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Ongoing Hostage Situation in Kosher Supermarket; Picture of Female Suspect Released; Terrorists Holed Up in Print Shop

Aired January 09, 2015 - 09:30   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: And at the same time we've seen tactical units constantly being added here as they decide how to respond.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And, Jim, at this point, do we know if - and, again, we may not -- if the French police have actually established contact with this hostage taker in the supermarket?

SCIUTTO: The police have not confirmed that. That would be standard operating procedure for these tactical units. And we know that that has taken place with the two shooters from "Charlie Hebdo" in the location north of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Just so you know, Anderson, you might have seen that discussion going on behind me. That is police talking to each other about whether it's safe for us to be here anymore. They've moved us back a number of times and at this point they are moving us back again. I'll tell you, it's understandable because the police I've seen here, several of them, are standing behind head-high bulletproof barriers. So we're going to move back and we'll call you back when we have a shot from a safer location here.

COOPER: OK. All right, obviously, Jim, get to wherever you need to get.

We're also joined by Tom Fuentes, formerly with the FBI.

Tom, as we continue to monitor both these situations, just from a hostage negotiator standpoint, from a law enforcement standpoint, what are police now trying to do?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Anderson, not just as a negotiator or S.W.A.T. team member, but as an actual commander at events like this, each of these separate events will have an on scene commander and the negotiator and their team will report to the commander, as the S.W.A.T. team, the evidence technicians, the investigative cells assigned to that team, they'll be working together, and in this case, coordinating with both sites with each other to determine if intelligence from one site is going to have an impact on the other site.

That commander has the decision-making authority to order the S.W.A.T. team in if things go bad, if hostages start to be killed or if some indication from the negotiators that they're losing control or they're not going to be successful in saving the hostages, then that person will issue the command to execute, exactly like you saw in Sydney. The teams are outside, ready to go, and when the gunshot went off from inside and they knew that one of the hostages had been shot, they issued the order to execute the rescue and go in what is called dynamic assault, go in as quickly as possible and try to neutralize the hostage taker or takers and rescue the hostages.

COOPER: Tom, I also want to bring in Ed Davis, former chief of police in -- or police commissioner in Boston, I should say.

Commissioner, thanks very much for being with us. As you watch these two hostage situations unfolding simultaneously here in Paris, I'm wondering what goes through your mind from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean for police, obviously, these resources are stretched thin. This is difficult to maintain two of these operations going on at once, I would imagine.

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: Yes, Anderson, that's exactly the issue. There are thousands of police officers there, but quite frankly, the heavily armed S.W.A.T. teams, the hostage negotiators, there's a small universe of those people available. So when you start to get into two or three scenes, it does stretch your resources.

We practiced here in Boston to simulate a Mumbai style attack of the kind that happened in 2008. And as these incidents become more spread out, they're much more difficult to manage. This appears to be a cell that's gone active now in two different places, with is extremely troubling.

COOPER: I want to -- do we have Jim Sciutto on the line? Control? OK, we're trying to get in contact with Jim Sciutto. All right, obviously two situations still ongoing.

Tom Fuentes, you know, obviously since the Mumbai attacks, that was a centrally controlled operation with small numbers of cells which had been sent, attacking a variety of different locations in the city of Mumbai and really ground the city of Mumbai to a halt for several days as those went on. This, there doesn't seem to be any central control from it. This seems somewhat different from that in that it's just -- it seems like one particular cell of people trying to do whatever damage they can at this point.

FUENTES: Well, that's true, Anderson. But in the beginning of this, it looked like a targeted assassination only at the magazine to kill specific people and then others that may have happened to have been around at the wrong place and the wrong time. But now it's expanded into a more random series of acts, the shooting of the police officer directing traffic at a traffic accident scene. Now these separate hostage situations. So these separate incidents that have resulted let's say after the first assassination is what's causing so much problem for the authorities there because they don't know if there's others involved that may spring another attack somewhere else in France or in another country or here. You know, these are what the authorities get concerned with all over the western world, if you will. So that's the problem in this case, you just don't know where this is going to come up. COOPER: And, Ed Davis, incidents like this, I mean, you -- there isn't

much training really needed. There isn't much weapon really needed. And it's difficult for law enforcement to really try to stop something like this.

DAVIS: It is, Anderson. You know, these rifles are extremely powerful. They're military grade weapons. There's no effective cover in an urban environment. Those bullets will slice through vehicles and telephone poles and everything else. So this is a very dangerous situation for the officers that are on the inner perimeter. They have to have special vests on that will stop a rifle round. The average police officer does not have those. So there are a lot of considerations.

Certainly first is the hostages and getting people out safely. But the commanders are also worried about the safety of their personnel there and making sure that, while we're locking it down, we're also in positions where we can't be picked off. It's a very, very difficult and dynamic situation.

COOPER: Jim Sciutto is back on the phone for us from this hostage standoff now in eastern Paris at the kosher supermarket.

Jim, I know you moved your location. Have there been developments there? Because it looked like we saw people kind of moving around.

SCIUTTO (via telephone): They did. You know, this is the second or third time they've moved us back a bit, but we haven't seen any of those tactical units move in yet. I'm standing on a highway overpass here where you can look down where these units are staging. And, again, you know, this is -- these are the elite units all in black with ski masks on, body armor, and automatic weapons. And one of those teams within, gosh, probably 10 yards of the front door, crouching down behind a low concrete wall there, prepped to move if and when they feel they have that opportunity. But, of course, they need to be safe. And with the knowledge that there are reports of hostages inside, they wouldn't want to move unless they have to, or unless they have confidence that they can keep those hostages safe.

COOPER: And, Jim, obviously, when you were - or let me, Tom Fuentes, when you're dealing with people who say they are willing to die, I mean they have clearly shown a desire to continue to live because they could have ended up killing themselves at the "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters if they had wanted to die like that. Is that a sign of hope for hostage negotiators?

FUENTES: Well, it's a small sign of hope, Anderson, but you don't know if they're going to change their mind at any second. You also don't know if they're in contact with other supporters, let's say, who might tell them, you know, don't be a coward and surrender. You know, go out in a blaze of glory. You're supposed to be a martyr, do it.

And one of the limitations that negotiators have in this case is they can't say, you know, you've killed 12 people but don't worry about it, you know, you'll walk free again someday. They know that's not going to be true. So they can tell them that. They can bargain that, well, if you live and spare the hostages,

you'll have your day during a trial to get all the publicity you want and keep this flow of information going worldwide through the media to carry your message. That would be one negotiating point that they can do. But in a situation where the person holding the hostages has already killed a dozen people and seriously wounded 11 more people and gunned down a number of police officers, it does limit the bargaining position of the negotiators who, you know, have to deal with that fact.

COOPER: Ed Davis, I mean, negotiating, I can't imagine how difficult it is, trying to maintain a dialogue with these people in a time like this, trying to use all the tools at your disposal.

DAVIS: Right. Tom is exactly right, there are limited things that you can say to people in this situation. They may try to play this out as long as possible to maintain the world stage. They, at some level, this is very positive for what they are trying to accomplish. But the final outcome is inevitable. They will either be taken into custody or die in a shoot-out. So, because of that, there are very limited things that you can say to them.

You want to try to get the hostages out. I mean clearly that's the priority of the negotiators. And then ultimately this turns on their decision-making. If they start to move, then the teams will move in. But it's up to them.

COOPER: Jim Bittermann, you've been covering Paris for a long time. I mean France has experience, obviously, with terror attacks in the '70s, even in the '90s when -- as the war in Algeria heated up. But they have not seen anything like this for quite some time.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: Nothing like this. I mean this attack here, we're standing in front of the scene of, was one of the most murderous attacks in French history and certainly in the last decades. The -- during the '80s, there was a pair of Algerian brothers, again they were sort of brothers that were trying to avenge a third brother, who was being held by French police, and they set off a couple of bombs around Paris, most notably in a subway station, formerly a subway station, and that injured over 100 people. It killed about five people, but it injured over 100 people.

So there have been these kind of attacks before. That was a time of real nervousness because those brothers were on the loose for a few weeks and they weren't caught for a while. And as a consequence, people were really cautious about things. You'd see them, you know, eyeing each other and if there was a package left somewhere, you know, immediately suspicious and that sort of thing.

I don't think we're quite at that stage yet, but certainly, as you go out and about, I just came in from - on the metro. I tried to get out at the scene and beat Jim Sciutto out there, but I didn't make it. Metro stations are closed down around the area. On the metro with me was a squad of five (INAUDIBLE) who had assault rifles, bulletproof vests, ready to go into action, but they were there not to join the scene. They are, in fact, were just riding the metro, just trying to provide security to metros, reassure people.

COOPER: Right.

Christiane Amanpour is also joining us via London.

Christiane, the situation really over the last 12 hours has changed dramatically and the knowledge, the information that French law enforcement and French intelligence has now, has also increased dramatically, not just on foreign trips that these brothers are believed to have taken, but also on linkages between the incident at "Charlie Hebdo," the shooting of the French policewoman on Thursday morning, and now you had these two hostage standoffs happening simultaneously.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it's eerie because I asked the foreign minister in Paris yesterday, did he think that the "Charlie Hebdo" attack was going to be the only one or were they prepared for more? And he was very, very concerned about the fact that something like this, what we're seeing unfold right now, could actually take place, and that this situation get bigger, rather than get smaller. So that is a big problem.

We have been surprised by the release of a picture of a woman, who is suspected of being involved in the shooting yesterday of the policewoman in some form or fashion. But the foreign minister, in his interview last night told me, that of all the 1,000 people they have on sort of a watch list that have gone from France to Syria and to fight jihad, and people who are coming back, he said a very significant percentage of those people are women. I mean that did surprise me. He talked about 30 percent of women are also in question. So this is a very new development, to be honest, and that is very, very interesting and alarming at the same time.

At the same time, while this is going on in France, around the rest of western Europe there is a much, much heightened state of alert, a lot of patrols, a lot of security has been increased. The head of the British MI-5, which is the domestic intelligence, sort of I guess the British version of the FBI, has said in a speech last night, and this was planned even before -- even before the attacks in France, that over the last 14 months they have thwarted and known about 20 plots directly coming towards western Europe from Syria and from, he said, al Qaeda and other militants there. And they are very worried, he said, of -- they are very worried, and he used the word "likely," that there will be an event of mass casualty in England or somewhere in the west, directed at transportation services maybe or, as he said, at iconic landmarks. So they're very concerned that this situation is in a state of very high heat right now.

COOPER: Just, if - - our viewers, if you are just joining us, the images on your screen are the most important to be aware of. We have two hostage situations going off now on either side of your screen there. One at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. The other near - - in a town near Charles de Gaulle Airport on the outskirts of Paris.

The two brothers, there you see on the right-hand side of your screen, holed up in a printing shop, believed to have at least one hostage in that printing shop that they have holding now for several hours. Obviously the entire area is on lockdown. The schools have been evacuated.

The other hostage situation going on in a supermarket, a kosher supermarket, believed one hostage taker, conflicting reports about how many. Some French media reports as many as five hostages, there have been reports of injuries, our Jim Sciutto saw at least one person being taken away by ambulance, unconfirmed reports of two fatalities. Again, we cannot confirm that, but believe one hostage taker.

But you're seeing two pictures there, the man of African descent and the woman there on the left-hand side of your screen. Both are suspects in the shooting death of a French policewoman early Thursday morning. The gentleman of African descent also believed to be the man now holed up in the supermarket. Unclear whether this was the third gunman, the third terrorist who struck at "Charlie Hebdo," but police have said there is a connection between that male suspect and the two brothers. Whether it's an operational connection is not exactly clear, but certainly a personal connection. They've known each other, hung out together, some reports of a possible operational connection.

I want to bring in our Peter Bergen. Peter, what do you make of what we know so far about the foreign contacts that these two brothers may have had?

PETER BERGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, it's a long history. I mean, one of the brothers, of course, was part of a facilitation network for al Qaeda in Iraq, which is a parent organization both of al Qaeda in Syria, and also of ISIS. But earlier in the program we were talking about comparisons to Mumbai, where there was a sort of central controller talking to all the gunmen who were in Mumbai. Now, this doesn't look like this, but there is a big similarity to Mumbai here, Anderson, which is we're now three days into this, that's about the length of time of the Mumbai attacks.

In fact, you go into these attacks knowing that you will die, but you make sure that you continue to live for as long as possible because you want exactly what is happening, which is worldwide coverage of an event that is continuous and continues to produce new hostage events, new killings, and you keep it going for as long as possible. So this is, I think Mumbai was certainly an attack model that terrorists thought about very carefully and have learned from, and I think that there is a strong similarity in that sense. So we're not seeing the same number of perpetrators, but we're seeing very much the same methodology.

I would be very, very surprised if these guys went into this attack not knowing that they would die at the end of it, and we know from the French documentary about one of the brothers that he talked about the need for martyrdom many years ago. So I would anticipate that they went into this knowing that they would die, they want to continue this situation for as long as feasible.

COOPER: It certainly seems like the end is near. However both of these situations are resolved, they are cornered. They are surrounded. There's nowhere else to go. There are really only two outcomes as one of our guests said earlier. Peter Bergen, it's also similar to Mumbai just in the, you know, in the kind of the crudeness of these attacks. Again, these people, though they may have had some training, don't need a huge amount of training. The weapons are relatively light weapons, AK-47-style rifles, perhaps some handguns, and that they are able to try to achieve their objectives with these basically rudimentary tools.

BERGEN: Yes, I think in Mumbai the attackers were helped by the incompetence of the Indian police response. I mean, 166 people died in Mumbai, there were ten attackers. Here we appear to have three or four, perhaps five attackers. The French are certainly a much more competent kind of police response and intelligence service.

But there's another similarity to Mumbai, Anderson, which is important. I think, you know, the American government tipped off the Indians that an attack in Mumbai was likely and basically that wasn't really processed very well ,and certainly, you know, we now know from CNN's reporting that these two brothers were known to American authorities and were on a no-fly list. And getting on a no-fly list is not that, you know, it's a pretty serious matter and you're not just simply suspected of some kind of terrorist tie. You've really been identified as an extremist.

So, you know, when this is all over, the French authorities are going to have to probably do a fair amount of explaining. I'm sure there will be a 9/11- style commission in France that will look at this even and say what do we know, when did we know it, and basically what went wrong here.

COOPER: It also bears repeating the female that you're seeing there on the left-hand side of your screen, there's no evidence that she is actually inside this supermarket, so the reason her picture remains on the screen is that law enforcement is trying to find her as well. She is believed, she's a suspect in the shooting death of a French police officer, policewoman, Thursday morning. Both of these people are suspects in that attack.

The man - - she - - we really just got this image about 45 minutes or so ago. This is the first we are learning about her potential involvement in this. The man who they're -- is on the screen now, police believe there is a connection between him and the Kouachi brothers. They also believe, not only is he a suspect in the shooting of the French policewoman, they believe he is the hostage taker inside this supermarket, and that standoff still happening now in eastern Paris.

I want to go back to our Fred Pleitgen who is near where the Kouachi brothers are holed up, believed to be with one hostage. Fred, there were reports early on that when these brothers first went into the printing office that they are now holed up in, that the person who works in there, a salesman, came into the building, didn't realize who they were, thought they were police officers, actually shook hands with them and then they told that person to leave. Are you hearing that as well? PLEITGEN: Yes, absolutely. That's actually something that that person

told to French media a little bit later. He was actually on French radio saying exactly that. He went into the printing shop early this morning and that he saw these two gentlemen there together with the head of the printing shop, with the man who owns the printing shop, that he went up to them and actually shook their hands, and at that point the owner of the print shop told him to get out of there immediately. And apparently the two suspects then told him we don't kill civilians, get out, and that's when he actually left the print shop.

So certainly a very bizarre encounter and certainly one that this man is obviously very happy that he survived. So, yes, that was one of the things that seems to be happening. Right now what we have going on here, Anderson, is that there's actually a lot of police action that's been going on right now. There's more and more police coming in. We believe that the French interior minister is about to come here, on his way. But, as you can see, there's a lot of police vans moving here. There has been a lot of motion going on. If we pan over there, I'm not sure how well we'll be able to see it, there's also a bunch buses that are parked there right now, so it seems as though there's some sort of larger scale event that's happening right now. It might be the arrival of the interior minister who is going to come here very soon to lead this operation, Anderson.

COOPER: Fred, actually we have the interview I believe from a local French media of the person who had the encounter with these brothers. Let's play that.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, HAD ENOUNTER WITH KOUACHI BROTHERS (via translator): The owner was with armed men who said that they were members of the police. My boss then told me to leave and I left. The people that I assumed were policemen said they were members of the Paris force and they interrogated me at great length.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): And the person who spoke to you, was that one of the terrorists?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): I suppose he was a terrorist. I didn't really know. I took him as an armed policeman. He wasn't wearing a uniform and he had a bulletproof vest on. I didn't really recognize him. I thought he was a policeman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): Were they heavily armed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): Yes, they were heavily armed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): Were you in front of the door or within the premises?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator) : We were standing in front of the door to the factory, I shook the hand of Michele, the owner, and the terrorist. He introduced himself as a policeman. I then got into my car and left. And Michele, the owner, let the man into the factory. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): What happened then?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): As I left for the periphery (ph), someone told me what had happened and I was shocked. And the man told me to call the police straight away. I didn't know if it was a hostage situation or a burglary.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COOPER: A very strange situation, obviously, indeed. Fred, is it known if there is continued contact between the law enforcement and either of these two suspects? Because a local politician had reported, or a local law maker, had reported there was some contact and that at least one of the brothers had talked about their willingness to die. Do we know, is that contact ongoing?

PLEITGEN: We're not sure at this point in time. The police have told us that they're not going to give any updates until the situation is actually over, so that could take quite a while. But it does appear as though they do seem to have some sort of contact with these people. We know that they keep trying to make that contact and keep trying to keep that contact upright, because obviously they want to solve this whole situation in some way that does not involve some sort of shootout or some sort of use of force. So it's certainly something that the police are trying. We're not sure if that contact is something that they have all the time.

Certainly at this point in time you would think that if these people were using any sort of cell phones or anything like that the batteries would be close to zero, unless they have some sort of power source there. But we're not sure how much contact they have with them, but they certainly appear to have the situation under control. They seem to have this place under very, very good surveillance at this point in time and seem to have these two suspects cornered, but whether or not they're actually able to contact them, whether or not they might have a police officer on the premise who might be within shouting distance of these people, we simply don't know at this point in time, Anderson.

COOPER: And, Tom Fuentes, in a situation where there are multiple hostages, often times negotiators will try to bargain, providing food, providing electricity, air conditioning, or in this case heat, for one or two hostages to be let go. In a case where there's only one hostage, there's not a lot to be negotiated with.

FUENTES: (AUDIO GAP) and freeze out the hostages themselves, and apparently in both places have access to food, water, power, bathrooms. So a lot of the basic needs that you might often have, for instance, in a bank robbery that goes bad and the bank robber takes hostages, you have a little less of that since it's in a place that has food and amenities for them. So that's a little bit of a more difficult situation.

COOPER: Hala Gorani who is here with me in Paris, very close to the offices of "Charlie Hebdo," you know, it's extraordinary given the outpourings that we have seen in the French over the last 24, 48 hours. I mean, these remarkable scenes. Here with Jim Bittermann I should say as well. These remarkable scenes, tens of thousands of people coming out. I'm wondering how this incident, if that's going to change any of that today because people have been willing to come out even though there have been manhunts on, even though there have been terrorists on the loose, people have been willing to gather in public places in large numbers saying we are not afraid.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I was asking myself that same question just as we were, as I was listening to your coverage with our reporters there fanned out across the area. This was very targeted operation. The killers purportedly called out names. It was "Charlie Hebdo," we knew there was essentially a bull's-eye on this publication for years now. But when you start taking hostages in supermarkets, you know, when you have gunmen on the loose on the streets of Paris, that is another level of terror, and it's going to be interesting to see how people react to that.

My guess is, though, I'm really sensing, and in this crowd and you're seeing it as well, Anderson, there is a resolve. There is this sense that they want to remain defiant. So my guess is, and there's a big demonstration planned for Sunday, that people will still come out in large numbers.

COOPER: And the other question, Jim Bittermann, is is this the end of it in terms of this cell? Clearly these, at least these three men, have some sort contact with each other. Obviously the two brothers do, but this third man no police are saying does have some relationship with the two brothers. Is this the complete cell, these four people that we're seeing right now on the television screen? Are there others? Are there other actions planned by others linked to this cell or not? We simply don't know.

BITTERMANN: I don't think we can say this is the end, that's for sure. I mean, one of the things that the prime minister said before Christmas, he said we have never faced such a serious terrorist threat as we do now. And, remember, before Christmas there were three attacks, was of which was confirmed to be connected to the Middle East. A guy with a butcher knife attacked two policemen, was shot on the scene.

But I think that there is a complete nervousness here among the authorities that they're facing a problem that may be overwhelming.

COOPER: Yes.

BITTERMANN: They really have all of these young people who, disaffected that are attracted by the message that they're hearing from ISIS, and al Qaeda, and others and some of them have gone off. They know that some of them have gone off and trained, and some of them have come back, and they know that they have come back, they've said that they've kept track of the ones who have come back. Clearly they didn't keep track of the two who attacked here.