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Raid For Mastermind Under Way in North Paris; Two Terrorists Killed in Raid; Foreign Minister Says Operation Has Ended; 3 Terrorists Killed, 3 Arrested in Saint-Denis Raid. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired November 18, 2015 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for joining us. We want to hand it over now live to Paris and our chief international correspondent Christian Amanpour will bring us the latest -- Christiane?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Isha, good morning.
It is 8:00 in the morning, and as the sun has risen, so, too, has more clarity been shown on that police raid under way in Saint-Denis. Saint-Denis is sort of the north suburb, the north area of Paris. That is where the Stade de France is located so it is very close to the scene of one of the terrible crimes that took place on Friday night, the multiple suicide bombings in and near the Saint-Denis France which, very fortunately, only killed the suicide bombers and one other. It could have been much worse. So the police have been looking very, very hard. A massive manhunt for one, two and maybe three people. Since then, the mastermind, we understand, is the target of this raid, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. But we do not know if he's in that apartment currently under siege by the forces in Saint-Denis.
Atika Shubert has been standing by.
This raid has been going on for about three and a half hours now with riot police and helicopters in the air. Atika, tell us what you know. What is the latest from right there?
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the moment, it is quiet. We have a number of different units here, including military, on the streets of in Saint-Denis. We have a number of riot police. They are armed. You can see some of the soldiers that have been brought out. Most of them have been deployed closer to the area where it's unfolding. They're forming a perimeter around there.
Now, in addition to those units, we know a SWAT team was here. And most interesting, we saw the investigative police coming into the crowds with masks on. They appeared to be looking for somebody in particular and moved over here. They were showing what looked like a photo on the phone. They seemed to be looking for someone in particular. So a lot of different units in this operation.
At the moment, it is quiet. But it is still ongoing. We're waiting to see what happens next. Earlier, we heard those controlled explosions. We don't know exactly what those were. They seemed to go off as regular intervals. We're hoping police will give us an update as to what is happening in the operations soon - Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Atika, regarding those explosions, we understand is that there have been some injuries. Anybody here in France who turned on their televisions in the last two hours saw in the dark hours this raid going on. And they have been waiting to know that this current danger is over and under control because there have been these terrorists at large ever since Friday, the mastermind and the chief operators of this cell.
So do you know, have the police said anything about some kind of explosion that went off in this apartment where there are reports that a woman may have killed herself, what the reports may be? Do you know any more?
SHUBERT: Police have not given us any details about that initial operation, how it started. What we know from talking to residents is that gunfire was heard around 4:30 in the morning, sustained gunfire, what appeared to sound like automatic gunfire. There was the sound of an explosion. Now, we don't know what that explosion was. We have seen reports on local media that it was an explosion inside a particular apartment. We have not confirmed that with police at this point. They will not give those details. But we're trying to find out. What we know is that they were specifically chasing those suspects wanted in connection with the terrorist attacks. We don't know how many or who they are. There is the report from AFP that this is possibly Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind this attack. But, again, police have not confirmed that to CNN at this point -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Indeed. Even if they are targeting Abdelhamid Abaaoud the mastermind, there is, as you say, no confirmation that it is in that location. Certainly there is a huge police presence and we understand police receiving more resistance while that gunfire was under way. As you said, Atika, several people -- we don't know many -- perhaps in that apartment.
According to the mayor, who we've heard on television, on the radio, he has said that it is centered around just one building. Is that what you understand, that it is just one building, one apartment in the very heart, the very center of old Saint-Denis that is the target?
[02:05:13] SHUBERT: That is what we are hearing, as you say, in the very heart of old Saint-Denis. You can hear the church bells going off as daybreak in this neighborhood. But what it looks like was a helicopter had a spotlight on a particular building. We could see it in the plaza down there. We're being kept a safe distance away from where that's happening. They did seem to focus on that one building.
Having said that, again, we saw the investigative police coming into the crowd, looking for people. Maybe it was accomplices. We're not sure. But they're clearly also had units moving up and down the residential streets with their weapons up, pointing up into the upper floors of the buildings. Perhaps they were sweeping the area to make sure no other suspects were in the area. So it's hard to know exactly where they were pinpointing, but they have sort of cordoned it off now telling resident toes stay inside for their own safety -- Christiane? AMANPOUR: And, Atika, the mayor has also said and, of course, we saw
overnight in the dark pictures where you could see the helicopter very, very clearly a few hours ago shining his light on something as you described. The mayor has -- and the authorities, perhaps the police, as well, have closed down all public transports, schools, colleges in the heart of Saint-Denis. Is that correct? We understand the metro system, the buses, the trams, all of that closed down, including schools.
SHUBERT: That is correct. Schools in the immediate area have been closed. The metro subway has also closed. The main highway route into Saint-Denis also been closed. People in this neighborhood have been told to stay inside away from their windows, no one should be going out to work at this point. They must stay inside their homes. We've seen residents from around the area trying to get back into their homes after a late night shift with their breakfast and baguettes in hand. But they're not being allowed in at this point. Everybody is trying to stay a safe distance away from what's happening because it is still very much an ongoing operation -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: And, Atika, you were there. We were all here during the "Charlie Hebdo" massacres, and you were out covering the police hunt and the search certainly for the brothers who attacked "Charlie Hebdo." The reason I ask you this is because clearly the police want to take these terrorists alive. Given what you saw with the "Charlie Hebdo" police raid, in the end, those terrorists were killed because they refused to surrender. Give us a sense of what you remember from then and what police really want when they go on these raids.
SHUBERT: That's right. I mean, in the best case scenario, police are able to apprehend the suspect as quietly and as quickly as possible to make sure that nobody in the public is put into danger by the police chase, this manhunt. In the "Charlie Hebdo" case, the brothers were on the run for several days, even at one point reported to be hiding out in a forest. They were finally cornered in a business district, a small business district not far from the Charles de Gaulle Airport. There they holed up. They were surrounded by police. They were under siege for a relatively short time before they came out, guns blazing, really, and they were gunned down by police.
We don't know exactly what the situation is here. We don't know how many suspects the police were looking for. It does seem to be targeted on that one building. And according to residents, they heard sustained gunfire. So what appears to have been possibly an exchange of gunfire at first several volleys and one around, there was an explosion heard, and then another sustained round of gunfire. So it did go on for some time. Now, it's impossible for us to know what that means in terms of the suspects being alive or whether or not they had been apprehended. We are simply going to have to wait for police to give us some sort of confirmed detail on what the outcome of the operation is and will be. It is still very much an operation in progress -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: And as we keep looking at these pictures of this operation under way, of course, from quite far back, we're seeing the perimeter, we're seeing various security personnel and their vehicles. As we've said, it is far back from the actual building, whoever they may be, flush them out. Remember Coulibaly, the attacker last January at the kosher market here, he also was killed when he came out after a long siege. He had hostages and everyone was worried he would do harm to those hostages held in the market. Has there been any suggestion by the police that there have been some hostages in this apartment that the terror suspects may be holding?
[02:10:31] SHUBERT: We have had no indication of that so far. It's certainly possible, but police have not indicated that to us. I think it was a serious concern for the police that that may happen. This is a residential area. There are a number of people living here. It is quite easy for people to move around and it was clearly a big concern.
I think the timing of this is interesting, 4:30 in the morning. This is a classic time for police to launch operations in the hope that they're going to catch suspects by surprise. That is slightly different from the situation with the Kouachi brothers. The Kouachi brothers were sort of cornered. In this case, it may well be that the suspects had no idea the police were on to them and cornered them in this way in Saint-Denis.
And, especially, if it is confirmed that Abdelhamid Abaaoud is one of those holed up in the area that would be absolutely remarkable. This is a man who was targeted for years by intelligence. If he is, in fact, here, it would mean that he is hiding in plain sight in the middle of Paris, plotting all of these attacks.
AMANPOUR: Atika, let me just read you some information that we've been listening to amongst our affiliates and other French media. Quoting our affiliate, BFM television, French media, they are reporting that "One woman on the scene blew herself up," apparently, some suicide attack. The French used the term "kamikaze." One woman in the Saint-Denis standoff blew herself up, according to French media, and one suspect remains inside alive the apartment that is being targeted, and that, as you say, this raid is still under way and the operation continues.
Atika, stand by because we're waiting for you to get more information on that.
And we're going to go now to our CNN terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank, to give us more about the importance of Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
As we know, Paul, he is the most important Belgium jihadi to have gone to Syria yet, and he is considered the mastermind of this entire plot. And, Paul, tell us he's been linked to other plots which have failed in the past, Paul?
PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST (voice-over): That is absolutely right, Christiane, but I have new information from a senior Belgium counterterrorism official tells me the information coming in to French and Belgium investigators indicated that high-priority targets were at the address being targeted in Saint-Denis in this ongoing raid and that they possibly included Abdelhamid Abaaoud. This is just a hypothesis. And when they went in, the French police, they did not know for sure that Abaaoud was at that location. But it's now been confirmed to CNN that information and it has been suggested that Abdelhamid Abaaoud was at this address, which is a stunning revelation given that he is the suspected ringleader in this attack on Friday in Paris, given the fact that he has been linked to a whole string of issues in Europe against France, including the attempted attack on a train coming into -- in the summer, including the French ISIS operative who was arrested in August, who said he had been told by Abaaoud to launch an attack on a concert hall in France, the ringleader of that major plot that was thwarted in Belgium in January. Abdelhamid Abaaoud having a connection and communication with Metti Amush (ph), the French ISIS fighter who killed four at the Jewish museum in Brussels last year, so somebody of really huge interest to every single Western intelligence agency.
The idea that he could have got back into Europe despite all that scrutiny is a stunning development. It also raises the possibility there was a second-wave attack being planned by this group, that Friday was just part one and there was something else coming down the pipeline in Paris, a very disturbing potential development. The key figure of the conspiracy could still be at large and the ringleader would have come all the way to Paris.
But we have to caution that, according to officials, they did not know for sure that Abdelhamid Abaaoud was there, but there was troubling information that had come in to investigators that they've received, that they've developed, which suggested the real possibility that he was, indeed, at this address where we're seeing this ongoing raid -- Christiane?
[02:16:03] AMANPOUR: Paul, let me ask you -- and there is more information that several police officers have been round wounded in this ongoing operation. But let me ask you to pin down this information you're getting about Abdelhamid Abaaoud that we have been told at least since Monday that he is the brain, the Belgium that went to Syria more than a year ago and has been one of the most important and fierce fighters for ISIS to have come back, to have come back and now organized this attack, Friday the 13th. And as you said, was linked to so many others which failed. But here is what I would like to ask you from your Belgium sources. There were reports that Abaaoud was surveiled on the cameras as one of the passengers on that car that was abandon. There were reports that he had gossiped, told, reported to a friend, a French citizen who had come back to Syria, that he planned to attack, quote, "a concert hall." Can you pin down any of that information? Just as we build the picture of who this mastermind is that they are targeting today, whether or not he's actually in that apartment, he's certainly the target.
CRUICKSHANK: The senior official did not take one way or the other, Christiane, whether that information was -- Abaaoud was the third passenger in, in that Fiat involved in the attack. It was described to me as information that came in, information suggesting that he was very possibly at this address where we're seeing this ongoing raid. We're going to be chasing details on this, trying to develop our own information on it, how they came to launch this raid on this address.
But I can tell you that it wasn't just Abaaoud that they thought was there. They had information suggesting several high-priority targets were at this address. This was a major raid and a key breakthrough in the investigation and in securing, frankly, the capital, because the existence of heavily armed terrorists in a -- a neighborhood in the northern part of Paris is a disturbing development, given the -- what we saw play out on Friday and the fact -- you know, the world's media has now descended in strengths in Paris.
Was there a second wave spectacular being planned? I think that, you know, there is a strong possibility of that, given the fact that people like Abdel Abdelhamid Abaaoud crave martyrdom and, in one of the videos, he appeared in from Syria, he said martyrdom is what I am striving for as the highest. And I think it raises the implication that there were more terrorists involved, still at large, many more than we feared planning a phase two of this operation -- Christiane?
[02:19:38] AMANPOUR: Paul, let me bring some more news that we're getting from our affiliate that we can report.
Our affiliate, BFM, saying one terrorist blew themselves up and this ongoing operation while inside that apartment, believed to be a woman. And another we're told was shot dead by police snipers inside the apartment. Sadly, police say, is that a civilian outside has fallen victim to this operation and has been killed. We'll bring you more of that information as soon as we get more details on all of that.
We understand one suspect, according to our affiliate and their police sources, is still alive inside that apartment and that is why this operation continues under way.
We're going to turn now to Julian Ferron (ph), a political scientist and analyst at the University of Versailles. He has worked for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as other European think tanks.
Julian, thank you very much for joining us.
What do you make of this operation? Is it surprising to you? Do you believe that it had the threat of, perhaps, more terrorism or are they hiding in plain sight very close to the stadium?
JULIAN FERRON (ph), POLITICAL SCIENTIST & ANALYST, UNIVERSITY OF VERSAILLES: First, let's hope that the actual situation is over now. The justice minister has just said that.
AMANPOUR: Oh, really? Oh, really? The justice minister just said that?
(CROSSTALK)
FERRON (ph): The justice minister just said the operation was ending. So let's hope that that desperation is over. But the administration released that, that these are the last days, this is the last act of the dramatic theater piece we have seen with these -- amazing, another person who blew up. It's a situation we've never known in France. So it's very dramatic for the whole population. But it's not that surprising, either. This is a culture of death.
What we have to understand, it's not a regular welfare where the soldiers want to stay alive and so on. They want to keep the attention and to attract people and to make them biggest number of deaths. That's what they want to do. So that is a culture for them. It's the end of the path. It's a positioning, intellectual positioning. So they want to die at the end and -- like that, to end like that.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: How -- I mean, obviously, it is so important and one of them apparently -- I don't know what -- what else did the justice minister say?
(CROSSTALK)
FERRON (ph): She said the operation was ending.
AMANPOUR: And what have they found? What have they got?
FERRON (ph): Well, we suspect that it's about Abaaoud, but we don't know yet if he was --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: So they want that person.
FERRON (ph): They want that person.
AMANPOUR: And if this cultural death, as we've seen, and we know, how bad will it be for France not to get him alive? And, obviously, he has so much information, he could lead them to so many different plots, different people.
FERRON (ph): We have very good intervention police, world-class raids, so we can be absolutely sure that if they have to shoot, they shoot, but otherwise they try to keep him alive. Because we are a democracy. We judge people for what they don't. We don't kill them like that. They would very, very important, but, once again, it's very hard when you face somebody whose plan is actually end dead.
AMANPOUR: Are you surprised about the report of a woman who apparently had a suicide belt strapped to herself, according to our affiliates, according to the reports that we are able to pass on, that a woman was with them in this apartment, apparently with a suicide vest on some sort or a suicide belt, and blew herself up?
FERRON (ph): So the idea of a suicide belt is not that surprising. We got into the fact that there have been three suicide bombers at the Stade de France. So maybe they had that already or maybe it was another way that she found out to have one. We don't know yet. But it is not that surprising. The role is very interesting and regarding to the jihadi networks. They are --
(CROSSTALK) AMANPOUR: It would be a first for ISIS, wouldn't it? The Chechnyans have used women, ISIS has not.
FERRON (ph): In France, absolutely no. In Europe neither. In the Middle East, they have some brigades, but they're usually not suicide bombers. They're usually fighters of religious believes so this kind of thing. So they hold A.K.-47s, but not --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: And groomers and recruiters online.
A quick question, before I turn to Alain Bauer. Saint-Denis, literally, they are there practically under the nose of the Stade de France, the scene of the first massive attack on Friday night.
FERRON (ph): Yeah, it's the same city, indeed. But the fact that it's completely under cover. The police might have some hard time to find. And it's a secret world. They have their networks. They have the place to hide. So if we don't catch them directly after terror attack, after they left the scene, for instance, it's completely blank. We have to find them back. It's exactly what we did.
AMANPOUR: Julian, stand by.
FERRON (ph): Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Let me go to Alain Bauer, who is joining us by phone. He's a professor of criminology and we've spoken to him many times in this past year with the terrorist attacks that have befallen France.
Alain Bauer, what do you make of the current operation under way?
[02:25:18] ALAIN BAUER, PROFESSOR OF CRIMINOLOGY, NATIONAL CONSERVATIVE OF ARTS AND CRAFTS (voice-over): I think the operation is now finished and it's successful for real intelligence, ground intelligence made by judiciary police. And it was linked to the modus operandi of (INAUDIBLE) by being near the operation. It happened in Brussels and just after the attacks against "Charlie." And the idea was he may be still there. The second idea was, on the statement, they said (INAUDIBLE). They did not. So maybe they were waiting to finish it and by (INAUDIBLE) that helped to lead the investigation to the flats was found in the 18th district.
So, yes, it's very important, very effective operation, which is now ended for this one, but some of them happened today also in Toulouse, because, as you know, the people that were involved in Paris were linked to old networks. So we are just going to be sure with a state of emergency to now check everything that was not possible in the country.
AMANPOUR: And, Alain, let me just once again tell our viewers the figures that we are getting from various sources, but from our affiliate, citing police and justice and other sources.
Let us repeat that two of the terrorist necessary this apartment who the police were going after are dead. One has blown herself up. It is a woman who has blown herself up, according to our information. This would mark a real departure and a real first certainly in France but certainly for ISIS. France's justice minister, I'm being told, as we just reported with Julian, says the operation is coming to an end and we will now who exactly they targeted, who they killed, and who they may still have alive, because we understand that there is at least one terrorist in the apartment, or there was one terrorist still alive in the apartment. Another, according to police, has been killed by sniper fire.
Atika Shubert is right there.
Atika, fill us in on all these numbers, facts and figures now.
SHUBERT: That's right, Christiane. It does appear as though the operation is winding down. We've seen a few units appear to be leaving and saw some of the plain-clothed officials coming in. The minister of justice says it is coming to a close soon, but we're still waiting for more details on that.
In terms of what we know about the actual operation, our affiliate, BFM TV, has reported one of them was a woman and that she had explosives and she detonated them. Basically, a suicide bomber inside the building. We understand also another suspect was wounded but remains alive and possibly in the building, maybe in police custody. We're still trying to get confirmed details on that. There have been other reports of those wounded but we have not been
able to confirm them. At least one, possibly two police officers wounded. We've hear another may have -- possibly a passerby may have been caught up in the operation, as well. We're still waiting for confirmation on that.
But all of this unfolded around 4:30 in the morning when residents here heard that automatic gunfire, sustained automatic gunfire and an explosion. And the operation went on for quite some time. So this was a serious and sustained operation. But we're waiting for word from police on who exactly they have in that apartment, if they can confirm that, in fact, it is who they were after, which was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind behind these Paris attacks -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Indeed, Atika, all of France, all the world wants to know exactly who they were after, who they have. And we understand one of them is still alive, although maybe wounded. Again, so important to know who these people are.
[02:30:00] Again, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the presumed mastermind of this plot, a 27-year-old Belgium who went to Syria more than a year ago and is considered the most violent and vicious of the Belgium Syrian jihadis to have returned. He has also been linked to many previous plots, most foiled. But, again, the mastermind, presumed mastermind of the Friday the 13th Paris attacks that left 129 dead, more than 350 wounded and has resulted in a massive manhunt.
Now let's not forget that this is also another man at large and wanted. Perhaps he may have been caught up in all of this. Again, we do not know. And he, of course, is Salah Abdeslam. An international manhunt has been out for him and an international arrest warrant has been out for him, as well, after those attacks on Friday.
We're going to show you a little bit of the sound and the images that went on when this operation started. It started when night was still fallen, it was still dark. There were helicopters in the air above this building in Saint-Denis, which is very close. It is the district, the neighborhood where the stadium finds itself, very, very close to the scene of that first attack on Friday 13th. As I said, there were helicopters in the air, a huge police and paramilitary presence there. It started at 4:30 around that time this morning. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A number of police were masks on with balaclavas and armbands that say police. These are the investigative police. They were looking around in the crowd here among the journalists, moving now down the street. They seem to be looking for something in particular. A number of male officers and a female officer moving down there. Again, we couldn't see any of them. They had their masks on. Very usual that they were moving in the crowd here and looking for something and have now moved down the street. You can still see them here operating. They're showing their photo to -- oh, and an explosion has just gone off. This is still very much an ongoing operation. That was quite a large explosion in that direction. A second one now. Just hold on. No gunfire that we can tell so far. A third explosion. Fourth. That was much larger. Police asking them to move back. There are a number of military soldiers that are now being moved into the front, as well.
Again, John and Isha, this is very much an ongoing police operation at this point. We know a number of suspects have been cornered. We don't know the exact number or who they are. That's another explosion that has just gone off. And another. This seems to be a series of them. We don't know if these are controlled detonations or not.
It's gone quiet for now. But very unusual scenes here we saw. Just to recap, a number of those explosions we heard. We saw a number of the police have -- the military have been deployed on the streets, as well in addition to the heavily armed police that are out here. We saw a number of investigative police with masks on, balaclavas, coming into the crowd of journalists seemingly to look for somebody and moving down the streets showing a photo of some sort on their phones to the other police stationed here, clearly looking for something. Again, very fluid situation. It does appear that those explosions have gone quiet for now. But we will keep on top of this situation for you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: So, Atika, that was you when it was still dark and when this was all still under way. You counted several explosions. There were, perhaps, more than a dozen and we know from our affiliate that at least one of the sounds was the suicide explosion of one of the terrorists, a woman inside the apartment. Now, as we've been reporting from the justice ministry and elsewhere, this operation is coming to a close. Atika, how do you expect it to play out now where you are? Do you expect to get any firsthand word from the police or the spokes people there if there are any?
SHUBERT: I think, at best, we may be able to get some details from police on whatever when it's over, but we won't get all the details, clearly. What they'll need is forensics teams going in afterwards to look for further evidence. And this is all part of that investigation to find out exactly how the attacks were carried out, but, perhaps, most important, if there were any other attacks being plotted. So they want to try and disrupt that network to thwart any possible future attacks, as well. So I don't think we'll get all the details immediately, but hopefully we'll be able to get some once it's confirmed the operation has concluded -- Christiane?
[02:35:29] AMANPOUR: And, again, let's just say what we are able to report. According to our affiliate BFM television that there have been two terrorists killed. One, as I described, apparently a woman with a suicide device who blew herself up inside the apartment as it was under siege while this operation was still heavily under way. And another, we understand, has been killed by a police sniper, a paramilitary police sniper, one of the security officials involved in this. And, therefore, we are told two people dead. We are waiting to get further information as to whether one of the terrorists is still alive, whether there was a third that may have been wounded. In any event, we're waiting to get full confirmation of that. We also understand very sadly one civilian was caught up in this crossfire and may have lost their lives and also three police have been wounded in this operation.
Julian Theron (ph), who is a political scientist and a keen observer of this kind of activity here.
Give me a sense of Saint-Denis. This now has a bad reputation in terms of what people know since Friday the 13th.
JULIAN THERON (ph), POLITICAL SCIENTIST & ANALYST, UNIVERSITY OF VERSAILLES: Yes. It's an area where there's a lot of immigrants. It's not a very wealthy area. So there is a mainly simple people, but there's also some suburbs here.
AMANPOUR: Those are the inner-city projects --
THERON (ph): Yeah.
AMANPOUR: -- where so many of the poorest and the most disenfranchised of the population are shoved out of sight and have -- too much of certainly petty criminality and, as we've seen before, radicalization.
These are real issues, right? France is going to have to have yet another serious dialogue about how it deals with its majority Muslim population who don't feel, many of them, anyway, part of the system.
THERON (ph): Yes. But we should say a lot actually work in France and are very integrated in the French system as well. It's not a question of religion, radical religion --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: Socioeconomic.
THERON (ph): Exactly. Meaning that it's kind of contained between misery and no prospect in life, criminality, because all these guns, they come from criminal networks, actually. So it means there's correlations and some other choice terrorists have been convicted for criminal activities, meaning there is some links between radical Islam and criminality. And this is the way we have to deal with the question. So you are right, took the real meaning of that. It was supposed to be short-term cities for incoming immigrants after the war in Nigeria, and actually is still known and the people over there are no prospect, no job. There is less and less civil education, for instance. The only services over there are usually education. But the young teachers in there couldn't do much about that. The police stations, even the policemen sometimes are very afraid to go there. And when we have to arrest somebody, they send special police forces. And the population over there, we have to get some reform regarding the city and to get some solution for the youngsters over there, otherwise it's rather criminality of this kind of despair.
AMANPOUR: President Hollande described -- first of all, he said Syria is the biggest terrorist factory in the world right now. And he said, you know, about the French accomplices because he said they was planned in Syria, the operation was organized in Belgium, just across the border, and carried out in this city with the help of French accomplices. He talked about petty criminals who then are radicalized who then become terrorist criminals, as we've seen. So many of the people we've named, who blew themselves up and got killed in the police raids, and talking about the terrorists, have such known petty criminals.
THERON (ph): They are criminals. They claim to be Muslims --
AMANPOUR: Drug traffickers.
THERON (ph): Yeah, yeah, drugs, weapons, everything.
[02:39:57] AMANPOUR: Weapons. And in Belgium -- and this is an incredible detail. As I say, Salah Abdeslam is still on the run and he's considered one of the main in operatives, heads of this Friday the 13th attack here. His brother owned a bar, along with other brothers in Belgium, and yet he came and blew himself up in a bar here in Paris. What -- it's hard to understand.
THERON (ph): We have to understand that it's not any kind of rationality. We don't have people -- rationale people who work like that. It's just like you said, petty criminals. They just make bigger criminal activity, which is actually jihadism. They claim to be Muslim, but in the end, they just kill people. They start criminal activities with some drug trafficking and so on and they switch to a jihad.
AMANPOUR: Stand by a moment. We have new information. A police source tells CNN that three
terrorists have been killed in this operation. Three terrorists, according to police sources, tell CNN, have been have been killed in this operation in Saint-Denis. First we knew one of them had blown themselves up, a woman. Another had been killed in that same operation that lasted about four hours in the predawn hours up until light had fallen here. Now we understand three terrorists. So we do not know whether any of those terrorists, any of the suspects in there, any of the targets of this raid are still alive and whether we'll know any more about it.
We're going to go right now to Atika Shubert in Saint-Denis.
Atika, what more can you tell us?
SHUBERT: That's right. We are now getting reports that there were a total of six suspects inside the building. We now know from a police source that three died in the attack. One of them, we understand from BFM TV, a suicide bomber, a woman. The other two apparently killed with the gunfire going on in that operation. We also understand that the other three have now been arrested by police. So it does seem it's coming to a conclusion.
It's very interesting that they have three now in custody. I would imagine that there are all kinds of interrogations, investigations now, not only to find out how the attacks were conducted, but if there are any plots still in operation at this moment and how they can be thwarted -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Again, we are waiting with bated breath to know the names of those terrorists, those who have been killed and those who remain, those under arrest. They were obviously hopefully be sources of a huge amount of information, at least some information. And, of course, we have to remind everybody that the target of this raid, according to French sources, French authorities, was the presumed mastermind.
Let's, again, recap, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgium who went to Syria more than a year ago and has returned, one of the most violent, fiercest of the Belgium Syrian refugees -- rather Belgium Syrian jihadis -- I'm sorry to make that mistake -- Belgian Syrian jihadis, who have come back and who has also been linked with other plots that so far have been foiled. But he has been a target of a manhunt over the last several days and he has been a target of law enforcement authorities for a long time now. He's appeared over and over again in the most revolting ISIS videos, making threats, recruiting, and generally swaggering around as an ISIS fighter. And, again, he was a person of interest way before this attack. According to sources -- and we haven't yet been able to pin this down -- but according to very highly respected media sources, he had once thought to have said to a fellow French citizen who had returned from Syria that he planned to attack a concert hall.
Let us bring in Julian Theron (ph) again, professor and expert on political science and all of these criminal and security aspects that we're talking about. OK. We're being told three dead and three under arrest. This is
going to be a trove of information.
THERON (ph): Yes. It's good for the information and to dismantle future networks that are preparing for other attacks. And the point is that we see it is a whole network we are speaking about and it is not only a three or four person planning something on the side in their apartment. That it's linked to Syria apparently with a mastermind. Right now, the operation of the operations, a lot of operations, different means of actions. So it's a huge question. The president said these enemies are not the enemies of the French, they are the enemies of the world, and it's the case.
[02:45:01] AMANPOUR: And we are trying to confirm right now reports from our affiliate, BFM, that the president and the interior minister are meeting about this operation. It wouldn't be surprising. These are the things that the authorities are concentrating on very, very intensely. People have been quite scared to think that these terrorists, some of them were still at large and there could be potentially more attacks.
Just a couple of nights ago, I'm sure you remember, we were here and so many people had come out to pay respects, to gather around the monument here and, within five seconds, this was cleared because there was a panic sent out through crowd. They thought something was up. So, really, people on tenterhooks, but also people -- I detect over the last few days, really resolute, really want their government to step up the fight.
THERON (ph): Yes. People are afraid. But even regarding to the reactions of the people during two attacks, we have lots of information of people on the ground trying to take care of people, to remain calm. And even inside the Bataclan, there's more room where 20 people were inside. We see there's a kind of adaptation to the risk. Perhaps after "Charlie Hebdo," people recognized the risk and that people have to be resilient about that. But it doesn't mean resilience is to accept that there may be more of the terrorist attacks. The French, under the government and so on and so forth, so what will be important to see is how the nation keeps together and we hope that the political class will do the same.
AMANPOUR: Just to reconfirm the deaths, the injuries from this now- hour plus separation this morning, as we told you, three terrorists are dead, according to police. Three are under arrest, according to our affiliate. And we are hearing confirmation that three police officers were wounded in this raid. Talking about the police and the very obviously stepped up presence of police, the special riot forces, the president has asked and has approved an extension, a three-month extension of the state of emergency. Again, many people in democracies would consider that to be a step too far, but, clearly, people are going to have to decide whether they accept to trade for a period of time some civil liberties for stepped-up security.
THERON (ph): We are not talking about a kind of attack here. We are talking about an emergency situation. You ask that to the parliament when we are still on the event in and we are talking about that right now. So we are still in an emergency. So we need some special means for the authorities to act properly as an emergency situation. It would be different if, of course, the situation remained longer. The state of emergency was declared the biggest -- the longest time it was two years. So we see that --
AMANPOUR: When was that?
THERON (ph): It was after the Algerian war.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: Yeah, so that was a long time ago.
THERON (ph): Yes. But what we would like is the president to trade some kind of less intense civil liberties for some kind of more -- how could I say -- some more flexible means, if there is some specific threat, to act properly on a very short time, for instance. So you ask the parliament to introduce that in our constitution.
AMANPOUR: Since you are a political scientist, this also has very ugly political ramifications. The whole refugee crisis, now trying to link these attacks to at least one who posed as a refugee who came in. This is literally stoking the fires of the far right, anti- immigration, anti-immigration, xenophobic parties here, in Sweden, in Germany, across Europe right now. And there are elections in France and in other parts of Europe in the not too distant future. What do you think the political landscape will look like in the next -- after the next round of elections in the wake of this attack?
THERON (ph): You're completely right. It's a European trouble. Coming in a year where there's refugee crisis and questions all around Europe and the rise of the far right, even in countries, the most democratic countries like sweeten or Finland and Denmark, meaning that we have a kind of political crisis throughout the continent. And the police situation is tense nowadays. So we have to find out some security measures and to promote democracy because that's what it is about in Europe. It is about democracy. Regarding the French political scene, we are seeing this today, of the parliament, they booed the government. One of them, one of the M.P.s --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: What party?
[02:50:14] THERON (ph): The Republicans. And one of the M.P.s from there said the government has blood on their hands. I mean, it's a very dangerous situation to say that. So it's pretty tense. And the far right is on the rise, as well. Like you said, we have elections in one month and a half. Even the presidential elections in 2017, they are still here.
AMANPOUR: We just want to say that our police sources are giving more information. There were six suspects holed up inside that building, which accounts for what we have accounted for, according to sources, three were killed, three are under arrest. So confirmation that there were just six suspects inside that building, which was the focus of operations for about four hours from the dark hours into the morning light, and that there was one woman who blew herself up with a suicide vest.
We're going to go to international security expert, Will Geddes, for a little bit more perspective on what just went down here in Paris and also the impact -- Will?
WILL GEDDES, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT (voice-over): Good morning, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Give me a sense of your assessment of what has happened and how it will impact the situation on the grounds going forward. Obviously, we're waiting to see whether the name, the big name that we're all waiting to see was targeted is either dead, arrested or not there, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. What do you think will be the result of some of those that have been arrested today? What do you think they will be able to provide?
GEDDES: Well, I think there's going to be a rich treasure of information that's going to be drawn from the individuals they're successfully arresting. If Abaaoud is one of the individuals within the apartment, this will be incredibly important to try and take him alive to get as much information as they possibly can. Ultimately, if he is seen as an intrinsic, if you like, trigger person or central figure for ISIS operations in Europe. And he will no doubt have a wealth of intelligence he will be able to share with the authorities.
AMANPOUR: And, Will, when you've heard all this discussion that we've been asking about the fear of proliferating attacks and the way that the security and intelligence are not just stretched around Europe, but even if there is the manpower, there's sometimes not the time to go after the thousands of people who are now, you know, being looked at, radicalized, people who have gone to Syria, people who are coming back.
GEDDES: Absolutely. I mean, in terms of the dawn raid and the Paris raids that the French authorities have undertaken this week alone is unprecedented. And inevitably, it's a very robust statement that Francois Hollande wants to extend out to all the individuals who may have ever appeared on their French intelligence agency radar to try and shake the trees as best as they can to see what falls out, to see if there were any other plots they weren't aware of, where there were cases of the weapons and, again, there are a number of weapons which were found, whether the authorities were aware of that or not, again, we'll probably only find out in times.
But the most important thing, I think, right now, certainly with this happening in Saint-Denis, is why the mastermind would be still in Paris. Most times with Paris attacks, certainly the key organizers or orchestrators of these types of operations would be as far away as they possibly can from the scene of the incident which would lead us to believe that obviously this operation could have toward potentially another succession of attacks.
AMANPOUR: Or, by the same token, it would indicate that the place was so sealed that these people didn't dare move away and had to get to some kind of safe house almost in plain sight.
GEDDES: Yeah, absolutely. That is a very valid point, an extremely valid point and they can have believed certainly they need to take refuge in what we can only speculate to be one of their safe houses until such time as the attentions drew down.
Bear in mind, Francois Hollande make a quick statement that he was going to respect a state of emergency across France and evidently within this -- not the immediate period, but for some period to come, they wouldn't have been able to move outside of that safe house.
[02:55:10] AMANPOUR: Will Geddes, thank you very much for that perspective.
And we are going right now to Brussels and our international -- senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson.
Ivan, the name Abdelhamid Abaaoud is going to live on. He is believed to be the mastermind of this horror that was committed in France on Friday. Obviously, people believe -- well, he was the target of today's operation, whether he was there or not. Give us, round out the picture of who he is and just tell us more about him.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He's a Belgium citizen. He's perhaps one of the most notorious of the Belgiums who have joined ISIS. Know him very well here because he brought his 13- year-old brother to Syria to join in ISIS. He's been seen in propaganda videos filmed there, one of them where he was driving a truck and dragging the bodies of victims behind them through a field in Syria.
His father, his family, lived in the neighborhood I'm in right now, Mollenbeek, which is largely immigrant, largely Muslim, a community, part of Brussels just about 10 minutes' drive from the center of the city. And this neighborhood has bizarrely been a very fruitful recruiting ground for ISIS militants, for a number of people who have been involved in violence attacks in Europe as well as in the Middle East.
So he was also implicated in a cell that was broken up by the Belgium authorities back in January in the east of Belgium. In that situation, you had Belgium police that conducted a raid against a building and were involved in a deadly fire fight with at least two people who were killed inside. And in that incident, they discovered weapons, explosives and, more ominously, Belgium police uniforms, and that is one time when Abaaoud's name was linked to what was an apparent plot to carry out some kind of attacks, certainly, against the Belgium police, and was foiled by Belgium authorities.
Now, again, he came from this neighborhood, Mollenbeek. This was the same neighborhood that two brothers who have been implicated in the Paris attacks came from. In fact, I'm standing about a hundred feet, Christiane, from the home of this family. The older brother, Ibrahim, killed himself in a suicide bombing in Paris on Friday night. And a younger brother, Salah, he is at large right now. He is wanted by French and Belgium authorities. And when he was last seen, he was leaving Paris in a car driving in the direction of Belgium, and interrogated for a short while by French authorities. The car that he was driving in was found by Belgium authorities here in Mollenbeek afterwards. But he will very much still at large. And the Belgium authorities are preparing for the worst-case-possible-scenario as long as that man is at large. The Belgium federal prosecutor told me yesterday that as long as that man is at large, they are worried about possibly further acts of violence that he could carry out. Their brother, Mohamed --
AMANPOUR: All right --
WATSON: -- was questioned here, who lives here in Mollenbeek. Christiane --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: I don't mean to interrupt. You're right.
WATSON: -- he has come out and made a public appeal for his brother to turn himself in -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: That's right. Yes, indeed. And Salah Abdeslam is still on the run.
In the meantime, the prosecutor's office is telling CNN that the operation is not over. They also do confirm that the woman was the person who blew herself up. And they believe, according to the representative of Saint-Denis, actually, there in that town where the operation was going on, that perhaps they may still be in the building. So what we had told you is that three terrorists are dead, three were under arrest. Now possibly there are more who may still be in the building or those three still in the building. We will continue to cover this story, the operation that was under way ever since 4:30 a.m. this morning and that has netted quite a catch as the police had this international manhunt under way under the stepped-up emergency laws, started this raid, when it was still dark this morning. Helicopters, as you can see, the military, and the paramilitary and riot police and others all around that building.
