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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Brussels Bombers Identified: Tied to Paris Attacker; New Election Results, Candidates Clash on Terror. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 23, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk, though, about where we did see reaction from what happened in Brussels. Travel-related stocks posted some of the biggest declines yesterday.

[05:00:03] Booking site Trip Adviser fell 2.54 percent. Carnival Cruise Lines dropped a little more than 2 percent. Marriott down about 2 percent. American Airlines also losing ground.

Historically, stock markets rebound after shocking events like terrorist attacks and national disasters. It takes an average of ten trading days after an incident before markets return to normal, that's according to bank PNC. You had some support in markets but also some concern in travel related areas.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Our breaking news coverage continues on EARLY START right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ROMANS: Happening now, an intense manhunt for this man, the surviving Brussels airport attacker, police are revealing this morning the identities of the suicide bombers in the airport and revealing their ties to the Paris attacks -- these two brothers who were involved in these attacks that killed dozens, wounded hundreds, bringing a city to a standstill, and putting the world on high alert.

BERMAN: We have breaking news in the race for president here in the United States. We have new election results. Four separate candidates winning in different states on western Tuesday what does that mean for the election ahead and how the candidates are discussing the Brussels terror attack?

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.

And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, March 23rd. It is 5:00 a.m. on the East Coast.

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

Let's begin with the breaking news this morning. A manhunt underway for a surviving suspect on the terror bombings on an airport and a metro station in Belgium. As we learn the identities of the two bombers who died in the airport attack.

These two brothers, police across the continent are searching for another man, the man see on the right in the surveillance, the two in black on the left are believed to have been the suicide bombers, those two brothers.

A senior Belgian security source telling CNN they have been identified as brothers Khalid and Brahim el Bakraoui.

Investigators say the man in gray put his bomb down and left the airport alive. A series of raids uncovering the terrorist bomb factory. Investigators found a nail bomb, chemicals, ISIS flag.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack which killed at least 20 people at Maalbeek metro station, at least ten killed at the airport, 230 others injured.

We are covering every angle of this developing story, only CNN can.

Let's start with senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir. She's at Plaza la Bourse in Brussels. It's the site of a memorial that is growing by the minute to these victims.

Nima, what's the latest?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, in the aftermath of the raid on the premises where they found the DNA of Paris attacker, Salah Abdeslam, police say they found a cache of weapons and detonators, they led them to believe that Abdeslam was working with a network that was planning new attacks.

Well, now, we understand from a senior Belgian security source that that apartment was rented by Khalid el Bakraoui, he and his brother, Brahim, carried out the attack on the Brussels airport.

Police are looking for a third man involved in that attack. They released his picture but not named him. They as yet have not yet released his name to the public but they're asking for any information that anyone in the general public could have, that they come forward with it. The manhunt for him continues.

They're also searching for another suspect linked to the train attacks, the metro attacks in which 55 people were injured, and which the heavier parts of the death toll here came from.

Across the country, the Belgium PM says homes and hideouts are being searched. Yesterday in Schaerbeek, that's where chemicals were found, the nail bomb and the ISIS flag. Those searches continue.

Life here is returning to a bit of normalcy this morning as people try and get out, some of them coming here to the memorial. As you can see behind us, there is still a police presence. Still a real sense of watchfulness as the investigations and the raids continue here.

ROMANS: All right. Nima for this morning in Place de Bourse, thank you.

BERMAN: Nima said homes and apartments are being searched but they were being searched prior to these attacks as well, including perhaps homes and apartments where these two brothers now identified as the suicide attackers at the Brussels airport were living at one point. Khalid and Brahim el Bakraoui, those brothers again now identified.

CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is live for us right now outside an apartment they were renting -- Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. One thing that's stunning to many people who are following this cases, first of all, you always seem to come back to the same sort of group of suspects and also that the police apparently had these two men who now conducted these suicide attacks at the airport in Brussels cornered at one point in time.

[05:05:07] It was last Tuesday that police went to check out the apartment or the building that you see behind me, going to an apartment in there. They believed that apartment was empty. That's the reason why they didn't go in there with heavy fire power or with a whole lot of police officers.

And instead of finding the empty apartment, they were met by fun fire. People opening fire with AK-47s, they were able to take out one of the people who then turned out to be one of the main plotters of the Paris attack, someone who had been in contact with the Paris attackers as they were conducting those attacks on November 13th.

Two people, at least, two people they say got away. It is now believed they could be potentially the Bakraoui brothers, one of which rented this apartment and who are the ones who blew themselves up now in the airport in Brussels.

What they also found in the apartment was the DNA and fingerprints of Salah Abdeslam. They believe in turn that led them to the apartment where they found and apprehended Abdeslam. So, certainly, it seems as though the group of people who are involved in this is very big but also limited. We seem to keep coming back to these people.

But the police right here last Tuesday were very, very close to apprehending the two men who then later blew themselves up at Brussels airport.

BERMAN: That has to be very, very frustrating for investigators there, Fred, although, as you said, they now can make these direct attacks.

Fred Pleitgen for us in Brussels, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. For months, Belgian authorities have been raiding homes and trying to tear down local terror networks that brought together the el Bakraoui brothers, Salah Abdeslam and others.

For more on the Belgian connection to European terror and law enforcement efforts to break it, let's bring in CNN's Max Foster live in Brussels.

And, Max, this is a network that is bigger, that is deeper and more dangerous than authorities feared.

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What's frightening, you consider one of these attackers left a major airport in Europe covered in CCTV, going through a city covered in CCTV, and he's still on the run. You have a situation that the apartment they're staying in, they found an ISIS flag. ISIS have claimed that the two networks are clearly linked, a senior Belgian security source confirming that to us.

And they were -- everyone involved in the Paris attacks, and the Belgian attacks were known to police in some way. And somehow, these attacks still continued in a major European capital that we're expecting. Also on a transport network they were expecting.

So, now, it's a great deal of disillusionment that we're fighting a battle that we can't win in the western countries, where ISIS have made it clear the sorts of attacks they want to carry out. They're managing to do it. And not just from home grown terrorists, from people they're sending in.

People they trained and sent that's a frightening situation. There's a lot of questions already being asked of security agencies as to why they're not picking up on intelligence earlier, not monitoring the right people perhaps. Although we know lots of cases have been thwarted as well, and crucially why agencies across Europe are not coordinating and sharing intelligence better.

In the U.S., it's being done more effectively since 9/11 and they realized the agency is needed to add more places. But here, we have this problem that there are national jurisdictions and they want to keep some intelligence to themselves, if they are not coordinating properly, and perhaps we could thwart more attacks that they did.

ROMANS: And, Max, these are not lone wolf attacks that have become sort of hall mark a couple of years ago by these attacks. These are coordinated attacks with bomb makers, communication, and hideouts rented under false identities. This is really difficult -- clearly, it's difficult for these authorities to keep on top of.

FOSTER: It's almost as if ISIS are one step ahead. They called for lone wolves effectively at one point. Now they're calling for attacks on major European centers, you know, trophy attacks if you like. You know, you couldn't make it up.

Brussels, the center -- the capital of Europe in many ways, the center of bureaucracy. And they are training people, and sending them there and carrying out plans, military events. And that's a frightening and it's obviously tied up with the migration crisis as well, because ISIS fighter are hiding amongst those genuine refugees, which is a terrible situation for them.

ROMANS: All right. Max Foster for us in London, thank you for that, Max.

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news this morning, we learned just over the last several hours, two Brussels suicide bombers, two of the attackers at the airport -- they have been named. They've been named and tied to the terror suspect Salah Abdeslam. We're going to look at those ties, we're going to discuss whether Belgian officials should have known, should have known these two men were a direct threat and what signs were missed.

[05:10:05] ROMANS: Plus, breaking news in the race for president. Brand-new election results overnight. We've got that for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Happening right now, the manhunt for a suspect in Tuesday's terror bombings at the airport in Brussels that killed at least 30 people and 230 more. There's a manhunt for that man you're looking at right there.

But the breaking news this morning is that these two men, the two suicide attackers seen on that video with him, they have been identified as Khalid and Brahim el Bakraoui. Men believed to have been connected to at least one of the Paris attackers, Salah Abdeslam. ISIS claimed responsibility for the blast in Brussels showing it does have capability to strike in Europe at the relative time of its choosing.

ROMANS: Can this kind of attack been stopped?

Joining us is CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton, former deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And CNN contributor and author, Tim lister.

[05:15:02] He spent time in Syria and Iraq and written extensively on the fight against jihadist terror.

Tim, I want to start with you. Draw for me, I guess, the flowchart of these guys, these two brothers, the Paris attacker who was captured just last week. This is not two separate cells. We now know that the Paris cell and the Brussels cell, they are intertwined here.

TIM LISTER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Christine, you could say, intertwined, interconnected, loosely connected. I think one of the things investigators across Europe would love to know is, what is ISIS' modus operandi? Does it have a big man directing operations or are these just loosely connected, almost autonomous cells who have the vaguest realization that other cells exist?

That's a big part of the question. Just how much in the way of resources have ISIS put into Europe? How many people? How organized?

I don't think European security agencies are anywhere close to knowing the answer of that. The evidence of the last few months suggests not. Because one instance, one of the people involved in the Paris attacks goes under a pseudonym, he now emerges four months later, after an entirely different name, already on trial in absentia in Belgium, and they just connected the dots to say, oh, this man is the same as this man four months later. So, a lot of problems there.

BERMAN: You know, Cedric, given the ft these two brothers had been in custody and in prison before. One of whom had been shooting at police with a Kalashnikov sometime ago, given they had connections to Salah Abdeslam, did the Belgians miss an opportunity here? Is this an attack that should have been prevented, or put more charitably, what are the challenges they face given all these things and preventing these attacks?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: John, you're absolutely right. There are significant challenges with this. As Tim pointed out, there are so many different pieces of this that have to be brought together.

So, the challenges involve not only finding out who the suspects are, but how they're connected with each other. In this particular situation you have so many disparate cells, and the key question is how interconnected are these cells, how often do they interact with each other? How is the person in control if there is one, and how do you work that?

But if you're a police investigator looking at these kinds of things, what you have to really look at when are these people going to strike? You don't have that type of information unless you can infiltrate the group or you have access to their communications. And failing any of those, you are going to have a difficult time anticipating these attacks and preempting these attacks.

ROMANS: Well, Cedric, they did have Salah Abdeslam in custody. So he has been in custody for some number of days now. Do you think he knew there was this attack imminent or do you think his capture triggered or hastened this attack?

LEIGHTON: Christine, I think he did know about this attack. The reason I say that more definitively now than I thought earlier is because the fingerprints that Fred Pleitgen mentioned in his report, the fact that those fingerprints of Abdeslam were in the same house as the brothers were.

And this is a key indicator to me that there is a connection. There are also ways in which these people are focused on committing these attacks but there are also dangers in being able to find out exactly what they are up to. I think the police did miss an opportunity because they should have been able to piece these different connections together, and unfortunately were not able to do so.

BERMAN: You know, Tim, you spent so much time in the Middle East looking at the roots of ISIS in that region. I was with you in Paris, though, twice covering terror attacks that ISIS was connected to in that city.

ISIS is clearly fighting a war in Europe right now. They have a front, a very active front on European soil.

LISTER: Yes. In a way, John, they're becoming more like your classic terrorist group. The caliphate is obviously very important to them. It's their reason for existence if you will, and they will defend it, or they are under growing pressure and have lost a lot of territory.

In a way that explains this new European front. It's to take revenge, lash out but also raise moral back home amongst the fighters who are coming on constant aerial bombardment and it is to carry out another part of ISIS strategy. They would dream of creating some sort of religious war in Europe, between Muslims and Christians, even senior officials in ISIS have said they look forward to the day when Europeans walk down the street looking left and right in fear of Muslims. They've come out and said that.

So, it's all part of a strategy. And I think we can see that, expect that strategy to become more central to the group the more pressure it feels at home in the caliphate.

[05:20:01] ROMANS: All right. Tim Lister, Cedric Leighton, thanks, gentlemen. We'll talk to you again soon. A lot of breaking developments in that big story.

Also breaking news in the race for president, new elections overnight. We'll tell you who won which states.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Back to our breaking developments in the Brussels terror attacks. But turning to politics, breaking developments there.

Another big night for the party front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Donald trump each winning the big prize in Arizona on Western Tuesday. Clinton beating Bernie Sanders while Trump topped Ted Cruz. Both impressive victories. Arizona was winner-take-all for the Republicans. Trump gathered all the state's 58 delegates.

Ted Cruz won the other GOP contest, the Utah caucuses, exceeding the 50 percent threshold there. He took all 40 Utah delegates.

So, the delegate count as it stands right now. You got Trump with 741, Ted Cruz 461, John Kasich 145.

[05:25:03] The magic number folks, at the top right of your screen, 1,237, to secure the nomination.

On the Democratic side, there were also two caucus races. Bernie Sanders takes Utah and he wins in Idaho, too -- big wins for him. The updated delegate count, Clinton still solidly ahead, 1,711, that's if you include the super delegates, 939 for Bernie Sanders; 2,383 needed to secure the nomination.

BERMAN: Serious bragging rights for Sanders with those wins in Utah.

ROMANS: But she has the delegate lead.

BERMAN: Indeed, which she much rather have.

All right. Twenty-five minutes after the hour. Breaking news out of Brussels right now, the two suicide attackers in the airport attacks identified. And these are men who have ties to the Paris attacker now in custody.

"NEW DAY" is next.