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Italian Authorities Arrest Terrorists with Al Qaeda Ties; Drone Program Under Debate; Indiana Stage Collapse; Protests Heat Up Over Freddie Gray's Death; Interview with Nasser Judeh, Jordan's Foreign Minister. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 24, 2015 - 08:00   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.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone, to your NEW DAY. And we do begin with breaking news this hour. Terrorists with ties to al Qaeda arrested in Italy.

[08:00:03] Authorities say the men had plans to target prominent places including the Vatican.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what we know at this point. The suspects were from Pakistan. They're linked to a group that supported Osama bin Laden and they've been under surveillance for at least a decade.

Let's get right to CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson live from London. Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris, the Italian police say they hope - and this is an ongoing operation, the first of its kind -- they say they hope to be rounding up 18 suspects. They say two of them were possibly guards for Osama bin Laden in the past. This is an organization that had strong ties with al Qaeda.

They say that these men were in Italy planning attacks in Pakistan. Indeed, they say they went to Pakistan and perpetrated a very bloody attack in the border town of Peshawar in 2009. More than 100 people killed in that attack. But not only that, these men were also planning attacks inside Italy. One of the possible targets, they believed, and the Italian authorities had wire taps on some members of this group, they believe that one of the possible targets was, in fact, the Vatican. And the Italian police laid out details indicating somebody who can be best described as a potential suicide bomber was brought into Italy in the months just before that potential attack on the Vatican in 2010.

So for the Italians, they're rounding up these men. They say that they have a lot of weapons, that they also support, continue to support with large amounts of money, terrorism inside Pakistan and Afghanistan. What they are going to be charged with specifically at moment, the Italians are still working on making that clear. Chris? CUOMO: You said, Nic, the initial suggestion was that, wow, these guys have the jump on them. Now we learn that they have been under surveillance for a long time. The open question is are they specifically targeting places of worship now? Because we saw what happened in France. That remains to be seen.

Another topic, the drone strike that accidentally, says the U.S. government, took out two hostages. What's the latest on that?

ROBERTSON: Well, we now know that Warren Weinstein's family, one of the two hostages who was killed in this al Qaeda compound, the target was the compound -- the White House says it wasn't known that these two hostages were being held there -- that his family had actually paid in 2012 money to an intermediary to help free him. My understanding, from contacts I've had in the past on this, is that possibly the money was paid to the wrong group of people, but the demands from al Qaeda that followed up were for the release of a prisoner who was of high value to al Qaeda, a woman arrested for attacking a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. She's held in the United States. They wanted her release. But we also know that his family had been in contact directly with Warren Weinstein by phone at various of times; the last of those communications June of last year. Chris.

CUOMO: Horrible, and a saga that went on way too long. Nic, thank you very much for the reporting this morning. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, we want to talk about all of this with Mike Rogers, CNN national security commentator and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Mike, thanks for being here.

So let's start with the news and this Italian raid -- al Qaeda linked suspects who say that they may have been targeting the Vatican. What do you make of these arrests?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: There was interim reports of the course of time, even back when I was chairman, about different levels of aspiration against attacks on the Vatican. So this would not have been the only group that have at least an aspiration to do that, meaning that they wanted to do it but didn't have any operational plans to do it.

Bringing in somebody would be an operational step to that end, and I'm sure that, and know for a fact, that those Italian authorities at the time were trying to figure that case out. If you notice the long time in the surveillance, these folks were primarily engaged in fund raising and supporting efforts back into Pakistan and Afghanistan. So my argument, Alisyn, is something triggered their decision to go now and wrap these folks up. And the fact that they had weapons tells me that there was probably some event that triggered the Italian authorities believing they both had enough for criminal charges and that there was some operational event likely scheduled. Now, it might not have been the Vatican; it could have been something else. But that's why they probably moved now after all the time they've been watching these folks.

CAMEROTA: This of course comes on the heels of arrests in France, where two churches were targeted. We also have seen lately Egyptian Christians being beheaded, Ethiopian Christians being beheaded. Do you characterize this as just terrorism or a systematic attack on Christianity?

ROGERS: Well, you have to remember, when they attack Christians, it helps the jihadist movement. It shows that it is Muslims against other religions, which is a long history in the Muslim faith.

[08:05:01] And so they are using this for two reasons. One is the sheer terror that they believe it pushes to the west, and it does; and it helps in the recruiting about the goodness and right of what they are doing. So they're not just killing Muslims anymore; now they're killing Christians, too. You should get in on this fight. It's a very powerful symbol (ph) of what they are trying to accomplish in recruiting young jihadists to come and -- we'll likely kill more Muslims than Christians, but this is part of that propaganda tool. And it's very, very dangerous. And yes, they're purposely targeting Christians and, yes, the United States should do something about it.

CAMEROTA: Such as?

ROGERS: We need to step it up. You can't allow these organizations to have as much breathing space as they have. One of the whole purposes, even of the lethal strike program, was to provide disruption so they couldn't plan and coordinate these attacks. When you have that much territory in eastern Syria and Iraq. They're now in places -- ISIS is now in Libya, in places that are ungovernmend space and across Northern Africa, down into Somalia -- all of these places offer safe haven.

Yemen now, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula offer safe haven to one of the most lethal and dangerous to the United States al Qaeda affiliaties. You can't just withdraw and let these places burn and think, well, it will just work its way out. It's not. They are going to be more aggressive, not less aggressive, and we're going to have to start coordinating with our European allies and starting to disrupt their ability to act on operations just like this.

CAMEROTA: Well, sure, but look at what's going on in Italy. This raid, these raids were country-wide, and they were looking for 18 people. How did these al Qaeda suspects get into Italy?

ROGERS: Well, if you've seen the migration problem, this group has been responsible for bringing people into Italy. There is this mass migration of individuals -- most of it is illegal, by the way -- bringing these people in. Once they have them, it's just like the old La Cosa Nostra; they played on the mafia in places like New York. They preyed on these new immigrants to get them to do what they need to do, put their thumb on them. This is no different, except now they have this terrorist bent and want to create violence in these communities and kill westerners. And so that whole behavior pattern is ongoing. And we watched this happen for years, and the notion that we're just going to let it go and it'll all work out, as I said, is I think coming back to bite us.

CAMEROTA: That's so interesting, Mike, because we've been obviously reporting on the whole migrant crisis, and to hear that terrorists are exploiting that of course makes perfect sense.

We want to bring in now to join you, Josh Rogin. He's our CNN political analyst and columnist for Bloomberg View, because we want to talk about the drone program as well and what happened with Warren Weinstein.

Josh, great to have you. You wrote an article for Bloomberg that said the U.S. never knew where Warren Weinstein was. How do you know that?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I spent the day yesterday talking to the people who were involved in the search, both in the intelligence community and the U.S. government, for Warren Weinstein for over three years. And they all said the same thing. They said the trail went cold very quickly. They believed that he was captured by a group called the Haqqani Network, transferred to the al Qaeda leadership very quickly, and after that they just didn't have a beat on him.

So this tells us really two things about yesterday's events. One is that we don't really have great intelligence on the ground and this contributes to an added risk when we carry out these kinds of counterterrorism operations. But, two, there's no real way that the U.S. government could have known that Warren Weinstein was at that spot at that time. So that in some ways absolves them from direct culpability in his death, but in another way it outlines the very core of the problem, which is that these drone strikes have risks and there really is no assurance. And this whole idea of high confidence or near certainty that there will be no civilian casualties is not as sure as we really need it to be.

CAMEROTA: Mike, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, correct me if I'm wrong, you had to review every single one of the air strikes in the counterterrorism effort. Were you comfortable at that time with the level of intelligence that went into deciding on these drone strikes?

ROGERS: These happened in January, right when I left, but I will tell you this is -- and we need to be very, very careful about this. Those signature strikes that they're talking about, that everyone is now going to huddle up on and say, oh, this is the problem, have been more impactful to disrupt terrorism, especially activities targeted at our soldiers in Afghanistan, and the United States, than any other counterterrorism program we have. So I would walk down this road very carefully.

What we need to look at here isn't oh my gosh, this didn't work. The intelligence that they had about these being high-value terrorist individuals obviously engaged in terrorist activities was right. That part was right. What was interesting on this, and a tragedy for sure, is they changed their procedures.

[08:10:03] Al Qaeda changed their procedures. Normally, you would not have hostages with the emir of al Qaeda in India at the same compound, at the same time, in a place that they would know that we conduct counterterrorism activities. That's the change. So it wasn't that they didn't exactly get it right. We had no -- I'm

sure they had no knowledge of those terrorist -- excuse me -- hostage whereabouts. But what they got right is, yep, bad guys doing bad things trying to target Americans and kill westerners. And the policy change was that al Qaeda did something they don't normally do: they brought hostages to this particular place and didn't make it known, which means something else was going on. Now, the emir spoke fluent English. I would argue -- I would start there and try to figure out what they were doing? Why would they bring the hostages in a place like this?

But I would be not quick to beat up on the people who put this package together. It takes months and years to get the intelligence ready to do something like this. I would be very, very cautious about saying, boy, they must have done something horribly wrong. These things have very, very little collateral damage, and this was one unfortunate case that this happened.

CAMEROTA: Mike, that's such great perspective that you're giving us. Josh, you hear Mike, he's saying that that is the most effective tool in our kit. Is that the consensus from your reporting?

ROGIN: Well, I would say that it's really hard to know because most of the details of this program, although it's now been publicly reported a million times that it exists, are really hidden from public view.

The signature strikes, Chairman Rogers is right, are going to be a focus of the debate. About how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Because there has to be some debate, and there has to be some reform and some look at these procedures, because an American was killed and it was a horrible accident. Nobody thinks that anyone did it on purpose, but at the same time this is not the first collateral damage to come from these signature strikes.

You know, the vast majority of people who are killed in drone strikes are, according to most available statistics, were the ones targeted. President Obama in a 2013 speech indicated that he was going to stop these signature strikes when combat operations in Afghanistan ended at the end of in 2014. And we read in "The New York Times" this morning that that just wasn't enforced.

So it's not a matter of accusing people of doing something wrong; it's a matter of saying, OK, these programs have benefits and they have costs. If we want to have an honest debate about whether the benefits outweigh the costs, we need more transparency and we need more accountability. And I think that's what people in both parties in Congress are going to really demand, and as well as the American people, now that this collateral damage, which has existed the whole time, is now affecting Americans.

CAMEROTA: And that debate is under way this morning. Josh Rogin, Mike Rogers, thanks so much for all of your perspective on this.

Let's get over to Chris. CUOMO: All right, Alisyn, some news going on right now, breaking

overnight. Take a look at this. A stage collapsed at an Indiana high school during the middle of a concert. And then this happens. Nearly two dozen injured -- they are all of them students, of course -- during their performance.

CNN's Ryan Young is live in Westfield with the latest. Ryan, we had heard of injuries, one critical. Has there been a change?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. There has been a change. In fact, that critical student has now been moved to stable. She's talking and everybody says she's OK. You even talked to one of the parents who said she was terrified when she saw that stage collapse right in front of her eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG (voice-over): Breaking overnight, a frightening scene at a jubilant rock concert in Indiana. Nearly two dozen injured, one critically. Watch as in the final moments of a performance of "American Pie" at Westfield High School, the platform beneath these students gives way. Terrified screams filling the air as the stage collapses and the student performers are sent plunging below.

Witnesses describing a chaotic scene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the last song, and then you just hear this huge bang, and then all the students disappeared. What we saw was just traumatizing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, there was this one girl who had nails in her leg and she was getting taken out on a stretcher.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people were crying and people were scared.

YOUNG: Students taking to social media, some updating their condition from the hospital. The city school superintendent says it's still unclear why the stage collapsed.

MARK KEEN, SUPERINTENDENT WESTFIELD, WASHINGTON SCHOOLS: It appeared the cover collapsed in total immediately. I will produce all the records for the investigators so they can look into it and see what the cause was.

YOUNG: The heart-pounding video is reminiscent of a smaller stage collapse at Indiana's state fair in 2011 when a wind gust from an approaching thunderstorm collapsed the roof structure, sending it onto a a crowd of spectators. That deadly incident left seven dead and dozens injured.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG (on camera): Now, we talked to police this morning. They say the investigation will start right now to figure out exactly what happened, but Michaela, this is a big deal here in this community. They love this performance; students even talking about they can't wait for next year's performance. They had a great time except for the last 30 dramatic seconds.

[08:15:02] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And that's what we don't want them to be traumatized with, so that they can go on to have great careers and maybe some more musical careers and performance careers.

All right, Ryan, thanks so much for that.

Meanwhile, we want to turn to Baltimore protesters. They are pouring into the streets, clashing with police and the most violent protests that we've seen yet, demanding answers about Freddie Gray's death. The chaos comes amid heartbreak for Freddie Gray's family. They prepare to lay him to rest.

CNN's Joe Johns joins us now with all of the latest.

Good morning to you.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

We are expecting to hear from Baltimore's mayor today, possibly in a news conference. Activist groups are also expected to call on the governor of the state of Maryland to use executive action to address some of the issues that have arisen in the death of Freddie Gray.

As you said, there were two arrests last night here in the city of Baltimore. As a result of the protests, one individual arrested for assault, another arrested for destruction of property. The commissioner of police here has told police to allow the full expression of freedom of speech.

The investigation continues and there continues to be a question as to whether Freddie Gray sustained his most serious injury inside a police transport van, the result of a rough ride. The police union said that is a possibility. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL DAVEY, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE ATTORNEY: He was placed in the transport van, and whether he was seat belted in, if that is what you are asking for, I don't believe that he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: A large protest is planned here in the city of Baltimore over the weekend on Saturday. The funeral of Freddie Gray is scheduled for Monday morning.

Michaela, Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Joe. The protests certainly don't seem to be dying down until they get answers.

Well, no prison time for former CIA director, General David Petraeus, for disclosing classified information. Under a plea deal, he was sentenced to two years of probation and a $100,000 fine. Petraeus shared classified information with his biographer and lover, Paul Broadwell. The info was never released to the public or published in his biography in Petraeus' biography. He resigned from the CIA in 2012 after that relationship became public.

CUOMO: Today it happens, Bruce Jenner opens up to ABC's Diane Sawyer. He is expected to address what seems to be obvious, that he is planning to transition from male to female. It is about him, but it's also going to be for him and Sawyer, a look at growing trend in our cultures. Here's a look at the part of the investigation revealed on "GMA".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: Are you going to be OK?

BRUCE JENNER, FORMER OLYMPIAN: Yes. I hope I am going to be OK. I feel like I am going to be OK. 2015 is going to be quite a ride, quite a ride.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: It's interesting there's been a lot of controversy, not because of the fact he is making his bold move. Some people are uncomfortable with that, but because of the connection with the Kardashians, right? People questioned like, oh, why do we have to do this so publicly, et cetera, et cetera? So, it's going to be interesting to see the reaction.

CAMEROTA: Everything they do has been public. Their whole life is public.

I must say I'm sort of fascinated by this. He has been such a public figure and was known for his sort of male athleticism, and I'm fascinated. I will be watching that.

CUOMO: And, you know, I mean, Diane, known for a long time, she's a big mentor to me in the business. I think a big focus of this will be the surprise that it's not just about gender. This is happening. It's happening with kids. It's happening people, and it's not a freak show. She wants to take a look at that and how our culture is changing.

PEREIRA: And that's an important part of this, isn't it? Absolutely.

All right. The crisis in Yemen showing no signs of slowing. Saudi- led airstrikes are continuing with help from regional partners, including Jordan. We are going to get unique context on Yemen and the broader regional fight on terror from the foreign minister of Jordan who joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:33] CUOMO: Yemen is in crisis and threatening to destabilize an already fragile region. Now, among Arab nations helping Saudi Arabia in the fight is Jordan. Jordan has also been fighting against ISIS, and as you recall, one of their pilots was executed by ISIS terrorists in a horrific video.

Well, now, Jordan is about to take over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council. So, they really become pivotal player in the region.

We have with us, His Excellency, Nasser Judeh. He is the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Jordan.

NASSER JUDEH, FOREIGN MINISTER OF JORDAN: How are you?

CUOMO: Your Excellency, thank you for being with us.

JUDEH: Pleasure.

CUOMO: So, in light of taking over the presidency, we recently heard from His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, about the role of youth in fighting of extremism. Tell us about it.

JUDEH: Well, that was extremely significant in the life of the Security Council, because the Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II yesterday was the youngest personality ever in the history of the Security Council to preside over a session, and more importantly was the topic that he presented, which is youth and combating terrorism, and the extremist ideology, and how we can transform the youth into tools for peace and prosperity.

I think when we all talk about the overwhelming majority of our respective populations being under a certain age, we have to do something. We've got to translate words into action and address that economic challenge, we've got the political challenges or the political disenfranchisement at a time, and have programs that take them off the streets, if you will, rather than make them pray to the extremists who will recruit them and to target them specifically because of their different situations.

So, I think yesterday was extremely pertinent. Attendance was extremely important. More than 65 speakers representing 65 countries and international organizations, a full house, if you will, and this is the first time, as I understood, the question of youth was addressed at the Security Council.

So, we have been using our presidency at the Security Council to introduce topics that relate to the hardship and challenges that we are facing in our region.

CUOMO: In Jordan, I mean, the timing couldn't be better, because you have just geographic significance that others can match. You have on your border, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, your 1,200 miles from Yemen, and you've been dealing, because of the connection to Syria, so much of the humanitarian crisis.

[08:25:00] So, with this new role, with this new authority what do you see as priorities in the region in terms of fighting extremism?

JUDEH: Everything is a priority. Like you said, I mean, somebody described Jordan the other day as a beautiful garden in the middle of a bush fire, and the Middle East around us is enflamed (ph), that is quite accurate.

There is what is going on in Iraq in terms of the political process and attempts of reconciliation, and the fight against the terrorism in the north.

There's Syria, which is two things. Number one, the ongoing civil war and the continuing violence and the killing and the destruction, as well as fight against extremism like Daesh, ISIS, al Nusra, and others, there is a total absence of a political solution there.

There's an absence of a political solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and now we have anticipation of the formation of the Israeli cabinet. There is an what is going on in Libya, not right at our border but close enough. And there is what's going on in Yemen, plus, plus, plus, plus.

So, where -- it's not a question of the authority of Jordan presiding over that Security Council, but the question of the accumulated diplomatic skills and the presence that Jordan and the His Majesty King Abdullah II have on the world stage that we are going to utilize in a very, very positive way, talking to everybody, trying to come up with solutions.

CUOMO: Because we see in Yemen the difficulty of balance of tactic playing out, military versus diplomacy. The U.N. as you know right now is pushing to stop the bombing Saudi Arabia so we can get in there and start talks. There has been reluctance to do it, that it wasn't the time yet, that the rebels weren't open to it. Now, the rebels are open to it, but the air strikes are continuing.

How do you balance the ability to talk and the need to fight?

JUDEH: We have been warning for many years when it concerns Yemen. First of all, in five or six years ago before the current crisis erupted in Yemen, we were warning that Yemen is fertile ground for al Qaeda, because of the topography, which is very similar to Afghanistan, where al Qaeda was on the run, and the tribal structure and the abundance of arms and armaments in that country.

So, long before it became a fashionable topic, we were saying watch out international community, Yemen is going to burst. And then, of course, we have the developments and the internal strife and the civil war and what we have seen there recently.

Now, the problem is there was a challenge to the legitimate government, the elected government and the legitimate government asked for help, and there are mechanisms to help the legitimate government within the Arab League, and also invoking Article 51 of the United Nations charter. And so, we are all part of this effort.

And yes, all along, even with Operation Decisive Storm ongoing and now, the announcement that Decisive Storm has stopped and Operation Restore Hope has gone on, there is still always a reference to the political solution and people are needing to go back to the negotiating table so that we can restore legitimacy and security and order in that troubled country, because the ripple effect of what's happening in Yemen can affect us all.

CUOMO: The rule of Iran. Right now, there's a big debate in this country, about whether or not United States should be at the negotiating table with the P5+1, talking about nukes and any type of negotiation doesn't include Iran, curtailing its activities everywhere else, in Syria, in Iraq and in Yemen, specifically.

What is the position of Jordan in terms of whether Iran should be pushed back?

JUDEH: Well, all along, again, when there was a threat of a imminent military strike against Iran a few years ago, we were out there saying the region is not in need of another factor of instability or an eruption of some sort, and we were all calling for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian and nuclear fights, and there are arguments on both sides that's what's happening between the P5+1 and Iran is a separate issue and is not linked to everything else, and there are those who claim otherwise, who say on the country, everything is linked in the Middle East, and everything is intertwined, look at what's happening in Yemen, what's happening in Iraq, what's happening in Syria, what's happening in Lebanon, or what's not happening in many of these countries, and you'll see that there is a link when it comes to --

CUOMO: And Iran is in a lot of those places, specifically in Yemen with the Houthi rebels, which the U.S. intelligence --

(CROSSTALK)

JUDEH: I have seen many examples in history, Chris, where everybody would claim there is no link between the immediate topic and the extended topic, and we discovered at the end of the day that there is a link everywhere.

Look at what happened for example in 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and President George H.W. Bush at the time was maintaining all along that there was no linkage between what was happening there. They have to liberate Kuwait, and the Arabs are really peaceful. The minute the guns went silence, the first thing he announced was in Madrid peace conference later that year.

So, it was obviously -- there was a linkage but not necessarily at that time.

So, I think if the conclusion of the P5+1 talks with Iraq by the end of June is successful and fruitful, I hope this is a gateway towards addressing the wider issues of (INAUDIBLE).

[08:30:04] CUOMO: Your Excellency, Nasser Judeh, thank you so much for being on NEW DAY.

JUDEH: Thank you very much.

CUOMO: We very much anticipate Jordan's leadership in the region at the U.N. Security Council.

JUDEH: Thank you very much.