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Egypt Strikes ISIS in Libya Again; Copenhagen Gunman May Have Had Help; Subzero Wind Chill Now Threatens Boston, Northeast; Artist Who Survived Copenhagen Gunman Speaks

Aired February 16, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Egypt unleashes a second round of attacks on ISIS terrorists, air strikes in Libya, retaliation for the apparent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.

Serenity shattered, new details this morning on the weekend shooting rampage in Denmark's capital, learning the gunman may have had helped.

And ATM machines rigged to shoot out cash, seemingly at random, just one way hackers managed to lift up to a billion dollars from banks in what could go down as one of the biggest bank heists ever.

Good morning. I'm Kate Bolduan. John Berman is off today. Let's get right to it.

Egypt is pounding ISIS targets in Libya right now in a second round of military strikes. That's what Egypt's state-run media is reporting. It's Cairo's response to another horrific act by the terror group ISIS. They're believed to have killed 21 Egyptian Christians who'd moved to Libya for work and were kidnapped.

Video appears to show several victims lined up on a Libyan beach and beheaded. And there are also concerns that ISIS is spreading beyond Iraq and Syria now.

CNN's Ian Lee is live in Cairo. So, Ian, what are you hearing about this second round of air strikes after that horrific propaganda video that ISIS released?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK. We're hearing from state-run media. They're quoting security sources about the second wave of air strikes. We reached out to the military. Right now they're saying they can neither confirm nor deny that there has a second wave of strikes.

It's very different from earlier this morning when the military released video of their F-16s taking off into the cover of night, targeting sites in the Libyan city of Derna, going after ISIS training facilities and ISIS weapons depot.

Derna is a city in Libya on the Mediterranean coast that is about roughly 200 miles from Europe. It's also 200 miles from Egypt. It's very worrying for the government here in Cairo.

The foreign minister is on his way to the United States to speak to the U.N. Security Council to ask them to take responsibility for international security. What Egypt wants to see is an international coalition like we see in Iraq and Syria also operating in Libya. They also want political support, and they also want material support.

Right now, though, there are still thousands of Egyptians in Libya. The government is urging them to leave. They're urging them to go to the nearest land border to get across there. We haven't heard of Egyptian military trying to pull people out from within Libya, but once they get across, they are operating flights to get them back over here to Egypt.

But this is a very dangerous scenario and situation actually for Egypt as they are operating, they're fighting ISIS on two fronts. They have ISIS in the northern Sinai that has already killed hundreds of security.

And now they're fighting ISIS in Libya, and from this video that we talked about where it shows 21 Coptic Christians being beheaded it shows that ISIS in Libya has a very strong foothold and that they're expanding their presence. This is something that's making Egypt very nervous, Kate.

BOLDUAN: It absolutely has to. And it also then leads to many questions of what this means for the U.S.-led coalition fight against ISIS that's been mainly focused of course to this point in Syria and Iraq.

Ian Lee in Cairo for us, Ian, thank you so much.

We're going to get back overseas in just a second, but back here at home, have you been outside yet today? If you have not, you may not want to go outside.

The nightmarish winter of 2015, especially in Boston, it just won't quit. With 13 days left in February, it's already Boston's snowiest month ever, and now the region is in a life-threatening deep freeze, with wind chills dipping to around 30 degrees below zero today and temperatures expected to stay well below normal throughout the rest of the week and, yes, more snow is on the way as well.

Ryan Young is out in it in these brutal, brutal temperatures. Ryan, there's no other way to say it.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's really no other way to say it. Fifty-eight-point-five inches has already hit this city, and I can tell you that you've really got to think about the human toll here, the impact, because a lot of businesses have been closing. When you think about all the daycares that are closed, even when people have been trying to go to work despite all the snow, a lot of shutdowns.

But you can see what's piled through this park. I mean, look how high this is. We've seen snow drifts the size of a bus. And, look, people were shoveling yesterday, even though 16 inches falling to the ground. This right here is supposed to be a park bench, we think. And one of the things I wanted to show is just how fluffy this snow is. I mean, this stuff is everywhere throughout the city. And it's really hard to even see anything under the snow here. So, that's the park bench right there.

But, look, people have been having a good time. They've been running through it, but at the same time, they are tired of dealing with the impact of the snow. For the first time, actually, we've seen people bringing out their dogs, trying to walk them. We've talked to so many people who have cabin fever. They're tired of just being stuck on the inside.

And think about the impact on this city. It's been pretty much shut down for eight days, over $30 million spent to clear the roads, and make sure everyone is safe. But I can really honestly tell you it is the wind that is just unbelievable. When it hits you, it just makes you just stand still.

BOLDUAN: It doesn't matter what kind of coat you have on; it goes right absolutely through. No way to battle those temperatures. I'm saying this sitting in a studio. You're the poor thing whose face is freezing off right now.

So, Ryan, thank you so much. You can definitely understand Bostonians just needing to get on with it, even though it's very, very dangerous to be in it. We'll be following that. Ryan, thank you.

Let's turn back overseas once again, though, with new information following a weekend of terror in Denmark. The 22-year-old behind two deadly attacks in Copenhagen, Danish police say was known to them for several criminal incidents.

Also, they have arrested two men now for suspected links to the gunman.

This started when the gunman stormed a Copenhagen cafe during a free- speech gathering, killing a filmmaker there. Here's the an audio recording the moment shots rang out during a woman's lecture.

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BOLDUAN: The gunman then opened fire outside a synagogue, killing a man working as security. The suspect himself was later killed in a shootout with police.

Senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is in Copenhagen. He's been following all of this.

So, Nic, we've just talked about two people have arrested, suspected accomplices, but what are you learning about them and the links to this gunman?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The links between them and the gunman seem to be quite deep. That's what the prosecutors are saying. The prosecutors are these two young men, 19 and 22 years old, they were arrested on Sunday, had by prior agreement -- prior agreement, and those are key words here, prior agreement -- agreed with the gunman to hide him out between these attacks. Although the police have said that the gunman acted alone, these two men now appear to be, by virtue of the way they're being charged as, accomplices in this, and indeed they are being charged with hiding the weapon, with two counts of murder, and five counts of attempted murder.

So these men, these two men who are being charged right now, will be held for the next ten days before we hear further legal proceedings against them.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: And, also, on top of that, the suspected gunman, he of course is dead. What are Danish authorities saying about the man's motive? Are they learning -- it's obviously a big question that they're going to have for these two suspected accomplices.

ROBERTSON: Absolutely. You've got to believe that the motive and what pushed him to do this right now has got to be part of the question.

What we're learning about this man, he's been named by Reuters and Television 2 here in Denmark as Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein, 22-year- old man with a violent past. Attacked with a knife a passenger on a commuter train in 2013, spent time in jail for that particular attack.

So the image that the police are building here is of a violent man with a violent past with a criminal record, but they say that he may have been radicalized by what he saw happening in Paris, the attacks on the cartoonists at "Charlie Hebdo," the attack on the kosher supermarket in Paris as well.

And they also say he may have been radicalized by what he read online, ISIS propaganda, that that sort of material. So a violent man who may have become relatively recently radicalized.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: We're going to be talking much more about this, this weekend of terror in the really peaceful country of Denmark. We're going to be talking much more of that throughout the show.

Nic, thank you so much.

In France, 250 graves at a Jewish cemetery, desecrated, a teen has come forward saying that he and four other teenagers participated in the damage. Many of the gravestones were smeared with Nazi graffiti.

The vandalism comes at a time of growing insecurity among French Jews. You can definitely see that following Nic Robertson's report in Denmark and in France. And this comes one month after Islamic radicals attacked a kosher deli, murdering four people in France.

The French interior minister released a statement saying this. "The French republic won't allow another act against our values."

Hackers may have pulled off the biggest bank heist ever, the estimated take, up to $1 billion. They didn't even walk into the bank. It was an online heist. It hit more than 100 banks, they believe, in 25 countries and that includes banks in the United States.

Here's how it apparently worked. The hackers installed spying malware that was able to mimic bank employee work flows, then that malware was -- used the hacked information to transfer money into the thieves' own bank accounts.

And, get this, according to the Internet security firm Kaspersky, Kaspersky Lab, the attacks are still active as we talk. We'll have more on this threat, coming up in about 20 minutes. They're going to have to explain to me once again how does this work and how did they let it going on for so long?

Coming up for us, the shooter in the weekend attacks in Denmark might have had some help. We're talking about that with Nic Robertson. Two men accused of hiding -- helping him hide after his deadly rampage.

In one of those attacks a Jewish man was killed outside a synagogue. Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls on European Jews to move to Israel.

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BOLDUAN: Police in Denmark are questioning two men charged with helping the gunmen in this weekend's deadly attacks in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile, police are also saying that the gunmen was no stranger to law enforcement.

This all started when the gunman shot his way into this cafe we've been discussing hosting a free-speech event, killing a filmmaker there.

A Swedish artist named on al Qaeda hit list for his sketches of the prophet Mohammad, he was also attending the event. He survived two previous attempts on his life. He survived this one as well because his bodyguards were able to save him at the event.

Listen to his recounting of it.

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LARS VILKS, ARTIST WHO SURVIVED ATTACK (via telephone): I've been having the problem since 2007, and I've been through several incidents there. This one was the worst because I have never been up to shotguns before.

I have to say, I mean, the protection was good, in one way, even if the police protection could have been better, they didn't really count on the strength of the terrorist's machine gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: After this, the gunman opened fire outside a synagogue, also killing a man there who was working as security. The suspect was later killed in a shootout with police. Why has this happened and who is this gunman? Let's talk about that.

Joining us, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank is here. So Paul, you've been working your sources and learning more about where you think this man came from, who this man is. He also has, supposedly, two accomplices, Nic Robertson was talking about this. But what are you learning about this man and attack?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: This was a guy who was on the radar screen of Danish security services because of his ties to gangs in Denmark, but he wasn't on their radar screen because of ties to extremist groups or extremist activity but he had a violent past. He was in jail recently for stabbing a young man repeatedly on a commuter train. He just got out of jail, a few weeks it appears, before he carried out this attack. It's possible he was radicalized while he was in jail. This seems to be more a kind of lone wolf attack, not somebody who is thought to have traveled to places like Syria or Iraq or to have any direct connections to terrorist groups overseas, but someone perhaps inspired by those terrorist groups. And ISIS, the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq, back in 2010, they put out a $100,000 bounty on Lars Vilks' life.

BOLDUAN: One point that you're just making, there seems to be some similarities, or I don't know if you would even call it a trend, in these lone wolf attacks and these terrorist attacks, what we saw here, as well as in Paris. They seem to have a background with gangs or being low-level criminals, relatively speaking, and then at some point they quickly transition to Jihad, Islamic militancy. Is there a trend here? Why is that such a challenge? Because you say he's on the radar for one thing but not the other. Why does that matter?

CRUICKSHANK: That's absolutely right. There is apparently a trend here. Remember, with the Paris attacks, Amedy Coulibaly, he was somebody involved with armed robberies before moving towards radicalization and that attack. And in Denmark particularly, there is a real nexus between gangs on the one hand and Jihadis on the other hand. A lot of gang members becoming radicalized, some of them going off to Syria and Iraq to fight. And it's a real worry because gang members have easy access to guns and cash, which can be useful for carrying out these kind of attacks. And these gang members are justifying some of their criminal activity as saying, well, it's just against the infidel west. And some of them will say they find a redemption in radical Islam from some of their past criminal activities.

BOLDUAN: Why is this type of terrorist such a challenge now? It seems, at least, especially in Europe, they are known to law enforcement, but they're not known to police for any terrorist activity. But why can't they then prevent these attacks from happening? Is it a problem within the intelligence sources?

CRUICKSHANK: It's really hard with these lone wolves. It's just one guy and perhaps he's got a couple of other friends in on it. How are they going to know about it when he hasn't been communicating with a terrorist group? There's not a sot of wider network there. But obviously, the fact that gang members and people in the criminal underworld are getting involved in some of this terrorist line, it's very worrying because these people know how to kill and how to put together operations. Some of the other lone wolf attacks in the past have been very amateurish, but some of these criminals know how to do this kind of thing.

BOLDUAN: The fact that they may be inspired by ISIS activity elsewhere is even just as troubling. Paul, thank you so much. Paul will stick with me because we want to talk about this next. When we get back, I want to talk about Egypt's military taking aim at ISIS targets in Libya. Is the terror group now growing and spreading, and what does that mean in taking them on? How will it effect the U.S.-led coalition strategy? We'll discuss that next.

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BOLDUAN: Egyptian military officials say their forces are launching a second round of airstrikes on ISIS camps, training areas, and weapons depots in Libya. "Avenging Egyptian blood," in their words. ISIS- affiliated terrorists are believed to have killed 21 Egyptian Christians in a brutal video that they released. Several of them appear in the new video. Their captors then appear to behead them on a Libyan beach. Terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank is here with us as well as military analyst, retired Colonel, Peter Mansoor, joining us to discuss.

Colonel, you have this horrific video. Then you have this one definite round of airstrikes, a second round of airstrikes likely, that we're discussing coming from Egypt. What does this tell you about the fight against ISIS, they're now striking in Libya?

COL. PETER MANSOOR (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: ISIS cannot be confined to simply Iraq and Syria. This is why President Obama, when he made his request to Congress for an authorization for the use of military force, didn't put any geographic limits on it. The brutality of ISIS will work against it. It's sucking another Arab state into the conflict. Egypt is one of the most powerful military forces in the region and if they get involved in the fight against ISIS, that actually is a good thing.

BOLDUAN: A good thing, but it also comes on the heels of this horrific video of 21 Egyptian Christians being killed. And one part of it, that's so troubling, is that it's in English.

CRUICKSHANK: Yes, and the ring leader of the beheadings is speaking in English, seems to be an Arab guy who is pretty fluent in English, but it's a message directed at a Western audience. And of course, I think there's no accident where that imagery they show in the video that there's all that blood washing into the Mediterranean. Obviously, Europe is just on the other side of that Mediterranean, just a few hundred miles away. There's a real message that we're going to retaliate against you, Europe, for these airstrikes that you're launching against us in Iraq. And a lot of concern from the European side because ISIS is really expanding in Libya very quickly.

BOLDUAN: On that expansion, Paul, to that point, we've all been really -- The focus has been largely on Syria and Iraq. Syria, where ISIS has their stronghold and headquarters, Iraq where they have been trying to take over first, now they are moving into Libya and other places. Tell me, is there good direct communication, coordination, between ISIS leadership in Syria and then in places like Libya? What are you learning about the coordination efforts here?

CRUICKSHANK: What we understand is this was all very calculated from the ISIS leadership, that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sent a top aide, Abu Nabil al Anbari, last year to Libya to really build up the presence. There's also the return of 300 Libyan ISIS veterans at Libya. That allowed them to take control of Derna, a town in eastern Libya with a population of more than 100,000. And since then, they've been expanding along the coast, they now have a presence (INAUDIBLE), where they abducted these cops, and also in Tripoli where we saw that attack last month where an American was killed in the Corinthia Hotel. They've been taking advantage of the simmering civil war in Libya between the Tripoli Misrata faction and then the internationally recognized government. They have been taking advantage of that to expand.

BOLDUAN: Well, Colonel, but then what is the coalition expected to do, or what can the coalition do, when you look at Libya and there's such a power vacuum there? What are its neighbors supposed to do?

MANSOOR: Eventually, they're going to have to either inject ground forces into Libya or develop some sort of indigenous ground force to provide security and governance to Libya. This shows that we can't just bomb our way into victory. That's exactly what we tried to do in Libya four years ago, and instead we created a failed state. And I think, looking at Syria and Iraq, it's the same situation. If we simply destroy ISIS without providing some kind of enduring ground presence, then we'll simply create the conditions for the rise of other groups like ISIS.

BOLDUAN: This may have real implications on President Obama's request for war authority to take on ISIS, because when you look at it, as you said, Colonel, it's not just defined and contained to Syria and Iraq at this point. Colonel Mansoor, thank you. Paul, great to see you. Thank you so much.

Coming up for us, it could go down as one of the biggest bank heists in history. Hackers stole up to a billion dollars in a cyberattack that's being called "unprecedented."

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