Nine Dead After Suicide Bomber Attacks Instanbul. Aired 8:00a- 9:00a ET
KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream. At least nine people have been killed in Istanbul after a blast at a population tourist destination. UN officials say 400 people in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya need immediate medical care or they could die. And he has been dubbed the new Jihadi John. CNN speaks to the sister of the man widely believed to be the British extremist fighter. We begin in Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul, rocked by a major explosion. The Turkish president says a suicide bomber with links to Syria was responsible. At least nine people have been killed, and officials say a significant number are foreign nationals. 15 people are wounded, including a Norwegian. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey has been dealing with security threats posed by ISIS and Kurdish separatists. Now, the blast has struck the heart of Istanbul's tourist hub. The Sultanahmet Square is at the center of a historic area that is home to some of Turkey's top architectural gems. Now, the church of Hajia Sophia there is more than 1,400 years old. It is where rulers of the Eastern Roman Empire were crowned. Now, nearby is the 400-year-old Blue Mosque, its unique domes and towers dominate the city skyline. Now, our Senior International Correspondent Ivan Watson spent several years based in Istanbul and he joins me now live. And Ivan, let's talk more about the target tell us more about the significance of where this deadly blast took place.</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDNET: That's right. This is Sultanahmet. It is the old city of Istanbul, formerly Constantinople. This blast would have gone off within sight of Hajia Sophia, that 1,500 year old basilica built by Roman emperors. This the jewel of the Turkish tourism industry. It is a place visited by hoards of visitors from within Turkey and from around the world. It is a symbolic blow to an industry that in 2014 was worth some $34 billion, according to the Turkish government. And if in fact the Turkish government's initial announcement that this was a suicide bomber of Syrian origin proves to be true, then it shows that the spillover effect of the civil war in Syria can be felt hundreds of miles away in the commercial capital of Istanbul, a city that previously had largely been spared the ripple effects of this conflict that continues to threaten to destabilize the region -- Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Is that the only factor here, the ripple effects from Syria? What about ISIS? What about the PKK? Because there has been a wave of violent attacks in Turkey. Why is all this happening?</s>WATSON: Turkey is fighting two determined, armed organized enemies simultaneously: the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK -- they are from Turkey's largest ethnic minority, the Kurds. They've been fighting against the Turkish state for some 30 years. And a civil war that had started to ebb with a peace process reignited, Kristie, last summer. So, you've got entire city's and towns in southeastern Turkey that have been under government curfew, where you've had street-to-street urban warfare taking place. Simultaneously, the Turkish state has been fighting ISIS throughout the first years of the civil war in Syria, Turkey allowed more than a million Syrian refugees to flee to Turkey. It also turned a blind eye to jihadi militants crossing into Syria to fight the Syrian government. And now we're starting to see some of the blow-back effects of that. The Turkish state is trying to crack down on ISIS networks within Turkey. And since the last six months, ISIS has been linked to a series of deadly suicide bombings that have claimed the lives of more than 130 Turks in the border town Suruc (ph) last July and in the capital Ankara, last October. And now this latest suicide bombing, which would most likely appear to be the work of a jihadi group. The PKK has carried out bombings in the past, but it has tended to focus its attention and its targets on Turkish security forces. This would be a big break from their past modus operandi if they in fact targeted what appear to have been foreign tourists in the heart of the old city of Istanbul, Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Ivan Watson reporting, we appreciate your analysis there. Thank you. Now, let's go straight to Istanbul. Our Senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is there. And Arwa, you heard this explosion when it happened. What, since then, have you learned about the blast, and how it unfolded?</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're on the scene right now, Kristie. The blast happening a few hundred meters from where the press is lined up. The area is all cordoned off at this stage. Fairly calm. The authorities very quick to react to this immediately sending in the security forces, ambulances, fire trucks, clearing out the casualties, getting the wounded pretty quickly to the various different hospitals. This is what we know at this stage. According to the president, this was the work of a suicide bomber, identified as being of Syrian origins and born in 1988. According to the deputy prime minister, a significant number of those nine who were killed in this attack were foreign nationals. This is such a devastating blow to this country. First and foremost, for those who lost loved ones in this attack and now are having to deal with the consequences of this kind of horrific violence, but also what it means to just how vulnerable Turkey really is. This area that we're in right now where the attack took place, this is the core, the very center of the country's historic district, tourist destination. If you come here to visit Istanbul, this is going to be one of the main, if not the main, part of the city that you come to. And there have been leading up to this point in time widespread concerns that there would be this kind of violence that did transpire, because Turkey has been fighting terrorists on numerous different levels, and they have been, authorities say, actively going after hundreds of individuals who they say have links to various terrorist organizations, detaining them, conducting massive country-wide sweeps and still it is so painfully apparent that there are so many vulnerable points. No direct links to ISIS, at least not those being publicly made, but a lot of suspicion that they are in fact behind this horrific attack. If you remember, ISIS was blamed for the twin suicide blasts that claimed the lives of over 100 people in the capital Ankara back in October. That was the single deadliest attack in Turkey's modern day history, that attack happening during a rally there. And then prior to that, over the summer, you had the attack on a gathering happening in Suruc, a town along the Turkey-Syria border. This is not just a blow to the Turkish psyche when it comes to security, but also potentially a blow to the country's vital tourism industry that is one of the main economic avenues for this country. But what's actually been interesting, Kristie, is that we have spoken to some of the individuals around here, one young man who has a food truck selling snacks who said that he heard the blast, it shook him. He was visibly distraught and very emotional about what happened. But then we spoke to a handful of foreigners, a young German girl who is actually a student here who said that, yes, her family is very worried. They do want her to come back home, but she has no intention of doing that. And then we spoke to an American couple who were staying at a hotel not far away. They didn't hear the blast, but they said that despite the fact that this violence had happened in such a tragic and horrific way, it was not going to deter them from continuing their visit to Turkey, nor was it going to negatively impact what they said was their love that they felt for this country and this was their first visit, Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Arwa Damon reporting live at the scene of this deadly explosion. Thank you very much indeed for your reporting. You're watching News Stream. And still ahead on the program, the UN issues an urgent warning in the Syrian city of Maydaya. Why it says hundreds of people must be evacuated now. Plus, British authorities are scrambling to identify an ISIS militant seen in a propaganda video threatening the UK. You'll hear from the sister of one of the prime suspects. Also ahead, despite widespread criticism, North Korea does not appear to be scaling back its nuclear ambitions. Why experts say the nation sees its nuclear program as key to its survival.