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Gunman Possibly Inspired by Paris Attacks; New ISIS Video Shows 12+ Christians Beheaded; Cold Winds Leftover from New England Blizzard; ISIS Terror Attacks Spreading?; Denmark's Jihadist Rehab Program; NBA All-Star Weekend

Aired February 15, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Six o'clock, top of the hour here Sunday evening. A lot of news to get to. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

Well, CNN has learned that the FBI is assisting Denmark as it tries to piece together a pair of deadly terror attacks in its capital.

A body language -- a body lays, rather, in Copenhagen in the streets there. You are looking at the aftermath of the shootout with police. This is the body of the terror suspect believed to be behind the attacks.

It all started here inside of this now bullet-ridden cafe. A crowd had gathered here for a free speech forum with an artist, an artist who is on al Qaeda's hit-list. This is when the gunman opened fire.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is but. Why do we still say but when we --

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HARLOW: Well, one person was killed in the attack, three officers were wounded. It seems, though, the deadly rampage had just begun.

Ten hours later, it is believed that the same gunman made his way possibly by taxi to a nearby Jewish synagogue, approaching two officers there, spraying them with bullets and their lives were spared, but a bystander was killed.

Danish police now say this gunman may have been inspired by last month's terror attack in Paris and when you take a closer look there are similarities. In Paris, a deadly shooting at the office of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo," cartoonists known for their controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, and in dark, the target believed to be Swedish artists who in 2007 drew a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog, an animal that comes conservative Muslims consider unclean.

And then the anti-Semitic element to this -- in Paris, the target was the kosher grocery supermarket. In Denmark, it was a synagogue last night.

Let's go straight to Nic Robertson. He joins us now from Copenhagen.

Nic, what do we know from police about these two other arrests at a nearby cafe? I'm wondering, I know those just happened today, I'm wondering if they believe they were all instrumental in this or if they still believe that the gunman was indeed working alone?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDEN: Well, they believe that the gunman was working alone when it comes to sort of perpetrating those two attacks on Saturday and late in the early hours of Sunday morning. But what they're concerned about is that he may have an accomplice or accomplices who were aware of what he was going to do. The police are trying to build up a bigger picture and profile of who he was connected with.

They said that they feel that he may have been inspired by those attacks in Paris and by radical Islamist propaganda, so they're trying to build a bigger profile on him beyond what they know already, that he's got connections with gangs in the past and criminal activity, owning weapons illegally, these sorts of things. So, they're trying to build a bigger picture, and they're not saying precisely who these men were. They were however arrested about half a mile from here, and this is the location where he was shot and killed in the early hours of this morning.

Poppy, it may surprise you to learn this, but while we've been standing here in the past couple of hours, there have been people coming up here and laying flowers and paying tribute and lighting candles to that suspect gunmen. Some of them look like gang members and a journalist colleague spoke in Danish to some of them and asked them if they knew him and they just said that they were shocked and perhaps they had some of these gang connections that the police have talked about.

Others are people from the community here. Disbelieving about what's happened, and they feel that this will unfairly target their community. But certainly a number of people coming along here to show their sympathy and apparent support for this suspect gunman, Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow! That is incredibly shocking and the most important thing in all of this is the victims, right, Nic? What do we know about the victims? Two people that were killed and then a handful of others that were injured.

ROBERTSON: Yes, a young man at the synagogue. He was 37 years old. He was standing outside. A very -- a man who spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into his community working at the synagogue, we are told, and he was standing outside because he was guarding the synagogue because a young girl was having a party and there were about 80 people there and he was the one who was shot and killed by this suspect gunman.

There were two policemen there, as well. The police had heightened security at the synagogue because of the attack earlier in the day and the person killed at the event for the freedom of speech earlier in the day, he was a 55-year-old filmmaker, had an interest, it seems, in freedom of speech. According to some reports, he had reported on radical Islamist activities here in Denmark in the past, but again, two innocents, two people in their communities going about innocent business gunned down by this -- by this suspect gunman, Poppy.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Nic Robertson, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And let's talk more about this now with Paul Cruickshank, CNN terrorism analyst and co-author of "My Life Inside al Qaeda." Also with me now, Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst who wrote a fascinating article about this today on CNN.com. He's also author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden."

Thank you both for being here.

Peter Bergen, let me begin with you. All indications it is early going show that this is likely a lone wolf acting, right? Not someone who went to the Middle East who was trained by ISIS or al Qaeda. What is your read on this thus far?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, that's what we know thus far. But, you know, there is other targets in Copenhagen which have been cased by jihadi terrorists in the past, which is the best newspaper in Denmark has been the subject of a very serious plot by an American citizen, David Coleman Headley from Chicago, who basically planned to do an attack who looked similar to the "Charlie Hebdo" attack, a sort of armed assault with multiple g gunmen.

Luckily, he was stopped, but if you visit the "Jyllands-Posten" newspaper office in Copenhagen today, basically, it's a fortress and I've been in touch with some of the journalists there and, of course, police are very concerned about that target and they've been concerned for a long time in the past.

Also, the cartoonist who worked there who did cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Kurt Westergaard, he was the subject of a very serious attack at his house, an armed man from Somalia with a machete tried to kill him. Luckily, he had a safe house -- a safe room in his house and he was able to basically protect himself there.

So, you know, the story is not over in Denmark and the Danish embassy in Pakistan was attacked by al Qaeda. They killed six people. It's really going to be a persistent for Denmark going forward.

HARLOW: Do you agree with that, Paul Cruickshank, that this is going to be a persistent threat going forward? I mean, people seemingly living in peace in the middle of a Saturday afternoon or early evening in Denver, and then this happens? It's quite scary given the similarity between what happened in Paris and what happened in Copenhagen.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, there's no doubt a state (INAUDIBLE) been a persistent terror threat to Denmark ever since those cartoons were posted in this newspaper "Jyllands-Posten" in 2005, where we're seeing a string of plots. There was also a plot in 2010 by al Qaeda central. They recruited a

Swedish cell, and they drove all of the way to Copenhagen with a machine gun. Their plan was to kill up to 200 journalists in "Jyllands-Posten". That was thwarted by Swedish and Danish authorities. I think there have been several other plots besides.

So, there's been this persistent threat in Denmark. There's also a significant amount of radicalization, about 150 Danish extremists, have gone off to Syria and Iraq, to fight, about half of them have returned and many of them have joined ISIS. So, they're very worried about this, very worried about the lone wolf style of terrorism.

But what we understand now is that this was a gang member and somebody involved in some violence before. He'd been convicted, this dead gunman, of attacking somebody on a commuter train with a knife. He'd spent some time in jail. So, it's possible that he was radicalized in jail, but somebody, one of these organized gangs in Denmark would have perhaps had access to guns through that and some experience with guns.

And in Denmark, particularly, there is a real intersection between these gangs and the jihadists. More than any other country.

HARLOW: Because this doesn't seem like a random gang attack. I mean, look at the similarities just in terms of targets to Paris, right?

CRUICKSHANK: Absolutely. It seems to very much mirror that attack in Paris with the attack on cartoonists and also a kosher market.

HARLOW: Jewish citizens.

CRUICKSHANK: And Jewish bar mitzvah this time being targeted.

HARLOW: Peter Bergen to you, you wrote a fascinating article on CNN.com today, talking about the fact that do not be mistaken and think that this is isolated to Europe. Talking about how the United States has had cartoonists like this before and you bring up the cartoonist Molly Norris who has been in hiding for the last four years.

Can you speak about that?

PETER BERGEN: Yes, Molly Norris is, you know, a Seattle-based cartoonist and she around the time that South Park showed a picture of the Prophet Muhammad, she suggested that, you know, one way to kind of basically dilute the threat was if everybody drew the Prophet Muhammad, that it would be hard for jihadist militants to go off to tens of thousands of people and this exceeded beyond her wildest expectations and, you know, suddenly, she became a target of these jihadist militants as well.

Since the last four and a half years, she's basically lived in hiding. She was advised by the FBI to go into hiding. She's not in the witness protection program and she did this from her own volition and we haven't heard anything from her. Even her close colleagues and friends haven't heard from her, but the events in Paris last month and now in Copenhagen suggest that she may have done something very prudent, which is really disappeared because there is no statute of limitations on these threat, it appears.

HARLOW: Clearly, Peter Bergen, thank you very much. Paul Cruickshank, I appreciate it.

ISIS is claiming a mass killing of Christians. A horrifying new video shows all of it. More than a dozen men in orange jump suits forced to kneel down on a beach. The surf turns red with their blood. The victims are Egyptian workers, Coptic Christians recently kidnapped in Libya. Egypt is confirming 21 deaths in all.

CNN, of course, is not showing this video, a jihadist statement in the video swears vengeance for the deaths of Osama bin Laden. ISIS-backed militants recently took control of the Libyan coastal town and right there, you see it on the map. It was hometown to the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Our Ian Lee joins me now in Cairo.

Ian, it is incredibly, incredibly upsetting to see this and I think for a lot of people, what it shows is that ISIS is clearly spreading far beyond Iraq and Syria.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. And if you look at this video, it is sending a very firm message to many parties. You have the Christian community here in Egypt. You have the Egyptian government, but also you have the European Union and Libya is on the doorsteps of the E.U.

And in this message, it was delivered in English and watching this video, these men taken on the beach, executed all at the same time beforehand. You can see them saying, "Oh, God, oh, Jesus." The production quality of this video was very high which is very similar to that we've seen in Iraq and Syria.

In this video, they talk about their brethren, their ISIS brethren, in the Sinai Peninsula. If you look at Egypt, it really is sandwiched between Libya where you have ISIS and now Sinai, as well. They have been fighting that battle in the Sinai for quite some time. Hundreds of security personnel have been killed in that fight and Libya, there's been a political and security vacuum for quite some time since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, which was backed by the West.

And since then we haven't had a strong central government which has made fertile ground for these groups and ISIS in particular to expand and control. We also saw them last month carry out a very bold attack against a hotel in Tripoli, the Corinthia. And this latest attack shows they have a firm presence in Libya and they want to spread their violence and their terrorism.

HARLOW: Yes, no question about it, incredibly disturbing. A religious war that is being waged there with these 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians murdered at the hands of ISIS in Libya now.

Thank you very much for the latest on that. We appreciate it.

And we're going to continue our discussion on this because Egypt and Libya are not the only countries susceptible to ISIS spreading into their region. They are popping up at an alarming rate around the world. Why is this happening? What officials are doing in the U.S. and the West to stop it. That's next.

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HARLOW: All right. Back with our breaking news. A video showing the beheadings of more than a dozen Egyptian Coptic Christians.

We're talking about 21 innocent victims here. This didn't happen in Syria or Iraq. It happened in Libya.

This as the Pentagon and the National Counterterrorism Center confirmed that ISIS is now gaining more foothold. Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Pakistan, also Afghanistan now seeing a rise of ISIS militants. The reason? Defections by the Taliban, even Boko Haram, some of them rebranding themselves under the flag of ISIS. They are being successful in their recruiting opinion.

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SEN. RICHARD BURR (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Arguably, ISIL now has control of the largest territory ever held by a terrorist group. This safe haven provides ISIL and other extremists with the time and space they need to train fighters and to plan operations.

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HARLOW: Joining me to talk about this, Bob Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst. Also with us, retired U.S. Marine Major General James Williams.

Thank you both for being here.

Bob, for a lot of people I think hearing that this mass beheading happened in Libya would shock them saying I thought ISIS was mainly operating in Syria and Iraq. Does it surprise you?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I'll tell you what does surprise me is beheading Coptic Christians. You know, you look at the Koran and it says very clearly that Christians and Jews are people of the book. They may be a lesser people, but they are still protected by the Koran. So, the Islamic state in its adherence, whether they've got connections with -- in Raqqa or not has gone -- is completely transgressive in this in terms of religion and it is out of control.

Now, what ISIS likes, of course, is power vacuums. Libya is one. There is no government, just four or five, they've set up a base in Dirna and Sirt, and they're moving up very quickly. And the fact that Boko Haram, their groups in there going over the Islamic State is also troubling.

And, of course, the worst problem is Yemen which is now a fragmented country and you've got calls for independence in the south and you've got al Qaeda groups in Yemen who are swearing allegiance to the Islamic State.

So, this is a movement that's very quite unpredictable at this time and I won't even hazard to say what's next.

HARLOW: General Williams, we had David Tafuri, formerly with the State Department, who spent time in Libya and Iraq, saying, look, we have to -- the U.S. has to do more in Libya because this is going to unravel unless more is done. I guess I would like your perspective on what more the West can or should do in Libya? Clearly, a failed state, clearly a state where ISIS is gaining a foothold. But how involved do we want to get?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES WILLIAMS, FORMER COMMANDER, 4TH MARINE DIVISION: Well, Poppy, our involvement, in my opinion, should be a little bit more aggressive.

HARLOW: OK.

WILLIAMS: Whether that's diplomatic issues, intelligence issues, certainly military issues or military force.

I know Congress is going to debate this. You know, in my opinion, because of the War Powers Act, I don't think the president has to ask Congress for permission. Congress' role has always been to fund and make sure that the military is in existence, but ultimately the leader of the free world is supposed to lead.

And in this case what frustrates many people around the country -- I certainly know in my circles are frustrated -- is why the president is not taking more decisive action, because as Bob just explained, you know, the expansion of this terrorist group is going to, you know, throughout the Middle East, the Mediterranean region, certainly Europe. And ultimately, you're getting probably some sympathies here in the United States not just among Islamic offshoot group, but also among people that have an issue with the government.

So, I think we have to get more aggressive, otherwise we're going to have something that is out of control and we're going to have a hard time doing something about it.

HARLOW: So, Bob, to you. You heard what the general just said. We have to get more aggressive.

Looking at the president's request for use of military force from Congress this week that came forward, he did not set any geographical boundary, right? And the White House saying that's because we don't want to tell ISIS where it can go and hide. Does what has just happened, this mass beheading of Christians, Egyptian Christians in Libya show us that that is the right call, not to put any borders on this, if you will, not to say our fight against ISIS is just going to be against them in Iraq and Syria?

BAER: Well, let me say the general is absolutely right and we have to get more aggressive. Libya is an open sore. I wouldn't call it a fragmented or failed state. It's worse than that, it's Mad Max, and you have weapons coming across the Mediterranean, refugees. The Italians just closed their embassy, and they can't control their own coasts and I can't tell you what's going to come out of Libya next, but something will. And unless we go in there, either with the U.N. or with American forces we have to put a stop to this because Europe is under threat.

You look at this thing in Copenhagen and I'm not much of an internationalist, but this Islamic State thing is nothing that I've ever seen before. I've never seen some worse pandemic of violence ever in the free world with us leading. We've got to stop this however we can.

HARLOW: Nothing like you've ever seen before. Wow! If that doesn't say it I don't know what does.

Gentlemen, stick around. We're going to have you on later more this hour to discuss. Thank you very much for that.

Coming up next, the latest on the deadly terror attack in Denmark.

Also back here in the United States it has been brutal in the Midwest. We're talking about the weather.

Take a look. That is Chicago. A major car accident there in Chicago today, 35 cars in this chain reaction accident and a dozen people had to be taken to the hospital, and we'll get a look at how much worse the weather is going to get.

Quick break. We're back in a moment.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a total of 38.

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ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN, your severe weather headquarters.

HARLOW: All right. Cape Cod and the islands off Massachusetts and the coast there could see hurricane-force winds before the system passes. Take a look at the drive from Cape Ann, Massachusetts, to Seabrook, New Hampshire. This was shot by one of our producers on the ground who is on the ground with CNN's Will Ripley. And right now, they are headed for Boston.

Will, what's it looking like out there?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, I can tell you, it's going to be a busy night for first responders here. The police have actually closed off this strip mall. This is the scene of the roof collapse that we've been talking about for much of the day.

Several businesses had their roofs cave in because of the weight of the heavy snow. You can see it piled up over there. It has officials very concerned because the piles of snow along the side of the road will create difficult visibility if the snow blows and some of it, the fresh powder will be blowing quite a bit.

So, as you said, we are headed now towards Boston and we're going to be checking the road conditions and monitoring them as we go along. The roads appear to be clear, but the problem is that can be deceptive, Poppy, because as you know, growing up in Minnesota as I know growing up in New England, even if the roads look clear, there's black ice.

That's an issue and people start to get over confident when they look out on the roads like we're seeing right now and they think there isn't a lot of snow, or perhaps it's a nice slow pack and they hit a slick spot and they slide. That's what we saw on I-95 south near Boston where there is a pile up involving more than 20 vehicles and we are told only minor injuries in that case, Poppy, but police are out making sure that people are paying attention to the speeds and they're hoping that folks will continue to stay off the roads.

Tomorrow, Presidents' Day, kids aren't in cool and government employees won't be going to work, but nonetheless, potentially some dangerous conditions, and you see the conditions of the roads here and some of them get very narrow. The plows have carved out a path and you don't have a lot of room to play with when you have the snow drifts that are in many cases higher than the vehicles out here, Poppy.

HARLOW: No, you don't, at all. You guys drive safely. Thank you for that, Will. Some incredible reporting outside and inside the car. I know your whole team behind the camera doing a great job.

Thank you for that. Get to Boston safely. We'll talk to you shortly.

Coming up next, a Colorado woman recently got four years in prison for wanting to join ISIS. We're going to tell you about a new program in Denmark that won't land people like this in jail. It actually works to rehabilitate them.

Does it work? What's the ultimate goal? We'll discuss, next.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. There's growing concern that the terror attacks we've recently seen in Copenhagen, in Paris, in Sydney, and then Ottawa, will increasingly target the United States.

At the top of the list are so-called lone wolves who are self- motivated, self-directed and therefore very difficult to stop.

Here's what the director of National Counterterrorism Center had to say about that specific threat in his Senate testimony this week.

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NICHOLAS RASMUSSEN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: Since May of last year 10 of the 11 attacks we've seen in the West were, in fact, conducted by these two individual extremists. Two here in the United States and the nine others occurring in Europe, Canada and Australia.

Now the majority of these attacks, these 11 attacks, look more like what we would expect from random acts of violence rather than the effort of large-scale destruction that we saw in terrorist plotting immediately after 9/11. In going forward, we believe that both individuals and smaller networks would try to mount similar attacks to try to capitalize on and build momentum from the media coverage that these kinds of attacks generate.

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HARLOW: Well, on Wednesday the White House will tackle this issue with a summit on countering violent extremism.

Intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer joins me now, also retired Marine Corps Major General James Williams.

Thank you both for being with me.

Let me begin with you, Bob. I mean, looking at what we saw today unfold, this horrific mass beheading of Coptic Christians, Egyptians, in Libya, it just shows that ISIS is metastasizing, that it is clearly reaching far outside of Iraq and Syria, that's clearly waging a religious war. And I wonder if you think that that changes how the West should fight ISIS?

Should we really be focusing on air strikes and this bombardment in Iraq and Syria or does this need to be an entirely new form of battle?

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I mean, I think we clearly have to destroy the Islamic State as it exists in Raqqa. It is a disease, and what concerns me is it's starting to move into the Gulf, into Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and you know, just the economic aspect of this, this could be a catastrophe, but again, also, and I agree what disturbs me is the lone wolf, this psychosis, which I frankly don't understand, which as I've just said I've never seen before where in America.

Someone who's grown up here, so identifies with, for instance, the Sunni in Iraq that they feel that they can go out and murder people and in a country where guns are so easy to come by and it's an open society and the FBI just can't arrest you for having a bad thought. I'm worried that these attacks are going to come here and I don't really have an easy solution on how to stop them, but I can see them coming.

HARLOW: General Williams, your take on that and also on cyber warfare, right? I mean, we do look at a number of people being radicalized particularly by ISIS without having to travel to the region.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES WILLIAMS, U.S. MARINE CORPS (RET.): Oh, absolutely. Well, you know, just starting with the cyber part of this, you know, the ISIS organization is much more sophisticated than most of the terrorist groups we've seen in the past. Fundamentally, they understand how to use social media. They're connecting to a millennial group of disenfranchised youth whether they're here in the United States, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia.

And ultimately the challenge you're going to have with the lone wolf is if there is some psychosis or schizophrenic problems going on with their psychological behavior, I think that's going to be very difficult to deal with because some of those could be like a sleeper type of person that when you awaken them they just go on the attack, and I think that's what we've seen with a couple of these lone wolf survivor-type scenarios.

And so this is going to be very difficult, but what it will require, I believe, is that every citizen that believes in justice needs to be aware of what's going on around them, and if they have something that looks out of sorts or you hear something that doesn't look right then you need to report it to authorize authorities so that they can at least have a way to track that situation from an intelligence perspective.

HARLOW: Right. So if we could, Bob, I want to ask this question to you and ask our team in the control room to pull up the map that we have that shows all of the different countries where U.S. officials now say that ISIS has spread. We have a map with sort of coloring of the different countries there where ISIS has spread. It's not this one. It's another one, if we can.

But here is the question is how do we, Bob Baer, as someone who has, you know, a background at the CIA, how on earth does the United States effectively fight ISIS in all of these places? And it begs the question are all of these wars our war?

BAER: Well, exactly. You look at the map and it goes from India to Morocco, and into Nigeria and the Cameroons and, you know, we -- for years we've been fighting Palestinian terrorism, we've been fighting Hezbollah, but we knew that Hezbollah was controlled by Iran. There was a return address. With the Palestinians were there, too, whether it was Yasser Arafat or the PFLP. We always knew where to look, we could always run sources, we could go after their communications.

But these people have spread so quickly and with such sophisticated technology, and it's an idea that's drawn off Internet that's a brand new problem and it's going to take a greater mind than mine.

Things that disturb me, for instance, is that ISIS is using encryption software from Israel which cannot be broken by the National Security Agency nor can the IP addresses be. So for all I know, these guys in Copenhagen were communicating with Raqqa. We simply don't know because they're that sophisticated and as General Williams said this is a completely new war. You know, this is like World War III and we have to put the same sort of minds we put to it in World War II.

HARLOW: Wow. Bob Baer, thank you. General Williams, thank you.

Quick break. We're back in a moment.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARLOW: The gunman in the Copenhagen terror attack well-known to police. A 22-year-old who had a lengthy criminal past and police at this point believe that he worked alone. His motive, frankly, we don't know, but they are saying that he could have possibly been inspired by the recent terror attacks in Paris at the offices of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo."

Now police killed the shooter after a deadly shootout near a synagogue in Copenhagen. His name has not been released. We do not know if the shooter had any links to jihadist, but Denmark has one of the highest number of jihadis per capita in Europe. And they're using a very unique program to try to deal with any jihadis returning home to Denmark. They offer what is known as a jihadi rehab program.

Now the candidates are screened by police. If they committed a crime they go to court and possibly to prison, but if they passed a screening test and they want help, they can get it. Help with getting a job, help with housing, also psychological counseling and the program doesn't try to change their fundamentalist beliefs as long as they don't advocate violence.

The police chief in Denmark's second largest city explains why the program appears to be working.

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JORGEN ILUM, POLICE COMMISSIONER, AARHUS, DENMARK: This is not a gift shop. You have to be motivated. You have to really want to become a part of the Danish society. We help them find a way through the system and what we've seen is that out of these 16 who have returned, 10 of them are now back in school and have a job and it seems to us that their focus is on something else than in Syria.

They are still Muslim believers, some of them in perhaps a way that we would call radical, but not to an extent that so as far as we can see, they are a threat to the society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So let me bring in Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard in Aarhus, Denmark.

Thank you for joining me. I was fascinated reading about this program. So -- that frankly it sounds like you guys have deemed successful thus far and it says even if they remain radical we don't try to take that away from them as long as they are not being violent.

Given the attack we saw play out yesterday, do you believe that that will at all change support for this program?

MAYOR JACOB BUNDSGAARD, AARHUS, DENMARK: No, I believe that we need to both have the hard measures where we prosecute if anyone has committed a crime and prosecute them to the full length of the law, but we also need the soft measures. If they have legal residence in Aarhus, in Denmark we need to do our utmost to reintegrate them into society because they have a legal right to be here.

HARLOW: Tell me a little bit about why you think the program has been effective? What the steps are that are taken?

BUNDSGAARD: Well, first of all, we make it very clear to these -- typically quite young people that if we find out they have committed a crime they will be prosecuted, but other than that, we try to motivate them to go into education or get a job and make sure that they can focus on other things than a path where they have become radicalized. And we need to break that path and give them a more positive alternative.

HARLOW: So that they don't feel disenfranchised, right? Because oftentimes that can be at least in part a motivator for things like this?

BUNDSGAARD: Exactly. They need to have their values challenged and we need to make sure that they know that there is a society that if they choose the right path, we will support them and we will make sure that they can be reintegrated into society through education, through jobs, housing, and help for them to be an active and positive part of society.

HARLOW: President Obama has invited you to this White House summit mid-week that is all focused on countering violent extremism. I wonder, are you planning to attend, and if so, what are you planning to say especially in the wake of this attack?

BUNDSGAARD: Well, I'm planning to attend the White House summit, and my message will be that we need to -- to make everything -- all our efforts possible to unite local communities because this is an issue that can only be solved if the whole community stands together, and support these young people in reintegrating into society, but also we need to focus on the harder measures and make sure that they're also in place.

HARLOW: Mayor, do you believe -- from someone on the ground who is such a part of this community, do you believe that we are seeing a dangerous sea change in Europe following the attacks in Paris and now this attack in your city?

BUNDSGAARD: This is a threat in many countries all across the world, and it's a risk that we need to deal with and we need to stand together and we need to share the knowledge of the different programs that is under development all across the world and make sure that we use all our resources and all our efforts in comparing this issue. This won't go away overnight, but we can actually do something about it and that's very important.

HARLOW: Mayor, thank you so much for joining me. And I am so sorry for the people of Denmark that they've had to go through this attack yesterday. Wishing you all the best. Thank you for joining us tonight.

BUNDSGAARD: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up, the collapse of stability in Yemen could make it even easier for terrorists to plot there against the West and now the U.N. Security Council taking up this issue in a rare Sunday vote. We'll tell you what happened straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We are just about an hour and a half away from the start of the NBA All-Star Game right here in the great city of New York. There has been a lot of events all weekend long. There was the slam dunk contest last night, even a fashion show -- yes, an NBA fashion show.

Andy Scholes joins me now in New York. He's been having the rough assignment of covering it all weekend. All my friends went to the dunk contest last night. I didn't make it. Was it great?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: It was great. It was great. And we're definitely going to touch on that in a moment but we have to talk about the all-star game tonight here.

HARLOW: Right. The big one.

SCHOLES: And it should be great. And of course it's at Madison Square Garden. LeBron James, he always talks about playing big when it comes to MSG. Steph Curry always like playing in front of Madison Square Garden.

We've got some cool storylines for this game, too. The Gasol brothers, Pau and Marc, they're starting in the game. First time two brothers have ever started in an NBA All-Star Game together. Of course Pau Gasol plays with the Bulls, Marc plays for the Grizzlies. They're going to do the tip-off at the start of the game against each other.

HARLOW: Right.

SCHOLES: And they'll probably have a few post ups you can see there. That should be fun to watch, the two brothers going it -- going at it against each other. And you know, the first three-quarters of this game, it's always real fun, a lot of dunks, some of the big men shoot threes but when it gets to the fourth quarter, these guys, they take this game serious.

I asked a bunch of the players about that this week. I asked the frontrunner for the MVP so far this year, James Harden, about it, and he said that's definitely the case. This game does get intense when it gets to the fourth quarter. Check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES HARDEN, HOUSTON ROCKETS: Yes. It's definitely about a race. You know, we have to go out there and win. The first quarter is all highlights and dunks and fun, but the fourth quarter, guys get serious and just want to win so that's the most exciting part about the game, I think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: So, Poppy, if you want to see who comes out on top. Tonight of course East versus West. Should be an exciting game.

HARLOW: And guess who won the slam dunk contest, Minnesota Twins. Right? I mean, the Twins. Timberwolves. Timberwolves. I get so exhausted.

SCHOLES: Yes. Yes. And you know what, the --

HARLOW: The Timberwolves, right?

SCHOLES: Zach LaVine for the Timberwolves. And you know, the dunk contest is getting kind of stale and boring over the years. We've seen it all, but Zack LaVine, he really brought this competition back to life last night. His first dunk just got everyone off their seats.

HARLOW: Do we have it?

SCHOLES: Yes. Right here. He was wearing a Space Jam jersey, a Michael Jordan Space Jam. Because he said he loved the move with Bugs Bunny but through the legs, under the basket, everyone went just nuts.

HARLOW: So nice.

SCHOLES: Then his second dunk, with people like, how is going to top this? Well, he did. He went behind it back and threw that down. I mean. and everyone at that point, Poppy, was like, this competition is over. Zach LaVine is going to win it. He did, he went to the championship. He beat Victor Oladipo. It was just incredible to see. This one is going to go down as one of the best performances ever in a dunk contest.

HARLOW: Wow.

SCHOLES: People are saying, it's just as good as Vince Carter back in 2000 which was considered the best ever. I don't know about that.

HARLOW: Right.

SCHOLES: But it was still very impressive to see him in person.

HARLOW: But he was good.

SCHOLES: And the three-point competition was good as well. They're saying this may be the best competition field of all time and Steph Curry, he really came to play last night.

HARLOW: Wow.

SCHOLES: This is his fourth time in the competition, the fourth time the charm for him. He ended up winning. He had 13 in a row at one point. He got the crowd going.

HARLOW: Nothing but net. Look at that. Incredible. Incredible.

SCHOLES: Yes.

HARLOW: Very proud of my Timberwolves on that one. Fashion show, Andy? How was it? There was this NBA fashion show.

SCHOLES: There was an NBA fashion show that I was at, that aired last night on TNT. I will say, it was very fun to be at and very entertaining. Charles Barkley was one of the judges and he was ripping on some guys with some of the stuff they were wearing. Chandler Parsons from Mavericks wasn't wearing socks in his boardroom attire, which I thought was odd. I don't think can pull something like that.

HARLOW: That's like the new thing.

SCHOLES: Yes. But J.R. Smith, he was the big winner and at one point he was wearing this big fur ensemble that he called -- he called foxy, Charles Barkley called it a skunk. I didn't know what to make of it.

HARLOW: A first, right? This is the first that we've seen.

SCHOLES: Yes. Yes. The fashion show, you mean? Yes. First ever NBA All-Star Weekend fashion show and I'm pretty sure it was a big success. They're going to do it again next year.

HARLOW: Yes. Do it in New York City.

SCHOLES: It'll be fun. Hopefully I'll get to go.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: You're going to be modeling in it, please, Andy Scholes. I'd be great.

SCHOLES: I wish.

HARLOW: Thank you. Appreciate it. Glad you had that assignment this weekend. It's a good one to have.

SCHOLES: Yes.

HARLOW: Andy Scholes, thank you. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you from New York. 7:00 p.m. Eastern and the threat of terrorism not over. That is according to Denmark's prime minister.

Despite shooting and killing a suspected gunman, police are still trying to work out the motive for those two terror attacks yesterday in Copenhagen, also trying to figure out whether or not he had accomplices.

Just a few hours ago police arrested two people at an Internet cafe located near the apartment of the gunman. They have not commented on what role, if any, those two individuals played in the deadly shootings. What we do know is that this normally peaceful capital is in shock.

These bullet holes, a horrifying sign of what happened inside the cafe where Denmark's day of terror began. A crowd had gathered here for a speech about freedom.