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Question Follow U.S. Military Investigation Findings that No One Was Hit by Gunfire After Kabul Airport Attack; Truckers Block Busiest International Crossing in North America; Rare February Heat Watch for Southern California. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired February 09, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: (voice-over) Bodies he examined, suggesting the number of people shot may be much higher. He asked we hide his identity for his safety.

DOCTOR, KABUL HOSPITAL: There was two kinds of injuries. People burn from the blast with lots of holes in their bodies. But with a gunshot, you can see just one or two holes, in the mouth, in the head, in the eye, in the chest. I removed bullets from four or five injured.

WALSH (voice-over): U.S. military investigators insist that was not the case.

BRIG. GEN. LANCE G. CURTIS, U.S. MILITARY INVESTIGATOR: There were absolutely no gunshot wounds. During the course of our investigation, we found no evidence that post blast, U.S. servicemembers killed other U.S. service members or Afghans.

WALSH (voice-over): But investigators admit they did not talk to any Afghan civilians.

CURTIS: During the course of our investigation, we did not have an opportunity to speak with Afghans on the ground.

WALSH (voice-over): Yet dozens of Afghans assert there was deadly gunfire after the bomb hit here at Abbey Gate. We've built a 3D model of the scene. Here's the canal outside the gate 45 minutes before the blast. And then, just before the device detonated, it's packed and the Marines are bunched up.

The U.S. military said the device was sophisticated and sent ball bearings flying into a dense crowd surrounding the bomber at the time of ignition and could be reasonably expected to have killed all the people. Here's one of those ball bearings removed from a victim's shoulder.

The U.S. military told CNN that doctors might have mistaken wounds made by these ball bearings for bullet wounds, adding they were too similar to tell apart without study of the internal wounds and the finding of the projectile that caused it, which the Afghan hospitals could not do in a mass casualty event. But a doctor who said he pulled bullets out of four patients disagreed.

DOCTOR, KABUL HOSPITAL: According to my 15 years of surgery in Afghanistan, bomb and bullet injuries are very different. When a ball bearing enters the body, it makes a big hole different from a shot bullet. When a bullet enters, it makes a small hole with a specific border. And when it leaves it makes a big hole.

WALSH (voice-over): Other staff at his hospital told CNN they too had seen bullet wounds. There is no dispute there was some shooting some in this video. Three minutes after the blast, you can hear three gunshots but not see who's shooting. There's chaos and fear. U.S. Marines are likely tending to injured near the gate. Children are being carried away, some crouch for cover.

U.S. military investigators released drone video they said started just after this. It is patchy but they said their analysis of the footage showed nobody running away and panic from gunfire or any evidence of shooting.

The U.S. and U.K. militaries have said there were three bursts of gunfire both at some point just after the blast. U.S. troops noticed a suspicious military aged male across the canal soon after the blast. U.S. investigators said they fired four warning shots.

A U.K. defense official told CNN their troops on top of a tower fired warning shots at about the same time to prevent a crowd surge. The U.S. investigators said the British fired 25 to 35 rounds over the crowd from two positions.

Another Marine team fight again this time at a male on a roof, armed they said with an AK-47. Investigators couldn't say how many rounds they shot. The U.S. and British military say all the shots were fired over the crowded canal but did not hit anyone.

WALSH: Now it's important to remember that none of the dozens of eyewitnesses we've spoken to have recalled seeing any other gunman be it ISIS or Taliban in that scene in the aftermath.

WALSH (voice-over): A U.S. official also said no other gunmen fired in the aftermath. But one Marine did talk to CBS News in September, recalling a firefight with an assailant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's blown off his feet and still has his wits about him, shot through the shoulder, immediately recovers his weapon and puts the opposing gunman down.

WALSH (voice-over): A U.S. official CNN spoke to now asserts the Marine spoke in error, adding no other troops investigators interviewed recalled that incident occurring.

Doubts over the Pentagon story also emerged from Afghan survivors. They also recalled troops opening fire, but say civilians were hit. Morsal was there with her sister Shogofa in the trench, three meters from the blast, she said. HAMIDI: My head from -- was falling into my hands and I just put it on the other dead people.

[04:35:00]

WALSH: You saw the soldiers on the wall of the trench shooting down into the trench?

HAMIDI: Yes, they shooted on trench.

WALSH: And when the shooting started, did you see it or did you hear it?

SHOGOFA HAMIDI, SURVIVOR (through translator): Yes, I saw the soldiers exactly. Some came to save their own colleagues. Other stood there and fired directly towards people.

WALSH (voice-over): Noorullah Zakhel said he was also in the trench, hit in the head by the blast and tried to flee with his cousin Suhail.

ZAKHEL: I told to my cousin, Suhail run. We run together. We went -- I tried to go climb out from the canal. I succeeded, but I think my cousin escaped. The soldier came directly and they started firing.

WALSH: When did you find out that Suhail was dead?

ZAKHEL: In the morning time. When I called my family, is Suhail OK? They said he was murdered.

WALSH: And how was his body? What were the injuries on his body?

ZAKHEL: They were just shooted in two bullets. One on head in this side and taken out from this side and another one on shoulder.

WALSH (voice-over): One survivor didn't want to be identified and said he was also in the trench. He said he saw his cousin shot in front of him. Medical reports we cited earlier confirmed his brother and cousin were declared as having been shot.

Maybe five minutes after the blast, I tried to help my brother and cousin out of the canal. But I wasn't able to. They were alive until that point. But when the firing started, a bullet hit one of them in the head. This is what I saw with my own eyes. He died right there on the spot.

A total of 19 survivors CNN has interviewed said they saw people shot or were shot themselves. The U.S. military said the witnesses we spoke to had, quote, jumbled memories from a concussive event and are doing their best to piece together what their brain is unlikely to remember clearly. And that no other facts backed up claims people were shot.

The volume of testimony from Afghan survivors though, does present questions as to how so many witnesses could make such similar claims.

CHRIS COBB SMITH, FORENSIC BLAST ANALYST: I feel like I know the area backwards already having looked at all that footage. WALSH (voice-over): CNN hired a forensic blast analyst, former U.N. weapon inspector and a war crimes investigator Chris Cobb Smith, to see what the scene could tell us about the bomb.

SMITH: It does indeed look as though the bomb was filled with ball bearings.

WALSH: And it was quite small, right?

SMITH: It's most certainly a small device. It's virtually nothing of the concrete infrastructure this area that has been damaged significantly by a big blast. I do not believe that bomb was big enough to kill 180 people at all.

WALSH (voice-over): That remains under contention and there were other experts who believe the bomb could have killed all those people.

The Pentagon's investigation aims to provide answers for the families of Americans lost here. But in Afghanistan, the survivors of the blast and its aftermath dispute the American narrative and suffer with their memories.

HAMIDI: Every night is like a nightmare for me. I cannot sleep, it's very terrible for me, but I just try to remember all my hopes, all my wish.

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WALSH (on camera): I have to say it has been startling when I and the reporting team working on that have listened to the volume of testimony from Afghans who survived that incident. To hear the consistency of the events they described and the trauma they experienced there -- Isa.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: And Nick, the testimonies in your piece, they do raise some very hard and very serious questions. What is the Pentagon saying in response to this investigation?

WALSH: Well, they are insistent that the bomb killed everyone, which they say is technically feasible. They do, as you heard in the piece there, describe the testimony of the Afghans we spoke to in the dozens as essentially affected by the impact of the blast. Jumbled memories is the phrase they would use and they do insist that nobody was shot in the aftermath.

But this is extraordinary gap, Isa. I spent 3 1/2 hours in the Pentagon in January listening to their case. We've exchanged emails repeatedly since then. There is a gap between what they say occurred based on interviews solely with U.S. personnel who were at the scene and what the many Afghans that we spoke to who the U.S. investigated. Except they did not speak to for their investigation, what they say actually occurred. And the question, of course, the Pentagon now is they pursue their investigation further to take into account the things that Afghan survivors have said and the claims that they have made or do they rely simply on the testimony of the personnel who were there for the U.S. themselves? A stark choice from the Pentagon certainly and a very difficult memories for so many Afghans.

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SOARES: A powerful investigation there from our Nick Paton Walsh. Thank you very much, Nick, appreciate it.

And we'll be right back.

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SOARES: Crowds marched through the streets in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tuesday, protesting last week's police shooting of 22-year-old Amir Locke. They plan to do it again today. The protesters are demanding police accountability as well as justice for other black men killed in police incidents. We are learning more about what prompted officers to enter Amir Locke's apartment. New court documents show they were actually looking for his cousin in connection with a homicide investigation before the deadly shooting. Locke's family says his cousin wasn't in the apartment and because of no-knock warrants their innocent son is dead.

A third day of jury selection begins in just a matter of hours in the federal hate crimes trial of the three men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery. On Tuesday 17 potential jurors were asked to return and a judge says the new jury selection moving faster than expected, opening statements could come as early as next week. The three white men were convicted in a state court of murder in November for chasing down and killing Arbery. An unarmed black man while he was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, in February of 2020.

The University of California has agreed to pay more than $243 million to settle claims by hundreds of people who accused a former UCLA gynecologist of sexual misconduct. Dr. James Heaps denies any wrongdoing and is awaiting trial on criminal charges. That payout, by the way, is in addition to another $73 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit involving over 6,000 patients of Dr. Heaps who alleged sexual abuse.

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Tensions are growing in Canada where truckers are defying calls to end nearly two weeks of a protest of a COVID-19 mandate. On Tuesday the so-called freedom convoy displayed one of their boldest moves yet by blocking the busiest border crossings in North American when it comes to trade. CNN's Miguel Marquez has the story for you.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The situation here at the ambassador bridge may, may be starting to resolve itself. It's about noon on Tuesday there's been a trickle of traffic from the Canadian side to here in Detroit. That's Windsor, Ontario, just over my shoulder there.

The police in Windsor are trying to deal with the protesters as best they can, arresting them when they can, trying to corral them and keep them away from the access to the bridge. On the U.S. side they've essentially shut down the bridge. They've shut down all access to the bridge until the Canadians are able to move those protesters out.

These protests growing from early in January then in to Ottawa where they had loud and boisterous protests and now here on the bridge. We should note that even though a lot of truckers are involved in these protests, a lot of people actually blocking access to the bridge are people in their own cars, private cars, their own pickups and small cars, passenger cars on the Canadian side.

This has to resolve itself soon. Both countries very concerned about this particular border crossing because there is so much commercial traffic that comes over it. About 40,000 cars and trucks, commercial trucks a day come over this bridge. About $300 million or over $300 million in goods cross over this bridge so it cannot go on forever.

Most of that traffic, in fact all of this traffic at this point, is either waiting in the wings to cross the bridge or it's being directed to other crossings of it Port Huron or there's a tunnel at Detroit where they can get through where non-commercial vehicles can get through.

So, traffic is moving. They can get through, but because this particular bridge is so important to both sides of the border, it will have to get resolved soon. Now it's a waiting game to see how long the Canadian police take to move out protesters on that side of the bridge. Back to you.

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SOARES: Thank you very much, Miguel Marquez there.

New Zealand protesters demonstrating against vaccine mandates sought inspiration from the Toronto tactics. Blocking streets surrounding Parliament. Trucks as well as campers, as you can see there. The protesters were largely unmasked. There pledging to camp outside the building until COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. The protests came ahead of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern first speech of the year. She says the demonstrators do not represent the majority of people in New Zealand. The Prime Minister's approval rating have plummeted recently. Many residents disagree with how she's handled COVID restrictions.

Still ahead this hour, rare February heat watches is covering millions of people across Southern California. Our Pedram Javaheri has the latest -- Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And a potential for significant temperature across portions of California and the Western U.S. As many as 20 records could be tied or set over the next several days and a heat advisory, an unusual one for the month of February in Southern California. We'll break this down momentarily.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SOARES: Welcome back. Let me give you some of our top business headlines. Hyundai and Kia are reporting nearly half a million vehicles in the U.S. over fears they could spontaneously catch fire even when not running. The South Korean auto giants are urging users to park outside and away from buildings. The issue is in the antilock brakes computer control module that can apparently circuit and start an engine fire. The Hyundai Motor Group own a controlling interest in Kia and the companies share a lot of engineering although they operate separately in the United States.

A New York couple is charged with conspiring to launder $4.5 billion in cryptocurrency stolen in a 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange. Federal agents arrested the two on Tuesday and so far, officials have seized $3.6 billion of those funds. The U.S. Deputy Attorney General called it the department's largest financial seizure ever and says this case shows cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals.

And TikTok says is making moves to fight back against dangerous content. The social media platform plans to enlist its popular creators to combat viral hoaxes by asking users to give more thought to what they're actually watching. TikTok is also broadening of their policies to a new for videos promoting things peaceful disorders, as well as hate speech. The company came under fire. if you remember in December, of a viral hoax that resulted in school shutdowns due to threats of violence. TikTok says its policies are designed to prioritize safety, inclusion, as well as authenticity.

Now parts of the U.S. have been dealing with a brutal winter weather this year, as we've been reporting on the show. But now California is under a rare February heat watch. CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has the details on what to expect this week. Pedram, Good morning.

JAVAHERI: Good morning, Isa. Big time he to tell you about across Southern California. Heat advisories in place that will actually continue through Super Bowl Sunday for temps to reach as warm as 91 degrees. The National Weather Service in Los Angeles telling us this is the first time they've issued a heat advisory in the month of February. Records for that go back to 2006.

And you'll notice this an incredible run of heat here. Temperatures into the middle and upper '80s in Southern California. 68 is what is normal this time of year. It will be about 20 degrees above that here going in towards Super Bowl Sunday. Could be the warmest Super Bowl Sunday on record. The record for that is 84. Forecast at kickoff time on Sunday, 85.

Notice there are 20 records across the Western U.S. could be either tied or broken over the next several days. And you can thank this ridge of high pressure, the off shore component of the winds.

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As the warms come from the desert, they warm by compression down to the mountains. Of course, you have to get your way across Southern California and we see the records set. And that's the trend the next couple of days. Beyond this, generally quiet conditions.

There is a disturbance across the Great Lakes. Prompts within a few areas of lake affect snow showers on the eastern Great Lakes. Not a significant player though. Just light amounts of accumulation expected across this region which of course for middle February here, not unheard of. And that's about it here. The weather pattern remains quiet, the temperature trend remains mild for at least a couple days and then Arctic air comes in later this week and eventually really sets up shop in two this weekend across the Great Lakes.

Hi temperatures they look as such, upper 30s in Chicago, 64 in Memphis, Los Angeles, there it is, right around 86 degrees -- Isa.

SOARES: Thank you very much, Pedram. Finally warmer weather.

And it was a great night for Adelle on Tuesday. The singer-songwriter swept the top three categories at the U.K.'s Brit Awards including song of the year with this hit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADELE, SINGER-SONGWRITER (singing): Go easy on me, baby I was still a child Didn't get the chance to use me ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: I shall be singing that for the rest of the day. That is "Easy On Me," the lead single off her latest album 30, which scored Adele, album of the year, along with the Brit Award's first genderless as artist of the year award. Adele was also spotted wearing a substantial diamond ring. With some speculating the singer may be engaged or maybe she just likes, you know, gem stones. Who knows?

That does it here for me on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares in London. Our coverage of the U.S. mask mandate is next on "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. I shall see you tomorrow. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.

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