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Unrest in Syria; Taliban Prisoners Escape

Aired April 25, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Randi. Thank you so much and hello to all of you. Hope you had a nice weekend.

Got a lot on the docket here the next two hours. First and foremost, we have got some brand new video for you of Moammar Gadhafi hours after NATO allegedly bombed part of his compound. The Libyan government says he is still alive and they are apparently proving it by releasing this very video.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen has just returned from the compound where he has what was he hit. He will join me live from Libya this hour.

Also, hundreds of inmates right now on the loose after this dramatic prison break. Many of them are Taliban. We are live in Afghanistan with that story.

Also, explosive new information about life behind the walls of Guantanamo Bay. We are not only learning about threats some detainees are making, but we're also hearing about Osama bin Laden's money problems. That is all coming up, all of those good details, but first, I want to get to this. I want to begin with the terror on the streets of Syria and to talk about that, you have to hear, you have to see this video. Watch.

Now, the Syrian government sending tanks troops into the town of Daraa. They are launching this brutal and deadly knockdown crackdown against the protest movement. Human rights officials say thousands of army and security forces rolled into the city, started shooting indiscriminately. And you see from these images, you see this guy crawling along the street, people taking cover and obviously that guy just scrambling not to get shot.

You know by now the government is not allowing CNN into Syria. Trust us, we have asked time and time again. We are getting this video from YouTube, so we can't independently verify what it is you are seeing here, but it seems pretty clear this is a turning point in this five- week-long protest movement.

On that, I want to bring Rima Maktabi. She's following the story in Syria very closely from Abu Dhabi at the UAE.

And, Rima, we have been following this 50-year emergency law that apparently was lifted, but appears to be rhetoric, not necessarily reform. Is that what you are hearing from demonstrators on the streets?

RIMA MAKTABI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I have spoken to witnesses today.

When it all started in Daraa, some people were crying on the phone. Others were enraged. One man told me, asking are these the reforms that President Bashar al-Assad promised to us?

And another man said, please tell the world about the killings that are happening here in Syria and he was crying. The protesters say they are unarmed civilians.

BALDWIN: So, then, as a result, what are we hearing from President Assad? What is the government saying? Are they at all explaining what we are seeing here in these videos?

MAKTABI: The government is saying that the people of Daraa are the ones who asked the military to intervene because of armed groups that the government, the Syrian government accuses them of being radicalists and Islamists who are armed.

Now, the people reply to the government saying we are the people of Syria, we're civilians an unarmed, and we're protesting asking for freedoms and for better living conditions and for many other demands.

BALDWIN: I want to get to the White House. Two items here. The White House is weighing in. Let me read just part of a statement they released.

Quote: "The brutal violence used by the government of Syria against its people is completely deplorable and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms. The United States is pursuing a range of possible policy options, including targeted sanctions to respond to the crackdown and make clear that this behavior is unacceptable."

And following on that, we heard from the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney essentially saying sanctions very much so in the range of options. But would that be effective?

MAKTABI: Well, Brooke, today after the major crackdown by the military on Daraa, probably the situation has got to the point of no return in Syria.

There many killed today in Daraa. And the protesters now do not want reforms only or freedoms of expression and media. They want regime change. They want to see Assad step down. So their demands have gone way longer than where it started five weeks ago.

BALDWIN: All right, Rima Maktabi for us in Abu Dhabi, Rima, thank you there.

And in the middle of all of this violence here, young people they are just disappearing off the streets of Syria. Obviously this is frightening news. The Syrian human rights group Ensan says at least 221 people have disappeared and that is since Friday alone.

I will find out more here from the executive director of the group. Wissam Tarif joins me by phone from The Hague in the Netherlands.

And first, if I can just ask, why are you in the Netherlands and how long had you been in Syria?

WISSAM TARIF, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Well, I arrived to Netherlands just six days ago coming from Syria. It was important to be here at this time because I first stopped by Geneva because ironically Syria's candidacy for the United Nations Human Rights Council was supported by many countries, but they had Libya on the council just a few months ago, so we weren't surprised.

(CROSSTALK)

TARIF: Yes.

BALDWIN: Let me just jump in, Wissam, because the number that we are getting from your group, Ensan, which means human in Arabic, you all are reporting at least 221 cases of just disappearances in Syria since Friday.

Tell me, to the best of your knowledge, and again, CNN is not allowed in Syria, we cannot independently confirm what you are about to tell me, but tell me this. Who are these people who are disappearing? And do you even know how they were taken?

TARIF: They are young people. There were very specific areas of Damascus other towns in Syria that was targeted, mostly neighborhoods where they have participated in demonstrations against the regime, young people who were kidnapped from schools or from transit to schools, universities or from simply walking in their neighborhood streets or after demonstration.

We have a documented 220 cases. They are people in enforced disappearance. The family tried to ask about them in several security branches in police stations. And they were -- they heard no response except more brutality. And many of them were taken out of the police stations. And two people who were detained simply for going and asking if the sons are detained by the police.

BALDWIN: Well, that was one of my questions is if they are taking these young folks and some students, A., you know parents are coming after and looking for them. What specifically are they being told and does anyone have any idea where they are going?

TARIF: Well, this is the problem. This is why this -- as far as disappearance, because it's simply when someone is secretly imprisoned or killed by agents of the state or by another party and outside of the protection of the law.

When you go to the police in a country, you expect help. While we see here family members, parents going to the police to ask about their children, in return, they are being insulted, in some occasions, beaten and sent back home, which is creating very, very worrying circumstance about the lives of those 220 people who have disappeared since Friday.

BALDWIN: Of course, very worrisome indeed.

Wissam Tarif, we will be following your numbers, and we're all hoping they do not rise, from Ensan.

Next to this. You heard about this, the latest news from WikiLeaks? This is a pretty fascinating look inside al Qaeda and the military facility in Cuba where U.S. detains alleged terrorists. Nearly 800 classified military documents reveal everything from the way detainees at Guantanamo Bay are ranked to Osama bin Laden's eating habits and apparently he exercises, his daily exercise regimen.

The documents paint intimate portraits of most of the 779 people who have been held at the Guantanamo Bay naval facility.

CNN executive director Tim Lister has been poring through all these different documents.

You have got them all in your hand. Goodness.

TIM LISTER, CNN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: I wish. This is just a fraction.

BALDWIN: This is just a fraction of them?

LISTER: There are hundreds and hundreds of pages, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Tim Lister, I want to begin with Osama bin Laden. A., we know the guy has one kidney, yet he is exercising? Tell me what he does and tell me what he is eating. And obviously we don't know where we are.

LISTER: Well, this -- what he was doing. This was back in the year 2000. And he has had a tough decade since then.

But a lot of the testimony we're seeing is from bodyguards, people who were caught actually in Guantanamo, the dirty 30, the people who were closest to Osama bin Laden on a daily basis, whether cooks or bodyguards.

And one guy in particular used to try to go hiking with him every day. And he said he was pretty fit. He only had one kidney, but he ate well. He always ate with his bodyguards. He had a normal diet and he walked a lot through the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But that is prior to 2001 and he has been on the run ever since.

BALDWIN: He's been running ever since. What about the men, his inner circle, what do we know about these guys? Are they very loyal, very faithful to him?

LISTER: Very loyal, very loyal. A lot of them actually recruited from Yemen. One of the amazing things that comes through these documents is how many of these guys are recruited in Yemen. They're provided the papers. They turn up on Pakistan/Afghan border and they're recruited into the inner circle. And they have to have this sort of oath of loyalty to bin Laden, himself, a personal oath, before they are accepted.

So a lot of them are from Yemen. A lot of them are very young. And they... BALDWIN: How young?

LISTER: Well, some of them, they are like 19 and 20. They're that young. They're brilliant impressionable schoolkids.

And a lot of the people you see emerging, the story you see of their evolution through odd jobs and not really being able to fit in and then someone finds them, some recruiter finds them, and sets them on their way to Afghanistan or Pakistan, and how al Qaeda comes together before 9/11 and then how it scatters immediately after 9/11 to the four winds, back to Pakistan, back to Yemen, back to Morocco and all other places.

BALDWIN: We have talked so much about AQAP in Yemen. So it is no surprising that he's getting a lot of these guys there. What about the money? At lot of these foot soldiers, right, they are carrying a lot of -- is it in cash?

LISTER: Oh, it's in cash and lots of it.

BALDWIN: How much?

LISTER: There's one guy in particular who had a half a million in plastic bags.

BALDWIN: Just walking along in Afghanistan?

LISTER: Just walking along. He was in Karachi at the time and he was trying to facilitate the exit of the fighters who came out of Afghanistan after 9/11 wanting to go home. So he was their kind of travel agent. But he had plenty of money with which to do it.

On the other end of the spectrum, Osama bin Laden according to one detainee -- and some of to testimony is a little dodgy, I have to say -- but according to one detainee, he needed to borrow $7,000 to himself get out of Tora Bora at end of in 2001 because he was pretty much cut off from the rest of the hierarchy.

BALDWIN: When so many people think of Guantanamo Bay, they think of the really, really bad guys, but they're not all bad. Some of it is cases of mistaken identity, unfortunately.

LISTER: One particular example, one poor shepherd who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they thought he might be Taliban operative, so they ship him off to Guantanamo Bay in 2003. Three years later, he is still there. They have no evidence against him. In the end, they give up and send him away.

But on the other end of the spectrum, there is a guy they felt sorry for, he had lost his leg, he said he was just trying to rescue his brother from the Taliban, and they let him go. He goes back and causes mayhem in Pakistan, blowing up embassies, attacking all sorts of convoys. So it is very difficult to understand who the real bad is and who are the just unlucky ones.

BALDWIN: And one piece of evidence that they would use to determine, I thought this was fascinating, Casio watches.

LISTER: Yes. That is a brilliant piece of information.

BALDWIN: Tell me that story.

LISTER: Well, it's kind of a little bit arbitrary, but anybody who was wearing this particular brand of Casio which was handed out by al Qaeda to their fighters because it was used as a timer for setting off devices.

So anybody who happened to have this very popular watch on was immediately picked up. And a lot of them ended up in Guantanamo Bay with or without their Casio watches.

BALDWIN: Wow. There is so much more.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: This is just tip of the iceberg. We will tackle some of this with one of the "New York Times" reporters next hour.

Mr. Lister, thank you very much.

And here to still come, want to take you back to Tennessee, because the search for this young woman was about to be called off, but that has changed. Something significant -- that is the word we keep hearing -- significant -- has been found in the case of missing nursing student 20-year-old Holly Bobo. I will speak with the leader investigator there. That is next.

Also, take a look at some of these pictures we are just now getting in. These are pictures all around this tunnel. There's the opening used in this escape of hundreds of inmates. Many of them Taliban. We will tell you more about it and how many have been captured.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Got some news just into us here at CNN, one of the names possibly floated as a GOP candidate for president come 2012, the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour.

And here is the first line of the statement that we have just gotten Governor Barbour -- quote -- "I will not be a candidate for president next year."

We will get more on that from Jessica Yellin momentarily and what this means for the rest of the crop of candidates, but also this here. A significant find reignites the search for missing Tennessee nursing student Holly Bobo. This weekend's discovery comes just as investigators were about to call off the search for this missing 20- year-old.

Detectives will not say what was found, only that it is significant enough for them to accelerate their search efforts today. It has now been two nearly weeks since Bobo was last seen outside of her home being led away into the woods by a man in camouflage. The latest clue was discovered by a volunteer search team Sunday afternoon. It is giving Holly's family hope.

A spokeswoman -- excuse me -- a spokesman for the CNN affiliate WSMV says it makes you feel great Easter Sunday in finding some good information from a family spokesperson there.

Joining me now on the phone from Nashville, Mark Gwyn, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

And, Mark, tell me what you can about this significant finding. What can you tell me?

MARK GWYN, DIRECTOR, TENNESSEE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Well, I can tell you that searchers found an item that we believe belonged to Holly Bobo. That item is currently the TBI crime lab being analyzed. And we're hoping that from that analyzation, we will be able to obtain another piece of the puzzle that will lead us to finding out exactly what happened to Holly.

BALDWIN: Sir, if you can, just help fill in the gaps. This is something that obviously gave the family hope over Easter weekend. Is this something that could imply that she is OK?

GWYN: Well, we just don't know that.

I think not only has this given the family hope, it has given the investigators hope. Any time you find what you believe to be evidence of someone that is missing, it gives -- it revives the search and investigation. And we are going to analyze that evidence, and, hopefully, there will be a piece of the puzzle put together once that is done.

BALDWIN: Could this piece of the puzzle be a game-changer for you?

GWYN: It possibly could be, absolutely. We are excited about it. We have ramped up our search.

The investigation has never really, has never stopped. We're still going full speed with the investigation. And, hopefully, this item will give us a huge piece of that puzzle.

BALDWIN: Are you excited about this? I know you have to be professional here, but you guys have been looking for this young woman for a little while now. Does this give you hope?

GWYN: It does. It gives us all hope. And I think once it is analyzed and we can see what we obtain from that analyzation, we will be able to hopefully, like I say, put a big piece of the puzzle together.

BALDWIN: Was this piece of evidence found anywhere in the same vicinity as, say, her lunch box that you guys found near that creek eight miles from her home?

GWYN: Well, we just don't want to go into that because we are still searching the area. And obviously, we don't need, you know, people to go out to where we are searching

BALDWIN: You got it. Let me move on then. I understand all of this came from a phone tip. Was this an anonymous caller? Do you know who this came from?

GWYN: Well, it was part of the search. We found the item. And it is being analyzed. We are hopeful.

BALDWIN: Have you gotten some significant phone calls to help you? .

GWYN: We have gotten phone calls through this investigation. Some have been helpful. Some haven't.

BALDWIN: I understand that it was one of the volunteers that actually found this item. So I imagine all these hundreds of volunteer searchers have been just sort of vital for you and your investigators.

GWYN: Absolutely. We would not be at this point without them. And it is historical that I have never seen the outpouring of volunteers as we have had in this particular incident.

BALDWIN: Mark, given this significant piece of evidence are you still working under the belief that this we will call him or her a kidnapper, abductor, is this someone local, you still think, someone who knows the area really well, maybe even knows Holly?

GWYN: You know, I think we still feel the person had to know the area. Whether they knew Holly or not, we will determine that at the conclusion of the investigation.

But the area is so rural, so wooded, so remote that the person would have had to have known that area pretty well in order for this to happen.

BALDWIN: Final question, sir. Just how long will you all be out there searching for Holly Bobo?

GWYN: Well, I can only speak for the TBI. And we will be investigating this case until we come to some type of conclusion.

BALDWIN: Here is hoping that conclusion is finding Holly Bobo alive and well.

Mark Gwyn with the TBI, appreciate you. Thank you so much.

GWYN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And he is still on the loose. He's considered armed and dangerous. And guess what? The FBI says the man they think tried to set off that bomb at a mall near Columbine High School had just gotten out of prison. We have some new information about this suspect coming up.

Plus, more on the breaking news out of Mississippi. Governor Haley Barbour has just announced he will not run for president. So what does this mean for the Republican Party overall? Jessica Yellin has that. She is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news from the world of politics here.

Republican Haley Barbour will not, I repeat, will not run for president. We got a statement released moments ago from his office and he says -- quote -- "I will not be candidate for president next year. This has been a difficult personal decision and I'm very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward had that been what I decided."

Jessica Yellin, national political correspondent, here.

Did anyone see this coming?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is a surprise.

But it is also not entirely unexplainable. Haley Barbour's numbers while he is very popular among sort of longtime politicos in the Republican establishment, our latest polling shows him polling below one half of a percent. He has had some -- to answer questions about his past as a lobbyist, which is a difficult issue in this political environment.

And he has had a number of sort of foot-in-mouth stumbles around the civil rights issue. So it was always seen as a challenging candidacy going forward. The reason that he had some momentum is because longtime Washington folks know how sort of smart and able he is and believed he could overcome those over time.

But he did definitely have a long road ahead of him if he wanted to go. And he had said all along that he would make a decision this week. So, you know, he wasn't in, in any way. He's not withdrawing from an effort, although he has been in the early voting states quite a bit.

BALDWIN: Well, so he has stood by his word. And he has withdrawn first thing here first of the week. But in some ways, Barbour really fit the bill as this prototypical Republican nominee, Southern, conservative, longtime party official.

What does his withdrawal say about the state of the race and also the fact, Jessica, that we are reporting on people going out, but not yet going in?

YELLIN: Right. We have talked about that, how this is this odd political theater, that we know who is probably running, but they are not really running.

I will tell you, say one thing about how you set this up, saying that he is sort of the very...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Prototypical.

YELLIN: Prototypical Republican candidate, because he is Southern and party establishment. But the question is, is that the old Republican Party?

Do they want an image for the new Republican Party? And when you go out and talk to Republicans off the record and on background, they will say, he kind of looks like the face of the old party, not the new party. So that was a concern, multicultural and sort of youthful.

And there's also -- it is very early days. We have a lot of these people, as you point out, who are sort of in, but not all the way in, Michele Bachmann. The big question this raises is about this fellow Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana.

And it's long been known that Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels are both very good friends. And it was sort of thought that they would not both run. So the fact that Haley Barbour is saying, Governor Barbour is saying he's not running makes the path a little easier for Governor Daniels, should he choose to get in. And he has said he will decide by the end of this month as well.

BALDWIN: OK. So perhaps we will be hearing from him.

But just to pick up on a point, and then I will let you go, what then, Jessica, does the new face of the Republican Party look like?

YELLIN: Well, first off, we will have to see who the nominee is this year.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Looking ahead.

YELLIN: Somebody who could go up against President Obama, youthful, energetic, in that sense. And also the person people keep talking about is Marco Rubio, new senator from Florida, Cuban American.

BALDWIN: Right.

Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, a woman and a Latino American. So, bringing in a little bit more of the diversity, but with a Republican, a conservative, strong fiscal record. And we are seeing a lot more of those people coming up in the ranks and no doubt will be on a presidential ticket at some point in the future.

BALDWIN: Interesting. Jessica Yellin, good to have you back, by the way. We missed you. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And now to this. We have been talking a lot last couple of weeks about tornadoes. Now we have got tornado watches. They are now in effect for parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. In fact, one town in Missouri is bracing for flooding. And we have amazing some new video. This is from inside of airport in Saint Louis. Look at this. This is right at the moment when a twister rips through the building -- more on that.

Also, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has now officially been given the green light to go attend her husband's shuttle launch this Friday. And have you heard what she is now able to do three months after being shot in the head? All these new details coming out, that is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A couple of top stories unfolding right now. First, the Supreme Court is staying out of the fight for health care reform at least for now. Today the justices rejected a request by the state of Virginia to bypass the lower courts and take up the challenge to the law's constitutionality. Attorneys general for more than half of the states have sued, saying that the law's requirement that most Americans buy health care is unconstitutional.

Also law enforcement says that the man identified as the suspect in an attempted bombing at a mall in Littleton, Colorado was released from federal prison about a week before the incident. We now have his name. He's 65-year-old Earl Albert Moore. He got out of prison back on April 13th. He had served time for bank robbery. Police released surveillance photos that they say show Moore at the mall last Wednesday minutes before the pipe bomb was discovered.

And former president Jimmy Carter is heading to North Korea after a stop in China. HE hopes to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and get talks over the North Korea's nuclear program moving again. And a number of food shortages affecting North Korea's people. President Carter is part of a group of retired world leaders founded by a former South African president Nelson Mandela. He is joined on this trip by the former president of Finland and Ireland and former prime minister of Norway.

And big news here. It is a go for Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona. Doctors have cleared her to attend Friday's launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. Sources of CNN say she will be accompanied by a nurse. Her husband is commanding that space shuttle mission. Congresswoman Giffords is reportedly speaking in short sentences and saying phrases and words and walking with a shopping cart for therapy and also bowling. She was shot in the head at a political event in January in Tucson.

It has to be one of the fastest recoveries on record. In St. Louis, folks who were hit there by a tornado, stay with me. This is surveillance video and a camera rolling inside of the terminals as the folks were running away. Things are flying. Pieces of the walls are coming apart.

You have a real feel for the power of this particular storm. The whole thing lasted for just a couple of minutes. It will take though weeks and millions of dollars to try to clean up some of the damage caused there. Windows were shattered. Part of a roof was just totally torn off. Amazingly, no one was killed.

But airport operations are getting back to normal, and southwest airlines is flying a full schedule and some Air-Tran flights are taking off, and American airlines hope to have full service in St. Louis by tomorrow, and obviously, this is -- I just could not get over the pictures that happened over the weekend, but we wanted to make sure we got them on. You know, what a mess for folks.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Certainly.

BALDWIN: But looking to right now tornado warnings in effect for where?

MYERS: For Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, parts of Tennessee. We have even had tornadoes on the ground already today and there will be many more on the ground tonight before it is done. And tornadoes on the ground tomorrow, and it will be tornadoes on the ground Wednesday.

People asking, is this just crazy? We were very, very low on tornadoes for the first part of the year and all of the sudden, back to normal and going way past the other way.

BALDWIN: Yes.

MYERS: Exactly. Dallas and Ft. Worth, you have a big storm, and ft. Worth, and down west of Cleburne, and it was near Stephenville an hour ago and we will zoom around because so many things going in, I will go from one storm to the next right in. Dallas and this one had a tornado on it on the ground east of Stephenville 20 minutes ago. I have not heard anything else about that tornado.

Near Broken Bow which is near Coxville, and we had tornadoes reported. At least funnel clouds right there moving toward Paris, and this is Arkansas, and not Paris, Texas, but Paris, Arkansas. And near Dubois, Pennsylvania, a storm that was rotating most of the day as it came out north of Pittsburgh rolled across du bois and there was a tornado warning on it, and that means it was rotating on Doppler to believe there was a tornado, but didn't ever see one.

Here is CBSdfw.com where they are flying near the Stephenville storm. If you see a storm heading your way, and you are in the plains, it may contain a tornado. This is going to be a rough night.

BALDWIN: Chad, staying in Texas and I don't want to keep our eye too far off of the ball with the wildfires last week, and the rain helping or anything at all?

MYERS: It's not raining where the fires are. It is windy and dry, and the windy and dry causing the fires to blow out of control, also causing storms to pop up. It is not good there at all.

BALDWIN: They need the rain. Thank you, Chad Myers.

Now, this is a brazen escape by hundreds of prisoners in Afghanistan and many of them Taliban. Now we have new pictures that I want to share of you of the tunnel they used to get out and we are live in Kabul with that.

Also, Moammar Gadhafi, alive and well. We are just getting new pictures of the Libyan leader the same day when his compound was allegedly bombed by NATO. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has just returned from seeing that compound, himself, and he will give us the lay of the land, what he saw, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: OK, when you hear about this story, it sounds like a movie, but the bad news is that it is very real. When I say bad, I mean bad news for war in Afghanistan.

Take a look here. Think of one of my favorite movies, "The Shawshank Redemption." And this time it is the hard core members of the Taliban. This prison break happened in Kandahar and it comes in time for the Taliban fighters to return to battle an unexpected spring offensive. Nick Paton Walsh is standing by in Kabul. And my question is, was this an inside job?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is the question that people are asking all day really. People of the Taliban say they have been digging five months for the tunnel, and starting south of the jail, and then splitting up into two, one into the criminal section of the jail and one where all of the insurgents were held.

so a deeply sophisticated operation here, and to a certain extent you have to ask how on earth did the prison guards not know this was happening, and particularly during the hours this morning when it seems that the insurgents were filing towards this hole in the ground, brooke.

BALDWIN: And 470 escaping a tunnel a quarter of a mile long. This is a spokesman for the Afghan president Hamid Karzai about the Taliban prison break, and this is what he says, "Bad news and a disaster." Nick, how bad is this?

WALSH: I think it is very bad indeed. Timing is awful, and it goes straight to the heart of the big question asked in Afghanistan here, how much can the U.S. and NATO trust the Afghan government? And this is a key case in point down here really. We have the Afghan prison system, Afghan police asked to restrain and hold 470 militants, many of whom the Taliban claim key figures and commanders even.

So yes, in the months ahead, we are looking for NATO to hand over some of the provinces of Afghanistan to Afghan security forces and today, we have seen that frankly, some of them are frankly not up to the job or possibly colluding when it comes to issues like this, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Looking ahead in the fighting, I mentioned a moment ago if you can give me the context that we know that the U.S. has said that the Afghan surge is showing results, but the results are fragile. And the Taliban, you mentioned with this spring offensive that has been launched and what is NATO expecting and what is hoped for the spring?

WALSH: Well, I think that we have to possibly recalibrate everything that we were thinking about 24 hours ago after this particular prison break. I mean, NATO pushed into the south taking Kandahar and used President Obama's surge and troops to hammer the presence home into the birthplace of the Taliban.

And in the months ahead they wanted to keep that key hold there, feeling perhaps the Taliban had been broken by the urge of American forces. But now we are seeing perhaps hundreds more of the insurgents are back in circulation and important to point out when you talk about the NATO forces they are often fighting in the small areas of operation, dozens of insurgents and not hundreds, but really small teams and hundreds more joining back into the population is significant issue.

BALDWIN: Yes, and this is not the first time. That last massive prison a break 1,000 guys getting out in 2008. Nick Paton Walsh joining me from Kabul. Thank you.

Now we want to take you to Libya where Moammar Gadhafi's compound has been attacked, and this is hours after a Republican senator called on forces to take out the Libyan leader. Coming up, CNN's Fred Pleitgen just returning from seeing that compound. He is going to tell me exactly what he saw. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: To Libya with NATO unleashed its heaviest air strikes yet. Today's target -- Moammar Gadhafi's compound. This is new video just into CNN. Look at this. Obviously this is a pretty significant hit. CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports that it is one of the residences, or homes that Gadhafi often used within his compound.

Now, NATO says it was a command and control unit used to kill civilians in other parts of Libya. A Libyan government official says that today's strikes were an attempt to kill their leader, kill Gadhafi. But state TV broadcast these images of the Libyan leader hours after the strikes so he is A-OK and alive.

Now, the compound attack comes one day after South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called on NATO to take Gadhafi. I want you to listen to what he told our own Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: My recommendation to NATO and the U.N. is to take the head of the snake off. Go to Tripoli, start bombing Gadhafi's inner circle, their compounds and their military headquarters in Tripoli.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I want you to stay with me through the top of the hour, because then we will go live to Fred Pleitgen who is in the capital of Tripoli right now and he has just come back from touring the site of the bombing and one of the residences and he will tell me what he saw specifically and how the message was received by the Gadhafi government.

Coming up, police say an NFL player's wife stabbed him in the stomach. We are just now getting in that 911 call. You will hear of the exchange and it is pretty chilling.

Plus, we will get, we are getting closer to the royal wedding. A bit of a scandal is brewing, a guard at Buckingham Palace yanked from duty for a post he made of all places, folks, Facebook. Mark Saunders is standing by. The royal drama is next.

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BALDWIN: We are counting down to the big day and maybe you are getting that alarm clock or maybe the DVR -- it is a little early Friday morning and we are talking about the Friday royal wedding. A lot of people cannot wait for this big event including royal watcher and CNN contributor Mark Saunders who is joining us live from Westminster Abbey.

And Mark, let's get straight to the news today. The guard being fired over some items he posted on the Facebook. What happened, what did he say?

MARK SAUNDERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Brooke, this story is as disappointing as it's shocking as it's perplexing to me. This is a young man in the guard regiment. He was due to perform duties at the wedding. He's gone on his Facebook page and maybe terrible derogatory remarks about Katherine.

But at the same time he made disgusting racist remarks about the ethnic remarks in Britain. The British army has never had such good publicity as it has been having certainly doesn't need this and perplexing because how could he be so foolish as to post it on Facebook?

BALDWIN: Everybody in the world reads Facebook. Don't do it before you post. He was let go and that was disappointing for some folks. The excitement is mounting. I was watching all of the morning shows, at least here in the U.S. Everyone had the royal wedding covered. Do you see tourists lining up? Are they out there with sleeping bags yet?

SAUNDERS: No. They are due to arrive with the sleeping bags tomorrow.

BALDWIN: Tomorrow.

SAUNDERS: I spoke last night to a couple of -- yes, a couple I spoke to are the biggest royal fans in the country and they said they were arriving with sleeping bags, a flask, and a tent. I think they are tremendously --

SAUNDERS: You have to remember, Buckingham Palace doesn't have any facilities. There's no hot dog stands or anything like that. But a lot of people at Buckingham Palace. It was tremendously exciting.

BALDWIN: It's been beautiful. It looks like you all have got lovely weather. But I'm hearing rains perhaps and I think for weddings that is supposed to be good luck. They have to have a sort of plan b and perhaps c, d, and e as well. SAUNDERS: Well, first of all, this is England. So the best news you can have from the weather man is that there will be rain because that means we will be drenched in sunshine all day. But they do have coaches. But plan b if it does rain, the coaches will be covered.

I have a wonderful image. When the convertible car puts the roof up, I wonder if they will have a roof that will come up over it. The good news is, if there is going to be rain, it's supposed to be late in the evening. So I think we're going to be lucky.

BALDWIN: What about, you know, speaking of the queen here, Queen Elizabeth, when she got married in 1947 she had to use clothing coupons for her gown. There were as post-World War II rations and austerity measures in place. And there is similarity today, is there not?

SAUNDERS: In what way?

BALDWIN: In the sense perhaps, you know, that Will and Kate are having to use British suppliers, things of that nature?

SAUNDERS: Yes, I think there's a lot of talk about austerity measures. The general public, or the people I've been talking to, don't want that. They want to see the pomp and circumstances and they want to see a royal wedding in all its glory.

BALDWIN: Is that what we'll see?

SAUNDERS: We will. How can you not have an over the top royal wedding? That's the whole point of it.

BALDWIN: Even though we hear from friends of Katherine Middleton saying she will be your modern low-key bride, not so much when it comes to this Friday?

SAUNDERS: I think Katherine will revel in glory of becoming a princess who will one day sit on the throne as a princess.

BALDWIN: Can you blame her?

I want to remind everyone, set the alarms, Friday, 4:00 a.m. Eastern, celebrate with friends, family, and everyone. CNN's royal wedding experience. Watch it, DVR it, participate, be part of our viewing party. Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Richard Quest, Cat Deeley, complete coverage of the royal wedding starts Friday, 4:00 a.m. eastern time.

And now to some fascinating and, quite frankly, disturbing information coming from some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. We're hearing everything from Osama's money problems to his exercise habits. On top of all of that, revelations about how jihadist keep their minds off of sex.

Coming up live, the man those been going through all of these documents, "New York Times" reporter Andrew Larry (ph) will join me live. Plus, Wolf Blitzer is standing by with news from the world of politics. We'll be right back.

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BALDWIN: Now for you CNN = Politics update let's go to Wolf Blitzer. I missed you for a week. Where were you?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": I was down in Florida enjoying a little R and R, a little vacation. It's good to go but I'm happy to be back in Washington, D.C., which is like a vacation when I'm here. Just hanging out at CNN is always a lot of fun, especially if you're a news junkie as you are and I am.

BALDWIN: Of course. We have pretty awesome gigs, I'm not going to lie.

BLITZER: You've got to admit.

BALDWIN: So what do you have today?

BLITZER: We're going to talk a lot about what's going on in Libya right now. There was an assassination attempt against Moammar Gadhafi over the weekend, an attack on one of his command and control facilities at his compound in Tripoli.

We'll go in depth on what is going on, not just in Libya, but also in Syria right now where the violence and the crackdown by the government against the protesters is escalating in a major, major way, very bloody.

As you know John McCain was just in Libya with rebel leaders, making the case for the U.S. to recognize the opposition as the legitimate government of Libya. No indication that the United States is about to do it, but there are indications that the U.S. is going to get tougher in the coming days, not only with Gadhafi but also with Bashar Assad, the president of Syria.

On a very different note, we'll get into politics later today. It was interesting. The Reverend Franklin Graham says he could support Donald Trump if Donald Trump becomes the Republican presidential nominee. Sure, he could support him. He also doesn't think Sarah Palin is going to run. He says, "I don't think Sarah is going to. I think she likes speaking on the issues. I don't see her running for president."

Would he support her if she decided to run? He said it would depend on who the other candidates are. So, Franklin Graham weighing in on all of this as well. So, a lot of foreign policy, a lot of what's going on, not only in Libya. Syria, we're also going to go in depth on that prison break you've been covering the story in Afghanistan.

BALDWIN: How about 470 inmates?

BLITZER: You know, think about this. We keep harping on it, but it's important for our viewers to remember, Brooke, the United States right now is spending $2 billion a week, more than $100 billion a year in Afghanistan. $100 billion a year. And a lot of people are wondering what is that money going to achieve.

BALDWIN: Training the government, helping the guards. Exactly.

BLITZER: Just think about what $100 billion a year could be doing here in the United States.

BALDWIN: Excellent questions, Wolf Blitzer. We'll check back in with you later this hour. And we'll get another "Political Ticker" update for you in half an hour.