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Report: Terror Suspects Spotted North of Paris; Manhunt for Charlie Hebdo Killers

Aired January 08, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, thank you very much for joining us. Reporting live from Paris, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Thanks for very much joining me here live in Paris.

We want to get you up to speed on the very latest. A manhunt is going on right now for these two men. The suspects, now being identified as two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi. They're considered armed and obviously very dangerous. French media this morning citing police reports said they have spotted at a gas station outside the city, it's about an hour northeast of Paris.

Almost three dozen police officers are there on that site. They can be seen transferring a number of items from the station to the forensic truck.

Also developing overnight, a policewoman shot and killed in the southern suburbs of Paris. It's not known if there's a connection to yesterday's massacre. But witnesses say today's killer was dressed the same, all in black, and wearing a bulletproof vest. That gunman also still on the loose.

Hundreds of police reservists are being deployed to Paris for a burst of violence that has been as unsettling as it is tragic.

Now in the meantime bells chime and a nation pauses to mourn.

From the Notre Dame Cathedral to mosques around Paris, one of the busiest cities in the world, came to a halt for a minute of silence earlier today. It was an extraordinary moment, as Parisians and many people all around France pause to remember the horror of what happened here just yesterday.

We are covering this developing story with resources only CNN can offer, our reporters, guests and analysts are in place around the world to cover all the angles of what is still a very fast-moving story.

As you know the manhunt still under way. The two gunmen -- still the two suspected gunmen still being hunted down by police.

I want to go to Atika Shubert who has been following much of the police activity. Let's begin with that manhunt. CNN's Atika Shubert just left that gas station where the suspects were allegedly spotted.

Where are you headed right now? And what's latest have you heard, Atika?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, the latest is that we have seen helicopters circling the area and a number of police convoys with their sirens flashing heading off past the gas station now and where there's actually been a number of tactical -- it looks like police tactical units also on the move.

Now there are reports that the two suspects have been located in this area, but we have not confirmed that with police. We don't know specifically where, but what we can see is that helicopters in the air and police -- heavy police units definitely traveling in this area past the gas station.

So that's what we have at the moment, and we do know this is, of course, an ongoing manhunt so we can expect from police at some point to give us some more details about what exactly is the latest they have on these two suspects, whether they have been in fact located.

COOPER: Atika, can you explain what happened at the gas station? This occurred as I understand it overnight, there was an actual robbery there.

SHUBERT: Yes, what we understand is that at 10:30 this morning, so a few hours ago the two suspects came in a car, they were armed, and the gas attendant said he was threatened, they stole gas and food and then left in the direction towards Paris. Now French police have not independently confirmed those details yet. But I was at the gas station, it was swarming with police.

A number of plainclothes officers were actually inside the sort of shop that there, gathered around the cash register, appeared to be looking at something. Now we don't know exactly what that is. It may have been CCTV video. We saw a number of cameras outside. There's also a forensic van that was parked just outside and they were taking materials in and out. They took photographs of the exits and entry points at the gas station.

So it looks as though they're collecting more evidence, trying to find out more information about where they were going and what they were doing at the gas station.

COOPER: We are learning obviously more about these two suspects, brothers in their early 30s, both -- at least one certainly known to French authorities.

Atika, this one suspect has a history with the justice system in France.

SHUBERT: Yes, Cherif in particular, Cherif Kouachi. This is a man who was known to police because of his involvement with an extremist network, particularly in the 19th arrondissement in Paris. He was put in prison in 2008 for trafficking or I should say helping people recruiting them to travel to fight in Iraq. And so he had a number of links to these sort of extremist groups and in fact was involved in a plot it appears at around 2010-2011 to free another extremist from prison. So this is somebody who was definitely on the radar of French

authorities but it's not clear if he was somebody who would be considered for example a tier one suspect or somebody who was more on the fringes.

His brother, Said Kouachi, is less known, but they're quite close in age, considered to be quite close so that may be one reason they're involved in this together, but we don't really know what Cherif Kouachi has been doing in the last few years. And so this is the big question that French authorities will be looking to answer now. What has he been doing? Why wasn't he more closely monitored?

COOPER: Right, a tier one suspect which you mentioned, just to our viewers, that would be the -- what French authorities consider the highest level of threat and would warrant basically round-the-clock observation, around-the-clock tailing. If they're not a tier one suspect, they may be known to French authorities it doesn't mean that they're under observation around the clock.

And this third suspect, the younger suspect who turned himself in, do we know much about him at this point?

SHUBERT: We don't know too much about him. What we know is that he's 18 years old. The French police named him as Hamyd Mourad. And that he was in a town near Reims, which is where we were earlier. And apparently he saw his name on social media and turned himself in.

Now we actually got in touch with one of -- someone who claimed to be a classmate of his, says that he was in school at the time of the shooting. But he does appear to have some connection to the two other suspects and he was kept by police for some time and questioned. But they haven't released any other details of what his connection is exactly.

COOPER: All right, Atika Shubert, we're going to continue to check in with you.

Obviously this manhunt, huge amounts of resources here in France being devoted to this manhunt right now.

I want to take a closer look now at the suspects themselves.

Evan Perez is CNN's justice reporter. He joins me from New York.

Evan, you were reporting last night the U.S. law enforcement were aware of at least one of these suspects. What are you hearing?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Anderson, both of these suspects it turns out were on the U.S. radar as a result of the fact that they were being watched by French authorities. Now as you mentioned, you know, these weren't at the top of priority for French law enforcement. There's hundreds and hundreds of these types of suspects in France and so it's a very labor-intensive thing for you to do 24/7 monitoring as you just mentioned.

Cherif Kouachi in particular was the one that was more worrisome but it doesn't appear that the French had full surveillance on him the entire time. And obviously that's one reason why he was able to show up yesterday and it took some time before they figured out that he was there.

This is obviously going to raise some worrisome questions for France and also for U.S. and law enforcement everywhere, where you have these foreign fighter problems, where you have extremists who are talking about going to travel to join these jihadi causes because it's really -- it's almost impossible for you to have full monitoring on all these people, and so you never know when one of them is going to go from just being, you know, suspected of trying to do something to actually carrying out something like this.

COOPER: Well, there are a number of reports, too, that -- based on court transcripts of this guy back in the trials -- that he was convicted in 2008, that initially he had wanted to actually target Jewish targets in France, but had been convinced by a radical cleric to actually focus on going to Iraq, on getting others to go to Iraq as well.

PEREZ: Right. This is -- we've seen those reports as well in French media. The -- it's not clear exactly if the French authorities believed all of those claims, whether this was just part of the dossier that they had built up on him.

Now it's pretty interesting that very quickly yesterday, you know, if you compare what happened at the magazine yesterday and what happened in the Boston bombing here in the United States, it took some time for you figure out who your suspects were. They pretty quickly started understanding who they were looking for, partly because one of these guys, Said Kouachi, had left his I.D. behind in the car, and that helped the investigation speed up, and certainly quickly the French authorities sent information about these two guys to the U.S. to see what they had on them.

And that's what they've been doing the last day, Anderson. They've been trying to build basically a map, mapping all their contacts to see anybody who knows them, anybody who they've been in touch with because right now they're trying to figure out who might have helped in this -- in this attack and whether or not anybody knew about it beforehand.

COOPER: And obviously of particular interest once these guys are caught would be for law enforcement to try to determine as you said their movements, their most recent movements, and whether or not they have gone overseas, whether it's to Syria or elsewhere.

PEREZ: Right. Exactly.

COOPER: And what kind of contacts if any they have with other groups.

PEREZ: Right, and Anderson --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Evan Perez, appreciate the reporting. We'll continue to check -- go ahead, Evan.

PEREZ: Well, no, I was just going to mention one last thing, one of the other things they're worried about is, Anderson, if there's any follow-on attacks that are planned. We know that the French are treating some other incidents that have happened as possible terrorist incidents so the question is whether there's something larger here in the works, because these guys are still on the run. Are they going to carry out other attacks? Are there other people that they need to be looking for.

COOPER: Yes, Evan Perez, as I said we're going to check in with you as developments warrant.

I want to discuss more about this manhunt and the suspect. I'm joined by CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, and Charlie Winter, the programs officer for the Quilliam Institute -- Quilliam Foundation, an expert in Islamic militants. Quilliam tries to counteract Islamic extremism.

Tom, what's your impression of the way so far that the search has gone for these two men?

CHARLIE WINTER, PROGRAMS OFFICER, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: Well, I think that the French counterterrorism forces are expending a huge amount of effort and resources to try and find these two men. The program at the moment right now is that there are many, many conflicting reports as to where these guys are. I've seen a few reports that they ran up that they're found -- they're said to be driving in, just found abandoned near the gas station but it's later turned out that that probably wasn't true.

That simply is a dearth of concrete evidence for us to go on in the media right now and it's very, very important that everyone remains rational in their reporting of this. Because people are watching this very, very closely and people are very quick to jump to conclusions as to who's is perpetrating these offenses and what more there is to come. And it's very important to maintain a rational head right now.

COOPER: Tom Fuentes, as you watch this manhunt under way, how do you think it's going?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: From the outside, Anderson, you know, you don't know, were these terrorists just so stupid that they accidentally left an I.D. on that front seat of the car, or you know, was it somebody else's stolen I.D. that's known to law enforcement left on purpose to provide false leads? I mean, we just don't know and I think that, you know, that's all the type of leads, and as just mentioned you have so much false information, false sightings.

The public tries to help but in many ways you get an avalanche of information that's hard to sort out which ones are good leads and which ones are not so good.

COOPER: Peter Bergen, you know, obviously the shock here that this magazine, this newspaper would be targeted for these cartoons, people asking could this happen in the United States. You actually wrote an interesting article that I read yesterday really detailing how this already has occurred in the United States in terms of people attempting or interested in killing people who have drawn cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, we've had four Americans, Anderson, who have been involved in these kinds of conspiracies, two very serious, one was David Coleman Headley from Chicago, who was instrumental in planning the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. He was basically scoping out the Jyllands-Posten newspaper which similar to "Charlie Hebdo", had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.

He had a very serious plan to do a Mumbai-style assault on the -- on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, where he -- they were going to behead people in the building, they were going to use multiple gunmen, had some similarities to what we saw that went on in Paris.

And you may recall Jihad Jane, Colleen LaRose, the Pennsylvania native who traveled to Europe in order to kill another cartoonist, Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks. And we've also seen two Americans conspiring in the United States to get people to go and kill the "South Park" show creators who had an episode where they portrayed the Prophet Mohammed in a way that some people found insulting.

And in fact, Anderson, astonishingly those Seattle cartoonists called Molly Norris, who's been living in hiding for many years because she did a campaign to do cartoons called "Everybody Draw Prophet Mohammed Day." And she was advised by the FBI to go into hiding and as far as I can tell she remains in hiding many years later.

COOPER: Remarkable.

Peter Bergen, Charlie Winter, Tom Fuentes, appreciate you being with us.

Again, this manhunt is still very much under way.

I want to show you some of the remarkable pictures that we have seen over the last 24 hours. Tens of thousands of people wearing black, black stickers proclaiming "Je Suis Charlie", "I am Charlie". It carried candles and raised pen skyward to show solidarity with the victims of the terror attack that's occurring in Paris.

In the U.S., hundreds turned out to show their support for freedom of expression with a Boston is Charlie rally.

And as we go to break take a look at some of the front pages of French newspapers and their headlines on the attack. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the brutal massacre here in Paris, just a few blocks from where I'm standing counsel there, the offices of Charlie Hebdo. There's a makeshift memorial here, where people are gathering. The U.S. officials are ramping up security in city's across the United

States. In New York, the NYPD has deployed counterterrorism units and added extra officers to city landmarks, including, of course, the French consulate.

I want to bring in CNN national correspondent Deborah Feyerick who joins us with that story -- Deb.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, additional police have been deployed to these sensitive high-value areas, including the French consulate in Manhattan. NYPD intelligence and counterterrorism units are analyzing the attacks very, very closely. They're working with French authorities and they're getting real time information.

This attack feels different. You could sue the Hercules teams that are stationed in order to act as a deterrent and this attack feels different, because the two gunmen really conjure up these images of ISIS fighters, their tactics, the precision killing, the outdoor execution of a wounded police officer on the ground in Paris.

These are images that many have seen coming out of Syria and Iraq and that is absolutely influencing how police investigate and treat this attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MILLER, NYPD, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERTERRORISM: I think what was most striking from the video, from both an intelligence standpoint and from a tactics standpoint is when you look at these two individuals, they have come prepared with their tactical clothing, they have come with tactical gear, including the magazine holders, the weaponry. But the most striking thing is the level of calm and purpose through which they move through this entire event.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And the great fear yesterday, Anderson, is that before the gunmen's identities were actually known, there is fear that this attack would signal a new kind of almost terror cell, small groups of coordinated seemingly well-trained extremists that are hard to infiltrate, even harder to stop, possibly with direct links to terror groups. And intelligence sources say that their efforts to conceal their identity and make a getaway actually suggest they may have wanted to slip away and remain operational.

So, intelligence agencies right now, Anderson, mapping the suspects' relationships. They're looking at the digital footprint. They're scanning database, looking for terror connections and also looking to are any connections these individuals may have had have had with anybody in the United States and other European countries, Anderson.

COOPER: And that's why the manhunt is on so strongly right now. There is concern of course. These guys are armed and dangerous and could very well continue to attack if they remain at large. The massive manhunt for the two suspects in yesterday's attack brings

back painful memories for the people of Boston. In 2013, the police placed the city suburb on lockdown, went door to door to try to find the Tsarnaev brothers after they allegedly placed two bombs at the Boston marathon finish line.

My next guest knows what it's like when a city is on edge. Daniel Linskey was the former superintendent in chief of the Boston police department, the incident commander at the Boston marathon attacks. Since retiring, Daniel founded Linskey Group, a security firm that specializes in training law enforcement for potential terror attacks.

Thanks very much for being with us, Daniel.

Even after these two prime suspects are captured, how do they figure out if terrorists are planning similar attacks? Because there have been -- in France, a number of attacks over the last several weeks, people driving vehicles into crowds of pedestrians, a knife attack at a police station as well. There was also a shooting last night of a female police officer killing her, though we don't know the motive behind that.

DANIEL LINSKEY, FORMER SUPERINTENDENT-IN-CHIEF, BOSTON POLICE: This is a shift we've been afraid of in law enforcement, the terrorists were not going to go to their act where they die for their cause and the reign of terror ends that day.

We've been afraid that trained individuals would make attacks and multiple groups attack different cities and countries and go away and remain operational and continue to spread the terror. It doesn't end after the incident is over. So, that's something we've been fearful of.

I think what you see in France is they've got an infrastructure protection plan in place. After the attack, you saw police and soldiers in the high visibility areas. If for nothing else just making people feel comfortable as they go about their day-to-day business, that they have law enforcement officials out there. There's a high visibility presence and that will prevent other attacks.

You saw last night at a traffic stop, officers doing traffic duty encountered an individual engaged in a shooting. Remember, Timothy McVeigh was caught because he didn't have a license plate on his car and an officer did a motor vehicle stop on him. So, they're going to have to make sure they keep a couple things, the posture to protect the political infrastructure and make people feel safe, protect the crime scenes and recover all of that information to make sure there's no forensics evidence that they can link to anyone associated with this.

This wasn't these three individuals. These guys were well-trained, well-armed and well-equipped and they had a plan. And that didn't happen overnight and there had to be other people involved in helping them.

The other thing you have to be careful of is the information is going to come in fast and furious. And sometimes we go down the wrong road. And we have to -- the French police have to make their assessments of that information and control the officers responding. I'm sure the citizens are calling in with concerns and suspicious items. You're going to see police going from location to location trying to deal with the 911 calls and they've got to remember that the information can sometimes be bad, you have to vet that information out.

COOPER: How concerned are you from law enforcement standpoint about this kind of attack frankly in the United States. It doesn't take a huge amount of training. It doesn't take a huge amount of -- I mean, you know, these guys had two rifles that we were able to see, AK-47 style rifles, and though they have may have had had some training, it's not as if they were highly trained commandos from the tactics we could see during the videos of the attack.

How concerned are you that something like this could happen in the United States?

LINSKEY: Very concerned. It's one of the things I've been doing along with some of the other folks that I work with in groups like the Cytel Group trying to prepare law enforcement, homeland security and first responder force the Mumbai-type style attack that could happen anywhere around the globe.

As you say, those weapons that you saw are probably harder to get in France than they are here in the United States. So, that's a possibility that could happen but we have to, we can't let that ruin the day.

We have to remain vigilant, have plans in place and be responsive and ready to minimize any casualties or any damage that they can do if the attacks occur by being prepared and well trained.

COOPER: Daniel Linskey, I appreciate you being on. Thank you very much.

We've talked about the search for suspects and increased security in this country and around the world. As France observes a national day of mourning today, we want to take a moment here to remember the victims of this terror attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Good afternoon from Paris. Good morning, United States. I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks very much for joining me.

There is a lot going on. New urgency in the manhunt for terror suspects in France. Here's the latest. Let's get you up to date.

The suspects now being identified as two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi. They're considered armed and obviously dangerous.

French media this morning citing police reports saying they robbed a gas station outside the city about an hour northeast of Paris. Almost three dozen police officers are on the scene of that gas station, taking forensic evidence. They can be seen transferring a number of items from the station to the forensic vehicles.