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Terrorism Manhunt; Shared Intelligence; Yemen Violence; North Korea Hack

Aired January 19, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington, with Pamela Brown standing by in Paris, as we follow this massive manhunt. It's happening right now for potential terrorists.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Parts of Europe resembling militarized zones with troops mobilizing around venerable sites in the hope of thwarting further attacks. And we are now getting word of new arrests, revealing a widening web of suspected terror cells across Europe. In Belgium, five more people are now charged with participating in a terrorist organization. And in Greece, four people arrested. Among them, an Algerian man wanted in connection with the jihadist cell that Belgian police raided last week. Belgium now seeing his extradition.

And in France, two others are in custody. They were arrested while trying to cross into Italy. And now a potential break in the case of the deadly kosher market siege. Using DNA found on the gunman's magazine clip and his car, French investigators have tracked down two men, one of them now in custody.

Joining me now to discuss this, Jim Bittermann, CNN's senior international correspondent.

So, Jim, what is the latest on this manhunt?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, exactly. I think you just mentioned they've gotten - they've identified part of the DNA, one of the nine people that they're holding in custody, they're being questioned now and have been questioned since Friday morning. They were picked up Friday morning. And now, after four days, the police have to make a move. They've got, under French law, until tomorrow morning in which to either charge them or release them. And when they say release them, it doesn't mean they're necessarily going to go free. They can be released on sort of judicial control, which is to say they'll lift their passports or they might restrict them to a geographic area, sort of a house arrest kind of a thing. But they have to make some kind of move tomorrow morning. So we'll see, I think then, whether they -- any of these nine people are directly involved, because they'll be charged that way. They'll have (ph) charges.

BROWN: Right. But we know at least one of them in custody, his DNA was apparently linked to Amedy Coulibaly -

BITTERMANN: Right.

BROWN: One of the suspects, and another one is on the run. So that is continuing.

Let's also talk about what we're learning about potential missteps along the way from French intelligence agencies. That may have contributed to the fact that the brothers, the Kouachi brothers, sort of fell off the radar.

BITTERMANN: This is the same kind of thing we heard in the United States after 9/11, that intelligence agencies are not sharing information. Basically here there's an internal intelligence agency, an external intelligence agency, and then there's an intelligence that just all they do is surveillance and they provide information to the others. Well, the surveillance between the surveillance agency and the others doesn't seem to be a good, close cooperation. For one thing, for example, after they got that tip from the United States in 2011, they put the Kouachi brothers under surveillance. Now, they only were looking at their telephone calls. They didn't -

BROWN: Not their computers?

BITTERMANN: Not their computers and not any of their family, their wives, particularly their telephones. They had them under surveillance, one until 2013, the other until 2014. But in both cases they were dropped as being not important and not important enough to kept under surveillance. And there was one particular message that didn't get passed. In 2014, in February, apparently they picked up something in one of the telephone conversations that made them think that there was some kind of attack about to come down and the message did not get passed between February and June. It finally got passed in June, but by that time the two brothers were off the radars of the intelligence agencies. So it didn't -

BROWN: But you wonder still, even if they were off the radar, why, when they got this message in June, you know, why more wasn't done on this.

BITTERMANN: There questions we'll be asking. In fact, there are politicians here on both sides of the aisle are saying, listen, we've got to have a complete investigation. We want to have a thorough investigation about what really happened.

BROWN: Yes, a lot of lessons learned from this.

BITTERMANN: Yes.

BROWN: Jim Bittermann, thank you so much.

Brianna, back to you in Washington.

KEILAR: All right, thanks, Pam.

French authorities put the brothers responsible for the "Charlie Hebdo" massacre under surveillance in 2011. You heard Pam and Jim talking about that. This was after the U.S. passed along information about them. And yet, as we tragically know now, French security agencies did not keep the terrorists under surveillance. I want to bring in now the co-author of "Agent Storm: My Life Inside

al Qaeda." We have CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank with us now to talk about this.

So, Paul, put this into perspective for us. You have security agencies in France. They monitored cell phones of the Kouachis. They hadn't monitored their computers or the phones of people that they knew well. Why is this? Is this an issue of money or manpower or is this more an oversight?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, they - I mean they'd clearly like a do-over. And it appears that the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly used their wives' cell phones to communicate rather than their own cell phones. And, of course, their wives' cell phones were not under surveillance by French intelligence services because they didn't consider the wives terrorism suspects. They didn't get a judicial wiretap for these phones. So, to some degree, that was an oversight.

But in France, there are actually restrictions on the number of people that you can put this kind of intelligence surveillance on. So they just may not have seen the wives as priority targets. Remember, they have open surveillance files into 5,000 people in France that they suspect of violence Islamic extremism. So they have to prioritize. And the wives were just not seen as a priority and very ingeniously the brothers got around this.

KEILAR: It's so simple and yet, you know, such an easy way to evade here. The other reason that authorities may have lost track of the Kouachi brothers is, they may have fooled the agencies by laying low, kind of staying quiet for a few years. How long do you think that a target, like one of the brothers, should be under surveillance and how do authorities decide that it is time to end the monitoring, as they did in the case of the brothers?

CRUICKSHANK: Brianna, that's exactly right. I think what appears to have happened here is that the brothers hood winked French security service when they came back from Yemen in 2011. It seems like they pretended they weren't radical. And that's exactly what al Awlaki, this American cleric, would tell recruits. When you're back in Europe, camouflage your radicalism. Don't give authorities reasons to follow you closely. We know that because he told that to the guy I did the book with, Morten Storm, the double agent inside AQAP.

And it's when the French take off this surveillance in the summer of 2014, then the brothers then moved forward with their plan. So it's possible they were just waiting out the French to stop monitoring them by pretending to go about their normal life doing odd jobs here and there. one was involved in counterfeiting, for example. They were wearing normal clothes. They weren't putting out a lot of radical extremism, as far as we understand at this point. So these brothers very ingeniously pretended not to be radical anymore. The French had other priorities. All these people going off to Syria they were very worried about and they shifted the priorities there.

KEILAR: So now we've learned it's counterfeiting which helped them pay for the weapons. So that was really an issue.

Something that we experienced after 9/11. You have one agency. It doesn't know what the other agency is doing. And in the case of the brothers, one agency got an alert in February of this year about the brothers. Didn't pass it on until the summer. And by then the brothers weren't under surveillance anymore. What could be the reasons here behind waiting five months to pass on this information? Is it just because there's so much information or was this a mess up?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, Brianna, I think - I think we need to get more details on that, as the details are still pretty sketchy at the moment. But there has been historical criticism of the intelligence cooperation between France's external intelligence service and its domestic security service. Jim was talking a little bit about that earlier.

They've actually been trying to improve cooperation in recent years by rotating staff between the differently agencies on Syria, foreign fighter investigations, often even now joint investigations from both the foreign and domestic security services. But there are problems with intelligence sharing between these two agencies, there's sort of a protection of sources and meccas. Also people's careers. I mean you're trying to safeguard an intelligence scoop. You don't want the other ministry to get it. One of these ministries in the defense ministry, one is in the interior ministry. There's a lot of rivalry between those two. The French are going to have to pass some reforms to bolster cooperation between all the various agencies involved in security in France. They just can't afford not to now.

KEILAR: Yes, no doubt. That rivalry will have to be minimized. And you can expect, as we saw in the U.S., that they will be tightening up their cooperation between those agencies.

Paul Cruickshank, thanks so much.

CRUICKSHANK: Thank you.

KEILAR: And next, we have a live report from Yemen where the U.S. embassy is on standby to evacuate on short notice. This amid heavy clashes today in what the Yemeni government describes is a coup attempt by rebel forces. We'll bring in Nick Paton Walsh on the ground right now in Yemen.

And also, did the U.S. hack North Korea first? And if so, why didn't the feds prevent the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: One of the world's most dangerous places got even worse today. Security forces in Yemen's capital are pushing back against rebels trying to seize power there. Nine people were killed and dozens injured in clashes today. Earlier, CNN's Christiane Amanpour spoke with Yemen's information minister who said the government is losing control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What is the state of control of the government?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Almost non-existent.

AMANPOUR: Can you describe what's going on? Are you telling me the government is not in control?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, shocking, huh?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Is non-existent. A power vacuum could be a nightmare, and not just for Yemen, countries fighting al Qaeda are watching this fighting very closely, with the U.S. ready to evacuate its embassy in Yemen on short notice.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is one of the only western journalists in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.

And, Nick, if you would, first off, set the stage for us, who are these Houthis rebels and what do they want?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Houthis rebels are a predominantly Shia group of tribesmen, militia, politically aligned with the political representation here as well who have been sweeping across the country for the last month or so, successful in claiming territory. They're predominantly based in the north. But they've moved in to Sanna months ago and put up checkpoints across the city. Now that's fundamentally where today's dispute began.

They detained, 48 hours ago, the presidential chief of staff. Some of the president's people were worried they could potentially be next to be detained and they put up roadblocks to protect their buildings. That conflicted with Houthis checkpoints. That caused the violence to begin. We don't know who started it, but it ended to the right of me here, a remarkable scene. An artillery (INAUDIBLE) around the presidential administration itself hitting (ph) residential buildings. Many saying, look, really, whoever controls that building controls the city.

A ceasefire came in midafternoon. And I have to say, it's been relatively quiet. I have just heard some automatic gunfire in that pitch black behind me. It gives you an idea, really, you know, the infrastructure problems Yemen has. Half the city, or the capital, is black, without electricity. The other half covered in mist, where you can still see its lies (ph) and (INAUDIBLE) fireworks going off behind me too. It's quite. There are political talks going on right now. But if they don't succeed, then we (INAUDIBLE) back to where we were this morning and hours from now.

BROWN: What can you tell us because we know that there are Americans there. We have an embassy there. What kind of plans are in the works as far as evacuating them as things seemingly continuing to escalate there, Nick? WALSH: Well, I have to be honest, I was at the embassy earlier on

today and they are relaxed. It's a very well defended building. Many different layers of protection there for the staff. Saw the Marines on patrol there. They didn't seem to be imminently thinking about leaving. In fact, they assured me their numbers in the embassy have stayed consistent, even though the outbreak of violence in this city and even their councilor service for Americans here were open today. So they are very keen to, I think, to address that things haven't really changed. But, of course, as in every situation, the State Department will have contingencies. There is, of course, it seems, assets and a nearby gulf (ph) that could be used if it rapidly escalates here. That is still possible tomorrow. As I say, if that political deal doesn't come through and the Houthis don't seem to get that extra piece of the pie, so to speak, of political power here, then we could easily see that street fighting, which for a while seemed to be about controlling the country. That could come back into the full throw again.

BROWN: Yes, really a very tenuous situation. If you would, Nick, put this in perspective for us. Why should the rest of the world be so concerned about what's going on right now in Yemen?

WALSH: Well, remember, Afghanistan back in the late '90s and how al Qaeda had a foothold there, bin Laden. All of that lead to 9/11, many say. And that was because Afghanistan was a failing or a failed state under the Taliban who allowed al Qaeda in there.

Yemen is in a similar problem, really. It's had years of real difficulty holding itself together because of the civil turmoil here. In the last year or so, that's really accentuated the Houthis, predominantly Shia, often facing Sunni opponents. And that Sunni-Shia divide, that reflects a lot of the strife across the Middle East. So that's amplifying here and it's causing some Sunnis to be frightened of the sheer advance and side with al Qaeda. Many say that al Qaeda benefit in two ways. They have these Sunnis willing to fight the ground battle for them. That gives them space to go and think about external operations, attacking the west, but also, too, increased chaos, a lack of government institutions to help U.S. drones target al Qaeda leaders. That benefits the al Qaeda as well. It's a win-win for them, frankly.

BROWN: Ys, and that means, of course, is then it will continue to be a terrorist breeding ground.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for that reporting. Stay safe there.

Brianna, back to you in Washington.

KEILAR: Thanks, Pam.

Next, a new report claims the U.S. was cracking into North Korean computer networks and tracking hackers in that country four years before the Sony hack. So why didn't the feds see this Sony hack coming? Plus, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in London today addressing the tension across Europe after the Paris terror attacks. What he said about so-called no go zones coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: President Obama has placed blame squarely on North Korea for last year's massive hack at Sony Pictures. That was in apparent retaliation for the movie "The Interview." Now new reporting from "The New York Times" sheds light on why the White House is so confident. Citing unnamed computer experts and sources, "The Times" reports that the U.S. government penetrated North Korea's secure computer networks as early as 2010 and it tracked the movements of its government hackers. CNN can't independently confirm that reporting, I should definitely add that.

But let's bring in Mark Rasch, he's a CNN cyber and privacy expert. We want him to give us some insight on this.

So, this is really fascinating and it goes to the very heart, Mark, of why you had administration officials saying, we were very certain that this is North Korea responsible for this hack. If true, should the fact that the U.S. did this, should it surprise really anyone?

MARK RASCH, CNN CYBER AND PRIVACY EXPERT: No, nobody should be surprised at the fact that the U.S. targets for surveillance countries that we feel adverse to. So, North Korea would be one of those countries. It's hardly surprising that we would be looking at North Korea.

What's kind of interesting is the way we were looking at North Korea. So instead of looking at North Korea, we were apparently looking at South Korea, who was themselves looking at North Korea.

KEILAR: OK. That's - I mean that's pretty fascinating as well. And I think one of the things that you want to wonder when you read this report is that if the NSA had hacked into North Korea and had done this years ago, why didn't it perhaps see this attack coming, maybe in time to warn the company?

RASCH: Well, the first thing is, you have to be in the right place at the right time. You have to be looking at the right information and get the right information. Just because you're doing surveillance of a country or of a government doesn't mean you're going to get the information about everything that they're doing.

The second problem is, once you do find this out, let's assume that the NSA actually had advanced knowledge, something they've denied, you have that problem that, do we tell somebody about it so they can react, which will burn what we call sources and methods. It will tell the other side that we're listening. And that's a balancing act you have to do in each case.

KEILAR: Yes, and that's certainly one of the reasons why the administration didn't go on the record with this. I wonder if you can explain a little bit about how this works. As I understand it, it's, I guess, and, obviously, I'm a lay person, but it's a attaching soft tracking software in a way so that the U.S. was able to get inside of the computer systems of these hackers and kind of just keep an eye on what they were doing. Is that about right?

RASCH: Yes, the most common technique is what's called spear phishing and phishing with a "ph" not an "f." And what we do is we inject code, software, into a computer using a targeted attack. It's a specific computer operated by a specific person. That meant tracks their keystrokes, who they're typing, who they're typing to, their communications and sends it back to us. That's the most common way of doing it. There are lots of other techniques that can be used to do surveillance.

KEILAR: But that's real - so that's really only seeing kind of one piece of the puzzle, right, if you're just targeting a single computer?

RASCH: Well, you're targeting - you're trying to target somebody who's important in the chain and in the hierarchy. Other ways you can do it, is you can do network traffic analysis where you're capturing everything going across a very large pipe and trying to figure out what's important. That's harder to do because you have to get on the pipe. One of the things here is, we were trying to look at the pipe between North Korea and China, where North Korea has most of its communications.

KEILAR: Fascinating stuff. Mark Rasch, thank you for explaining that to us.

RASCH: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And, next, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal delivering strong words overseas today on the topics of terrorism and Islam and the debunked notion of these so-called no go zones. We will bring in Wolf Blitzer, who just spoke live with the Republican governor.

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