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New Day

World Leaders March in Paris; Tracking Terror Suspects; Cowboy Karma?; Paris Attacker Ties to Yemen

Aired January 12, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good to have you back with us here on New Day. Let's take a look at your headlines, ISIS flags automatic weapons and other evidence uncovered by French police in a Paris apartment rented by the gunman who killed four hostages in a kosher grocery store.

Authorities are hoping to find clues that will lead them to the lone surviving suspect. Officials in Turkey now say Hayat Boumedienne left Turkey for Syria a day before the grocery store attack and a day after the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

Disturbing news out at Nigeria. Police takes explosives were strapped to a girl possibly as young as 10 years old then detonated in a busy market, at least 20 people were killed. Boko Haram is believed to be behind the attack, Saturday. This on the heels of a massacre by the militants. There are reports of up to 2,000 people killed in a town in Nigeria's border with Chad.

Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson joins us live from Nigeria. These details are horrifying Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. The chilling -- this is a new departure even compared of Boko Haram's depravity in the past. The attack on the town of Baga near the border with Chad began in the early hours of Saturday morning, January 3rd.

And eye witnesses told us they heard a lot of explosions and gun fight. They thought it was the army testing weapons then they saw the army on the run that the army outpost defending the town have been overrun. Hundreds of Boko Haram arriving in the town.

They tried to fight them, realized they were outgunned. This man, somso that he hid in the bushes by his house for three days the gunfire and gun battle is going on around and killed a lot of neighbors. Houses were burned in the town, 30,000 people run away.

And he said when he finally got away himself, that for a distance of about 3 miles, he was walking past bodies strewn at the side of the road. He estimates as many even as 3,000 people killed. And then hot on the heels of that, you have the attacks where Boko Haram has used young girls three times this weekend as unwitting suicide bombers killing 20 people in a market and one town on Saturday. And then sending two young girls to their deaths. Suicide bomb strapped to them remotely detonated killing three people, wounding 43 in a market in an another major town.

So Boko Haram really stepping up with his attacks taking effective control of more territory driving out the last remnants of the Nigerian army there in the town of Baga. Michaela?

PEREIRA: Yeah and that Nigerian army seeming to be helpless in light of all of this. Nic Robertson, thank you for that report.

Meanwhile, students in a Pakistani -- the city of Peshawar are returning to school today for the first time since the Taliban attack last month that killed 150 people including 134 children. Nearly two dozen soldiers guarded the entrance of the army public school where that attack took place. Airport style security gates and elevated walls with steel, wire fencing are also now in place.

Back here at home, a showdown is brewing between the children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His two sons have asked a judge to order their sister Bernice to turn over their father's Nobel Peace Prize medal and traveling Bible.

The brothers say, they want to sell the items for money, but Bernice is not willing to give them up because she says, the items are cherished and priceless. A judge could decide the case at a hearing tomorrow or let it go to trial.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Not new...

PEREIRA: No.

CUOMO: ... but painful reminder. No family is immuned.

PEREIRA: No family is immuned. It's so true.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: What if it's sold to a museum and solve both their issues for prosperity.

PEREIRA: Yeah, we'll find out later today.

CUOMO: You're so reasonable. May be someone is immuned.

All right, so we are reporting this morning on what is certainly just a bloody game of one-upmanship, you have ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram as well, all competing to become the face of the global Jihadi movement. Will their competition come home to West?

We're going to take a closer look at the dynamic and mounting risk between these groups.

PEREIRA: Also, we will get an exclusive look inside an apartment in Yemen where one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers had lived. And waiting to you here who his roommate was, an inside look you'll see only on CNN.

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CUOMO: Very important to note, these terror attacks are not more of the same. The violence, of course, is a mainstay, but who is doing it? And why has a deadly twist now? Competition between terrorists fueling more and more brazen attacks with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, all battling to become the face of the Jihadi movement. And they appear to have inspired the Paris attacks through this competition.

So, what is this complicated relationship mean to the West? Are we going to see more attacks because of it? Let's bring in Bobby Ghosh, CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Managing Editor of Quartz. Of course, thank you, Bobby. Help us understand. This is worth a new look.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It is. We're basically talking about two different groups that are operating. You have Al- Qaeda which we know they now have franchises all over the Muslim world. The most prominent one among them is called Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It's based in Yemen. These are the guys who are behind the attempted underwear bombing. We think the Kouachi brothers were connected to them.

CUOMO: But we have this -- but remember...

GHOSH: Yes.

CUOMO: ... just explain the people, though. It's not who they are. It's not just where they are. If that now, there was a jealously involved...

GHOSH: Right.

CUOMO: ... where these people want to be "No, no, no. It's us. We're the baddest. We're the worst."

GHOSH: That's right.

CUOMO: We're seeing that.

GHOSH: So -- And that is a response to the success of ISIS. The more successful ISIS has got, the more they have taken away resources from Al-Qaeda, not just recruit more and more people, people who want to go where -- follow a group that is successful.

So, more and more potential Jihadist want to go to Syria and Iraq and join ISIS. Funders, people who give money to these causes are much more likely to give money now to ISIS than to Al-Qaeda.

So that means Al-Qaeda is under pressure to show that they are still relevant in the perverse logic of terrorism. That they too, we're still here, people. And so, they're reaching out to communities in Europe, in the U.S. saying, you know, we want you to launch an attack. Come to us. We have -- Come to Yemen for training not to Syria and Iraq. Come to Yemen for weapons...

CUOMO: And the guys, we know with brothers?

GHOSH: And that what saw the guy.

CUOMO: The U.S. narrative that well. We do know that we hallowed out Yemen, not true. They hallowed out Al-Qaeda, not true.

GNOSH: No, no, no.

CUOMO: They're reorganizing. There's new blood. There's new momentum.

GHOSH: Far from it. They're so much more confusion now in Yemen because you have a Shiite militia that's essentially running the north and west of the country which makes Al-Qaeda more relevant again because they are, of course, the Sunni terrorist group.

CUOMO: All right.

GHOSH: So they've got a lot more happening there than we would -- because we've been distracted by ISIS, no one has been being paying attention.

CUOMO: What can we tell in the faces of these two men? What do they mean as leaders of these two organizations?

GHOSH: Ayman al-Zawahiri, the non -- he was Osama bin Laden's right hand man, now the man in charge of Al-Qaeda. This is Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, the self-styled Caliph of ISIS. The two men have exchanged criticisms. Baghdadi called himself a Caliph which is a religiously...

CUOMO: Right. Highly offensive.

GHOSH: Highly offensive to the vast majority of Muslims. Zawahiri at one point said to Baghdadi, you're going too far. You're hurting other Muslims. Stop. His response was, "They're none of your business," you know, "Get out of my way."

And so, the two men clearly, although we don't know that they've ever actually met. They've traded barbs and insults in their statements.

CUOMO: So why don't they attack each other?

GHOSH: Well, because their idealogy, if you can call it an idealogy, their world view is identical. They both believed that the world should go back to the way it was the 7th century during the time of the Prophet. And the important thing is that the foot soldiers, people like Coulibaly and like the Kouachi brothers, they may pledge allegiance to the different groups, but they are capable of working together at that level.

CUOMO: We just saw that also.

GHOSH: As we've seen.

CUOMO: We saw that Amedy, you know, the third one, who wound up targeting that kosher grocery. He may have come back, authorities believe, to help protect the brothers once he heard that they were been dead. Now, he may have been gone but decided to come back. Very frightening.

Now, Boko Haram, you got to add them into the mix also. We even know...

GHOSH: Yes.

CUOMO: ... they're localized right now. They could spread like that and they're doing more than enough damage.

GHOSH: Have killed more people this week than all these other groups in total. They seem to have killed about 2,000 people in one town. In the earlier segment they're reporting about the use of female suicide bombers, perhaps one as young as 10 years old.

They are kind of outliers at the moment. But they too, because they are seen in the terror world as successful, they too are attracting resources. They too are attracting recruits from all over Africa. They are attracting money and weapon.

So, you really have three different groups all pursuing essentially the same -- if you like world view, but different political ambitions. Their ambitions so far as we know sort of basically restricted to Nigeria. That's Boko Haram.

The Al-Qaeda sees itself as a global organization. ISIS has focus on Syria and Iraq for the moment, but they too, if you look at their statements, they too have ambitions to spread around the world.

CUOMO: Security experts keep telling us that, "You know what? This is all true. It's all evolving," and yet, the answer is the same. Everywhere it's coming up, poor, poor, poor, disenfranchised, disenfranchised, not enough education, not enough commerce. We must address those. You can't have a multifront of violent, you know, war- driven policy that will never be the answer, and we're seeing it play out all too long.

GHOSH: Lots of these are totalitarian regimes, governments that oppressed their own people, and as well as being poor and disenfranchised. They feel that they don't have a political voice and so they respond in some cases. Fortunately, relatively few cases, they respond to the clarion call...

CUOMO: Yes.

GHOSH: ... if you like of Islamism.

CUOMO: Bobby Ghosh, thank you very much, always a pleasure.

All right, so, I want you to be sure to watch the CNN Special "Double Agent Inside Al-Qaeda for the CIA" tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN. A very good insight in there. It's the story of a radical Islamist turned to double agent, who's uncovering some of the world's best kept secrets. Please, stay on that. Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Connecting the dots on a terrorist's path, we're going to take you inside an apartment where one of the brothers who attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine once lived with another infamous terrorist. Wait until you see how they lived. This is a CNN exclusive, stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: OK. So, the Dallas Cowboys some say made it through the first round of the playoffs because of a controversial call. Well guess what, karma came up calling last night.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

CUOMO: Andy Scholes live at the AT&T stadium in Arlington Dallas Texas, that's the side of tonight's the College National Championship game. He's got more in his morning feature report. Andy, let's jut get right to it, do you think it was a catch?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yeah. You know I wanted people to definitely think it was a catch, Chris. You know I was watching you with a bunch of cowboys then here in North Texas. Let's just say they're not happy with what unfolded. They still just can't believe what happen.

Let's show you the play. It happened in the fourth quarter. It was 4 to 2 for the Cowboys, they were driving to win the game. Tony Romo's going to thrown up for Dez Bryant and he makes an amazing catch, one of the best catches in NFL history. But the official reviewed and they said Dez did not maintained possession of the ball as he completed the process of making the catch. So it was rolled incomplete, the Packers were hold on to win the game and Dez and the Cowboys were just left in disbelief over what happens.

So the NFC championship is not going to be the Packers versus the Seahawks in the AFC championship we're not going to get another round of Manning versus Brady that's because Andrew lost in the cold win ended Denver and shocked the Broncos' Peyton Manning, but he had a rough day throwing once the incompletion did, well it was discontinued this is the ninth time in his career that Peyton's gone one in done in the playoff after the game Peyton would not say whether or not he is going to come back next session.

All right, back here at AT&T stadium we're gearing up for history tonight as the Oregon Ducks and they take on the Ohio State Buckeye to the first ever college football playoff national championship game.

Now ESPN made this out a big bucks for this game, they take $7.3 billion to air the playoffs for 12 years and it's already paying off. The semifinals games were the most watched programs in cable television history. Tonight's game likely going to surpass those and it's matched up. It's one that we wouldn't have got if there was the whole playoffs season.

The new playoffs to select these two teams get in and they're happy that they're playing for the championship and not letting the BCS computers decide who's going to be the national champion?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) URBAN MEYER, OHIO STATE HEAD COACH: I heard our player's say thanks for the college football playoffs and that's real we would not be in it either with Oregon. I think the other two schools Alabama (inaudible) will be playing.

TONY WASHINGTON, OREGON LINEBACKER: I'm sure you like to begin this season. A lot of people would then expect us to be the two teams international tittle. So when it uses (inaudible) players kind of like change that, I mean it's the college football in general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: A kick off tonight's bet for 8:30 Eastern guys. All eyes going to be on the court and actually Oregon Ducks of course who got Marcus Mariota, the highest in trophy winning it for Ohio State. You got Cardale Jones, the third screen quarterback who's doing oh so far in his career and guys if he wins one more game here tonight it will forever be a legend in the State of Ohio.

CUOMO: Covering a CNN for a second and then tell us who you think is going to win?

SCHOLES: So I've been speaking against the Ohio State for the last month so I'm finally going to go for the Buckeye tonight that they win the national championship.

CAMEROTA: Got it all right. Andy thanks you so much for (inaudible).

SCHOLES: All right.

CUOMO: Tonight at 8:30.

PEREIRA: Good thinking. He'll be busy.

CAMEROTA: Yes, you got it.

All right now to a CNN exclusive that we want to bring you this morning were learning new details about the wife of one of the gunman involved in the terror attack in France.

When Said Kouachi was a student in Yemen authority say he befriended a Nigerian men who later became known as the underwear bomber after attempting to blow up a U.S.-bound airplane on Christmas day on in 2009. CNN Nick Patron Walsh went to the dormitory where the two terrorists lived together and they joins us live from Beirut with more. What did you find then?

NICK PATRON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What our producer in Yemen, I mean Beirut here went to this apartment area, it used to be an institute where the Said Kouachi learns Arabic but also says a witness who meet Kouachi then, that he claims he roomed briefly with the underwear bomber. Let's look briefly now at exactly what conditions they looked in there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALSH: During multiple alleged trips to Yemen Said Kouachi the older of two brothers behind the Paris attacks made some extraordinarily high profile friends (inaudible) a local witness tell CNN he briefly roomed with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried to bomb up a plane to Detroit in December 2009.

These winding streets Kouachi studied Arabic grammar at a local institute and sometimes played football withchildren.

In 2011 Kouachi met this researcher Mohammed Al-Kibsi.

MOHAMMED AL-KIBSI: And they was the only adult among them that were -- they were making. Farouk studied in an institute here (inaudible) lived in this -- down there. And he lived and above -- at that place.

WALSH: He shows all producers the institute lodgings where he saysthe Paris gunman and the underwear bomber shared an apartment for a week or two probably in 2009.

The lodgings are closed to us but Kibsi remembers what Kouachi told him about the underwear bomber.

AL-KIBSI: That Farouk was very quiet person and he rarely talk to people.

WALSH: Those former lodgings are now office space, the school close down despite this link to one of the most famous attempted bombers of the last decade somehow quiet Kouachi later fell of the French Intelligence radar

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was very nice guy, very cheerful, polite.

WALSH: One Yemeni official tells CNN Kouachi met Al-Qaeda loyalists in Sanaa, the streets of the capital perhaps holding so many secrets about how the Paris attack has learned their brutality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: That was -- And what's really so remarkable is, Said according to one Yemeni official made multiple trips to Yemen. There are suggestions his brother went there too, perhaps his brother according to one French who as I spoke to even went to Syria as well and yes here, you've just seen that Said was briefly the roommate of one of the most well-known attempted bombers in the last decade or so.

His enormous warning signs in the past of what the French authorities now are going to be -- have to reconcile where they dropped intelligence surveying the Kouachi brothers.

CAMEROTA: It's interesting to see that neighborhood and to see how he was perceived as a cheerful, nice guy. Nick Patron Walsh thanks so much for that glimpse.

We're following a lot of news this morning. Let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The hunt is still on for the last remaining suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know her where about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no better safe haven for her proposes then being in what is now the Islamic state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A terror group ISIS put out a new threat against people in the West.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are here. They're in the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the nature of the new threat that we must confront.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now we have the situation and we have no strategy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The world this country so many people coming together where was the President? Where was the Secretary of State.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would have been desirable absolutely. In many other ways the United States have shown its deep sympathy for what France is going through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning everyone. Welcome back to New Day I'm Alisyn Camerota with Chris Cuomo and Michaela Pereira.

There are new clues uncovered to tell you about this morning in the search for the only surviving suspect from the two bloody terror attacks that rocked France.

Police finding ISIS flags and other evidence in a Paris apartment rented by the gunman who killed four hostages in that kosher grocery store. It is not clear whether his partner and his alleged to accomplice, Hayat Boumeddiene also stayed in that apartment before escaping the country. If so, did she leave clues that can help authorities find her.

CUOMO: Also developing this morning U.S. Intelligence officials are almost ready to say officially that one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers got his orders from Al-Qeada in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP. You'll keep hearing that.

Meanwhile, the French are deploying 10,000 troops to beef up security and police departments in New York and other major U.S. cities are going on heightened alert following a new threat from ISIS.