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CNN NEWSROOM

Terror Attack Hits Istanbul Airport. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 29, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:19] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A sophisticated terror attack strikes one of the most secure airports in the world. Now the CIA director said he'd be surprised if ISIS were not planning similar attacks right here in the United States.

Forty-one people now dead after three terrorists set off suicide vests in the Istanbul airport. A senior Turkish official says authorities are still working to I.D. the attackers. And while there's still no claim of responsibility, many experts say it has all the hallmarks of an ISIS-style attack.

Here's how one of the witnesses described one of the attackers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw his clothes. And he has Quran and then (INAUDIBLE) like this one. Shot jacket and he has hidden the gun over here, and he's -- and he's shooting up two times and he's beginning to shoot the people like that, like he was walking like a prophet, you know?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to warn you, the images you're about to see are disturbing. This video shows one of the attackers running through the terminal. At one point, he's shot by police fire. And you see him falling down there. The officer appears to take another shot at close range before running for his own life. That's when he notices this guy has on a suicide vest. And then as you can see the -- the terrorist detonates that suicide vest and it explodes.

All right. Let's begin our reporting this morning with CNN's Nima Elbagir. She's at the airport entrance.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, a senior Turkish official has told CNN that sheer force of the blast ripped -- Carol, a senior Turkish official has told us that the sheer force of the detonations ripped apart the bodies of the attackers. And as they painstakingly try to identify them, they've only been able to recover the bottom halves of their bodies but they believe that these men are foreigners, they say.

Meanwhile, here at the airport, they're working as quickly as they can to try and return this airport to normality. If I step up, you can see they're boarding up the windows. They're trying to reconstruct the ceiling tiles. The metal girders. All of these were blown apart by the sheer force of the blast because it was here at the entryway to arrivals where that main detonation happened.

Just a little away from me at the pickup/drop-off point. The parallels between the attacks on the Brussels and Istanbul airports are chilling. It was the same M.O., targeting areas of vulnerability just before the security checkpoint. Being dropped off by taxi to try and evade any kind of trail that the authorities would attempt to follow. And even the way they opened fire before detonating. But what is most chilling is the echoes in the testimony of the eyewitnesses. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were just running. There was no instructions or anything. One direction. And then somebody said, no, the terrorist are over there, and then you ran in the other. So we then started to hide. And we -- I went into the kitchen of the lounge in some backroom and tried to hide behind some boxes because you have all these images of the terrorists coming and trying to kill you while you were hiding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELBAGIR: Turkey is reeling from a series of terror attacks that have blighted the first six months of this year. And this race to get back to normal is also the Turkish prime minister and president say a race to show those who would seek to sow discord and terror that they can't win -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nima Elbagir, reporting for us this morning.

I want to bring in on the phone Sani Sener. He's the president and CEO of TAV Airports which operates the Istanbul airport.

Welcome, sir.

SANI SENER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TAV AIRPORTS: Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: First of all, how are you doing this morning?

SENER: We are very unhappy. We are very sad because we lost 10 of our staff and 41 passengers and totally meters and readers lost their lives. Actually last night, you know, the terror attacks happened around 9:00 p.m. and due to the sensitivity in our region, our security levels are much higher than the international standard. Since you know that the Istanbul Ataturk Airport is the last point of departure for many U.S. and European airports because our security standard first of all comply with U.S. and EU security standards.

[10:05:10] And on top of it, we have security checkpoints at the entrance of the terminal building. You look at other airports in Europe and U.S., they don't have the security checkpoints at the entrance. We have it. But this time terrorists came by a taxi. And while they get out of the taxi, they immediately -- police understood that they are going to do something, they are suicide bombers because they had pullovers on top of their own coats so they understood it. But they suddenly started to shoot, OK, with Kalashnikovs, OK.

One entered the terminal by shooting. The other one entered the (INAUDIBLE) arrival. The third one went down and it was -- he could not enter the terminal building and three of them detonated the bombs. Blew them up.

COSTELLO: There was a security guard who tried to kill one of the suicide bombers. We saw him shooting the suicide bomber and then running away. Can you tell us about that?

SENER: Yes, actually he's a policeman. And he shoots the guy and then he went near to him and -- the terrorist, and he understood that he is going to detonate the bomb, OK. It was a live detonated bomb and he ran away. Now he's in the hospital, OK. He's alive. But he's terribly wounded, OK. But I'm sure that he'll get back to us soon.

COSTELLO: Where this suicide bomber fell and detonated, could he have done more damage had he been able to run further into the airport?

SENER: Definitely. There was a VIP lounge to enter, which is the Turkish Airlines' largest VIP lounge. He was running towards there. But the police officer shot him before entering there. So if he had not been shot there would have been double attack and double casualties.

COSTELLO: Normally, sir, in these instances of tragedy, there are many heroes. Can you tell us about some of them?

SENER: I mean, all of our airport security, the police, everyone, is hero for me, OK, because everyone did, during this crisis, what they should do. The important thing is there could be much more casualties because there were three suicide bombers and they had two Kalashnikovs each in their hands, OK. They were shooting out and at the same time they were detonating themselves, OK.

All we know, all we know we are very unhappy as some of Ataturk Airport operators, we lost 10 of our staff, nine of them were the ground handling operator staff and one of them was a very young lady, 20 years old, working in food and beverage sector in our company, though we are expecting this, yes. Everyone always is very, very cautious and all our security measures were very high because our region is sensitive, as I told before. But you know --

COSTELLO: But, sir, will you institute -- will you implement added security because of how this particular attack went down?

SENER: Definitely. Definitely. But, you know, this is about the perimeter of the security. I mean, we cannot extend the perimeter of the security to far more areas or around the airport. Our security perimeter was starting before the entrance of the terminal building. Now police is taking extra measures to -- starting from the entrance of the airport area. But all we know, the security measures were there. They just get out of the taxi and started to shoot, OK. So this was a direct attack to the airport. I mean, if it had been a

mistake or default while they were passing through, it did not happen like that. They just -- they just attack to the terminal building directly.

[10:10:02] COSTELLO: All right.

SENER: There was a great crowd. I was there until the morning. There was a great crowd. Because we had passengers who were departing from the airport and they were -- they passed the passport, waiting in the air side. The others were arriving passengers. And we had traffic passengers. So what we have done, we evacuated the terminal building very, very far.

In nearly four hours time, all the terminals were evacuated after the incident and after the incident, in eight hours time, we started to do operations again, OK. Eight hours after the incident happened, again, our terminal building, airport, was operating. Now we are operating our airport seamlessly. But we have the pain in our hearts.

COSTELLO: Right. All right. Sani Senash, thank you so much for joining me today. I do appreciate it.

All right. This just new -- this news just into CNN. We are finding out that President Obama did talk to the Turkish president this morning.

Michelle Kosinski is in Ottawa, Canada where the president is spending the day.

What did they talk -- well, we know what they talked about. So what did they say?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, Carol. Well, the president, you know that he offered condolences. And it's interesting to think that just two weeks ago, it was the Turkish president calling President Obama offering his condolences over the terrorist attack in Orlando.

So the White House today is emphasizing prioritizing that relationship with Turkey in the fight against ISIS. Trying still to seal that border. And they said that, you know, while some progress has been made -- and in fact, we heard recently from the White House that ISIS now controls only about 60 miles of the border between Turkey and Syria. Still, that is 60 miles where foreign fighters can go back and forth. And the White House acknowledged today that there is still some work to be done.

The White House isn't definitively saying that this was the work of ISIS but we all know that the hallmarks are there. And so the White House is saying that yes, they are concerned about ISIS' continued ability to launch these kinds of attacks. It's also interesting to think that virtually every time we go on one of these foreign trips where the White House wants to emphasize something else. I mean, here they really want to be focusing on North America and climate change. Again, terrorism has overshadowed some of those subjects and we know

that the president is going to be getting more questions about this and those abilities of ISIS to launch these attacks throughout the day -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Michelle Kosinski reporting live from Ottawa, Canada this morning. Thanks so much.

We'll be back with much more on these terror attacks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:55] COSTELLO: All right. You're looking at Air Force One, President Obama is just about to disembark. He's in Canada for the North American Summit. He's going to be meeting with Canadian and Mexican leaders. But while on board that plane, he did talk to the Turkish president about those horrible terror attacks that happened at the Istanbul airport. We understand the president and the Turkish president talked about securing the Turkish border and how the United States might help out with that.

We're going to talk about that a little more in just a minute. And while we continue to watch these pictures -- are these still live pictures or is this taped? Michelle? These are live pictures. So let's leave these up because they're interesting beautiful pictures of the president disembarking from Air Force One. And talk about security at U.S. airports because U.S. airports across the country are ramping up security in the wake of the Istanbul terror attack.

I want to bring in our justice correspondent Evan Perez. He's going to talk more about that as we continue to look at these pictures.

Hi, Evan. What can you tell us?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, you should expect to see more visible security measures. You'll see guards with guns and you'll see bomb-sniffing dogs especially in airports like New York, here in Washington.

You have the upcoming weekend, the Fourth of July weekend, which is always a big concern for law enforcement and for intelligence agencies. They're keeping an eye to see if there's anybody who might be thinking of doing copycat attacks here in the United States. Obviously the FBI has its eye on hundreds of people who they believe are supporters of ISIS and other extremist groups and they want to make sure that nobody is looking to try to launch an attack in the United States.

But, you know, one of the things that this attack in Istanbul reminds us of is how difficult it is to try to harden these types of so-called soft targets. This is an airport terminal where the security cordon was outside of the terminal, where, before you even got inside the terminal, you had to go through some type of screening, and yet these attackers were able to not only attack that point of entry but some of them appeared from the videos that you've been showing this morning, they were able to get inside before blowing themselves up. It really shows you that it's very difficult to security these areas.

And in the United States, obviously, we don't even have that type of security right now. So right now we know that there's a lot of discussion about what you can do to try to harden those defenses. A lot of the work that law enforcement is doing, Carol, is behind the scenes to try to prevent these types of attacks.

COSTELLO: Yes. I just talked to the CEO of Istanbul's airport. He said these terrorists arrived in taxis. They had semiautomatic weapons with them -- in both hands, right, so they came out shooting right out of those taxi cabs.

PEREZ: They came out shooting. Right.

COSTELLO: And --

PEREZ: It's highly likely that most of the people died from the guns before they even blew themselves up, Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, because he said some of the security guards were able -- in fact, we have video of that one suicide attacker. You know, he was shot by a --

PEREZ: Right.

COSTELLO: By a police officer. And that limited the carnage I would suppose according to this -- according to the man that I talked with.

[10:20:03] He said that suicide bomber was headed toward like, you know, one of those -- those stores within the airport and a lounge.

PEREZ: Right.

COSTELLO: Where there were many more people gathered.

PEREZ: Right. Exactly. And those, you know, obviously those -- that's the goal is to try to get inside and try to really maximize the carnage. And, you know, look, if these attackers had all been able to get inside to places where larger groups of people were congregating, waiting for the secondary screening, for them perhaps to get to their flight, perhaps the death toll would have been larger.

But already -- we already see -- I believe we're reporting 41 people dead. That's already larger than the number of people that died in the Brussels attack which is, if you remember, attackers got inside the terminal were able to detonate their bombs right near these terminals, right inside the ticket counters, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Evan Perez reporting live for us.

So the picture you're looking at is the president's plane in Canada right now. The president is expected to meet with Canadian and Mexican leaders. But on board that plane, as I told you before, he did talk to the Turkish president about these terrorist attacks in Istanbul. So let's talk about more -- let's talk more about that attack. I want

to bring in Sonar Cagaptay. He is the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute and was born in Turkey.

I also want to bring in Clark Ervin, the former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.

Welcome to both of you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a pleasure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Carol. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

Sonar, President Obama and the Turkish president talked. They talked about securing the borders in Turkey. How might the United States help Turkey do that?

SONAR CAGAPTAY, DIRECTOR OF TURKISH RESEARCH PROGRAM, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE: The United States has intelligence and technological assets that Turkey misses. And I think these will be useful, electronic surveillance, drones, and other technology as well as intelligence assets that will help secure that border better. And I think this is one area we're going to see stronger cooperation because Turkey, which had thus far focused its efforts on the Syrian civil war to oust the Assad regime primarily, and secondarily, to prevent advances by the Kurds, will now have to prioritize the threat by the so-called Islamic State as indeed the Islamic State is behind the attack.

So I think we're going to see much stronger Turkish-U.S. cooperation including along the border as well as much longer Turkish-U.S. cooperation inside Syria against the Islamic State.

COSTELLO: Clark, Turkey has already retaliated. It conducted airstrikes over Syria. We presume with U.S. help. But we're not sure about that. They conducted airstrikes on ISIS targets. But we don't know exactly what those targets were. What do you suppose they were?

CLARK ERVIN, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, I suppose that they were attacks on ISIS itself as opposed to the Kurdish rebels who are their principal -- or have been their principal focus, as Sonar said. You know, it's not at all surprising that Turkey would have been targeted here. Turkey is the only Muslim country in NATO. It bordered Syria.

Sonar said that Turkey has not done everything it can do to date to secure that border with Syria and that has been the principal entry point for Westerners, Europeans and Americans seeking to enter Syria and Iraq to fight on the side of ISIS against the West. And so this certainly will redouble Turkey's efforts in that regard. And that's all to the good.

COSTELLO: And, Sonar, the Turkish president also interestingly enough talked to Vladimir Putin this morning. The Russian president. So he talked to the U.S. president, the Russian president. They don't exactly see eye-to-eye on what's taking place in the skies over Syria, right?

CAGAPTAY: That's correct.

COSTELLO: So is this the tipping point? Will this get everyone on the same side?

CAGAPTAY: This comes right on the heels of a letter that the Turkish president sent only a couple of days ago to Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his regrets for the Turkish downing of a Russian plane that had violated Turkish airspace back in November. And that incident in which Turkey was justified to act effectively also shut down northern Syria because the Russians basically told the Turks after that that they would shoot any Turkish planes or any Turkish troops that crossed into Syria.

So it effectively shut Turkey out of northern Syria. So while Turkey and the U.S. have to work together to seal the border and effectively to counter the ISIL threat inside Syria, Turkey also needs Russia's blessing if it wants to send troops or planes into northern Syria to defeat ISIL so that actually empowers Vladimir Putin.

And today actually I was told by friends that Erdogan and Putin had one phone call, a short one, nevertheless but their first contact since the November incident in which they chatted and they're scheduled to meet, have a bilateral meeting at the G-20 summit in China later this year. So expect Russia to come on board, of course. Turkey will have to agree with Russia's terms. Part of that will be to not fight the Assad regime so aggressively. The regime that Syria supports and to focus more of its efforts on defeating ISIL.

[10:25:01] This is really a turning point perhaps in Turkey's intervention in the Syrian war where Turkey has thus far focused its efforts on defeating Assad and secondarily fighting ISIS. Now it's going to be primarily fighting ISIS if it can secure Russian blessing to do so and secondarily ousting Assad, and that will be a Russian condition for any Russian assistance to Turkey.

COSTELLO: All right. Sonar Cagaptay, Clark Ervin, thanks to both of you.

CAGAPTAY: A pleasure.

COSTELLO: Up next in the NEWSROOM -- you're welcome.

Up next in the NEWSROOM, no claim of responsibility for the Istanbul attack just yet but officials say it has all the hallmarks of ISIS. How should America respond?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:06] COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. We're following breaking news out of Turkey this morning.