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Two Dozen Raids Conducted in Belgium on this Sunday; Friday's Death Toll From Attack on a Popular Hotel in Mali Has Now Risen to 22; U.S. President Barack Obama Will Meet with French President Francois Hollande. Aired 11-12p ET

Aired November 22, 2015 - 23:00   ET

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


[23:03:02] ISHA SESAY, CNN HOST: Hello. And welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Isha Sesay.

We begin in Brussels. Authorities there have extended the highest terror alert level. They are worried about the threat of more coordinated attacks like the one in Paris. Belgium's prime minister said possible targets include malls, shops and public transportation. Schools and the subway will stay closed all day Monday.

Meanwhile, French police released this video, this photo, I should say, that you see on your screen. It's one of the suicide bombers who attacked a Paris football stadium. And they are asking the public for any information about just who this man might be. Police believe he was dropped off at the stadium by Salah Abdeslam, seen here. Abdeslam remains at large, the most wanted man in Europe.

But we are getting a better picture of how he made his escape during the chaos. Sources tell CNN that after he dropped off the bombers, Abdeslam ditched his car five kilometers away in the middle of a crosswalk. His brother told Belgian TV that he believed Abdeslam changed his mind at the last minute and decided not to go through with an attack.

And an international manhunt for Abdeslam is intensifying. Police in Brussels staged 20 anti-terror raids on Sunday. They arrested 16 people.

CNN's Nima Elbagir is there in Brussels and she has more on the raids and the manhunt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Another raid here in Belgium, even as it emerges that the man at the center of the international manhunt, well, there's no sign of him.

ERIC VAN DER SYPT, BELGIUM FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: He is not, not among the persons arrested during the searches.

ELBAGIR: This comes as the Belgium prime minister tells his citizens the threat level will remain raised and the schools and the capital city's metro system will remain suspended. Belgian residents have had to deal with the reality of the raids, and here in the center of Belgium's ongoing sweeps as the police and military fan out across the capital. The threat level, the tension here, continues to remain high.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[23:05:09] SESAY: We want to talk now with Aaron Cohen, a security expert who spent three years in Israel's counterterrorism special operations unit. He is also the founder of Cherries Covert Ops Apparel.

Aaron, great to have you with us. Almost two dozen raids conducted in Belgium on this Sunday. This has been immensely complicated undertaken for Belgian authorities considering the nature of the threat. Talk to me about how such operations are carried out.

AARON COHEN, FOUNDER, CHERRIES COVERT OPS APPAREL: OK. The French have two fantastic counterterror units. One is the GIGN, the (INAUDIBLE) special operations unit. They also have a national counterterrorist unit that is a police unit. These units have been working together. They are very similar to America's FBI hostage rescue team. In Israel we have the imam (ph). What they are doing essentially is conducting what we call terrorist warrant service. The types of tactics that are used when going after terrorists are very different than the type of response we would have seen at Bataclan. And the reason why is at Bataclan, what those response teams were doing is they had to work very quickly. The reason why is because that was an active shooter situation. That means somebody is actively killing innocents. For every second they waste, another innocent person is killed. So that unit have to work - those units have to work extremely rapidly in order to reduce risk to those innocents who are being held.

For these terrorist warrants, everything slows down. We are doing what is called a slow and deliberate clear. Hebrew called it (INAUDIBLE), a security clear, a safety clear. Essentially what it means is the building where those suspects could potentially be are treated as if those are terrorist structures, whether or not the intelligence is good, it doesn't matter. They have to act on every lead. But they are very tired. I can assure you because any piece of information, even more so that comes in, they are on to another location. They are going to surround the structure and they are going to start to do what is called a pressure cooker tactic. What that means is instead of running into rooms like we see in films "Delta Force" and "Navy Seals," it's very slow, it is very methodical, it is very deliberate. The reasons why is because we don't have innocents. We don't have hostages. So there is no point on increasing the risk to the police officers and soldiers. They can take their time. So what they are doing is basically using their weapon and eye while using the door frame to protect their thoracic cavity. They are clearing the room almost the way you would peel open a can. That allows them to have multiple barrels into a room, be able to fire they need to with multiple operators with minimal risk because they are covered. The other reason why they want to do that way is because it is behavioral based. Terrorists will shoot at you.

SESAY: So let me ask you this. Considering the fact that the majority of the raids on Sunday took place in Molenbeek, which is this suburb in Brussels considered to be somewhat of a breeding ground for terrorists, how much is that environment, given the perception, if you will, there are facts, a large number, in fact a number of the attackers from Paris came from Molenbeek, but given the general perception on an area like this, how much does it complicate such an operation?

COHEN: I don't think it complicates it because the team is properly equipped with machine guns or with carbines. They have secondary weapons. They are wearing body armor. There's multiple sticks or stocks of four or five operators at each doorway where they are going to make these entries, you know, sharp shooters. So they are fully equipped and prepared regardless of what the perception.

SESAY: Regardless of environment.

COHEN: Yes. And it's important for people to understand that just because this happens to be a Muslim neighborhood, it doesn't mean that anything is going to change here. But the fact is that we had almost a dozen terrorist attacks, multi locations with relatively low sophisticated weapons. And you can see they are highly lethal with this low level of sophistication.

So they are not going to treat it any differently, but here's how they are going to treat it. They are going to treat every structure that they do this room clearing or this limited penetration is what we call it or slow and deliberate room clearing, as if every structure has a potential threat in there.

SESAY: So regardless of where it is, in Molenbeek or anywhere else, that's the prevailing operative principle.

COHEN: That is correct. And that's the fundamental mindset that I have been pushing into the market. I train SWAT teams and special operation units in Israeli-style tactics. And we learned in Israel that unlike conventional crime, with terrorists, you have to treat everyone inside that structure, everything inside that structure as if it was suspect, and then work backwards from there because you just can't take any chances.

SESAY: So speaking of not being able to take any chances, we see that Brussels has raised the terror alert, the highest in Brussels. They have the metro closed. They put schools, universities, even nurseries closed. The question is how do you prevent such an attack as played out in Paris when at least in the case of Paris, they were going after soft targets?

[23:10:01] COHEN: Excellent question. What we have to do is three things, OK. One, we have to define exactly what the threat is. You have to call it Islamic terrorism. I know it is tricky. I know it is --

SESAY: Why do you have to do that? COHEN: The reason why is because if you look at all the number of

terror attacks that we have seen since 2001 leading up to now, they are all fundamentally motivated by extreme sects of Islam. We have to define that specifically as a genre so that we can focus to number two, which is --

SESAY: Once you go down that road, you inevitably bring in an entire religion.

COHEN: And that's what ISIS wants. And it's an incredibly tricky, sticky situation. We have to remember that not all terrorists are Muslim, but at the same time we have to be honest about the threat and the fact is that there is religious incitement and indoctrination and recruitment in certain sects of the culture so we have to look at that realistically without alienating and pointing our finger at the entire culture.

SESAY: Which the majority are not as we all know.

COHEN: Agreed. Number two, we want to start to streamline the over 60 nations right now that are actively engaged on the war on terror. Let me tell you, coming from the intelligence background, coming from special operations community, it's a lot of egos in the Intel business.

All 60 countries have to start playing nice. They have to drop the egos and they have to start sharing information. The reason is why because this is an international effort. It's now Paris. It is now New York. It is now Mali. It's not just -- this is an entire international spectrum that we're dealing with. That's number two.

And number three, we have to start getting very aggressive with two parts. One, the defense. We have to make sure -- we want to start doing what William Bratton just did in New York with the NYPD. He put up 100 specially trained patrol officers in carbine and special weapons in tactics and they are dedicated to patrolling highly crowded areas where a mass siege could happen. That insulates our defensive capabilities. Our offensive capabilities, no more lolly gagging, Syria, Raqqa, northern Iraq where ISIS literally rolled through. We have to start increasing the amount of operations and we have to put boots on the ground whether or not we like it or not.

SESAY: We are going to keep this conversation going. Aaron, you are here with me for a couple hours. So we are going to leave it here for this moment. But lots and lots of things to dig deeper to in the coming hours. Thank you so much for being here with me.

COHEN: Thank you.

SESAY: Well, world powers are planning to step up the fight against ISIS this week. British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to make a case for bombing ISIS in Syria. This comes more than two years after lawmakers rejected his push for military intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Prime Minister Cameron will meet with French president Francois Hollande in Paris on Monday to talk about counterterrorism and the fight against ISIS. Mr. Hollande will also meet with the presidents of Russia and the U.S. this week. He says the international community needs to create a grand and single coalition to combat ISIS.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been under pressure for a tougher response to the Paris attacks. Over the weekend, he vowed to hunt down is and destroy them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They are bunch of killers with good social media. The Americans who are building things and making things and teaching and saving lives as firefighters and as police officers, they are stronger. Our way of life is stronger. All of which is to say that our coalition will not relent. We will not accept the idea that terrorist assaults on restaurants and theaters and hotels are the new normal or that we're powerless to stop them. After all, that's precisely what terrorists like ISIL want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: But Mr. Obama's former defense secretary tells CNN military action won't fix the mess in Syria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We needed to more clearly define our political strategy along with our military strategy because it's my opinion, it certainly was the opinion of the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marty Dempsey, he can speak for himself, but it was our opinion that there is no military solution to this.

We are up against an ideology, we are up against a reality, of dynamics, a set of dynamics we had never seen before. Sophistication of social media, the military prowess, the tactical strategic prowess that ISIS possesses, the funding. So we should - we are clearly defining, what is our political strategy? What are our priorities? Who is the enemy here? Is Assad the enemy or is ISIS the enemy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well, perhaps the biggest target of the recent airstrikes has been ISIS' self-declared capital of Raqqa in Syria.

In a CNN exclusive, senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh get extremely close to the ISIS headquarters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Airstrikes can repeatedly pound Raqqa, but it's here any ground offensive by the Kurds towards the capital of ISIS, its self-declared caliphate against would have to begin, and still, a sense of steal mate. Their ultimate goal of Raqqa visible on a good day in a far distance. And this space of times in the past few days hit by ISIS mortars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:15:19] SESAY: Well, don't miss Nick's full exclusive report from Syria Monday morning on "NEW DAY," starting at 6:00 a.m. eastern.

Well, a woman who survived the Mali hotel siege talks about the moment she first heard gunfire down the hall. Her emotional interview coming up.

Plus, members of the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal tell us what it was like to see their fans and friends dying during the Paris terror attacks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:19:39] SESAY: Now to Nigeria where eight people were killed when a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Sunday. The victims who were mostly women and children were going through a security screening at a military checkpoint. Maiduguri has repeatedly being attacked by a terrorist group Boko Haram.

Well, the deaths toll from Friday's attack on a popular hotel in Mali has now risen to 22, according to the U.N. The country's president has declared three days of national mourning for the victims of the brutal siege in the Malian capital.

Our own David McKenzie sat down with one American survivor who described her harrowing ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[23:20:18] DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the wake of Mali's horrifying terror attack, new stories of survival are emerging. I spoke to an American specialist of the center for disease control. She was about to check out when the shooting began.

KATHIE FAZEKAS, CDC SPECIALIST, ATTACK SURVIVOR: I emailed my husband and I just said something like there is something going on and I want you to know that I love you. And then when -- a few hours later when the fire down the hallway, I wrote another email and I said I do believe there are shooters here and if I don't make it I want you to know I love you and my family and my -- but I am coming home. I do this because I love doing this work. And where we are in the world that we need to continue on.

MCKENZIE: You committed to the work no matter what.

FAZEKAS: No matter what. This wasn't about Mali. This is about what I call idiots. I'll be back.

MCKENZIE: Was there any point really, any moment you thought, OK, this is it, this is the end of the road?

FAZEKAS: When the shooting came down the hallway, I was more nervous. I wasn't sure. But it wasn't going to end. I was going home. I knew I was going home. That's the end of it. MCKENZIE: So when the signal came, what went through your head?

FAZEKAS: God. I'm so glad to see you guys. I don't know much French, but I could say (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE). I said it all the way down the hall. And I will say it again. These guys, every one of them that I mentioned, put their lives on the line for me that day, and I so appreciate that. And there is a group of people who can't make it out. And my heart goes out to their families. But I believe they were here doing what they loved and what they are committed to. And if that day were to come for me, someone would be saying that about me as well.

MCKENZIE: The presidents of Mali and Senegal toured the Radisson hotel on Sunday and vowed they would be unbowed by the terror threat.

David McKenzie, CNN, (INAUDIBLE), Mali.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: Juliette Kayyem joins us now.

Juliette, great to have you on the show. A week after the Paris terror attacks, we saw an attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali. In your view, was the Mali attack tied to local politics on an attempt to capitalize on the recent terror that played out in Paris?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It was actually a combination of both. I mean, anyone who had been following what was going on in Mali knew of the terrorism that they were facing, the rise of Islamic terrorist organizations. France had clearly come in to clean them out in the last couple of years. But also, an attack like that was timed to sort of correspond or follow up on what happened in Paris.

And the reason why that is true is because it was a relatively simple attack in the hotel. I mean, very few people were involved. They just walk into a room, kill as many people as possible, and so in some ways, its simplicity suggests they put it together rather quickly to sort of feed off everyone's fear.

SESAY: But Juliette, this wasn't an attack that was carried out by ISIS. They claim responsibility for what happened in France. This was, in fact, carried out by an Al-Qaeda affiliate, (INAUDIBLE), which has claimed responsibility. What can you tell us about this African jihadi group?

KAYYEM: Well, this is -- let me tell you about Al-Qaeda sort of more generally and its affiliations now. For some time, anyone studying Al-Qaeda knows they have been waiting for moments to sort of assert their relevance, because they are not the same as ISIS. But are vying for the same people, for recruitment, access to money, and in some ways, access to geography or relevance in various countries.

And so, their sort of rise in Africa is very much linked to the fall of Libya. And we see them acting now consistently with what they have told us in the past, which is Al-Qaeda is still relevance. They are not dead yet, so to speak, and aligning with local sort of Islamic terrorist organizations to launch an attack.

So you are seeing this split amongst organizations to the outside person, they may all look the same, but really what this is, is a sort of strategic fight among various groups.

SESAY: How much direct involvement would there be with Al-Qaeda in (INAUDIBLE) in pulling off this attack in Mali?

KAYYEM: Well, because they took credit for it in this sort of joint credit, right, with sort of saying we were here and that we actually launched this attack, really does mean that they were sort of strong enough to launch it and to organize it. So in some was ways, may be they pulled the trigger, but no matter what in terms of access to arms and training, Al-Qaeda is very much involved. And to be honest, it's been waiting for this opportunity for a while.

[23:25:00] SESAY: Juliette Kayyem there with some great insight.

Juliette, appreciate it. Thank you so much.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

SESAY: Well, U.S. President Barack Obama is talking tougher on ISIS as he gets ready to meet with French president Francois Hollande. We will look at the U.S. strategy just ahead.

Plus, the moments before the terror attack at the Bataclan captured in a single photograph.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:29:21] SESAY: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.

The headlines this hour. Authorities in Belgium carried out 20 anti- terror raids on Sunday. They arrested 16 people but did not find any guns or exclusive. The city of Brussels remains under the highest terror alert amid of more coordinated attacks like the ones in Paris.

French police are asking the public for information about one of the dead Paris attackers. They released this picture of him on twitter. They say he is the third suicide bomber at the Stade de France, but they didn't give a name.

Eight people were killed when a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives in northeastern Nigeria Sunday. The victims who are mostly women and children were going through a security screening at a military checkpoint in Maiduguri. This city has repeatedly been attacked by the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

The U.N. now says 22 people were killed in Friday's attack on a popular hotel in Mali. The country has declared a ten-day state of emergency and three days of national mourning. But the president says Mali will not shut down in the face of terror.

Finally, to northern Myanmar. State run media there are reporting at least 104 people died in a landslide at a jade mine. It happened when a huge pile of mining debris collapsed onto workers' huts while they were sleeping. Military troops are helping with the recovery efforts.

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with French president Francois Hollande in less than 48 hours. They are expected to discuss the global response to the deadly terror attacks in Paris. President Obama slammed ISIS during the trip to Malaysia Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[23:31:02] OBAMA: They can't beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid. And to changing our patterns of behavior. And to panicking, and to abandoning our allies and partners, and to retreating from the world. And as president, I will not let that happen. Destroying ISIL is not only a realistic goal. We're going to get done, and we're going to pursue it with every aspect of American power and with all the coalition partners we have assembled. It's going to get done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well, let's bring in CNN military analyst lieutenant colonel Rick Francona to discuss this. He joins me on Skype from California.

Lieutenant Colonel Francona, always good to have you on the program. The president facing criticism for his handling of the ISIS threat. Do you think this administration has a viable strategy?

RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, not right now. You know, the strategy is -- the goal is to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS. And what we are doing right now just isn't working. We put a lot of air assets, recognizance asset into this campaign, yet it's not having any effect. I mean, the effect it is having is minimal to say the least. The Russians and the French have come in there and in a few days have eclipsed what the United States has done over the period of a year. That's because of these restrictive rules of engagement the coalition U.S.-led coalition pilots are operating under. So if the president is serious about getting this done, he needs to take off the hindrances from the Pentagon and let them do their jobs.

SESAY: Do you agree with former defense secretary Chuck Hagel's assessment that in addition to that, to add that on to what you are recommending, that this administration should shift its focus from President Bashar al-Assad to ISIS? Have there been priorities misplaced, if you will?

FRANCONA: Yes. And I think it's time for people in Washington to have that discussion. You know, right now, our objective is to not only defeat ISIS, but to remove Bashar al-Assad. I don't think that you can do both simultaneously. We're going to have to determine what our priority is. And given the Russian and French involvement in there against ISIS, but Russia's involvement supporting Bashar al- Assad, I'm not sure that toppling Assad right now is going to work for the United States.

So perhaps it's time to step back, say we need to defeat ISIS first and then we can handle the political situation in Syria later. Everybody keeps saying there's no military solution, but there has to be a military start to get to the political solution.

SESAY: Does that solution, that military solution, involve boots on the ground in your view?

FRANCONA: That's a good question. Yes, I think we need to have some boots on the ground. But it depends on how you define boots on the ground. Those are the words in Washington and they don't want to hear. I'm talking about inserting American special operations personnel, air force combat controllers. People that can guide and control the airstrikes, Special Forces, army people that can go in and train local forces on how to conduct these operations.

The army has a mission called form in term of defense. They are very good at it. They are going to train indigenous personnel. It works very well. Air force and special ops people can control the airstrikes. With those two things working in Syria and northern Iraq, I think we could turn this around, but we have to commit the resources to do that. And right now, there's a hesitation in the Pentagon to do this.

SESAY: Rick Francona, doesn't this who play into ISIS propaganda? I mean, no matter how you slice it and dice it, whatever the boots on the ground end up being, the fact of the matter, if you have that image of returning U.S. military to the Middle East, actively on the ground, doesn't that play into is propaganda which ultimately comes back and hurts the U.S.?

FRANCONA: You could see it that way. But if you're able to go in there and deal several defeats to ISIS, you can start rolling these people back. Start taking territory from them. Taking Raqqa from them. Reclaiming Mosul. That really cuts their narrative. And it really hurts their recruiting effort. And we can turn this around. But we can't not do things because it might play into ISIS' social media network.

[23:35:16] SESAY: Is there a question of time? Is time running out? We heard one top democrat say on Sunday that he feels that the U.S. is running out of time in this fight against ISIS. Is the window closing?

FRANCONA: Well, I don't know if it's closing, but it's certainly becoming more difficult. What we're seeing is ISIS is hemorrhaging. It's spreading out all over the region and all over the world. We see ISIS people swearing allegiance to ISIS in Afghanistan. We see them in Sinai. We see them in Libya, Nigeria. And then we see them conducting operations in Paris. And their recent string of successes from their point of view, you have Ankara, Beirut, the downing of the Russian airliner, what I called the gold standard of terrorism, and then the attacks in Paris, and a probable attack in Brussels if they could pull it off. So, you know, they are really on a roll right now. So no longer contained to Syria and Iraq. So we've got to address them. But I think the key is going after them in Syria and Iraq.

SESAY: Rick Francona, always great to get your perspective. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

FRANCONA: Good to be with you, Isha.

SESAY: Now, a photograph shows the moment's right before gunmen stormed the Bataclan concert hall in Paris killing 89 people. Take a look. In the photo, a smiling crowd. Some fans there raising their hands and glasses. Others enjoying the music, unaware of the carnage yet to come.

Performing that night, American rock band Eagles of Death Metal. In a new interview with vice music, two of the band's members recall the tragic events.

Here is our Fredricka Whitfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSIE HUGHES, LEAD SINGER, EAGLES OF DEATH METAL: Several people hid in our dressing room.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eagles of Death Metal lead singer Jessie Hughes speaking out for the first time, remembering that terrible night.

HUGHES: The killers were able to get in and killed every one of them except for a kid who was hiding under my leather jacket.

WHITFIELD: The band at the Bataclan Theater, the deadliest site of the Paris attacks. This photo, a snapshot in time, just moments before the first shots rang out, senselessly cutting short the live said of 89 people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: The killers got in your dressing room?

HUGHES: Yes, people were playing dead, and they were so scared. A great reason why so many were killed is because so many people wouldn't leave their friends. And so many people put themselves in front of people.

WHITFIELD: The band clearly traumatized and frozen with disbelief, putting out this statement. While the band is now home safe, we are horrified and still trying to come to terms with what happened in France.

Among the 89 killed in the attack, the band's merchandise manager Nick Alexander and three people from their record label Thomas Ayad (ph), Moreen Mosier (ph) and Manu Perez (ph).

Fredricka Whitfield, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: Security went a step further in one French town, and the people living there are wondering why. Coming up, a visit to Sens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [23:41:31] SESAY: After the Paris attacks, a nighttime curfew was put in place in one town in France. The curfew in Sens ends on Monday. But as Nic Robertson reports, some residents don't understand why their town was singled out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Southeast of Paris, the Sunday market in Sens is busy. A few hours earlier, it would have been illegal to be here. There was a curfew, and that upset some residents.

They are making this all too dramatic, this trader tells me. There are no problems here.

The curfew between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. is the first of its kind in France since emergency powers were imposed last week. And applies only to this, the Pleasant Fields neighbor of Sens, an area that includes low cost housing, has a reputation, unfairly locals say, for low end crime and very occasional confrontation with police. The new powers are prompting debate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Strict compared to the rest of the towns.

ROBERTSON: And that's not good?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I find it's not good. That's exactly the contrary of what we should do.

ROBERTSON: The curfew was imposed here after police raids turned up some weapons and some false documents. Several people were taken into custody, but most of those have been released now.

In the city center, Catholics celebrate in one of the world's oldest gothic cathedrals, although several hours from Paris, all in this tiny tourist city fear another ISIS attack. The curfew was intended to make police raids easier. When I meet the mayor, however, she seems unsure if the curfew that ends Monday is worth the division it's causing.

I want to guarantee the tranquility of the entire population even if it means limiting the liberties of some, she says, but the curfew was not my decision. It was a decision of the state.

Back in Pleasant Fields, (INAUDIBLE) who runs a cafe and helped underprivileged kids was shocked how fast the curfew was imposed but worked to support it.

We respect the curfew, he says. It was necessary for the police to do their work safely.

Most here feel the same. But worry in the rush to follow terror leads, jobs may be lost, more problems created.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People don't have to be afraid to come here. It's a tourist city. We have a nice place in this country. ROBERTSON: So far, no terrorists have been found, and few here expect

they will.

Nic Robertson, Sens, France.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: Well, we want to bring back Aaron Cohen now. Aaron spent three years in Israel's counterterrorism special operations units and he is the founder of Cherries Covert Ops Apparel.

Aaron, thank you so much for spending time with us this evening. That piece from Sens that Nic Robertson did, really just brings home the challenge governments face between security and civil liberties. People just living their lives.

COHEN: Yes, it's always - there is always a sacrifice that has to be made in terms of beefing up the militarization, if you will, of your city in the event of a terror attack like we saw in Paris.

Israel, where I lived for many years and where I served in Israel Special Forces, I think is a good example of how to balance the two. Israelis deal with terrorism. It is a fact. It's a way of life there. It's unfortunate, but if you look at the actual statistics and the number of terror attacks compared to all the mass crime that happens around the world, terrorism is a relatively small problem.

Israelis move about their business and they continue with life as is, and it's really important to do that. And I think the way that the Israelis achieve that so well is because they're sort of de-sanitized to it, and it's unfortunate. But we have an excellent security apparatus that regulates all of the private security industries so we have armed security at all of those major structures and places where there's people gathering. So it's controlled by the Israeli government. Israelis feel a sense of security.

We also have soldiers in the street. People often say and I have often said, I do feel safer in Israel because you see the presence and feel the sense of security.

[23:46:04] SESAY: And to that point, is that the way Europe is going to have to go, you know, in light of this Paris terror attack?

COHEN: Not necessarily. I think that Paris is going there now. And I think it's a reactive twitch muscle to the fact that we had, you know, several hundred people killed and injured. I do think that will eventually start to scale down once Abdeslam, once this - once the management and the facilitators and all of the accomplices of the terror attack in Paris are caught or killed.

It's a question of time. They're putting a lot of heat right now on the internal security of Belgium and in Paris. So we're going to see it now. It's going to end up scaling back eventually. The reason why because I think the Europeans are going to demand it.

SESAY: Obviously, you talk about time. But how long can you keep a city on lockdown for?

COHEN: Well, you can technically keep it as long as you want, but you don't want to, and the reason why is that the Parisians and the Belgians are not going to have it for that long. I think you can keep this pace up for a couple weeks and then I think in the end, by 90 days, it's got to start to tailor down. And I think people are going to start to ease up also. Psychologically, we're coming into the holidays.

What will happen, I believe, is they will start getting more comfortable with the presence of armed security and soldiers. And then what I think the Europeans are going to get really good at and they're going to have to, in Belgium, Paris, in any of these countries where they start hunting for these terrorists or where are conducting active operations, we're going to see a more plain clothes security apparatus starting to take effect. And what is great about that is you can't spot the security personnel undercover police officer, which gives them the element of surprise if there's a terror attack because they can respond and nobody knows who they are. And then two, you don't visually see the weapon. You don't see that highly trained, armed police officer. So I think we're looking at 90 days and things are going to start to quiet down.

SESAY: As you talk about the plain clothes element that may be a feature of life to come in the European capitals, I would imagine closed circuit TV also steps up in importance.

COHEN: Excellent question, yes, and a good point. Surveillance is a huge part of security layering. I mean the more elements you have between your civilian population and a terrorist, it means it would take a multi-failure event in order for the terrorists to be successful. Surveillance cameras are great because they allow you to see 360 degrees around your city. Problem is that there is no reaction to the camera. You can't -- they can't physically respond to an attack. They can't fire back. They can't rescue hostages. But what they are excellent for is investigations after the fact, being able to look and then put together patterns of where that person was, what the motes operandi of let's say Salah Abdeslam was before he committed the act of terror.

So it is important. They are very heavily used in Britain. They are heavily use in Ireland. And I have trained a lot of these military units over the last 15 years in the Israeli methodology. And they are excellent tools. We used them in Jews' some of the old city. We want to see everything. But they are purely a defensive mechanism after the fact. But they're very useful. They're an important piece.

SESAY: Great insight. And Aaron, thank you for being with us for another hour. We appreciate that you are going to stay with us and help us make sense of all this. So stand by. We will come back to you in the next hour. Thank you so much for now.

COHEN: Thank you so much for having me.

SESAY: Next on CNN NEWSROOM, we will tell you why Parisians are turning to a Hemmingway classic to find comfort after the deadly terror attacks.

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[23:53:21] SESAY: Welcome back, everyone. Since the terror attacks in Paris, one particular novel has been flying off the shelves in bookstores across the French capital, "A Movable Feast" by Earnest Hemingway, the writer's ode to Paris.

Our Ivan Watson has more on the book's recent resurgence.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter. That's a line from a movable feast, a memoir about life in Paris in the 1920s written by earnest Hemingway. The book is his love letter to the city of light, celebrating its cafes and cobblestone streets, immortalizing an English language book shop where you can find a first edition copy of the American writer's iconic book.

Thanks.

Hemingway's book is pretty much required reading for most visitors to Paris. What's unexpected is that it has also become a source of comfort for many of the French in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks.

At book shops across Paris, owners have seen a sudden spike in sales of French versions of Hemingway's 51-year-old novel.

What is your number one selling book right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a movable feast from Earnest Hemingway.

WATSON: Do you have any more copies?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No more. It's sold out now.

WATSON: Sold out?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Completely.

WATSON: Part of the appeal is clearly symbolic. The French title of a movable feast translates back into English as Paris is a party.

(INAUDIBLE) says he is buying the book to remind himself that the city of light is also a city that loves to party.

We have to live, we have to go out, he says. And we have to stick out our tongues at the terrorists.

Shop owners say they have also seen a surge of interest in books about Islamist radicalism, but those sales don't compare to the rediscovery of Hemingway's book, no doubt boosted by the fact that (INAUDIBLE) has also become a hashtag slogan of defiance on French social media. As many honor the dead, others are determined to live up to

Hemingway's immortal words. If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris, he writes, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Paris.

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[23:56:02] SESAY: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay. I will be back with another hour of news after the short break.

You're watching CNN.

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