Plane Crash in Laos; Bomb Blast in Myanmar; Car Bomb in Iraq; Video of Kenyan Mall Terror Attack
HOLMES: Some other stories making news AROUND THE WORLD right now. Some bad news out of Laos, investigators looking into the possibility that wind shear is to blame for Wednesday's plane crash that killed 49 people. There were remnants of a typhoon in the area. The weather was terrible when the Lao Airlines plane was approaching landing at Pakse Airport.</s>MALVEAUX: Officials believe a sudden gust of wind caused the piloted to lose control. It crashed on or near an island in a nearby river. In Myanmar, one person is dead, two others injured after three, three explosions rocked the northeastern part of the country, also known as Burma. They are the latest in a string of recent blasts. One person was hurt Monday when a homemade device went off at a high- end hotel that is pretty popular with international tourists.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, there was an explosion last week that killed two people as well. It not known yet whether those incidents were connected, but disturbing for a country that's really just coming into its own now. Now in Iraq, this is a familiar tale, isn't it? A car bomb going off, this time in a refugee compound. This is just east of the city of Mosul in the north of the country. Seventeen people were killed, 7 of them children, nearly 70 other people were wounded.</s>MALVEAUX: The blast, it caused nearby buildings to collapse. Some are still trapped under the rubble. The compound is home to an ethnic Shiite minority that has been the target of Sunni extremist group like al Qaeda in recent months. When terrorists attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, last month, the only way to understand what happened is from the stories of some of those survivors. But now CNN has obtained access to some of the mall surveillance video.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, much of what you are about to see is graphic. It is also disturbing. You may want to send the kids out of the room. It's really not suitable for them. We're reporting on the videos, though, because there really are few opportunities for the public to understand the nature of these attacks and how these killers show absolutely no hesitation about ending life. Nima Elbagir has been going through hours of this video, preparing a summary of what we can learn from that Saturday in September.</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Shoppers at Westgate Mall, this is the scene moments before the al Shabaab attack. Suddenly, men, women, children, begin to run for their lives. This man on the floor thought he'd found safety. Wounded, he gathers the strength to try and crawl for help. Another gunman returns without mercy. The security camera spotted two other attackers making their way to the top parking lot, walking towards the children's cooking competition held there. Just beyond the camera's view, they open fire. This edited, silent video obtained by CNN shows what happened during the attack in Nairobi on September 21st. As the attackers go through the mall, you see people desperate, trying to run and crawl to safety as bullets streak by. A body on the floor gets barely a glance, and another bullet. This is only a fraction of the surveillance video recorded during this day. Most of it too horrifying to broadcast. In the supermarket, the hostage roundup has begun. A mother and her two children push an injured child in a shopping cart. A teenage girl follows, her hands in the air. She's bloody. A gunman points the way. Kenyan authorities say they closely watched the security cameras as the attack was happening. The hostage-takers are spotted on the phone. Authorities believe they are receiving instructions from outside the mall. Here, one of them even appears to look for surveillance cameras. Only four attackers are seen in the video. There are long periods of time where they appear almost relaxed. At one point, the attackers take turns for prayers. Elsewhere in a mall restaurant, a Western man, gun in hand and what appears to be a plainclothes Kenyan police officer take position to try to protect the staff and customers cowering behind the counter. And this was just the first day of what would become a four-day nightmare for Kenya.</s>HOLMES: And Nima joins us now from Nairobi. It is horrible to watch. It really is. I mean, I know that you've got more information on that woman with the child in the shopping cart. Fill us in on that and what this video tells us about those gunmen.</s>ELBAGIR: Well, Michael, I guess it's just a tiny bit of respite from all of the horribleness that we've just been watching. The lady that you see with her two children, and by the way that third injured child in the cart was a 12-year-old that she insisted on being allowed to take with her. The gunman finally released them after her and her children pleaded. In fact, her boy apparently called the gunman a bad man and was given sweets, if you can believe it. She also insisted on taking the teenage girl, so they were eventually released. Of course, they were among the very, very lucky few in this, Michael.</s>MALVEAUX: And, Nima, you talk about the fact that we see four of the gunmen in the video here, and that there's a lot of video to be shared. How helpful, how useful is this for Kenyan authorities, those who really want to make sure they have the people responsible, all of the people responsible for this?</s>ELBAGIR: Well, it definitely gives you a sense of how extraordinarily well-coordinated this was. And with the intercepts they've been working on, I understand from security sources, they've been able to link this to actually a worryingly broad network, not just Kenyan, but out into the region in East Africa and beyond. And they actually believe that this could be linked even across the Red Sea into al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. So those intercepts are really key, not just in understanding how it could have happened, but in understanding who was involved and how wide that net is going to need to be, Suzanne.</s>MALVEAUX: All right, thank you so much. I mean, it's so hard to watch that video. I know it's useful to investigators, but really difficult when you just see just the total disregard for life. And the guy's, you know, laying down, and he's still shooting him.</s>HOLMES: It is horrible to watch. It is. Now for weeks the shutdown drama, well, it was like a bad TV reality show, wasn't it? The bad guy, the good guy, the victims. Well, now that it's over, we're looking at the winners and losers or perhaps who lost the less.</s>MALVEAUX: Yeah, well, that's up next on AROUND THE WORLD.