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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Egypt Airstrikes Against ISIS; Obama Administration: Danish Shooting "Horrific, Heinous, Cowardly"; Extending the Obamacare Deadline?; Dangerous Windchill in New England

Aired February 16, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: This is LEGAL VIEW. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for my friend Ashleigh Banfield.

We are following the fallout from two very different, very deadly expressions of hate, one in an European capital and captured in breathtaking audio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Absolutely shocking. A gunman with a rap sheet, but no known background in terror, kills two people before police in Copenhagen kill him. Now, two of his alleged accomplices are also behind bars.

And that is an Egyptian fighter jet en route to neighboring Libya, where ISIS beheaded as much as 21 captained kidnapped Egyptian Christians. Egypt's military saying, quote, "avenging Egyptian blood is our right and our duty." Egyptian media now report two waves of air strikes, both targeting so-called terrorists' hideouts in the Libyan city of Durna (ph). That is right on the coast, right on the Mediterranean there. Libyan officials say their planes took part as well.

Let me bring in CNN correspondent Ian lee. He joins me from Cairo. Also, Sunlen Serfaty is at the White House. And joining me here in New York, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

Let me begin with you, Ian. How significant do you believe it is that these Egyptian air strikes are now happening? That we are seeing Egypt join in this coalition fight against ISIS, saying we have every right to avenge these deaths?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, this is definitely a retaliatory measure taken by the Egyptian government, the Egyptian air force, striking these targets. It is -- there was a lot of pressure inside Egypt for President Sisi to come out and make a statement to defend the Egyptian pride, the Egyptians abroad. But on the ground, it will be very difficult for the Egyptian military to really put a dent in ISIS' operations. As we've seen in Iraq and Syria, they have adapted to air strikes. ISIS militants in Libya have learned from these militants in Iraq and Syria. Some of them have gone over there and fought with them. So we're -- they'll probably adapt the same sort of measures into avoiding these air strikes.

But Egypt is looking for a larger international coalition to help them out. Right now the foreign minister is on his way to New York to speak to the U.N. Security Council, to ask them for -- to basically uphold international security. They want to see the same sort of international coalition in Iraq and Syria also take place in Libya. They're also asking for material support. I talked to a retired Egyptian military general. He says that they can sustain this for some time, but for the long term, they're going to need support from the outside countries as bombs, ammunition, things that they're going to need to wage this war.

I've also been talking to people on the ground in Libya, and they believe that while these air strikes will hit part of ISIS' infrastructure in Libya, that there's no way that they can completely obliterate them just by air strikes alone, Poppy.

HARLOW: Ian, what's the reaction from the people there in Cairo, that 21 of their fellow citizens have been so brutally murdered? What are they saying on the streets there?

LEE: Well, Egyptians are outraged by this attack. Egyptians, very proud, believe that any attack against their people abroad is an attack on them, an attack on their nation. And mind you that there's still thousands of Egyptians in Libya. A lot of them go there for work. And the Egyptian government is urging them to return home. They're making planes available for Egyptians who can flee to the different borders, to get them out of the country. They believe that once these air strikes have begun, that the lives of Egyptians, even Muslim Egyptians, could be at risk, Poppy.

HARLOW: Thank you very much, Ian, for that report. We appreciate it.

To Sunlen now at the White House.

I'm interested in what we're hearing from the administration on this front. Anything yet?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, the administration is calling this a horrific, heinous, and cowardly act of murder by ISIS. And we got a strongly worded statement from the White House press secretary overnight saying in part, quote, "ISIL's barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sex or ethnicity. This wonton (ph) killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL."

Now, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke yesterday with the Egyptian foreign minister. He not only, of course, offered his condolences on behalf of the American people, but he agreed to stay in close contact with the Egyptians as they respond as we've seen them do today.

Poppy. HARLOW: All right, Sunlen, thank you very much.

Let me bring in CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruikshank.

Should we be surprised at this spread into Libya that has been so successful? We heard Ian say the Egyptian air force is not going to have much success combatting ISIS now in Libya. You say your sources are telling you this is part of their long-term plan and they've been at it for a while here.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: That's right. And, you know, CNN has been reporting that since last year, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi sent a top deputy, Abu Nabil al Anbari to Libya to lead this expansion. There were 300 Libyan ISIS fighters who returned to Libya from Syria and Iraq. And they've allowed the group to expand not only in eastern Libya where they've taken some control of the town of Durna (ph), a population of 100,000, but allowed it to spread all the way along the coast to Tripoli, to Sert (ph). We saw that attack last month against the Corinthia hotel in Tripoli when an American was killed.

HARLOW: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: They've really taken advantage of this simmering civil war that's going on in Libya between the pro-misrata (ph) Islamist faction that controlled Tripoli, and then the sort of secular faction, the internationally recognized government in Tobruk (ph).

HARLOW: So clearly they're finding success in a foothold in Libya because you're talking about a failed state, right? But how does -- how does the coalition and how -- frankly, whatever help they can get from the Libyans, drive ISIS out? What do you do to successfully weed them out?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, it's going to be very hard indeed because it is a failed state, the Libyan army, General Hafta (ph), who's part of that effort from Tobruk, they're trying to fight ISIS in the east of Libya. There's some air strikes. There's some ground operations. But it's going to be a long, hard fight from their point of view. I think there will be some perhaps limit on the ISIS expansion in Libya and that's because there's just so many different competing militias. So ISIS is going to have to fight some of those as well.

HARLOW: You don't think Libya could be lost to ISIS, do you?

CRUICKSHANK: I think there's a possibility, if things continue to go in this direction, that ISIS could really expand into a lot more of Libya.

HARLOW: Yes.

CRUICKSHANK: But I -- you know, we'll have to see how far.

HARLOW: And clearly sending a message to Europe with that horrific video where blood was spilled right into the Mediterranean. It's such proximity. CRUICKSHANK: That's -- that's absolutely right. And the guy who was

the ringleader of these beheadings, he was speaking in English. I mean this was a message for the west, for Europe.

HARLOW: Clearly.

CRUICKSHANK: You know, the southern shore of Crete is just 200 miles north of the northern coast of Libya. It's right on Europe's doorstep. This was a message to the Europeans.

HARLOW: Yes.

CRUICKSHANK: We're coming for you. We're going to retaliate.

HARLOW: Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much. Ian, as well, and Sunlen, thank you all very much. Ian Lee in Cairo. Sunlen Serfaty at the White House.

Stay with us, terror in another European capital. A gunman opening fire at a free speech forum over the weekend, then shooting even more people at a synagogue. Was the carnage in Denmark inspired by the terrorist attack in Paris? That is straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, we have new details about two terrorist attacks in Denmark over the weekend that left two people dead and several more wounded. Reuters and other news outlets reporting that a 22-year-old man named Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein is seen here in this surveillance video. He's the one who allegedly carried out these two shootings. Police, though, still have not officially named him.

Now, the suspect was killed in a shootout with police after the second attack. What we do know is that El-Hussein was raised in Denmark, had a history of violence and a strong connection with gangs. Authorities have now charged two other men with accessory to murder and other crimes for trying to help the suspect hide from police.

Here are the two victims. On your right, a 55-year-old, a Danish film maker named Finn Norgaard. He was shot and killed at that Copenhagen cafe in the first shooting. On your left, a 37-year-old victim, Dan Uzan. He was shot and killed during a separate shootout about 10 hours later at a synagogue. He was working as a guard for the synagogue. The BBC has obtained audio recording of the alleged shooting at the cafe. Take a listen. CNN has not been able to independently authenticate it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's bring in our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson. He joins me now live from Copenhagen. Also with me again, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. Nic, to you. I've heard that audio over and over again and it is unbelievable to think of a peaceful event in the middle of a Saturday and then that happens, all of a sudden. We now know that the authorities have charged two more people. I wonder what we know about who these people are and exactly what they're charged with.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Very few details at the moment. Nineteen and 22 years old. That's what we're being told. The prosecutors say that they had a prior agreement with the gunmen to help him hid out between -- after the first attack and then they helped him hide out until the police challenged him and he fired and them, the police shot back and killed him. They -- also these men are -- the prosecutors say, also hid the weapon he used in the attack in the cafe just a few yards away from me.

You know, the chilling sounds we heard of those gunshots in the cafe less than 48 hours ago now are going to -- you're going to hear very different sounds here about two hours' time. There's a vigil going to be held here. A stage is being set up. They've been running audio checks in the last few hours and there are thousands of people expected to come out here to show their support for the victims in these attacks. So what we have from the police and the prosecutors about these two young men, they are going to be charged with accessories to two counts of murder and accessories to two counts of attempted murder, Poppy.

HARLOW: Nic, I think it's interesting also that authorities have said that they are not going to charge these two individuals under Denmark's anti-terrorism laws. Do we know why that is and if there's any significance to that?

ROBERTSON: Well, the police have been very cautious in the information they've released but, under terrorism laws, and they would have to show a connection to terrorism. The prime minister has said this was an attempted political assassination of Lars Vilks at a freedom of speech event and therefore that this was terrorism. But the terrorism laws are relatively specific.

So in this case at the moment, unless the police are able and investigators are able to find connections to groups like ISIS, although they've said the gunmen may have been radicalized by what he heard from groups like ISIS, they say that they don't know there are specific connections between him and the group in Iraq and Syria, if it -- they say that he hadn't gone there to fight with them. So it seems that that level, this comes down to a basic killing, although being described as terrorism.

HARLOW: All right, Nic Robertson, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Paul Cruickshank, to you. Your sources telling you that authorities are increasingly worried about a nexus between gangs, as we know that this 22-year-old alleged shooter was part of, and jihadis, specifically in this region. Why?

CRUICKSHANK: Yes, and it's especially the case in Denmark --

HARLOW: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: That they're seeing a merging nexus between some of these gangs and then these sort of extremist case (ph). They've seen a number of gangsters who have gone off to fight in Syria and Iraq. Some of these gangsters sort of justify their criminal behavior by saying that while it's all against the infidels anyway. And there's some sense of the redemption from some of these people from finding Islam in -- from their point of view, fighting holy war.

And this does appear to be the trajectory of this young gunman who was killed by Danish security services. He had a history of violence, of stabbing a young man on a commuter train last year and some violence also in prison. Just released a couple of weeks ago. He wasn't on the radar screen for extremist views. He was on the radar screen of Danish security services for being part of a gang.

HARLOW: So what do you make of the parallels that we see between the Paris attacks, although a number -- significant more victims in Paris, and this attack, because we know that the masterminds of the Paris attack were tracked for their basically radicalization for years ahead of those attacks. Doesn't seem to be the case in this one.

CRUICKSHANK: Doesn't seem to be the case that there was that long a period of radicalization. I mean this guy was just 22-years-old.

HARLOW: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: But on the face of it, this seems to be a copycat attack, right, because you've got both the target of being a cartoonist or an artist, and then the Jewish target very similar to the Paris attacks. And we also saw with Paris, there was allegedly a wider conspiracy there as well that other people helped drive the gunman around and that kind of thing. And I think we're seeing that again here with a very small group involved in Copenhagen. No evidence to this point that there's any connection to any overseas terrorist group.

HARLOW: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: But I think probably inspired by the kind of propaganda groups like ISIS have put out and ISIS itself back in 2007, they put a $100,000 bounty on the life of Lars Vilks with a $50,000 bonus if his throat was slit. So they've really been pressing this. And ever since "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, both ISIS and al Qaeda have been calling for their supporters in the west to do exactly this, to avenge the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, as they would put it.

HARLOW: A lot more to learn and still waiting for authorities to tell us more and if there's anyone else connected to this as well. Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much.

We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, this just into us here at CNN. A big headline about Obamacare, the deadline. If you were trying to enroll, you know this. It came and it went. It was yesterday. But the Department of Health and Human Services is considering extending the Obamacare deadline. Let's bring in Sunlen Serfaty. She joins me now from the White House.

So I know that the White House said the deadline was yesterday. And you still have about three to six million people who may pay that tax if they don't register for it by the deadline. Why is the White House considering extending it now?

SERFATY: That's right, Poppy. Well, there had been a huge concern on Capitol Hill, many lawmakers being very vocal in their concern that millions of people face this fine. Of course, we know, in the last few weeks, there have been problems, technical difficulties, long wait times for people who are trying to make Sunday's deadline to enroll. So now we have word from a White House official that the move is being considered, that they might move this deadline. A White House official tells us that they will decide sometime in the next two weeks whether or not they will move that deadline.

But in the meantime, the Department of Health and Human Services says that people can continue to sign up for Obamacare. Of course, they face that impending fine. And that's exactly why a lot of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Poppy, were angry about. They wanted to make sure people who wanted to get enrolled could do so.

Poppy.

HARLOW: But it seems pretty confusing if the deadline was yesterday and then the White House is going to take at least two more weeks to determine whether or not they're going to extend it. It sort of seems like people are hanging in limbo for now. Is that -- is that a correct assessment?

SERFATY: You're absolutely -- you're absolutely right. And I think that this is one of the many problems that we've seen over the last few years with this health -- Obamacare. And HHS will say that people are allowed to continue to go online this week and sign up. That they will not face that penalty, we believe. This is according to a White House official. And that sometime again in the next two weeks they will decide whether that deadline will be moved more permanently. So we await word from the White House what their firm decision is. But for the moment, HHS is saying that people can continue to sign up online.

Poppy.

HARLOW: You would think it would be beneficial for the White House to extend the deadline, the more people they get to sign up, especially younger, healthier people, the more the cost goes down. It is advantageous for them to have more people signed up. We'll stay on top of it. Thank you, Sunlen, for that. I appreciate it.

Also this. If you are in the Northeast, you are seeing it, you are feeling it, you are freezing. Snow in February, not normally a big news story, but there's nothing normal about these last few weeks. Northeasterners ready to move south, but even the south getting into the wintry mix right now. We'll bring you the latest when we're back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Heavy winds and waves hammering New England once again. The extreme winter weather just won't quit. Life threatening temperatures are settling in over tens of millions of Americans along the eastern seaboard. After snow records are set in Boston, and as you can see, buildings are starting to collapse.

Let's show you -- I think we have some of these images. Pretty stunning because of all the feet of snow piling on top of the buildings. We're barely halfway through February. It is already the snowiest month in Boston's recorded history.

Joining me now on the phone, Boston strong Emily Rooney is hosting creator of the TV show "Meet the Press" on WGBH.

You've got to be Boston strong to deal with this, Emily. How are you guys holding up?

EMILY ROONEY, WGBH (via telephone): We're dealing, Poppy, we're dealing, you know? It's -- it hasn't been all that dangerous. The cold here today is pretty wicked. It's 13 degrees now with a windchill of about minus four. But other than some flooding during the first storm, which was back, I think, on January 24th, there really hasn't been a severe danger to people.

HARLOW: Yes, but it's been stunning to see, because one of the big issues is, where does all this snow go? I know you said a lot of people in the media, TV, news are going to work because they have to, but is everyone else going to work or are they hunkering down?

ROONEY: No, no, they can't -- well, even, you know, the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston bombing suspect, six days they've had to cancel that trial. And they've had at least six or seven days of snow cancellations for, you know, all the public schools. A couple of days, state government was shut down. A couple of days, city hall was shut down. So it's affected -- even like the mall, with big department stores like Neiman's, has closed because they can't -- there's just no access to get into these places.