Return to Transcripts main page

Wolf

Van Plows into Barcelona Crowd & Shoots Restaurant Patrons. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 17, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think the hard thing here is, these types of attacks are almost impossible to stop. They're very simple. They're using a vehicle. Plowing through crowds. We just had this same incident happen in Charlottesville a few days ago. And this is the scary part of it. Law enforcement instituted

counterterrorism protocols right after this attack. That's a very good indication that they're doing house-to-house searches right now looking at this particular -- looking for these individual or individuals that were involved in this particular thing. So that's a very good indication that they're on top of it. It's just very odd that we haven't heard any information yet on what actually is occurring at this particular point in time.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Well, there are these reports that at least one, maybe two individuals got out of those vans and went into a bar and, or a restaurant, that's right in that really very popular tourist area, and police are going through that location right now.

You've heard those reports. If, in fact, that's true, then this raises the specter, especially if these individuals are armed or have knives?

RODERICK: Exactly. I mean, we've seen this type of attack before. Where individuals get out of their vehicles and enter a residence or a -- or a business. And I mean, law enforcement has to respond very quickly to these types of situations, because these types of individuals negotiate for one reason and that's only to take out more people, to kill more people. So hopefully, law enforcement is all over this. It looks from the video we've watched we've seen house-to- house, business-to-business searches. So hopefully, they're circling in on these particular individuals. And I'm sure at this point in time, they valuate more information than we are discussing right now on -- on the news.

BLITZER: I'm sure they do.

All right. Everybody stand by.

We're going to continue our special breaking news coverage. A terror attack in Barcelona, Spain. At least one person killed, 32 injured. Local police say that number will go up. Several of those injured are in critical condition in hospitals right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:36:32] BLITZER: Following the breaking news out of Barcelona, Spain, where a van rammed at high-speed into a crowded group of pedestrians in a very popular tourist area of Barcelona. One dead, 32 injured. And expecting the death toll to go up. Several people are seriously injured in local hospitals.

We've just received new video in to CNN.

And I want to warn viewers here in the United States and around the world, what you're about to see is very, very tough to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SIRENS)

(SHOUTING)

(SIREN)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Very tough to watch indeed. You see bodies lying there, some of them clearly, clearly in enormous pain.

Evan, you saw the video before we just showed it to viewers here on CNN. And this -- and we fear is only just the beginning.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPODNENT: Exactly, Wolf. You have to remember with this type of scenario, as we saw in Nice last year, you know, you have -- a big crowd.

BLITZER: This is more video just coming in. Hold on a moment and let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SIRENS)

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, slow down!

(SIRENS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Yes. Very disturbing to watch, indeed. And as we both have suggested, more, unfortunately, will be coming. Go ahead.

PEREZ: Right, Wolf. Again, one of the things you might remember from Nice last year, and some of these scenes is you have a big crowd of people, and then you have a van coming through, 50 miles an hour or so, according to witnesses, and you have a stampede that begins. People are fleeing in different directions. And some of the injuries and even perhaps some of the deaths that happened in Nice were because of the stampede, the number of people who fell, and others just trampled over them. So that, according to the local authorities, that we've seen, you know, the concern is that that could also be the case here.

They've only reported officially one person dead. But just from the tone of the official who did the press conference just a while ago, he basically suggested that there's going to be a lot more dead, simply because of the number of people who were very, very severely injured from this scene we watched there. And you know, monitoring the Twitter page and Facebook page of the local police there, they are asking for information from people.

Obviously, one of the things that the local media is now reporting, Wolf, there have been at least one were person detained, perhaps the person who rented the van. Again, that's something that the local media is reporting. The local police have not yet made any announcements whether or not anybody else is detained. But I guess that's one of the things, if you're an investigator, one of the things you want to do, look at the license plate of the van and figure out who owns it, whether or not it was rented recently, who that person might be. According to local media, they've already made one arrest of that person who was responsible for renting this van. We don't know whether that person was involved. Obviously, you could tell in some of the incidents, can you have a stolen van to could be involved as well. We don't know enough from local authorities, but that is a big development for investigators there. They now know who rented the van, can talk to that person. Figure out whether or not that person was in control of the van when this occurred.

And obviously, still reports whether or not a couple of people went into a local bar or restaurant near the scene and who may still be holed up there. We haven't gotten clarity from the local authorities as to whether or not that is true or not.

[13:41:09] BLITZER: Seems to be a feature of if, in fact, this vehicle, white van that rammed into this huge crowd of pedestrians was rented. We've seen that before in Europe.

PEREZ: We've seen it before. We've also seen stolen vans in Berlin, for instance, or stolen vehicles in the case of the Berlin attack. And Christmas, you had a -- an attack who essentially took over a vehicle from someone and killed the driver, the person who was authorized to have that vehicle, and then carried out his deadly attack. So we've seen various types of situations here. And so we don't know whether or not this person who's been now arrested, according to local reports, whether that person actually had anything to do with this. But obviously that is something the local authorities are looking into.

And one more thing we ought to think about here, Wolf, is try to figure out what the motive might be. Obviously, terror is now the -- the motive that people, the local authorities they are now saying is what was behind this, but we don't know who, which group, might be behind it. One of the things that the U.S. authorities are trying to assist Spanish authorities with right now is to see whether or not on Telegram, any of these other parts of the Internet, whether anyone has posted a video taking responsibility, perhaps taking authorship of this attack. We've seen that before in previous attacks. Someone, right before they carried out their attack, they upload a video swearing allegiance to a particular group, perhaps ISIS or another group. And that is something, right now, U.S. authorities are looking for, trying to figure out whether or not someone who was behind this might have left behind something to claim authorship, and allegiance, to any particular group. That's going on right now in the U.S. intelligence community and the FBI.

BLITZER: Looking for anything that could help better understand what exactly happened.

Stand by for a moment.

I want to bring in an eyewitness, Adal Marquez. Works as a restaurant, what, about 65 feet or so from where this attack took place.

Adal, tell us where you are right now, what you're seeing? I understand the local police have homed you up. Tell us what's going on.

ADAL MARQUEZ, WITNESS (via telephone): Well, we are closer to police, four hours ago. We have 20 persons here, scared, and some from -- come running from the street, and we know what we can do and we know the terrorists have a hostage in another bar close to here. We try to go out and no way. We scared and we know lots of dead persons and a lot of injuries. And it's a very crazy situation, the people here is praying, and we don't know. We don't know what it is here. Really crazy.

BLITZER: You work in that restaurant, at that bar, Adal. We have a picture, in fact, everybody who is there inside with you right now. So basically, you're prevented from leaving. You have to stay inside while police go through the area searching for one or two or other suspects. Is that right?

MARQUEZ: Yes. We are here four hours, closed by the police, and don't know when we can come out because they know they have a terrorist close in another bar, two minutes from here. And they have -- with a hostage and we don't know nothing. We try to go out and police say, no. No. Wait inside and we don't know. This is very, very crazy situation. For us. And everyone is scared here. We have people from everywhere, Chinese, Italia and France and England, and everybody goes to the bar to save their life, of course. And we closed the bar when they enter, and -- so we are here. We don't know.

BLITZER: Good luck.

Adal Marquez is a bartender. He's holed up in this one restaurant/bar as police search this area for suspects.

I want to bring in former CIA operative, Bob Baer, one of our CNN contributors, with us as well.

Bob, unfortunately, this is becoming an all too frequent kind of attack. And now the investigation. [13:45:18] BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly,

Wolf. Using trucks, using vans, running down people. In August, in Spain, streets are crowded. They get the maximum publicity. These communities in Europe, these jihadists, they're hard to stamp out, especially in Spain. Spain has been at this since 9/11. Some of the 9/11 hijackers had associations with Spain. And the police are very good, but, you know, getting rid of these communities, and the fact they've reverted to weapons that are so easy to obtain, whether you steal or rent a truck and cause mass casualties, is a problem that's not going to go away anytime soon.

BLITZER: Yes. Certainly isn't.

Evan Perez is still with us as well.

Evan, you're getting more information?

PEREZ: Our reporter, Shimon Prokupecz, a CNN reporter in Washington, has talked to an official who says, Wolf, adding to the confusion there in Barcelona, that local investigators believe there was a getaway vehicle that the suspects may have been trying to reach, and that perhaps might explain a little of the confusion as to whether or not there was one van or whether there are two vehicles. We heard from one of the eyewitnesses that we spoke earlier there was a search going on of a second vehicle. So that may explain what Shimon Prokupecz is hearing from a U.S. official.

Again, this U.S. official is relaying information from Spanish investigators who believe there was a getaway vehicle at the scene, that the suspects may have been trying to get to. And, again, that doesn't fully explain what the other reports, including another CNN reporter, who you just spoke to on-air, the bartender there at a restaurant nearby who says they're holed up, not allowed to leave, because they are -- there's a scene there nearby, just a few meters away, where there are believed -- there is believed to be a hostage situation. So perhaps maybe because of the crowded situation, because of the stampede, maybe because of something else, maybe the police response, these attackers were not able to get away. And that's the reason why they got into a nearby restaurant and are now holed up. Again, that's based on the various eyewitness accounts we've gotten including from the eyewitness who you just spoke to on-air.

BLITZER: Very, very disturbing developments.

Our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank, is with us as well.

Paul, you're monitoring websites to see if anyone is claiming responsibilities for what clearly is emerging as a terror attack.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: No claim whatsoever from ISIS or any other established terrorist outfit. It's early hours still. Those claims can come a day later, two days later, several days later. Wolf, if, indeed there was some kind of link back to an organized terror group. With some of these attacks in Europe, we've found, as part of the investigation, they've found that these people were only inspired by ISIS or al Qaeda, though didn't have any communication or connection to the group. In other attacks, like the recent Berlin attack last Christmas, there were communications going back and forth with ISIS. In that case, with ISIS in Libya, using encrypted apps, which are very, very difficult for Western intelligence agencies to track.

The fact they used primitive weapons here, a vehicle, might suggest that they may not have got training. We saw with the Manchester attack, that was TATP used in that, a more sophisticated type of attack. So there may not be any connection in terms of travel overseas. There has been a number of Spanish residents have joined groups like ISIS. More than 100 have made the trip to Syria and Iraq in the last few years. Some have come back. But that number's less than the number in other European countries, like France and Britain and Germany. And in those countries, almost 1,000 people have gone from each of those countries. Nevertheless, there has been significant concern that Spain could be a target. There have been threats against Spain by these various jihadi groups. And, of course, the worst terrorist attack since 9/11 in the west was in Madrid in 2004 with 194 people killed.

BLITZER: It's another awful situation there in Barcelona right at the height of the tourism season.

I want to bring in another eye-witness to this tragic event. Ella Bartlett is joining us. She's from Atlanta, Georgia.

Ella, I take it you were at a restaurant when this occurred. Tell us where you were. Tell us what you saw.

[13:50:02] ELLA BARTLETT, WITNESS (via telephone): Yes, so we were at -- it was called Plaza Real. It's literally right off Las Ramblas. We were winding down for our afternoon meal, I guess, and we were kind of looking at all the menus in the plaza and, all of a sudden, there was kind of a commotion and we turned around, and everyone was just running. And it took us a second to sort of understand what was going on. And it was just really confusing. And once we saw that everyone was running, we just started running too. We didn't even know what we were running from. So we passed a few restaurants, and then still in the plaza, and then like maybe two or three restaurants down, people just started saying, come in here, come in here. So, we followed a bunch of people inside the restaurant and ended up running to the back and hiding in the bathroom with two people from -- I don't know, somewhere in Europe. They weren't speaking English. And the girl was crying. And we were kind of freaked out. We had no idea what was going on. And we stayed -- there were some people in the restaurant lobby, I guess, looking out, and all we could see from the windows was just people running around in the plaza.

Yes, it was really scary. We finally went out, maybe like 10 minutes later. And one of my friends had service, so we looked it up, and people were saying it was a car accident. And then we saw that it was, like, a, you know, it was intentional. And then we were about to leave the restaurant and just head back to our AirBNB. And then people started running again. And I think that was just maybe the aftermath, like the cops were pushing people back or something. But people started running again. So we went downstairs in the restaurant to the basement, I guess. And there was a woman with her baby, and there was a woman with a bunch of kids, and we were kind of just like, hiding, I guess. We had no idea what was going on. We didn't know if there was someone -- it was scary. So we were probably down there for another 10 minutes and then we decided it was best to just get out of the area. So, we had to swing really wide, because Ramblas and Placa de Catalunya are all closed off. So we swung really wide and walked the long way around. And, yes, we're back at our AirBNB now so we're safe. But it was really scary.

BLITZER: Are you back out of that area now, Ella? Are you OK? I take it, are you just a tourist visiting Barcelona?

BARTLETT: Yes. I'm visiting, yes. Me and two friends are here for four days or so, just sightseeing and stuff. Yes. Our AirBNB is probably maybe five or eight blocks away from Placa de Catalunya. Yes.

BLITZER: Yes, you OK?

BARTLETT: We're just going to stay inside, I think. We're OK. It was scary.

BLITZER: Yes, well, I'm glad you're OK. And I'm sure it was very, very scary. The last thing you obviously needed, to be an eye-witness to what was a terror attack right in the heart of beautiful Barcelona, Spain.

Ella, thank you so much for sharing your eye-witness account with our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

You know, Evan, you're monitoring local media in Barcelona. What else are you picking up?

PEREZ: Right, Wolf. Radio TV Espana, which is the public broadcaster there, is now among the media reporting that at least one person has been detained. One person was arrested. It appears to be the same person that some of the other local media, including "El Pais," the major newspaper there in Spain, was reporting that was arrested and was detained at the scene there. This is a person, according to the local reports, who may have rented the van that was used in this attack. Again, we don't know whether that person was behind the wheel of the van when it was -- when the attack occurred or whether this person is simply being questioned by police because he was the person that last rented the van. So, again, that's not clear from the reports that we're seeing now in local media. But now we've got the public broadcasters there which is joining some of the other media there in Spain that is saying that one person, at least one person, one of the suspects behind this attack is now been arrested. And so now, obviously, police are trying to interview that person.

And they're still working on trying to figure out what is going on in this bar or this restaurant nearby where the local eye-witnesses say that at least two people may be holed up, perhaps with hostages following this attack. Again, that has not been made clear by the police. The local media is reporting some of this based on their own local sources. BLITZER: It's interesting, Art Roderick, we don't know, no group has

claimed responsibility for what clearly has been a major terror attack right in the beautiful tourist area of Barcelona. Right now, the local police say, once again, one person confirmed dead, 32 people injured. They expect the number of deaths to go up because several of those people are in very critical condition right now.

It does make a difference whether this attack was inspired by a terror group, let's say ISIS, or if it was organized, right? Explain the difference, and what it means for counterterror authorities.

[13:55:26] RODERICK: I mean, when you look at the aspect of how this was put together, I mean, this, again, I mean, we've heard a lot of people talk about it, was a pretty simple incident when you think about the vehicle being used, possibly firearms. These are very simple incidents. And I think that's the difference when you look at those that are inspired and those that are organized. You generally see a lot more planning, a lot more casualties. I mean, I think the number is going to go up here. But that's the difference is the organization behind how they figure out how to put these types of things together. And we've seen the full gamut of just somebody using a knife all the way up to using explosives. And that's the difference between being inspired and the difference of a very organized type of attack.

This here was very simple. It was done with a vehicle during -- they picked a very soft target. It's a tourist attraction there. There was a lot of people on the street. It was right around dinnertime. And I think one of the other things too is we just had the -- just heard from the U.S. citizen on, it's imperative that all U.S. citizens that are in this area get in touch with the embassy and let them know they're OK. Because I know that's occurring over there right now where the U.S. Embassy is trying to account for all U.S. citizens that were in this particular area.

BLITZER: If this were -- and Bob Baer, you've studied this for a long time, former CIA operative. If this were, in fact, ISIS or some other jihadi-inspired or organized terror attack, remind our viewers why the purpose would be to simply go into a heavily populated tourist area, very popular with international tourists in Barcelona, and simply drive at 50 miles an hour, at high speed, into this area to try to kill and injure as many men, women, and children, young and old as possible. What's the point?

BAER: Well, Wolf, we have to consider that most of these jihadists are not really conversant in Islam. Many of them are reborn Muslims. They're looking -- they're reading the Internet. They're reading, you know, fatwas, orders from Syria, from Raqqa, that says kill as many as you can. And what, in their minds, this is a clash of civilizations. You know, they think the Christian West is after them, and the only way to survive is to lash out and kill as many people in the West as they can. And they think that means their survival. It's very simplistic, but very lethal and very difficult for the police in Europe to deal with because these people can plan this in a day, get a truck. They know what to do. And there's no heads-up. And they don't need any contact with Syria to carry an operation like this out. BLITZER: Yes, it's a very, very simple operation. And ISIS has told

its supporters online, going back a few years, you know, if you have a bomb, use a bomb. If you have a gun, use a gun. If you don't have a bomb or a gun, use a knife. If you don't have a knife, get a car and drive into a crowd of people. That's the message they have circulated over these years. And clearly, with some of these individuals, that has resonated, Bob?

BAER: Oh, absolutely. And that's -- and you know, the more difficult it becomes for them, the more casualties they take in Syria, and they are losing, I think, as we've predicted, you and I have talked about this, the more reaction we're going to see in Europe. And for Americans in Europe, especially in August. Stay out of crowded areas. That's the best way to stay safe.

BLITZER: This is going to hurt tourism, there's no doubt about that. Just as the attack in Nice hurt. But a lot of these communities, a lot of these centers, very popular centers, they certainly have a way of bouncing back, Bob. And they do. People come, they want to go. They want to see. They don't want to -- the terrorists to win in this effort.

BAER: No, we can't. And we can't react this -- we can't overreact. We just have to arrest the people involved, try them, and hope this virus dies out of its own accord. And things are getting better, in fact. There's not as many casualties as I thought there would be this summer.

BLITZER: Bob Baer, thanks very much.

Thanks to all our correspondents and analysts.

We're following the breaking news out of Barcelona, Spain. At least one person dead, 32 injured.

CNN will stay on top of the breaking news. Don't go away. Our special live coverage continues right now.

[14:00:04] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's take it. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

We're going to continue this live special coverage here of the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain.