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Female Suspect Believed to Have Fled in France; 3 Hostages Killed, 4 Hostages Dead; Did Terrorist Deliberately Pick Jewish Market? Terrorist Brothers Had al Qaeda Connections.

Aired January 09, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At this stage, police still trying to track down this woman. He said it was a very difficult operation for the police force. It was such a small store. One entrance, really, that we saw. This is a very tiny, very quiet and placid part of Paris. Not used to seeing so much police. We're not talking about center of Paris by the Eiffel Tower. This is middle class area and for many people that must have come as a huge, huge shock -- Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much for reporting. We'll check back in with you.

Brooke, back to you.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: OK. I'm so glad you asked that question to clarify, as we heard from Francois Hollande.

Stay right here. We continue our coverage, of course, with Chris Cuomo and other crews on the ground in Paris and beyond.

Coming up, one of the questions we're asking as far as how this went down with the hostage sieges happening simultaneously, how were they connected? How did the individuals know each other? We'll talk to Deborah Feyerick about that and talk about a connection to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. One of the brothers did spend some time in Yemen.

Stay here. You're watching CNN's special live coverage. We'll be right back.

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BALDWIN: More breaking news on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A lot happening here. Let me just reset in case if you're just joining us. First, you have the scene in Paris. Three terrorists are dead. One terrorist is still on the run, this female, this woman. We'll show you her picture momentarily.

Hostages have been killed after a pair of standoffs in and near the capital city. Other hostages survived. We've seen pictures of them running toward law enforcement. They're OK. Not everyone survived these two different sieges this afternoon.

These brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, they came out firing on police. They were holed up in this printing factory near the airport after this one individual -- not clear if he was held hostage or was hiding in this facility -- he managed to escape and he's OK. Security forces did shoot and kill those two brothers, and that particular man, that hostage, is alive.

The third terrorist, this man, Amedy Coulibaly, wanted in yesterday's deadly shooting of a policewoman south of Paris, he and a female accomplice took hostages earlier today at a grocery store in the eastern part of that city. So these two different sieges sort of happening simultaneously, different parts of Paris. Police shot him. They killed him and freed many of the hostages. But some -- according to president of France and one of our correspondents covering this, it sounds like that number is four, four hostages did die. The female suspect managed to slip away as these hostages were fleeing the scene. She is still on the run at this hour.

A local lawmaker said the Kouachi brothers told police by phone they wanted to die as martyrs, and they said they had a connection to Yemen.

Let me bring in Robert McFadden, former special agent in charge of NCIS; Byron Sage, who used to lead hostage negotiations for the FBI; and CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

Deborah Feyerick, let me begin with you.

There are so many tentacles of this story, if you will. You have what's happening on the ground with different sieges and a manhunt in France, but then you have what we're learning more about, leaders, the radicalization process. And one individual we now have surveillance pictures of. Tie this together for me.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Right now, French authorities are looking for what could be a major terror cell in France because both -- two of the men killed today are both connected to a known al Qaeda recruiter. That recruiter actually seen in different pictures both with Cherif Kouachi and Amedi Coulibaly. French officials have more than 45,000 pages of wire transcripts and surveillance photos of Kouachi, who you can see at the bottom there, wearing a white sweatshirt. He met with his mentor at a soccer field back in 2010. At the top of the screen, if you can see, there's a man in what looks to be beige pants in fore-pictures there. That is that recruiter. The interesting thing is that it's believed that he has connections to young jihadis, not only in Paris, but in Belgium and Netherlands as well.

To get back to the men that were willed today, they are believed to be part of this cell. They were known associates. Back in 2010, the two of them collaborated to try to break out of prison another man who had been convicted in bombing of a Paris metro. They failed.

The man that you see there on the right, Amedy Coulibaly, the one that took over the Jewish grocery store, he was convicted and sentenced. He was found to have 240 rounds of ammunition. His good friend, Cherif Kouachi, who was accused of the same crime, there was not enough evidence to put him in prison. The question that many will be asking today is, why these individuals,

who are on law enforcement radar, who served time in prison --

BALDWIN: Are out.

FEYERICK: -- why they are released for time served. I think the French authorities are going to have to deal with that very, very seriously.

The man, the al Qaeda recruiter -- his name is Djamel Beghal -- and he himself served time for plotting to blow up the U.S. embassy in Paris. He was released on house arrest. And again, French authorities have had him on radar. It's not clear whether he was one of the men picked up, but they have 45,000 pages of wire transcripts and surveillance photos, like the ones you just saw. They are going to look very, very closely at that to see just how deep and how wide ranging this cell and these individuals reach extends.

BALDWIN: You threw a lot of names out there. It's important to difficult to differentiate. You have these followers. You have these recruiters and then you have -- let's call it the nuclear, being al Qaeda in the Peninsula, Yemen.

And that's what I want to ask you. If you have Djamel Beghal --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: He is a recruiter -- connect the dots for me. When the journalist supposedly reached Cherif Kouachi before he was killed, Cherif Kouachi said that, we are telling you we're the defenders of the Prophet Muhammad, "I was sent by al Qaeda in Yemen, I went there and Sheikh Anwar al Awlaki financed my trip." Connect the dots. We don't know the specifics in this case. In all of the cases you have studied in your years working in terror, connect the dots for me.

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERT MCFADDEN, FORMER SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, NCIS: On the last part, what we're hearing from the press over there, when they made contact with the brother in the shop, nothing else at face value he's trying to reaffirm, look, I said before, if you want to know who this is, it's al Qaeda in Yemen. He said it again. We take that at face value. That will be walked backwards. We've heard about him going to Yemen in 2011.

BALDWIN: In 2011.

MCFADDEN: By the way, Anwar al Awlaki was actually killed in a drone strike on the 30th of September, 2011. At least the time sequence is right.

But here's the thing, in addition to Deb's report, terrific information. Two main things. You have longer-term, how could this have happened? Connecting the dots. Individuals in custody. But for here and now, absolutely critical, with all of these names you just heard, how big is the conspiracy in France right now? BALDWIN: Right. How big is the cell?

MCFADDEN: And the other part of that -- although, I have to admit, a few days ago, I was skeptical about a direct command-and-control link into Yemen. But as this plays out, that part is going to be very important. It could represent a change in tactic.

BALDWIN: But at that point in time, when we think of 2011 and Yemen, Anwar al Awlaki, before he was killed, was fully operational. And at the time, he wanted recruits specifically from Europe to launch attacks.

MCFADDEN: Absolutely. That's part of the goals at the time to bring in those with visas for countries where they wanted to do external operations.

FEYERICK: Not only that, he gave a speech asking for these young men to strike out against these inflammatory cartoons, against media for writings on Prophet Muhammad and Islam. So he was a trigger.

(CROSSTALK)

FEYERICK: Exactly. And he was a trigger. Not only that, Anwar al Awlaki was calling on young men to launch a lone-wolf insurgency. This was part of a much larger plan. Let's keep in mind as well that this man, Jamal Beggal, this recruiter, had also been to Afghanistan. It's part of something larger. You can't look at it as just al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or just al Qaeda in Syria. It's part of something larger. We don't know how large it is. Clearly, it benefits the terrorists when we report it and it seems larger than it is. It's so deadly. And it's something that you don't plan for necessarily. As you saw, these men came out of nowhere. Had they been able to slip out, it's unclear if they would have launched additional strikes. That's another thing we have to keep in mind. You don't cover your face like that if you think you'll be caught or you think you're going to die.

BALDWIN: Interesting point.

What kind of training do you think, in those months? We're hearing Said Kouachi was in Yemen in 2011 for a few months. What kind of training would he have?

MCFADDEN: I'm familiar with the training that goes on in Yemen. What I would say about that, going to Yemen and making connections is one thing but it doesn't take a heck of a lot of training to pull off what they did. That may seem counterintuitive at this point. You have that period in between of all of the puzzles and putting that together. What happened in that amount of time? My experience with the old al Qaeda, al Qaeda in Yemen, it's not terrifically unusual for long periods of time to go by before they hatch the plot and get things in place. I really want to caveat that heavily right now. We're going by two things Said said. Take it at face value. But let's verify that there's some kind of link to al Qaeda or pick your group.

BALDWIN: OK.

Quickly, Deb?

FEYERICK: One quick comment. We've seen these lone-wolf attacks that have happened recently that are done without any planning. If you look at these men, they were on radar more than 10 years ago.

BALDWIN: I don't think it's fair to say they're not lone wolves.

FEYERICK: But there seems to be something going on in the works for more than 10 years.

BALDWIN: Wow.

FEYERICK: And that's another dynamic that intelligence officials are going to be looking at. They didn't just pop out yesterday or the day before.

BALDWIN: To your point, released on time served. Huge question.

Bob McFadden, Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much, both of you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Much more as far as what's happening and this ongoing manhunt for one female hostage taker when our special CNN live coverage continues.

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CUOMO: We're here in Paris. I'm close to the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" where all of this started, the horrible massacre there, 12 people losing their lives, 11 others badly injured. There's a memorial here that we'll show you a picture of that's been growing by the hour. And now as the situation, these two standoffs, have been resolved, people have been coming back again to reflect about all that's been lost in the last few days. We know that "Charlie Hebdo" was intentionally targeted. We know police were intentionally targeted. Were Jews as well, with what we saw at the kosher market and standoff there?

Let's discuss with Sacha Reingewutz.

You are head of the Jewish Student Union here in France.

Thank you for joining us.

We heard the French president say this was an anti-Semitic attack what happened there. The terrorists inside told journalists as reported on our affiliate, BFN. Called them say he's looking for the police. He said we're connected to the brothers. They were supposed to do "Charlie Hebdo." I was supposed to shoot the police. And they asked, why are you there? He said, I like this place. Of course, he took many hostages there and he may have killed as many as four hostages there before the assault ever happened that ended his own life. Do you believe that he picked that market because it was kosher, because it was for Jews?

SACHA REINGEWUTZ, PRESIDENT, JEWISH STUDENT UNION, FRANCE: Yes, I definitely believed he picked that market because it was a Jewish place. There's been a rise in anti-Semitism in France. When you attack a newspaper, you attack freedom of expression. When you attack a synagogue or Jewish shop, you attack freedom of religion. We have to fight against it.

CUOMO: You don't think there's any chance it was just a random choice by this man?

REINGEWUTZ: It can definitely not be random choice. These people have clearly expressed in the past that, for them, their hatred of democracy means hatred of today. And anti-Semitism importantly is strong among these jihadis. So we have to fight as a nation. And I hope that the Sunday gathering that will bring millions of people and foreign leaders in France will be, once and for all, a good time to say that we as French citizens stand against terrorism, against anti- Semitism, and against any kind of racism.

CUOMO: Remind our viewers, what's supposed to happen on Sunday?

REINGEWUTZ: On Sunday afternoon, millions of people will march from various parts of France and say loudly that they have been shocked by the attacks on "Charlie Hebdo" and that they have been dismayed by the attack and they want it to stop. We want to show unity. One of the main cartoonists at the newspaper here in "Charlie Hebdo" that is very famous sentence. He said I would prefer --

CUOMO: To stand up and die.

REINGEWUTZ: -- to stand up and die rather than kneeling in front of the attack against democracy.

CUOMO: Rather than live on my knees.

REINGEWUTZ: Yes. French shall stand up. French shall walk as a nation and show that people who attack democracy aren't proper French citizens.

CUOMO: An irony that the man, the terrorist, did not know. Kosher and Hallal (ph), the requirements are not that different. Jews are not the only people who shop in that market. Who else does?

REINGEWUTZ: Yes. Kosher shops bring together Jews and Muslims together who have a strong connection and history together. The terrorist who did that are not true Muslim and do not represent values of Islam and betray values of Islam.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Muhammad said himself that Jews are our older brothers.

REINGEWUTZ: Of course. Those that use it as a tool for war are dangerous.

CUOMO: We hear now that hostages did lose their lives at the hand of this man. Others were wounded in the assault that followed. So were some of the SWAT teams. If you know any of them or wind up learning about them, our thoughts and prayers go to those families that had people wounded or lost.

Thank you for talking to us, Sacha.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Good luck with the march. The more unity that comes and we see some, it now says, Paris is Charlie. People are unified by this and they're not afraid.

REINGEWUTZ: I've seen support expressed by John Kerry. This was very moving. It's important to see America standing up with us. So today, we are Charlie today. We are Jews today. We are the French republic.

CUOMO: Hopefully, the stronger you come together here, the better it will be going forward.

Sacha, thank you for talking to me. Appreciate it.

REINGEWUTZ: Thank you.

CUOMO: We'll take a break now. There's a lot more coverage to be done here in Paris. A lot left unknown about what was planned and what on the minds of terrorists, and what will French authorities do going forward. So, please, stay with us.

Sacha, thank you.

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BALDWIN: What a day in Paris. We're following breaking news here. Two hostage standoffs in and around the capital city of France. One terrorist, the female you see, is on the run. Three others killed in police raids today. Among them, the brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, the two brothers that slaughtered 12 people Wednesday at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine, "Charlie Hebdo."

Their years-long connection to terror organizations becoming a tad clearer by the hour. We know this. The older brother, Said, traveled to Yemen in mid 2011, training with AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and possibly crossing paths with the group's leader, who was very operational, Anwar al Awlaki, who was killed later that year in a drone strike.

Also we have this. "USA Today" is reporting that both brothers may haven been in Syria as recent as this summer.

Let me take you to Washington to our justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, who is working her sources.

And, Pamela Brown, I hear you have some more information from the FBI. PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We know that

the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, Brooke, have been preparing a bulletin they are sending out to law enforcement agencies across the country local, state and federal agencies, in the wake of what we saw in Paris. And this warning, as we've seen in previous terrorist attacks in other countries, basically lays out what happened.

And there were a few key points to mention. This bulletin talks about how sophisticated the attacks were and how it appeared that the suspects had been trained on some measure by AQAP and Yemen. It talks about how we haven't seen small arms attacks, recently. And while no one has formally claimed responsibility, it does appear that AQAP had some influence on some level with these attacks.

And then it talks about potential targets of AQAP, reminding law enforcement here in the U.S. about potential targets. We know AQAP has been on a mission to target aviation as well as mass transit in certain cities. And in addition to that, this warning says that terrorists groups, AQAP and other terrorists groups, including ISIS, want to attack government personnel, military personnel, perhaps private-sector targets as well. So a combination of targets that AQAP and other terrorist groups are looking at.

And the big concern here, Brooke, is not only are law enforcement looking at whether any Americans are connected to the suspects, but the big concern is that extremists, perhaps someone who may have trained overseas, may be emboldened to carry out a similar attack to what we saw in Paris -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Exactly. That's the part of the fear and potential future attacks as far as a recruitment tool. Sick to think about in the wake of what happened in Paris.

Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

Much more coming up. Stay with us. Again, three terrorists have been killed. One suspected terrorist on the run from French police. We'll continue our special coverage on CNN live from Paris. Stay with me.

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