Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Latest on Istanbul Attack Investigation; Bangladesh Terror Attack. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 01, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Where we go. You're watching CNN's special live coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in Istanbul, Turkey. We'll take you back to the new developments here after this triple suicide bombing from a couple nights ago.

But major breaking news here in an ongoing hostage situation at a restaurant in Bangladesh, this is an Asian country which is just east of India. Here's what we know at this point in time, that an unknown number of people, including a number foreigners, they are currently trapped inside this restaurant, this Spanish-themed restaurant in the capital city of Dhaka.

A source telling CNN assailants are throwing grenades right now at police officers who are right now surrounding this particular cafe. A lot of unknowns at this point in time, including who these hostage takers, who these attackers are. The restaurant, let's talk about this area here of Bangladesh. This restaurant is located in a pretty upscale neighborhood of Dhaka.

There are a number of embassies, cafes, restaurants. You know, we've been talking to people who've been in Bangladesh recently saying a lot of expats and foreigners live in this particular area. I mentioned the police outside. Let's get to that. We know there's an elite police bomb disposal unit there on standby. They're ready to go. The U.S. embassy in Dhaka warns of this situation taking to twitter and writing this.

And I'm quoting them, "Reports of shooting and hostage situation in Gulshan 2, Dhaka. Please shelter in place and monitor news. We've got a lot of voices who we're going to bring in beginning with our New Delhi correspondent Sumnima Udas who's joining me by phone and Sumnima, tell me what you know right now.

SUMNIMA UDAS, BANGLADESH CNN CORRESPONDENT: Briana, one of our guests earlier pointed out that this is really, this area called Gulshan. This is really the epicenter of wealth in Bangladesh. This is where a lot of the embassies are based, restaurants, cafes. It's a huge neighborhood really and particularly given this time, Ramadan, around, you know, evening time.

It 's when a lot of people were presumably outside visiting family members, visiting friends, out in cafes. And this is a restaurant that is a bakery by day and a Spanish restaurant by night. And we understand, we've been following a lot of these tweets that are coming from the area, from Dhaka in particular.

Some of these expats have been tweeting and they say that this happened around 8:45 p. m. That's when these assailants broke into that restaurant, started attacking, shooting. And again, an unknown number of people trapped inside, an unknown number of hostages but presumably a lot of foreigners, Briana.

BALDWIN: It's Brooke. Sumnima, let me ask you this. We know that over a number of years there have been what's being described as machete murders, right? There have been people, beginning with these more secular bloggers, small, you know, the LGBT community, being just chopped up in broad daylight. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and what authorities are thinking about this tonight in Bangladesh?

UDAS: That's right. This has been going on for the past -- at least for the past two years. Several attacks against bloggers, atheists, intellectuals, Hindu priests, Buddhist nuns, Catholic priests as well. So in the beginning, most of these attacks were against prominent bloggers and writers.

And then more recently we've seen more attacks against people, against Hindu tailors as well, Hindu priests, people who are in the more remote parts of Bangladesh. Now in some of these cases ISIS has claimed responsibility. Now what the Bangladeshi government has been saying is that ISIS is not present in Bangladesh. They attribute all these attacks to local home-grown militants.

And there are many analysts in Bangladesh who say why would ISIS want to attack a Hindu tailor in the middle of nowhere in Bangladesh? So there are a lot of question marks there. There was a Hindu priest who was just attacked yesterday. ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack as well. But again, the government has been denying this.

Now just to give you a little bit more background, there have been a number of arrests in the past few weeks. The government has really been trying to crack down on these attacks. They've arrested at least some 10,000 to 14,000, 15,000 people in the past few weeks. Again, we don't know if what's happening in Bangladesh in the capital in Dhaka right now ...

BALDWIN: All right. Sumnima, Sumnima Udas, thank you so much.

UDAS: ... in the past is a very tense situation.

BALDWIN: All right. So as she explained again, this is a bakery by day, it's a Spanish restaurant by night. This is an ongoing, it's a hostage situation. These assailants going inside just after midnight there at Dhaka time with guns taking these people hostage. I have Ivan Watson. Let's pull out and just take the two shot here on the fly. Ivan Watson has been covering these machete murders.

And just for an American audience, can you just explain, again as Sumnima was, what's happened and how, you know, Al Qaeda, ISIS plays a part here but how the government has been saying, no. IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This has been a

really gruesome trend over the course of two years now where you've had people who criticize Islam, secular bloggers who've been hunted down one by one, at least six of these writers.

BALDWIN: These are the victims.

WATSON: Victims. Chopped, chopped down in broad daylight in some cases in the capital over a period of some 14 months. And then you've also had just last April, two LGBT activists who, there was a home invasion in Dhaka. People just stormed in under the cover of being a delivery boy and killed these two men.

One of them worked for the U.S. embassy. That was in April. At that time, the U.S. ambassador told us that there had been 35 attacks in a period of a year with 23 of them claimed by terrorist organizations. Just to give you a sense of the scale of these attacks. They were not just secular bloggers being killed.

One of them was an American resident, by the way, named Avijit Roy about a year-and-a-half ago who was killed at the book fair, his wife a U.S. citizen who I interviewed. She was badly mauled by these guys who came up with machetes. I mean this is brutal, brutal stuff. So this has been a growing trend where minority, non-Muslim religious leaders have also been y targeted in this majority Sunni Muslim country.

Whatever we're searing now taking place, if this was in fact carried out by a Jihadi group would be a dramatic escalation in the kind of tactics of terror being used. A final note here is that it appears it had been two groups, one affiliating itself with ISIS, another affiliating itself with Al Qaeda that have been trying to basically swarm more deaths, more kills in a grizzly competition.

And the government's position has been no, these are home-grown terrorists, even though these groups keep calling themselves either members of ISIS or Al Qaeda. And you've had this disturbing trend of people fleeing the country, the secular writers, because of this chill, this spread of terror across Bangladesh.

BALDWIN: Thank you for setting up exactly sort of the context of what's been happening over the last two years, again, you know, do we know whether or not these are terrorists or not. We don't. All of this happening obviously in the shadow of what happened here at the airport just a couple of nights ago, you know, when all signs pointing to ISIS. Stay with me, Ivan Watson.

And let me just bring in Art Roderick who I believe we also have standing by from a law enforcement perspective if we have him. And we're also getting information that there has been at least one police death here, one police death. Do we have Art Roderick, guys?

ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I'm on, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Art, talk to me about what you're seeing as we're sort of all watching these pictures together, assault rifles, police surrounding this, this bakery/restaurant right now after midnight in Dhaka, in Bangladesh. There is the bomb disposal unit ready to roll. What's the strategy?

RODERICK: Well, I do know that probably over the past six or seven years the department of justice through their two training organizations that are actually in Bangladesh, both trained prosecutorial side of the house and law enforcement side of the house. They've been working very closely with this specific unit. Both the marshals, FBI, ATF have done training courses with this group over there in Bangladesh.

So they have received some training. But I've also heard reports, and I know it hasn't been confirmed that these two individuals that went in there were shouting Ali Akbar, God is great. And this is not going to end well unfortunately. I think we all have learned at this particular point in time that you can't negotiate with these people, that any -- and the reason why they negotiate is two reasons, to gain more publicity, and also to get a higher kill count.

And they've got to go in as soon as they can and end this situation. And unfortunately, it's going to be bad on both sides.

BALDWIN: How do they even attempt to begin to communicate with those hostage takers inside of this restaurant?

RODERICK: You know, I think these hostage takers inside of this restaurant are doing nothing but stalling for time so that they're able to get their message out. They're going to try to communicate. I mean, that's what law enforcement always attempts to do. But they really have to get ready to go in as soon as they can.

BALDWIN: All right, Art Roderick, thank you so much. Stand by. Again, if you're just joining us here, these are pictures in from Dhaka in Bangladesh. This is the country just east of India. And you're watching a massive hostage siege. This is an affluent area of Dhaka, full of expats, diplomats, embassies in this part of the world here as an unknown number of people have been taken hostage by assailants with guns and grenades. We're talking to someone who was born and raised in Dhaka, just returned to the States coming up next here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

All right, and we're back live here. I'm Brooke Baldwin standing in Istanbul, Turkey. But we want to turn our attention to what's happening in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This is a nation just east of India here. There is an ongoing hostage siege inside of what's described as a bakery by day, a Spanish restaurant by night. It is past midnight in Dhaka and we now know there has been at least one police fatality, one police fatality in this ongoing hostage siege. We have just learned from the owner of this restaurant who, by the way, had just escaped the gunman from within -- was not in the main part of the cafe but was able to give an estimate of how many people were inside and who still are inside as I speak to you live.

He described the gunmen as young men, six to eight gunmen inside of this restaurant, 20 to 30 innocent people being held up inside. And again, one police officer has been killed. The entire restaurant is being surrounded by law enforcement. We know that the elite bomb unit, the disposal unit is on stand by. As we watch what's happening here, let me bring in a really important voice in all of this, Professor Ali Riaz from Illinois state university. Professor was born and raised in Dhaka and only recently returned back to the United States from there. Professor, let's just first begin with this part of town. I understand this is an affluent part of town, a lot off diplomats frequenting this area. What can you share?

ALI RIAZ, ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: This is an upscale neighborhood as you have described. And most of these places at the scene, you have restaurants and cafes, and of course there are expats here who visit and this is the timing. As a matter of fact, you might have noticed it is almost end of Ramadan. So a lot of people are all there. Although at this point a lot of people have left Dhaka, as we understand because the long vacation has started. But nevertheless, this part is quite important in terms of the city itself.

BALDWIN: Can you tell me, professor here, as we've been talking to a number of people about these so-called machete murders over the last couple of years initially targeting these secular bloggers and then members of the LGBT community here, these people were, you know, chopped up, broad daylight. I understand there's been a true, you know, sort of culture of fear. Did you feel that when you were recently?

RIAZ: It is palpable among the police, talking to the people there are those who think they could become the targets. As we have seen over the last 19, 20 months, more than 50 individuals have been killed. Some of them are bloggers, not necessarily, although it started attacking on the bloggers but over the months what we have witnessed here has widened.

And what's interesting and important to note here is that in the previous attacks, almost if we take the last 17, 18 months, about 50 attacks. Those were attacks from in the region, in some cases they were identified because of this comments about religion or something.

But it has expanded. And now what we are witnessing now in front of us is very worrying and very disturbing because it actually points to a serious escalation. Having reported about six or seven individuals out there that means it's a very planned attack and having such kind of attack at the heart of the city, at the heart of the capital is very worrying because it shows that it is a very planned attack and of course, it is not done by (INAUDIBLE), it has to be done by an organization so far with what -- what the information points to, you know.

BALDWIN: I understand and I understand as I was just talking to Ivan Watson reporting on the machete murders that there are these groups, these home-grown groups who are, you know, pledging their allegiance to either Al Qaeda or ISIS and it's been this sort of competition of sorts, a competition for deaths even though the government has been dismissing thus far the terrorism. Professor Riaz, thank you so much. Alex Field, Alex Field is standing by. And she, I know, has been in

Bangladesh very recently. Can you talk a little bit more about -- about the fear each and every day in the wake of these machete murders and what more we know as far as what's unfolding outside of this restaurant. Alex, what can you share?

ALEX FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well look, there's been tremendous fear from the people who we were speaking to on the ground there in Bangladesh just back in May. They had seen the spate of machete murders which started seemingly as very targeted murders, the victims of those killings, some of the most prominent voices in the country on the intellectual academic secular side. Then they saw religious minorities being targeted.

Then they saw LGBT activists being targeted. Then they saw bloggers being targeted and they began to worry that this was a country and a climate of increasing intolerance, of rising extremism that was going unchecked. That was the criticism that we were hearing from young people against the government.

You did see some action from the government in the last few weeks. At one point in June they rounded up some 11,000 people. 150 of them were suspected Islamic militants and that seemed to be a very forceful or the most public message in terms of the government acting to stop some of these attacks from continuing as they had racked it up in recent months over the last year and a half. But there was a great deal of frustration from people that these attacks were left unchecked.

The attacks were claimed in some cases by groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda and the government continued to say that those groups do not operate within Bangladesh which was frustrating to people who felt this was a situation that was not being confronted head-on. All of that said Brooke, there is no way to say right now definitively in any way who is behind the hideous attack that is being unleashed on that city tonight.

What we do know though is that Gulshan is this very upscale area. It's a very populated, urban, sort of metro area. It's full of metros, it's full of cafes. It's the night life part of the city. Perhaps equally importantly though is the fact that it is an area that's frequented by diplomats and also by expats. So if the intention here was to target foreigners, if the intention here was to garner more international attention, this is exactly the kind of area that you might target Brooke.

BALDWIN: And this is, as I'm mindful of what happened here, you know, at the airport in Istanbul, we learned today that, you know, and not -- the two are entirely separate incidents but I'm very aware that it is the end of Ramadan, right? And that is when you're fasting from sun up to sun down if you're Muslim. And this is, I know, a secular country with a Muslim minority. Is that correct?

FIELD: You're right, a secular country with a Muslim majority. But, you know, this is a secular state and that was sort of the principle that has guided so many young people, so many liberal people in Bangladesh, you know, have always felt that that is what, you know, differentiated their country. That that is the country they grew up in.

And that's why you're hearing so many young people say, this rise of extremism is very different from the climate that we grew up in. And they say that there is a greater sense of intolerance than anything they had experienced before. They said that they had felt very comfortable speaking freely, expressing contrary viewpoints, whether they be religious or social previously. But that they have stopped that now.

And, you know Brooke, when we talk about these machete murders, when you talk about prominent public figures who were hacked to death in broad daylight, those people seem to be very specifically targeted and watched. But then I started talking to young people saying, hey, we're pulling our opinions off of Facebook. We're afraid to blog because we feel we are exposing ourselves. We feel that we are making ourselves the target of extremists who do not like this liberal strain of thinking Brooke.

BALDWIN: Alex Field, thank you so much, Alex Field having just recently finished doing her report from Bangladesh. Thank you so much for your perspective. Again, if you are just joining us, we have this ongoing hostage siege at this restaurant just after midnight in Dhaka in Bangladesh. And according to this restaurant owner who was able to escape, he said that there are six to eight gunmen and approximately 20 to 30 people hold up inside.

Next, we'll talk terrorism, the presence of ISIS and Al Qaeda in this nation just east of India. Our chief national correspondent Jim Sciutto joins us on that next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

All right back to our breaking news here out of Dhaka, Bangladesh as there is this ongoing hostage siege underway. It is just about half past midnight there in Dhaka as we know, about six to eight gunmen are holding up these people, about 20 to 30 people inside, a number of foreigners here. We have now learned from law enforcement who we -- we were showing these pictures you see here with their vests, in combat gear, they have surrounded this restaurant.

We now know that they are trying to communicate with the gunmen inside of the restaurant. But we don't know if any demands have been made. So there's that. Let me bring in Jim Sciutto here, our chief national security correspondent just to talk a little bit as we stay on some of these pictures, Jim, you know, talk to me about what presence is known with either ISIS or Al Qaeda within Bangladesh.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know, sadly, that both are present and capable in the country. And as you say, we don't know which group that Bangladeshi authorities which group is responsible for this but we do know that ISIS has a presence, has carried out attacks including horrific hacking attacks as you mentioned earlier of bloggers, a Hindu leader recently. But we also know that Al Qaeda is affiliated with its Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent, AQIS, also has a presence there.

Interestingly enough, it was just yesterday that the U.S. designated AQIS as a terrorist group just after the group claimed to have killed a U.S. citizen in Bangladesh. So you have two groups active there. And if it is one of these groups, AQIS, the Al Qaeda affiliate or ISIS, let's be honest, they do not treat hostages well.

This is a grave situation for those involved if that is the case. They are also the kinds of groups that are difficult to negotiate with in these situations, difficult to impossible to negotiate with. So it goes to what is the police response here and that's going to be an ultimate question as we --