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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Source: 2nd Attacker Involved In Metro Bombing; Brussels Bomb- Maker Najim Laachraoui Linked To Paris Attacks; Were The Brussels Attacks Preventable?; Cruz And Trump Call For More Aggressive Surveillance In U.S. Muslim Communities; Americans Unaccounted For After Bombings; Disney Threatens To Move Out Of Georgia Over Religious Freedom Bill. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired March 24, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:32:00] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking new this morning. Investigators revealing a second bomber involved in the Brussels subway attack. This, as we learn new information about the terror cell, the ties to the Paris attacks, how European intelligence failed, and the manhunt for the airport bomber still on the run.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Plus breaking right now, the captured Paris terror suspect refusing now to cooperate with police. He's demanding to be returned to France.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Thirty-two past the hour now. Breaking this morning, word of another attacker involved in the Brussels bombings. A senior Belgian security source tells CNN a second unidentified person being sought in the blast in Brussel's Metro system.

Belgian media reports say the individual was caught on surveillance video holding a large bag. And we now know the identity of the suicide bomber who blew up that subway car. Officials say it was Khalid El Bakraoui, who also went to the Brussels apartment that served as a terrorist hideout and headquarters. Khalid's brother, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, and authorities believe Najim Laachraoui, were the two suicide bombers who died at the airport.

Now Laachraoui, thought to have built the Brussels bombs, has been on the run since the Paris attacks. The third man who dropped his bomb off at the Brussels airport and left, remains unidentified and on the run, the subject of a huge and growing manhunt. Police conducting new raids across Brussels, raising the question did the men in the surveillance pictures act alone or are other members of the terror cell still out there?

Let's go now to CNN's Fred Pleitgen, joining us now from Brussels with the latest and the breaking news off the top from the attorney for Salah Abdeslam, that he is no longer cooperating with police -- with investigators there in Belgium -- and wants to get back to France. FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Victor, and that certainly is an interesting and in some ways a troubling turn of events here for the investigators. Remember that Salah Abdeslam was captured here in Brussels on Friday and initially his attorney said that he would cooperate with the authorities -- that he would tell them what he knows.

That initially he said that, yes, he was part of the Paris attacks, which happened, of course, four months ago on November 19th, and that he was supposed to detonate a suicide vest at the French National Stadium but then decided not to do so. Now, his lawyer came out literally just a couple of minutes ago and said listen, my client will no longer cooperate with the authorities.

And that is very significant because Salah Abdeslam potentially is tied not only to the attacks that happened in Paris four months ago, but also possibly to the people who conducted the attacks here in Brussels. That's because the Bakraoui brothers -- the two men, one of whom is believed to have blown himself up in the Metro station, the other one in the airport -- were believed to be in an apartment with Salah Abdeslam last Tuesday that was raided by police. That apartment was under the name of one of the Bakraoui brothers, so there does appear to some sort of link.

And as the authorities here, as you have said, try to find out whether there's any more accomplices out there -- whether there's a larger cell out there that might be plotting new attacks -- of course, they would want Salah Abdeslam to cooperate with them and to help them possibly find any of these other suspects. Again, it's unclear whether or not he's already told them anything or whether he'll tell them anything in the future.

[05:35:00] Now, a lot of the attention of all this has been focusing on the place that I am right here. This is Schaerbeek, which is sort of a northern district of Brussels. This is where the main weapons lab -- the main bomb-making lab was -- for the attacks in Brussels and the authorities here uncovered some 15 kilogramsor about more than 30 pounds of TATP explosive. That is very, very high-grade stuff. It's homemade but it's very volatile, so it does require a lot of expertise to actually make it.

And the authorities believe that it's right here that the Bakraoui brothers and Laachraoui, who they believe could very well be the bomb- maker, made all this stuff and where they also found a laptop that they say contains something like the last will of one of these attackers saying that he believed that he was on the run.

That possibly after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam on Friday, he believed time was running out for himself and that maybe the fact that Abdeslam was arrested expedited the attacks that happened in Brussels. That they believed they needed to act as fast as possible because police was on their trail.

So a lot of very troubling developments. The police trying to piece things together, but first and foremost, trying to find out if there are still other people out there who could be dangerous for the safety of Brussels, of Belgium, and all of Europe -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, there. Fred Pleitgen for us there in Brussels this morning. Fred, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right, as Fred mentioned, breaking just moments ago the Paris attack suspect, Salah Abdeslam, is no longer cooperating with Belgian authorities. His lawyer says Abdeslam now in Belgian custody. He wants to be extradited to France as soon as possible to explain himself.

ISIS bomb-maker Najim Laachraoui, whose name was released to the public just after police arrested Abdeslam, is now another key tie to the Paris attacks, linked through DNA found in houses in Belgium used by the Paris terror cell. For more on this Paris connection I want to bring in senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir. She's live for us in Brussels.

So we know Abdeslam no longer cooperating, wants to go back to France, and this bomb-maker -- the other important tie here that connects what happened there in Brussels to what happened in Paris four months ago, Nima.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Christine. In fact, back in January counterterror officials here in Belgium were telling CNN that they had intercepted chatter between Laachraoui, who they knew at the time only under his alias of Soufiane Kayal, and Abaaoud, the ringleader in the Paris attack, in which it appeared to them as if Soufiane Kayal, AKA Najim Laachraoui, was giving the instructions.

This is a man we now know only to be 24 years old as per the identifying information released by the Belgian authorities. He seemed to be playing a key role in terms of who should move where and what was being done, and these were intercepts from back in January.

It was only really in the last few days -- last week, in fact -- that they managed to pin down his real identity, Najim Laachraoui, and that was in the manhunt that resulted from that first raid on the apartment in Forest, which in a way triggered all of this. It was where the El Bakraoui brothers are believed at this point to have escaped from. It's where they finally picked up Salah Abdeslam's DNA conclusively for the first time since the Paris attack had happened.

So you have these kind of concentric circles now of reinforcing links between Abaaoud, Salah Abdeslam, Laachraoui, and the El Bakraoui brothers, who rented that apartment in Forest that was raided. The question thatI'm hearing asked by so many of our intelligence sources is given that Laachraoui was the bomb-maker, as he is believed to be -- if he is indeed the bomb-maker, why sacrifice your bomb-maker?

Someone whose skillset really was perceived to have evolved in terms of the explosives that were used in Paris, Christine, which were seen really as very unstable. And now the explosives that were used in the Brussels airport attack which reached just a horrifying degree of damage. Why sacrifice him? Well, that reinforcement the sense authorities have that with the capture of Abdeslam that they really felt that the noose was tightening around this network.

And Abdeslam's refusal to cooperate is going to be a real blow to what they're trying to ascertain about who else is out there, because he is the remaining surviving lynchpin, in essence, and he is the one who could potentially lead them to whoever else is out there in terms of the conspirators.

ROMANS: All right, Nima Elbagir for us in Brussels trying to connect all those dots for us this morning. Thank you, Nima.

BLACKWELL: Well, concern is rising in Europe that law enforcement and intelligence services have not been able to keep up with the tide of ISIS fighters returning from Syria and Iraq to their home countries, ready to wage Jihad in Europe. Turkey revealing it deported Ibrahim El Bakraoui to the Netherlands while warning Belgium authorities he might be a militant. Turkey says the Belgians responded that El Bakraoui had a criminal record but that no links to terrorism were discovered.

[05:40:00] Meantime, CNN has found that Interpol had a standing red notice on Ibrahim's brother Khalid El Bakraoui, saying Belgium wanted him in connection with terrorism. So where there intelligence failures? Could the Brussels attacks have been prevented?

Joining us, CNN military analyst Col. Cedric Leighton, former deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Good morning to you again Colonel and I want to start with the breaking news this morning -- the attorney for Salah Abdeslam saying that his client is no longer cooperating. Is there an obvious impetus, strategically to you, that you see for after allowing his client to speak for days with investigators, now cutting off that cooperation?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think, Victor, it's one of those legal issues where they either know something that they want to keep from the Belgian authorities -- that is the attorney and Abdeslam -- or they are just are just basically saying we only want to be punished under the French System.

So there are certainly some legal things out there, but I am very suspicious that they're keeping information the Belgian authorities and they are hindering the investigation deliberately. Maybe it's because they're protecting a further attack or it's something else where they're just doing legal maneuverings. But it's hard to say at this point exactly what they've got in mind, but I'm certainly suspicious of it.

ROMANS: If he had been cooperating with authorities in the three days before these bombings it didn't do much good because it didn't stop the bombings. It didn't reveal these other co-conspirators here. It makes you wonder what kind of cooperation there was in the first place.

LEIGHTON: It sure does, Christine, and I think what we're looking at here is somebody who may have deliberately lied to investigators in Belgium or just didn't know as much as we think he knows. So that's one of those things where if they had truly compartmented the cells then he may not know as much as we believe. But I'm thinking he probably deliberately lied to them or at least is less than open with them than what we would like.

ROMANS: We've heard some chatter on the campaign trail here in the U.S. that maybe some,let's say enhanced, interrogation techniques should be used by the Belgians to get more information out of him. Do you fault Belgian authorities for not getting more from him to help stop these attacks?

LEIGHTON: Well, interrogation is a very difficult thing to do and one of the things we've found in the military was that torture or enhanced interrogation techniques generally do not work. Some things you can do that may lead you to certain conclusions or lead you to getting more information such as, perhaps, sleep deprivation or something like.

But things like waterboarding generally tend not to be that effective and may, in fact, result in false confessions or false information being passed to you just in an effort to get out from under the pressure that kind of interrogation gives you.

BLACKWELL: Let's take this a step further beyond the intelligence gathering to the intelligence analysis and how we've seen over last 72 hours some of the problems that Belgians have had with analyzing all of the elements -- putting to dots together. You say that the best way to do that likely is a fusion cell. Explain what that is, and are the Belgian authorities close enough to the step where they can move into that realm or do they still have smaller steps to get to that point?

LEIGHTON: Well, there are two levels that this has to be dealt with that. The first one is the upper management level, the one in which the politicians and the leaders of country deal. And they have certainly set up mechanisms that are the beginning of a fusion cell. So, a fusion cell is basically designed to put together all the information that's out there from all the different sources, be they from technical intelligence or from human-based intelligence.

And that should also include what police men and women find on the beat, like if they're walking the streets of Molenbeek, as an example. That kind of information that they gather in their daily duties should also be passed to these fusion cells. But when you get down from the upper level into the middle level and the lower level that's where, in essence, the rubber meets the road and I don't believe the European authorities or the Belgian authorities, specifically, are there yet.

They don't have that mechanism where intelligence sharing is part of the culture. They're beginning to do it but they are not at the level where these kinds of attacks could have been prevented, unfortunately.

BLACKWELL: All right, we know that Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Brussels to reaffirm the U.S.'s commitment in this investigation and in moving forward in intelligence gathering. Col. Leighton, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Victor -- anytime. [05:45:44] BLACKWELL: Certainly. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz demanding Muslim neighborhoods need to be patrolled. President Obama lashing back.

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[05:49:00] ROMANS: The terror attacks in Belgium are dominating the conversation on the campaign trail. Donald Trump is calling on members of Muslim communities here in the U.S. to be more cooperative with local law enforcement. Trump and his rival, Ted Cruz, are also calling for more aggressive policing in Muslim neighborhoods.

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SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need to be using proactive policing. We need to be using proactive law enforcement and intelligence and national security resources.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If they're protecting each other, but they're really doing very bad damage and they have to open up to society. They have to report the bad ones. When they see trouble they have to report it. They're not reporting it.

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[05:50:00] BLACKWELL: Hillary Clinton insists the anti-terror plans offered by Trump and Cruz both candidates are "loose cannons." The former Secretary of State and President Obama denouncing the idea of profiling Muslim communities and stepping up surveillance.

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HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When republican candidates like Ted Cruz call for treating American Muslims like criminals and for racially profiling predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, it's wrong, it's counterproductive, it's dangerous.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance which, by the way, the father of Sen. Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free.

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BLACKWELL: All right, this morning we are learning new information about Salah Abdeslam, the Paris bomber. Also, we're learning new details about the victims of the Brussels bombings, next.

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[05:55:00] BLACKWELL: New information on the victims of the Brussels terror attacks. The U.S. State Department says it's aware of about a dozen Americans who were hurt in those attacks, but no deaths. A number of U.S. citizens remain unaccounted for, like Stephanie and Justin Shults, a Tennessee couple who now live in Belgium, last seen when they dropped of Stephanie's mother at the airport. In other cases, Americans are hoping desperately for word from European loved ones. Twenty-one-year-old Bart Migom was on his way from this home in Belgium to visit his girlfriend, Emily Eisenman in Athens, Georgia. She says he never made it.

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EMILY EISENMAN, BOYFRIEND MISSING IN BELGIUM: These last two days have been somethingI never thought I would feel. It's been the worst days of my life. I guess I didn't know how much one person can love another until you just don't know where they're at.

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BLACKWELL: Joining us now, CNN's Atika Shubert in Brussels.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yesterdayI went to the Royal Military hospital and spoke with doctors that are part of the medical team that's trying to identify victims. And the problem they told me is that the blast was so powerful that it literally ripped the victims apart, so the only way to identify them is with fingerprints, DNA samples, or dental records.

So families have been going from hospital to hospital providing DNA samples or any information they can to find out what happened. I spoke to one man who's trying to find his girlfriend. Her iPhone last located her in front of the Metro station, and then nothing. And so he's been going from hospital to hospital trying to find out information. They have a 1-year-old son together and he's desperate to find out where she might be.

So it's a grim search for families and a very painful one. Out of the 31 people that were killed only three have been identified. There are, however, also a number of wounded that have not been identified. At least four people still remain in a coma. So there is a very slim hope among families that possibly their loved ones are simply in hospital and haven't been identified yet.

ROMANS: All right, Atika Shubert, thank you. Fifty-seven minutes past the hour. Let's get an early start on your money this morning. U.S. stocks futures are lower -- oil prices weighing on stocks. Markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday. European stock markets are down. Shares in Asia dropping overnight.

Some big companies taking a stand against a religious freedom bill in Georgia, a bill that critics say discriminates against gays and lesbians. Disney and Marvel Studios say they will not film in Georgia if the state's governor signs the bill which was passed by the state legislature last week.

Salesforce.com, AMC Networks also threatening to move their business out of the state. Georgia offers big tax credits to lure in the T.V. and movie industry. The NFL said earlier this week the bill could hurt Atlanta's chances of hosting a Super Bowl at their next stadium.

BLACKWELL: Well, stunning new revelations in the Brussels terror attacks. "NEW DAY" continues with the breaking news right now.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brussels is now a major hub for Jihadists.

BLACKWELL: And there was a second person involved in the blast in the Brussels Metro system.

ELBAGIR: Until now, these Belgian-born brothers had been linked to violent crime, not terror.

PLEITGEN: An apartment in the district of Schaerbeek was used as the main bomb-making factory.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorities really looking at a two-headed monster here.

CLINTON: If I'm president the United States will not condone or practice torture.

OBAMA: The father of Sen. Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free.

CRUZ: Democrats are more concerned about political correctness than they are about keeping us safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounded like it went underwater and they were dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one's killing us.

EISENMAN: It's been the worst days of my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. It is Thursday, March 24th. It is 6:00 on the east. I'm Alisyn Camerota live in Brussels. Michaela and John Berman are in New York this morning, and we begin with breaking news on the terror attacks.

Sources telling CNN that a second man is suspected of taking part in the Metro station bombing here in Brussels. Investigatorsanalyzingsurveillance video from that station and they've captured the image of a man with a large bag. So the manhunt here now expanding to two unidentified terror suspects.

The second fugitive is this unidentified man. He's suspected of leaving behind the heaviest suitcase bomb at the airport. Investigators are scrambling to piece together these clues in hopes, of course, of preventing more attacks.

We're also just learning this morning that the attorney for the captured Paris terrorist, Salah Abdeslam, says he is no longer cooperating with authorities and he wants to be extradited.