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Brussels Airport Rocked By Explosions. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 22, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:14] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning: explosions at a major airport in Brussels, Belgium. Several people injured. Massive damage inside.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Miguel Marquez.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, March 22nd, 4:00 a.m. in the East.

We welcome all of our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

Let's begin with this breaking news right now. Two explosions rocking the main terminal at Brussels airport. These blasts coming one day after authorities in Belgium identified a new suspect, a new suspect, in the 2015 Paris terror attacks, and warned about possible future attacks.

Here's what we know right now: all flights have been canceled. We know that wounded people on stretchers have been taken out of this main terminal here. One eyewitness saying as many as 20 people on stretchers with more coming out.

MARQUEZ: And you're looking at the airport here. This appears to be the departure area of Zaventem Airport. An airport official saying that do not come to the airport. It has been evacuated. Avoid the airport area. All flights have been canceled.

Two explosions at the airport. The building is being evacuated.

We want to go straight to our Nima Elbagir who is on her way there.

Nima, what can you tell us from what you're hearing there?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Miguel, we are passing rows, a queue of police cars with their sirens blaring, Ratcheting past us on their way to the airport. Eyewitnesses are describing real devastation in that departure hall. One eyewitness said he saw dozens of people being stretchered out.

Local media are now reporting that there are -- that they have been told by the fire department that there are dead at the scene, that there are victims already of this blast. We haven't confirmed that yet. But we can confirm that there seems to be quite a high number of injured.

One man we spoke with was counting down. He said he stopped counting between about 15 and 20. We are on our way. I want to stress, we have not had confirmation yet that this is an act of terror. But, whatever it is, it does seem to be wreaking havoc at that Brussels airport terminal, Miguel.

ROMANS: OK, Nima. Now we know that flights have been canceled. We know that authorities are saying do not come to the airport.

We also know earlier this week you and I had talked at great length about how Belgium was on high alert. Concerns that there could be, there could be plots under way in the wake of that capture of Salah Abdeslam in a Brussels suburb.

ELBAGIR: Absolutely. The Belgian foreign minister on Sunday said that they believed that there was a very possible -- there was a very real possibility of a new terror attack. That they believed Salah Abdeslam had managed to build a new network around him in his weeks and months on the run. And not only were they concerned about existing terror networks here in Belgium, but they were concerned about the possibility of jihadists coming from Syria, into the European mainland to carry out attacks.

Of course, with the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the broader worry became the background tension ratcheted up, because they said that what they know of these kind of networks is when one is taken in, the fear that they will be exposed often tends to fast forward a lot of these plots.

As it stands, though, authorities are not speculating as yet as to the cause of this. They've only told us -- they've only confirmed to us the explosions. We're working on getting any sense of what caused it. But from what we're getting from eyewitnesses, there is real, real fear. Real, real devastation at the scene.

MARQUEZ: Nima, the Belgium authorities had just released the name of another suspect following the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. And they were looking for him, and there was a clearly a manhunt on for that person.

You started your day in Molenbeek, which is far northeast of Brussels. The airport is northeast of Brussels, sort of in between the city and where you started your day this morning.

I take it is a target. Do you know what the sort of the security arrangements are at the departure area of the airport? Is it easily accessible? Is this the sort of thing, if their plans were disrupted by the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, is this the sort of target that individuals might go for?

ELBAGIR: Those are all really good questions. And we've seen in the past that airports, areas of large public congregation, these are the targets that they tend to go for -- soft targets with real propaganda impact.

The authorities, because they've had this threat level at its second highest, have been at a state of readiness for awhile. And we've seen it in the way that they've initiated their evacuation plan. Their emergency plan, very quickly, passengers who have been on social media tweeting out about what's happening.

The other side: those whose planes have just arrived, have spoken about being congregated on removed parts of the runway, away from that departure terminal. It does seem like authorities moved very quickly. But we simply won't know until some of the details begin to be released about how -- the hows and whys, and if this is, indeed, a terror attack, Miguel.

ROMANS: Nima, we're hearing as you report, the airport is being evacuated. You're right the disaster plan at the Brussels airport has been initiated. Flights have been canceled.

They are directing passengers to the runways here. We're told it's the departure terminal. And again, the early indications are it is two explosions. Although sometimes as you both know in breaking news situations, those early indications can be -- can be fuzzy, to say the least, in the very beginning. But the authorities are saying it looks like it was two explosions here.

Nima, let's talk a bit about Brussels as a nexus for terror. And again, no one has made the proclamation that this is a terrorist attack. But certainly, they have been on high alert. Certainly you have done some amazing reporting about how this country, how Belgium, how Molenbeek and their neighborhood in particular in Brussels has been -- has found itself at the center of very big European and international concern about young men becoming jihadists and coming home and wreaking havoc.

ELBAGIR: Yes. I mean it's extraordinary that Belgium, with its real limited population numbers, has emerged as this -- as the highest per capita contributor of foreign fighters to ISIS. That's been a reality that the authorities have been trying to grapple with for awhile.

But it's been very, very difficult. There's this sense of mistrust between them and the community within which a lot of these -- this radicalized -- this radical ideology is entrenching and taking root.

One of the investigations that we did is just looking into how easy it still is, nearly four months -- well no, more than four months after the Paris attacks, to get hold of extremist -- which is a central plank of the radicalization process. When we were speaking to the Belgian interior minister, he acknowledged this to us. He said, although they're targeting networks, and they believed that the recruitment was on the decline compared to two years ago.

And just to give you a sense of that, the numbers were still high two years ago, they were looking on average 15 people leave every month to join ISIS. Now, in the last year, they're looking at between five to six. Still not insignificant numbers. But he has knowledge that when it comes to battling the extremist literature on which the radicalization is based, it's very difficult for them, because Belgium has such a history of free speech. Similarly to the realities in the U.S. and it's very difficult to try

and combat it while maintaining those liberties. And these are the very difficult questions that Belgian authorities are going to be asking themselves in the days and weeks ahead. If this is, indeed, a terror attack.

MARQUEZ: And more specifically, you have done a lot of reporting yourselves on the numbers of individuals from Somalia and other areas that have been trying to get in to Belgium. Why is Belgium such a weak point?

And one doesn't want to blame the police agencies there. But the left of investigation, and their penetration, as you call it, in to those areas, does seem to have been poor now that they activated this search for this next suspect, who was this individual? And how many more individuals could be involved here?

ELBAGIR: Again, these are the key questions, and as we saw, it took them months to establish Najim Laachraoui's real identity because they have had real difficulties establishing links of mutual trust and cooperation with these communities. And part of that comes down to a real sense of marginalization and disenfranchisement within these communities.

The Belgian Muslim community has outsize unemployment numbers, something like 40 percent compared to the rest of the general population. And everyone we speak to say that's not to excuse it, but that's to understand why this has been fertile recruiting ground, playing in to these realities of a sense of -- a lack of social cohesion, that often we find radical recruiters are so good at playing into.

[04:10:02] And again, the Belgian authorities acknowledge that they have perhaps failed at making so many of these young people truly feel Belgian. But also, many of the parents of the foreign fighters said to us that they went to Belgian authorities weeks before their sons, one mother we interviewed, who actually was very frank with us, said that she went to a magistrate to try and get a stop order on her son's departure to Syria.

And still, he was able to leave. So there have been real criticisms of very real failings in terms of the Belgian authorities' response in a timely manner to the -- to the challenges they're facing here, Miguel.

ROMANS: Yes, it has been so interesting and heartbreaking to hear those stories of those families who, in some cases, families, parents, who have integrated into European society, only to see with Internet access, with some of the social media, the jihadist social media, the romantic jihadi social media activity that somehow, you know, seduces their children back you know backward into radicalism.

Let's reset the table here and talk about what's happening. You are looking at a map where the Brussels airport is in Belgium.

We are told two explosions have rocked the Brussels airports departures lounge we are told. Eyewitness telling us, indeed at least 20 people coming out on stretchers. This happened around 8:00 a.m. local time, so presumably there are even more people coming out of this airport. There are injured.

Nima, do we know -- are authorities -- are there fatalities? What are authorities saying about the extent of the damage?

ELBAGIR: We are still not hearing from authorities about the extent of the damage. We're on our way to the airport.

We've actually just hit the first cordon and I can describe it to you. There is a real security presence here. Police have established a cordon quite far out from the airport building. I can see smoke in the distance.

We're being asked to leave the car. No vehicles are being allowed near -- any closer to the airport cordon. This is quite far out. I'd say we're probably still about a kilometer away. We're at the exit on the highway that leads to the airport.

Police officers are here. They're in high visibility jackets. They're already established an outside, an external cordon with emergency on it and red lights, trying to divert traffic away from that airport building.

Local media are reporting from fire -- from firefighters on the ground that there are fatalities. We have as yet not confirmed that ourselves.

MARQUEZ: Now, Belgian media is reporting -- a one newspaper is reporting that shots were fired in the airport prior to the explosion and words were exchanged in Arabic. The fact that there were two explosions at 8:00 a.m. at the main airport in Brussels, a time when it would have been extraordinarily busy, I take it.

ROMANS: Yes.

MARQUEZ: To have this happen at this point, when the country itself is at such high alert, all air -- airlines have been told to cancel their flights in. Those that were headed in to the airport have now been turned around and are going to other airports.

Our Nima Elbagir is on the ground there, trying to get to the airport.

Nima, is there a stream of people heading out now? The photos that we are seeing, and I think you're probably seeing some of the same, show a very large, what appears to be an explosion, presumably at the departures area of this major airport, and an enormous blow, clearly, to the security service there -- services there as they were chasing these people down. Are you seeing people streaming from the airport now to get out of that area?

ELBAGIR: No. What we're seeing is that the -- both the roads in and the roads out have very limited traffic. We're seeing police holding people off, establishing a pretty wide cordon, as you drive in. We've now been allowed to pass. I'm passing a row of parked police

cars blocking the highway going in and out of that airport area. We are approaching the terminal.

There are police marshalling traffic along the ring roads surrounding the airport. But as we drive through we're not passing any other cars, understandably, because they've already put out an alert warning people to stay away from the airport.

I think it's really important just to contextualize for our viewers how central Brussels airport, Brussels itself is, not just in its context as a European capital but also in its context as the capital of Europe. This is where the NATO headquarters is. This is where the European Union is headquartered.

[04:15:03] This is where so many officials, not just in Europe, but around the world, fly in and out of, in all of their interactions with Europe, and European officials and the European mainland.

So, to have an explosion, an incident, we stress we still don't know what caused this incident, but to have an incident of this kind at 8:00 a.m., peak commuter time for passengers arriving at the airport, is very, very concerning to the authorities here, Miguel.

ROMANS: Certainly is. In Brussels a strike at the Brussels airport is a strike against Europe no question. The Belgian public broadcaster RTBF is reporting several dead at the airport.

And I want to just tell you some -- give you some context what you're seeing in these pictures. People who are there, people who are -- those are ceiling tiles and glass that have fallen down from the ceiling and from the walls in that -- in that cavernous departure area it looks like.

Witnesses are saying that many of the injured have been injured by the glass and the falling debris from what appears to be, Nima, two explosions, and again dozens of people have been stretchered out of the airport after those explosions and the public broadcaster saying, indeed, they do believe there are fatalities.

MARQUEZ: And, Nima, when you say that the country has been on a high alert, not the highest alert, how do you see -- how is that demonstrated in the streets at the areas, at hardened areas like airports that have long been targets both here and around the world, how would one experience security there?

ELBAGIR: I just want to give you some breaking news that has come in. Belgium has now raised its terror alert to the highest, Miguel. They haven't given any details as to the incident but they have raised their terror alert to the highest. That is level four.

This is the second time that it's happened since the Second World War, just to give you a little bit of context here. The first was in the aftermath of the Paris attacks when the investigation began leading here to Belgium. And now, the Belgian authorities are saying that they have pushed the terror threat level here to level four, Miguel. It's highest.

MARQUEZ: Is that due to the ongoing concern now or how would that function? Is it because of what has happened already? Or do they suspect that possibly because of the number of arrests they have made and the raids that they have been doing is that they have activated whatever cells may be out there and this may be just the beginning?

ELBAGIR: Well, this is from Belgium's interior minister and he hasn't given any more details than that. But given the timing of this, it's clear that it is related in some way to the incident. But he has not himself stated whether this is because of the proper investigation, itself surely because of what is happening at the airport.

All we know at this point is that it is now at level four, which is in and of itself a pretty unprecedented move, because authorities here, while they've been watching this threat have also been very aware of the need to not raise alarm among the general community.

MARQUEZ: Yes.

ELBAGIR: The last time it was at level four, Miguel, we were here, the streets were empty. I was in a shopping center when the threat level was raised, and it was evacuated. Closed -- shops were closed. The hotels emptied out.

And given that the airport is closed people are going to be pretty concerned about how they're leaving Brussels. The Eurostar Terminal, we don't know yet if any measures will be taken at the major rail stations here.

But again, you know, it's such communication hub. It is such a hub for transport travel here, Brussels. So, in a way, that is its native vulnerability, and also that's what sort of puts it at the heart of Europe. And that's what has made it such a valuable propaganda target to so many terror networks.

ROMANS: Nima, the Belgian news agency is reporting, I just want to get this out there for our viewers, because you're seeing it on the banner right now, that shots were fired and words in Arabic were shouted before those two explosions in the departure hall of Brussels airport at about 8:00 a.m. local time. Again, they've canceled all flights, obviously. They are taking people out on stretchers. Also, the Belgian news agency is reporting fatalities.

Nima, they've raised the terror level threat level to the -- to the highest -- highest level here. We're going to let you work the phones. Don't go far. I know that you are there. You're on the -- on the road very close to the airport.

Let's go to CNN political analyst and "Bloomberg View" columnist Josh Rogin was in Brussels, the airport, just a few weeks ago. He joins us now live from Washington this morning.

Real quickly, Josh, when you were going to this airport, coming in with your bag, getting ready to depart a flight, walk me through what security looked like for you. JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

[04:20:01] Just to clarify, I was there yesterday.

ROMANS: Yesterday.

ROGIN: Less than 24 hours ago, after spending five days in Brussels, I got there on Friday, right as they arrested Salah Abdeslam, and that set off a weekend of a lot of tension, a lot of unease, all over Brussels city center.

When I finally got to the airport, Monday morning, Brussels time, there was a palpable sense of tension in the air.

Now, it's important to note here that when security is raised at the Brussels airport, it's raised at the security checkpoints. So, if you want to get to the gates, security was very high. If you want to get on the planes, security was very high. Added checks. Added pull- asides. Added bag screenings. All of that was in effect.

The one big vulnerability, which I think is what we now see has been exploited, is that anyone can just walk in to the departure lounge, right? Except for some men with some guns, literally anyone can drive up to the departure lounge, just like any other airport around the world, walk in, deal with ticketing, deal with whatever is going on in the lobby, and there is no security to prevent anyone from going there.

So, that is the soft underbelly of the airport. And that's what we see having been exploited in Brussels, unfortunately, today. So despite the fact that there was an awareness, and a real concern about an attack on the airport, there was no, and there wasn't any notion of a wholesale change in the way that airport security is structured, which is that the security is to prevent people from getting on the planes. Not from -- to prevent people from getting in the airport.

MARQUEZ: I want to show our viewers what's happening in live in real time now. Those flights were canceled in to the airport. Flights in the air, on their way to that airport in Brussels were turned around. You can see them sort of doing curlicues to different airports in the region in order to get out.

Josh, as you're looking at the pictures that we're looking at, mostly off of Twitter and people who are there, that glass window enclosed area, you can see the kiosks there --

ROMANS: Ceiling tiles --

MARQUEZ: -- for an area where you would be checking in, I take it that is sort of the main departure area. Do you know if that's a domestic departure area or an international departure area? Is that the one you went through to go back to D.C.

ROGIN: That is the one I went through only 24 hours ago. Both domestic, regional, and international flights are all organized out of that one main terminal. And that is the central hub for all airport activity. So, there's a

lot of things going on there. People getting on their flights, off their flights, people dealing with ticketing issues. It's just grand central station there. There's no way to pay attention to every single person that's going in and out of the main terminal of the main airport.

And as the correspondent mentioned, this is very close to Brussels city center. I mean, Brussels is a very centrally organized place. That airport is only 15 minutes from right downtown. It's very accessible. There's no -- there are multiple ways to get at the airport. There's no real impediment to just driving right up and walking right through the front door.

And, you know, there was -- while there's a high sense of security, and a high security presence, there really is no way, at least under the current scheme, and we may see this changing in the wake of these horrible attacks, to prevent people from walking in to an airport lobby. It's just like a mall or any other public space.

You know, you can station lots of people with guns at the entrances. But unless you're going to do some sort of security screening of every person who walks in the door of the airport terminal, it's basically a soft target, an open place where anyone can walk in with anything in their bag that they want.

ROMANS: All right. Josh Rogin, there, 24 hours ago, given us some context of what that departure lounge is like, how it is sort of the central hub for all of those departures there. And again, you're looking at these pictures, of the fallen ceiling tile the fallen glass, we're told by the Belgian -- the Belgian state media that, in fact, there are fatalities.

I want to bring in CNN's Max Foster who's monitoring developments live from London.

And, Max, you know, often in the early going of a breaking news situation like this, there's a lot of -- a lot of information to sift through and some of it will be revised and refined as we -- as we move forward here but one of the reports that really caught my attention was that there were shots fired in the moments before these explosions and words shouted in Arabic, and two explosions in this main hub here of the airport. What can you tell us?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're right to point out we don't know what happened here. But this city is at the absolute center of counterterrorism investigations across Europe right now, post the Paris attacks.

[04:25:01] I was just at a briefing here in London with senior counterterrorism officers, they're very focused on Brussels right now.

So, inevitably, if something like this happens the focus will be on whether or not there really is a terror threat here. And I'm sure we've seen how the terror threat level has risen in Belgium, there will be -- you know, similar considerations across Europe right now. But, just to look at what the airport is putting out right now. If

you look across social media, and these are some of the images we've been having in --

MARQUEZ: Max, hold on for one second -- if you could hold on for one second there.

ROMANS: Max, we're also getting now from the Belgian broadcaster RTBS an explosion at a metro station close to E.U. institutions. We are going to chase that. But again, the Belgian broadcaster RTBF reporting another explosion.

I want to be real clear here, again, often in the early going of a breaking news situation like this, there can be reports that are refine and revised later on. But I want everyone to know exactly what we're seeing coming in here real time.

MARQUEZ: And in real time this would have been 8:00 a.m. in Belgium, those first two blasts would have been heard at the airport gunfire followed by words exchanged in Arabic, then two blasts at the departure area of the main airport outside of Brussels.

Some -- it would be about two hours later now we are getting reports of an explosion at the metro in downtown or near E.U. facilities in Brussels itself. The airport's only a 15, 20 minute ride in to downtown Brussels, where our Nima Elbagir has been reporting for most of the week, in Molenbeek. Another maybe 20, 30 minutes outside of from where the airport is.

The country now at the highest state of alert possible. The prime minister saying that they are watching things on a minute by minute basis.

But, Max, I want to go back to you. Clearly, you were talking about the centrality of both Brussels to the E.U. and the number of investigations going on there. Clearly, this is going to be a very, very bad day for Brussels.

FOSTER: Well, it will be. Just to give you an insight in to what senior counterterrorism officers in Europe are thinking right now, essentially what Paris did, the last set of Paris attacks did was change their way of thinking. The way they look at the threats. And the past is very much focused on radicalization of people online in countries.

Now, they're looking at what happened in Paris, how people were trained militarily abroad, and brought in in a military-style operation, multiple scenes of attacks. So, what Britain's top counterterrorism officer has been telling me in a briefing very recently just a couple of weeks ago, is they're looking at possible spectacular attacks in multiple locations in key cities like Brussels.

So, what the European authorities will be doing right now is looking to a potential Paris-type situation. We have one attack followed by others. What they're doing is acting early right now, as well. So whilst

we're looking to confirm exactly what's happened here, as are the police, what they're doing now is responding soon with a potential of turning into a counterterror operation so the Belgian authorities, European authorities, will be considering multiple attacks at this point.

MARQUEZ: I take it that both London, Paris, and the capitals across and cities across Europe are also taking note, certainly, I'm sure they will be here in the U.S., as well.

Josh Rogin, you were just at that particular departure lounge yesterday. One thing that you do notice about airports in the U.S., LAX, the New York airports and others, that security will, and it sometimes seems a bit of a joke, but security will set up some security cordons far before the airport just to monitor cars coming in and to see who is coming and going, at least get eyes on them.

Did you see any of that heading in to the -- the Brussels airport when you -- when you deported yesterday?

ROGIN: I did not notice that. But I wouldn't say that that means that it wasn't there. A lot of these security measures are not visible to the naked eye. I did see an increased presence of uniformed Belgian troops, heavily armed, heavily protected, at various points both inside and outside the airport. They didn't seem to be performing any particularly unusual checks.

I did see a heightened state of screenings, both at the gate, and at the security line. Lots of people being pulled aside. Lots of people having their baggage, and their persons double checked. Triple checked.

On my way to Brussels, we had two security delays. A man arrested on the flight. Another man taken off the flight.

So, for the last week or so, and not to mention the fact that I was in Brussels for a forum of international officials, including several U.S. officials, and several U.S. senators who passed through that airport only a day or two before the attack. And the mood at that conference, which included the Belgium foreign minister was one of, was very ominous.