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Six Coordinated Terrorist Attacks Hit Paris; ISIS Claims Responsibility for Terrorist Attacks in Paris; President Obama Holds National Security Council Meeting in Wake of Paris Terror Attacks. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired November 14, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:12] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour live in Paris for our special coverage of the devastating terrorist attacks here that have really crippled the city and that have been claimed by ISIS.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. Let's get to right what we know as of this hour. New developments coming in, France under a state of emergency following six, six separate terrorist attacks. ISIS claiming responsibility. So far 128 confirmed dead, but the numbers really, these numbers will change and go up. As many as 180, maybe more. We're learning that American are among injured. What we don't know is just how many. French police continue to look for suspects. Police have identified one of the attackers as a French national.

AMANPOUR: And these attacks were incredibly coordinated. The pictures are quite disturbing. We want you to warn yourselves to be very careful as you watch because some of it is quite graphic. This cellphone video shows survivors of the nightclub attack jumping from the windows to escape the carnage taking place inside. That is just behind where we're standing now. It was at the Bataclan, and a concert was going on at the time. And other victims rushed out of the theater, first responders literally trying to drive people to safety.

Gunmen apparently broke in and opened fire, killing at least 80 people. Paris police say three of the four attackers were wearing explosive belts. Around the same time, John?

BERMAN: Around the same time there were explosions at a soccer stadium, the main soccer stadium in the northern part of Paris. Explosions rang out. Video captured the moment it happened.

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(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Terrifying moments there. At least four people killed at the stadium outside. French fans leaving the stadium. Those leaving showed solidarity singing in solidarity the French national anthem while they were right there.

AMANPOUR: CNN correspondents are deployed all over. What was extraordinary about the attack was that the French president was in the stadium as it happened.

BERMAN: In the stadium.

AMANPOUR: Unbelievable that they got so close to a head of state.

BERMAN: I just want to tell people where we are now just so they can place us. Right behind us is the Bataclan, the theater where the worst of the terror attacks happened. At least 80 were killed. You can't see it. It is behind those police vans now. There are tarps set up surrounding the entrance to the theater. Why?

AMANPOUR: Because they've been identifying, removing all the bodies. And just in the last half-hour we're told that the removal of bodies inside to the morgue so they can be further identified, so that family can collect them, so they can eventually be buried. Apparently that finally ended. We saw most of the police vans leaving there just moments ago.

BERMAN: Nic Robertson now outside the soccer stadium. Clarissa Ward is close by at the Bataclan theater. Clarissa, what's the very latest on the investigation?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're getting some new information in now that I want to share with you from a source close to the investigation who says that officials found two passports next to the bodies of the attackers, one Syrian passport which we've already been reporting, and one Egyptian passport, according to the source. But they also added that there's a strong assumption that these passports are fake, and certainly that would make sense. We know that at least one of the attackers was a French national.

And I just spent time talking to a father and son who survived the attack in the theater. And the son said to me that the men were speaking French without a trace of an accent, that they were, in his words, undoubtedly French nationals. But still really, John and Christiane, we have more questions than we have answers. Who were these men? How many were there? So far French officials are saying that eight attackers were killed. But quite clearly there needed to be a larger network to facilitate and orchestrate such a complex and multiple location attack. So a lot of questions here. That's why you've heard the French interior ministry saying we will continue to have strict measures. This is a state of emergency and France has not been in a state of emergency since 1958.

AMANPOUR: Clarissa, indeed. And the language today by the French president and even the former French president, obviously his political opponent, but the language from both of them today is the language of war. The French president said that ISIS has declared war on this country. Sarkozy said this country is at war and that our domestic and foreign policy needs to take that into account right now.

[10:05:10] BERMAN: Francois Hollande said we will be ruthless, we will be merciless. The language being used now as you correctly point out, bellicose to be sure, and different from after the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks. It was a coming together there. Right now surely there's solidarity, but there's also a sense of vengeance.

AMANPOUR: That, but also people are not allowed out here. They have been banned from holding any marches, any demonstrations, any public gatherings for the next several days. It's just not happening in Paris. The flea markets which are open every weekend which the world comes to shop at and get great items and great bargains, closed. This never happens.

BERMAN: On the subject of the world now, President Obama made very clear this attack not just in Paris on the French but an attack on freedom and liberty everywhere. I want to check with Jim Acosta right now. President Obama on his way to a big meeting, the G-20 right now, but he had a meeting of the National Security Council before he left. Jim Accosta with us on the phone from Turkey where the meeting will take place. Jim, what do you know?

JIM ACOSTA: They'll be holding a national security council meeting at the White House before he leaves for the g-20 summit. I'm in Turkey and I can tell you I just arrived on the ground here. The security precautions that are being taken here are immense. It took us a good 45 minutes just to make our way inside the secure perimeter where the summit will be taking place.

And I think it's fairly certain this will be something of a war summit for President Obama, for the other leaders gathered here. It appears ISIS has taken their fight against the west to another level. And the president had hoped to come into this summit with some victories, foreign policy victories against ISIS, the apparent killing of Jihadi John, the operation that took place in Sinjar where the U.S. was aiding Kurdish forces there.

But all of that obviously is going to be tremendously overshadowed with what has happened in Paris. It is certainly going to focus the world's attention on what ISIS is apparently planning to do at this point, that is really step up its attacks.

You know, the president in recent days said he believed that ISIS was contained. That was the word he used, "contained," in an interview with ABC news. Obviously when the president holds a press conference down here in Turkey at the conclusion of the summit, he's going to be asked about those remarks. His aides will be asked about the remarks even sooner than that.

And so this is very much a test of the president's policy dealing with ISIS in these coming days, and it starts with this National Security Council meeting that's taking place before the president leaves for Turkey. According to White House officials, he is going to meet not only with national security officials inside the White House but several cabinet secretaries, the secretary of state and secretary of defense. If they're not there in person, they'll be joining the secure connection. So the president definitely ramping up his focus on ISIS as he heads to Turkey just a few hours from now. Back to you.

BERMAN: Jim Acosta, he says it will be something of a war summit now, which is remarkable.

AMANPOUR: Well, John, in Italia he's going to be meeting with President Putin with all the leaders from around the world and all of them have obviously called in their sympathies and condolences to France. Even the president of China has. And Putin, Russia has also been targeted by ISIS just in that plane over Sharm el-Sheikh.

BERMAN: And the timing of this is remarkable, not just after the plane over Sharm el-Sheikh, but yesterday morning, the assumed killing of Jihadi John, the victory in Sinjar for the Kurds right now, a sense that there was an acceleration in the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. That's when the president used the word that perhaps we have contained them there.

AMANPOUR: I think he may live to rue those words. Contained it is not.

BERMAN: New this morning, a police source tells a CNN affiliate that two people there -- sorry, the Syrian passport was found on the body, near the body of an attacker outside the stadium in France, a Syrian passport near the body outside the stadium in France.

AMANPOUR: Now, four people died in the attack in the Bataclan. According to authorities three of them blew themselves up with suicide belts. One was killed with -- by the police. And outside the stadium three people, three of the attackers were killed in suicide attacks. The deputy mayor warned that more attacks may be coming.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a terrible, terrible situation. It's a tragedy that we are facing and experiencing. So I don't know what more to say.

[10:10:00] Of course tomorrow will be another day. But we don't know if it will start again tomorrow or not. Nothing says that this sequence is over.

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AMANPOUR: So still as you can hear the level of tension in the faces and in the voices of all the officials here. Paris is still under a state of emergency, and almost everything is shut down, all public buildings, all museums, all sorts of things like that. And for a Saturday, there are very few people in the streets.

We're going now to our diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, who is outside the Stade de France. Nic, what are you hearing there, anything new?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, one of the questions that's being asked in the French media is the coordinated suicide bombing attacks at the stadium here. And 80,000 people in the stadium. The French president, Francois Hollande, present. ISIS has said that they targeted this match because it was between two Christian countries, between France and Germany. They said they did it under the nose of president Francois Hollande. It's not clear if they knew he was going to be at the game.

But the question that's being asked here, there were three suicide attackers. They killed four people outside the stadium in their coordinated attacks. The question that people are asking is because of increased security, because of the presence of Francois Hollande, were they thwarted from getting into the densely packed crowd of 80,000 people? Could the casualty toll have been much worse?

What we do know is that at this, the main entrance here to the stadium, at about 20 past 9:00, the first attack on Friday night, last night in Paris, came with a suicide bomber detonating his explosives. The French president was very quickly whisked away. And 20 minutes later, the second bomber detonated his explosives a few hundred yards from me, just along the side of the stadium here. Another 20 minutes after that, another suicide bomber attacked, detonating his explosives close to the stadium. It appears as if they were coordinating with the first explosion to create that panic, to create that fear, to drive the crowds away from the stadium and then target them as they were leaving. Were they initially trying to get in amongst the densely packed crowd and the president's security here, higher levels than normal, obviously for normal, friendly soccer match. That kept the attackers away. That's a question that's being asked here potentially. The French president's presence at the stadium last night potentially, unexpectedly may have saved many lives, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: And what a fortunate, fortunate ring of security that was for the people inside the stadium. And you mentioned Nic and John, the three separate bombing attacks which really spanned the entire breadth of this attack. So there was three separate attacks at the stadium, and it dispersed with the attacks in central Paris, the drive-by restaurant shootings and the Bataclan attack. So it has been incredibly widespread.

BERMAN: Think of the flipside, though, the idea that perhaps more carnage was prevented. What about the fact that these people were able to plan this attack in the wake of "Charlie Hebdo," 10 months after the disaster there, the attack there, two weeks before the world comes here for the climate summit, planning an attack on a stadium where the French president would be? You would think they would be so attuned, security services and intelligence. But somehow they were still able to plan. Maybe not pull it off to the extent that they wanted, but still able to plan it.

AMANPOUR: John, obviously there are going to be questions. The whole country, the whole world was sympathetic to the French, the authorities, to intelligence, to security after "Charlie Hebdo." Particularly the French people are going to be asking questions here. How did this happen? How did this slip through your fingers when you are maximum alert because of all the deployment intelligence-wise and security-wise for the climate summit, and because of the threats that our intelligence were telling us were expected anyway? BERMAN: Just over the last 10 days. Of course, Paris such an

international city. It is believed that there were Americans among those injured. The State Department working very hard to work with families in the United States to connect them to their loved ones here in Paris.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And Elise Labott joins on the phone on more with Americans here in Paris. Elise, what do you know about that?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christiane, as you said, thousands of Americans living, working, vacationing in Paris, such a city that Americans travel to. Since the attacks, the State Department has been -- consular affairs fanning out, trying to identify if there are any American victims, trying to find Americans that need assistance. State Department hotlines have been really flooded with calls.

This morning Deputy Spokesman State Department Mark Toner issuing a statement, saying "The United States embassy in Paris is working around the clock to assist Americans affected by this tragedy. The U.S. government is working with French authorities to identify American victims.

[10:15:15] We are aware there are Americans among the injured and are offering them the full range of consular assistance." Consular officials fanning out, calling hospitals, calling morgues, trying to see if there are any Americans, families, calling in, opening up inquiries that are being followed up by the embassies. Of course, Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna today for this meeting of coalition to help find a political solution in Syria. He was able to see the French foreign minister, offer his condolences. But clearly America's standing with France today.

BERMAN: Clearly, Elise.

You know, one of the difficulties here, Christiane, is that they can't get all the information they want as quickly as they want to because of the geographic scope of this. Six separate attacks, not to mention the fact the lingering fear that there could be more coming. So sometimes the answers are a little bit slow.

AMANPOUR: They are. And of course the fact that they were separate was designed to stretch the responders, to stretch the security and the medical staff, to make it -- to overwhelm them.

BERMAN: Elise Labott on the phone, thank you very much.

We have much more breaking news coming from Paris, the attacks here, the hunt for possible people who may still be on the loose, who were the victims, all that and more right after this.

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[10:20:04] BERMAN: There's a memorial in Paris right now outside the restaurant, just one of the sites that was hit, one of six sites hit right now. So as you can imagine, six areas right now living memorials to all those who were lost not even 24 hours ago.

AMANPOUR: Flowers and candles. The last time we saw this was just 10 months ago when the "Charlie Hebdo" attack happened. And we're joined by the French author and commentator Bernard-Henri Levy about its incredible to us that it was not even ten months ago the last time we were talking to you about these mass attacks in Paris. I mean, how do you explain that this has happened so soon again?

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY, FRENCH AUTHOR, COMMENTATOR: These guys know what they do. They know that France is along with America, they're one of the main enemies. They know that Francois Hollande has not changed his lines in the beginning. First of all, there, is of course, a sorrow and mourning. Each of us feel that. What we have to understand is at the root of all that is in Syria and in Iraq. If we do not eradicate ISIS in Syria and in Iraq, we will have more events, tragedies as last night.

BERMAN: When we hear from the current leader, Francois Hollande, when we hear from the last French president Sarkozy talk about this in terms of war, this is now a war. Is that war in Syria and Iraq, or is that war here now in Paris as well, because listening to these leaders, it certainly sounds like they think the war is now here?

LEVY: If we don't win the war in Iraq and in Syria, we will have more and more war in New York and in Paris. I hear, for example, no boots on the ground. Maybe it is OK, but no boots on the ground there means more blood on the ground here and in New York. We have found that. As long as these evil guys remain standing and strong, we will have blood on our grounds as it happened yesterday night in Paris and as it happened 14 years ago in New York.

AMANPOUR: And it is very clear where this is going. And everybody's been warning us about blowback for a long time. And the intelligence services, certainly in England, say that people online are being radicalized so fast, violently, they don't even have time to get this there and stop it and stop this. But what is going to be the political game changer that will get the western leaders, as you say, to fight and defeat these people in Syria and Iraq, because it won't happen by the air?

LEVY: The leadership from behind is finished. If Mr. Obama wants to have a good legacy, if he wants to leave office with a real moral success, he has to help defeat them. I was three days ago in Sinjar with the Peshmergas, the Kurds. They were waging a great battle, and they won it, but they cannot do it alone, and not only with the weapons they have. We have at least to help Kurds more and more to defeat these devils because we will have more and more blood in our cities. Mr. Barack Obama has to understand that.

BERMAN: Well, just Barack Obama? What about Francois Hollande? Will France increase --

LEVY: Hollande said today very clearly it was a war inside and outside.

BERMAN: Does that mean French troops on the ground in Syria and Iraq? LEVY: It means that Francois Hollande, that France is very away of

the fact that the school training of all terrorists of the world of today is in Syria and in Iraq. We left there since one year and a half a real academy of crime, a real school of training of barbarity. It is -- that is the situation. It is for the first time that this war is the war we did not want to win. I don't know why. This is the situation. There is a man who did not want to be a king. This is a war we did not want to win. I think that the west democracies, the Arab countries have to win this war against a cancer which metastasizes and is spreading more and more. And what today happened with the climate, of course, I hope is the end. I'm not sure.

AMANPOUR: A moment of truth. All the leaders meeting this weekend in Italia and will all meet again for Paris for the climate change. It is a moment of truth. Thank you very much for having us.

LEVY: Thank you.

[10:25:00] AMANPOUR: And John, of course, we're going to be right back. We have an eyewitness and fellow journalist, Simon Kuper, who is going to be joining us in a second. He was in the Stade de France when those bombs went off last night.

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AMANPOUR: Hello and welcome back to our breaking news coverage of the Paris terror attacks. I'm Christiane Amanpour. And with me along with John Berman is Simon Kuper. He is a journalist for "The Financial Times." He's a Paris resident. But he was in the Stade de France watching last night's soccer match when the blast erupted. Before we go to him, we want to show what that looked and sounded like.

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BERMAN: You can hear the crowd there. Some people cheering. They were unaware of what was going on outside. Simon, you were. There what did you think was going on?

SIMON KUPER, JOURNALIST, "THE FINANCIAL TIMES": I thought this is too loud to be fireworks because the sound of fireworks is quite common at stadiums. A lot of people thought that. It was quite a boom. And then three or four minutes later, there was a second boom and the ground shook a bit. I thought, there was something wrong here.

[10:30:01] But we didn't know. We had no information. There's 80,000 people, enormous uncertainty. I had my laptop on, had the internet on. It took 25 minutes on the French sites to appear that there had been a bomb and one person was injured.

AMANPOUR: Does anybody even get nervous? Was there any idea that the match might stop? COOPER: I think the authorities thought it would be a disaster to

release 80,000 people on to the streets which were known to be dangerous, known to be attackers on the streets outside the stadium. My real fear is with hindsight. I think the attackers didn't want to explode the bombs 20 minutes into the game when people were safely into the stadium. They wanted to attack the crowd arriving at the stadium. That is my presumption. There is why three of the eight attacker were around the Stade de France.

AMANPOUR: That is interesting because we were talking and listening to other theories that they may have not known that President Hollande was there and that there was an extra ring of steel to protect him. They may have been thwarted by that.

BERMAN: It could have been even worse.

AMANPOUR: It could have been a lot worse because what happens at the Stade de France, like at many stadiums, in the last 20 minutes before the game, everyone arrives. They pile out of the train, and you have tens of thousands walking along quite narrow streets toward the stadium. And imagine that that is where they wanted to be. And you're right, maybe the security was too thick and they had to go back.

BERMAN: Simon, what was the trip home like for you? I mean, at that point, you knew to an extent Paris was a battle zone. There were fights going on, six separate locations. There were terrorist attacks. For you, what was it like to go home?

We're standing near the Bataclan, and it's just behind us. This is my neighborhood. I live 500 meters from here. And my children were home with a babysitter. As you can imagine, I was quite concerned. And so she locked the door, and I was in the Stade de France. We were among the journalists. German journalists were wondering, can I fly home? They were locked in the changing room not daring to leave. And I ended up on the police full of street cars and ambulances. So, yes, it was as if you were going into the middle of a battle zone, it's very strange.

AMANPOUR: You talk about a battle zone. The French president has said that this is a declaration of war by an army of terrorist, an army of jihadists. He named the Daesh Arab name of ISIS is. And he's promised a merciless and ruthless response did. Did you see him there? Could you see the activity around the president, because they obviously got him out of there pretty fast?

COOPER: The first news we heard was that Hollande had left the stadium. And so clearly something bad was up. I didn't see him. Hollande is not the kind of guy who is photo-ed before large crowds. So it was a large profile attendance. And he was whisked to Paris.

Everyone else was kept in the stadium. There were rumors we would not be allowed to leave. Some fans left singing part of the anthem. How do we deal do all this? We were a city of actually 12 million people from around the world get on pretty well together. That's the amazing thing about Paris. Paris is a miracle. It's the most beautiful city in the world. It works really well. Yes, we have tensions. On a day-to-day level you deal with people of all ethnicities and it works.

BERMAN: Simon, it feels different today than it did for me when I was here in January. There's more fear today and there's more anger today than there was after the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks.

COOPER: There's more fear because the attacks were terrifying and targeted. It was on a Jewish site, and it was the "Charlie Hebdo" offices. And this -- it was awful, and it changed France. This is random. These are just people going out in any number of places. And os once you feel that you're living in a city where anything can happen, you're in Beirut or the former Yugoslavia.

AMANPOUR: The true definition of terrorism. Simon Kuper, thank you very much indeed.

BERMAN: All right, so much breaking news here. We have new developments on the investigation, the possible search for people who still could be on the loose and the victims, as well. We'll be right back.

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[10:37:32] BERMAN: So many vigils around this city, Paris. Six separate terrorist attacks not even 24 hours ago at this point, more than 100 people dead. Right now they're saying 128, but that number will certainly change.

AMANPOUR: It certainly could because there are dozens if not hundreds of wounded, 99 of them critically. The bodies from the building behind us were taken away to the morgue for identification, for families to be able to collect the bodies of people who died in the Bataclan concert hall behind us. And that's where we find CNN's chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto. Jim, what's the new information you have?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, I've spoken to U.S. intelligence, a senior U.S. intelligence official. They say they have no reason to doubt the appraisal of the French president, Francois Hollande, in determining that this was an attack by ISIS. And there were details in Hollande's description of this which I think are both telling and worrisome, him saying that these attacks were, in his words, "organized abroad with local support."

And we're seeing that borne out in some of the details we've been able to report. A source close to the investigation telling me that one of the attackers identified via fingerprints was a French national. And the of course you have these passports found on other attackers, a Syrian and Egyptian passport. That speaks to an international plot with local support which shows really the expanse of ISIS and what it's able to.

Of course the other worrisome sign here is if one of the attackers was indeed known to police, it goes back to the issue we saw with "Charlie Hebdo" when all of us were covering that in January. That it you'll remember the Kouachi brothers who carried out the attack on "Charlie Hebdo," they had been known to French investigators prior to the attack. In fact one had been under surveillance by French police before being taken off it, which you could call perhaps an intelligence failure. But the trouble as, we well know, in this country, there are hundreds of suspected jihadis. And to cover and surveil hundreds of suspected jihadis, you need thousands of security forces, a factor of 10 really to keep one under constant surveillance. And that's something that is impossible in this country. You don't have the resources. It speaks to the danger going forward and it also helps perhaps explain how a country under the high terror alert that it is right now could possibly miss a plot as organized as this. And again, that key detail -- with local support but international, outside, as President Hollande said, organization.

[10:40:07] BERMAN: And that would certainly indicate new abilities for ISIS. The ability to plan whether it be in Iraq or Syria attacks around the world and France.

AMANPOUR: And this is the point, John, because since the Russian plane, since the Beirut attacks, and now this, ISIS is announcing we are changing, we are moving to the abroad.

BERMAN: And the irony is that it happened on a day, Jim, when President Obama was talking about ISIS somehow being contained. It came on the day where U.S. drone, they think, may have kill this man Jihadi John. It came on a day when Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air support may have won the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq. And the president said on "Good Morning America," said perhaps we have ISIS to an extent contained. What did the administration mean there? And at this point do they regret those words?

SCIUTTO: At a minimum, it was unfortunate timing to have those words come out of the president's mouth the day of really the most horrible ISIS attack so far. I've spoken to the administration, spoken to the National Security Council. They say that the president was saying contained only on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. And they go on to see that we have always said, that is the White House and president has always said there would be good days and bad days. So I asked them to identify what were the good days. And they point to yesterday, a day when they got Jihadi John for instance.

But it gets to a weakness in the broader strategy. This is a group where decapitation, frankly, doesn't work. One, you have a group whose members and leaders apparently court death as the attackers here did. This looks very much like a suicide operation. But you can have a situation where on a day you take out an operational leader as Jihadi John was. Today reports that a senior ISIS leader was killed in Libya. And yet, they can still carry out an attack like this. It is an atomized movement. In other words, it may have had direction and organization from abroad, but these guys can act on their own, a pack of lone wolves as it were with inspiration from abroad. It really gets to what strategy is necessary to stop this group.

BERMAN: Jim Sciutto, such a good point. The administration says contained on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. But ISIS isn't only ones fighting on that battlefield.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And they may not be getting their intelligence straight with their closest allies because the British intelligence has said that we are afraid and we are seeing a higher threat than ever of blowback from ISIS. So nobody outside the White House thinks that ISIS is contained.

BERMAN: Jim Sciutto, thank you very much. We have much more coming from Paris right now. Six separate terror attacks around this city, well over 100 people dead. We'll have much more after this.

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[10:46:26] BERMAN: ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks here in Paris. The attacks on six targets across the city including the Bataclan theater which we should point out is right behind us, a block away behind those police vans, tarps set up all outside.

AMANPOUR: And a really popular venue for people to come and listen to concerts and all other sorts of meetings. It wasn't just a concert hall. And Friday night, all the young people out and in there.

BERMAN: Again, ISIS claiming responsibility, saying the attacks precisely targeted. Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is in Iraq right now, in Erbil. Nick, it's ironic, you've been part of an operation embedded with Kurdish forces in their operation against ISIS there while ISIS says they struck here.

NICK PATON WALSH, FOX NEWS SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this is really I think a key question to what this means about the evolution of ISIS at this stage. When they started out, parts of their message was not really let's attack the west. It was about creating their caliphate, Syria, then Iraq. The issue I think now is does the series of attacks, if we are treating the downing of the Russian airliner as part of an ISIS campaign here, does this signify the move to abroad, to take fights to the enemies here, or is this something entirely different, perhaps about their loss of territory, because they're under a lot of pressure on different fronts here in both Iraq and Syria. Is that sorted of pressure causing them to instruct sleeper cells abroad to lash out? That's one key question.

Plus, the one you're referring to yourself, John, is there will be questions asked in retrospect as to how an attack of this level of scale and sophistication was missed by French intelligence. Let me just play you here some video, part of a number of ISIS propaganda videos that have been out. This one from back in November in which ISIS had French citizens in their ranks burn their French passports on camera and then openly goad French citizens to take up the jihad in their home country, saying, look, if you can't join us here, citing the prohibition on Islamic dress in France, air strikes by the coalition as reasons to inspire people towards carrying out jihad in their home countries, specifically France, even saying there are cars and weapons available to them to do that. So this has been a long- standing problem, videos like this quite common. The question, how did this attack get missed. John, Christiane?

AMANPOUR: How exactly, and there will be so many questions asked here once the initial shock of what's happened, the human catastrophe is what's happened has sunk in. There will be very pointed questions. The president of France said that ISIS today had declared war on this country. He called it an army of terrorists, an army of jihadists. And he promised the reaction and response would be ruthless and merciless, and it would be in this country and it would be abroad. And he also said, didn't he, that this was planned outside but with complicity inside the country.

BERMAN: That's right. This is a war against ISIS taking place where Nick Paton Walsh is right there in Iraq and Syria, but also now here.

AMANPOUR: And we'll see the extent of that what kind of game changer this might be. And we'll be right back after a break.

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[10:54:00] AMANPOUR: Welcome back to our special coverage of the terrorist attacks in Paris only 20 hours ago. And in solidarity, countries around the world have bathed their significant monuments in the red with and blue colors of the French flag. From Freedom Tower in New York to Seattle to Canada to London and even to Shanghai.

BERMAN: It is remarkable, as you say, Christiane. Only 20 hours since the attack. The worst hit was the Bataclan theater right behind us. Right now behind those police vans, just one of six targets. We want to show some of the sights of horror that people saw last night as it unfolded.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have breaking news for you out of Paris, France. Several people have been killed following a shooting in central Paris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was crossing the street, and straight away, boom, it exploded right in front of me. Everything was blown to bits. This is the cell phone that took the hit. It's what saved me.

[10:55:06] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One in a string of shootings, terror attacks, bombings at two restaurants that we know of and the city's major soccer stadium.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an act of war committed by a terrorist army Daesh, an army of jihadists against France.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a huge panic, and the terrorists shot at us for like 10 to 15 minutes. It was like -- it was a bloodbath.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is an attack not just on Paris. It's an attack not just on the people of France. But this is an attack on all of humanity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The feeling was like bloodiness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could see the dismembered bodies, corpses, one on top of the other. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I call on unity, joining together despite the

grief. France is solid, is active. France is valiant and will triumph over this barbarity.

(SINGING)

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