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Dozens Killed in Turkey Wedding Explosion; Lochte Fabricated Rio Robbery Story; Philippine President Wages Controversial War on Drugs. Aired 2-2:30a ET
Aired August 21, 2016 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A deadly explosion rips through a wedding in Southern Turkey. We'll have the story for you ahead here.
Also coming up, on the last day of the Rio Olympics, after surprises and sweeps, an eventful Saturday night.
Hello, everyone. It's all ahead here on CNN. Thanks for joining us. I'm Natalie Allen.
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ALLEN: At least 30 people were killed when an explosion ripped through a wedding in Southern Turkey Saturday night. Nearly 100 people are wounded. Turkey's president says ISIS is likely behind the attack, though no one has claimed responsibility. Journalist Andrew Finkel joins me now on the line from Istanbul.
What more are you learning, Andrew?
And why this wedding targeted?
ANDREW FINKEL, JOURNALIST: It was in the southeastern city of Gaziantep. This isn't very far from the Syrian border. This is a city which is crowded with internal migrants, with refugees. It's a city which is very much on the cusp of the Syrian conflict on the other side of the border.
Now this particular wedding was really as much a street party as a wedding. It was in the garden of a school. Appears to have been the wedding of a Kurdish family from a town called Siirt. They seem to have been deliberately targeted.
Now why were they targeted?
Well, two possible reasons. One, is if this is an ISIS attack -- and all the indications seem to point that way -- then it may be a revenge attack for ISIS' losses on the other side of the Syrian border very much to Kurdish forces. Syrian nationalists -- Syrian Kurdish nationalist forces which are
trying to contain ISIS on that side of the border, who have great sympathy on the Turkish side of the border.
The other reason would be to provoke a sectarian, ethnic conflict within inside Turkey itself. Turkey is very tense after an attempted military coup just a month ago and the Kurdish party was excluded from the unity talks. It may be that ISIS is trying to drive a further wedge between Turkish Kurds and the mainstream community -- Natalie.
ALLEN: All right. We thank you, Andrew Finkel there, reporting for us from Istanbul on this attack on a wedding, ISIS likely suspected.
In Kunduz province, Afghanistan, a government official says security forces have retaken a strategic district from the Taliban. Earlier on Saturday, the militant group briefly took over the district, which is near the key city of Kunduz. The Taliban temporarily seized that city last year in what was a major victory.
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ALLEN: All right. One more day of competition to go at the Rio Olympics. After more gold was awarded Saturday. Here it is.
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ALLEN (voice-over): So they watched track, gymnastics, you know they're watching football. That was the typical reaction of Brazilian fans as their country won the men's football finals at Rio's Maracana stadium. Believe it or not, it's the first Olympic gold in the sport for football powerhouse Brazil.
They knocked off the Germans on penalties. And in track, a sweeping performance for the U.S. in relays. You probably know her by now. And both the men's and women's teams took gold in the 4x 400 meter relays.
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ALLEN: For more now on the games and what we know about what's ahead in a way is Kate Riley with me.
KATE RILEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's been a fantastic fortnight, Natalie, hasn't it and we saw gold on a track of Team GB's Mo Farah doing the double double. So it's not enough for athletes to go and get gold at one Olympics. It seems that the fashion is we either do the triple triple or --
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ALLEN: That's what I like to do.
RILEY: Yes, we do the -- we -- yes, we do the double double. Here is Mo Farah getting his gold in the 5,000 meters, just incredible stuff. Now we've heard of the triple triple and obviously this is the double double. Are we going to see the triple double when he goes -- when he takes
his 2020 perhaps?
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ALLEN: We shall wait and see -- and Allyson as well.
RILEY: Yes, Allyson Felix. She had a fantastic night on the track. And obviously the women in the 4x400 meters, they were in lane six on Saturday and they really came under pressure from the Jamaicans and Team GB as well.
But you can see there, this is the Team USA's sixth straight gold in this event and a special mention to Allyson because this is her sixth career gold, too. That really is an impressive accolade.
Could we see Felix at Tokyo 2020?
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RILEY: We shall see. It will be her fourth Olympic team if she makes it in four years' time.
ALLEN: And we'll figure out if she's 3, 3, 4, 4 (INAUDIBLE) -- yes.
RILEY: The quadruple quadruple.
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ALLEN: What about coming up in the next few hours?
RILEY: Yes. So we're going to see Team USA's basketball team go for gold against Serbia. Now it won't be easy and the Serbians will know how the Americans are going to play. A couple of their players actually play in the NBA. So their opponents aren't exactly unknown.
We saw the U.S. American basketball team go for gold on Saturday as well. And they just blew away Spain, 101-72.
Will history repeat itself with the men's in a few hours' time?
Yes, very exciting stuff.
ALLEN: All right.
Well, Rio hung in there and gave us the Olympics, didn't they?
RILEY: Yes, they did.
ALLEN: All right, thanks, Kate.
Well, U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte said he overexaggerated that story about an altercation at a Rio gas station. Brazilian authorities say Lochte vandalized the gas station and made up a story about being robbed at gunpoint. Lochte spoke about the scandal in his first TV interview since he apologized on social media. He talked with NBC's Matt Lauer.
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MATT LAUER, NBC HOST: What I'm trying to get at is the first version of the story you told, Ryan, was much more about the mean streets of Rio.
RYAN LOCHTE, U.S. OLYMPIC SWIMMER: Yes.
LAUER: And the version we're hearing now is much more about a negotiated settlement to cover up some dumb behavior.
LOCHTE: And that's why I'm taking full responsibility for it, is because I over-exaggerated that story and if it I had never done that, we wouldn't be in this mess. Those guys would never be in Rio -- or were in Rio. Nothing of the -- none of this would have happened. And it was my immature behavior.
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ALLEN: Ryan Lochte there. And both the IOC and USA Swimming will review what happened for possible disciplinary reactions.
Of course, to keep up with the remainder of the Olympics, you can always turn to our website, cnn.com/olympics -- but after our (INAUDIBLE).
A tropical storm that's building strength could make landfall as a typhoon. (INAUDIBLE) across Japan and Derek Van Dam has his eye on that -- Derek.
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ALLEN: The controversial new president of the Philippines is following through on a campaign promise, waging a hardline war on drugs. Rodrigo Duterte and his supporters say their tactics are making a difference. But critics say that difference is resulting in horrendously overcrowded --
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ALLEN: -- prisons, facilities that were choked with inmates before the crackdown. Our Ivan Watson went to see the conditions.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This jail was overcrowded before President Duterte came to office. It's built for about 800 people, according to Philippine standards, 200 people for United Nations standards. And if you take a look over here, into the courtyard, it's raining, so it's a little bit more open.
There are more than 4,000 detainees currently living in this space. It is insanely crowded. And we're going to walk you through a little bit. So it was already overcrowded, a symbol of the crumbling infrastructure and perhaps the corruption in levels of government that Filipinos -- that made them vote for President Duterte, who has vowed to clean up corruption and drugs.
But in the last seven weeks about 400 more detainees have come in here, almost all of them on drugs charges. People rest and sleep here and live pretty much on top of each other.
Some 60 percent of the detainees here -- and many of them are just detained. They're awaiting trial. They haven't been convicted in court and they're waiting years to go to court.
Another example of the justice system which many Filipinos complain about. So a question -- and this is the second jail we've been to -- they're overcrowded. There are more people coming in. And there isn't room for the 9,000-plus people that the police have arrested in thousands of raids in just the last seven weeks.
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ALLEN: Ivan Watson there. The country's new national police chief said they want a drugless society but he admits that's not possible.
A former U.S. Navy SEAL Is agreeing to forfeit nearly $7 million to the U.S. government, most of it book proceeds and fees from speaking. Matthew Bissonnette, you'll recall, was a member of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6. He says he killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Bissonnette wrote "No Easy Day" under the pen name, Mark Owen. The U.S. government sued him, claiming he failed to properly submit the book in advance to the Pentagon for review. But again, he's giving back over $6 million.
And that is CNN NEWSROOM. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is next.
