Baghdad, where she works as a reporter. Jill's fairness in reporting and her genuine concern for the Iraqi people made her the invited and welcomed guest of her many Iraqi friends.

A video just released gives us hope that Jill is alive but has also shaken us about her fate. So I, her father and her sister, are appealing directly to her captors to release this young woman who has worked so hard to show the suffering of Iraqis to the world.

Jill has always shown the highest respect for the Iraqi people and their customs. We hope that her captors will show Jill the same respect in return. Taking vengeance on my innocent daughter who loves Iraq and its people will not create justice.

To her captors, I say that Jill's welfare depends upon you. And so we call upon you to ensure that Jill is returned safely home to her family who needs her and loves her. Jill's father, sister and I ask and encourage the persons holding our daughter to work with Jill to find a way to contact us with the honorable intent of discussing her release.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Listening to Mary Beth Carroll, Jill Carroll's mom, with a plea for Jill's -- Jill's captors.

More on the abduction now, and, also, some reports about two deadly attacks in Baghdad this morning. Let's get right to Michael Holmes. He's live from the Iraqi capital for us.

Michael, good morning.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.

Let's start with that video that Jill's mother was mentioning there. It's been airing on Al-Jazeera. We think that it is just more of the same video we've already seen part of.

On this occasion, it shows her sitting or kneeling on the floor of a bare room surrounded by three armed and masked men, one of whom appears to be reading a statement of some effort. I can tell you that various Iraqi groups, religious and secular, have been joining a chorus of calls for her release, both international media and significantly in the Arab media, as well.

Let's remember the demands. They are this: that the U.S. release all women Iraqi prisoners being held. And just by way of context, there are 14,000 people being held in connection with the insurgency. Just eight of them are women. We're told by Iraqi sources that six of those women were due for release in the days ahead anyway, unrelated to the kidnapper demands -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk now, Michael, then about the simultaneous bombings in Baghdad. What do you know?

HOLMES: Yes, it happened not more than a mile from where we stand right now in central Baghdad. What we've been told is that a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt went into a coffee shop or close to the entrance of a coffee shop and detonated his explosives almost at the same time a car bomb went off.

At the moment, 15 people are dead. More than 20 injured in this attack.

I just heard two loud explosions in the distance here, too. People have been -- both the Americans and the Iraqis have been recommending an uptick in violence leading up to the explosion. We're being told we should wrap it up here -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Then you should go.

Michael Holmes joining us from the Iraqi capital.

Michael, thanks for the update.

All right. We're going to have ahead this morning much more of my exclusive interview with Jill Carroll's mother, Mary Beth. That's coming up in just a few minutes -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

So, what happened, and just whom was killed in the rugged mountains of Pakistan last Friday? The current thinking is a man by the name of Midhat Mursi. Al Qaeda's chemical weapons expert was in the vicinity at the time of the attack. There he is -- at the time of attack by a CIA drone.

Now, we wish we could make a more definitive statement than that, but we are in a murky world here, and no one without a top secret clearance knows it better than our national security correspondent, David Ensor, in Washington.

David, sort through it for us. It's difficult to know what really happened, isn't it?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is. But counter-terrorism officials I have spoken to say they believe al Qaeda's chemical and weapons explosive expert, Midhat Mursi, was in the vicinity Friday when CIA airstrikes hit a gathering including terrorists in a remote Pakistani village and that he could have been killed. They stress "could." They're not -- they absolutely cannot confirm whether he really was killed.

Now, he's known by his nom de guerre, Abu Khabab al-Masri. He's a 52-year-old Egyptian with a price on his head from the U.S. government of $5 million for information leading to his killing or capture.

Officials say that Abu Khabab ran the notorious Derunta training camp for al Qaeda where he taught chemical weapons and bomb-making techniques to would-be terrorists and tested chemicals on animals. Some reports say that Abu Khabab's students including Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui.

U.S. officials are saying that last Friday, between four and eight al Qaeda-affiliated foreigners were killed in that attack, including some Egyptian. They still don't know whether their main target, al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed. Though, of course, as we have been reporting, Pakistani officials say he was not.

So we have sort of a fluid situation here, Miles, where we're not quite clear who has been killed. U.S. intelligence officials are saying they are working on it, they believe they will know.

Two other names that are out there, Khalid Habib (ph), who was the head of al Qaeda's operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Ubayda al-Masri (ph), who was the head of their operations in the Qunar (pr) province, there is also information they were in the vicinity. They also may have been killed -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: David, give us a sense, then -- you know, we go through these names and we have a sense that they are pretty big fish.

ENSOR: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Is that accurate?

ENSOR: Yes, they are. Particularly the bomb maker, the chemical man that we mentioned at the beginning with the price on his head. He was very, very much wanted by U.S. intelligence. He's trained a lot of terrorists in techniques. They would very much like to see him out of the picture.

So if Midhat Mursi is gone, that's very good news from the point of U.S. intelligence.

M. O'BRIEN: David Ensor sorting through it for us from Washington.

Thank you very much.

ENSOR: You bet.

M. O'BRIEN: Attack in Pakistan our focus there.

Back to our breaking news. We have word of a suicide bombing in the southern part of Tel Aviv near a bus terminal and a pedestrian mall. Upwards of 20 injuries perhaps.

Let's get some first-person accounting of what is going on there. We're joined now by the director of emergency services for Israel, Yonatny Yogadozsky.

Mr. Yogadozsky, tell us what you know.

YONATNY YOGADOZSKY, ISRAELI EMERGENCY SERVICES: Sorry, I didn't hear you. Can you repeat?

M. O'BRIEN: Could you just tell us what you know about this bombing, please?

YOGADOZSKY: Well, the bombing occurred next to a food stand in a commercial area which used to be the central bus station in Tel Aviv in a very -- in a time where quite a lot of people were here in the area. We know of about 10 to 12 casualties among them, a few in critical or severe injuries due to the explosion.

All of the casualties are already at the hospital here in Tel Aviv which is not far from here. (INAUDIBLE), the Israeli emergency medical services, are screening the area alongside with the police in order to make sure there aren't any more casualties at the scene that fled the area and are hiding somewhere.

M. O'BRIEN: So you say you have casualties, some of them severe. Are there any reported fatalities?

YOGADOZSKY: Not that I know of right now. The area is pretty much closed down by the police. We cannot get close to the scene itself.

We are all around the surrounding of the event. As far as I know, there aren't any fatalities, unless we'll get more information later about it.

M. O'BRIEN: What do you know, sir, about the circumstances of this bombing? YOGADOZSKY: Well, we know for sure it was an explosive device. We don't know for sure right now whether it was a suicide bomber or any other kind of an explosive device. It might have been a suicide bomber. We'll know within a few minutes, probably.

M. O'BRIEN: OK. We had earlier reports that it was confirmed to be a suicide bomber. You say you don't know that for sure?

YOGADOZSKY: I personally don't know about it for sure. This information is clarified only by the Israeli police. And after they will give us their exact information, we'll be able to say yes or no.

M. O'BRIEN: Yonatny Yogadozsky is the director of Israeli emergency services on the scene there in southern Tel Aviv, where upwards of a dozen people injured, some of them very seriously, in the wake of what might be a suicide bombing there.

Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is just back from the Netherlands where she got a firsthand look at that country's renowned levee system. Now she is calling for an overhaul of Gulf Coast storm defenses based on the Dutch model.

Senator Landrieu joins us this morning.

Nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us.

S. O'BRIEN: Before I talk about your trip, I want to ask you about some of the stuff that's been in the news out of New Orleans over the last couple of days.

First, Mayor Ray Nagin, as you know, made some comments about "chocolate city," about the hurricane really being an act of god that was wrought upon the citizens of New Orleans for specific reasons. He apologized the next day.

Damage done by those comments, do you think?

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: Well, those comments shouldn't have been made. And he's apologized. We've just got to move forward.

The work before us is so substantial. I had Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins, and the Committee of Homeland Security was down just yesterday, and had some time to speak with the mayor. So I'm glad he took those comments back.

But the damage is so extensive. Even according to Senator Lieberman, who said it might be the greatest humanitarian disaster since the Great Depression.

So we've got our work cut out for us. And we've just got to keep moving forward, levee protection, flood control and housing issues that are really critical -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. You've got a lot of stuff on the front burner. Let's kind of tick down that list if we can.

Last year we followed you around as that Dutch delegation was touring our levee system here in the United States that clearly -- that failed in New Orleans. And then you went to the Netherlands to check out their system.

Give me a sense of your take.

LANDRIEU: Well, the reason we went and led 50 elected officials and business leaders and scientists is because I really believe and many of us believe that they have the finest system in the world. Now, we have shared technology over the years. We've got a great relationship with the Dutch. But the fact of the matter is, they've got a very integrated system.

They try to...

S. O'BRIEN: Integrated how?

LANDRIEU: Integrated in terms of water management. Not just dikes, but making room for the water. Not just trying to build higher levees, but a system of levees and protecting coastal lands.

The coastal lands around New Orleans, which is not very well understood, is its natural protection. But over the years, that coastal wet land has eroded because of the damming of the Mississippi River, because of some oil and gas drilling that is, you know, lowered or cut into the marsh. We're losing the marsh at an extraordinary rate.

So, two things we have to do is restore the marsh around the New Orleans and southern area, which also protects Mississippi, by the way. And then, also, make our levee system stronger. And we can do that with a stronger federal partnership, absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: OK. So you think we can take the model of the Netherlands and sort of just transpose it right on top of...

LANDRIEU: Well, not every piece of it. But one great lesson is that the Netherlands has learned their people can live safely below sea level. And so can ours.

And it's not just for the Gulf Coast. Think about this lesson for all of coastal America.

Two-thirds of all Americans are going to live within 50 miles of the coast by the year 2015. So we better get focused as a nation on the needs of coastal America and use good technology and good science and spend our money well.

S. O'BRIEN: You mentioned the word "federal," and you mentioned the words "spend the money well." Three billion dollars committed so far, really, to get the levees back to Category 3 protection level. Is there money in the budget? Do you think there's money? I mean, this -- what they have in the Netherlands is expensive.

LANDRIEU: Well, yes and no. It's expensive if you look at it like it cost 18 billion. But if you look at it, it's pennies on the dollar relative to the economic output generated by that region.

That's the same way the energy coast of America is. It may cost us a few billion dollars over the years, Soledad, but based on the economic output of our ports, our oil and gas industry, which we're proud of, our agricultural industry, our great cities from Houston to New Orleans to Gulfport to Mobile, Galveston, we give so much back to this nation.

So just investing wisely over time would help us to do this. We've got some great people on the Gulf Coast. And they are looking to Washington for some new tools and some new energy.

S. O'BRIEN: A super-fast last question. In the Netherlands, private companies run this. Here it's the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Should it be privately run here?

LANDRIEU: The Corps of Engineers needs serious overhaul and reform. We began that work over the last couple of years. We've got to step it up, reform the Corps of Engineers, get better partnership with the private sector and get the job done. And we can do it.

S. O'BRIEN: Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, nice to have you. Thanks.

And actually, I'm really on your territory here today. So it's nice to talk to you in person, though.

LANDRIEU: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

Ahead this morning, we've got much more of my exclusive interview with the mother of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll. The deadline to save Jill is Friday. This morning, her mother appealing directly to her kidnappers.

Stay with us. You're watching a split edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: One more check of the weather. Chad Myers with that.

Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

Chilly in Salt Lake City right now, 31. That doesn't seem bad, except if you look outside if you're there and you see the snow coming down. Here's a live shot from our affiliate there.

You can kind of see some snow on the horizon, and pretty much kind of a hazy sky there, if you can see anything at all. Not going to have a sunrise today. There you go, our affiliate there out in Salt Lake City.

Thank you for that shot -- 49 in Phoenix right now. It heads up to 60s today, 68. There's an auction going on out there. Everybody out there excited about all those cars going over the auction block.

We have the wind across Oklahoma, also into parts of Texas. Wind, mild wind, blowing on up into Cincinnati.

It's going to be in the 60s today in St. Louis, 66 officially there -- 63 Atlanta, 75 in Dallas and 75 in Houston.

Temperatures warmer tomorrow in the northeast. The warm wind actually gets to New York City tomorrow. It gets to D.C. -- 63 there, 34 Salt Lake City with the snow, and there will be an awful lot of snow through the mountains for tomorrow, moving into the Plains with a stripe of snow from about Kansas City, one to two inches there, and then from Chicago, southward through about South Bend, right into Detroit is where the snow is going to be for Saturday night and into Sunday as well.

Back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, some new details on the world's first- ever face transplant patient. Wait until you hear what she wants to do with her new lips.

That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Another day, another bell ringing.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

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