Convoy with the U.N. Aid Coming under Fire in Syria
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Number four now, the CEO of AOL is apologizing for comments he made about the company's benefits programs. Tim Armstrong had cited the cost of Obamacare and too expensive pregnancies. And to explain why AOL would cut the frequency of 401(K) matching payments. Now, he said that the new system would save money, but employees complained and now the old policy is back.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: And number five. Thousands of you in Pennsylvania, you get to wake up this morning to power after last week's snowstorm, that I know has left you in the dark for several days. Wednesday's wintry weather downed trees and power lines, as you see here. Really difficult, then, for utility workers to get to damaged areas. Officials say about 78,000 people still do not have electricity or heat, but they're hoping that they will have power restored by tomorrow. So we're keeping our fingers crossed for you as well, because that's miserable for. They would be going into a fifth day without it.</s>BLACKWELL: And you know, other people were keeping our fingers crossed for the people out west dealing with this drought. Maybe some states are going to get a break from the dry weather. This is what it looked like in Portland yesterday. Freezing rain, snow there bring some slick conditions on the roads.</s>PAUL: All right. Obviously, it didn't stop people.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>PAUL: They live there, they know what to do.</s>BLACKWELL: Move it through.</s>PAUL: They just get the skis out. Look at them go. Another round of snow could be pushing east, too. So, let's bring in CNN's meteorologist, Karen Maginnis. Hi, Karen.</s>KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Christi and Victor. Did either one of you get stuck in the Atlanta traffic that made news worldwide?</s>PAUL: Yes, ma'am!</s>BLACKWELL: No, I was out reporting in it.</s>MAGINNIS: Yes, miserable, huh?</s>PAUL: He was stuck on the side of the road. It's ...</s>BLACKWELL: Yes. That's the nice way to say it.</s>PAUL: With his hat and --</s>MAGINNIS: Well, here we go. Round two.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No!</s>MAGINNIS: It's true. I know. There's a lot to tell you about. It's still evolving. We were mentioning this yesterday, because the computer models were not very specific about what was happening. We knew something was going to, but now, we're kind of pinning it down. Things could change. All the way from Springfield to Oklahoma City to Tulsa, to Little Rock, into Russellville, extending into Memphis. Ice, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. Where you see these watches and warnings. That's where we have the potential. When does this happen? It looks like going into Monday and Tuesday. That will be the big event. Extending along the interstate, interstate 40, interstate 55, conducting right at Memphis. Memphis, kind of notorious for those big snow events or starting out as ice, changing over to snow. That's what happened in Atlanta. We didn't see freezing rain, but there was enough heat in the ground that some of the precipitation that fell on the ground just kind of froze in place. And then a couple of inches of snow. And it was just a disaster. Well, across the southeast, we'll watch a couple of weather systems come together, and it's round two with ice and snow in the southeast. We'll keep you updated.</s>PAUL: Ugh!</s>MAGINNIS: I know.</s>PAUL: Karen Maginnis, I'm still going to say thank you to you.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>BLACKWELL: Although I didn't want that, but thank you, Karen.</s>MAGINNIS: All right.</s>BLACKWELL: We want to get you up to date on what's been unfolding in Syria. This is how one U.N. official describes it. A day in hell.</s>PAUL: Yeah, an aid convoy was trying to deliver much-needed food and medicine in the city of Homs, but here's what happened. Take a look.</s>PAUL: You hear all the gunshots there? The convoy came under fire as it was rolling into Homs. It was shelled on. The team had to take off. Sam Dagher is the Middle East correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal" and he joins us on the phone from Homs now. Thank you so much for being with us. Can you give us an update on what the situation is there right now?</s>SAM DAGHER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, I'm sorry, I can barely hear you, but I'll try my best. I'm standing near now at the front line between the government house - government (inaudible) of Homs and the rebel held section which is in the center of the city. What's going to happen today is the United Nations along with the (inaudible) is going to try to take food that weren't able to take in yesterday, and it's going to pack everything in the U.N. SUVs, armored SUVs. And so they'll try to take them in that way. Because yesterday they fight to take them in in two big trucks. I'm sorry, in four big trucks. And they were shot at, and they were, you know, mortars were fired after them and snipers shot them. So today they're trying to do it differently. And they seem to be determined. And they're going to try to evacuate those civilians, they believe in the besieged area. This is an area that's been under siege for almost 18 months.</s>BLACKWELL: And Sam, we know this has been going on for some time, but I'm reading your reporting for the journal, and you write that rebels insisted that four red crescent trucks go in, Damascus insisted only two trucks go in. I mean, was this specific incident started just because they couldn't agree on the number of trucks that would go in? It's got to be more than that.</s>DAGHER: No, no, no. Yesterday, four trucks tried to go in to deliver food, flour, and medicine and hygiene kits. And two made it in. Two big trucks made it in. And two others were shot at and had to retreat and didn't make it in. So what they're doing now, is that the same, you know, the same that was on the two trucks that didn't go in are, you know, it's going to be, you know, the same stuff is going to be put into a bunch of SUVs that belong to the United Nations. These are armored SUVs. And they're going to be taken that way in like different batches, basically. Throughout the day.</s>PAUL: OK. OK. So, Sam, real quickly, one, was this, you know, team deliberately targeted? And two, do we know who's responsible, specifically?</s>DAGHER: Good question. Yes, it was deliberately and consistently. I was just speaking this morning again with the head of the U.N. mission in Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, and he said it was a deliberate targeting of this convoy and it's a breach of international law and humanitarian principles. And - but he fell short of, you know, loaning, you know, either side of the conflict here, the government or the rebels. But I speak to three, three people, including one senior U.N. official, who was part of this mission yesterday. They were part of that convoy. And they told me, there's no doubt in their mind that it was government forces that fired at them. Pro-government forces. Then, again, of course, the authorities here dispute that and say that it was the work of a rival rebel factions. One of them, you know, one faction didn't want the civilians to get out and another faction wanted the civilians to get out in exchange for food. And that they planted IEDs along the path of the - sorry, improvised explosive devices along the path of the convoy. But Mr. Hillo himself, the U.N. chief here in Syria said no way these were IEDs, these were mortars. And he's actually in charge of security himself for the whole Syria operation.</s>PAUL: OK, Sam Dagher, Middle East correspondent for the "Wall Street Journal," boy, you and your crew, take good care there. Sam, it's really chaotic, but thank you so much for taking the time to let us know what's happening.</s>BLACKWELL: Thank you, Sam. Hey, still to come, a mystery at sea. Have you been following this? It's now sparking fascination, a lot of skepticism. This castaway that claims he drifted in the Pacific for more than a year, living on turtles and rainwater. No one knows how he could have survived so long.