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Paris Terror Attacks; Obama: Helping Refugees is American Leadership; Georgia Town Welcomes Refugees; House Passes Bill to Suspend Acceptance of Syrian Refugees; What Makes ISIS Recruitment So Powerful; Paris Attacks Bring Frenchman Back to Homeland. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired November 21, 2015 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:11] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you live tonight from Paris. This is our special continuing coverage of the aftermath of the tragic terror attacks.
We begin in Brussels where it is 1:00 in the morning and the city is on lockdown because of the quote, "serious and imminent" possibility of a Paris-style terror attack there. That warning coming directly from the Belgian government as it raised the terror threat level to maximum. The fear is that individuals with weapons and explosives could target multiple locations at once.
Also new tonight, French media reporting that the suicide bomber who died alongside of the ring leader of the attacks here in Paris in the raid on Wednesday was not known to police, was not even on their radar and very concerning.
In the meantime, there have been four new arrests made in connection with the attacks in Paris today. Three men arrested in Turkey, including one suspected of scouting target sites for the Paris attacks. The fourth suspect was detained in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, the same neighborhood used as a home base to some of the attackers here in Paris.
Let's bring in CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir. She is live for us in Brussels this evening.
How are people there responding? It's a Saturday night. But it is anything but normal given this heightened terror threat.
NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, most of the bars which normally would be still spilling people out on to their pavement on a Saturday evening in Brussels are either shut earlier or pretty much empty. We've been watching buses come past, this extraordinary eerie, completely empty other than drivers. It really is so surreal to see in this a European capital city at the weekend.
But this is the reality here in Belgium. There are two real concerns. The Belgium government is dealing with. There's the ongoing aftermath of the Paris attack and the threads that led here to Brussels, but also to Molenbeek, a quiet suburb of Brussels which is fast emerging as the nexus of much of the organization of this Paris attack.
And then there's this serious and imminent threat as the Belgian prime minister calls it -- this concern that a Paris style attack was in the offing here in Belgian. The Belgian government's response has been to reinforce the streets across the capital here, in the sense that we saw police officers moving through traffic with flash lights looking into those cars, clearly looking for specific individuals.
They were flashing those flash lights straight through those windows, Poppy. There's a real sense of heightened tension, and in other parts of Belgian where the terror threat level has not been raised, people are telling us in other cities, Poppy, that they are choosing to stay home tonight as well.
HARLOW: Understandably so.
Nima, thank you very much for that report live from Brussels for us tonight.
Let's talk about this with Graeme Wood. He is a contributing editor for "The Atlantic". And also with me, CNN global affairs analyst, Kimberly Dozier.
Graeme, you wrote an article that's renowned at this point in "The Atlantic" called "What ISIS really wants" and you delved into this machine, if you will. Does the coordination of the attack here in Paris, six targets these men went totally undetected. Does it suggest that ISIS' ability has changed?
GRAEME WOOD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Yes, ISIS' strategy has certainly changed. They've been talking for a long time about having attacks on places like Paris, London, New York. She showed images of the Eiffel Tower falling down from the G.I. Joe movie and they say, we're going to do that.
What's really different, though, is for a long time, they have just been telling their supporters from France come to over to Syria, fight here. And now, they seem to want to reverse that tide. They want to send them back and have them attack on what they used to call the far enemy, Paris.
HARLOW: You know, what we've heard so much about is the fact that this response has to be global, it has to be coordinated, not just the United States and it's Western allies, you need have Turkey, you need to have Saudi Arabia, you need the Middle East really invested in this.
And, Kim, I know the assistant attorney general, John Carlin, said to you more than 20 countries including Turkey had toughened their laws, taking legal action against these suspected militants. But then today, we see three men arrested in Turkey, one of them potentially was the one who was here in Paris scouting out the sites for them to terrorize last Friday night.
How would you rate Turkey's ability to deal with these guys? KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Turkey is
overstretched right now. Their security services are trying to police a border that has a constant flow back and forth of both would-be ISIS fighters and also other fighters from the region, also trying to police their own cities against terrorist threat, and trying to handle a flow of refugees that's traversing the country, trying to go to Europe.
[19:05:19] That's a lot of different streams to watch out for, for a country that has acknowledged having trouble just keeping up with the pace.
In Paris, if in France, some of the top intelligence agencies in the world couldn't keep track of the 800 people including some of the terror suspects that carried out the Paris attacks, if they couldn't keep track of them, then in Turkey, you can't expect them to either and yet the stakes are so high.
HARLOW: Absolutely.
Graeme, you write in your article that, "Our failure to appreciate the essential differences between ISIS and al Qaeda has led to dangerous decisions." In light of what has unfolded in the last seven days, here what do you mean by that?
WOOD: Well, you know, in some ways the differences between al Qaeda and ISIS seem to be a bit smaller. ISIS used to tell al Qaeda in the jihadist forums, they used to say, your strategy is a bad one. What has it gotten you? You're invaded in Afghanistan, you lost your territory.
Now, it looks like ISIS, if it really did sanction these attacks and plan them and provision them from the very top, then maybe it's changed its mind. Maybe it decided that holding territory is something that's not its only goal and want a much stronger emphasis on these other attacks that it really just gave lip service for before, which ISIS attacks on western targets and spectacular attacks at that.
DOZIER: Poppy, if I could jump in on that.
HARLOW: That's a great and -- absolutely, Kimberly. I was saying, I think it's a very important points because rightly we heard the president say, President Obama just over a week ago ISIS is contained. What he meant is on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria.
And, Kimberly, it's much broader than that now?
DOZIER: Well, they seem to have adopted this franchising method that is wildly successful, probably more successful than they expected. And they are copying an old terrorist tactic. In Egypt back in the early '90s, the Islamic jihad learned to survive against the Egyptian secret police by giving all of its different cells greater autonomy, saying here's the overall plan, you got the skills, go forth.
And so, ISIS is doing that on a much grander scale, telling these various different branches sign up with us, you know what we want to bring about, you know your territory, and you can probably better find people in your area to carry out these things.
The scary thing would be when they get skilled people like that in place in somewhere like the United States. At this point, they've only had the kind of one off attacks that are fairly amateurish. That's the part that scares me when they manage to get the right personnel in place in Washington, D.C. At this point it doesn't seem like they've managed that.
HARLOW: All right.
WOOD: I would add to that.
HARLOW: To do exactly what they did here in Paris.
Yes, go ahead, Graeme.
WOOD: What Kimberly just said is exactly right. I would add to that there are signs of the way that ISIS reacted to these attacks that suggest that parts of ISIS were actually not even aware that they were happening -- things like the way that they were avowed, the way the propaganda machine was kicked into gear, in a really hasty way.
That suggests that, yes, the organization has a significant amount of autonomy at its periphery. So, we might not be seeing a shifted in strategy toward this kind of spectacular attack, but actually, the kind of automaticization of the group into many cells that could act autonomously.
HARLOW: A scary reality.
Graeme Wood, Kimberly Dozier, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Also, want to talk about President Obama travels right now the cloud of global terrorism that has followed him as he travels throughout Southeast Asia on a trip that was supposed to center around maritime security and South China Sea. Instead, his first order of business, of course, addressing the deadly jihadist hostage situation yesterday in Mali.
I want to go straight to our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. He is traveling with the president.
And, Jim, we know the president had a long planned visit here to a refugee center. He went there today. What else is he saying that stand out the most?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. That's right, Poppy. You know he's trying to seek this very tricky balancing act, at one point saying here in Kuala Lumpur that the U.S. will be relentless in the pursuit of terrorists around the world, going after ISIS.
[19:10:06] But at the same time, he's calling on Americans to show compassion to the thousands of Syrian refugees that he's determined to allow inside the United States despite the opposition from members of both parties on Capitol Hill. The president visited a refugee center here in Kuala Lumpur outside of this ASEAN Summit that's taking place and the president sat down with these little children who have been fleeing persecution in countries like Somalia, Sudan, Myanmar, many of these children are Muslim.
And the president put his arm around these kids to make the case that the U.S. should be as he called it a "beacon of hope" to refugees around the world and here's more of what the president had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When we talk about American leadership, American leadership is us caring about people who have been forgotten or who have been discriminated against or who have been tortured or have been subject to unspeakable violence or have been separated from families at very young ages. That's American leadership. That's when we're the shining light on the hill. Not when we respond on the basis of fear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Now, of course, that last line there about not responding on the basis of fear, that is directly aimed at people like Donald Trump, other Republican candidates in the race for the White House right now who the White House feels has really been trying to play on people's fears around the country, this talk of a Muslim database and tracking Muslims in their mosques. The president and White House officials say there will be none of that during an Obama administration.
But at the same time, Poppy, the question becomes politically for this president is he matching the moments that people are feeling back in the United States, people if you look at the latest polls are very fearful of a terrorist attack like what happened in Paris on U.S. soil. The president will be asked about that later today. He'll be holding a press conference at Kuala Lumpur as he wraps up this overseas trip.
But, you know, he has this task lying ahead of him as he returns to Washington. He's scheduled to meet with French President Francois Hollande at the White House on Tuesday. As you know, Poppy, the French president has been calling for all out war against ISIS. The president is taking a much more cautious approach.
HARLOW: Right.
ACOSTA: He wants to continue that bombing campaign while at the same time avoiding a ground war in the Middle East, Poppy.
HARLOW: He is. He's also asking on Congress to vote on that authorization for use of military force. We'll see if we see action on that on the Hill.
But, you're right, Jim, the latest "The Washington Post"/ABC poll shows 54 percent of Americans saying that they do not want Syrian refugees to come in to this country at least right now. Jim Acosta, thank you very much. We'll have much more of our coverage
live here from Paris straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:15:33] HARLOW: Welcome back to our live coverage from Paris this evening where it is just after 1:00 in the morning and authorities are still trying to learn more about a woman at the center of all of this, Hasna Ait Boulahcen.
CNN's Atika Shubert investigates the 26-year-old woman who died during Wednesday's raid in a suburb of Paris, Saint-Denis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLICE: Where is your boyfriend?
HASNA AIT BOULAHCHEN: He's not my boyfriend.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These were the last words of Hasna Ait Boulahcen.
Earlier, police had said the 26-year-old had detonated an explosives vest as police closed in. But now, forensic teams have determined that the bomb was actually triggered by either the alleged ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, or the other so far unidentified suspect killed in the operation.
Investigators are now struggling to understand how a young woman described as modern and fun-loving veered into the path of this deadly terror network.
Until a few weeks ago, she lived here with her family. Police brought her mother and brother in for questioning on Thursday.
(on camera): We're in the neighborhood of Aulnay-sous-Bois, and this is where Hasna Ait Boulahcen was living. It's a rough neighborhood at the best of times. But even as we approached her building, we were threatened by her neighbors.
(voice-over): At her old high school and at the local market, many knew the family, but none would talk to us on camera. By the dance school she once attended, one vendor claimed to have dated her and described her as a party girl who liked to drink and smoke.
The local pharmacist described her as a normal modern young woman.
The mayor of Creutzwald, where she moved as a teenager told us she had, quote, "a chaotic upbringing", brought up in a foster home after her parents divorced.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): She's a girl who's a bit crazy. She loved life, loved having fun. She was a girl who has very little to do with Islam. And you never saw her practicing the faith.
When I see this about her, the image of the veil and everything that happened on Sunday, that's what really surprised me. She was a girl who had nothing to do with Islam. So that image of her is the opposite because she didn't represent Islam.
SHUBERT: But investigators still don't know how she became so deeply involved with the ring leader Abdelhamid Abaaoud. And why she was there on that fateful night the police closed in.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: And, Atika, thank you very much for that look at her.
Joining me now to talk more about it, Dr. Qanta Ahmed, author of "In the Land of Invincible Women."
Thank you for being here.
DR. QANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": Thank you, Poppy.
HARLOW: What I think is also fascinating, building on what Atika said, is that we now know that the ringleader here, Abaaoud, actually used social media in Spain to specifically target women. Why are they going after women? Why are women falling into this trap?
AHMED: So, I think there are some reasons similar to men going into this and some that are separate. The women, certainly like men, are falling into the seduction of pursuing a fictional narrative of regaining or rebuilding their idea of honor, of what they think Islam by combating violent jihad which is, of course, I as a Muslim find completely false.
But we know from research by some of the world's leading scholars an Israeli scholar, Dr. Anat Berko, author of "The Smarter Bomb", all about female Palestinian suicide bombers, that they often have lives populated by loss, failure, bereavement, divorce, childlessness. So, they're looking for ways to make a new identity. I think things will become clearer as we see the motives of this particularly suicide bomber that we've had in Paris. I think it's multi-factorial.
HARLOW: And perhaps they're less -- people are less suspect of them --
AHMED: Exactly.
(CROSSTALK)
AHMED: Women are seen as life giving, seen as mothers and rearing children. And so, the idea that she could make herself willingly an agent of death is rather alien. We also have to remember and I said this I'm sure before, that our fascination with the gender of the suicide bomber should probably be much be less emphasized than the entire movement of jihadist of this nature. We had female suicide bombers since the Tamil Tigers in Pakistan, (INAUDIBLE) in Russia, the black widows with the -- (CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: Not just suicide bomber. I mean, they actually now French authorities said they don't believe she blew herself up, but rather she was killed when someone next to her blew himself up. But I digress.
[19:20:00] It's the same points of being involved in this jihad movement.
You're at a conference here, that's why you're in Paris, focusing on many of these issues. And I wonder what stands out to you most as people talk about the future. It's actually for the 6 million Muslims that live in France.
AHMED: I think that there's a great deal of anxiety which I think is appropriate. I was here with the Council of Europe in Strasburg at a meeting discussing balance between freedom and control in response to extremism. And many people actually afraid that the pressures from jihadism are going to somehow change French democracy.
The president of the Council of Europe said very ominously and words that hunt me, that jihadists will never take way our democracy but we can take away our own democracy in response to these threats.
HARLOW: You mean three-month state of emergency that just gone into effect, that give police much more sweeping powers.
AHMED: And the poll that I've heard among average citizens that France is considering and I can't verify this, but the feeling that France may want to create an exceptional justice system for these perpetrators rather like the model we have had in the issue of Guantanamo. People are afraid that this may be one of the repercussions and how that would correlate with France's democratic values.
HARLOW: Many of those killed by extremists, you know, extremists are Muslims.
AHMED: Yes. That's right. Including people lost in the theater. They represent ad demographic portion of Muslim just like in France.
To ordinary French Muslims, with whom I've had dinner this evening and have seen during my trip, there are concerns there will be rising discrimination. They've informed me, French professional passes that already before "Charlie Hebdo", there were some barriers that French Muslims could perceive. Now, they feel after these actions, it will be hard for their children to rent apartments, have equal opportunities in employment, or be generally looked upon with suspicion.
But, additionally, French Muslims who are very, very much culturally and by birth French are concerned like all the other French citizens I've talked about, about the rise in National Front Party, Marine Le Pen, and the fact that she wants to seek a bunker mentality, isolationist, disconnected from Europe. HARLOW: We'll see what happens in the December elections. She's
certainly doing well and this has rallied support behind Le Pen. We'll be watching.
Thank you very much, Qanta. Nice to have you here.
AHMED: Thank you.
HARLOW: Live with us in Paris this evening.
Also, I want to point you to something very special on Tuesday night here on CNN at 9:00 p.m. A CNN special report "Targeting Terror Inside the Intelligence War", that will be brought to by our chief national security expert Jim Sciutto, only right here on CNN.
Quick break. We're back live from Paris, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:25:52] HARLOW: Now to a story we've been following all week. A father trying to ease the mind of his 6-year-old son in the wake of last week's terror attack in Paris by telling him they have guns but we have flowers.
The conversation was seen around the world after a French television crew recorded it and posted it on Facebook.
CNN's Anderson Cooper sat down with that father and son.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: What did you tell Brandon and how did you explain it to him? Because that's something I think many people here have been trying to figure out how to tell their kids about it.
ANGEL LE: I said to him, I said you have to come to this place to show to people we love them too, and we don't forget them. And he know these people is dying. So I said to him maybe the best way to make him understand is bring him to the place and explain to him.
COOPER: What was it like, Brandon, to see all those -- the people there and the flowers and the candles? What did you think?
BRANDON: I love the flowers.
COOPER: What kind of flowers do you like? Do you like pink ones or white ones? Yellow?
BRANDON: I love blue ones.
COOPER: The blue ones? Wow. Did you -- were there a lot of candles also?
BRANDON: Yes.
COOPER: Yes? Did you understand what -- why people were there? BRANDON: Yes.
ANGEL LE (translated): The man would like to know what you think about what happened last week with the bad guys who killed the good guys. What do you think?
BRANDON (translated): I think that flowers attack guns.
ANGEL LE: Oh, yes? And what else do you think?
BRANDON: What else? I like when the flowers kill the bad guys. And I also like when the good guys are all alive.
ANGEL LE: OK. And what do you think about the people who died?
BRANDON: I think that I am sad.
ANGEL LE: Are you sad for them? Why?
BRANDON: Because for me, I don't want the good guys to be dead, because the good guys are good.
COOPER: Do you want to stay in France, Brandon? Because you said before maybe you wanted to go somewhere else.
BRANDON (translated): I want to move to a new house very, very far away. So that the bad guys, so that the bad guys don't kill us. So they don't come to Courbevoie.
ANGEL LE (translated): So you don't want to stay in France? France is our country. You shouldn't be worried, dad is here.
BRANDON: They will kill you. First, they will kill you.
ANGEL LE: But no. Why?
BRANDON: Well, because the fact the bad guys, they can make us dead with their guns.
ANGEL LE: Yes, but we have flowers like I said last time.
BRANDON: Yes, but there are no flowers around here.
COOPER: There's flowers everywhere.
BRANDON: Yes.
COOPER: You're very brave and very smart.
ANGEL LE (translated): He said you're very brave and very smart.
BRANDON: Thank you.
COOPER: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Pretty amazing conversation. Wow. Anderson, thank you so much for that.
We'll take a quick break. Much more live from Paris next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:32:47] HARLOW: Tonight, the city of Brussels is on lock down because of the, quote, "serious and imminent" possibility of a Paris- style terror attack. That warning coming from the Belgian government as it raised the terror threat level to maximum, the fear that individuals with weapons and explosives could target multiple locations there at once.
Also new tonight, French media reporting that the suicide bomber who died alongside the mastermind of the Paris terror attack in that raid in Saint-Denis was not known to police. That's very concerning to them.
And in the meantime, there have been four new arrests in connection with the attacks here in Paris. Three men arrested in Turkey, including one suspected of scouting out the target sites for the attacks here. And a fourth arrested in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, the same neighborhood used as a home base to some of the Paris attackers.
As the debate over whether or not the United States should accept Syrian refugees rages on, there is one small town outside of Atlanta, Georgia, where refugees are not only accepted, they are welcomed with open arms. It is perhaps the most diverse square mile in America, as fully half the town's residents are foreign born.
CNN's Nick Valencia reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the process for a refugee to resettle can be a long one, especially if they are coming to the United States. In some cases, it could take up to two to three years. We traveled to a community about 30 minutes outside of Atlanta where thousands of refugees have resettled in recent years, including dozens of Syrians. Locals I spoke to say it couldn't be working out better.
(CROSSTALK)
VALENCIA (voice-over): It's Friday, and the Refuge Coffee truck in Clarkston, Georgia, is in the middle of its morning rush.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want these to take home with me here.
VALENCIA: Behind the counter, a collection of culture. The three baristas, all refugees, each one from a different part of the world. Achma Dutney (ph) arrived to the United States two months ago from Syria. Leon Shabana (ph) is from Congo. And Eleni Tsegu one was born in Ethiopia. ELENI TSEGU, COFFEE TRUCK EMPLOYEE: In the job training, we are
sharing our language. She is from Syria. I'm from Ethiopia. So it's nice. We're like family.
[19:35:14] VALENCIA: Clarkston is perhaps the most diverse square mile in the country after it was singled out as a good place for refugees to resettle a generation ago. Of the nearly 8,000 people who live here, more than half are foreign born.
Native-born residents, like Kitty Murray, not only like it that way, but are opening businesses to make sure it stays that way. Six months ago, she started Refuge Coffee.
KITTY MURRAY, OWNER, REFUGE COFFEE: I don't think we could do what we do if there weren't other groups assimilating refugees and working with them.
MCKENZIE WREN, DIRECTOR, CLARKSTON COMMUNITY CENTER: Day to day is welcoming the world to Clarkton's Community Center.
VALENCIA: And director of Clarkston's community center McKenzie Wren plays the biggest role in Clarkston. She helps the thousands of refugees in the city transition into American life.
WREN: In the early days, about 25 years ago, when Clarkston began to change, people were not welcoming refugees with open arms, and it has been a long evolution of people to see the benefits of a truly diverse multicultural community.
VALENCIA: Just around the corner, at the local mosque, afternoon prayers. The topic of the lecture? How to be nice to your neighbor. Appropriate for the city known to locals as the Ellis Island of the south.
In fact, the majority of those here, like Bari Ascobardi (ph), are refugees. He's now a U.S. citizen.
(on camera): You think refugees are treated well in Clarkston?
BARI ASCOBARDI (ph), REFUGEE WHO SETTLED IN CLARKSTON: I'm happy, yes.
(on camera): How long have you been mayor?
TED TERRY, MAYOR OF CLARKSTON: About two years.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Clarkston's mayor, Ted Terry, says one of his missions is to keep the city diverse.
TERRY: It's a great way for us to show the true principles of America. And we are a welcoming nation, we're always been a nation of immigrants.
VALENCIA: Clarkston is a town that counts on that.
(on camera): Now, of course, there are critics, but the majority of those voices have either moved away or died off simply because they are an older generation. Now the new city leaders are a younger and more progressive generation. And those who are moving to Clarkston do so intentionally to be around a refugee community -- Poppy?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Fascinating report. Nick, thank you very much.
And the discussion over whether the United States should accept thousands more Syrian refugees made its way before Congress this week. On Thursday, the House passed a bill to suspend the program right now that allows those refugees into the United States pending security upgrades. 47 Democrats voted in favor of this bill.
It was proposed by Republican Congressman Richard Hudson. I spoke with him a short time ago on the program. I asked him what is it about the current vetting process that he wants to see changed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RICHARD HUDSON, (R), NORTH CAROLINA: What the FBI director said in his testimony before Congress was we can't properly vet these folks because if they haven't done anything to rise to the level to attract our attention so we put them in our government databases, his quote was, "We can check until the cows come home and nothing will show up."
HARLOW: That's right.
HUDSON: And what he said was that because you can't check with third parties in Syria -- because in a normal background check, you'd knock on the neighbor's door and talk with people that knew them, check with former employers. And what he said was we can't do that in Syria because that neighborhood's been bombed out. That former business doesn't exist. So because of the FBI director's concerns, all of the House of Representatives is saying, in a bipartisan way, is let's pause until we can put a process in place so the American people can feel assured that we know who these folks are that are coming in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: President Obama, for his part, said if this bill makes it past the Senate, he'll veto it.
Coming up, you don't want to miss tonight "Terror in Mumbai." The special report airs at 9:00 p.m. eastern, followed by "Terror at the Mall," at 10:30 p.m. eastern time.
Quick break. We're back in Paris in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:42:02] HARLOW: Every day, ISIS urges young men and women to give up their lives and to join the terrorist organization. They run a very powerful propaganda machine on social media.
Let's talk it over with former jihadist-turned counterterrorism operative, Mubin Shaikh.
Thank you for being with me, Mubin.
And right now, as I sit here in Paris in the middle of the night, the eighth attacker, Salah Abdeslam, is still on the run. Listen to what a mother whose son joined ISIS in 2013 and subsequently died, and what she told me earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE BOUDREAU, FIGHTING AGAINST ISIS RECRUITERS: They are spending a lot of time and resources on focusing on our youth, developing a relationship. So they take the time to connect with them, surrounding them 24/7, building those relationships, manipulating them, their motivations, answering their difficult questions. We're not intercepting our youth, not mentoring our youth, not guiding our youth, and not spending our resources on them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: You see her son right there. And she told me about being hopeful when her son started practicing Islam that he was turning his life around, and then he just went off the rails. What is it about ISIS as a recruitment machine that's so powerful?
MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER JIHADIST-TURNED COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIVE: Yeah. This is a problem for especially parents whose kids are in maybe an experimental phase, trying to figure out what their purpose is in life. Could it be because of the friends and what maybe they are proselytizing about Islam? Non-Muslim parents see this as a phase they want to be respectful but at the same time it's a real concern for them. You know, even in my time when I was, you know, from '952001 when I was involved in these extremist groups we did the same thing. We looked for converts especially who were alienated from their parents, may have been kicked out of their homes and looking for new peer groups and a new sense of belonging. For a lot of these young people they don't fit with their parents, other older people in the community. Could be imams who are 20 years older than them, may not speak English properly. Don't know the popular culture in which they live. These are things youth are very confused and will latch on to whoever gives them that sense of meaning and belonging.
HARLOW: What drew you in, Mubin? And what do you think parents specifically can do to counter this?
[19:39:46] SHAIKH: I was drawn into it by an acute identity crisis. I wasn't deprived. I wasn't picked on. I wasn't bullied. I wasn't a victim of racism. For me, I was being told I wasn't a good enough Muslim and I interpreted that in my mind as, OK, "I need to be religious," quote, unquote. For a lot of Muslims, especially young Muslims, the pressure into thinking they have to keep a full beard, they have to wear robes, effectively, dressing like the prophet or the companions. And what happens is it makes them alienated because once you start dressing like that, and it's really not -- it's still strange for people to see that kind of dress -- it actually enforces, reinforces that sense of isolation and alienation. What I would tell parents, find the right Islam. It's not difficult
to find. You'll find many Muslim scholars, mainstream Muslim scholars that condemn ISIS and condemn these extremist interpretations. The Koran teaches justice. The idea is to be just to people. You'll find many scholars like this online and in the real world.
HARLOW: Absolutely.
Mubin Shaikh, thank you so much, hearing from you and your personal experience. Critical at a time like this. We appreciate it.
SHAIKH: Thank you.
HARLOW: Coming up tonight, at 8:00 eastern, right after this program, we will take you deep inside ISIS. Who are these terrorists? What do they want? "Blindsided," a Fareed Zakaria special report, tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern.
We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: As this beautiful and remarkable city tries to recover, the people who witnessed the attacks here one week ago are having a very hard time coming to terms with what they saw and what they heard. But the attacks actually brought one Frenchman back here to his homeland.
CNN's Martin Savidge reports from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[19:50:06] MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To measure the mood in Paris a week after the attacks, I could have gone anywhere in the city. I went to the American Kitchen, partly for its name, mostly for its view. It stares directly down the street two other restaurants that are charred, bullet-riddled materials.
CHLOE LALOUETTE, WAITRESS, AMERICAN KITCHEN: I remember the moment when the people shoot.
SAVIDGE: Chloe was waitressing that terrible night. What others mistook for fireworks she knew it was not.
LALOUETTE: I said no it's shooting. You have to go inside. At this moment, I felt like, I don't know, an animal. I just sink with the fear and you just want to escape.
SAVIDGE: She now has trouble sleeping. And even when awake, has trouble with what she saw and what she knows.
LALOUETTE: The terrorist car was -- just passed.
SAVIDGE (on camera): Just came by here?
LALOUETTE: Yes, just came by here twice. And it could have been us. It could have been me. It could have been my friends. I don't know. SAVIDGE (voice-over): I share a table with Olivier Mokhtari. He is
French, but recently, proudly, became an American.
OLIVIER MOKHTARI, CUSTOMER: I was in New York on 9/11 so I experienced that. I live in Brooklyn, so I experienced that as well.
SAVIDGE: After Paris's 11/13, he had to come back to the city. In defiance to the terrorists, he sits outside in the dark, drinking a bottle of wine and eating a cheeseburger, taking a stand.
MOKHTARI: I am American and French, and this is my life, and there's no way somebody is going to change that.
SAVIDGE: Thank you. Very good to talk to you.
(voice-over): Minutes later, the lights of the American Kitchen go out. In the gloom, they gather in the doorway silently looking down the street. It is the moment exactly one week later. You see in all their faces, like it or not, they are forever changed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: There is no question about it, this city is forever changed.
Martin Savidge, joining me now.
So beautiful done, as you always do.
SAVIDGE: Thank you.
HARLOW: As we sit here together in front of the Arc de Triomphe, the City of Lights, the Champs Elysees lit up, this is a city of solidarity.
SAVIDGE: It is. I mean, the whole purpose of that last night, they were putting out on social media, saying, look, what you need to do is reclaim public spaces. That is so much a part of Paris. People live in these public spaces. So go out, see a concert. Go out, have a meal, have a drink. This is your way to stand up against those who did this a week ago.
HARLOW: You know, they have been defiant since day one, since last Saturday morning. The government said stay inside. They said no way.
SAVIDGE: These people refuse to be cowed by what has happened in this beautiful city.
HARLOW: And for that, they win. They absolutely win.
Beautiful report, Martin Savidge. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
We will have much more of our coverage of the terror attacks from Paris straight ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:56:32] HARLOW: This Sunday, on CNN, it is the premiere of "The Hunting Ground," a film about sexual assault on campus. In addition to airing the film, CNN is reporting on how students and schools can better protect their students. Some sexual assaults on and off campus involve so-called date-rape drugs, sometimes slipped into a drink to incapacitate the victim.
Jean Casarez reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The evidence of a date-rape drug can be critical to a prosecution, but often it's hard to substantiate. These drugs are still used today by perpetrators but the challenge is to figure it out before it's too late.
UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Brown University is warning students to be alert after a student tested positive for the date-rape drug GHB.
(voice-over): The attempted use of a date-rape drug leaves a local college community in shock.
UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Criminals are increasingly using Ambien as a date-rape drug.
CASAREZ: Date-rape drugs are a known danger. Many sexual assault victims say they were drugged but often the tests come up negative. Why?
DR. RICHARD STRIPP, FORENSICS TOXICOLOGIST, CORDANT HEALTH SOLUTIONS: The timing of when the collection of the sample is very critical, the fact that the concentrations are quite low and many of these drugs are cleared fairly rapidly. So the time that you actually get the sample is very, very important.
CASAREZ: Forensics Toxicologist Dr. Richard Stripp tests for foreign chemicals in the body, including date-rape drugs, which can alter your mind and body.
STRIPP: They may start to experience effects on their motor functions, slurring of words, loss of balance, ultimately even loss of consciousness and even death.
CASAREZ: Experts say over 50 drugs have been identified as being used as drug-facilitated sexual assault. Drugs like Roofies and GHB have been replaced. Today, the most common are sedatives or hypnotic drugs like Ambien, Xanax and Valium, which are colorless and odorless and can be easily slipped into your drink without detection. Small amounts, especially combined with alcohol, can be extremely potent.
So why are so few people locked up? Because date-rape drugs, critical evidence for prosecutors, can leave the system rapidly in just several days.
STRIPP: It may be at the point where the drug is not detectable. CASAREZ: According to a 2008 review article for Michigan State
University, for every 100 rape cases reported, only one-third are referred to prosecutors and just seven will end with a prison sentence.
LINDA FAIRSTEIN, FORMER NEW YORK SEX CRIMES PROSECUTOR: There a number of very serious challenges.
Former New York sex crimes prosecutor, Linda Fairstein, says if drugs aren't detected, prosecuting is very difficult.
FAIRSTEIN: They're often not able to get up to recover in time to get themselves to a medical facility for the proper exam to see if drugs are still in the system.
CASAREZ: But that's not the only challenge. The drugs can cause amnesia so, many times, a victim can't remember what happened. Police then need to build the case without the memory of their star witness.
FAIRSTEIN: They have to go back, find the bartender. "No, I only gave her one beer, that's all she had the whole night to drink." So we're trying to take it out of the voluntary intoxication.
CASAREZ: With a lack of evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, there is no case.
(on camera): So the importance of this evidence, the drug, is really critical.
FAIRSTEIN: Critical. Absolutely critical. I don't believe you can make the claim of a drug-facilitated rape and see a conviction result without the toxicological testing.
CASAREZ: Experts remind us that the number-one most widely used drug to facilitate sexual assault today is alcohol.
