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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Mali Hostage Situation; Latest Information on the Paris Attacks. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 20, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:13] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: But we've also learned that two gunmen are dead. The Mali army says that there are no hostages inside the hotel, anymore. But ten people have been found dead in one of the hallways, and there are reports of several injured. Many hostages who were fortunate enough to escape included six Americans.

The defense officials are telling CNN that all U.S. military personnel are now accounted for in Mali.

The attackers arriving this morning with a vehicle that had diplomatic plates on it, they fired as they entered the hotel, and the gunshots went on for several minutes.

The AFP is reporting again that those two gunmen at least are dead. We are not aware of additional gunmen.

Our Robyn Kriel is in Nairobi, Kenya, right now, and she is joining me live, and CNN Military Analyst General Spider Marks is also with me.

Robyn if I could just begin with you, the very latest about, all of those hostages they were upwards of 170 people who at one point were locked in the hotel. And little by little many of them got out, where are they? Are they telling their stories and what's the circumstance at the hotel now?

ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we understand that at the moment security personnel are working their way through the Radisson Blu Luxury Hotel in the center of Bamako, Mali, clearing room by room.

We do have an eyewitness at the scene who says that briefly a short while ago he did hear one loud explosion, and we're not sure if that was a sun grenade perhaps being thrown by some of the rescuers are going door-to-door or if indeed there are still attackers at large inside of the hotel.

The hotel is very big, a190 rooms. So there are plenty of places for those hostages to the hide, and as well as attackers, so it's going to be a quite a precise and lengthy operation going room by room to try and make sure that those attackers are not still there.

And we can also tell you that the United Nation took to General Ban Ki-moon recently condemn the attacks as did several other members of the U.N. Security Council saying that they are with Mali.

The U.N. does have quite a large base. And they did respond alongside the Malian army today. The U.N. mission there also having a few staff inside they said that that three of their U.N. personnel were evacuated quite early on in the siege. Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Robyn Kriel, thank you. Standby if you will. I want to bring in Spider Marks just on the tactics that these killers used.

You know, our Erin Burnett was able to get some phenomenal intelligence on what happened the moment that those bullets again to fly,

She interviewed somebody who was having morning coffee in that hotel in the lobby. And all of the sudden out of nowhere a man appeared wearing a jeans and a checkered shirt and a hat and not dressed in commando gear, not wearing any protective flack material, does that tell you anything about this enemy as supposed to those who were wearing suicide vests and others who have worn the commando gear in the past?

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.) MAJ. GEN., CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Ashleigh, it does. The short answer is that when you have a situation like we have seen in Mali where they take hostages, that means they're looking for some form of a concession.

What you didn't see in Mali was a killing field. What we've seen with ISIS is a total disregard for the next steps personally in terms of the terrorist, and in terms of the damage that they conduct.

So this is a clearly different tactic that we are seeing in Mali, and it really gets to the root of some challenge that's in Mali, part of their kind of their - there are radical Islamists that are in Mali certainly as we know, and there's probably some, a large long list of social grievances, part of a civil war, if you will. But this is different from what we're seeing in ISIS. But it's easy to conflate the two, because France is smack dab in the middle of it.

You know, France and Mali have a long history. And frankly a pretty good relationship right now. So President Hollande is not only the challenges in Paris, he's now trying to respond very openly and aggressively with what took place in Mali.

BANFIELD: So Spider, here's what makes no sense to me, we just heard that commando, the captain of the commando team that raided the Bataclan with that remarkable story to Lester Holt, saying "Look, I'll negotiate give me your phone number," and they answered with a bullet of AK-47 fires that launch right into that shield that they had and an incredibly jaw dropping image.

This guy apparently according to Erin Burnett's interview, he just opened fire, I mean he was shooting just like those others, but at the same time, taking hostages. So now I'm completely confused that this is just a rag tag organization speaking the local languages Erin found out as suppose to speak in some other dialect or Arabic or anything else.

[12:35:04] But doesn't make any difference for those who respond, I mean are they going to respond the same way no matter what kind of killer who's in there?

MARKS: Well, they have to, you have to make the assumption and you plan for certainly Ashleigh the worst possible outcome that exist.

So the ability to have what I call lesser included tasks within this larger confrontation that you have.

So you are entering into the engagement realizing that you may have a very, very significant threat, but then you can ratchet it down based on the level of violence or the ability of the individual who's conducting this killing as to what his or her state of mind is.

Can you get into it? Can you negotiate out of it?

Clearly with ISIS, there is no negotiating you just hit the nail on the head, very, very poignantly. Can I have your cell number? Can we have a negotiation? Of course not.

And I think that's the narrative that we need to embrace very fully, when you look at ISIS, these will be what we're seeing in Mali, is that with ISIS, really doesn't matter what we do. How we act, what we are is just entirely repugnant to them.

And so it clearly as a situation where it is no negotiation with ISIS, it's entering into relationship that means it's all or nothing. There is nothing that we can do that will alter their view of us.

BANFIELD: We'll have another conversation about how to respond on the more global level whether you make the rebel bounce as they talk about in Afghanistan, doing that now in Syria or whether there's some other kind of warfare involving intelligence that needs to be waged.

Thanks you Spider Marks, appreciate that, Robyn Kreil thank you as well.

You know, so many people died in the attacks a week ago in Paris. But at the same time so many lives were also saved.

Coming up next, the images of hope amid all of that tragedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:08] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage from Paris. I'm Poppy Harlow.

Some important news I want to get to you in just the last few minutes we have learned from the French prosecutor's office that a relative of the ringleader of last Friday's attack indeed did not blow herself up in those race on those apartments in Saint Denise Paris on Wednesday.

Instead officials now say that a man in that apartment set off the suicide device and that subsequently killed the woman as well. This as police came and search of Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He of course the ringleader of all of this was killed in the attack. The body of still unidentified man with them was found in the apartment just hours ago. We have also learned today that authorities have surveillance video of Abaaoud get this on a Paris metro train in the metro station on Friday night while these attacks were taking place across this city.

Those pictures have not yet been released. It has been one week since the tragic attacks in the city of light. And some images of hope and inspiration have been emerging, and they have gone viral.

A young doctor who helped save countless lives on Friday night in the emergency room took one of the most striking images. We spent all week trying to find him, we eventually sat down with him last night to hear why he took the picture, and the message that he hoped to send.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this is one worth countless.

Have you ever seen anything like you saw on Friday night?

POURYA PASHOOTAN: Never, hopefully never.

Dr. Pourya Pashootan, was off duty when the shots rang out across Paris. He raced to the hospital.

PASHOOTAN: I went directly to the first floor where there was the most injured people.

HARLOW: How many people did you treat on Friday night?

PASHOOTAN: There was 27 person who came to the hospital and we are not used to seeing this kind of injury here. Maybe in other, in other country, maybe in the U.S., but we can see this kind of thing, maybe people use guns, here not.

HARLOW: You're not use to treating gun shoots?

PASHOOTAN: No, not so much. A few a year, but not tens of people coming all together in one place. There was many people we tried to help for each person, there was injury of the face, injury of the thorax, of the belly, some war scene.

HARLOW: It was a war scene?

PASHOOTAN: Yes. It was exactly that. The most difficult thing was the context, to see the fear in the eyes of the people who were coming. That's why most of them young people but it was everything, everybody were there and...

HARLOW: All of different religion.

PASHOOTAN: All different religion, just everybody.

HARLOW: What was the message you were trying to say send with the photograph?

PASHOOTAN: there was a big mobilization for everybody to save people. We came here to help people, it's our job.

HARLOW: We are all together.

PASHOOTAN: All together, yes. Everything was awful. The only thing that was incredible this night and quite nice was the mobilization of everybody.

HARLOW: Somehow, with this photograph you found the good.

PASHOOTAN: In the middle of this tragedy there was a little bit of hope. And we were there to show that we'll be always there.

HARLOW: You won't give up?

PASHOOTAN: Never. Never give up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Never give up. Our thanks to him and all of the doctors and the first responders here in Paris who saved countless lives last Friday night.

Coming up next, the FBI says there are no known ties between the terrorists in Paris and anyone in the United States. But what about copycat, people that want to do what ISIS did in this city, and can law enforcement possibly keep their eyes on all of them?

[12:45:01] The live reports are next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: And we have this breaking news out of the Paris prosecutor's office. For quite some time now, we have thought that during the Wednesday's raid in a Paris neighborhood called Saint-Denis that a female suicide bomber blew herself up, and we are now being told that those reports are wrong. That apparently this woman did not blow herself up. That a male colleague who was standing close by did, and that she was killed in the explosion as well.

[12:50:02] Also, remarkably just in the last few hours, we are learning that will there is a third body that was discovered in the apartment.

I just want to show you the significance of the explosion, we're working on actually just get that tape together, because ABC News had obtained some cell phone video of the moment that the explosion went off, and it was really just a profound moment. And I'm going to get that for as soon as I can, but what an incredible development from the Paris prosecutor's office, up until now everybody had thought that it was that woman who set herself off and she did not, a male colleague did.

The was in an attempt to find the ringleader of the Paris attack from a week ago today, his name of course Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and he was killed in that raid, it is that third body, we don't know who it is, but it is a male, and rest assured they are looking closely to try to make an identification as soon as possible.

In the meantime, the FBI is closely monitoring dozens of suspected radicals here in the United States out of fear of a copycat attack like the one in Paris. But law enforcement officials are stressing this, there is no known relationship between the Paris attackers and anybody here in the United States so far.

CNN Justice reporter Evan Perez is joins me live now from Washington. I find it just sort of incredible that they are stepping up, taking it up enough (ph) the analysis and the investigation into a list of people already here. I would have thought that would happen after Charlie Hebdo, or it happened after a number of different attack. But what's different now in the way they're looking at this people here?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, there was -- Ashleigh that were taking especially after the Garland attack. If you remember there were couple of guys who tried to attack a Prophet Muhammad drawing contest there. There were stopped, nobody except the two attackers were killed with the FBI really -- that case really scare people at the FBI because it suddenly woke them up to this idea. It's not really waking up, but certainly underscored the idea that you have these ISIS supporters here who can go as the FBI directly like to say from c flash to bang very quickly with a very little notice

So that's what happening now. In light of Paris, they've taken in a couple of dozen people or two dozen people that they believe are at the highest LIVE EVENTvel of concern, people who they believe could go to from flash to bang more quickly and with very little notice and they want to make sure that have their eyes on them, so they increased the surveillance, they're doing more wiretapping, and they're making sure that they know exactly where those people are as they try to investigate and build the cases against them if there is any way of bringing charges against them. Altogether, there are about 900 investigations open around the country on ISIS sympathizers, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, I wanted to ask you that, what you said going from flash to bang very quickly, we just reported this really remarkable breaking news from the Paris prosecutor's office that the woman we thought blew herself up did not. That she was blown up by a male who was in proximity.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: But up until now, we've been talk about this young woman radicalized and self-radicalizing.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: Only about six months ago. I mean, talk about flash to bang. This is a person who's been described as living a somewhat western life, and definitely not a Islamic life.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: We're also hearing about Ibrahim Abdisalam who blew himself up outside the stadium. That guy owned a bar up until eight days... PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: ... before the killing. A bar by the way that was close down for being, you know, played with the drug problem.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: But how on earth are they supposed to keep track those people with their radicalizing that quickly.

PEREZ: That right. And that is actually the tremendous problem that law enforcement and the intelligence agency faces that yu have these guys you know that they're consuming some of these propaganda, they know that some of these people are on websites looking at this stuff, and they don't know at what point in their head they go from the deciding that they are reading and supporting perhaps, giving some measure of support to ISIS and what it is doing overseas, and then deciding that they're go and kill people in this country. That it's impossible to get inside these people's heads. So what they do is to try to do monitoring to see if they can figure out any changes in behavior to try to isolate that.

BANFIELD: I have that piece of video I just want to show it really quickly...

PEREZ: Sure.

BANFIELD: ... the moment that the suicide blast went off.

PEREZ: So, remarkable.

BANFIELD: And it is really shocking. Again, it is not the woman, it is a man standing close were knowing that it takes on a different significance. Let's watch. I am not sure how anybody would be interested in joining this kind of a group knowing that is what your pal will do with you standing nearby as this man did to that woman. Is there anything from the forensics, because they have been combing through the site that we can learn here in the United States. How much info sharing is going on live?

[12:55:00] PEREZ: There's a tremendous amount that for instance we know that they have shared, the French authorities have shared photographs of the suicide vest just to make sure people here are aware of what it looks like. We are told it looks like a bulletproof vest. It's black or dark blue. It has wires. It is a way for French authorities to alert the U.S. law enforcement of what exactly this bomb that was made with TATP a home made explosive, what that could look like and it's definitely something that's going to be useful for law enforcement Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yeah, hopefully those lines of communication, given that there have been...

PEREZ: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: ... these threats against New York and Washington. Evan Perez, thank you for that.

And thank you everyone for watching. My colleague Wolf Blitzer starts right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:04] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. (inaudible), 7:00 p.m. in Paris. Wherever you're watching from around the world.