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Biggest Manhunt in Living Memory; Charlie Hebdo will Publish on Wednesday; Shooting of Police in France Considered Terror Attack; 24 of 40 Recovered Flight 8501 Victims Identified

Aired January 08, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Of Paris. Almost three dozen police officers are, obviously, on the scene of that, the gas station, taking forensic evidence. They can be seen transferring a number of items from the station to the forensic vehicles.

Also developing overnight, a policewoman shot and killed in the southern suburbs of Paris. Minutes ago we learned it is being treated as a terror attack. It is not known if there's any connection to yesterday's massacre, but witnesses said 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 and reservist being deployed to the city of Paris for this burst of violence that has been as unsettling as it is tragic.

I'm joined right here in Paris by our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

The amount of resources being poured into this manhunt are enormous for France.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It is - it is actually the biggest manhunt, say the authorities, in living memory. It is obviously after the biggest terrorist attack in Europe in a decade. So this is a huge problem. And, of course, these are on the run and armed still. And we were talking about how they had gone to a gas station. Well, the owner of that gas station said that he recognized them from, you know, from all the press.

COOPER: Media reports, yes.

AMANPOUR: And media reports. Not only that, he said he saw other arms in the back of the car. This is what is being reported and that's why all these police are at that gas station trying to figure out what's going on.

A few hours earlier this morning here in Paris, the authorities started to ramp up security and, in fact, close off some of the so- called gates into Paris. There are several gates from various different directions into Paris -

COOPER: Right.

AMANPOUR: In case that car is headed back here with those two. So that's the state of affairs.

COOPER: And on top of it you have a policewoman being killed, shot -

AMANPOUR: In a separate --

COOPER: In a separate incident -

AMANPOUR: This morning.

COOPER: And that -- that alleged killer still on the loose. And as we just said, they are now treating it as a terror incident.

AMANPOUR: That's exactly right. Earlier this morning when that started to unfold, they were not saying terrorism, they were definitely not saying it's linked, they didn't know what it was all about. But now they are saying terrorism. Again, they're not saying it's linked yet. They don't know whether it is or not. But, yes, a policewoman was shot, gravely wounded and has since succumbed.

COOPER: And yet, you know, we have seen this remarkable - I --- you know, I talked to so mean people yesterday who -- there was this horror and shock. And there's still that sense of shock, kind of shell shock today. But there is this resolve. And we saw this last night, not only here in Paris, but all throughout France and all throughout western Europe, tens of thousands of people come out protesting, bearing witness to the horror of what happened and kind of raising pens, raising signs, raising cartoons. It was remarkable to see.

AMANPOUR: It is remarkable and that really is the story because, you know, yes there has been a terror attack, but in much the same way, it just popped into my mind, as those passengers on the flight on 9/11 took the flight down into Pennsylvania, rather than let it crash into another target. Here people, and they're saying this is our 9/11, people are standing up and waving their pens and writing their own homegrown signs saying "France is not afraid," "Charlie still lives." "Charlie Hebdo," by the way, will come out next week.

COOPER: Amazing.

AMANPOUR: A million copies they say.

COOPER: Right.

AMANPOUR: And money given to them by other media organizations to help them bring out --

COOPER: Right. If the attempt was not only to silence this magazine, to stop these kind of cartoons and to silence freedom of expression, it's had the opposite impact.

AMANPOUR: It definitely has had the opposite impact. The different imams, the syndicate of imams here has made a call to all the imams of all the mosques in France for them tomorrow, on Friday, at Friday prayers, to forcefully, the greatest strength, the imams said, to condemn this act of violence and terror. There is a huge mass demonstration planned for here in Paris and

around France for Saturday. And we'll see how many tens and hundreds of thousands come out. You know, it's incredible what happened. As you mentioned last night, 150,000 all over France -

COOPER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And as you say, elsewhere in Europe as well. So this has had the opposite effect.

COOPER: And it's also - you know, it's one thing to hold up signs saying "we are not afraid," but to do it at a time when there are gunmen on the loose and there is very real danger in this city.

AMANPOUR: That's right. Yes. That's exactly right.

COOPER: And so for people to go to a place that would obviously be a target of somebody who wanted to make a terrorist statement, it really is a sign of their fearlessness.

AMANPOUR: It is. And to that end, obviously, law enforcement authorities are also trying to figure out, are these two alone? Did they have a wider network, not just maybe one other person, but a wider network behind them? Are there other targets? We just don't know that kind of thing. How planned was it?

COOPER: Right.

AMANPOUR: How big is the organization?

COOPER: There were a number of arrests - there were a number of arrests made overnight.

AMANPOUR: Yes, about seven overnight.

COOPER: Yes, about seven or so.

AMANPOUR: Yes, in various different districts, yes.

COOPER: Not clear exactly what, if any, connection they may have had.

AMANPOUR: No.

COOPER: There was a lot of -- you know, law enforcement has been looking very closely at those videos that were taken by a number of journalists and others.

AMANPOUR: Yes. Yes.

COOPER: There's cell phone camera videos. Because to try to analyze anything, you do see hand signals being made by the gunman. And there was questions about, could there possibly have been other people observing on the street -

AMANPOUR: Yes.

COOPER: That those hand signals were being given to. We simply don't know at this point.

AMANPOUR: Yes. It's -- we don't know at this point. But I must say, having looked at this area, this is the area right down there where "Charlie Hebdo" is.

COOPER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And there are all these streets and alleys that lead on to the main road there. Having looked at that and having traced back what they say happened, these gunmen engaged several times with police -

COOPER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And they were able to get away. And then for some reason they go out onto the main road, they travel all the way down to the big Place de la Bastille. They come all the way back and that's where they kill the other policeman.

COOPER: The other police officer.

AMANPOUR: For no good reason apparently. Wasn't -- had nothing to do with this - with this attack.

COOPER: Yes. You know, so often in attacks like this before we've seen gunmen stay in the location, really planning a suicide style attack, waiting for others to come.

AMANPOUR: Yes, this is not it.

COOPER: This is not it. The fact that they wore masks, the fact that they had an escape plan, they wanted, it seems, to remain operational.

AMANPOUR: Yes and to try to get away and as everybody's saying, this marks a departure. This is now the confrontation between, as has been written and sort of theorized, between faith and freedom of expression. These people want to shut down anything that they deem offensive. And starting back with Salman Rushdie more than 30 years ago, there's been this attempt to shut journalism and writers and cartoonists down.

COOPER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And that's, I think, why you see such a huge reaction here in France. I mean even as we're talking, people are walking by still with flowers. This morning during the moment of silence, there was a huge crowd right here. People started to applaud. They brought candles. They brought their own, as I say, notes and signs saying that, you know, this is war and we will not surrender.

COOPER: Yes. There is that feeling of really being in the midst of something greater than just this incident.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

COOPER: This is truly something that has changed France. Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much. We'll continue checking throughout the day.

Still to come, cartoonists go online in support of their fallen colleagues. And it all comes as a writer for "Charlie Hebdo" announces, as Christiane said, the magazine will soon be back in the hands of its readers. They're going to print a million copies coming out next Wednesday. We'll tell you more after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back.

We are live in Paris, just a few blocks from the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" that were attacked just yesterday. The area, obviously, is still cordoned off by law enforcement, but there is a makeshift memorial just a few feet from where I'm standing. We have seen hundreds of people just coming in streams all throughout the morning, silently paying tribute to those who lost their lives here. Some leave flowers. Some leave pictures. Some lighted candles. Many just want to be here and bear witness and stand here in objection to the horror of what happened here.

Following the Paris attack, cartoonists around the world are showing solidarity with their slain colleagues at "Charlie Hebdo." Many going online to express their sorrow, their outrage and their hopes that this tragedy will not stand in the way of free speech. Among them, Australian cartoonist David Pope of "Canberra Times." This image with three simple words, "he drew first," has gone viral. And in an interview with "The Times," Pope spoke out on the attacks and his wish that France will be united and not divided as a result.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID POPE, CARTOONIST, "THE CANBERRA TIMES": It's absolutely outrageous what's happened, that cartoonists would be targeted for drawing pictures. We know how powerful images are and something that cartoonists are well aware of, this sort of visceral and almost irrational power the image -- an image has. And -- but to see that attract the sort of violence that we saw last night is shocking to everyone.

Hopefully in Europe there's a response to this sort of violence where people say, we will not allow our communities to be divided by either the far right Islamaphobia or the extremist jihadist Islamists. That communities stick together, people of different faiths stick together and that France's culture of robust satire continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining me now is Paul Ackerman. He's the editor-in-chief of "LA Huffington Post." "Charlie Hebdo" will be published next Wednesday.

Paul, according to one of the magazine's writers, he said, we can't let them win. Give us a sense of the response among other French media outlets here. PAUL ACKERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "LA HUFFINGTON POST": The response has

been huge on the emotional way. Every journalist team showed their solidarity as citizen, as you said before. Really yesterday what amazed me was how, during the day, the security situation was not the victor, because the victor, I think, was emotion and solidarity because it was such a symbol of freedom of speech that has been targeted and that's - that was really huge here.

COOPER: Do you believe that this will have the opposite effect of what the terrorists want? I mean it seems like, if anything, "Charlie Hebdo" is better known than ever before. The cartoons they publish are have been seen now more than ever before. They're going to publish an edition of 1 million copies next Wednesday. If the idea was to silence not only this magazine but also freedom of expression, do you believe the terrorists failed?

ACKERMAN: Yes, that really, like every media, now is working in the memory of those killed and I think even if we realize with this attack that it can be - it can go so far, it can go until death, I think the effect should be the opposite as expected.

COOPER: Paul Ackerman of "L.A. Huffington Post," I appreciate you spending some time with us this morning. Thank you.

I'll be right back. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The dragnet across France growing larger for two gunmen responsible for Wednesday's attack on a French magazine, as police officers converge on a gas station just over 50 miles outside of Paris after the brothers robbed that gas station overnight. Moments ago the Paris prosecutor's office announced that a different attack, a shooting in a Paris suburb that left a policewoman dead, that is now being treated as a terror attack as well. Authorities have not said if that incident has any connection to the attack here at the "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters.

Joining me now is CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. Paul, what do you make, first of all, of the fact that now prosecutors in France are saying this other - - or treating this other attack as a terror attack?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, Anderson, this is a very worrying development that suddenly a possibility at this hour that there is a connection between today's terror shooting in a southern suburb of Paris and yesterday's attack on the satirical magazine.

The details that we're learning about the shooting attack this morning in southern Paris are pretty chilling. The shooter described as somebody of North African appearance, somebody with a bulletproof vest, with a handgun, with a rifle, who carried out a shooting on two police officers, one of whom has been killed. Now, that shooting actually took place near a Jewish school in southern Paris, so there's some possibility that could have been the target, and the police officers were a target of opportunity. There will be a lot of concern that there is a connection between the attacks in Paris yesterday, because if this was a copycat attack, it occurred very, very quickly indeed, and this gunman appears to have been very well prepared today, Anderson.

COOPER: You know, Paul, since the Mumbai attacks, which were more centrally organized than at least at this point that we know than these were, there was a central controller who was talking to the gunmen, but since that attack, we have seen throughout the world an escalation of these style of relatively small scale attacks that still can have a paralyzing effect on a city. A handful of gunmen, relatively lightly armed, in this case would appear to be AK-47s. Is this the one wave of the future, of the style of attacks we're likely to see more of?

CRUICKSHANK: We've seen them in the United States before with Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter in 2009. There have been a range of other plots involving guns in Europe. There's a lot of concern about returnees coming back from the Syrian jihad who are skilled in killing people, skilled in using Kalashnikovs. Some reports that the two brothers had traveled too Syria. Those have not been confirmed yet by French authorities, but a lot of concern about these returnees. 200 individuals thought to be back in France who have fought in Syria and Iraq, 400 believed to be fighting there right now with 200 hundred on their way to Syria Iraq. This is a huge problem in Europe with over 3,000 European nationals who have fought in Syria and Iraq.

This is a new generation of trained terrorists and groups like ISIS aren't necessarily even telling them to go and launch attacks or orchestrate the attacks. When they come back, they're launching attacks often on their own steam. We saw that with the Brussels museum shooting this past may when a French ISIS veteran Mehdi Nemmouche came back to Europe, got a Kalashnikov, and killed four people in cold blood at that Jewish museum in Brussels, Anderson, allegedly.

COOPER: And, Paul, I mean, the difficulty for law enforcement, particularly here in France with so many potential suspects who, as you said, either interested in going to Syria, or have already gone, or may be coming back is just following them. Even though French law enforcement clearly knew at least about one of these brothers who had been involved in the judicial system, who had served time for trying to go to Iraq and trying to recruit others to going to Iraq, served time back in 2008 after going on trial, he clearly, it doesn't seem, he was not a tier one threat and, therefore, was not at least followed around the clock?

CRUICKSHANK: Anderson, that's absolutely right. French security services have opened investigations from a surveillance point of view into 5,000 individuals in France and it's not possible to monitor anything but a fraction of those people 24/7. It's not possible to even to monitor all of the people who have come back from Syria 24/7.

So, French security services are spread really, really thin right now. They just don't have the resources to meet this unprecedented threat in France, described by the French prime minister just before Christmas as the greatest ever terror threat the country has ever faced. In western Europe, they've never witnessed anything like this because of the large numbers of radicals who have gone the Syria and Iraq and who have got terrorist training there and are now coming back. A lot of concern, also, about lone wolfs inspired by ISIS' calls for lone wolf attacks in Europe, and in France specifically.

COOPER: Yes, and we've seen that just in the last couple weeks in France. We saw two incidences where people took their vehicles, driving into crowds, as many as 23 people were injured in those attacks, as well as a lone attack at a police station, a knife attack. That knife attack, that guy was shot to death. Paul, appreciate it. We'll continue checking with you throughout the day. We'll be right back as our coverage of the manhunt here in France continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back on this national day of mourning in France. France's president, Francois Hollande, set to meet with politicians in Parliament, the national assembly, and Senate at the top of the hour. We'll bring that to you live when it happens.

We want to pause our coverage of the attack, turn to Indonesia, of the 40 passengers, or the 40 bodies recovered from the Java Sea so far, 24 have now been identified. AirAsia has announced it will pay roughly $125,000 to the victims' families. And as more families lay loved ones to rest, search crews make a key discovery. Preparations under way today to surface the plane's tail. The tail was found Wednesday about 20 miles from the plane's last known location. The big question now, are the black boxes there? CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo is following the story for us. Good morning, Mary. For you, what are the most important elements right now in this?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, the most important elements for both, you know, on lookers like us and the searchers will be to get to that tail section and see if they can find the black boxes. That way I think they will remove them first before they try to remove the tail section. There shouldn't be any bodies or remains in that particular part of the plane depending upon where it broke off from the fuselage. But securing those black boxes any second that they can get some clear water, it is very murky, the currents are bad, but they will use the precious moments they have to bring the boxes up.

COOPER: And, Mary, at a time like this for the families, are they all still relatively together, still trying to -- still being given information on a daily basis by authorities?

SCHIAVO: Well, they should be given information on a daily basis by authorities. The standard in the United States is for about 30 to 45 days where that process continues. But it appears since they announced the compensation that they would be paying the families yesterday and that they were providing briefings on them about finding the tail section, that they are continuing to be kept abreast of developments, especially since so many of their loved ones still remain missing and their remains have not been accounted for.

COOPER: What do you make of the job that airline officials have done so far on this, contrasted to the way it was handled in Malaysia 370?

SCHIAVO: Well, as compared to 370, AirAsia's workings and performance so far is more akin to what's required in the United States by federal law. We actually have laws that govern how the airlines treat the families in the aftermath of a tragedy, so they have been performing pretty much that way. Not so with the Indonesian government. I think the information about the permission to fly the routes and some of the lax safety oversight is certainly not at all comparable to the United States, Britain and other major aviation nations, but I think the airline has been providing far more information, and the initial assistance of $24,000 is pretty close to what happens in the United States, the initial assistance is $25,000.

COOPER: Mary Schiavo, appreciate you being on. Thanks very much.

SCHIAVO: Thanks.

COOPER: Obviously there's a lot going on here. This manhunt very much still now under way, huge resources being devoted. Our coverage is going to continue all throughout the day. I'll be back on tonight at 8:00 pm for "AC 360," from 8:00 to 10:00 pm East Coast time.

I'm Anderson Cooper reporting live from Paris. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins after a short break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)