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Paris Manhunt; Radical Islam Killing; Fear of Retaliation

Aired January 08, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN's special live coverage.

Right now, we are, of course, here at CNN, following the breaking news. Nine people now are in custody in connection to the slaughter of a dozen journalists, cartoonists and police at the offices of the French satirical magazine, "Charlie Hebdo."

As for the two gunmen, they are still at large. Heavily armed police are now on a country road leading to the village of Longpont about 65 miles northeast of Paris, and another rural location, Coursey (ph). The belief now is that they are closing in, honing in on these two suspects one day after this mass killing in downtown Paris.

But first, a special moment in this city. You see the lights on. The Eiffel Tower. Beautiful here. Just about 8:00 in Paris at night. In seconds, it will go black. It will go dark to honor the victims of this massacre. Let me pause and we'll watch together.

We'll keep watching the Eiffel Tower. In mere seconds -- here we go. Dark.

That is a sight you never, ever see. In fact, on many hours, you'll see the beautiful Eiffel Tower sparkling. But this is the first time really we are seeing it dark, of course, in memoriam of those lives lost.

Back to this manhunt here and French police now tracking these suspects, as I mentioned, to these two rural villages thanks to this strange turn of events. Authorities now know who these men are. They believe they absolutely know these brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, both in their early 30s. They were identified because of an I.D. card one of these two suspects apparently left behind in that abandoned getaway car. Left this I.D. Both men reportedly were spotted at this gas station north of the French capital. Police have set up checkpoints now 12 miles in each direction around this service station. According to French media, the heavily armed suspects robbed the place overnight.

So let's go live to Paris and CNN's Hala Gorani.

And, Hala, let me just begin with this manhunt. Do we know specifically who these nine people are in custody?

HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, we don't know specifically. They haven't been named. They are in custody as part of the investigation. We heard from the interior minister just a few minutes ago at a news conference on French television and what struck me, Brooke, is that he was talking about the extra security forces fanned out across the country, 88,000 police officers in total, several hundred extra military troops as part of this operation, this anti-terrorism plan called (INAUDIBLE) in this country that's been put into place.

But what struck me is that he was talking about several regions that were still being looked at as part of the manhunt for these two suspected gunmen. Now that tells us that several days, 48 hours into this investigation, that it appears as though these two individuals are not in any way, nowhere near being apprehended. So this is an important development there coming from the interior minister saying, essentially, look, we're looking for them. We have thousands of people out there looking for them, but we have not apprehended them yet despite reports, as you know over the last 36, 48 hours or so of arrests having been made. That is not the case right now according to officials.

By the way, I am right here just a few hundred yards away from where this massacre took place. And throughout the day, Brooke, more and more people came, putting flowers down to honor the victims. I saw people openly weeping with messages there plastered on the walls. (INAUDIBLE), "I am Charlie." Really this is a nation still reeling from this attack, Brooke. You can feel it. It's palpable.

BALDWIN: We see it. We see it in the images in Paris and also beyond.

But back to these brothers, Hala, what do you know about them? What sort of ties to terrorism? Have they been on the radar, it appears, perhaps, for law enforcement there in France?

GORANI: Yes, indeed. I mean they have a criminal past. One of the brothers did not. The younger brother did not, but the older brother was known to authorities. In fact, having served some jail time for having had associations with terrorist organizations and that kind of thing. It is not an atypical background for individuals who end up suspected of involvement in things like this. They do usually start with petty crimes of this type. And in this case, it appears as though if indeed they are the shooters, that is what happened.

These are two individuals who were born in France. French nationality. They are two brothers, 32 and 34 years old. Interesting, the younger of the three suspects, the 18 year old yesterday, whose name was being circulated on social media, gave himself in and it appears as though police have confirmed that this individual, at least the one named, was not the person they were looking for as having been part of the attack.

So this is what we know about the brothers. What we don't know though, Brooke, obviously, is, where are these two men? They're still on the loose after having been accused of killing 12 people in cold blood.

BALDWIN: Hala Gorani, thank you so much, live in Paris. Let's continue this discussion here because as this manhunt for these two terror suspects spreads across France and potentially as the hours go on beyond, let's take you inside the hunt. David Katz is a homeland security expert and former DEA agent.

So, David, let me just begin, jumping off of what Hala was reporting from the French interior minister, that they are still searching. What are we, 24, 48 hours out of this mass murder, still searching in several regions within France. Does that tell you that they're not close?

DAVID KATZ, FORMER DEA AGENT: Well, I mean, it's suggestive that they're not close. But, you know, this could be - this could break any moment now. These are not low profile people. So you have several ways that they're going to be caught. One of which is going to be successful. One is just the public. They're very -- every French citizen knows their face right now. So that's going to be number one, obviously. If they commit another crime, that's another avenue of capturing them. Technology. Presumably they have their car. They have their license plates. They go through a bridge, a tunnel, a checkpoint, there are law enforcement vehicles that read license plates. That's another avenue. And finally, now that they know who they are, they're interviewing everyone who possibly knows them. And that's going to be - that's why they're going to different regions they have connections to.

BALDWIN: That - that was my next question, right. So we've been talking to different experts and we hear about these nine people in custody. They haven't released the specific names. But I have to imagine that investigators are going to, you know, communities, enclaves, who may be either familiar with them, relatives, I mean is that what's happening right now?

KATZ: Sure and they'll - relatives, friends, they'll look at e-mails. They'll look at their phone records. They'll try to find locations that are associated with these folks. It seems, based by the way that their escape plan wasn't as well thought out as their attack plan. Now, maybe they thought they were going to be killed in the assault and that's why they didn't bother with an escape and they were surprised as anyone to get away. But here they are, they have no funds. They have to rob a store. They seem to be very disorganized on the run.

BALDWIN: That is the mind-boggling part of the whole thing because when you talk to - you know, I heard from a military general yesterday just saying how precise their marksmanship was, right, the way they weren't spraying bullets but just striking and killing 12 people, yet you juxtapose that with this leaving of an I.D., right?

KATZ: Yes.

BALDWIN: The fact that they apparently had to rob a gas station.

KATZ: You know, I wouldn't make so much of the marksmanship -

BALDWIN: Really.

KATZ: I could teach a 12-year-old kid to shoot in a half an hour. Look, we've had many massacres in this country where marginally, marginally proficient people have been able to slaughter many, many people. It's a rifle. It's not that difficult to shoot. They're semi- automatic weapons. They're not spraying the rounds. So it seems that they have some training for sure. They knew how to operate them at the very least. They knew the basics of sight alignment and how to operate the weapon, how to aim the weapon. But that doesn't suggest that they're somehow, you know, commando trained because in -- as we see the rest of it, they screw up in a lot of other ways. They leave the I.D. They don't sanitize themselves before they do the attack. So it just - it's kind of a strange combination.

BALDWIN: What about this getaway car? We know that they had left, according to the Paris prosecutor yesterday, you know, they're in this one initial car when they left the magazine office and then hopped into another car, a carjacking, perhaps someone else.

KATZ: Yes.

BALDWIN: And so they have this one, you know, huge piece of evidence. What are they doing with that car right now?

KATZ: Well, it's a forensic (ph), obviously. Well, they don't -- the fingerprints for these two folks, you figure they don't need to identify them. They know who they are. But they maybe - they're going to find out who else was in that car based on fingerprints, forensic analysis, see what else -- maybe there's explosive traces in there that's indicative of some other type of attack in the works. There's a lot of things they can do with the vehicle. But I would suspect their main focus right now is the interviews they're conducting with friends and relatives and, of course, waiting for that phone call. We saw them. We think we know who they are. The worst thing that could probably happen is if they hold up in someone's home that's not - that's not a part of the investigation and has no nexus to them. That's the scary part.

BALDWIN: Potentially ending in even more violence and bloodshed. Let's hope not.

David Katz, thank you.

KATZ: You're very welcome.

BALDWIN: Appreciate it.

Next, this attack in Paris appears to be just the latest example of these extremists trying to justify murder in the name of religion. Are these attacks part of a larger goal? Let's have that discussion.

Plus, one expert says attacks like these could mean a battle is brewing between terror groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. Hear that reason ahead.

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BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

This slaughter in France Wednesday, it is heartbreaking, it is enraging. And perhaps most sadly of all here, it's frustrating because all we know the apparent motivations behind the mass murder at the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" are not new. The warped beliefs of radical Islam are linked to the attack last month that killed two innocents at that coffee shop, that chocolate shop in Sydney, Australia. That same month, it played a part in the slaughter of 132 children, 13 adults at that school in Peshawar, Pakistan. And it's believed to be behind the murder of a soldier outside of Canada's capital building in Ottawa. These are places supposedly of peace. For months now we have seen how religious extremism has ripped apart war- torn Syria and Iraq.

Let me bring in our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, and Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

DR. ZUHDI JASSER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: Thank you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke.

JASSER: Nice to be with you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I should point out, Dr. Jasser also wrote a book entitled "Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith." So, Dr. Jasser, let me just begin with you. You know, as we think about - and there are too many to even, you know, talk about right now, these different attacks. I mean but are all of these different separate attacks part of this larger goal extremists using, you know, cartoons and education sort of as catalysts with this ultimate goal of this massive Islamic state?

JASSER: Yes, and I think it's very important to try not to separate them. I think, ultimately, they're all related to a common issue is that Islam, I think, is in the same time in history as what Christianity was in the 17th and 18th century, is that we are right now in a battle within the house of Islam against theocracy and the theocrats, the clerics that want an Islamic state, not just ISIS, but all Islamic states.

Remember, you have the organization of Islamic cooperation of countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, that really believe that -- don't believe in secular state, believe in an Islamic state of some kind or other. And these Islamic groups, the radicals, feel that the biggest threat to them is secular states that separate church or mosque and state. So they want to sew discontent, create isolationism of these countries so that liberty's not infused into those countries. And then Muslims within France - you remember, one of the people killed at the magazine was a Muslim. A copy editor and a Muslim police officer.

BALDWIN: That's right. That's right. That's right.

JASSER: So they want them to feel uncomfortable so that the secular Muslims, even in the west, become estranged and they divide the west so that the ideology of liberty does not confront political Islam. BALDWIN: But it's the why do it through bloodshed? Let me come back to

you.

Nic Robertson, the last time I think I talked to you on TV, you were walking through that bloody Pakistani school. I mean you cover too many of these attacks. Do you agree with Dr. Jasser? Do you -

ROBERTSON: Absolutely. And if you look at some of those radical Islamists who are sort of -- and his is what his explanation there is a wonderful explanation. And within that sort of desire for -- to throw off sort of western values for democracy and have theocratic states, you find the real radicals. And those real radicals are pushing essentially for a war without borders and a war without end. And you find them in Pakistan, you find them in Afghanistan, you find them in other places.

I mean you just -- you just listed some of the recent attacks over the past month. So let's look in Afghanistan this past week. An attack, a car bombing targeting European policemen there, killing six Afghan civilians, all of them Muslims. You look at the attack by a suicide bomber in Istanbul, in a tourist neighborhood, going into a police station just this week as well, killing a policeman there, another Muslim. So, you know, this is a battle inside as we hear. Some of the victims, like France, yes, not Muslims, but the vast majority are.

BALDWIN: One of the questions is, of course, how do we fight these ideology? But, Zuhdi, when, you know, I think of ISIS and now they're referring to themselves as the Islamic State, I mean clearly the goal is to have this caliphate. Is it just geographic? Is it just to that region? Or if they had their druthers, what would the goal be for these extremists?

JASSER: It's not geographic. The bottom line is, is we have to hone in on the fact that we're distracted by calling it violent extremism and just about violence. That's a tactic. What they want is their -- their goal is to get Muslims to want to die for jihad and Islamopatriotism (ph). So what separates me from the Ft. Hood shooter or from the attacker in Ottawa that killed a parliament and attack our military and now attack our media is that I want to die - I joined the U.S. Navy. I believe in secular patriotism for American nationalism. There are so many Muslims that believe in that nationalism. That's the battle between Islamopatriotism for the global jihad versus Islamic belief and a personal faith and belief in our nation state as Americans. So that's how it has to be contextualized in our strategies to put moneys and resources in a public/private partnership to engage Muslims about taking sides against the Islamopatriotists and the Jihadists.

BALDWIN: I was -- precisely what I was thinking. It's almost like this -- you need this public condemnation, especially from leaders, especially leaders in these Muslim nations. And just talking to Fareed Zakaria yesterday, you know, his opinion, not enough of that has happened in the wake of what happened in Paris. Nic?

ROBERTSON: And if you're of a theocratic state, why would you do that, because you start to bring down the building blocks which keep you in power, which keep your - which keeps your ideology afloat, even if you don't necessarily support the real radicals, even if the real radicals want to overthrow you (ph). Saudi Arabia an example of this where the radicals - you know these real Islamo (ph) radicals would like to overthrow the royal family there, but that's - that's - you know, they also would rather have a theocratic state. We talk about other political organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood being one of them. Saudi Arabia doesn't like the Muslim Brotherhood. But, you know, without that voice of criticism, it is not going to bring about an adjustment, a course correction, an examination in dealing with this issue as indeed Christianity did and had to do.

BALDWIN: It's incredibly frustrating. Let's have this conversation over and over and over again. I think it's so important to point out. Nic Robertson and Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, thank you both very much. Appreciate it.

JASSER: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, we will talk to someone who knew the victims, an Iranian cartoonists who is currently actually living in exile in Paris for cartoons he drew to protest the Iranian government. He will join me live, next.

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BALDWIN: In a news conference this afternoon, France's interior minister flat out condemned reported reprisal attacks on Muslims in his country. We are getting reports of shots fired in direction of a Muslim prayer hall. And in a separate incident, percussion grenades tossed into a mosque courtyard. So joining me now, an Australian journalist, an academic living in Paris, she is Julie Posetti.

Julie, welcome.

JULIE POSETTI, JOURNALIST & ACADEMIC: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: You have written extensively on what happens to Muslims in the wake of attacks just like we saw where you are in Paris. Is there a prevailing fear that Islamaphobia will be at an all-time high, fear of retaliation in the Muslim community right now?

POSETTI: I think there is concern that tensions that have already been simmering will escalate, yes. At the same time I've witnessed here, as a temporary citizen of Paris, I'm here as a research fellow with the World Editor's Forum and the World Association of News Publishers, looking at media practice and media affects. And I've observed this incredible spirit of solidarity in defense of freedom of expression, which has so far been tempered, at least in a city at the big gatherings we've seen in the past 24 hours with concern for the well- being of Muslim citizens.

So when I saw somebody pulling out pages from the Koran during one of these vigils, the crowd responded and shouted them down and told them to stop. So, so far we've seen, you know, prevailing calm. But my work, historically as an academic and former journalist with the ABC in Australia, I've reported on conflicts and multiculturalism. And as an academic researching the impacts on Australian Muslim, particularly Australian Muslim women post-September 11th, what I found in talking to those women was that they feel ostracized, they feel isolated by media coverage, stereotypical coverage, which, when you are a Muslim woman and you choose to cover, if you wear an Islamic headdress for example, you are incredibly visible at times like this. You can feel terribly afraid and, you know, fear of being the victim of reprisal attacks.

In Australia after the recent shooting, the recent siege, there was a movement, "I'll ride with you," which essentially found groundswell on social media, which was all about attempting to protect Muslim citizens from reprisals in the aftermath of that incident. There's a similar movement starting to occur here in Paris, but this is a city which has many more tensions and many more historical tensions than Sydney and there are certainly - you know, there is evidence of great concern within the official realm. The president himself has talked about the need for unity in the face of this discord and the need to avoid hatred and reprisal attacks. We don't know what will happen, but we know that media coverage is really important. It's important to be fair and accurate.

BALDWIN: I am encouraged by this culture of acceptance there in France just based upon everything sort of historically I've read about - and as a result now fear of reprisals and also - also, in terms of, you know, freedom of speech and press. I know, in France, caricatures were banned, you know, way back in 1800 and so you had the freedom of press in law ever since then. Satire has really been this integral part of French culture. Can you explain to our American audience why this magazine is really -- it's so much more than cartoons for the French.

POSETTI: Indeed. I mean freedom of expression, freedom of the press, these are deeply rooted values in France. The media is still on a pedestal in this country. You know, professional journalists are held in very high regard, which from an Australian and American perspective, is not necessarily something we're used to experiencing contemporarily. But in France, the situation is different. Here there is -- there is enormous respect for the right to actually speak freely, particularly as a practicing journalist or a cartoonists or satirist. To actually ridicule is seen as an essential right in the context of political conversation and debate.

And even though there was a - you know, a lot of disagreement with regards to -- and debate around the tone that was taken and certainly some criticism which lingers around the particular anti-Islam streak of some of the cartoons that "Charlie Hebdo" published, there is an absolutely ironclad support among - certainly among journalists in France for the right for that publication to have done what they did and to defend the right to continue to do so, which is why you see that, you know, the movement just, (INAUDIBLE), which is, you know, "I am Charlie," or "we are all Charlie," as it's now become.

BALDWIN: We had read so much and just were so familiar with your academics and your studies. Julie Posetti, thank you so much for spending the time. Invaluable. Thank you so much. Live in Paris tonight.

POSETTI: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, we are live in northern Paris where police are conducting a series of raids in the search for these two murders, these two terrorists. The suspected killers are still on the run.

Plus, the question, should the media be showing these cartoons? CNN is not and critics are blasting this network and other major networks, other major newspapers. We'll debate that coming up. You're watching CNN.

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