Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Brussels Raised Terror Level to Maxim Threat Level; ISIS Threats; Small Army of Hackers Working in Shadows to Disrupt Terror Groups. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 21, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:07] POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you live from Paris tonight. It is 9:00 in the evening. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We begin tonight in Brussels. It is a city on lockdown, because of the quote "serious and imminent possibility of a Paris-style terror attack." That warning coming today, directly from the Belgium government, as it raised the terror level there to the maximum threat level. The fear that individuals with weapons and explosives could target multiple locations at one time. Today, the subway in Brussels, the capital, completely shut down. Shops are closed, people are being urged to stay home or at least to avoid large crowds.

We are also learning about arrests made in connection to last week's attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Police in Turkey today arresting three men, including one suspected of scouting potentially the target sites for the Paris attacks. A fourth suspect was also picked up in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. Police seizing weapons from his home.

CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir is live for us in Brussels this evening.

It is astonishing, Nima, when you look at what we're seeing in Brussels right now, the fact that this city is on high alert, the fact that this city is basically shut down.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And that the raids continue. The searches continue. Just this evening, Poppy, we have seen reinforcements coming into Brussels' town center. Police searching, just a few roads up from where we are now, we saw them using flashlights to look all the passing vehicles, including transit, buses, taxis. They are clearly looking for someone.

And a few moments ago, sirens were just passing behind us here. Definitely you get the sense of the city on high alert. There is still some traffic here, but given this is a European capital on a Saturday night, not what you would expect. It is absolutely astonishing to see Belgian soldiers surrounding hotels. They have asked people not to congregate in the center of town.

This morning, we were in one of the main shopping districts where some of the few shops there that had opened were very quickly closed by police, Poppy. And you could see this very contained effort to not raise panic, to not scare people, but at the same time, they are clearly dealing with something very serious here, Poppy.

HARLOW: Nima, have they been specific at all about what the threat is? I mean, you have got the prime minister of Belgium coming out, saying it is an imminent threat, but are there any details?

ELBAGIR: Well, the sense we are getting is that there are two threats to this. So there is the threat where there are part of this ongoing investigation into the broader network around the Paris attacks, but there is also this very real, very imminent threat of a Paris-style attack that they are trying to come to terms with and really trying to get ahead of. And we get that sense, also, because of the sparseness of the details that they're willing to share. Even when we were standing on that street corner, watching those searches, very quickly, police vehicles moved to block our access in terms of what we could see. They are trying to limit the information that can be used against them by any potential attackers.

While at the same time, balancing the reality that there are still tourists in this town, Poppy. There is a population that is afraid and there are people here who are visiting, who are trying to carry on with their holidays, and not give into the panic. And that is really a huge challenge that faces this government today.

HARLOW: Absolutely, Nima Elbagir in Brussels, thank you very much.

Here with me in Paris, Nic Robertson.

And Nic, directly to those arrests in Turkey, three men, one of them arrested on suspicion that he may have sought out and basically staked out where they were going to murder 130 people, injure almost 400 more. What else do we know about what happened in Turkey?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hugely important for French officials right now, because he may be able to connect that - maybe join the dots and connect to, who were the facilitators, who are the financiers, who are the people behind it? Ahmed Dahmani, a 26 years old Belgian of Moroccan descent, and we remember the ringleader here, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Belgian and Moroccan descent and if Belgium together.

We don't know why or how the Turkish authorities knew to move on this man, but he was meeting two other men, Turkish authorities belief were members of ISIS, believed they had come from Syria, believed that they were going to take Dahmani into Syria to get away from intelligence officials, whisk him away.

So this has been shut down now. He will be a huge benefit to both Belgium and French officials. Interestingly, the town where he was arrested, Antalya in Turkey, the same town President Obama was in just a week ago for the G-20.

[15:05:01] HARLOW: Sure, for the G-20.

ROBERTSON: Absolutely. This shows you, these people are kind of doing all of this out in the open and playing sides. HARLOW: Absolutely. And then, you still have, of course, the hunt

for Salah Abdeslam, the eighth attacker here in Paris. Any leads on that yet?

ROBERTSON: No. I mean, people have asked the question, is he the third man who was killed in the raid in Saint-Denis? Logic tells you he was not because he was last seen going to Belgium. But from authorities here, they haven't announced who was the third person that was killed. We know that he was a man, that's as much as we know.

We believe last that in seen heading towards or into Belgium, the Belgium authorities have two people who were with him. They went to pick him up. They described him as being nervous when they picked him up. But he called to ask him, they come and pick him up. But where is he now? He seems to have gone to ground, though. We know with this network, they are able to go to ground, move around Europe without being spotted. They have networks. That's what happens when they go to Syria, when they go to Iraq. They're with others from other countries, like-minded members of ISIS. So they have their networks. They have their trusted people and come here and know where they can go to hide. And that's seems like what's happened to him right now. And of course, Belgium authorities and French, hugely important to get him as fast as possible.

HARLOW: He has to have some sort of help, because how could he evade the best intelligence in the world right now.

Nic Robertson, thank you so much, live for me in a very windy Paris this evening, I should say.

Let's go straight to former CIA operative and CNN security and intelligence analyst, Bob Baer, also with us, CNN contributor and a journalist himself, Stefan de Vries.

Bob, let me begin with you. Building on what Nima said, last night Brussels declared the highest threat level. People have to stay away from airports, anywhere crowded. Basically, this is a city on lockdown where the train, the metro station, is not even running. And this is also a city where you have the highest per capita number of citizens who have less to join the jihad. You have got a huge black market for weapons there. What makes Brussels so vulnerable?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: It's the poverty, the North African immigrant population has been marginalized over the years. Belgium doesn't have a particularly strong government, central government. There's not very good coordination between the police.

But, you know, at the end of the day, just the poverty and dislocation of these people, and of course, the wars in Syria and Iraq and this easy transit of people across Turkey, Greece, and into Europe, and getting this battle training.

And then, thirdly, I would add, the availability of weapons. When I used to work in Brussels and this part of the world, you just couldn't get automatic weapons. And this is something new since the Balkan wars and really (INAUDIBLE) and opened up the borders. HARLOW: Absolutely. And I want to bring in Stefan here as well.

Because what we just saw happen here is both the lower and the upper court house here in the French government passed almost unanimously a state of emergency. And that gives the police very sweeping powers, preventative detention powers, search and seizure that is very limited by law for three months. You say that is a bad decision. Why?

STEFAN DE VRIES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's a very tough decision, because it's basically puts democracy on a standby. There were only six members of parliament who voted against this bill and so there are over 900 members of parliament. So you have an idea how unanimous this is.

HARLOW: Yes.

DE VRIES: On the other hand, there are a lot of critics now saying that the government is acting too quickly. It's not thinking rightly because these are times of emotions. So they are basically acting on emotions. But it is, according to the government, the answer the French people would like to hear.

There was a poll this week that over 80 percent of the French, they support the Francois Hollande's actions. So it shows that the French are probably waiting this kind of response.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Bob Baer, to you, do you think that that is necessary to have these sort of overarching police powers for the next three months, to gather the intelligence roundup, the people, that they suspect may be connected to this terrorist web. I mean, when you think back to New York and the United States in the wake of 9/11, we didn't have something similar.

BAER: Well, I think it's unfortunate and I agree that this is very dangerous for Europe to have these powers. But on the other hand, I see why Hollande did this, simply because there had to be a reaction from the French government after the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks and the attacks in Brussels before, you really do need to, you know, they see an obligation to suspend the constitution, effectively, because they have to do raids. They have to haul in people that are mere suspects and haven't committed crimes.

And this is a way to collect intelligence, but on the other hand, what we're seeing is a full-on insurgency in Europe. And the predictable police powers that are brought to bear against it. And let's hope there's not more attacks, because I think the Europeans, a couple more of these are going to be completely fed up and governments will start to change.

[15:05:00] HARLOW: Stefan, for you, seeing the reaction, you were here after "Charlie Hebdo" and now, seeing the reaction of the French people in the wake of two of these horrific attacks in ten months, what has changed?

DE VRIES: Well, the things change -- the big difference, generally, is that in the attacks on "Charlie Hebdo" and also on the supermarket, they targeted ideas or ideologies like a religion or a magazine. These attacks were completely different, because they targeted just random people, without any distinction of age, of class.

HARLOW: Does that scare people more?

DE VRIES: Yes, I think Parisians now realize that even having a coffee on a terrace can bring them into dangerous. And we have seen that tonight in Brussels, which is a very, very vivid city. A lot of bars. It is a very nice place. And now, all the bars and restaurants are closed in the heart of Europe. It's very difficult to comprehend what's going on there.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Bob Baer, to you. I do want to ask you about what we heard from the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, because he came out and he warned of the possibility of ISIS having chemical weapons. Do you think that's possible?

BAER: I think it's almost certain that they do have them. There's been credible reports coming out of Syria that ISIS is using chemical, you know, chlorine, for instance, against the Syrian army. And the ability to get chlorine and use it in Europe is a possibility. And I don't think they could kill a lot of people with it, but just the sheer terror factor of it would be enough for ISIS' goals.

HARLOW: Bob Baer, thank you very much. Stefan, thank you. I appreciate you being with me.

We are going to take a quick break. We are back live with our continuing coverage from Paris right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:14:45] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage this evening from Paris. Right now, a possible imminent threat is placing Brussels on high alert this evening. Authorities issuing a very strong warning to people who live there, avoid large crowds, a specific suburb of Belgium has been linked to several terror attacks in recent years.

CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin is there on the ground with more on this suburb that has become a meeting ground for potential terrorists. It is a place where criminals can easily buy automatic weapons and fake passports on the black market.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This mostly Muslim community in Brussels is quickly becoming synonymous with terror in Europe. At least a half dozen terror attacks have links to Molenbeek. Local prosecutors say dozens of Islamic foreign fighters in Syria have come from here and more and more terrorists come here to shop in the black market that specializes in the tools of their trade.

KOEN GEENS, BELGIAN JUSTICE MINISTER: False papers, false passports, weapon trade are flourishing in certain suburbs of Brussels, like in Molenbeek, and we absolutely have to counter these things with the help of local services, but also with the help of criminal justice. GRIFFIN: Balil Benyaich is senior fellow at a Brussels think tank

focusing on immigration and security says elicit trade especially in guns has put Belgium and Molenbeek on the terror map.

BALIL BENYAICH, SENIOR FELLOW, ITINERA INSTITUTE: Although Belgium has very strict gun laws, still there is a big black market of weapons in Brussels that come from everywhere in Europe, and also from the Balkan countries. And it's very easy for criminal gangs or for terrorist groupings to find weapons, even war weapons, here in our city.

GRIFFIN: Benyaich says Kalashnikov rifles, the gun of choice in recent attacks can be purchased on the Belgian black market for as little as $1,000.

BENYAICH: You're actually getting a good deal here. You're getting a good money price.

Indeed, yes. That's the problem.

GRIFFIN: And there is another problem says Benyaich that may be much bigger.

BENYAICH: What we see the last three, four, five years is that there is a merge between the jihadi radical world and between the criminal world because lots of jihadists meet with criminals in prison. I think that the role of the branch of Islam with these young people is that it's like a mental detonation mechanism. And so, some of them are hard-core jihadis who were socialized in this branch of Islam, since they were young, but some of them are not that Muslim at all.

GRIFFIN: That appears to be the case for the man who operated this farm. Ibrahim Abdeslam was known as a petty criminal here. The bar he ran down shut down just a week before the Paris attacks because of drugs and other illicit activity. Family and friends say his involvement in radical Islam came as a shock.

Last week, Abdeslam blew himself up in Paris wearing a suicide vest. His family was stunt. His brother, Salah Abdeslam, is still on the run. He, too, has a criminal past from Molenbeek. And in 2011, even spent time in prison with another Molenbeek criminal, Paris attack ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Three criminals turned jihadist.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Molenbeek, Belgium.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Drew Griffin, thank you very much for that.

Coming up next, live from Paris, we will talk about the heated debate in Europe and in the United States over refugees, specifically refugees from Syria, following the attack in Paris. We are back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:16] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage from Paris.

Turning our attention to the refugee crisis, vice president Joe Biden on twitter saying exactly what he thinks. Quote "the vast majority of Syrian refugees are women, children, and orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need of medical help." He went on to say, "all refugees who come to the United States get fingerprinted, security screenings, DHS, government interviews, FBI, state department, and the department of defense sign off."

But Republican presidential candidates voicing very strong opinions against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States. Right now, the average processing time for refugee applications is 28 to 24 months to come into the United States. Syrian applicants can take significantly longer, of course, because of the security concerns. Still, the house easily passed a bill for the bipartisan vote in favor of it that would suspend Syrian and Iraqi refugees from coming into the United States for right now.

Also, governor of at least 31 stays say they will not accept Syrian refugees.

David Tafuri joins me now. He is an expert in vetting Middle East refugees. He worked for the United Nations refugee crisis while at the state department in Iraq.

You know, you said, clearly, you're very opinionated as well, David, and you have said the United States should take in refugees, because the United States is the best at vetting them. How is it better than Europe?

DAVID TAFURI, FORMER OBAMA CAMPAIGN FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR: Well, for lots of reasons. First of all, the U.S. accepts more refugees than any other country. And that's been going on for decades. So we are more experienced in vetting them and in resettling them to the United States.

We also have much better intelligence services than any of the other countries that resettle refugees and we have a much more significant legal process for resettling them. We are quite good at it. As the statistics show, 785,000 refugees have come since 9/11. Only three have ever been arrested for terrorist plots, none have engaged in terrorism, and none of those were Syrians.

So that's very important to look at the statistics. We need to concentrate on the way terrorists may actually come here, not any possible way they may come here, because it's very unlikely that they will come here through the refugee resettlement process.

HARLOW: All right. I want you to take a listen to what some of the Republican candidates for president had to say this week about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If there's a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you probably are not going to assume something good about that dog and you're probably going to put your children out of the way.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but, you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We're going to have no choice. Absolutely no choice.

[15:25:01] SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Christians who are being targeted for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do you make of that, David?

TAFURI: Well, I think, comparing refugees to rapid dogs is very insulting. Of course, we should be admitting Christian refugees as well.

HARLOW: Just to be fair here, David, Ben Carson came out and -- Ben Carson came out yesterday, clarifying those comments, saying that they were taken too literally, but continue.

TAFURI: Understood. The point is, is that there are many good reasons to continue a refugee program. Take, for instance, the fact that anyone who served in Iraq as a diplomat or as a soldier, as I did, during the height of the war, had Iraqis who helped them. And many of those Iraqis really endangered their lives and endangered the lives of their families in order to help Americans. The refugee resettlement program is a reward for some of them. And many of them, who when it became too dangerous for them to stay in Iraq, were moved through the refugee resettlement process and brought here.

These are people who helped the U.S. And we need to continue to have those types of incentives for people around the world, particularly in conflict zones, where the U.S. is active, to help us and to support us. And if they get into too much trouble and it becomes too dangerous, we need to be able to resettle them as refugees. That's what a refugee is. Someone who can't stay in their own country because of fear of jeopardizing their life.

HARLOW: Here's how the American people feel. I think this is very telling. This is a brand-new "Washington Post"/ABC poll. And what it shows when asked the question, should the United States accept Syrian refugees, David, let's pull it up on the screen, 54 percent say no right now, 43 percent say yes. And this comes off of news that we got last night from our Pamela Brown and Evan Perez with their sources, that a U.S. official says at least one of the eight Paris attackers likely would have been able to travel to the United States under the visa waiver program right now. So people are scared.

TAFURI: Well, two important points. First of all, we need to do a better job of informing the public what the refugee program is. We have not done a good job. And some of the comments by some of the politicians that you showed are not helpful. Second of all, talking about a potential terrorist coming through a visa waiver program is a completely different issue. If there are issues with the visa waiver program, let's focus on that. But the statistics show that terrorists have not come here as part of the refugee resettlement program. And as fact, as you mentioned, it takes more than two years for a refugee to come here through the resettlement program. It's such an unlikely way for a terrorist to target the U.S. and we need to educate Americans about that.

HARLOW: And to be clear here, John Kerry came out, secretary of state, this week and said there have been over 750,000 refugees to the United States since 2001 and about a dozen, if that, have had any potential concerning ties. But still, all it takes is one.

I do want to get your take on this bill that is being proposed formally after thanksgiving in the United States, the (INAUDIBLE) bill. It set to be introduced. And what it would do is that it would keep foreigners who have traveled, David, it would keep foreigners who have traveled to Syria or Iraq in the last five years from using the visa waiver program. Do you think that's the right call? Is that a good compromise?

TAFURI: I think that's a pretty good compromise. Of course, it has to be if they traveled to Syria or Iraq without good reason, because many people have participated in humanitarian programs or in the military from foreign countries, we wouldn't want to block them simply for their service in Iraq or Syria. But, yes, if someone was in Iraq or in Syria with unexplained purposes and we don't know what they were doing there, yes, that makes sense. That's a good policy. That's the right type of policy we should be focusing on.

HARLOW: All right. We'll see if that makes it through. They will be formally proposed, we're told, after thanksgiving.

David Tafuri, important perspective. Thank you very much for being with me.

TAFURI: Thank you.

HARLOW: And coming up next, new concerns about security in the United States, as we head to the busiest travel season of the year. This week will show the biggest travel day of the year. Much more on that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:32:35] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage this evening from Paris. I'm Poppy Harlow.

I do want to update you on another tragic story. That terrorist attack in Mali, one of the 19 people killed by those attackers in yesterday's hostage standoff in Mali was an American with ties to a presidential candidate. Anita Datar, a U.S. citizen, died in the attacks. She's a former Peace Corps worker in Senegal and was in Mali on international development work. Her former partner served as one of democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's senior policy advisers while she was in the Senate. Clinton remembered her as quote "the loving mother of a wonderful 7-year-old boy and a bright light who gave health and hope to the people in need around the world."

U.S. national security officials telling us here at CNN, turning to Paris, that at least one of the eight Paris attackers could have been able to travel to the United States under the visa waiver program as it exists right now. There is also growing concern that perhaps as many as three of the attackers in Friday's attack in Paris could have slipped through the United States watch list and screening system.

CNN's Chris Frates in Washington.

Chris, what else do we know on this?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Poppy. FBI officials say they are closely watching dozens of people who pose the highest risk of carrying out a copycat attack. More than 100 of the investigations into ISIS sympathizers were quote "taken up a notch following the Paris attacks."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: The threat here focuses primarily on troubled souls in America who are being inspired or enabled online, to do something violent for ISIL. We have stopped a lot of those people this year, especially leading up to July 4th, and there are others we worry about and we cover all across the country, using all of our lawful tools. So that's how we think about the threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So there we had FBI director James Comey. And both Comey and attorney general Loretta Lynch said no relationship exists between the Paris attackers and anyone in the United States. And law enforcement officials from Comey on down have said, so far, there are no credible threats to the U.S.

But national security officials say at least one of the Paris attackers, in theory, could have been able to travel to the U.S. And as many as three of them could have slipped the U.S. watch list and screening programs.

Now, it's important to note here, that at least four of the attackers were on a terrorist watch list, and there's no indication that any of the attackers ever tried to travel to the U.S. The Paris attacker who would have been able to travel to America could have used a visa program to get into the country. That program allows people from 38 countries, mostly people from Europe, to travel to the U.S. without visas. And it was used by about 20 million people last year.

And there's interest in this program on Capitol Hill. There's a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would end the waivers for anyone who has gone to Iraq or Syria during the last five years. It's sponsored by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, and a Republican, Jeff Flake, of Arizona. And it's an area that Obama has expressed interest in reforming. And talks are already underway between the White House and the senators, Poppy. I expect, you know, we'll see more action on this front after the thanksgiving recess when everybody returns to Washington - Poppy.

[15:35:54] HARLOW: Chris, thank you very much for that.

I want to talk more about the ISIS threats and security in the United States, with former assistant secretary of homeland security, Juliette Kayyem. I want you to listen, Juliette, first, to what we heard New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton say about security just yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BRATTON, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: We reiterate that while we do not have a credible specific threat direct against New York, as we know, ISIS has been continually vetting the city and the country as well as Washington. And we have clearly seen in the events of the last week they have capabilities. So that is why we are continuing to increase our response in terms of visibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Obviously, you have got heightened alert in New York City, around the world. You have extensive knowledge in preparedness. And I just want to be very careful not to alarm people, because a lot has been made this week of the fact that threats to the United States and to Europe are different. Even the oceans surrounding the United States do offer a level of protection. How worried should people be?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: They shouldn't be worried or change the way they are, because the reality is, is that the United States is consistently getting threats. It is the nature of the -- what we call the asymmetric warfare right now, whether they come from abroad, or concerns as FBI director Comey said, concerns internally.

So security essentially has three pieces. It's lowering the risk, so that is all the intelligence stuff. It's fortifying our protection. So you heard the New York commissioner talk about more police presence, more bomb-sniffing dogs. And then making sure that our first responder apparatus in terms of response is prepared and ready to respond if anything were to happen. And so, that's how people should think about it. It's layered, there's different pieces. And the hope is, and it is certainly is true, that the three of those things combined actually minimize the risk and protect lives.

HARLOW: Absolutely. What about in Brussels tonight? I mean, it is astonishing to see this big European city raising its terror threat to the highest level, telling people to stay away from crowded places, even not to go to the airport. When you look at what would trigger a city to do that, they have said, the prime minister there, the threat is imminent. What level of information and spasticity do they have to warn the public of this?

KAYYEM: I have got to believe that it is incredibly specific. In other words, they know who the individuals are and they can't find them, they went dark. Remember, I live in Boston. And so, we did this, but that after the Boston marathon on that last night, closed down a city, but that was a chase, right. I mean, we knew who we had and we were sort of looking for him in a 20-block period.

This is very unique. And the challenge that Brussels is going to face is when are they going to lift this, you know, sort of curfew if they don't find who they are looking for. In other words, it is easy - it is not easy, but to ratchet it up and tell everyone to stay home might be essential, but at what stage are you going tell people they can go out? And that is going to be the big challenge. Because if you don't find who you are looking for, you have to tell people - I mean, life has to go on. You can't close cities down for long periods of time. It just doesn't work. People can't live, the economy doesn't move.

HARLOW: No, you absolutely cannot.

Julie Kayyem, thank you so much, as always, for your expertise.

Coming up next, we will take you inside the secret hacker groups that trying to take down ISIS. A live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:43:25] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage from Paris.

You could call it an unauthorized war on ISIS, really. A small army of hackers working in the shadows to disrupt terror groups in how they operate so successfully online. In a rare and fascinating interview, our very own Laurie Segall spoke with one of the leaders of the hacking group.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anonymous, the hack-tivist group shrouded in secrecy has declared war on ISIS following the attacks in Paris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a message to ISIS. You have reached your limit.

SEGALL: They claim to have disabled thousands of pro-ISIS twitter accounts. But there's another technically sophisticated group fighting an online war with ISIS. They call themselves Ghost Security Group. It is lesser known but has a track radar. Its leaders and ex- anonymous member, a man who calls himself Digita shadow.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My online name is Digita Shadow. The Islamic State is hunting for us. So we receive multiple threats daily. That's exactly the reason why we can't use our real online names. To date we have taken down 149 Islamic State propaganda sites, 110,000 social media accounts and over 6,000 propaganda videos.

SEGALL: CNN cannot independently verify this information. Digita Shadow says he is one of 14 members of the secretive group who says it's been infiltrating private ISIS communications since the "Charlie Hebdo" attack earlier this year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are murdering people, persecuting from their religious believes, expelling them from their lands. Just appalling. Something has to be done. They have to be slowed down and stopped.

[15:45:01] SEGALL: Ghost security's members say they are a global mix of ex-military, ex-counterintelligence and IT specialists. So what makes them different from anonymous? They share their Intel with the U.S. government. They funnel potential threats and information on ISIS operatives through one man, intelligence adviser Michael Smith, who then passes it on to U.S. law enforcement officials.

MICHAEL SMITH, INTELLIGENCE ADVISOR: They use me to present information to federal authorities here in the United States. That information is sometimes shared with officials abroad.

SEGALL: Smith says the group is actually thwarted several ISIS attacks. He cites an example in Tunisia.

SMITH: The group was able to identify communications concerning a plot targeting British tourists and Jews at a popular marketplace in Germa, Tunisia. And there were more than a dozen arrests made as a result of the information that was collected by Ghost Security. I mean, more people were apprehended than at this it point are known to be involved with the plot in Paris. A loss of life conceivably could have been greater than what just occurred in Paris.

SEGALL: But even though Ghost Security says they use hacking skills for good, it may still be operating outside the bounds of the law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really does fall into a big grey area. Yes, is hacking illegal, absolutely. Is fighting ISIS to try and stop threats and stop their propaganda, would that be considered illegal, it falls into a giant grey area.

SEGALL: You are telling me you are working kind of 24/7 on this. Are you compensated?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not compensated whatsoever. We are independent organization. We survive off donations alone.

SEGALL: Despite struggling to make ends meet, Digita Shadow says they won't stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we were to stop now, lives would be at risk. It's not a choice. It's more of a way of life for us now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Laurie Segall, thank you for that fascinating report.

Coming up next, I have spoken to a lot of people in Paris this week. A number of them survivors of this horrific attack. You're going to hear firsthand from one man who hid in a bathroom for two-and-a-half hours, trembling, while he heard the terrorists killing people around him. His story, next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: I'm inside the museum of natural history. We are set to honor ten everyday people who are doing truly extraordinary things. I'm giving you your very own backstage pass. Let's get going.

Since 2007 CNN heroes has been an annual event from assembling the stage to placing the cameras and rolling out the red carpet, this army of pros knows what it takes to make this evening memorable.

How do you keep it fresh?

KELLY FLYNN, CNN SENIOR EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Keep it fresh. Ten new heroes every year.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Isn't that clever?

FLYNN: Great story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Host, Anderson Cooper, and A-Lister's galore turned out to salute our honorees for their work helping others. Rising music (INAUDIBLE) star was drawn to the evening's positive message.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A purpose for creating a song in the beginning is it's something encouraging and inspiring and healing for people. So I think it works well with the theme of tonight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: A 21,000-pound blue whale rarely has to share the spotlight, but on this night, our top 10 CNN heroes will take center stage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The minute you walk into the place, you're just overwhelmed. It's intense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This event is going to be spectacular.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: And maybe motivate all of us to make an impact.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:53:04] HARLOW: Welcome back to our live continuing coverage from Paris.

This week, we have spoken with many of the survivors from the horrific attacks on this city. And tonight, I want to share with you the extraordinary story of how one man made it out of the attacks alive. He is 35-year-old Pierre and he is in the bathroom at the Bataclan concert hall when three gunmen barged in and started firing indiscriminately. For more than two hours, he hid inside the bathroom, listening to the terrorists. Here's his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW (voice-over): Pierre's hands still are tremble when he remembers the horror. PIERRE, PARIS ATTACK SURVIVOR: Those guns like, you just see all the

people just falling. With and just, they are just like, 17 years old or 20, just so young, people, Arabic ones, black ones, white ones.

HARLOW: He can't believe he's alive, sitting next to me, recounting the most terrifying hours of his life.

PIERRE: I feel for the first time that I'm happy to be alive.

HARLOW: You feel guilty that you survived?

PIERRE: Of course.

HARLOW: Did you see any of the gunmen?

PIERRE: The terrorists? Yes. With the guns. They just, like (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

HARLOW: They did not have masks on?

PIERRE: No, no, no, no.

HARLOW: Like so many others in the Bataclan that night, he thinks nothing of the first shot.

PIERRE: At the beginning, I thought it was just a joke.

HARLOW: Really?

PIERRE: Part of the show.

HARLOW: And when did you realize?

PIERRE: When you saw all those guys just falling on the floor just everywhere and everybody's just crying.

HARLOW: Did being in the bathroom save your life?

[15:55:00] PIERRE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

HARLOW: You were in the bathroom with three people?

PIERRE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

HARLOW: Behind you?

PIERRE: Behind the door.

HARLOW: Just minutes later, he sees the terrorists' feet through the crack of the door.

You heard them preparing a bomb and talking about the hostages. How long did you hide in la toilet? In the bathroom?

PIERRE: Two-and-a-half hours.

HARLOW: Two-and-a-half hours excruciating hours before police barge in.

When did you finally come out?

PIERRE (through translator): When the SWAT team launched the raid, they started shooting at the door. They started shooting at everyone. The terrorists responded by shooting back, and they blew themselves up and everything exploded. The lights went down. There was smoke everywhere. And then we understood, it was the police, so we opened the door and they put the gun to my forehead.

HARLOW: The police?

PIERRE (through translator): And we were like this.

HARLOW: Finally, after the police came in, you walked over corpses? You walked over dead bodies?

PIERRE (through translator): The concert hall floor was covered in bodies, blood, blood on the walls, blood everywhere, bits of fabric, bags. It's the apocalypse. It's the apocalypse.

HARLOW: Two of his friends die in the attack. Walking out alive, he has one thought.

PIERRE: We have to love everybody. We have to love the differences. We have to smile. That's our fight against the terrorists.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: It is amazing to hear him say, smile, smile, and that is how we stand apart and stand up to the terrorists.

Thank you, Pierre, for sharing your story with us.

We are going to take a quick break from Paris live with the latest on the investigation, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END