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Category-Five Juggernaut Bearing Down on Western Cuba; Warplanes Drop Bombs on What's Being Described as Meeting of Terrorist Leaders

Aired September 13, 2004 - 10:00   ET

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

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


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's kick off the week by looking at what is happening now in the news.
The center of Hurricane Ivan may now miss western Cuba, but effects of this Category 5 storm will still be felt there. Meanwhile, residents along Florida's Panhandle are preparing for Ivan's possible landfall there later this week. Ivan could also come ashore farther west along the Gulf Coast; it is just too early to tell at this point. The storm has been blamed for at least 62 deaths in the Caribbean.

U.S. warplanes dropped a pair of 500-pound bombs on a suspected terrorist meeting site in Fallujah this morning. The air strike came during heavy fighting in the city between U.S. forces and insurgents. The director of the Fallujah Hospital says 20 people were killed and another 38 wounded in the ground and air attacks.

How well do intelligence agencies support homeland security and military operations? The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on that issue today. A live picture from Capitol Hill. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and as you see there Secretary of State Colin Powell are on the docket to testify.

Comrades in arms? People scared or scarred by the Washington area sniper attacks are commenting on the midnight expiration of the assault weapons ban. Relatives of some victims, the law enforcement officials who worked the cases, and area lawmakers will take part in the news conference that is now scheduled for the next hour.

What we are watching live this hour, Senator Joe Biden, presidential candidate John Kerry expected to use an anti-crime event as the backdrop for his own comments on the assault weapons ban and its expiration 14 hours from now. Senator Kerry has accused President Bush of caving into pressure from the National Rifle Association.

We're going to begin this hour though with Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 juggernaut that is now bearing down on western Cuba. Live to Cuba in just a moment. First though, we want to look ahead to where Ivan might be headed, perhaps to Florida's Panhandle.

That is where we find out national correspondent Susan Candiotti in Panama City Beach.

Susan, good morning. SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. And of course, the hope is that by the time it possibly reaches this area, it might be knocked down from a Category 5 to a Category 3. But as we all know very, very well, there are no guarantees.

Now, up and down the Florida Panhandle, of course, storm preparations are underway. Why plywood sales are picking up. People are shuttering their homes and businesses all the way from places that include Apalachicola, St. George's Island, Pensacola all the way as far west as Mobil, Alabama. We are monitoring preparation in all of those areas. There is a worry about storm surge and the Emergency Operation Center here tells us they have been getting a steady stream of phone calls to their hotline. People wondering when do we leave? What time should we leave? Where do we go? How long might we have to stay away if we are ordered out?

A lot of these people are newcomers to the effects of hurricanes. Some of them don't remember what happened here in 1995, when Hurricane Opal blew through about 80 miles west of here. There was serious damage to Panama City at that time. And it did force some changes by way of stricter building codes. Now, disaster planners here tell us that residents are not by any means ignoring Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DALY, CHIEF, PANAMA CITY FIRE DEPT.: I think this hurricane season has prepared Bay County. We have seen what has happened in south and central Florida. And my sense is no one is taking anything for granted. You can see houses are boarded up. The lines at the home improvement stores were long yesterday and so people are preparing. You can sense that at the meeting in the emergency center yesterday that people are taking this serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: And here in Bay County, later this afternoon, the same emergency planners have another meeting scheduled. At that time, they hope to be able to make a decision about whether to start ordering an evacuation as early as tomorrow morning. They don't know for sure yet. They don't even know whether it might be a mandatory evacuation, or voluntary in low-lying areas and for people that live in Mobil homes. Of course, there is worry; but the more preparation the less anxiety.

Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: All right. Well, Susan, you look prepared. You have your gear all ready to go. We'll be checking back with you. Thank you.

Let's right now though, check on Ivan's more immediate threat, now swirling toward western Cuba. One hundred and sixty mile an hour winds in a swathe of destruction serving as an ominous call card.

Our Lucia Newman is in Pinar del Rio, Cuba and joins via videophone -- Lucia?

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn. I'm speaking to you from western Pinar del Rio Province, which is exactly where Hurricane Ivan is heading. As you can see it is raining very hard and the rains are only expected to get worse in the coming hours. Same with the wind gusts, which are already running at over 70 miles per hour. And the hurricane hasn't even arrived here yet.

Now, this province is already suffering from "hurricane fatigue. It was hit by Hurricane Charley exactly one month ago. People here are very, very concerned because even though the eye of the hurricane apparently will not hit this province directly, the effects will be felt. It is a Category 5 storm. People have been evacuated not only here from Pinar del Rio. A million and a half Cuban have been evacuated from here to central Cuba, because of fears of storm surges and flooding. Especially if this storm does veer to the right after it passes the most westerly tip of this country.

President Fidel Castro, we understand, is right now here in Pinar del Rio at the Central Civil Defense Command Post, taking a very personal interest in the events unfolding right now -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Lucia Newman, hang on there in Cuba. We will check back with you. Thank you for the latest on Ivan.

And now we look at the fight for Iraq. More specifically, the battle for control of Fallujah. U.S. forces are battling insurgents there. And earlier today, American warplanes dropped satellite-guided bombs on what was described as a meeting of terrorist leaders.

Our Diana Muriel is in Baghdad with that and other violent outbreaks in Iraq -- Diana.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, yes. We've had the confirmation from the military, the U.S. military -- Marines who are outside Fallujah, from which they -- the city from which they withdrew in April after a three-week siege. They have been launching theses long distance air strikes over several nights in the past couple of weeks. And last night was no different. They say that they launched an attack -- a precise attack on a location, which was a terrorist meeting site for operative and associates of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, one of the most wanted terrorists on the list.

And the only people in the building when that strike occurred, just after 6:00 in the morning local time, were these people. But we've just had numbers from the Ministry of Health, who've told us that 20 people were killed in Fallujah this morning and 38 wounded in air strikes. Amongst which were five women and four children. Eyewitnesses in the city have told CNN that there were, in fact, four different strikes at four different locations in the city. And indeed, an ambulance that has been going out to collect the wounded from one of the attacks was actually hit, and all those onboard that ambulance were killed.

This is the sort of conflicting information that we have been getting from the U.S. military in the past 24 hours. On Sunday here in Baghdad in Haifa Street, a notorious district known as Little Fallujah by its inhabitants, there was an incident where a Bradley fighting vehicle was blown up by a homemade car bomb. The soldiers inside it were evacuated. While they were being evacuated they were attacked.

We're told by the military there were four soldiers injured. The military then decided to send in helicopter gun ships to destroy the Bradley. They do that very often to deny what they call "the enemy looters" that the equipment that's on it. And eyewitnesses told us that there weren't looters there, they were civilians and that's where the majority of casualties, 22 killed and 61 wounded occurred -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And Diana, I understand we have some disturbing pictures that remind us of how dangers it can be to report from there within Iraq.

MURIEL: That's right. One of the things that make us question whether or not the helicopter gunship pilots realize that they were just civilians on the ground, was that there were reporters at the scene reporting. There was a Palestinian journalist, a 32-year-old journalist Mazen al Tumaizi, who was killed whilst he was standing there speaking into a camera that was being recorded by a Reuters' cameraman. He was killed. The cameraman was injured. Another photojournalist who was there at the site was also badly injured in the incident.

And the U.S. military have told us that the normal procedures for them to clear the area, to warn civilians that they are going to do it before they strike like this. And that doesn't seem from the reports that we have had so far, Daryn, to have happened there on Haifa Street in Baghdad on Sunday -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Diana Muriel in Baghdad. Thank you for the latest from there.

On to western Afghanistan, the removal of a local warlord from office triggered a deadly series of events. Sources in Heart tell CNN that protesters set fire to several U.N. offices, after Afghanistan's U.S. interim President Hamid Karzai dismissed the warlord from his post as provincial governor. Afghan police and soldiers fired on the crowd. At least eight demonstrators were reported killed and more than a dozen were injured.

Surveillance cameras and terrorist attack. Last week's attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta caught on tape. Check out those pictures? Anatomy of a bombing and search for suspects come being up.

In less than 14 hours, the assault weapons ban is destined to die. Are gun makers being flooded with orders for the banned weapons? That answer might surprise you.

Later he wore black, he lived hard, and he played hard. But there's a lot you might not know about the man called Cash. Stay with me for a new biography of the famous country singer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin says terrorism is rooted in unemployment and poor education. To that end, Mr. Putin today announced that he is forming a special federal commission to improve the economy of the North Caucasus region. That is the region where more than 330 hostages were killed during a school siege a week and a half ago. Mr. Putin described Russian anti-terrorism efforts as inefficient.

Investigators in Malaysia are helping track two terror suspects believed to be behind last week's car bombing in Indonesia.

Our Jakarta bureau chief Maria Ressa has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The bomb was rigged in a small truck, picked up by a surveillance camera from the Australian Embassy seconds before the blast. Across the street, another surveillance camera showed the vehicle overtaking the police van in front of the embassy. Then...

(EXPLOSION)

RESSA: ... 200 kilos, about 400 pounds of explosives rip a crater outside the Australian Embassy, killing at least nine people, injuring more than 180. Authorities say it was nearly double the amount of explosives used in the J.W. Marriott attack last year. That was blamed on Jama Islamia or J.I., which also carried out the Bali bombings in 2002. Both attacks funded, authorities say, by al Qaeda.

Police say Thursday bomb bears the hallmarks of J.I. At the top of the suspect list two Malaysian: Dr. Azahari Hussin and Noordin Top.

DABI BACHTIEAR, NATIONAL POLICE CHIEF, INDONESIA (through translator): We need to continue to track and capture these people. We are still facing a terrorist threat.

RESSA: Intelligence sources say Noordin Tip taught at a J.I. feeder school in Malaysia. Allegedly in charge of logistics for the Bali bombings, authorities say he is now actively recruiting suicide bombers in Indonesia. Dr. Azahari is an engineer, trained in Britain. Allegedly J.I.'s top bomb expert, he is the author of its manuals on explosives and is believed to have built the both the Bali and Marriott bombs.

Thursday's explosion, high-end/low velocity, police say show Azahari's sophisticated bomb making skills. On Sunday police reconstructed the blast site. Each of these lines marking the trajectory of debris, pinpointing the bomb's epicenter.

(on camera): Police say the two Malaysians rented a house for two months but stayed only four days. By the time the police got there, they found traces of explosives identical to that here at the blast site, but the Malaysians had left just three days earlier. The hunt continues. Maria Ressa, CNN, Jakarta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We have a lot more news to cover here in the U.S., where the assault weapons ban could be consigned to history in just a few hours. Coming up, the potential impact on gun producers who are already planning for the ban's demise.

And if you bought a home in the last 10 years, you might have noticed the market appears to favor sellers. Gerri Willis tells us that might be changing.

Hi, Ger.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN-FN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hey, Daryn. Is the bloom off the real estate boom? We'll have advice for homebuyers and sellers when CNN LIVE TODAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We're going to get to you the stock market update and our financial news in just a moment. First though, breaking news out of Jenin out of the West Bank town. Getting word that a Israeli helicopter has fired a missile on a car in Jenin, apparently killing two militant leaders. That is according to Palestinian Authority security officials. The main target of the strike appears to be Mamoud Abu Halifa. He is the leader of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, of course, that's the violent group that's linked to Yasser Arafat Fatah movement. So more on the situation in Jenin just ahead, as the pictures and as more information becomes available.

Well it's been healthy for years but is the housing boom about to go bust? In today's "Top Five Tips," CNN/FN's personal finance editor Gerri Willis investigates the real estate bubble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIS (voice-over): Worried the bubble is about to pop? You may have good reason. Nationwide average home prices shot up 9.6 percent over the past year. The biggest increase since 1979. And gains in some markets make that jump look tiny. In Las Vegas, prices rocketed 52 percent in the past 12 months. While in New York, the average price for a Manhattan apartment now tops $1 million. But is this boom about to go bust?

KARL CASE, CASE, SHILLER, WEISS: No bubble has gone on forever in history. It can't. Ultimately the fundamentals of the market act as a break. And the price increases slow and eventually decline.

WILLIS: Case says boom and bust cycles are quite common historically, particularly along the coast. In the mid 1980s Boston saw home prices surge. By the early 1990s, when the recession began, prices also began to fade. At about the same time in Los Angeles, there was also a boom followed by a bust. In fact, that was just one of three boom and bust cycles in L.A. since the 1970s. Although prices sometimes fall, they typically rise by much, much more. In L.A., the 80s boom lifted values by a whopping 102 percent. On the way down, losses totaled just 19 percent.

Still, a slowdown can be painful. That's because even a gradual decline can hurt the broader economy.

CASE: What we're in danger of, I think, is the slowdown in the volume of sales and the slowdown in the volume of new construction. And there's an awful lot of economic activity that is built on housing construction and housing sales; when people buy a home, they buy other things. And if you look at the number of jobs connected with both the housing sector and everything surrounding it, a decline in volumes could be very bad for the American economy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIS: So what do buyers and sellers need to know in this market? No. 1: understand the cycle. If you have been trying to get into the market and buy a house, but have been dissuaded by high prices, watch the number of homes in the market, the number of inventory, the amount of inventory in your market to determine when to get in. When inventories start to rise, that's a good time to start buying.

Tip No. 2: look smart. Make sure that you focus on homes that have been on the market longer than the average. That's another great way to get a deal.

Tip No. 3: if you are buying go back to home buying 101. You have heard location, location, location, that's the best way to pick the right house. Make sure you have got the right part of town and the right lot, and then you can focus on the house.

Tip No. 4: if you are selling, this is a time you absolutely want to price that house right. Price it right in line with other homes just exactly like it. The strategy of under pricing to get a bidding war going is dangerous right now. And Tip No. 5: don't change course. If you have been in your house and you are happy with it and planning to stay, there's no reason to worry. Because even if prices go flat or down they will typically snap back in a few years -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Gerri, thanks for those tips. Appreciate it.

WILLIS: You're welcome.

KAGAN: The president is heading to a Democratic stronghold this morning to talk about health care. A live report straight ahead from America's heartland.

And the life of the Man in Black. We go inside a new biography on legendary country music crooner Johnny Cash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired September 13, 2004 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's kick off the week by looking at what is happening now in the news.
The center of Hurricane Ivan may now miss western Cuba, but effects of this Category 5 storm will still be felt there. Meanwhile, residents along Florida's Panhandle are preparing for Ivan's possible landfall there later this week. Ivan could also come ashore farther west along the Gulf Coast; it is just too early to tell at this point. The storm has been blamed for at least 62 deaths in the Caribbean.

U.S. warplanes dropped a pair of 500-pound bombs on a suspected terrorist meeting site in Fallujah this morning. The air strike came during heavy fighting in the city between U.S. forces and insurgents. The director of the Fallujah Hospital says 20 people were killed and another 38 wounded in the ground and air attacks.

How well do intelligence agencies support homeland security and military operations? The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on that issue today. A live picture from Capitol Hill. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and as you see there Secretary of State Colin Powell are on the docket to testify.

Comrades in arms? People scared or scarred by the Washington area sniper attacks are commenting on the midnight expiration of the assault weapons ban. Relatives of some victims, the law enforcement officials who worked the cases, and area lawmakers will take part in the news conference that is now scheduled for the next hour.

What we are watching live this hour, Senator Joe Biden, presidential candidate John Kerry expected to use an anti-crime event as the backdrop for his own comments on the assault weapons ban and its expiration 14 hours from now. Senator Kerry has accused President Bush of caving into pressure from the National Rifle Association.

We're going to begin this hour though with Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 juggernaut that is now bearing down on western Cuba. Live to Cuba in just a moment. First though, we want to look ahead to where Ivan might be headed, perhaps to Florida's Panhandle.

That is where we find out national correspondent Susan Candiotti in Panama City Beach.

Susan, good morning. SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. And of course, the hope is that by the time it possibly reaches this area, it might be knocked down from a Category 5 to a Category 3. But as we all know very, very well, there are no guarantees.

Now, up and down the Florida Panhandle, of course, storm preparations are underway. Why plywood sales are picking up. People are shuttering their homes and businesses all the way from places that include Apalachicola, St. George's Island, Pensacola all the way as far west as Mobil, Alabama. We are monitoring preparation in all of those areas. There is a worry about storm surge and the Emergency Operation Center here tells us they have been getting a steady stream of phone calls to their hotline. People wondering when do we leave? What time should we leave? Where do we go? How long might we have to stay away if we are ordered out?

A lot of these people are newcomers to the effects of hurricanes. Some of them don't remember what happened here in 1995, when Hurricane Opal blew through about 80 miles west of here. There was serious damage to Panama City at that time. And it did force some changes by way of stricter building codes. Now, disaster planners here tell us that residents are not by any means ignoring Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DALY, CHIEF, PANAMA CITY FIRE DEPT.: I think this hurricane season has prepared Bay County. We have seen what has happened in south and central Florida. And my sense is no one is taking anything for granted. You can see houses are boarded up. The lines at the home improvement stores were long yesterday and so people are preparing. You can sense that at the meeting in the emergency center yesterday that people are taking this serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: And here in Bay County, later this afternoon, the same emergency planners have another meeting scheduled. At that time, they hope to be able to make a decision about whether to start ordering an evacuation as early as tomorrow morning. They don't know for sure yet. They don't even know whether it might be a mandatory evacuation, or voluntary in low-lying areas and for people that live in Mobil homes. Of course, there is worry; but the more preparation the less anxiety.

Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: All right. Well, Susan, you look prepared. You have your gear all ready to go. We'll be checking back with you. Thank you.

Let's right now though, check on Ivan's more immediate threat, now swirling toward western Cuba. One hundred and sixty mile an hour winds in a swathe of destruction serving as an ominous call card.

Our Lucia Newman is in Pinar del Rio, Cuba and joins via videophone -- Lucia?

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn. I'm speaking to you from western Pinar del Rio Province, which is exactly where Hurricane Ivan is heading. As you can see it is raining very hard and the rains are only expected to get worse in the coming hours. Same with the wind gusts, which are already running at over 70 miles per hour. And the hurricane hasn't even arrived here yet.

Now, this province is already suffering from "hurricane fatigue. It was hit by Hurricane Charley exactly one month ago. People here are very, very concerned because even though the eye of the hurricane apparently will not hit this province directly, the effects will be felt. It is a Category 5 storm. People have been evacuated not only here from Pinar del Rio. A million and a half Cuban have been evacuated from here to central Cuba, because of fears of storm surges and flooding. Especially if this storm does veer to the right after it passes the most westerly tip of this country.

President Fidel Castro, we understand, is right now here in Pinar del Rio at the Central Civil Defense Command Post, taking a very personal interest in the events unfolding right now -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Lucia Newman, hang on there in Cuba. We will check back with you. Thank you for the latest on Ivan.

And now we look at the fight for Iraq. More specifically, the battle for control of Fallujah. U.S. forces are battling insurgents there. And earlier today, American warplanes dropped satellite-guided bombs on what was described as a meeting of terrorist leaders.

Our Diana Muriel is in Baghdad with that and other violent outbreaks in Iraq -- Diana.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, yes. We've had the confirmation from the military, the U.S. military -- Marines who are outside Fallujah, from which they -- the city from which they withdrew in April after a three-week siege. They have been launching theses long distance air strikes over several nights in the past couple of weeks. And last night was no different. They say that they launched an attack -- a precise attack on a location, which was a terrorist meeting site for operative and associates of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, one of the most wanted terrorists on the list.

And the only people in the building when that strike occurred, just after 6:00 in the morning local time, were these people. But we've just had numbers from the Ministry of Health, who've told us that 20 people were killed in Fallujah this morning and 38 wounded in air strikes. Amongst which were five women and four children. Eyewitnesses in the city have told CNN that there were, in fact, four different strikes at four different locations in the city. And indeed, an ambulance that has been going out to collect the wounded from one of the attacks was actually hit, and all those onboard that ambulance were killed.

This is the sort of conflicting information that we have been getting from the U.S. military in the past 24 hours. On Sunday here in Baghdad in Haifa Street, a notorious district known as Little Fallujah by its inhabitants, there was an incident where a Bradley fighting vehicle was blown up by a homemade car bomb. The soldiers inside it were evacuated. While they were being evacuated they were attacked.

We're told by the military there were four soldiers injured. The military then decided to send in helicopter gun ships to destroy the Bradley. They do that very often to deny what they call "the enemy looters" that the equipment that's on it. And eyewitnesses told us that there weren't looters there, they were civilians and that's where the majority of casualties, 22 killed and 61 wounded occurred -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And Diana, I understand we have some disturbing pictures that remind us of how dangers it can be to report from there within Iraq.

MURIEL: That's right. One of the things that make us question whether or not the helicopter gunship pilots realize that they were just civilians on the ground, was that there were reporters at the scene reporting. There was a Palestinian journalist, a 32-year-old journalist Mazen al Tumaizi, who was killed whilst he was standing there speaking into a camera that was being recorded by a Reuters' cameraman. He was killed. The cameraman was injured. Another photojournalist who was there at the site was also badly injured in the incident.

And the U.S. military have told us that the normal procedures for them to clear the area, to warn civilians that they are going to do it before they strike like this. And that doesn't seem from the reports that we have had so far, Daryn, to have happened there on Haifa Street in Baghdad on Sunday -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Diana Muriel in Baghdad. Thank you for the latest from there.

On to western Afghanistan, the removal of a local warlord from office triggered a deadly series of events. Sources in Heart tell CNN that protesters set fire to several U.N. offices, after Afghanistan's U.S. interim President Hamid Karzai dismissed the warlord from his post as provincial governor. Afghan police and soldiers fired on the crowd. At least eight demonstrators were reported killed and more than a dozen were injured.

Surveillance cameras and terrorist attack. Last week's attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta caught on tape. Check out those pictures? Anatomy of a bombing and search for suspects come being up.

In less than 14 hours, the assault weapons ban is destined to die. Are gun makers being flooded with orders for the banned weapons? That answer might surprise you.

Later he wore black, he lived hard, and he played hard. But there's a lot you might not know about the man called Cash. Stay with me for a new biography of the famous country singer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin says terrorism is rooted in unemployment and poor education. To that end, Mr. Putin today announced that he is forming a special federal commission to improve the economy of the North Caucasus region. That is the region where more than 330 hostages were killed during a school siege a week and a half ago. Mr. Putin described Russian anti-terrorism efforts as inefficient.

Investigators in Malaysia are helping track two terror suspects believed to be behind last week's car bombing in Indonesia.

Our Jakarta bureau chief Maria Ressa has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The bomb was rigged in a small truck, picked up by a surveillance camera from the Australian Embassy seconds before the blast. Across the street, another surveillance camera showed the vehicle overtaking the police van in front of the embassy. Then...

(EXPLOSION)

RESSA: ... 200 kilos, about 400 pounds of explosives rip a crater outside the Australian Embassy, killing at least nine people, injuring more than 180. Authorities say it was nearly double the amount of explosives used in the J.W. Marriott attack last year. That was blamed on Jama Islamia or J.I., which also carried out the Bali bombings in 2002. Both attacks funded, authorities say, by al Qaeda.

Police say Thursday bomb bears the hallmarks of J.I. At the top of the suspect list two Malaysian: Dr. Azahari Hussin and Noordin Top.

DABI BACHTIEAR, NATIONAL POLICE CHIEF, INDONESIA (through translator): We need to continue to track and capture these people. We are still facing a terrorist threat.

RESSA: Intelligence sources say Noordin Tip taught at a J.I. feeder school in Malaysia. Allegedly in charge of logistics for the Bali bombings, authorities say he is now actively recruiting suicide bombers in Indonesia. Dr. Azahari is an engineer, trained in Britain. Allegedly J.I.'s top bomb expert, he is the author of its manuals on explosives and is believed to have built the both the Bali and Marriott bombs.

Thursday's explosion, high-end/low velocity, police say show Azahari's sophisticated bomb making skills. On Sunday police reconstructed the blast site. Each of these lines marking the trajectory of debris, pinpointing the bomb's epicenter.

(on camera): Police say the two Malaysians rented a house for two months but stayed only four days. By the time the police got there, they found traces of explosives identical to that here at the blast site, but the Malaysians had left just three days earlier. The hunt continues. Maria Ressa, CNN, Jakarta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We have a lot more news to cover here in the U.S., where the assault weapons ban could be consigned to history in just a few hours. Coming up, the potential impact on gun producers who are already planning for the ban's demise.

And if you bought a home in the last 10 years, you might have noticed the market appears to favor sellers. Gerri Willis tells us that might be changing.

Hi, Ger.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN-FN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hey, Daryn. Is the bloom off the real estate boom? We'll have advice for homebuyers and sellers when CNN LIVE TODAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We're going to get to you the stock market update and our financial news in just a moment. First though, breaking news out of Jenin out of the West Bank town. Getting word that a Israeli helicopter has fired a missile on a car in Jenin, apparently killing two militant leaders. That is according to Palestinian Authority security officials. The main target of the strike appears to be Mamoud Abu Halifa. He is the leader of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, of course, that's the violent group that's linked to Yasser Arafat Fatah movement. So more on the situation in Jenin just ahead, as the pictures and as more information becomes available.

Well it's been healthy for years but is the housing boom about to go bust? In today's "Top Five Tips," CNN/FN's personal finance editor Gerri Willis investigates the real estate bubble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIS (voice-over): Worried the bubble is about to pop? You may have good reason. Nationwide average home prices shot up 9.6 percent over the past year. The biggest increase since 1979. And gains in some markets make that jump look tiny. In Las Vegas, prices rocketed 52 percent in the past 12 months. While in New York, the average price for a Manhattan apartment now tops $1 million. But is this boom about to go bust?

KARL CASE, CASE, SHILLER, WEISS: No bubble has gone on forever in history. It can't. Ultimately the fundamentals of the market act as a break. And the price increases slow and eventually decline.

WILLIS: Case says boom and bust cycles are quite common historically, particularly along the coast. In the mid 1980s Boston saw home prices surge. By the early 1990s, when the recession began, prices also began to fade. At about the same time in Los Angeles, there was also a boom followed by a bust. In fact, that was just one of three boom and bust cycles in L.A. since the 1970s. Although prices sometimes fall, they typically rise by much, much more. In L.A., the 80s boom lifted values by a whopping 102 percent. On the way down, losses totaled just 19 percent.

Still, a slowdown can be painful. That's because even a gradual decline can hurt the broader economy.

CASE: What we're in danger of, I think, is the slowdown in the volume of sales and the slowdown in the volume of new construction. And there's an awful lot of economic activity that is built on housing construction and housing sales; when people buy a home, they buy other things. And if you look at the number of jobs connected with both the housing sector and everything surrounding it, a decline in volumes could be very bad for the American economy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIS: So what do buyers and sellers need to know in this market? No. 1: understand the cycle. If you have been trying to get into the market and buy a house, but have been dissuaded by high prices, watch the number of homes in the market, the number of inventory, the amount of inventory in your market to determine when to get in. When inventories start to rise, that's a good time to start buying.

Tip No. 2: look smart. Make sure that you focus on homes that have been on the market longer than the average. That's another great way to get a deal.

Tip No. 3: if you are buying go back to home buying 101. You have heard location, location, location, that's the best way to pick the right house. Make sure you have got the right part of town and the right lot, and then you can focus on the house.

Tip No. 4: if you are selling, this is a time you absolutely want to price that house right. Price it right in line with other homes just exactly like it. The strategy of under pricing to get a bidding war going is dangerous right now. And Tip No. 5: don't change course. If you have been in your house and you are happy with it and planning to stay, there's no reason to worry. Because even if prices go flat or down they will typically snap back in a few years -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Gerri, thanks for those tips. Appreciate it.

WILLIS: You're welcome.

KAGAN: The president is heading to a Democratic stronghold this morning to talk about health care. A live report straight ahead from America's heartland.

And the life of the Man in Black. We go inside a new biography on legendary country music crooner Johnny Cash.

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