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Terror Cell Raids Across Europe; Training Syrian Opposition; Ohio Terror Suspect to Stand Before Judge Today; France's Black Market for Guns

Aired January 16, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

This morning, millions of Europeans are on edge. Anti-terror police has launched a sweeping series of raids. And the scope is staggering. Up to 20 terrorist cells revealed with as many as 180 people. France, Germany, Belgium and Holland are the reported targets. And in Belgium, the threat was described as imminent.

We have a lot to cover so let's break down what we know. Deborah Feyerick joins me to do that because this is a very wide-ranging investigation and frankly it's a little hard to understand.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And you -- it is hard to understand and you can't look at any of this in a vacuum. Look, what triggered some of what's going on right now and what drew everybody's attention is these attacks that happened in Paris, these brutal attacks. Information was developed as part of the investigations that all of a sudden were launched all across the eastern European community.

Authorities there have people under surveillance. They're very aware that the terror problem is a big one and that these people coming back from Syria are, in fact, primed and ready to act. But now what we're seeing is, we're seeing all of it play out in a very real and meaningful way. So you have what happened with this sort of sleeper cell in Paris, these two individuals who have traveled to Yemen who may be part of one terror group, but then you have members of another terror group who are coming back. People who have been under surveillance but people who are now being picked up, in part that we learned because there is information that's being developed, information that all of a sudden people realized that time was not an option, there was no luxury to wait for a day, wait for another day. And so now you're seeing these sweeps that occurred happening in Belgium and there -- you're likely to see more sweeps, more arrests happening in other parts of the European Union.

COSTELLO: So what you're saying, they're not directly connected, but police investigated them because of what happened in Paris?

FEYERICK: It's a similar theme. It's a similar theme. It's like listening to the same song, let's say. You may listen to one song here, one song here. It's all part of a radio station. You just may be getting different songs at different times. So you have to look at it within the larger context of what's going on to look at any of these attacks in any sort of a vacuum and say, well, this isn't related to this or this isn't related to this.

There is a commonality. You will talk to security experts, they will tell you, there are link analysis that say that there are things that are very similar, things that are very common and you cannot rule that out and look at it independently. This is not an independent action that's going on all through Europe. This is part of something much larger, all of it with the same fundamental roots traced back to certain terror groups. And that's the connectivity.

COSTELLO: I want to bring in our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruikshank, to just sort of help us understand more about this.

So, we always heard about those lone wolf attacks. But now that all of these sleeper cells are being uncovered, does that sort of throw that theory out the window?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, first off, Carol, they're not sleeper cells. I mean these people have recently come back from Syria. These are not people who have been asleep for two or three years. They've been monitoring since they -- them since they came back from Syria, the Belgians, very, very heavily, and they had indications in recent days and in recent hours that there was an imminent, major terrorist plot from this group in Belgium. Also, separately, there's wider concern across Europe that there could be other groups like this out there. But there's very concrete threats in Belgium which they detected. They felt they had to move in.

COSTELLO: The question I have, Deborah, Belgium. Who knew?

FEYERICK: Well, Belgium is also very strategic. And you have to remember it's -- the borders are so -- there really are no borders when you travel in that region. Belgium is significant because of the very fact that you've got so many people from elsewhere who are in that -- you've got NATO, you've got the European headquarter -- the European Union Commission headquartered there. So there are -- it target -- with respect to being a target, strategically, it is a very important location. And a lot of the folks from France, there's a direct route to Belgium and so you see these countries, it's -- we think of them as being separate countries, but it's like, well, I'm going to go to Philadelphia, or I'm going to go to Boston, or -- it's very similar. They all have their own cultures, though right now they're part of one big thing. So it's a different way of looking at it.

COSTELLO: So, obviously, authorities have been keeping an eye on these terrorists within Belgium and other European countries. So why haven't they done anything up until this point that we've heard of?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, I mean, they've been monitoring a lot of these people, more than 500 people believed to have come back from Syria. What European intelligence agencies are detecting now is that ISIS have started to direct and encourage these people to launch attacks. And that's an absolute game changer because up till now ISIS had not done that. The plots we've seen have not been ISIS directed plots. There have been some ISIS veterans who have come back and launched attacks and plots, but intelligence agencies believe they were doing that on their own steam.

But there seems to be a pivoting now from ISIS to putting more priority to launch attacks in the west, and that's because of these U.S. airstrikes there and airstrikes from other countries. Belgium is involved in airstrikes in Iraq and so the Belgians think that this was in retaliation for those Belgian airstrikes in Iraq from ISIS, that they got marching orders to go and launch it. That's what they're sort of discovering from all their investigations.

But as they look at all these different cells and groups across Europe, they're trying to piece through what exactly their plans might be. They don't know for sure, so they can't move and make arrests until they have a better sense of it.

COSTELLO: And it's one of -- because you can't arrest somebody just because they went to Syria and came back, right?

FEYERICK: Well, that's exactly right. But the interesting thing is, when you look at what happened in Belgium also, we're getting it from a very good western intelligence source that, in fact, when the Belgium arms dealer, who was connected to the Paris attack, by (INAUDIBLE) the fact he provided weapons, that man was questioned. Other information was developed.

And so what we're seeing also is we're seeing people that are part of a logistical support network being picked up. They're not necessarily going after operational people. The ones that are really being picked up, which is what happened in the one -- where we saw two deaths last night, those were logistical support people. What do they provide? They provide guns. Where do you get guns? You get guns from an arm dealer. But additional information was developed by two men returning to Belgium from Syria and, again, there was enough corroborating information on certain names that the information, it's cumulative, and they really began to feel that the folks that they had, I don't even want to call them folks, the terrorists they had under investigation, under surveillance, as Paul has said, became even more important. You know, if you have somebody under surveillance and all of a sudden you find their name on a slip of paper, let's say, (INAUDIBLE) terrorist, all of a sudden that ratchets up the urgency immeasurably.

COSTELLO: So are these hundreds of people, who have gone to Syria and have come back and are up to no good, are in Europe, how many might be in the United States?

CRUICKSHANK: Oh, they believe about a dozen have returned to the United States. So, think about the difference in scale there. Hundreds back in Europe, a dozen back in the United States. There's no comparison of the threat.

In fact, but the biggest threat to the United States comes from these Europeans, because they can get on a plane very easily. They just have to fill out an online form. Then they get an automatic visa. If they're not on a watch list, they can get over to the United States.

Of course, many of them are on a watch lists and that's the best defense the United States has. But they think there are probably some they don't know about and that's going to be a big concern because the United States is the biggest target here. But it seems, from what we're hearing from federal prosecutors this morning in Belgium, that these guys wanted to go after police stations, police offices there. They had a lot of weapons, AK-47s. They had explosives, explosives as well in this apartment, in this complex that they were in, and they also had police uniforms, which is a very interesting detail.

FEYERICK: And that's critical.

CRUICKSHANK: Which is a very interesting detail. Why did they have police uniforms? Were they going to pretend to be police officers so they could go into a police station and get access to some other site in Belgium? That's being looked at very, very closely right now as well, Carol.

FEYERICK: And imagine symbolically if that were to happen. If you had one of these terrorist walking into a very sensitive either a police station or the European headquarters and blowing themselves up. There is no -- the sense of vulnerability would be incredible, that these people would get you in places that are technically protected. When you go after a police station, you are sending a very big message that the people who are supposed to be guarding everybody are as vulnerable as the people themselves.

COSTELLO: Yes.

FEYERICK: And so it's very powerful. And they know this. And they're very smart. And they're preparing for this. And it's very easy for them to move between countries. And so you're seeing a lot of crossover between people going from France to Belgium to Spain as the Paris attackers did. Again, it's really --

COSTELLO: Scary, actually.

FEYERICK: It's all one place.

COSTELLO: Deborah Feyerick, Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, American troops are heading to the Middle East, training Syrian rebels as they prepare to battle Assad's regime. Barbara Starr has the story this morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Exactly what is next for U.S. troops in Syria? Stay with us.

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COSTELLO: The Syrian rebel army is about to get formal training courtesy of the U.S. government. The Pentagon has announced a plan to send 400 American troops plus hundreds of support staff overseas to train moderate Syrian opposition troops. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us with more details.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

These are the details that everybody's been waiting for. About 400 U.S. troops, some special operations, some regular Army, regular Marine Corps, will be heading to a number of countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, possibly as soon as March, to begin to set things up for the training of some 5,000 moderate -- so-called moderate Syrian rebels to go back into Syria and fight ISIS.

Where this stands right now is they've done one crucial thing, they've begun to develop the standards for how to vet these rebels. How do you make sure when you accept someone for U.S. military training to go back to Syria you're not just putting a weapon in the hands of somebody who might be a militant who might go back and join ISIS? So they've worked on some of those details. They're going to start setting up the facilities. They're going to get ready. They're going to begin over the coming weeks. All of this was expected.

Why is it so critical? Well, one of the big issues is the U.S. doesn't have any boots on the ground in Syria. And it wouldn't, of course, be U.S. boots on the ground anyhow. But if they can get these 5,000 Syrian rebels back on the ground inside Syria, not only can they maybe begin to fight ISIS, but they are U.S. eyes and ears on the ground. They can collect intelligence essentially. They can tell the U.S. what is going on inside Syria, where ISIS is, how it's communicating, where it's moving around. Much more granular detail that the U.S. really needs and wants in fighting ISIS in Syria. Syria, of course, the real stronghold of ISIS right now where it is largely unchecked.

Carol.

COSTELLO: I know you say this was expected, but in light of what happened in Paris, have things been sped up?

STARR: I don't think we actually see any indication of it being sped because of current events, either the Paris attacks or the situation in Belgium. But what U.S. military officials will tell you is what is going on in Europe underscores the biggest worry right now in terms of U.S. homeland security, that people traveling from Europe to join up with militant jihadist groups in Syria and then come back to Europe, as we have seen, potentially be able to get into the United States if they are from a country in Europe which does not require a visa to enter this country. That's a huge concern.

So it just really underscores the need and the urgency to find more ways and better ways to deal with ISIS. The U.S. has long said it won't be airstrikes alone. Those have been going on for months. They're doing some good, but unless you can get people on the ground fighting ISIS, it's never really going to make a substantive difference. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon. Thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the FBI says his plan to attack the Capitol was ready to go. Now this U.S. terror suspect is just hours away from his first appearance in federal court. Alexandra Field is there.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Carol. Chris Cornell will have to move from the county jail to the federal court house. His parents say they'll be there to support their son. And coming up after the break, we'll talk about what they're saying about their son right now.

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COSTELLO: In a matter of hours, Ohio terror suspect Christopher Lee Cornell will stand before a judge for the first time in federal court. The 20-year-old has been on the FBI's radar for months. Agents claim Cornell was writing alarming posts on social media about violent jihad. On Wednesday, he was arrested before his alleged plot could have been put into action.

Now cameras will not be allowed inside the Cincinnati courtroom this afternoon, but our Alexandra Field is nearby following the story for us. Tell us more, Alexandra.

FIELD: Hey there, Carol. He will be in front of a judge for this detention hearing. It will also be the first time that he sees his parents. They haven't been able to talk to him since he was arrested. These are devastated parents. They aren't denying the fact that their son bought some guns or some ammunition, but they do believe that he wasn't capable of pulling off any attack and they feel the plans wouldn't have escalated if he hadn't been coerced by an FBI informant.

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FIELD (voice-over): Christopher Cornell was a high school wrestling star. His parents said they once had high hopes for a bright future, but he didn't seem to find his path after high school.

JOHN CORNELL, CHRIS CORNELL'S FATHER: It breaks my heart. He had so much potential. He could have got a scholarship.

FIELD: Recently, there was reason to be hopeful again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just became a happier person.

JOHN CORNELL: And his attitude changed. He became a lot happier. He said when he prayed, he felt calm and he felt at peace with himself and with God. He became just happy go lucky.

FIELD: He grew out his beard and adopted Islam after reading a lot about it and his parents saw signs his beliefs had really taken hold.

JOHN CORNELL: He would come in at prayer time, say his prayers.

FIELD: At the same time, the FBI says, he was planning a deadly attack. On Wednesday agents raided the family's Cincinnati home, seizing a book Cornell had written in and the computer. Online, authorities say he told an FBI informant he wanted to commit violent jihad. Over several months, investigators monitored the plot as it was taking shape. Authorities say pipe bombs would be placed in the Capitol and people would be shot as they fled the scene.

JOHN CORNELL: No, no, no. I don't think Chris ever wanted to hurt anyone.

FIELD (on camera): Then why say it? And why walk into the gun shop?

JOHN CORNELL: I believe he was forced.

FIELD (voice over): FBI agents arrested Cornell Wednesday after he bought two semiautomatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition at the Point-Blank gun shop and range in Cincinnati.

JOHN DEAN, POINT BLANK GUN SHOP: We had the forewarning that we was going to come in, but then also they had greased the skids a little bit, so that things would go smoothly as a part of the sale.

FIELD: Asked to help authorities in the sting, John Dean sold Cornell exactly what he asked for.

DEAN: I'm getting a lot of thumbs up today.

FIELD (on camera): Why did he strike you? Did he know what he was talking about?

DEAN: He did. He strike me as someone who had done some research, but hadn't actually had a lot of hands on experience with the gun.

FIELD (voice over): Cornell had never fired a gun according to his parents. They say he never talked to them about ISIS and he showed no signs of anger or violence. They say he spent much of his time alone.

(on camera): Did he have friends?

JOHN CORNELL: He had friends up until about a year ago. I think when he grew his hair out and his beard.

FIELD (voice over): On the day of his arrest, Cornell left a note for his parents saying we was going to live with a friend who would get him some work. Their son now behind bars, but his parents believe he'll come home one day.

ANGEL CORNELL, CHRIS CORNELL'S MOTHER: I feel that it wasn't him. It wasn't him.

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FIELD (on camera): Chris Cornell's parents say they're hoping to get an opportunity to talk to their son. They've got a lot of questions here, especially about where he would have gotten the money to purchase guns or ammunition. They said that he wouldn't have had it on his own. What we do know, Carol, is that later today a judge will address Chris Cornell. He'll be in court around 1:30 for that detention hearing and he's set to return to court next week for the first pretrial hearing.

COSTELLO: All right, Alexandra Field, reporting live near Cincinnati, Ohio, this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as terror grips Europe, rising concerns over an illegal gun market in France. How banned weapons are getting into the country known for having some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

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COSTELLO: France is known for having some of the toughest gun laws in the world, but when the mass killers charged Charlie Hebdo last week, their weapons of choice did not surprise French authorities. So where are all these guns coming from? And how did terrorists get a hold of them?

Erin McLaughlin did some digging.

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ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the footage that stunned a republic. The massacre at Charlie Hebdo, one of the Kouachi brothers dressed in black shoots a police officers dead, one of 17 terror victims killed by guns experts say were most likely bought on the black market even though France has some of the toughest gun laws in the world.

(on camera): How easy is it to get a gun in France?

XAVIER RAUFER, SECURITY ANALYST: A matter of hours if you are unlucky A matter of 30 minutes if you know where to go and when to go.

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): Security analyst Xavier Refair says in the last five years there's been an influx of illegal weapons into Europe.

RAUFER: As a state, Libya was destroyed.

MCLAUGHLIN: And criminal networks got a hold of Gadhafi's weapons, Raufar says everything from Kalashnikovs to RPGs have been smuggled through Europe's porous borders and are readily available to criminals and terrorists in France.

But the average French citizen wanting to buy a legal weapon faces a very different reality.

(on camera): In France it's not easily to legally buy a gun. You need a license, you have to pass an extensive background check, and even then you don't really own the weapon. You have to reapply for that license every three to five years.

(voice-over): Gun shop owner Armurie De La Bourse says even though more people are likely to want guns after the recent terrorists, he believes the laws in France won't change. ARMURIE DE LA BOURSE, GUNSHOP OWNER: Because in France we think if

you have a problem, it's the job of the police to protect you, not yourself.

MCLAUGHLIN: Raufer says he believes there are two realities in France, and the inability to reconcile them provoked the recent terror attacks.

RAUFER: It's not by chance that this happened. It has happened because they two -- are like two countries on the same soil, and everybody in Country No. 1, honest people, ignores what happens in this Country No. 2.

MCLAUGHLIN: And it's what happens in Country No. 2 that analysts say concerns them most, especially considering how easy it is to purchase the tools of terror.

Erin McLaughlin, CNN, Paris.

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