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Terror Attacks in Turkey and Ivory Coast; Trump Blames Sanders for Rally Disruptions; Inside Syria, Behind Rebel Lines; North Koran Nuclear Threats over U.S., South Korean Military Drills; French Report: Germanwings Co-Pilot Deliberately Caused Crash; Highlights of Democratic Town Hall. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired March 14, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:08] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, dozens are dead following a pair of terrorist attacks targeting civilians in Turkey and Ivory Coast.

Plus, witness to a possible war crime. CNN cameras are rolling as fighter jets pound a crowded marketplace in Syria.

And Bernie Sanders calls Donald Trump a pathological liar after his campaign is accused of disrupting Trump events.

Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. Another hour of NEWSROOM L.A. starts now.

We're following two deadly terror attacks which have targeted civilians on Sunday. One in Ivory Coast, the other in Turkey's capital. The health minister says at least 34 people were killed when a car bomb detonated at a busy transport hub in Ankara. Another 125 people were wounded. The attackers may be among the dead. So far there's been no claim of responsibility, but Turkey has been under threat from a number of terror groups. One survivor described the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through Translator): The car came near to us. 10 seconds later, the seats in the bus flew following explosions. A piece of metal came to me. There was a black car. I saw five people dead. I received a piece here and to my arm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Hours before that blast in Turkey, gunmen stormed a beach resort in Ivory Coast and opened fire killing 16 people. Security forces later killed six attackers who were said to be affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOUAKOU BERTIN, ATTACK EYEWITNESS (Through Translator): He arrived near my young brother who was on the phone, and he shot him once in the head. When he shot at him in the head he shouted, "Allahu Akbar," and at that moment, the three others arrived and started to shoot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: CNN's intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer and our military analyst Lt. Col. Rick Francona joins us now for more on both of these stories.

So, Rick, first to you, looking at attack in Ivory Coast, this is the third attack carried out by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The other two were in Burkina Faso and in Mali. Clearly it seems this group is expanding its operations. And the African Security Forces are not really able to contain them at this point.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. They are in a resurgence mode and they're trying to expand. You know, they started off in Algeria and they spread. And I would not be surprised to see them trying to move into Libya through that Tunisian border. And they're going after targets that are very effective. These soft targets almost impossible to defend against, these beach resorts and hotels, even malls. They wreak havoc on the local economy. Very effective.

Tourism is a very, very fragile target. Look what happened in Tunisia and Egypt after successful attacks there. So I think we're going to see more of this. It's something that works for them.

VAUSE: And, Bob, these terrorist groups in Africa, are they switching from failed states to successful ones now or relatively successful?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, that's where the easy targets are. You take Mali, for instance, and most foreigners have left, you know, where there's a civil war going on. So the Ivory Coast, you know, joining borders, they are easy to get across. Easy to bribe police. Get weapons across. Grenades were used in this attack. Going after foreigners in a well-known hotel. At least one Frenchman was killed, three other foreigners probably.

So these are obvious targets, as Rick was saying. They are vulnerable. There's no ways to defend these hotels. You can get to them through open ground by the beach. And they know what they're doing. They want to bring these economies down, especially the Ivory Coast, because it depends on French tourism. It's huge there. And if you drive out the French, this will do serious, serious damage to that country.

VAUSE: Are we getting to the point now, Bob, where al Qaeda and its affiliates are strongest in Africa, ISIS is strongest in the Middle East and Europe?

BAER: You know, John, I don't really differentiate a lot between al Qaeda, ISIS, you know, one has a caliphate, the other don't. But they all -- share the same ideology. They look at the same philosophers, same Neolism, same random violence. And, you know, it's -- you know, they are everywhere, and they are almost impossible to stamp out. You certainly can't do it by drones or airstrikes. And I don't see these groups getting any weaker. You know there's an attack in Tunisia two weeks ago. And you go on and on and on, and I just don't see where it stops.

VAUSE: And with that, we move on to Syria because there's been no claim of responsibility yet for that attack in Ankara.

And, Rick, it does seem that Turkey, they are fighting on multiple fronts here and it's a fight which -- it really isn't winning at this stage.

FRANCONA: No. The Turks really are in a bad position.

[01:05:01] I mean, they've alienated almost everybody that they need to be working with. Their relations with the United States are a little strained because, although they joined the U.S.-led coalition, a lot of their operations as part of that anti-ISIS coalition are directed against the Kurds, both the PKK and the Kurds in Syria. And the Kurds in Syria are allies of the United States. So they're there.

Also they have this refugee flow that's going into Europe. The Europeans want the Turks to do a better job of controlling that. They've shot down a Russian aircraft. The Russians are at odds with them. So, you know, the Turks are in a very precarious position. Now you've got the PKK operating inside Turkey. ISIS is operating inside Turkey. You know, the Turks have a real security problem, and it's only going to get worse.

VAUSE: And we've had three attacks in Ankara. And Ankara, the capital, in less than six months. There was a car bomb, which killed 29 people, not far from this latest attack. That was about a month ago. The militant Kurdistan Freedom Hawks claimed responsibility. Then back in October, more than 100 people killed in twin suicide bombings who hit a peace rally. They were affiliated with ISIS.

Bob, this looks like a capital which is under siege. These attacks are not being carried out, you know, on the Turkish-Syrian border.

BAER: It's a whole country under siege because -- down by the Abukir, there's the army is being attacked all the time. The border, as we know, is wide open. Fighters are coming in from Europe, going into Syria and they're going the other way. And so are explosives. This is a country under attack. Erdogan has just said that he's not going to put up with this. The only thing you can do, as I've said, is to turn some -- to some sort of martial law to stop this.

And I think we're getting closer to that, where the army is going to take over security in that country. And as a member of NATO, I don't think we're going to be able to call it democracy for long.

VAUSE: And Rick, is that your feeling? Because we've already seen a number of newspapers are being closed down which are critical of the government. And after this attack, the government shut down Twitter and Facebook and any real reporting from the scene.

FRANCONA: Yes. It's very interesting that this phenomenon is going on because Erdogan is actually -- is moving Turkey more towards an Islamic country. The AKP party is an Islamist party. Yet he's at odds with all these Islamist groups. So he's got a very tough road ahead of him because he has to keep the European side of Turkey on his side, want his power base on the Asian side. So I think Erdogan has his task cut out for him. But I think that we may see, as Bob suggest, some sort of martial law in that southern sector.

You know, we had martial law along that Syrian border for years. And they let it go and I think they're going to have to re-impose it because right now that border is wide open. And that's the source of most of the problems that we're seeing in Turkey.

VAUSE: Colonel Francona, thank you. Bob Baer, former CIA operative and CNN analyst, thank you as well. Appreciate it.

BAER: Thank you.

VAUSE: Just a few hours ago, a CNN and TV1 hosted a town hall meeting with the Democratic U.S. presidential candidates. The event was in Ohio. It was meant to be all about Hillary Clinton and her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders. But they both focused a lot on Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner. Sanders started it off firing back at Trump's claim that Sanders has sent protesters to disrupt Trump's campaign rallies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: We have never -- our campaign does not believe and never will encourage anybody to disrupt anything. We have millions of supporters. People do what they do. People have the right to protest. I happen not to believe that people should disrupt anybody's meetings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein is with us now.

Ron, I want to play what Donald Trump has actually been saying for most of today, the allegation which he has leveled at Bernie Sanders, that it is Bernie Sanders supporters who are basically disrupting his campaign events.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't even call them protesters. I call them disrupters. A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, whether he wants to say it or not. And if he says no, then he's lying. Bernie Sanders, they have Sanders signs all over the place, and they're made by the same people that make the regular Bernie Sanders signs. They're professionally made.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Donald Trump also tweeted out a threat. He said, "Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disrupters aren't told to go to my events. Be careful, Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours."

Is there a time in history where the United States election process has gone through anything similar to this?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Not -- I mean, I think the closest we would say in modern times would be the George Wallace campaign in 1968. But there's really been nothing like it -- nothing like this since.

[01:10:08] You know, there's no question there are a lot of Sanders supporters at the Chicago rally Friday night and were part of the enormous confrontation that led to it being shut down. But it's not at all I think remotely true that there have been a systematic pattern of this.

VAUSE: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: I mean, Trump has faced homegrown resistance. And I think, you know, in the communities where he has gone, and it's really kind of underscored the stark racial nature of what's happening here. I mean, you have two parties that are representing very different Americas. They seem to be running for the presidency of different Americas. And you have Trump really kind of banging at that difference, right from the moment where he came down the escalator on the first day and talked about rapists, murderers, David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan.

Today offering -- suggesting he might pay the legal fees for the elderly white man who sucker punched an African-American protester on as he was being led out by the police.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: So it's just an extraordinary escalation and I think one reason why so many Republicans are so nervous about what this may mean for the party both in the short-term and in the long-term.

VAUSE: Hillary Clinton raised some of those issues which you brought up as well. She was asked about Donald Trump also at this town hall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All Americans should be concerned. It's clear that Donald Trump is running a very cynical campaign, pitting groups of Americans against one another. He is trafficking in hate and fear. He is playing to our worst instincts rather than our angels of our better nature. He actually incites violence in the way that he urges his audience on, you know, talking about punching people, offering to pay legal bills.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWNSTEIN: Look, this is a very volatile moment in American life. We are going through a profound demographic change. A majority of our public school students are now kids of color for the first time ever. And we are going through this demographic change at a time when we are living through sustained economic stagnation, when most Americans are not getting ahead nearly as fast as they expected. So there's a lot of kindling here to work with.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: But what you've heard not only from Hillary Clinton but from Marco Rubio and John Kasich is at a moment like this, the task of leadership is not to, you know, poke at those divisions. It's to find ways to find common ground.

VAUSE: To bring people together.

BROWNSTEIN: To bring people together.

VAUSE: Not (INAUDIBLE).

BROWNSTEIN: And so this is -- I think this is really a profound moment for the Republican leadership because you have on Tuesday the potential of Trump getting so far ahead that no one is going to catch him. Even as you had just all of these warning signs about what he might mean not only in a general election but in a longer term definition that he imposes on the party.

VAUSE: There's this drop Trump movement on the Republican side. Clearly on the Democrat side there's now concern what would happen should Donald Trump get the nomination and, you know, maybe even be elected president. That came up during this town hall. And this is how both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton said that they would be able to stop Donald Trump from becoming president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: A lot of criticism are thrown at me and that's natural in politics, but one that I resent is, well, Bernie, you are a nice guy, I like your ideas, but you just can't win the general election.

All right. So let me deal with that. Take a look at virtually every national poll that has been done. Take a look at the NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll of two or three days ago, guess what, Bernie Sanders was defeating Donald Trump by 18 points.

CLINTON: There are going to be a lot of arguments to make against him that we can look forward to, I'm not going to spill the beans right now.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: But suffice it to say there are many arguments that we can use against him. But one argument that I am uniquely qualified to bring because of my service as secretary of State is what his presidency would mean to our country and our standing in the world. I am already receiving messages from leaders -- I'm having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump. You know, I mean, this is up to Americans, thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK. I want to talk about Bernie Sanders' answer first.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: David Axelrod, former Obama adviser, tweeted out, "Yes, let's see what happens when you -- when Bernie Sanders is hit with a sustained GOP attack."

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: Part of the argument that Clinton was making. That seems to be a fair point.

BROWNSTEIN: It does. We -- you know, we don't know. I mean, most Americans don't really know that Bernie Sanders' proposals would increase federal spending by 40 percent.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Over what it is today to the highest level we've seen since World War II. But in a broader level, you know, the Trump issue is less about the candidate that he's running against. You know, in the last couple of weeks, he has veered, as we've said, more overtly into George Wallace type territory, with the David Duke comments, the KKK comments, saying he's going to pay the -- you know, the legal fees for someone.

VAUSE: Legal fees. Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Today saying that the protesters were people who want a free lunch. When George Wallace ran in 1968, minority voters were 7 percent of the electorate.

[01:15:02] They will likely be 30 percent of the electorate in 2016. There are a lot of people who feel left out of the definition of what Donald Trump is describing as a real American. And you saw that today in the question from -- you know, the person who asked that question.

VAUSE: The son of an immigrant. A doctor.

BROWNSTEIN: Son of an immigrant. Successful doctor, who might have been open to being a Republican at another time. And yet today said his number one mission for 2016 which is to stop Trump.

VAUSE: Is to stop Trump.

Very quickly, the politics of Clinton's last -- Secretary Clinton's last answer there. You know, I'm not a speechwriter for Donald Trump, but I can imagine tomorrow at the campaign rally.

BROWNSTEIN: Sure.

VAUSE: He's going to go, foreign leaders want Hillary Clinton. They are against me.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: They are against you. And it just plays right into that narrative. I thought that was kind of --

BROWNSTEIN: No, no. That's right. And she had another awkward moment talking about --

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Yes. Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Parenthetically aimed at the same kind of, you know, blue-collar voters. The problem Donald Trump has is that the people he is kind of boxing out of his definition of who is a real American, they are now a majority of the country. You know, people have said the silent majority is neither. It's kind of a boisterous minority. And it may be so boisterous precisely because it is becoming a minority.

And so that I think is the real challenge for Trump. He is doubling down. He is consistently kind of further stoking that the emotions and passions of his base. But in the process, he is building bigger and bigger hedges with the rest of the electorate that he will ultimately need. Maybe not to win the nomination, although he's only about 35 percent of the vote.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: But certainly to win the general election.

VAUSE: It does feel like this is a moment of history that we're all watching.

BROWNSTEIN: It does. It feels like what America has been and what America is becoming.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Literally fighting hand-to-hand for control of the country.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: A really found moment.

VAUSE: It really is. Ron, thank you for being with us.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, John.

VAUSE: Well, the man who rushed the stage while Donald Trump was speaking on Saturday says he has no regrets. The Secret Service jumped Thomas DiMassimo after he jumped a barricade in Ohio. Now the 22-year-old student is charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. He talked with our Martin Savidge. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What were you thinking at that moment?

THOMAS DIMASSIMO, RUSHED TRUMP'S PODIUM: I was --

SAVIDGE: Why did you do what you did?

DIMASSIMO: I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him and take his mike away from him and send a message to all people out in the country, who wouldn't consider themselves racists, who wouldn't consider themselves approving of what type of violence Donald Trump is allowing at his rallies, and send them a message that we can be strong. We can find our strength. And we can stand up against Donald Trump and against this new wave he is ushering in of truly just violent white supremist ideas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, France has given its final report into the deadly Germanwings crash. We'll tell you what the findings say about the co-pilot's mental evaluation. That's up next.

Also ahead, we'll have an exclusive look inside war-torn Syria where deadly airstrikes have reduced much of the country to rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There was just an airstrike here in the town of Ariha so we are now driving very quickly. It's not clear yet what was hit, but we are hearing that there are still planes in the sky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SPORTS)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:21:59] VAUSE: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is calling on Russia and Iran to rein in the Syrian regime ahead of Monday's peace talks in Geneva. Chief envoy for President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday they will not negotiate with anyone about the presidency.

Kerry called those comments an attempt to disrupt the peace process. The talks come amid a fragile ceasefire. Each side is accusing the other of violations.

CNN's senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward and producer Salma Abdelaziz went undercover into rebel-held Syria, where virtually no Western journalist have gone for more than a year. They worked with Syrian based filmmaker Bilal Abdul Kareem on this exclusive report. But we do have a warning, there are some graphic images in their report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): Moving through rebel-held northern Syria is difficult and dangerous. As foreign journalists in areas with a strong jihadist presence, we had to travel undercover to see a war few outsiders have witnessed.

The city of Idlib is the only provincial capital under rebel control. This was its courthouse until it was hit by an airstrike in December. Dozens were killed.

Forty-year-old lawyer, Tala al-Jaway, told us he was inside the building when it was hit. His arm was smashed but he was lucky to survive.

TALA AL-JAWAY, VICTIM OF BOMBING (Through Translator): The Russian planes target anything that works in the interest of the people. The goal is that people here live a destroyed life, that people never see any good, that they never taste life.

This is the tax of living in a liberated area.

WARD: An hour later we saw that tax for ourselves while filming in a town nearby. We heard the scream of fighter jets wheeling overhead. Moments later a hit.

(On camera): There was just an airstrike here in the town of Ariha so we're now driving very quickly. It's not clear yet what was hit but we are hearing that there are still planes in the sky.

(Voice-over): Arriving on the scene our team found chaos and carnage. Volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they try to ferry out the wounded. For many it was too late. A woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, an attempt to preserve her dignity.

Russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. This strike hit a busy fruit market.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through Translator): This is just a civilian market. This is not a military area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through Translator): There are no military installations here or anything. It's a market.

[01:25:02] Look, it's a market, a fruit market. Is this what you want, Bashar?

WARD: We couldn't stay long. Often jets circle back to hit the same place twice. It's called a double tap.

(On camera): We've just arrived here at the hospital where they're bringing the dead and the wounded from those three strikes in Ariha which hit a park and a fruit market. We don't know the exact number of casualties there but the scene of devastation, blood on the ground, dismembered body parts, and the injured and dead that we've seen arriving here indicate that this was a very bad strike indeed.

(Voice-over): Among the injured brought in a young boy moaning in pain, died moments later.

The strikes on Ariha that day killed 11 people, among them a woman and two children. Rescue workers wasted no time in clearing away the rubble. In this ugly war massacres have become routine.

Clarissa ward, CNN, Ariha, Syria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: That story is very hard to watch, especially with the fact that peace talks are set to start and a ceasefire is meant to be in place.

Professor James Gelvin joins me now. He's a professor of history specializing in the Mideast at UCLA.

OK. I just -- having watched Clarissa's report, is there any way that that airstrike is not a war crime?

JAMES GELVIN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UCLA: A war crime is defined when one side or the other does not differentiate between civilians and military personnel. That obviously did not differentiate between civilians and military personnel. Both sides have been engaged in war crimes, the government far more so than the opposition. Simply because it has the aircraft to be able to do with the barrel bombs and all --

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: To carry out the attacks. So this is happening while, you know, a cessation of hostilities is in place, which clearly, you know, it's being violated on a gross level simply by what we've seen there. But yet this train keeps chugging along.

GELVIN: Correct.

VAUSE: Why is that?

GELVIN: Well, because they want the ceasefire to work. The United States in particular wants the ceasefire to work. And that's the reason why they are ignoring things like this taking place. And both sides have reports of violations of the ceasefire.

The way I like to think of it is thinking about it in terms of the 1973-'74 Vietnam ceasefire, in which all sides, the Americans and the South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese kept the fiction that the ceasefire was working, in spite of the fact that 2,000 South Vietnamese soldiers per month were dying. The United States wanted to get out. The North Vietnamese wanted to deploy. And the South Vietnamese wanted to be armed. So fundamentally it lasted until the North Vietnamese felt ready to actually launch an attack and then the ceasefire ended. VAUSE: OK. So at this point in time, peace talks in Geneva set to

start in the next couple of hours. Despite everything we've seen here, is there any reason to think that maybe these peace talks have a hope of working?

GELVIN: There are three reasons why these peace talks are unlike the ones that have been held in the past.

VAUSE: Right.

GELVIN: First of all, Iran is involved. The United States had tried to keep Iran out the previous ones. But since the nuclear talks, the United States is acquiescing to the fact that Iran is a player. The second one is the fact that now you have a stalemate on the ground. The opposition was winning before the Russians went in. The Russians went in but of course the government can't take all the territory that is lost. And so therefore, when you have a stalemate, neither side is going to be able to win it on the battle field. And they have to come to the negotiating table.

And the final thing is the internationalization of the terrorism on the part of ISIS. Now the United States is very much concerned about eliminating ISIS. Not squeezing it, not making sure that it can't expand. But --

VAUSE: Not containment, but elimination.

GELVIN: Right. Getting rid of it totally. And that means you have to end the Syrian civil war in order to do this. So the United States is very, very in tune with the idea of just ensuring that these talks go on, whether or not they are farfetched or not.

VAUSE: So that's why the U.S. is pushing for some kind of a negotiated settlement here.

GELVIN: Yes, it just wants that negotiated settlement and in particular what the United States want to avoid is Libya. In Libya, we got rid of the regime and see what happened in Libya.

VAUSE: Total vacuum and chaos.

GELVIN: Exactly.

VAUSE: And that's what they are terrified of happening here.

GELVIN: Exactly. And particularly in this neighborhood. I mean, Syria borders on Israel, it borders on Lebanon, it borders on Iraq, it borders on Turkey. You don't want a fragmentation of Syria.

VAUSE: It's a tough neighborhood.

GELVIN: Yes.

VAUSE: James, thanks for coming in.

GELVIN: Thank you for having me. VAUSE: OK. And part two of Clarissa Ward's reporting from inside

Syria will be coming up tomorrow. Please joins us, she'll take you to the only rebel road leading into Aleppo. It's surrounded by snipers. It's a lifeline to the people who are still living there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: As you arrive in the city, the scale of the destruction is breathtaking. Stretching on and on.

[01:30:00] Entire residential neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Still we found pockets of life among the devastation.

"Should we leave our country and go to another country? No. This is our country. And we will remain in it until we die."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: You can find more from this exclusive journey on our special webpage at CNN.com/Syria, including blogs written by Clarissa, and a special 360-degree look at the devastation in Aleppo, all part of our exclusive coverage "Inside Syria, Behind Rebel Lines," airing all this week. You will see it only here on CNN.

A short break here. When we come back, South Korean troops are staging military drills with U.S. forces to the anger of North Korea. Ivan Watson joins us from Seoul up next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the U.S. military and the South Korean military's chance to show off their military preparedness. And it's coming at a time of increased tension on the Korean peninsula.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause, with the headlines this hour.

(HEADLINES)

[01:35:30] VAUSE: Massive military drills are underway as the U.S. and South Korea stage the largest ever joint exercises. But these war games are doing nothing to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea says the exercises are provocation and has threatened to attack South Korea with a preemptive nuclear strike.

Our Ivan Watson so those games up close. He joins us now from Seoul with the details.

They're the largest ever, huh?

WATSON: That's what the South Korean government is saying, John. And they are carried out annually. They involve hundreds of thousands of mostly South Korean troops and tens of thousands of U.S. forces. And North Korea really doesn't like it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON (voice-over): Under bright blue skies, a flotilla approaches.

(EXPLOSION)

WATSON: And with a blast of explosives, the amphibious assault begins, a mock invasion, performed by U.S. and South Korean Marines.

This weekend's drills are one small part of an eight-week series of joint military exercises that both countries perform annually. With more than 300,000 South Korean troops and 17,000 U.S. forces participating, South Korea says this year's drills are the biggest ever.

They're taking place during a time of heightened tension on the Korean peninsula.

(on camera): This is an opportunity for the U.S. to reassure its South Korean ally within months of North Korea testing what it claims was a hydrogen bomb and firing a satellite into space.

(SHOUTING)

(voice-over): The U.S. argues this show of force serves as a deterrent to North Korea.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. GENERAL: We sincerely believe in peace through strength. And it is the strength of our alliance that we believe that we can deter and avoid war.

(SHOUTING)

WATSON: But North Korea calls these exercises a threat.

UNIDENTIFIED NORTH KOREAN ANCHOR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WATSON: Pyongyang claims the U.S.-South Korean drills are a precursor to a possible invasion, and it has threatened to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes in response.

Of course, North Korea often makes big shows of its own war games. Just last week, they released images of Kim Jong-Un observing a missile launch, just days after Pyongyang announced it successfully miniaturized a nuclear bomb, making it small enough to fit on top of a missile.

(SHOUTING)

WATSON: Some South Koreans are disturbed by the saber rattling on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone.

(on camera): There is some opposition to these drills. You have several dozen demonstrators, some who have travelled hours to get here. They are arguing that it's better to have peace talks rather than military exercises. And as you can see, there is a substantial police presence keeping the protesters at bay.

(voice-over): The nearby protests do not disrupt the military exercises. This, after all, is a carefully choreographed operation, part of a cycle of tension between North and South that ratchets up every year during the joint military exercises.

The danger here, if one of these well-armed rivals makes a misstep or misinterprets an enemy signal, then the risk of escalation is very, very high.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: So, John, North Korea has kept up almost a daily string of really bellicose statements. Even you've had commentators in the state media saying, if our nuclear weapons are put on a missile, they could melt all of Manhattan and reduce the U.S. basically to a land of ashes. But some of this, again, is not very new. For example, on International Women's Day, you had North Korean leaders denouncing the South Korean president, calling her a political prostitute -- John?

VAUSE: Wow. OK. And amidst all of this, the North Koreans seem to be missing one of their submarines?

WATSON: Yeah. This is coming from U.S. officials speaking to CNN. They say that they have intelligence that suggests that while conducting military exercises of their own, that the North Koreans appear to have lost contact with a sub off of the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, and they appear to be searching for it. And U.S. officials say they are getting this information because they have been monitoring this with satellites, with aircraft, with ships as well in the area. Now the South Korean government so far has not confirmed this pretty serious report. But it does go back to that idea that when you have these two very heavily armed neighbors that are still technically in a state of war, if one of them makes an unforeseen mistake, it could be potentially misinterpreted by its rival, and that could lead to an escalation. And then, of course, the stakes, of course, when one side has a nuclear weapon, well, those are very, very high -- John?

[01:40:54] VAUSE: OK. Eight weeks to go on these military drills.

Thank you for that. We appreciate it. Ivan Watson, our senior international correspondent.

Still to come on CNN, the Germanwings plane crash killed 150 people last year. France's final report includes new information about the co-pilot who caused the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: French authorities have published their final report on the Germanwings plane crash that killed all 150 people onboard last year. Flight data recorders revealed that the co-pilot deliberately caused the crash after locking the pilot out of the cockpit. And now we have new details on his apparent state of mind in the week leading up to the disaster in the French Alps.

Here's Fred Pleitgen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The report is about 100 pages long, and it starts off by giving some information about the events that led up to the crash. But one of the new things that we learn in this report is that apparently one of the many doctors treating Andreas Lubitz recommended that he go into a psychiatric hospital only two weeks before he allegedly crashed the plane into the French Alps.

Now, most of the rest of the report gives recommendations. And one of the big problems it appears leading up to the crash was that Andreas Lubitz had visited many doctors, but none of them, because of the confidentiality agreement between himself and them, were able to notify his employer or the authorities.

Now the head of the French investigation authority says that is something that in the future needs to change.

[01:45:29] UNIDENTIFIED BEA INVESTIGATOR (through translation): We need to have clear rules about those who provide this service, information with continental authorities about the health as well as public security and protecting the patient.

PLEITGEN: Most of the other recommendations of the report deal with the mental health of pilots and how to make sure that the mental health of pilots does not become an issue for airline safety. One of the recommendations made is to make sure that pilots who have a history of mental issues and getting mental issues treated, for them to be checked more often than only once a year, which is what the current policy is. One the other recommendations is that the airlines, this report says, should try to set up a system where even if a pilot has mental problems, that this wouldn't necessarily mean he would have to leave the company, that maybe some sort of other job could be found for these pilots that do not require piloting an aircraft. They call this mitigating the consequences of mental problems.

One of the things that this report did not do was it didn't assign blame. It didn't say whether or not there might have been negligence on the part of those who taught Andreas Lubitz to fly or his employer or the authorities who gave him clearance to fly. They say that it would be other venues where that is dealt with.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The results of Germany's state elections are a blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy on refugees. The Anti-Immigrant Party Alternative to Germany, or AFG (ph), made it to parliament in three states. Exit polls suggest they won big with those who had never supported a party at all, in addition to poaching disgruntled supporters of Merkel's conservatives.

The AFG (ph) leader credited the chancellor's own incompetence for their victory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ALTERNATIVE FOR GERMANY PARTY LEADER (through translation): It is the catastrophic policies of Chancellor Merkel that opened people's eyes. This is the only reason why we succeeded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The chancellor could face more of the same sentiment as the migrant crisis shows no signs of letting up.

We'll take a short break. When we come back, a real-life human being has turned the tables on artificial intelligence, beating a computer at its own game. We'll tell you what the engineers at Google's Alpha Go are saying about the program's imperfect record.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

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[01:51:43] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. Strike one up for humanity in a showdown of man versus machine. Human intelligence has outwitted its artificial counterpart. Lee Sedol won a game of Go against Google's Alpha Go computer program on Sunday. It's the world champion's first victory against the software which won the first three games of the tournament. Google engineers say the computer's defeat is good news, revealing some holes in the programming. The fifth and final matchup happens on Tuesday.

Two days before the next round of nominating contests, the U.S. Democratic presidential candidates took questions from voters in Ohio during a CNN/TVOne town hall event. In case you missed it, here are the highlights.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHEERING)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: He is trafficking in hate and fear.

SANDERS: Donald Trump is literally inciting violence.

CLINTON: He actually incites violence.

SANDERS: The way you beat Trump is to expose him.

CLINTON: I'm the only candidate who's gotten more votes than Trump. One in three African-American men, if the trends that we see today continue, will spend some time in jail or prison. That is absolutely unacceptable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As president, what would you do to create a zero tolerance policy for unjust police killings?

SANDERS: Any police officer who breaks the law, like any other public official, must be held accountable, period.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came perilously close to my own execution. I would like to know how can you still take your stance on the death penalty.

CLINTON: The kind of crimes I'm thinking of are the bombing in Oklahoma City, the plotters and the people who carried out the attacks on 9/11.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is the person that is closest to you with whom you disagree the most?

SANDERS: A fellow named Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma. And Jim is a climate change denier. He is really, really conservative. But you know what? He is a decent guy, and I like him. And he and I are friends.

CLINTON: I watched my husband campaign. I watched President Obama campaign. It is poetry. I mean it is just --

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, I get carried away, and I've seen them a million times, you know. That's not necessarily my forte.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Well, the U.S. presidential race is giving the TV comedy show "Saturday Night Live" a wealth of material every week. They again spoofed Hillary Clinton's struggle to reach younger voters like her rival, Bernie Sanders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: When it comes to that darn Wall Street, I have always believed no bank can be too big to fail, no executive too -- you know the rest.

(LAUGHTER)

It's that famous mobilizing sentence that works on you guys that I've been saying this whole time.

(LAUGHTER)

So thank you, Millennials, for lending your support to the biggest outsider Jew in the race --

(LAUGHTER)

-- Hillary Rodham Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

"SNL" also took aim at Donald Trump and his often unruly rallies and one of his new allies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[01:55:16] UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: Breaking news right now. We're getting word now of yet another incident of violence at a Donald Trump rally. Apparently, the victim was this man, Dr. Ben Carson --

(LAUGHTER)

-- who was attacked moments ago by an angry mob that mistook him for a protester. We go there now.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: It's OK. I'm fine.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: Guys, what did I say? Not this one!

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That was a pretty good Jake Tapper, I think, as well.

You've been watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

Please stay with us. The news continues next with Errol Barnett right after this.

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[02:00:03] ERROL BARNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Two continents, two deadly attacks. At least dozens dead in Turkey and in Ivory Coast, and many unanswered questions.