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New Day

School Children Slaughtered in Taliban Attack; Memorial Remembers Victims of Sydney Standoff

Aired December 16, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, December 16th, it's 7:00 a.m. in the East. I'm Alisyn Camerota, alongside Chris Cuomo.

We're following breaking news for you, because there's been another terror strike, this time at a school in Pakistan. Armed Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers storming the school with hundreds of children caught in the crossfire. At this moment, the death toll is 126. Most of them students, but that number we're warned could climb higher.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And remember, it is an active situation. There's no question that kids have been killed, so we'll give you information as we get it.

Now, you're looking at one situation that has thankfully ended. The hostages down in Sydney. It did turn into a deadly siege. The question is, who was this man? Could he have been stopped before? Could more lives been saved during this situation?

First, though, let's focus on Pakistan. There is new information, so let's get to CNN's Atika Shubert, tracking developments from London -- Atika.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do have information from Pakistan's military spokesperson, says five of the attackers have been killed. An additional two students and two staff have been rescued. And they now have most of the attackers, I understand surrounded in four blocks, four buildings of the school.

And the quote from him is "Clearance under way."

Now, here's a look at how the day's events unfolded so far. Keep in mind that the ages of many of the victims here are between 12-16, just children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHUBERT (voice-over): Breaking this morning, Taliban militants terrorizing a school in northern Pakistan. At least 100 people killed, mostly children. At least two teachers among the deceased. This crisis unfolding at a military-run school in Peshawar, with dozens of others injured. It was just before 12 p.m. when a group of gunmen stormed the school

after scaling the walls. The Pakistan Taliban claiming responsibility, calling this a revenge attack after they say Pakistan's military launched a major military offensive against them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The military runs a number of schools. They call them the army public schools. Clearly, this was chosen because of its affiliation with the military and also because it was a soft target. There are children there.

SHUBERT: A Taliban spokesman claiming six suicide bombers were ordered to attack the school, their goal: to shoot older students. A security official says nearly 700 students and staff were in the building when the attack began. The students are aged 10-18.

Pakistan military officials say paramilitary forces are now on school grounds, confirming they exchanged gunfire with the terrorists. Most of the students and staff have now been evacuated, but this is an ongoing hostage situation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Parents were able to contact their kids through mobile phone. They were getting information, but now the phones have been switched off, and there's absolutely no contact.

SHUBERT: Over the past few months, the Pakistan military has been trying to clear out militants along its border with Afghanistan through a ground offensive. The campaign has displaced tens of thousands of people and killed over 1,600 militants.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: The ongoing situation right now is being reflected in the pictures that you were seeing. Those are victims of this ongoing firefight inside a school. It goes from grade one to grade ten, and that's why you're seeing some older-looking children in those blazers.

And we do know that at least 100 children have been delivered to the hospital. The numbers are going to change. The situation is ongoing and we'll tell you what we know as we know it.

Let's get some perspective right now. Let's get our senior international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, with us right now.

Christiane, first let's explain to people that, as shocking as this is, it is not unheard of in this part of the world, specifically Pakistan, as the state of play between the Taliban and the Pakistani government, right?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. In fact, the Taliban in Afghanistan and in Pakistan made their name, originally, you know, more than a decade ago, killing children in school. Trying to prevent children from going to school, particularly girls.

And this happens, just a few days, a week after Malala Yousafzai, perhaps the most famous Pakistani, or the most famous school girl in the world, who was shot by the Taliban a few years ago, and has just received the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to get all kids, especially girls, education.

Now, that is combined with the fact that the Taliban spokespeople tell CNN that this was specifically in revenge against the Pakistani military, which has for the last several months, been conducting an offensive against the Taliban in that very area.

And this school was a school specifically for the children of military personnel in that area. So it is a multiple-pronged tragedy that the youngest and the most innocent are caught up and the actual targets of this brutal war, this existential war that's been fought in Pakistan for the last decade plus, between the government and these Taliban terrorists.

CUOMO: And there's, there's a troubling crossover there that we have to discuss, as well. So let's bring in Sajjan Gohel. He's the international security director of Asia-Pacific Foundation and CNN chief. We have Christiane, as well, who will stay with us for the conversation.

But Sajjan, let me ask you this: the idea of the government of Pakistan being compromised in its fight against the Taliban because of crossovers in clan identification, because of crossovers in sympathies, how does that compromise the situation?

SAJJAN GOHEL, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, ASIA-PACIFIC FOUNDATION: It makes it very complicated. Because, as you mentioned, there are those crossovers. Nawaz Sharif is the democratically- elected prime minister of Pakistan. He's tried to have a dialogue and negotiate with the Pakistan Taliban. Ultimately, it has failed.

But then he also has the problem of the Pakistani military that have their own agenda, their own foreign policy dynamics. And they have been undermining his own rule, which we've seen in the last few months there have been a lot of protests in Pakistan. The suspicion has always been that those were orchestrated and sponsored by the military to specifically cause difficulty for him.

That weakens Pakistan, and it weakens their ability to govern. And it only makes the situation worse, especially with groups like the Taliban exploiting that security vacuum.

CUOMO: All right. Let's keep the suggestions to a minimum right now, Christiane, because we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the Pakistani military.

But if you know that the Taliban -- and often they do know when vengeance is on their mind and even specifically where it's directed. Do you think this is a situation where they just missed the risk of this school of military families in this hotbed area of jihadi activity?

AMANPOUR: No, I doubt it. You know they know very well what's the target and what is, you know, vulnerable. And it's not unusual to have these military compounds and their schools attached. And presumably, they know that, you know, the hotter the situation gets, the more likely there are to be these soft targets.

Obviously, the Taliban have been pursued by the military, and there are all sorts of complaints about how the military actually does that, often with long-range mortar and heavy artillery fire that tends to not just kill the targets but destroys a huge sector of the area. And this is all in that very hard-to-get-to frontier territory between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So yes, there was security there. It was a military installation. But what we're told is that these handful of Taliban, we're told suicide bombers scaled the wall and just you know, rushed in to various different blocks as the military there is calling them, which are different buildings. And cynically and coldly decided to separate slightly older children from younger children, as if that was going to make any difference or justify who actually was being killed and who wasn't.

But there is a very, very troubling dynamic. And your guest has touched on that. You know, there's very difficult war within Pakistan, as well. Between the civilian government, between governments in the past, the military and the intelligence service. And also a troubling relationship between all that and the United States. One of the top military commanders was in the U.S. not long ago. And you know, they have to really account for why there -- why there's so much suspicion and resistance by the armed forces and the intelligence to fighting these militants.

CUOMO: Sajjan, let me end on this. We hear about hostages being taken. But the Taliban is not known for conducting, you know, negotiations in a situation like this. Do you think that the focus has to be on taking out the men who are the insurgents here, because there will be no negotiated conclusion to this situation?

GOHEL: Whatever the process that the military tries to conduct, it's unfortunately not going to end well. The death toll will increase, and we've seen this in previous school sieges.

You may remember the Beslan school siege in southern Russia ten years ago, when the Russians tried to storm it. It ended very bloodily. And I think the same scenario, I fear, will take place here yet again. And it's going to be the issue that the Pakistani military has to understand, is that if you want to dismantle the infrastructure of the Pakistan Taliban, it also has to dismantle the structure of the Afghanistan Taliban. Because the two of them have that connection, the Pashtun connection. And they share resources at time. And that paradox that has never been addressed by the Pakistani military, which is what has created the security problems in Pakistan and then seep over into Afghanistan.

CUOMO: Well, and of course, you also -- you cannot dismiss something that's fundamentally different from other major parts of the coalition against terror: you do have division within the Pakistani government and military that makes this even more difficult.

Sajjan Gohel, thank you very much; and Christiane Amanpour, always appreciate the perspective -- Alisyn. CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Sydney, Australia, is in mourning today after a

hostage-taking at a cafe in a tourist hub. Two innocent people killed. Flowers now piling up at the site of the deadly incident as we learn more about the final moments before police rushed in.

Let's go to Andrew Stevens live for us in Sydney. Andrew, what do we know?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

It was the very heart of Sydney that was under siege. The gunman chose an area which the banks, the financial heart is right there. And there were two deaths, as we now know. And we're starting to get a picture of what happened in those fateful final moments.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS (voice-over): A bed of hundreds of flowers blanket Martin Place, the site of a deadly police standoff that claimed the lives of two hostages. Each bouquet, a tribute to the bravery that occurred here.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: This has been an absolutely appalling and ugly incident. That's the only way to describe it.

STEVENS: This morning, we're learning more about the harrowing story amidst this terrifying ordeal.

After a firestorm of gunshots rang out in the heart of downtown Sydney, authorities still piecing together what set off the chain of events, forcing heavily armed police to storm the Lindt chocolate cafe, freeing the hostages inside.

COMMISSIONER ANDREW P. SCIPIONE, NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE: They made the call because they believed at that time, if they didn't enter, there would have been many more lives lost.

STEVENS: Some have said 34-year-old Tori Johnson, the cafe's manager, may have grabbed the hostage taker's gun. But authorities wouldn't comment on those accounts.

Shots were heard from the street. During the struggle, Johnson was killed.

Thirty-eight-year-old Katrina Dawson, a lawyer and mother of three, also died.

Johnson's family said in a statement, "We are so proud of our beautiful boy, Tori, gone from this earth but forever in our memories as the most amazing life partner, son and brother we could ever wish for."

For nearly 17 hours before the crisis ended, hostages remained on edge, visible through the cafe's windows, forced to hold a black flag with Arabic writing. Some held at gunpoint, managing to escape, their mad dash to safety captured on local news.

A full investigation into the mind and motives of the gunman, a self- proclaimed Muslim cleric, is under way.

Fearing a potential backlash, fellow Australians are showing support to the Muslim community online. Under the hashtag #I'llridewithyou, Australian Twitter showing solidarity, offering to accompany Muslims wearing religious clothes on public transport as Sydney works to return to normalcy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: And the people of Sydney, Alisyn, also showing solidarity amongst themselves. To themselves. That's -- that memorial of flowers just continues to grow. It's past 11 p.m. in the evening, usually a pretty quiet time of the day here in Sydney this time of the week. But there are still many, many people making that trek down there to lay flowers to remember what happened here and to show their solidarity with the fellow Sydneysiders. They haven't seen anything like this in two generations, so it is really a traumatic experience for this city.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. All right. Andrew Stevens, thank you so much for that.

And ahead on NEW DAY, we will be joined by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. In the meantime, there are other headlines. Let's get over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning to you guys.

And good morning once again. More fallout from that massive cyberattack at Sony Pictures. Hackers are warning that there will be further leaks, because the company has not met their demands. Those demands reportedly include not releasing the studio's upcoming movie, "The Interview," a comedy about a plot to kill North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un. The movie is scheduled to open Christmas day.

A massive manhunt continues in Pennsylvania for a man suspected of killing six of his estranged family members. Authorities say 35-year- old Bradley William Stone fatally shot his ex-wife and five former in laws, including a 14-year-old girl. Stone, a former Marine reservist, allegedly gunned down these family members at three separate locations. Police believe Stone is armed and dangerous.

Some disturbing dash cam video to show you, a police officer pulling over and taking down a 76-year-old man in Victoria, Texas, then Tasing him twice, all because of an expired inspection sticker. Officer Nathaniel Robinson is now on administrative leave while the man that he put under arrest, was seated in his cruiser -- Pete Vazquez is his name -- could be heard telling the officer that the dealer tags on his car make it exempt from inspection. Victoria's police chief confirmed to the "Victoria Advocate" newspaper that the car, indeed, was exempt.

Dr. Vivek Murthy will be the next surgeon general of the United States. Senators voted to confirm the 37-year-old Harvard professor Monday. His nomination had been in limbo for more than a year and a half because of concerns about his experience and opposition from the gun lobby. Murthy is the youngest-ever top doctor in America, and he is also the first surgeon general of Indian-American descent. So there you go.

CUOMO: Another first.

PEREIRA: Another first. Yes, exactly.

CUOMO: All right. We have been following two ongoing situations. One that was in Pakistan and, of course, the aftermath of what happened in Sydney. There we're learning new details about the man on your screen right now, the gunman who took lives inside that cafe in Sydney. What was his connection to extremist thought? What was known about him by authorities? What more could they have done?

CAMEROTA: Plus new questions about witness testimony in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Did inconsistencies in the witness accounts convince the grand jury not to indict Officer Darren Wilson? We'll look at those.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Sydney still reeling this morning after a hostage taking at a downtown cafe. Two innocent people killed in a city that has no experience with this kind of terror, as we learn more about the troubled past of the gunman.

Joining is the former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd. He is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Prime Minister Rudd, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

KEVIN RUDD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Good to be on the program.

CAMEROTA: So we can only imagine what your experience was, as you watched the events unfold yesterday while you were here in the United States. Tell us what was going through your mind as you watched this siege.

RUDD: Well, collective horror, I think. Really 23 million people in Australia, but at any one time, a million of us are offshore. And when we looked down the television screen and see this unfolding on our own shores, rather than other countries in the world where these things tend to happen more, we are stunned and we are shocked.

And the reason is, Australia is a very open, welcoming; Sydney is a cosmopolitan, multicultural city. And where we have absorbed one generation of immigrants after another, peacefully. And having said that, this appears on all reports to have been the act of a lone wolf. Nonetheless, horrific in its consequences, and you've seen the outpouring of grief from the Australian people on your television screens here this morning. CAMEROTA: Americans learned yesterday just how strict Australia's gun

laws are. Australia many years ago banned automatic weapons, semiautomatic weapons, shotguns. Obviously, we have a debate all the time in this country about whether stricter gun laws here would prevent mass shootings. The argument against that here, is that then only the criminals would have guns.

What -- how do you explain what happened yesterday, even though you had all the gun laws in Australia?

RUDD: Well, I think the -- I pay tribute to my predecessors, Prime Minister Mr. Howard, who outlawed semiautomatic weapons in Australia altogether after a horrific mass killing back in 1996. And this was the right thing to do. All Australians on all sides of politics, including those who represent gun ownership clubs in Australia, support this action.

In our country, we can see no justification whatsoever for any individual owning a semiautomatic weapon.

In this case, I do not know yet what the final conclusions are on the investigation about the weapon held by this individual. He'll li I'll leave that to the investigators. But I believe we've been relatively free from mass killings in Australia the last nearly 20 years, in part because of the strict laws which are in place. So I think it's important not to draw the wrong conclusions from this incident.

We should look at the span of the last 20 years, where through good police, intelligence work, from our security agencies and in partnership with our friends around the world, including here in the United States, we've been able to manage a relatively peaceful environment.

The gunman was well known to authorities. He had a violent past. He was an accessory to a murder in the death of his wife. He was charged with sexually assaulting a young woman who had visited him for, quote, "spiritual consultation." He had written offensive letters to the families of deceased Australian soldiers.

So was yesterday, to your mind, a crisis of Islamic extremism, because he had pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS? Or was this just a violent psychopath?

RUDD: Well, let's see what the investigation unfolds. What I would note from the entire half million strong Muslim community in Australia, is universal revulsion at the actions of this individual.

Yesterday in Australia we had, while the siege was under way, we had joint prayer services in mosques involving our Jewish leaders, Catholic leaders, Christian leaders, as well as, of course, Muslim leaders. The grand mufti of Australia came out yesterday while this was on and condemning these actions. So we do not see this as representative of a particular force within our own country.

Having said that, together with security and intelligence agencies around the world, we must all remain vigilant. Because there are a group, a marginal group out there of the fringes of our society, who seek to do us damage. And we need to be very careful and considered and, I believe, positive in our support for what the security intelligence services around the world, including the U.S., do each day to prevent these sort of things from happening. And we rarely see that reported on, let alone commended.

CAMEROTA: Given this gunman's violent past, should Australian authorities been monitoring him more closely?

RUDD: Well what I know from my own period as prime minister is that the Australian security and intelligence organization, ASIO, takes its mandate exceptionally seriously. And we are, at any given time, engaged fully in partnership with organizations around the world in the monitoring of individuals who exhibit tendencies towards this sort of violence.

But like the United States, we are a country of laws, and as a consequence, this person has been through legal processes in Australia. I'm not in a position to comment on how the courts have effectively dealt with this matter in the past. But I would, however, commend our security intelligence agencies for the work they have done across the board. Unsung work, over many years, to preempt, to prevent, and contain incidents of this and related nature over many, many years now. And the same happens in the U.S.

CAMEROTA: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, we feel for you and your country this morning. Thanks so much for taking time for NEW DAY.

RUDD: Thank you for having me on your program.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. We have breaking news coverage out of Pakistan. A school is under attack right now by the Taliban. Is the military close to ending the massacre? We have new information ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Welcome back to NEW DAY to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world this morning.

We are following breaking news. A Taliban terror attack targets a school in Pakistan killing at least 126 people, most of them children, 12-16 years old. Most of the other students and staff at the school have now been evacuated, we're told.

Let's turn to Atika Shubert. She is tracking all the developments for us, live from London. What do we know at this hour, Atika?

SHUBERT: That's right. Well, the latest we have from Pakistan's military spokesperson is that two more children, two more teachers have been rescued, and the sixth terrorist has been killed. That may mean that all the attackers have been killed. But we can't be absolutely sure until that's confirmed by the Pakistani military and they've gone through all of the buildings in the school. Now, another thing he said was that, in the last block of the school,

it does appear that IEDs have been planted, and that is hampering the speed of clearance of these buildings. So that's the latest we have from the scene.

In the meantime, at hospitals, there are two main hospitals where victims are being brought. Parents are desperately searching for their children to find out if they have been among those killed. As you mentioned, most of those killed have been children between the ages of 12 and 16.

CUOMO: All right. Atika, thank you very much for the reporting.

Let's get more on the unfolding cries in Pakistan. We have Harris Rafiq. He's managing editor at the Quilliam Foundation, a counter- extremism think tank and a former member of the U.K.'s counter- extremism task force.

Haras, thank you for joining us this morning. It looks from the outside like the Pakistani military/intelligence community was just caught off-guard by this Taliban attack. Is that a fair assessment?

HARAS RAFIQ, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: I don't think they were caught off- guard. I don't think they expected something to be this big in Peshawar, in the region where it was. But you have to realize something. That's groups such as ISIL in Syria and Iraq have embold -- empowered other groups like the Taliban, other groups that espouse al Qaeda, to actually want to be part of the action. They feel a little bit left out, and they feel that this is their time.