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At This Hour

Siege in Sydney, Australia Ends; U.S. Helping Australian Authorities; Role of Social Media in Australia Plot; More Information on Suspect in Australia; Uber Controversy Following Siege

Aired December 15, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's drill down on that a little bit further, because you know, you don't think of Australia, per se, as having to deal with these kinds of threats. But as you mentioned, we saw Canada, which is generally seen as a fairly peaceful nation -- I don't just say because I'm from there -- but they have had their shares of terror threats and issues. Australia even, they've raised their terror alert recently, no?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: That's right. They raised their terror alert level in September. That same month there was a beheading plot linked back to ISIS. There was also a stabbing by an ISIS-inspired teen in Melbourne. Australia has been grappling with radicalization for quite a long time. There have been a sting of terror plots in Australia dating back to 2005. There was plot that year in Sydney; another plot in 2009 linked to al Shabaab support group.

There's a large Lebanese diaspora population in Australia and some of the second generation have become radicalized. And we've seen people travel across to Syria quite easy for these Lebanese peek to travel there. About 15 have been killed there. A couple dozen believe to have return from Australia. Australia is dealing with its problem just like that United States, just like many other Western countries are -- Michaela?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Paul, you have your ear to the ground and social media on days like this. What are terror groups saying? What is the chatter online right now? Is anyone claiming to be connected to this man? Anyone praising the actions that just happened in Sydney?

CRUICKSHANK: ISIS itself have not yet weighed in but there have been responses on social media from jihadis calling this guy, as can be expected, a hero, calling it a lone-wolf operation. We'll see much more of a response in the hours ahead. ISIS is very likely to make propaganda out of this. But it does not seem @THISHOUR that this guy was organizationally connected to this ISIS terrorist group.

PEREIRA: We also think it's worth saying that some 40-odd Muslim leaders in Australia have denounced the violent actions of this man and offered prayers for all involved.

Paul Cruickshank, great to have your intelligence with us, thanks for joining us.

CRUICKSHANK: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Ahead here, how the U.S. is helping Australian authorities. Our special coverage continues after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back to @THISHOUR. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: And I'm Michaela Pereira.

I want to thank our viewers for staying with us.

BERMAN: @THISHOUR, the siege in Sydney, Australia, has come to an end. It was dramatic and harrowing. About an hour and a half ago, it became clear negotiations no longer an option. You can see police storming the Lindt Cafe where a man identified as 50-year-old Iranian native man, Haron Monis -- that's his name -- he held more than a dozen people hostage for nearly 17 hours.

PEREIRA: Dramatic video shows hostages running for their lives. You hear gunfire, flash grenade, explosions. Police wearing tactical gear and night vision goggles. I want you to listen to how it all unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: More pictures now coming through. It looks like there's more activity going on.

Sean, let's find out what's happening now.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: You can probably hear the loud explosions behind me. I don't know if it's gunfire. I don't know if it's some sort of small explosive device.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: They're throwing something, Sean?

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: The police are throwing something?

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: They are. They're throwing something into the doorway.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: We've just seen another hostage brought out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This all happened very suddenly in very, very fast. There are now reports that two people were killed, at least three injured. It's not clear if the hostage taker is one of the fatalities. But police stay the siege is over. Police are combing the area to see if perhaps there are any explosives planted in the vicinity.

Australia is a key U.S. ally. Australia is also a country where the terror threat level was raised this fall from medium to high.

Want to go to Evan Perez in Washington.

Evan, we understand the FBI was helping Australian authorities. What was the FBI role?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. They have a very close relationship, the FBI does, and the U.S. intelligence with the Australian counterparts. We know that one of the things they were trying to do is help Australians get information on the suspects. Once the Australians figured out who he was several hours ago, we know that the U.S. was trying to help gather any information that we might have access to that the U.S. might have access to, including his social media accounts. He was very active on social media, railing against the U.S. air strikes against ISIS. And we know that they also were concerned about trying to identify any Americans who might have been involved there. We haven't gotten full clearance on whether or not there are any but that was a very chaotic end to the situation. They did not want it to go this way. You can see from the video you just showed that police were throwing flash bang grenades and firing into this dark room that's not the way you want to end these things. The FBI has experience with this. Also the Australian police. We recently, in September, had the Australian prime minister and police officials from New South Wales and Sydney in New York to meet with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, John, to talk about these issues. The Australians have set up a similar situation with local and federal police just for these types of situations.

PEREIRA: It's important to remember as you were talking about if there were any American there. It was 9:45 when this started. A coffee shop in the business district not far from the Sydney opera, some big world banks are located nearby. Very busy place. People coming in and out to get their coffee when this went down.

Evan Perez, thanks so much.

We're going to explore this social media aspect to the standoff because over the last 17 hours there were messages going back and forth on social media. And this is the man, the man who was behind this, was also a guy who had a social media presence that authorities have been watching for some time, too. That's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Live pictures of the scene in Sydney, Australia. Obviously it's a very, very early in the morning there, approximately 3:41 a.m. But, again, the scene is very different. The siege is other now in Australia and now the work begins to care for the wounded and the injured, and the investigation into what happened.

One of the things they'll be looking at, key aspects of Sydney's hostage standoff played out on social media. The gunman and some hostages posted messages to YouTube and Facebook. PEREIRA: I heard the commissioner of the New South Wales police say

there is no part of the world where social media does not reach. So their terror training for hostage standoff includes taking into account social media.

CNN's Tom Foreman joins us with more.

And, Tom, how did, in this case, the social media change the way that authorities handled the case?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, this used to be a standard protocol in these situations to isolate the person who was holding people hostage so they have no communication. Now with social media this guy was effectively setting up his own broadcast channel of what was going on inside at his will. Four times he posted videos among other ways through a service called Live Leak, which is a U.K.-based service where people can post videos. There were videos from hostages pleading for the authorities to go along with his demands. We have a clip from one of the last ones here. Take a listen to what he had on here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED HOSTAGE: Please help us. It's simple. He wants an ISIS flag and he wants Tony Abbot to speak to him on live media. Pretty straightforward. What else can we do? We are begging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: That was from the last one so it was more intense than the earlier ones but in each one there was a recitation of these simple demands to talk to the prime minister to be given an is flag and for this to be called an ISIS attack on Australia and he had control over that part of the message here that complicates things for authorities but it gives them a lot of information.

BERMAN: Even just looking at his digital footprint, if you will, is going to reveal a lot about this man, who he is, his behavior, his interest, his frustrations.

FOREMAN: Yeah, and this has been a growing area of forensics over the past ten years or so. I remember when this was first happening and terrorist groups started nibbling at social media and law enforcement was saying well, that is two-way street. There's a ton of information to be gained by that about who he's in contact with. That was true in this case, too. You looked at his Twitter feet feed. That told him a lot about this guy. And by having hostages speak every time the message was slightly different in each of these videos and each one gave more information about what was happening inside and his state of mind. So interesting how social media undeniably a powerful tool for the terrorist in circumstances like this, but a powerful tool for law enforcement as well because it gives away information and that's what you need when you're looking into a room where you don't know what's going on.

PEREIRA: You don't know how many hostage, the lights are out. So many difficulties they were facing.

Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

BERMAN: We have an update right now on the aftermath from our affiliate, Channel 7 News in Sydney. Two people are dead, possibly including the hostage taker. Two people dead possibly, including the hostage taker. That's an open question. Three people are still in serious condition. We'll bring you the latest after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We're learning more about the suspect @THISHOUR of the standoff and siege. The hostage taking in Sydney, Australia, 50-year- old Iranian native man Haron Monis, well known to Australian law enforcement for writing harassing letters to parents of dead Australian soldiers who allegedly being an accessory to his ex-wife's murder. Allegations of sex crimes from his time as a self-described Muslim cleric and spiritual leader.

BERMAN: I want to bring in Fran Townsend, our national security analyst, former Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor.

Fran, so great to have you here.

I remember speaking to Richard Clark, also a counterterrorism expert, who would often say, look, if these bad guys decide that all of a sudden they want to run in to stores and malls and coffee shops, you can't stop them. You can't stop everyone who wants to do this all over the world but there is a difference between that and the systemic terror that you and so many others worked so many years to bat.

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST & FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY & COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISOR: That's right, John. Look, the problem with this is not merely a lone-wolf, one deranged guy. This is one deranged guy who's been inspired by an ideology. He got the idea to act and he was inspired to act by the Islamic State. And so it adds fuel to what is already the tremendous challenge you've just outlined of the lone-wolf. You know, just last week we hear from American officials there's no imminent threat here in the United States. I would suspect you would have heard the same thing from the Australians the day before this attack because this is not the kind of attack that has a loop, an operational loop that you can get inside and disrupt because, as you say, one guy goes in with a gun and takes hostages.

PEREIRA: You talk about that ideology, we know this ideology is spreading and in some ways, I suppose, is spreading like wildfire that poses both an interesting footprint when you're tracking it as law enforcement, but it also is really dangerous.

TOWNSEND: I started the Counter Extremism Project solely to devote itself to this problem. That is, trying to get these guys off the Internet, to challenge them in that space, when somebody goes operational. As we saw today in Sydney, there's a value to collect that and then take it offline. So law enforcement gets the benefit, but you deny him the ability to continue with the propaganda. My great fear is jihadists around the world have seen the world's reaction to this incident. One guy, 17 hours, and it may inspire others to take similar actions.

BERMAN: Sydney will stand strong though. They will not buckle under the force of something like this.

To be sure, I want to talk about the hours while this man was holding these hostages, 17 hours or so. How do you think the fact he did have a tendency toward violence and also had written these horrific letters to the parents of soldiers from Australia who fought in Afghanistan? How does his record influence how authorities treated him and going in quickly at the end right there?

TOWNSEND: I should hasten to add the Australian intelligence and security service is one of the best in the world. The tactics, this was a model. The Australians could not have handled it better. It took tremendous courage. The advantage of it being at dark and at night, that had some risk and tragically we have seen there may be hostages and others either injured or killed, but it took tremendous courage and tactical training to be able to do what they did so successfully.

PEREIRA: Let me just play devil's advocate on backing up before it became operational. This was a bad man. All of the sexual assault charges, he was out on bail because he was potentially involved in the killing of his ex-wife. He wrote letters to fallen soldiers' families, confronted them. He paraded in the street with hateful messages. Was there a lot of red flags here for Australian authorities?

TOWNSEND: The only one you mentioned that should have been a red flag in my mind is the writing of the letters to dead soldiers' families. Unfortunately, the police and FBI chased everybody who had a domestic dispute. You just can't. We don't have the kind of resources.

(CROSSTALK)

TOWNSEND: The one thing that makes him slightly different is this writing letters to dead soldiers' families. That's pretty out there. That suggests an ideological bent. They clearly were aware of him and may have been tracking him. Today is probably not the day to sort of look at what they could have done better, but that's kind of a flag that troubles me.

BERMAN: Questions that will be asked in the coming days.

Fran Townsend, great to have you with us.

TOWNSEND: Thank you.

PEREIRA: The chaos erupted, a community banded together, a little bit of hope, a little bit of positive in a terrible day. What went on, we'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PEREIRA: This might sound like a weird conversation to be having, but we want to talk about Uber and how it relates to the hostage taking in Sydney, Australia. The siege is over, but car service Uber faced heavy criticism. They jacked up their rates at the start of the Sydney hostage crisis.

BERMAN: Uber is in the news for the good and bad lately. The company charged four times the rate during the crisis. After an online backlash, Uber reversed course.

"CNN Money" correspondent, Laurie Segall, joins us now.

Wow.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: I know. Let me read you what they wrote. They said, "We're all concerned with the events. Fares have increased to encourage more drivers to come online and pick up passengers in the area." They are trying to get more people to incentivize them to come in. They apologized and said they would reimburse drivers. You don't want that to happen. That's not something that feels good and they certainly faced a backlash for it.

PEREIRA: I'm over them and the thought of what they did and their tone-deafness. I want to turn to something positive that came out of an awful situation. Tell us the story about this hash tag that's trending now.

SEGALL: This is really nice to hear in light of something like this. There's the hash tag #illridewithyou. You're looking right there at how quickly this is with tweeted. It's being picked up. The story behind this is a woman was on a bus and she heard that this attack might have been racially motivated and she feared anti-Muslim sentiment so she started to take off her religious attire and a woman says don't do this. I'll ride with you. It was this idea in light of everything happening and if there could be anti-Muslim sentiment, let's show our support and win when it comes to peace. It picked up and did well online, as you see.

BERMAN: It's adding to the story, which in some ways played out on social media. Social media was a key element of tracking the events inside that room as some of the people hostages were sending out messages on Facebook and Twitter and the hostage taker was sending out videos on YouTube. And #Sydneysiege played out all night.

SEGALL: The way that news breaks, it is completely changing, and looking at how even when I looked at this news, I could look at #Sydneysiege and you see everything happening as it happens. It gives you a better idea of what's going on there. Right now, I'm currently digging on the suspect and being able to look at his digital footprint online and say, hey, was there any signs or indication that can happen. So you can see the power social media plays.

PEREIRA: You and law enforcement will be busy looking into his footprint to figure out what he's been interested in.

I'm really glad we got to bring up this note. There's going to be a gut reaction from some people who don't understand the Muslim faith and might just respond and think wrong thoughts about this. There's no time for Islamphobia.

Thanks for bringing that to us, Laurie. Appreciate it.

BERMAN: Laurie, I think the next hash tag will be #Syndeystrong.

SEGALL: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

BERMAN: That is it for us. Thank you for joining us @THISHOUR. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: And I'm Michaela Pereira.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.