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At Least 15 Killed in New Orleans Terror Attack; Ukraine Cuts Russian Gas to EU After Contract Expired; Police Step Up Searches as Part of Probe in South Korean Plane Crash. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired January 02, 2025 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Christina Macfarlane. If you're just joining us, here are some of the top stories today.

In just a few hours, the FBI will brief U.S. lawmakers on the New Orleans terror attack. Officials say at least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured when a truck plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street celebrating the New Year. The suspect died in a shootout with police.

Police in South Korea have carried out a search and seizure operations related to the crash of the Jeju Air jet that killed 179 people. They searched the Muan International Airport, Jeju's Air offices in Seoul, and at least one other building.

And in Montenegro, officials say a gunman who killed at least 10 people during a rampage has died from self-inflicted injuries. The suspect had been on the run from police after opening fire in a restaurant not far from the country's capital.

Now the FBI says it's carrying out search warrants in multiple states associated with the New Orleans terror attack, including Texas, where the suspect had lived. 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar was a U.S. Army veteran and American citizen. Investigators are focusing on figuring out the motive and if there were any accomplices. Officials say Jabbar had recorded videos about joining ISIS. The terror group's flag was found in the Ford pickup he rented and later used to ram into a crowd on Bourbon Street.

Local authorities and law enforcement analysts have been speaking out about the killings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ MURRILL, LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: This was a heinous act, a heinous, cowardly act.

SUPT. ANNE E. KIRKPATRICK, NEW ORLEANS POLICE: So we did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.

ROB D'AMICO, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: This event is going to really change some of the ways that they look at true security of large gatherings of people where they're vulnerable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Well, let's go to CNN's Kyung Lah now for more details on what we know about the suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The suspect behind the terror attack in New Orleans up until several years ago appeared to be quite normal. An Army veteran who went to college and worked in real estate and IT, had started to have some financial troubles. He posted a YouTube video, though, as recently as four years ago where he described that he had been born in Texas, that he was trying to get this real estate company off the ground. He identified himself as a veteran.

We want to play you a short clip of this, even though this video has been taken down because it gives you a window into the background of this suspect.

SHAMSUD-DIN JABBAR, SUSPECT: So I'm born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and now live in Houston. And I've been here all my life, with the exception of traveling for the military, where I spent 10 years as a human resources specialist.

LAH: You're looking at a picture from the U.S. Army. It comes from a 2013 U.S. Army Facebook post that identified him as an Army staff sergeant working as an information technology team chief for the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team.

Now, looking online, he appeared to have very much a normal background. He went to college. He went to Georgia State University. The university confirms that he did graduate with a bachelor's degree.

[04:35:00]

He worked in real estate in Texas for four years. And then things started to change. There are divorce records that show in 2012, from his first wife, she sued him to try to get child support.

And then in his second marriage, there was a filing that the suspect, the would-be suspect would eventually file, saying that he was tens of thousands of dollars in debt from his business, that he was at risk of foreclosure, and that he had credit card debt, and that's why he was petitioning the judge to try to back out of some of those payments.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Well, the college basketball quarterfinal playoff game between Notre Dame and Georgia is now set for later today. The terror attack happened in the popular French Quarter, not far, less than a mile, in fact, from the Superdome, the sports arena where the two teams were set to face off Wednesday in the Sugar Bowl. The head coach of Notre Dame football expressed his condolences to the victims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCUS FREEMEN, NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL HEAD COACH: First off, I'd like to say we're hurting for all those affected by this tragedy. The city of New Orleans has welcomed us with open arms, and we join them in prayers for all those victims and families that are affected by this tragedy. We got together this morning as a team, and, you know, before I got downstairs, I had gotten a phone call that there was obviously some type of tragedy that happened in the middle of the night, and I didn't really have the details.

And so we were preparing this morning to play a game this evening. And then after our break, when we got the news and we learned of the severity of the tragedies that happened, you know, we had to get back together as a team. I think a lot of people would start to hear that the game would be postponed, but we had to get back together and discuss what had happened.

And so, you know, what I told the team is, you know, in the toughest moments, the culture of any program of a nation is revealed. And I have a lot of faith this country will rally around New Orleans and support all the victims and families that were affected today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Well, some Notre Dame supporters and alumni gathered at a nearby hotel to pray for those killed in the attack. CNN's Andy Scholes has more now on the plans for the rescheduled Sugar Bowl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, officials in New Orleans say they have moved the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame to Thursday out of an abundance of caution due to the terrorist attack early Wednesday morning. The superintendent of New Orleans police says they will have heightened security in the area and bomb dogs will continue to sweep the Superdome and the exterior through the game. Now officials insist it will be safe to play the game.

Here is Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley on the decision to postpone.

JEFF HUNDLEY, CEO, SUGAR BOWL: We have been in consultation with ESPN, with the college football playoff, with the Southeastern Conference, with the University of Georgia, with Notre Dame. All parties and all agree that it's in the best interest of everybody and public safety that we postpone the game.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I think the mayor and the governor are very wise to postpone this ball game. There's just too much stuff we don't know. And it's just not worth it.

SCHOLES: Now the Super Bowl is set to be played in New Orleans on February 9th. The NFL, they released a statement on Wednesday saying that they were deeply saddened by what happened and added the NFL and the local host committee have been working collaboratively with local, state, and federal agencies the past two years and have developed comprehensive security plans. These planning sessions will continue as they do with all major NFL events and we are confident attendees will have a safe and enjoyable Super Bowl experience.

Now it will be interesting to see what Super Bowl week in New Orleans is like because just hours ago, you know, the air in New Orleans, it was filled with joy and anticipation for the Sugar Bowl and now it's tragedy, uncertainty, and the overriding issue of safety hovering over the city.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Meanwhile, the head coach of the city's NFL team says the New Orleans Saints will be there for the community in the aftermath of the attack. Darren Rizzi says the people of New Orleans are resilient and have risen before from difficult times.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARREN RIZZI, NEW ORLEANS SAINTS INTERIM HEAD COACH: This entire community has our entire organization behind them 100 percent. Our players, our coaches, our staff, and everybody with this organization is 100 percent here for this community. It's something that when I pulled in this morning to the parking lot and I got the alert on my phone that it happened, the first thing I was doing was checking where my children were.

And there's some people that woke up this morning and unfortunately lost loved ones that were victims of these attacks. Lost sons, lost daughters, lost brothers, lost sisters. And so it's certainly not a way to start the year, but it certainly puts things in perspective.

[04:40:02]

And once again, my thoughts and prayers are with all those victims and their families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: The Saints are set to play their final game of the NFL season on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Florida.

We're following a developing story out of New York this hour. Police say 10 people were injured outside a nightclub in the borough of Queens while waiting to get into a private event.

A group of four men approached a group of 15 people, including minors, and fired approximately 30 rounds before fleeing the scene. All the injured are between the ages of 16 and 20. They're expected to recover with no life-threatening injuries, but the motive behind the attack remains unclear, and the police are searching for more information.

Now, Russian gas is not flowing to Europe through Ukraine anymore, but unlike the crisis it had in 2022, the EU is not worried about the impact. We'll explain why after the break. Plus, brutally cold winter weather is making a comeback as

temperatures dropped to dangerous lows in the eastern U.S. The forecast right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACFARLANE: Ukraine has followed through on its pledge to cut the flow of Russian gas to Europe. Russian gas was still flowing through Ukraine despite the war between the two countries. But that ended on Wednesday when a transit deal between Kyiv and Moscow expired.

The deal supplied an estimated 5 percent of the EU's total gas imports. But this time around, European officials say they're not too worried about the impact.

For more, we're joined by Clare Sebastian. Clare, this was obviously a calculated decision on Ukraine's part, presumably to hurt Russia financially, but what is the real impact of this?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, as you say, Europe had had time to prepare for this. They'd already set their own goal of cutting all reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027, so it's possible this will accelerate it a bit. I think it's amazing just to sort of think about how resilient this contract has been.

[04:45:02]

Almost three years of a full-scale war and both sides have kept to it. For the last four months, the entry point of the pipeline that was transporting gas was actually in the war zone itself, in Sudzha, the part of Kursk that Ukraine now occupies. So that's part of it.

Ending it clearly, look, it's the latest stage in this sort of wholesale redrawing of the energy map around Russia that we've seen as part of this war. I think we can show you the map of what the pipeline map used to look like from Russia. But basically, if you look down to the south, to the Black Sea, the Turk Stream is now the only pipeline left of the four entry points from Russia into Europe.

Ironically, the Nord Stream was originally built as a way to bypass Ukraine. Russia knew that it was a risk sending its gas through Ukraine given the political disputes that they were having before this war. But now the Nord Stream has gone as well, as we know.

So in terms of the impact, it is limited. Gas prices have gone up a very small amount this morning as the markets have opened. As you say, it was only about 4 percent of European imports into Europe came through Ukraine, 5 percent in the first eight months of this year, compared to much more than that, 11 percent before the war.

So they had been reducing already. Slovakia is one of the countries that's very upset. Its prime minister has warned of a catastrophic impact. Austria is one of the ones that's most reliant, but they say they're going to be able to deal with it. Moldova is worth looking at because they are now potentially in an energy crisis as a result of this. The Transnistria Republic, that breakaway republic that borders Ukraine, has had to cut electricity to residents' power and hot water, which is obviously a pretty dire situation in the middle of winter. So that could sort of spiral into a humanitarian situation.

But for the Kremlin's part, I think in proof of just how political gas still is to Russia, is they're accusing this morning, the foreign ministry spokeswoman accusing the U.S. this morning of being behind this, saying they are the ones that stand to gain. I think a reference, of course, to the fact that Europe has been importing more American LNG, liquefied natural gas, as a result of the disruption to Russian gas supplies since the start of the war.

MACFARLANE: It is remarkable, as you say, that this deal had lasted this long at a time of war, but now there is no gas flowing through these pipelines through Ukraine. Does that not make Ukraine more vulnerable now to attacks from Russia to that type of infrastructure being targeted?

SEBASTIAN: Yes, I think there is a concern. I think Russia has shown, obviously, throughout this war, that nothing is off limits. The energy grid has been hit very hard throughout the course of 2024.

So there is a concern. Obviously, Ukraine's gas pipelines have been stress-tested. They have been shown to be able to survive under all different stress scenarios, but certainly that's something that Ukraine is going to be looking at.

Ukraine is also losing transit fees through ending this deal, worth about 0.5 percent of GDP, but I think their thinking is that the political symbolism of keeping this up was just -- they couldn't stomach it anymore.

MACFARLANE: All right, Clare, thank you.

And it's nearly 4 a.m. in New Orleans, a city trying to recover and heal from a deadly terror attack. We'll have the latest on the investigation after the break.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Y'all, we're trying to get in. We have dozens of people that got hit by this car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have at least six casualties. I have an officer doing chest compressions on one. I have another white male that's got agonal breathing in the 200 block. Multiple casualties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Police scanners picking up panic calls from first responders after the New Year's Day terror attack in New Orleans, Louisiana. The death toll stands at, at least 15 people with another 35 people injured. And there's still much to investigate and much that's unknown.

The FBI is expected to brief U.S. lawmakers on the early findings later today. And what we know at this hour is that search warrants have been carried out in multiple states, including Texas, where the suspected attacker had lived. And it's where the truck that plowed into the crowds was registered.

Now South Korean police have searched the Muan International Airport as well as offices of Jeju Air. That's part of the investigation into last week's plane crash that left 179 people dead. Mike Valerio has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the biggest headline today is certainly about the cockpit voice recorder. And we now know that South Korea's transportation ministry has a transcript of what was said on that voice recorder. Communication between the cockpit and the control tower.

But in terms of when we, the public, are going to be able to see that transcript or hear audio from the voice recorder, those are still unanswered questions. However, South Korea's transportation ministry was able to reveal just one specific detail about what they've heard on the voice recorder. And they told us this.

They can't verify, they cannot verify the specific timing of when the cockpit and control tower had difficulty communicating. Now, we do know, before landing, the control tower warned the plane about birds in the area. Minutes later, the pilot called out, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, and then bird strike. The plane would then crash a short time later.

Now, as for the police searches of the airport and airline offices, a search warrant was issued on charges of, quote, professional negligence resulting in death and injury. That's according to South Jeolla police, and South Jeolla is the province where the crash happened.

So, what we're looking for in the days ahead is a concrete time frame on when the flight data recorder is going to be sent to the United States. It is too damaged to be assessed here in South Korea. The NTSB is taking the lead on that front of the investigation.

Certainly, a somber start to the new year here in South Korea. The headlines and the pictures in the paper certainly tell it all. So many families and loved ones leaving offerings on these tables that are just steps away from the crash site in memory of the victims, and more than 1,500 people volunteering their time to help families at the airport.

Mike Valerio, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Now heavy rain in England's northern city of Manchester left roads flooded and vehicles partially submerged on Wednesday. Officials say the rainfall could reach more than 10 centimeters or 4 inches in some places. According to local news agencies, the flooding caused travel chaos across the northwest and left some people trapped in their homes without running water.

And an Arctic blast is headed to much of the U.S. Next week could be the coldest of the season, with dangerous wind chills and freezing temperatures through much of Florida. CNN's Chad Myers has the forecast.

[04:55:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, a couple things going on today, but really more of a tranquil day than what we're going to be seeing in the next coming days. Some rain and snow here, mainly snow along the lakes, lake effect snow, but very windy conditions all the way from upstate New York all the way down every single one of the big airports for today will be windy, may get some delays for sure. The snow will likely be along the lakes and also into the Appalachian Mountains.

Temperatures are going to cool down and cool down significantly as this below average temperature drops all the way down to the Gulf Coast. I mean, you're going to be below freezing all the way down to the Gulf Coast in places.

We'll watch the storm come on shore in the Pacific Northwest roll through the middle part of the country. Rain, snow, sleet, and yes, maybe even some ice storms going on here.

But now this is pushing you ahead to quite a few days. Things to still look forward to -- or maybe not if you're traveling -- but you still have time to get prepared for this rain, snow, sleet, and then maybe possibly even that ice.

Could be some very deep snow in some places. Just depends on how cold it gets. Could be some real troublesome ice across the middle part of the country, especially the Ohio Valley and just south of there.

Well below normal temperatures, you get a little bit of precip on top of that and all of a sudden you get the ice event. So, take care.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Do take care and thank you for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Christina Macfarlane in London. Stay tuned for CNN "THIS MORNING" up after this quick break.

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