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Hostage Taker Demands Release of Wanted Brothers; At Least One Kouachi Brother Traveled to Yemen; Smoke Seen in town Near Charles De Gaulle Airport

Aired January 9, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That just gives you an indication in addition to the massive police presence we've seen here to the general tension around the city of Paris today.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So Jim, I just want to repeat that, because there was some noise. I heard, so you're saying the hostage taker inside this supermarket has asked for the release of the two brothers in the other hostage situation?

SCIUTTO: That's exactly right. He's demanded they be freed, establishing a connection, solidarity between them. It doesn't necessarily mean there's an operational connection between these attacks, but we're already being able to draw a number of lines between them. What he's saying, demanding their freedom, but then, of course, the fact that yesterday, this same gunman police say -- police say they believe is the one who killed that female police officer and that, of course, within less than 24 hours of the original attack against the cartoon magazine.

COOPER: There had also been reports, Jim, of -- we talked about whether there was operational connections between these two. We don't know if the hostage taker in the supermarket is, in fact, the third terrorist who was involved in the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks. It would seem to be -- logic would seem to indicate that person did have a role in it. But we just simply can't say for sure. That is not confirmed. But if he is calling for the release of the two brothers who have taken hostages near the Charles De Gaulle Airport, it does just amplify the connections between the two. We know that there had been some sort of social connections between them and there had been some reports, Jim, of operational connections between them years ago that talk about them being in sort of this cell that had been interested in fighting overseas. Also a cell that had been interested in trying to free an Algerian convict from a French prison, as well.

SCIUTTO: That's exactly right. They know that there is some social connection between the two shooters to the northeast of Paris who carried out the attack on "Charlie Hebdo" and the hostage taker here. They were from a similar group. They played soccer together. They followed rap music together. That kind of thing. A social connection established. Police have yet to establish an operational connection. Until now, you certainly have a more substantiated connection with the hostage taker here demanding the release, the freedom, the liberation, of the two other shooters, so - but it also, as you referenced there, Anderson, raises questions about that third assailant that police talked about the day of the "Charlie Hebdo" shooting.

You'll remember the 19-year-old, they originally identified, turned himself in. He has some witnesses, some friends who give him an alibi. Is it possible that this man here was a third assailant? Certainly possible. What we know now is just establishing a connection between them, a past connection, they knew each other in past years, they were in a similar youth group, and a current connection with one of them here today at this moment demanding the freedom of those other two shooters, as well. I can tell you, again, the police presence around here has only grown. Every two minutes we hear another siren and we've still been hearing that helicopter overhead. And I've talked to some experts, and the helicopter is equipped with something that gives the police on the ground a live feed of the video so that they, in addition to all the eyes they have on the ground here, that they have eyes in the air, as well, on this kosher supermarket as the hostage taking is under way.

COOPER: Jim, you know, we've been showing our viewers -- on the left- hand side of the screen -- we have the image of a female suspect which was released by French police probably about two hours ago. As far as we know, she is not in the supermarket, correct? She is just a suspect in the shooting of the French policewoman and has some form of linkage with the male suspect who is in the supermarket, correct?

SCIUTTO: That's exactly right. We don't know. It gives you an indication of the variety of people involved in and tied to these Jihadi groups. We talk about that profile. What does the typical recruit look like? What's their background? Yes, there were similarities there, but there's also a great deal of variety. And that's one of the difficulties that police and counterintelligence have in terms of determining who do they allocate the resources to? Who do they follow? Who do they monitor? And that of course, is a major question in this case because these gentlemen, the "Charlie Hebdo" shooters we know at a minimum, despite a long history of Jihadi activity, including time in prison, including known trips to Yemen for training, they were no longer being monitored, surveilled by French intelligence. That decision is one that certainly is going to be investigated and reinvestigated here as to why that was the case.

COOPER: I want to bring back in Senator Angus King from Maine. He's a member of the Senate Select Intelligence and Armed Services Committee. Senator, just -- you know, this incident here in Paris, it really just brings home the difficulty of trying to maintain tracking on the large number of suspects of people who have had either some sort of Jihadist experience fighting in Syria or in Yemen, or even those who have not traveled overseas but have some interest in committing acts of terror like this. I mean, if French law enforcement, which has extensive contacts in immigrant communities, which has extensive experience in this, cannot maintain contact with it, what does it mean for other intelligence agencies in western Europe and for the United States?

SENATOR ANGUS KING, (I) MAINE: Well, I think one fundamental difference, if there's any good news here, Anderson, in terms of intelligence, is these two guys were on the no fly list. One of the differences in Europe is that you can drive from Turkey to Norway without slowing down, without being checked at a border, and a lot of these weapons -- these guys were in downtown Paris with AK-47s, and at least, in order to get here, they're going to have to go through some kind of border and immigration and we would have picked them up. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't others that we aren't going to be able to pick up who came from -- who went from their home country, call it Brussels or France or Great Britain or Germany, into this cauldron in the Middle East, came back and then could come over here on the Visa Waiver Program.

So it's a real concern, and I know, in reading reports about what's going on in France, it was simply a question of resources. They had so many people to watch, it was a question of making the decision. Now as you point out, somebody's going to be revisiting that decision and saying, why weren't these guys followed? But it's a question of how many cops do you have and how many people can you put in this kind of situation? We don't have as many people from our country going into this area and then coming back, but it is a concern and it is one that I know that our counterterrorism center, the FBI, local police, this is a classic case where we have to have absolutely full cooperation and coordination in order to muster the resources nationwide to keep an eye on these people.

COOPER: Well, that's also the thing, Senator, which a lot of people may not realize is that U.S. intelligence relies greatly on French intelligence, British intelligence, to maintain contacts and to gather information on suspects in western Europe and if - so obviously, any failures on the part of law enforcement in western Europe, it has bearing on the United States and our ability to gather information.

KING: Well, absolutely. And I've been told over the last 24 hours that our relationship with French intelligence is quite good. There is a question of whether or not domestic versus foreign French intelligence are talking to each other sufficiently. That was one of the problems here in connection with 9/11. Every time something like this happens, we learn something. Unfortunately, also every time something like this happens, the terrorists learn something. And you know, the other piece, Anderson -- and you're focused entirely, as well you should be, and you're doing a great job on what's going on today in Paris -- but the larger question is, who are these people? Why are they doing this? Why are they joining these extremist groups? Why are they being attracted?

That's a much deeper question that we have to really start asking ourselves. We're not going to be able to kill them all. We've got to be able to talk about -- Is it education? Is it the community? Is it the moderate Muslim community speaking up against these violent Jihadists? It's a combination of -- we have to develop a strategy for dealing with what I consider the true weapons of mass destruction, which are unemployed 22-year-olds which are totally separated from their societies, have nothing to lose, and then there's this very dangerous doctrine that if you die in a holy war, you go straight to heaven. Boy, you put those things together and what you're seeing in Paris is exactly the outcome.

COOPER: Yeah, and it's an important point, as many have said before, this is a warm not just a military war, but a war of ideas as well. And this is something that can't just be battled militarily or from a law enforcement standpoint, it has to be battled psychologically, socially in a lot of - really, on all different fronts. It's a good conversation to have. Senator King, I really do appreciate you joining us today. I'm sorry for kind of jumping around. There's just so many fast-moving developments. I appreciate your expertise today.

I do want to bring our viewers in the United States and around the world up to speed on these hostage standoffs going on right now. Let's get you up to do. We've got two separate incidents playing out around Paris right now. Our Jim Sciutto is reporting they may be linked. Standoffs between gunmen and police, hostages reportedly are caught in the middle. We know this now. On the left, a police standoff with a gunman inside a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris. Reports of six hostages, as many as six hostages. On the right side of your screen, the men accused of Wednesday's bloody siege now apparently pinned down by police inside a small print shop northeast of Paris. A local lawmaker says one of the gunmen told police negotiators they are ready to die as, what they called, "martyrs." Inside that print shop, believed to be the owner of the print shop, as well, being held hostage. Jim Sciutto had also seen a number of ambulances leaving the scene as he arrived.

There had been reports of as many as two fatalities at the kosher supermarket. We cannot confirm that. It's possible some have been wounded, as well. We simply do not have confirmation from French authorities. A reminder, just extraordinary, this explosion of violence is French President Hollande's -- right now, he is holding a crisis meeting with senior cabinet members trying to deal with these simultaneous situations that are taking place. To get a better look at the area where these events are unfolding this morning, our Tom Foreman joins us now from Washington. Tom?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. Let's break this down by these two events. The first involving the two brothers here. This is the one that began at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" down here. That's where the first shooting took place where all of this kicked off. It is believed, by authorities then, that they fled up this way and they wound up in this general area up here and that's where we said that report of them being spotted at a gas station there. For a period of time, French authorities were fairly certain they had them surrounded in a wooded area somewhere up here, but then they seem to have broken out and headed back down this way.

The BBC says there was some kind of shootout or encounter with police down here after they had commandeered a car here and now we're to this position here where we have this standoff going on. And we'll go in and take a look at that. If you look at the wider map of the area, neighborhood of some sort up here, this is this industrial park down here and this seems to be the target area. If we move in closer, you can see -- if this is the right print shop -- and it's the only print shop in this area -- this really is a fairly isolated and small place here. So this is not like they're in some giant complex, if this is right place. You can see right over here to the side of it, there are ways in which they could be watched from a path nearby. There are trees around, there are a lot of ways in which this can be contained, and yet police thought they had them contained in the woods. So it's a question of what will happen here. Second incident. That involves these two people, according to police.

As you pointed out, Anderson, we really heard nothing about her this morning. We don't know what's going on with her, but this is the man who is believed to be in this second circumstance where they have -- this police officer was shot in southern Paris by apparently that duo, according to police, or that's what they believe. And this is where the market is. You can see it's really not terribly far, by city blocks, from where "Charlie Hebdo" is and it is in a much more urban environment. This is the market. People, places, all around here. Again, you're correct to ask, Anderson, as we're all asking all day here, are the two connected? We don't know. But this is the map in which they all come together and you can see all of these incidents roughly, in a very small area, 45, 50 miles, maybe at most, from here to here. Anderson?

COOPER: Tom Foreman, appreciate you putting it in context. It really kind of gives our viewers a sense of where everything is laid out. I want to bring in our panelists, CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, and Sal Lifrieri, a former NYPD hostage negotiator. Sal, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your last name. Can you just tell is for me?

SAL LIFRIERI, FORMER NYPD HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: It's okay. It happens.

COOPER: Alright. I guess I'm not the first one to do it, Sal. Sal, let's just talk about what hostage negotiators are dealing with at this point from an operational standpoint. First of all, let's talk about the supermarket. You have one, as far as we know, one hostage- taker inside that supermarket. That's believed to have been the person who shot to death a French policewoman on Thursday morning. Also, French police have released the picture of a female suspect who has some connection to that male suspect. Earlier there had been French media reporting that at least two people related to this male suspect had been taken in custody. One report said it was this man's parents, we have not been able to separately confirm that. And apparently, Sal, this hostage-taker -- they are linked. This hostage- taker is demanding or asking for the release of or the freedom for the two Kouachi brothers who are hold up in this printing shop elsewhere. In a situation like that, what do you do as a negotiator?

LIFRIERI: Well, it's not uncommon, first off, for the peripheral players around the hostage-taker to wind up getting interviewed by law enforcement and to get picked up and brought in for debriefing. So that's very consistent, what we would see in a traditional case. The initial negotiation ploy from his side of it, making a demand, is something that, you know, when you start the conversation with them, you need to have a conversation going, and one of the things you always try ad do is find some form of either commonality or something you can talk about. And in this case, they got that going and what they got was him -- asking him, what do you want? And it shows, you know, where he is and what he's looking for. Then you start your negotiations from that point. It could be that, you know, at some point in time they'll start trying to get hostages released based on what he's asking for and how he's reacting. COOPER: Tom Fuentes, in a situation like that, do law enforcement have

the capabilities to shut down or stop cellphone service for hostage- takers? I ask that question because obviously, you would not want a hostage-taker, you know, calling comrades, calling associates, or even in the case of say, the Mumbai attack of a central controller.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well here in the U.S., Anderson, yes. You can shut down -- you can have the companies shut down the services, but it's very difficult and it also depends on how many different services or providers you have in that country. And also, we don't know if maybe that's the only means of communication. We don't know if there's hardline telephone coverage into that place. Whether the hostage taker wants to talk to the authorities, you know, the negotiators on the phone. We don't have that information.

COOPER: Because obviously, another concern would be that given that there is a linkage between these terror suspects, that they would be communicating with each other on the phone right now.

FUENTES: Well certainly, if not directly, possibly indirectly. We don't know if both locations have local television service or radio service where they could be hearing from the media what's going on at the other location or at least what's been publicly disclosed. So if, at the other location, there's a major shootout, that's probably going to make it on all news channels and they would hear about that. They would understand something's going on at the other place. So this is a little bit more intricate of negotiation and communication situation than most, because you have the two separate locations, they're separate but not completely separate from each other by way of the individuals trying to keep track of what the others are doing.

COOPER: And obviously we should point out to viewers, we're not giving any operational details that - obviously, if they're watching media, it would be local French media on the television station in the supermarket, but we're still not giving any operational details that would be of interest or usable by anybody with nefarious intent watching on television. Peter Bergen, as you watch this unfolding, I mean, there's so many questions we don't know about exactly, in the international context, any of these three terror suspects have had. We don't know exactly the relationship of the female suspect here. I'm wondering what interests you most right now, in terms of what you want to learn about these suspects.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, we know quite a lot about the two brothers, but I'm interested in this female suspect because we've seen, here in the United States, quite a number of females who've either traveled to Syria for training or have been stopped before they can go. We don't know what her involvement is, but as Christiane Amanpour was saying earlier, one of the surprising things about the hundreds of French who have gone to Syria for -- in the male case, training, but in the female case, marrying Jihadi fighters -- is the large number of females who are going. It's not - Anderson, it's fairly untypical to have a female involved in the military side of these operations, but it's quite typical, or certainly not unheard of, for them to have some kind of support role, for them to be in some kind of a relationship with a Jihadi fighter. To be kind of a -- share the same ideological views. So I'd like to find out more about this female suspect and what her background is.

COOPER: Peter, you have also written extensively -- because I think a lot of people in the United States who are watching, certainly the attack on "Charlie Hebdo", on the attack on cartoonists, kind of amazed that people would be attacking cartoonists, but there are a number of people in the United States who have plotted to do this exact same thing.

BERGEN: That's right, Anderson. We've had two American citizens, one from Chicago David Coleman Headley, and another from Pennsylvania, Colleen LaRose, who went by the moniker, Jihad Jane, both of them had very serious plans to murder cartoonists in Europe. In David Coleman Headley's case, very similar plan to attack a Danish newspaper in Copenhagen that had done cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He was planning a Mumbai-style assault on the building. Luckily, he was arrested at Chicago airport by the FBI. But his plan for the Danish newspaper doesn't look dissimilar to the plan that we saw unfold on Wednesday at "Charlie Hebdo".

In the case of Jihad Jane, she was planning to attack and kill, with another group of conspirators, a Swedish cartoonist by the name of (INAUDIBLE) and we've also seen American citizens conspiring to solicit the murder of the creators of South Park, who show the Prophet Muhammad in an episode and, in fact, also resulted in a cartoonist who went into hiding in Seattle. She may well still be in hiding because of the solicitations of her murder by people in the United States. So this is a very serious issue. We've seen multiple people killed in the name of defending -- supposedly defamatory assaults on Islam and we've seen these cases in the United States, so any Americans watching this, who imagine that this would be impossible in the United States should certainly take that on board.

COOPER: Tom Fuentes, just from a law enforcement -- actually, Tom, before I go to you, I do want to bring in our CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown who has some new information. Pamela, what are you learning?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORESPONDENT: Well Anderson, we're learning that given the fact that at least one of the Kouachi brothers is believed to have traveled to Yemen and trained with AQAP, U.S. officials from the FBI, DHS intelligence agencies are currently scrutinizing any U.S. citizens who may have been over there in Yemen at the same time or subsequently. Officials say that basically they're looking backward at some of the significant AQAP investigations to see if those individuals traveled at the same time as the brothers. Anyone traveling over there after. And official adds, this is quote, that this has been a pipeline that's been opened for years.

Foreign fighters going over to Yemen to be with AQAP and that this is a big concern. So now they're putting more energy into this, more effort into this, given what's in play in Paris. The official added that there are a number of people in the U.S. right now who are under investigation based on their alleged association with AQAP, but wouldn't specify how many there are or which tier they're in. We do know, however, Anderson, there are a number of suspects in the U.S. in that tier one category, those people who could be operational and they're believed to have trained alongside terrorist groups. I'm told, Anderson, so far, there's no connections found between the suspects in Paris and some of these high level targets in the U.S., but of course, that's something they are looking at. If something is found that's alarming, for example, if they find an American who they believe may have been in Yemen at the same time as one of the brothers, they could deploy a number of different strategies, whether it's deploy more techniques, more source cover, or even moving forward and contacting that person directly.

Of course, that may jeopardize any intelligence gathering, but could potentially stop an attack. I think their big concern, Anderson, is how what happened in Paris could impact someone here in the U.S. who's radicalized.

COOPER: Pamela, I appreciate that - the update on that with that new information. I also want to bring in our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. Barbara, what are you learning at this point?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORESPONDENT: Anderson, as you know, we talked yesterday that now we know that Said Kouachi, the older brother, traveled to Yemen in 2011, according to U.S. officials. That's the word they got from Paris authorities. They believe that to be true. Now, a little more fidelity on all of this. Kouachi apparently traveled to Yemen, stayed there for several months in mid- 2011. Why is this such a critical time frame? Because, of course, AQAP's leader of external operations, its chief recruiter, its chief planner, Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric, was killed by the United States in a drone attack in September 2011.

Right now, what they are trying to figure out, if Said Kouachi was in Yemen for several months in mid-2011, how likely is it that he met up with al-Awlaki? U.S. officials saying they do believe now that it is both probable and likely. They can not absolutely confirm it, but they believe that it is probable that the two men crossed paths at some point and that al-Awlaki's death, perhaps, was a factor in Kouachi's thinking, in his allegiance, in his loyalty to AQAP. And, again, it's exactly what Pamela just said. Given all of this, the U.S. trying desperately to look at everything, look at every piece of intelligence, see what other operations AQAP, al Qaeda in Yemen may have in the works now, given the fact that Kouachi apparently had his loyalties to this group. What else may be out there? What else may be going on? It's a very somber, very worrisome mood from all the sources that we are talking to today. Anderson?

COOPER: Barbara, that's interesting information. I want to bring in also Tom Fuentes and also Peter Bergen. Peter, it's interesting to hear about Anwar al-Awlaki in relation to the Kouachi brothers, because also he played a role, at least with major Nidal Hasan -- Nidal Hasan reaching out on the Internet or at least watching sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki. Correct?

BERGEN: Yeah. I mean, again, it might be surprising for most Americans to understand that a guy who was born in New Mexico, Anwar al-Awlaki, who spent most of his life in the United States, was studying for his Ph.D. at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., became the operational commander of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is by far the most deadly organization threatening to American interests in the last several years.

And, you know, so here we have this ironic situation where an American is organizing large-scale attacks, which luckily didn't pan out, against American targets. And now, may also have been the spiritual inspiration of this attack in Paris. In fact, I think it would be very unlikely for us to find that he wasn't the spiritual inspiration. Because even after his death, Barbara mentioned that he died in September 2011 in a drone strike, his writings appear in every kind of that we look at. Almost invariably his writings are in there. He's the most important English-speaking cleric in the world of militant Islam. That's true even in death. So this person had -- and by the way, he also released, Anderson, a -- during the whole South Park controversy, the issue about the South Park portraying the Prophet Muhammad -- Anwar al-Awlaki had a very important lecture called "Never Let The Dust Settle Down."

Basically, it was the idea that we'll never forgive any insults to the Prophet Muhammad. This got wide distribution amongst militants around the world. So it would be very surprising, in my view, if he didn't have some contact with these brothers during the time frame that one of them was in Yemen.

COOPER: And Tom Fuentes, the more people who are involved in the cell, obviously from a law enforcement standpoint -- and there's some applause here, there's some arguments going around among some French people nearby, we're very close to the "Charlie Hebdo" near the memorial, the makeshift memorial that has sprung up. And it's a site where thousands of people have been coming over the last several days. Traditionally, it's been actually a very somber, kind of quiet place. Today, we've noticed a number of debates taking place between people, so that's maybe some of the sound you're hearing in the background.

But Tom Fuentes, how difficult is it -- I guess the more people involved in the cell, the easier it is for law enforcement to try to crack it -- law enforcement to try to follow the pieces. To try to at least make associations between people. If it's a lone wolf style attack, you're only dealing with one individual. That would be, I assume, the most complicated to try to investigate and prevent.

FUENTES: Well, even if it's a small wolf pack of two, three, five people, you know, what the authorities rely on -- us and the French and others -- is that they'll communicate on social media or regular telephone conversation, e-mail, some method that the authorities hear about it from a source in the community that this cell is trying to recruit more members. And if you have a very close-knit cell, they live together or next door to each other, and they're not using other communication methods, it's very hard to track --

COOPER: Tom, I got to jump in, I want to get our Fred Pleitgen. Fred, we're seeing smoke in the area in this town near Charles De Gaulle Airport where the standoff is taking place. What are you seeing and hearing?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORESPONDENT: Well, it's especially what we're hearing. The latest that we heard is there was something that sounded like it might have been a shot from some sort of weapon. It didn't sound like a massive big caliber round. What we also heard was several sort of, I would say, detonation-like sounds, as though someone might have fired off a stun grenade or something like that. What happened was that many people here -- certainly from the press corps, but some police officers, as well, then ran into that direction back there.