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Egypt Attacks ISIS; Danish Shooting; Swedish Artist on Hit List; Violence in Ukraine

Aired February 16, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me here on this President's Day, Monday.

We're beginning with a new phase in the war on ISIS. It has just begun. Begun with this. Some 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped, lined up on a beach and beheaded. Another brutal mass murder at the hands of ISIS. But this time it is different. This did not happen in Iraq. This did not happen in Syria. This was in Libya.

This is the sounds as well of swift retaliation. An Egyptian fighter jet en route to neighboring Libya. The first strikes by Egypt against ISIS, or at least the first they will admit to. Their primary target here, an ISIS stronghold in Libya's north, Derna. Egypt's military saying, and I'm quoting them, "avenging Egyptian blood is our right and duty." Joining me now from Amman, Turkey, is our correspondent, CNN's Jomana Karadsheh.

And, Jomana, I mean, first, who are these Egyptian Christians who had been beheaded and how were they captured by those militants in Libya?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, 21 Egyptian Christians. What we do know is that this was two separate incidents taking place in December and January where they were captured in the coastal Mediterranean city of Sert (ph). This is south of the Libyan capital Tripoli. And Sert has had a history of extremist groups that have operated there.

Now, Egyptians, Christians, and Muslims, many Egyptians, millions over the years, have flocked across the border into Libya looking for jobs and, according to Egyptian media reports, these 21 men were from impoverished towns in Egypt, desperately looking for jobs and trying to send money back home when they were captured in Libya. And over the years we have seen so many similar incidents, Brooke, where Egyptian Christians have been persecuted in Libya. Of course, nothing as brutal, as gruesome and horrific as we are seeing in this video.

BALDWIN: You know, and one of the questions, of course, is, who are - who specifically are these militants who did this beheading? I know, Jomana, you've been in this part of the world for a number of years. You covered the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi. The fear, of course, all the while, when we were all covering that, was, well, who would be next? The power vacuum. Are you surprised, if it is ISIS here, that they have gained ground now in Libya? KARADSHEH: Absolutely no surprise, Brooke. Over the years, there have

been so many warning signs. Libya has had a history of jihadist extremists. Jihadists who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places. With the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, you saw this country become awash in weapons. You had porous borders. There was no law and order in the country. It was total chaos. A security and political vacuum that really created this perfect ground for extremists to thrive and operate there in Libya. And we have seen it over the years, whether back to 2012 when we saw

the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and since then there have been so many warning signs that jihadists are gaining more ground and expanding their presence in Libya. And of course now we are seeing ISIS, over the past few months, trying to really come out more publicly and exert its influence there in Libya.

And so many Libyans, Brooke, that I've been talking to recently, I only left the country a few months ago, they feel that their country has been abandoned by the international community. The international community that's fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria they say has really ignored what has been going on in Libya over the past few years.

BALDWIN: I want to come back to that point with two experts here in just a moment. Jomana Karadsheh, thank you so much, in Amman, Jordan.

You know, all of this as the Pentagon and the National Counterterrorism Center confirm that ISIS is now gaining more foothold outside of Iraq and Syria. You look at the map and you can see, beyond those two countries in red, you have Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan here now seeing this rise of ISIS militants. The reason, defections by the Taliban, even defections by Boko Haram and a rebranding of sorts as Taliban members realize fighting under the black ISIS flag will get them more money and more recruits.

Joining me now, retired Colonel Peter Mansoor, CNN military analyst and former aid to General David Petraeus, and also with me here in New York, Michael Weiss, co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

So, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

And, Michael, let me just begin with you. it was interesting, Jomana's point, about how, you know, Libyans have felt abandoned by the international community. And I'm just curious, when you -- these people who did the beheading, who are now in this part of Libya, do you think they came over from Iraq and Syria, from the caliphate, so to speak, or have they been there all along and been inspired by those overseas.

MICHAEL WEISS, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": I mean it could be either. There's been a lot of cross-pollination between Libya and Syria going back to the early days of the Syrian uprising.

BALDWIN: Yes.

WEISS: You know, I remember being in southern Turkey in 2012, a lot of Syrian rebels, not ISIS guys, because ISIS wasn't really a going concern at that point in Syria, but a lot of rebels were saying they were trying to get all these weapons from Libya. Essentially these stockpiles had -- the warehouses that the Libyan government would just open the door and tell them, take what you want. The question is, can you get them aboard the ship and then can you get them through Turkish customs into Syria.

BALDWIN: Incredible.

WEISS: So, look, it could be guys moving back in from Raqqa or Derzur (ph). It could be Libyans who have, as you said, I mean you point out, a lot of guys are joining ISIS because this is the Vanguard jihadi organization. People defect from secular rebel groups in Syria. The defect from Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al Qaeda franchise, and they go over to ISIS, because that's where the money is, that's where the weapons are.

BALDWIN: And then you now have, because of what happened in Libya, colonel, you have Egypt. We now, of course, have seen Jordan, UAE, these Arab nations taking on a more active role here in this fight and I'm wondering, to you, with an escalation of these nation's involvement in this part of the world, how that might change, shift the U.S.-led coalition here.

COL. PETER MANSOOR (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Well, it's going to change it significantly because we're going to get more Arab support for the fight against ISIS. But briefly on the last point, back in the surge in the Iraq War in 2007, we caught the personnel manifest of suicide bombers coming into Iraq and we - so we could see where in the Arab/Islamic world these people were coming from and the number one region was eastern Libya.

BALDWIN: Really?

MANSOOR: So these jihadist groups have been there for quite a while and a lot of them are homegrown, but obviously there's a lot of cross- pollination. But as to the recent events, you could see with Jordan's reaction to the killing of their pilot, now Egypt's reaction to the killing of their citizens, the Arab world is finally waking up and they're getting involved in the fight against ISIS, and that's going to do nothing but help our efforts to destroy this evil group.

BALDWIN: And what baffles me is remembering, sitting in this chair near, what, two, three years ago when we were covering all of the revolution and the change and the pictures, Michael, of, you know, Tahir Square and what people thought it would become and then the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, and now we see what's happened in Libya, fears that it could happen in Egypt, just marveling at the juxtaposition of merely three years.

WEISS: I mean France 1789, from Danton (ph) to Robespierre (ph) to Napoleon. You know, Russian, 1905 or 1917, this is what happens in revolutions.

BALDWIN: Yes.

WEISS: The guys that you would hope would come out on top don't necessarily do. The bad guys who have been there lying in wait for a long time seize power. You know, we tend to fetishize the Middle East a little bit too much and say, well, it's inevitable that Islamists are going to take over. I mean show me in history, in modern history, where - I mean American Revolution is probably the only instance that it's actually succeeded. So I think, yes, people have to kind of curve their expectations and be a little more sober in the way they access these things.

BALDWIN: What about, colonel, what strikes me is how close -- when you look at the map --- how close Libya is to - you have the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt -- Italy is right there, that the proximity here as we talk about Syria and Iraq, now to Africa and Libya -- and if we had a map, I'd love to show it -- and then the Mediterranean Sea, and you have all of Europe - it's -- all of this war, this fight, this battle, it is getting closer and closer to the west.

MANSOOR: This was a message by ISIS that they won't stop in Libya or in the -- on the confines of the Arab Islamic world. They're going to come across the Mediterranean Sea and they're going to take the battle to Europe. It's symbolic that the blood of these 21 Egyptian men who were killed washed into the Mediterranean Sea. The ISIS fighters made the point of saying that they were going to destroy the pope. So they view this as a struggle for really world supremacy when you get down to it and the next target would be Europe after they consolidate their hold in the Middle East. It's quite an expansive agenda this group has.

BALDWIN: The blood into the Mediterranean Sea, for ISIS, a foreshadowing. That, you're telling me, that is what - that was entirely intentional in what they did?

MANSOOR: This group is very savvy in their media relations and almost nothing they do is done without purpose. So, yes, I think it was a foreshadowing that the blood would stretch across the sea to the shores of Europe.

BALDWIN: that is disgusting. Retired Colonel Peter Mansoor, Michael Weiss, thank you both very much.

WEISS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up here on CNN, as crowds gather for a vigil in Copenhagen to honor those killed in deadly attacks just over this weekend, Danish investigators are finding new clues in the troubled past of the 22-year-old suspect. Was he truly inspired by the Paris "Charlie Hebdo" attacks. Was he working alone? Terror analyst Paul Cruickshank will join me. he has inside information.

Also, the deadly attack at a Copenhagen synagogue, raising new fears among Jews in Europe. But did Israel's prime minister go too far, calling for a modern day exodus and a return home to Israel?

And, extreme winter weather wreaking havoc across much of the south and Midwest. Will it get worse before it gets better? I'm afraid of that answer. We'll have the complete forecast for you. you're watching CNN. Stay with me.

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BALDWIN: I just wanted to look at some live pictures here. 8:15 at night in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is a candlelight vigil. And this is the city that is reeling merely two days after a string of deadly shootings. Two people were killed in the attacks in a cafe and at a synagogue.

Now, two men today are behind bars in connection with those deadly attacks in Denmark. Their defense attorney says they have pleaded not guilty to charges of accessory to murder and accessory to attempted murder. They're accused of helping the suspected gunman get rid of his weapon and give him a place to hide.

That suspect is dead. Police found him after some surveillance pictures showed him getting into a taxi after one of the attacks. That driver gave police the address. And then when officers appeared, the gunman began shooting, police shot and then killed him. That was hours after the suspect opened fire in a cafe during the free speech forum. In fact, there was a Swedish cartoonist known for his controversial drawings of the Prophet Muhammad who was there. The BBC has obtained a chilling audio recording of the moment the shots rang out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do we still say bus when we - (gunfire)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: One man, a filmmaker, was killed in that attack. Three officers were injured. Hours later, more gunshots, this time at a synagogue during a barmitzva (ph). A security guard was killed there. TV 2 and Reuters are reporting the suspect is Omar Abdel Hamid El- Hussein. Danish officials say there is no known link to a terror cell at this point in time, but he is linked to a criminal group.

So let's talk about that with CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, author of "Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA," about a former Danish jihadi turned CIA spy.

Beginning with this first. Obviously, you know, when you hear about this cartoonist and the controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, you know, it jogs back not too long ago to what happened in Paris and the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks and police are saying that they're not necessarily ruling out that as a possible motivating factor. What do you make of that?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think, quite likely, it's been an inspiration. I mean we saw exactly the same kind of target in Denmark as in Paris and Paris was against a kosher market, against a cartoonist. Well, in Denmark, against an artist, who's responsible for a controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad -

BALDWIN: And a synagogue.

CRUICKSHANK: And also a barmitzvah (ph) party just outside a synagogue. BALDWIN: Yes.

CRUICKSHANK: So very, very similar targets. Somebody who appears to have been radicalized in prison, was a gang member, known to Danish security services for being a gang member but for -- not for being an extremist. They didn't know that he was radical. That was a surprise to them. But he just got out of prison a couple of weeks ago, so it's quite possible he was radicalized there while he was in jail.

BALDWIN: That's the thing. We've talked about that before, how other wannabes jihadists are taught, are radicalized behind bars. And when you say they're members of gangs, you say there's a real problem in Denmark, in particular, with young, disenfranchised Muslim youth who have access to weapons because they're members of a biker gang, let's say. How does that take someone from that step to becoming jihadi?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's absolutely right. And there is a particular nexus in Denmark between these gangs and jihadi circles. And for a lot of people inside the gangs, there's sort of a jihadi mindset that they have that sort of justifies their criminality because it's all against the infidel west. And also for some of them is a sort of redemption, a sort of born again in Islam-type dynamic that goes on. So we've seen gangsters who have moved from Denmark to go and fight in Syria and Iraq, you know, and, you know, even just recently people have gone over there and come back. So there's this real nexus between gangs and jihad. That's very, very worrying for Danish officials because, as you said, the easy access to weapons, even explosives and all this kind of stuff, all the kind of resources of the criminal underworld are available to these people.

BALDWIN: But when I think of similar conversations we had in this regard in Paris, and we had those two attackers who had, especially one of them in particular, who was radicalized because of certain leaders in certain cells in France, who would have radicalized this attacker in Denmark?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's going to be a big part of the investigation. But right throughout Europe, and even in the United States, there's a real problem of prison radicalization in Europe particularly. A lot of young Muslims are being sent to jail. And when they go to jail, some of them are mixing with these terror convict who are spreading this ideology. It's a real, real problem. In France now they're so worried about it that they are talking about separating the general prison population from these terror convicts, so you can't have this kind of proselytization that goes on. Remember Amedy Coulibaly who carried out that attack in Paris against the kosher market -

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

CRUICKSHANK: He was radicalized in jail. One of his mentors was an al Qaeda operative who'd been in Afghanistan with bin Laden.

BALDWIN: Final question. If we're saying he is -- if he was perhaps acting alone, yet you have these two other people who were arrested who may have helped him carry this out behind the scenes, do we know anything more about those people behind bars? CRUICKSHANK: We don't know anything more about their identity at this

point.

BALDWIN: We don't.

CRUICKSHANK: Were they perhaps two other gang members who were also radicalized or just friends of his, but they appear to have obviously known what he was planning, which is obviously very concerning that there were at least potentially three people involved in these plans, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much. We'll stay on it. We'll talk next hour I believe as well.

Before the deadly attacks in Copenhagen, Swedish artist Lars Vilks was already at the heart of the controversy involved free speech in the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as I mentioned a moment ago. And he's actually lived with death threats since he drew the Prophet Muhammad as a dog and that was merely a decade ago. Saturday, he was in that cafe, in the Danish capital for this forum on free speech, when the gunmen attacked. And today this cartoonist tells CNN that he is now in hiding but that he is not afraid. CNN's Atika Shubert gives us a closer look at this artist and activist who now faces threats every day of his life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what happened when Swedish artist Lars Vilks spoke at an art and free speech lecture in 2010. He was punched at the podium and then cries of "Allahu Akbar" descended into a brawl. It's an occupational hazard for Vilks. He receives daily death threats and regularly sweeps his car for explosives. All because of a picture he drew in 2007 of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. That landed him on al Qaeda's hit list with a $100,000 bounty on his head. Here's how he explained it in a 2010 interview.

LARS VILKS, ARTIST: This should be a small thing really, to insult a religion. You cannot make exceptions for religion. I mean that's the point. I mean this should be the same rules as we have for Christianity or the Jewish religion or whatsoever, that we should make an exception. Islam is not more holy than the other ones.

SHUBERT: But Vilks did not start this latest round of controversy. In 2005, the Danish newspaper, "Jyllands-Posten," published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including one with a bomb atop the prophet's head, sparking protest for Muslim communities across the world. For many Muslims, any images of the Prophet Muhammad is seen as blasphemous. Even worse, depictions that deliberately insult the prophet. CNN has decided not to show any of these images.

But for Vilks and his supporters, it's a matter of free speech, and that is why Vilks was speaking in Copenhagen on Saturday when a gunman opened fire killing one man and injuring three police officers. Danish police have shot dead a man suspected of carrying out the attack, but have yet to reveal his identity or motive. But police are investigating it as a terrorist attack. Vilks and his supporters, however, already have an answer. They believe Vilks and his works of art were the targets of violence yet again.

Atika Shubert, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Atika, thank you.

Coming up next here on CNN, a cease-fire in Ukraine hanging on by a thread as both sides are massing forces as this violence continues. We're live in Donetsk and eastern Ukraine coming up.

And as ISIS terrorists brutally killed these Egyptian Christians in Libya, Egypt takes swift action, launching airstrikes, but does this change the strategy for the U.S.-led coalition? Stay right here.

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