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49 Dead, Dozens Injured in New Zealand Mosques; North Korea Threatens to Suspend Nuclear Talks with U.S.; Israeli Media: IDF Believes Tel Aviv Rocket Attack Likely a Mistake. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 15, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:59:33] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Friday, March 15, 6 a.m. here in New York.

And breaking overnight, a horrific terror attack. A despicable act of hate. A mass murder in two houses of worship. At least 49 people are dead. Dozens have been injured at mass shootings in two mosques in New Zealand. This happened in the city of Christchurch on the South Island as Muslims were gathering for Friday prayers.

The details are developing. Some are murky at this hour. We know that one person has been charged with murder. Three other people are in custody.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We do have this 87-page manifesto that the gunman is believed to have posted on social media. It's full of white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Parts of the attack were shown live on social media.

Authorities are urging Muslims in New Zealand to stay away from places of worship. At this hour, much of the country remains on lockdown.

The prime minister is condemning the attack, saying the suspect -- the suspect's extremist views, quote, "have no place in New Zealand or the world."

So let's get right to CNN's Anna Coren. She is live to Hong Kong with all of the breaking details. What do we know at this hour, Anna?

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, as you say, 49 people have been confirmed dead, but that death toll could very well rise. There are dozens more who have been seriously injured. They're suffering gunshot wounds. As we say, that death toll could rise.

This has been labeled a terrorist attack. It is unprecedented, this massacre that took place in New Zealand. New Zealand is a quiet, peace-loving country of 5 million people. It does not see these acts of violence, of extremism on its streets. It is unheard of.

So this is a country that is in shock, that has really been shaken to its core.

But police have apprehended three men, one of those being the gunman. He's a 28-year-old Australian citizen. We understand he has not been in New Zealand for very long.

He posted his killing spree live. He streamed it live on Facebook. It went for 17 minutes. The killing spree itself went for six minutes. It was absolutely horrendous, something that nobody wants to see.

But this is a man who is going to be appearing in court in Christchurch tomorrow. We understand that he just fired upon everyone in his path: men, women, children. It was absolutely horrific.

Let's listen now to one of the witnesses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSEMARY OMAR, SON IS MISSING: Today I dropped my son at the mosque, and I went around to back to park; and I think it was about 20 to, quarter to 1, I heard a lot of what at first I thought was gunshots, like a sort of -- you know, an automatic device or something. And at the first time, I was not quite sure what it really was. So what I did was I just sort of ignored it.

And then I heard two more lots after that. So on the third time, I thought it doesn't feel very safe, and I saw lots of people running. So I decided to drive. And I did for like -- drove right out into Deans Ave, and I drive past the mosque and there were a lot of bodies outside.

So we've just been waiting here since the -- just to see if our son is all right, but he's not answering his phone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: A woman who is waiting for word from her son. We don't know if she's been reunited as yet.

Now, these three men including the gunmen, they -- none of them were on a watch list. None of them were on a terror watch list. They all flew under the radar as far as law enforcement and intelligency agencies were concerned. This is obviously something that will be investigated.

BERMAN: So, Anna, we are not showing this video for obvious reasons. We don't want to do this monster's work for him. James Gagliano, who we're going to speak to in a minute, who served in the FBI and the military for decades, tells me he saw it, and he has never seen an act of such depravity.

This gunman clearly wanted to send a message and wanted everyone to see it. Any sense of what that message -- or why he was doing this?

COREN: John, it was absolutely chilling. We were in tears watching this, because it was cold; it was calculated. This was somebody who had no -- no feeling whatsoever.

He carried this out with military precision. If I can just run through what we saw in this video. He drives to the mosque. He gets out. He -- there are semiautomatic weapons, many of them in his car. He walks through the gates of the mosque. He starts firing outside mosque. He then walks through the front doors and mows down every single person in his path. You hear people screaming, people crying out for help.

He then goes into a corridor. He reloads and then continues his killing spree. He then calmly walks out of the mosque onto the pavement and, obviously, by this time people are hearing the rapid gunfire. He's picking off people on the pavement.

He then walks back to his car, reloads, returns to the mosque inside; and he's shooting, shooting these bodies on the ground.

Now, anybody who was playing dead, anybody who perhaps was -- was hiding, hoping that this -- this horror was going to end. Well, he went up to each those bodies and, at pointblank range, executed every single one of them. It was absolutely horrendous.

He then walks outside the mosque. There is a woman standing on the pavement. He shoots her from a distance. He walks up to her. She is pleading, "Help me, help me," and he shoots her in the head.

He then gets in his car. He's talking, he's laughing, and he's firing outside the wind screen of his car. He's then firing outside the passenger window randomly at people.

And what is so bizarre, as you can hear the police sirens roaring past, he gets to a pedestrian crossing and stops and allows these people to cross the road. And we presume from there he has driven to the next mosque and carried out the next attack. It was absolutely chilling, something that I have never seen in my life.

CAMEROTA: Anna, I know it's your job to have to watch that video so that you can report it to us. But I'm sorry that you had to watch all that; and it's going to take a long time for your psyche to detox from that and even all of ours from just hearing that level of psychopathy.

Thank you for your reporting. We'll check back with you, obviously, throughout the program as more news develops.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now from Christchurch in New Zealand is radio host from Newstalk ZB, Chris Lynch.

Chris, thank you for being with us. Give me a sense of the situation in Christchurch right now. I know it's late at night at this point, Friday night where you are. But what has it been like on the streets since this attack?

CHRIS LYNCH, RADIO HOST, NEWSTALK ZB, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND: It's been eerily quiet. When I was driving from the Newstalk ZB studios, I begged my current premises, I've never seen or felt it feel so quiet before, other than the sounds of helicopters flying above and the occasional police car with its lights going past. It's a -- it's a very surreal experience.

And what I think many of us here in Christchurch are struggling to comprehend just the graphic nature of this. But also, you need to understand that Christchurch is, generally speaking, is a very quiet, peaceful city. We've had our experience of terrible natural disasters.

It was on 2011 that we had the natural -- well, the earthquake that killed so many people. And it felt like, John, in the last six or seven months the city was starting to feel alive again. I was out producing some video footage bas I felt proud of the city.

I was out producing some video footage just -- because I felt proud of the city. We all feel like a sense of a new city's been built and, as you can appreciate, there's been many mental health issues in the city as a direct result of the earthquakes. And this just takes us back.

And what I said on national radio, before, and I was being very honest when I said, I think we all feel so deflated. We feel like our city's gone through hell again. And it continues to go through hell. We feel defeated, John.

BERMAN: You are not defeated. And let me tell you: an earthquake is a natural disaster. An attack like this is manmade and inspired by nothing but hate.

Talk to me about the two targets here, these two mosques. One of them, I understand, is one of the largest, if not the largest in Christchurch.

LYNCH: Yes, the largest city mosque in Christchurch City. It's on Deans there, which is a main thoroughfare of the city.

And I've been describing the mosque, in some respects, just like the friendly neighborhood, the friendly neighbor, because it's always played quite an important role in the community. Every year for example, John, it opens up its doors to the people of Christchurch to show that it is transparent, it is available. I've been there, a couple of young people. I've filmed in there before. That people are just generous, lovely people.

There is a sense that you want to know what goes on there. And it's not a closed-off environment that you here on some sensational kind of report in other country. It's a very friendly mosque. That's the same with the mosque in Linwood, although it doesn't specifically look like what you would call a mosque. It's almost more of a hall, a community hall environment.

But once again, we're talking about lovely, friendly, family-oriented people. And that's why it's not just a shock, it's an absolute tragedy for everybody, including New Zealand because, John, we don't really have guns in this country. One thing we're quite proud of is the fact that, when we hear of a mass shooting, we automatically think America or northern parts of Europe. This is just very foreign to us. We don't have guns. It's not usual for us to have guns. We are a strong hunting --

hunting country, but that's as far as it goes. The right to bear arms is just not in our nature. It's complete opposite. So --

BERMAN: The manifesto, which we are not reading or putting up again, because we don't need to do this monster's work for him, I will tell you it is filled with the language of invasion, anti-immigrant rhetoric, replacement. I know here in the United States, we hear a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric that uses the words "invasion." Is that something that is in the political stream in New Zealand?

[06:10:04] LYNCH: No. And that's what makes this situation all the more perverse. We are a very multicultural country. And in fact, following the earthquakes, one thing that's become of the earthquakes that's been a good thing is that Christchurch has opened its arms to all types of different communities from all over the globe that have come here.

And I mean, I was brought up in Christchurch, and there was a sense it's been in the past, perhaps, quite a conservative, quiet-natured kind of city.

But as a direct result of the earthquakes, we've had lots of immigrants from around the world helping to rebuild our city. And that really feels like the lovely richness that the city has been missing for so many years. So in that respect, we have welcomed, with open arms, people from across the globe, and that's why today's event seems so shocking by it -- by the sounds of it, one or two people with some warped idea of immigration or otherwise.

BERMAN: Chris Lynch, thank you for being with us this morning. We are with you, and we are with the people of Christchurch on this horrific day.

Thank you, Chris.

LYNCH: Thank you, John.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Clarissa Ward, CNN chief international correspondent; Levi West, director of terrorism studies at Charles Sturt University; and Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and CNN national security analyst.

Clarissa, we want to start with you. Obviously, you have done long investigative pieces and specials on extremism throughout Europe and beyond. And so what is the status of this right-wing extremism?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's clear that this is a growing problem not just in the U.S., not just in Europe, but across much of the world now.

And we've spent the morning combing through this 87-page rant, manifesto, whatever you will call it. It's very difficult, I think, to know how much of this is sincere, how much of it is intended to sort of throw up smoke screens, how much of it is intended just to be deliberately provocative. But the kind of language you hear here, this man saying that he was

very much inspired by Anders Breivik, the right-wing nationalist who killed more than 70 people in Norway. He also lists Dylann Roof, who killed nine worshippers in a church in the U.S.

And he's driven by this idea -- you heard John just talking about it right now -- immigration is the enemy; Islam is the enemy -- enemy; Muslims are the enemy. They are reproducing at a faster rate than we are. Migrants are the enemy. He calls them invaders repeatedly.

He calls on people to actually assassinate the London mayor, Sadiq Khan; also German chancer Angela Merkel; and the Turkish president Erdogan.

So a lot of hate-filled rhetoric, a lot of nods, as well, I would say, to right-wing -- right-wing, far right-wing memes that have got a lot of traction on the Internet.

But I do think it will be quite a difficult task for investigators poring over this to try to decipher what's a smoke screen, what's real? Was he a lone wolf? Is he part of a larger network? Is this likely to inspire copycat killings of this nature?

BERMAN: Juliette, when I read through this manifesto, what struck me is that the language in there could have been chanted in Charlottesville, where they were chanting, "Jews will not replace us." The word "replacement" is everywhere. The word "invasion" is everywhere.

And I suppose what I want to know and what we need to know at this point is how pervasive is this hate around the world and how provocative is it to, perhaps, spur more violence like this?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, the first question how pervasive, it's as pervasive as the Internet. This hate of exactly what you said, John, of replacement, of invasion, is viewed by those who believe it as a zero-sum game.

So we're talking about Muslims today, of course, and what happened in Quebec. But then you have Charleston, you have Pittsburgh. It's this idea that the white race is being replaced by another race. And then that leads to terrorism.

Now, how incendiary this is just depends on the reader and how they're going to absorb it; and that's a question of radicalization. But the ability to access this kind of information that's out there and the fact it's amplified by people with public platforms in particular, you know, either politicians or religious leaders or writers, means that people like what we're seeing in New Zealand are radicalized. That's the radicalization process.

But we have to view it this is -- this is not just about replacement. It is about zero-sum, that this is me against a possible replacement. And the and that is why killing is justified. Because if I -- if they're there, then that means I'm possibly not here. And that is the scary part of this rise of this right-wing sort of white supremacy. [06:15:04] CAMEROTA: I mean, if this is his manifesto, which is what

authorities believe at the moment, but obviously, these are early hours, you know, it's all about how he basically cannot deal with the culture that he finds himself in. He's a white supremacist, and he can't deal with the shifting culture that is happening around the globe. And he is, you know, suggesting civil war.

And he brings up the U.S. a lot. He mentions President Trump. And so, Levi, I'm just wondering, in terms of the rhetoric that is out there that even President Trump is engaged in, in terms of invaders -- the caravan are a group of invaders -- can you draw a link between violent rhetoric and that kind of invasion language and violence?

LEVI WEST, DIRECTOR OF TERRORISM STUDIES, CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. I think if we sort of step back from the language specifically and think about the ideas that are embedded in that manifesto, then in the front end of that document it talks fairly specifically about three key ideas.

One is invasion and replacement. The other one is about crashing fertility rates in what he refers to as white countries. And then he closes that out with reference -- explicit reference to white genocide. These are, essentially, not just talking parts of the far right and of what extremist organizations all over the world, in the United States and in Europe in particular, but they're core ideas that underpin some of the arguments and the justifications for not just extremist movements and ideas but for the violence.

It's a way of setting up a clear other and an outgroup separate from us, the ingroup who need to defend, because we're under threat. And that that idea, which is the really important part, more than just the language, is what animates people and gives the violence that they engage in meaning and purpose.

BERMAN: It really is terrifying, and people better take notice of what's going on.

And, Clarissa, as we talk about this bigger picture, I know in Christchurch, they're primarily focused on making sure there aren't more people connected to this crime. You've covered so many terror attacks like this one, and you know the first 24 hours are the most important.

WARD: They're absolutely. They want to make sure that this was, you know -- they want to ascertain whether or not this was a lone wolf attack, whether there's a larger network at play. It appears to have been very well-planned, very well organized.

And there is a reference in the manifesto. He says that he's operating individually or independently but that he was -- he asked the reborn Knights Templar for their blessing, and that that was given to him by this group. It's not clear exactly who he is referring to here.

But just speaking to the broader point, as well, John, you know, when we're talking about, you know, the sort of rhetoric and politics that we see right now, I would like to say that, just based on conversations that I'm having with Muslims today, who are afraid to take their children to Friday prayers on this, the Muslim holy day, they feel very frightened by what they see as a kind of mainstreaming of incendiary rhetoric that essentially facilitates and encouraging Islamophobia.

And they are very much hoping today, I think, to hear some strong condemnations coming from all across the world, just as Muslims are encouraged to condemn attacks when they happen by Muslim extremists.

CAMEROTA: We will see if those arrive in the next minutes.

Clarissa, Juliette, Levi, thank you very much. We'll have, of course, all of the developments on the terror attack in New Zealand.

We're also following more breaking news for you. North Korea is threatening to suspend nuclear talks with the U.S. after the failed summit with President Trump. So we have a live report for you on that development next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:14] BERMAN: We have breaking news overnight. North Korea says it is considering suspending nuclear talks with the United States and, perhaps more importantly, is threatening to resume nuclear and missile tests once again. This comes after last month's failed summit between President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

CNN's Paula Hancocks live in Seoul with these breaking details dangling the possibility of new missile tests, Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, John. We heard from the vice foreign minister just speaking to reporters based in Pyongyang.

And what she said was North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is right now trying to figure out if he wants to continue these diplomatic talks with the United States. Also saying that he might lift the moratorium on nuclear and missile testing.

Now, that was the one thing that the U.S. president said he did come away with after that Hanoi summit, that the North Korean leader had promised him that there was going to be no more testing. And that was important to him.

She also pointed out, quote, "The U.S. were too busy with pursuing their own political interests and had no sincere intention to achieve a result," repeating the claim, as well, that the North Koreans never actually asked for all sanctions to be lifted, as the U.S. president had claimed, but only a few of them, those that were affecting the North Korean people.

Interestingly, though, she didn't say anything bad about the U.S. president, saying that there was still a great relationship between Mr. Trump and Kim Jong-un. Also saying that the chemistry is mysteriously wonderful. Instead, she actually laid the blame for this all going wrong at the

door of the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton.

Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: Paula, thank you very much. We will check back throughout the program.

Meanwhile, there's more breaking news. Israel is blaming Hamas for two rockets that were launched at Tel Aviv, but media reports suggest those may have been a mistake. Israeli Defense Forces responded by hitting about 100 Hamas military targets in Gaza.

CNN's Melissa Bell is live at the Israel-Gaza border with all of these breaking details.

What have you learned?

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, that's right. A hundred Hamas targets that were targeted overnight, struck overnight by Israel, this in the wake of those two rockets landing in Tel Aviv, sent from Gaza, the first time that that has happened since 2014. And that really represented something of an escalation that no one had really seen coming at this particular stage, Alisyn.

What we're hearing from Israeli media reports is that the Israeli Defense Forces assessment at this stage is that those rockets that were targeted at Tel Aviv could have been the work of some low-level Hamas operatives. That is, that they might not have been sanctioned.

And so really a sense this lunchtime here along the Israel/Gaza border of all parties seeking to de-escalate in the wake of this flare-up.

We've been hearing from Gaza that the weekly protests along the fence for today, those Friday protests, have now been canceled. We've also been speaking to a spokesman from Islamic Jihad, one of the groups that functions within Gaza, saying that overnight, an Egyptian delegation present on the ground has really been trying to calm things down and that all parties inside Gaza are now looking for calm to be restored if Israel is prepared to look for the same -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Thank you so much for this report. We're watching this very closely. A very important day there, obviously.

In the meantime, we're getting new information on the anti-immigration terror attacks at two mosques. Forty-nine people dead. We are at the scene of the shootings. We'll have the breaking news next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

The breaking news this morning: at least 49 people, worshippers inside two mosques, murdered in an apparent anti-immigration hate.

END