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CNN NEWSROOM

ISIS Wants an Apocalypse; Vigil for Grandmother Killed after a Near Fender Bender; Paris Attackers had Allegiance to ISIS; Hidden Camera on Anti-Semitism on Paris Streets; Ukraine Cease-Fire Crumbles.

Aired February 17, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The question, "What exactly does ISIS want," is a question plaguing leaders all around the world as they try to understand an enemy that has tentacles across the Middle East and Africa, an enemy that this time last year was virtually unknown. But now, according to expert, the answer to this question, "What does ISIS want"? Simple. An apocalypse.

In this phenomenal read in "The Atlantic," -- this is part of this piece -- we're about to talk to the man that authored this -- he writes, "The Islamic State awaits the arrival of an enemy army whose defeat will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse."

The man who wrote this, Graham Wood, the contributing editor for "The Atlantic."

Graham, thank you so much for coming on.

Each and every one of you at home, I just tweeted out the article. Find a quiet corner and read every bit of this. It's disturbing and fascinating.

And I have lots to get to with you, Graham.

Let me begin with the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. He is the apparent descending prophet and figure head. But is he the one truly calling the shots or does he have this number two that's doing that?

GRAHAM WOOD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Well, we do know the identities of a few of the leaders of ISIS, but he is the most prominent one. And he does weald control over the organization. There are a few well-known spokesmen, but he and a hand full of others are well-known as being at the very top of the group.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you about this man you met in Australia in November, Mousa Sharentonio (ph), the preacher that seems to be the Islamic State's most influential recruiters. To quote you, "He seemed to be living out of a drama that looks, from the outsider's perspective, like a medieval fantasy novel, only with real blood."

Can you explain the magnetism to ISIS? Why others would want to go with their one-way tickets and join?

WOOD: Yeah, Mousa Sharentonio (ph) is an interesting figure. He's in his early 30s. Very nice guy. Very well educated. Very smart. He's a bit of a bookworm even. But the thing that attracts him in addition to just true belief is an interest in history and in the future. He knows very well the literature in Islam of the apocalypse and he believes that the Islamic State is one of the key players in that apocalypse. He thinks the way the Islamic State will proceed, the victories it will achieve, are foretold in prophesy and will lead pretty soon, actually, to the end of the world.

BALDWIN: And that's also one of the differences when you start talking about al Qaeda versus ISIS, ISIS is talking about this apocalypse and al Qaeda, you write about this group as more of an underground political movement and how bin Laden really rarely mentioned the end of days.

WOOD: Yeah.

BALDWIN: Can you just expound more on that and how there truly is this rift between these two groups.

WOOD: Yeah. It's a class rift. Bin Laden, as we know, was very wealthy and his successor was a very well-educated upper crust Egyptian. Still is. And they regarded talk of the end of times and the apocalypse as a vulgar lower-class pursuit. Not that they denied things would unfold in a particular way as foretold by prophesy, but they didn't expect they were part of it or would live to see it. That's one of the key splits from the old guard of al Qaeda and the Islamic State is that al Qaeda thought that the apocalypse was a distant thing and the Islamic State seems to believe it's all happening now, and step by step, they're going to be part of it.

BALDWIN: Is there any reference, though, to bin Laden? ISIS militants refer to him as Sheikh Osama. In the video where the 21 Egyptian Christians were murdered, and there is an illusion to avenging to the death of bin Laden.

WOOD: Yeah, they like Osama bin Laden. They regard him as one of their key predecessors. His successor as the head of al Qaeda, much less so. He is very uncharismatic guy and he has not really gotten behind the Islamic State. So they think of him as perhaps an enemy and certainly not anyone that they look up to as a leader of their organization.

BALDWIN: Interesting. So much of this from ISIS, as we have been watching its territory, right? It's not just in the Middle East, but it's world domination. And I have heard now in videos, and you reference this in your piece, the notion of Rome. In the video where 21 Egyptian Christians were killed, there's a voice, "We will conquer Rome by God's permission." Explain the significance of Rome. I think of it as Rome, Italy. But you point out, no, this is the eastern Roman Empire.

WOOD: Yeah. When ISIS talks about Rome, they don't think of spaghetti. They're talking about the whole crusader empire. They're talking about the armies of Christianity of the West meeting them in the battlefield. And there's some debate about what Rome exactly means in the literature of the apocalypse in Islam. Some people think it means Turkey. So there's --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Istanbul.

WOOD: There's been a lot of discussion of this. Yes. Istanbul is what they think of as Rome, because it was the capital of the eastern Roman Empire.

But you're right to point out in that video that took place on the shore of Libya, they were constantly referring to this apocalyptic prophesy, and what they really want which is a confrontation between the West and Islam. That's how they wish to frame everything. And they're trying to get the West and the United States and NATO into war with them.

BALDWIN: And as you point out -- and I remember we discussed this in one of the videos mentioning President Obama by name. ISIS wants the West to come to them. When we talk about this whole discussion, you know, about air strikes versus ground troops, I think the way you phrased it in your piece was something like at least air strikes is the worst of the bad options, or something to that effect, right? ISIS would want the West there?

WOOD: Yeah, ISIS, as I say, their whole propaganda machine is based on telling Muslims around the world that the West is after them. The West wants to kill them. The West views itself in competition with Islam. So if we were to invade, if we had boots on the ground, perhaps we would destroy the Islamic State. We would also be fulfilling their fondest wish, which is to have images of Americans and Christians fighting directly against Muslims. So air strikes, having proxies who are themselves Muslims, such as the Kurds, these are not the winning images for ISIS. They're not the images that ISIS wants. What they really want is guys in camouflage showing up at places from Fort Bragg and fighting them on the ground.

BALDWIN: Just quickly, I don't want to ask about winning or losing, but do you find that at least based upon this U.S.-lead coalition and air strikes, despite what we saw in Libya, do you see that ISIS is at least losing any kind of momentum at all?

WOOD: Well, ISIS views itself as winning if it's expanding. It's an expansionist state. It believes that's its imperative. In some ways, it has expanded, in the sense that it has Franchises in places like Libya that have sworn allegiance. On the other hand, I think they thought they would have expanded further into Kurdistan, further from the main sites from Mosul and Raqqa. The fact that they have not is a real blow to them and makes their propaganda a little bit less compelling to those that thought they were unstoppable, and now they're not.

BALDWIN: Graham Wood, your piece is what ISIS really wants in "The Atlantic." Thank you so much for coming on. Come back. WOOD: Thank you.

BALDWIN: A vigil is planned for this evening for the mother of four gunned down in front of her home. Not for money. Not by mistake. But apparently over a fender bender that almost happened. Police in Las Vegas are now looking for this man. They say, on Thursday, he nearly got into a car accident with Tammie Meyers after she gave her daughter a driving lesson. There was an argument. Our affiliate reports, when Meyers reached her drive way, the gunman started firing. Police are looking for two others that were with him. Meyers was hit and later died in the hospital. She was 44 years of age.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT MEYERS, SON OF TAMMIE MYERS: She was the grandmother of one. My son is only 1. 1 year and 2 months. And now I have to deal with my son, growing up without knowing his grandmother.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gosh.

CNN's Sara Sidner is with me.

Police, Sara, they have video of this suspect's vehicle.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. They have surveillance video. Cameras are everywhere these days. It could help crack the case.

I want to show you the video right now of the surveillance. You can see the cars. It is dark. It's hard to see. It's hard to see a license plate, for example, but they're asking anyone that has any information or could potentially take a look at this and say, hey, I might know that car. Apparently, there were three people inside that car, according to police. One of whom they have made a sketch of, who they believe is the suspect in the shooting in this particular case. That car is grey or silver.

I want to give you a look at the suspect, and the sketch made of this suspect. Basically, a white male about 180 pounds. But you can also see he has got sort of spiky hair. That would help people to say, OK, maybe I know this person. His eyes are either blue or hazel.

Police are, you know, on a manhunt now. This was valentine's weekend. Tammie Meyers lost her life because of a simple incident in traffic that got completely out of control. The two argued at some point, and then at some point, he ended up shooting at her and killing her.

Her husband is absolutely destroyed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB MEYERS, HUSBAND OF TAMMIE MEYERS: My son came out and watched his mother fall and he did what any son would do. He's a hero in my book and returned fire. SIDNER: And as you mentioned there is a vigil tonight for Tammie

Meyers the mother of four. She was giving a driving lesson to her daughter, a teenager who is learning to drive. And it's horrible that she had to learn this awful lesson about road rage after she just got finished going around in a parking lot to teach her daughter to drive. Something most parents do, right -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Of course. I remember my mom doing it time and time again. And people take it to this level this day, I will never be able to understand that.

Sara Sidner, thank you.

We have new developments here in the aftermath of the Denmark terror attacks. Investigators are learning more about the gunman's allegiance to ISIS and how he became radicalized and why the cafe attacked in Copenhagen was suddenly evacuated today. We'll take you there. We have a live report.

And is anti-Semitism on the rise across Europe? An Israeli journalist spent hours walking the streets of Paris with a hidden camera. We'll show you what he saw, what he experienced, next.

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BALDWIN: As recent terror attacks in Denmark and France raise fears across Europe, there's report of anti-Semitic incidents on the rise.

I want to share this new video with you that reflects this threat felt more and more by people in Europe.

In this video, you'll see this journalist, who works for an Israeli news outlet -- he spent 10 hours walking the streets of Paris while wearing traditional Jewish prayer garment and cap. And in an area where there is a higher percentage of Muslim, he was verbally abused.

Max Foster is with me now from London.

Max, just total transparency, from what I've been told -- you tell me, what parts of Paris, what areas he was in, and what exactly he experienced.

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Well, he walked around all of Paris, but in this 90 seconds of cut-down video from 10 hours of video, most of it is actually from the northeast of Paris. These are the suburbs, very poor areas, predominantly Muslim areas. And as he walked through there, he was spat at. The word "Jew" was shouted out. Lots of other insults as well. When you cut it down into 90 seconds, it's quite horrific to watch.

But I did ask him, are these sorts of areas the area where is you would stand out anyway? Would you be getting insults anyway? And he said there's no way of really judging that, but he felt very, very vulnerable. And the word "Jew" was thrown at him and there were really offensive words. It was a horrible experience for him. BALDWIN: So as we're watching this, does he feel that in the wake of

what's happened in Denmark and in France, does he feel targeted? Does he feel that he is at risk? Or is this something he felt for awhile?

FOSTER: Well, he certainly wanted to investigate this as a journalist and he got this idea from an American lady who walked through New York. And exactly the same thing, 10 hours of footage, cut it down to about a minute, and there was lots of sexual abuse he suffered from. He was taking the format and taking it to France, and Paris, specifically, to see if there was anti-Semitism there. He believes there is. He's says it's not all of Paris. And says there's an element of gimmicks to this. And there were compliments as well that he didn't include.

But just before he filmed this, there was an attack on the supermarket in Paris, so he was scared. He did have a security guard with him and he felt a sense of pride being able to do that as well. Confused feelings. I spoke to him earlier and he said it could have been much worse. This is what he said.

BALDWIN: We don't have sound, Max. Can you paraphrase?

FOSTER: Yeah. So effectively, what he said is he was worried, he was scared, but he didn't get any physical violence. So he said it could have been worse.

So while this video is very powerful on its own, we shouldn't take out of context something about Paris or Europe. But it was a horrific situation. It's something that has hit a nerve with a lot of people and it's going viral.

BALDWIN: Max Foster, thank you. One man's perspective walking through Paris.

And we mentioned some of these attacks, let's talk about Denmark. The people of Denmark are mourning the two victims killed in this weekend's terror attacks. We're learning details about the links to ISIS. Omar Abdel Kamar Hussein (ph) pledging allegiance to the group's leader in this now-deleted Facebook posting. There was no evidence that he ever travelled to Iraq or Syria or was at any training camp there. But it does appear that he turned to radical Islam in prison, carrying out the shootings actually just two weeks after he was released.

Today, authorities returned to the cafe that was the scene of that first attack. Bomb squad officers reportedly finding a suspicious letter.

So let's go to CNN senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, who is there for us in Denmark.

Nick, tell me about this letter.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, pretty quickly, the police brought in the bomb squad. And this is something that -- you know, a discarded letter that any other day might have been thrown in a waste bin and just ignored. But there is still a high state of alert here. This was the place that was attacked. The letter was found here. And there's still armed police in this area. They responded quickly. The bomb squad came in. They took a look at it and, within an hour or two hours, they decided this was not a threat and opened up the area again. There's been a constant stream of people coming through here. But it is a concern that the people here, this was the location that was attacked, so it might, you know, it might be a location for a copy cat type of attack -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: When people are getting into the why, why would he do this -- you spoke with a man, Nick, who knew him, who are talked a little bit with you about his background that he said perhaps would make him more and more emotional, and vulnerable to radicalization?

PATON WALSH: Sure. And we've heard the intelligence services here come out today and say, look, we knew that he was getting radicalized. We got tip-offs about it. We didn't think he was about to attack. And then just a couple of hours before the attack, he proclaimed support for the leader of ISIS, Baghdadi. A clear indication of where he mind set is at. But having talked to somebody that knew this guy, knew the gunman, when he was in the gangs here, these are gangs that had violent turf wars here. It puts a different complex on who this man was and how he got his -- how he got his weapon skills. This is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATON WALSH: He didn't have to go to Iraq, didn't have to go to Syria to get weapons training. He was getting it here on the streets of Copenhagen.

IDEN SOUIE, KNEW DENMARK SHOOTER: Yeah, exactly. In the Danish debate, we are very -- we look a lot of people going to Syria and Iraq to learn to use weapons. He got his education in using weapons and dehumanizing other people and able to kill them here in Denmark and in inner city areas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PATON WALSH: But you know what happened here, those wars between the gangs here, they made a truce. But because the gunman was such a violent character, his gang pushed him out it. And the assessment is that really he just wanted something else to gravitate toward, sort of at the bottom end of society, if you will, and gravitated toward radical Islam. He takes all of this violent subculture with him -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Thank you so much, Nick.

Next, breaking news out of Ukraine today. The cease-fire is barely holding on. Violence on both sides continues. We have our correspondent there, Nick Paton Walsh. We'll talk to him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: Ukraine cease-fire may be crumbling after three days. Five servicemembers killed in just the last 24 hours. There's a truce between the government and pro-Russian separatists, set guidelines for the cease-fire starting Saturday, as in this past Saturday at midnight. But intense fighting is dimming hopes that would remain intact or even happen in parts here.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is on the ground there and he joins me.

Nick, let me begin with, what has come of this meeting? We heard from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor last week, standing along side President Obama. She wanted to give it another diplomatic shot. The cease-fire agreement happened. There's been a phone call between Poroshenko, Merkel and Putin. What came of that?

PATON WALSH: that was re-agreeing that they would agree there should be e cease-fire and it should be monitored by a group called the OSCE.

When I heard the word cease-fire, what I've been seeing for the past two days, it feels odd at the end of the day. We see the key flashpoint in all of this and no interruption in violence. Yes, here in Donetsk, them main city, it's much quieter in terms of exPLOsion ever since Sunday. But we're hearing from the Ukrainian government they lost control of part of it. There's been a fight for the railway station there. The Ukrainians said it had been hit by ground rocket systems. The separatists say they have come under attack by the Ukrainian army trying to break out the encirclement there. Lot of lives have clearly been lost. There's been video of various Ukrainian prisoners of war being paraded.

It's a very messy situation. It's certainly not a cease-fire. The U.N. Security Council are meeting any minute now to try to discuss this imminent crisis. And we're really looking, I think, at what is this situation, and it's not a cease-fire -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Agreeing to disagree on something that hasn't even happened. Nick Paton Walsh, stay right there, excellent reporting, as you watch and wait to see what happens.