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Mali Hotel Attack; Third Body Found; Trump on Muslim Database. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 20, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The news continues, and there's lots of it, right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special coverage of two major stories striking capital cities on two separate continents exactly one week now after the siege in Paris. Gunmen strike a luxury hotel in Bamako, Mali, in West Africa.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jake Tapper in Paris, France. Security forces in Bamako are now entering their 12th hour of this crisis. They believe attackers, terrorists, could still be inside the Radisson Blu Hotel. But Mali officials saying at least one of the terrorists, one of the gunmen, has been killed. A Mali colonel saying at least 10 bodies are in the building. All other survivors have been rescued. That includes six American citizens.

(VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Video showing some of the dozens being escorted out of the hotel. Now it's not exactly clear right now how many hostages escaped. But the Radisson chain says there were up to 170 guests and staffers present when the terrorists siege began. A U.N. official saying it started when several terrorists with AK-47s stormed the hotel entrance. And the attackers arrived, one witness says, in a car with diplomatic plates.

Our Robyn Kriel is covering the ongoing terror attack from Nairobi, Kenya.

Roby, thanks for joining us. We heard 10 bodies were seen. Presumably, that number might rise.

ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it indeed could rise. Local journalists on the scene telling CNN that they have seen many bodies coming out of the hotel, as well as the U.N. saying to watch out because that death toll of 10 might well rise, Jake.

The situation from what we understand, what we're told from - by the Malayan security services is that they - the hostage siege is over. However, they are still clearing the building, searching for possible - possibly more attackers and, of course, searching for hostages and people who would have taken cover and hidden in their rooms. A huge hotel, 190 rooms in total. One of the most luxurious western hotels in Bamako. So they are still conducting that operation to try and clear for - looking for both good and bad people at this point.

TAPPER: Robyn, at this point, do we know for certain who the terrorists are?

KRIEL: Well, we're hearing from at least one what we understand to be a fairly credible, reliable source for a number of jihadi organizations post whenever they have done - committed some event like this. They are claiming that an al Qaeda and affiliate of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, (INAUDIBLE), has claimed responsibility. However, we're still verifying that to try and make sure that it is, in fact, them. They, in fact, were also part of a hotel raid very similar to this one in early August where 17 people were killed. A very similar modus operandi, Jake. They started very early on a Friday morning, killing - hitting a hotel in central Mali and killing a few foreigners, as well as many, many Malians. Today's was much more spectacular, as it were. Today's was much more deadly.

TAPPER: All right, Robyn Kriel, thank you so much.

Brooke, back to you in New York.

BALDWIN: All right, Jake, thank you. We'll come back to you momentarily.

But the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali says a possible reason for the attack is that diplomats were meeting in that hotel to discuss a peace process in Mali, which has been battling Islamist extremists for years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONGI HAMDI (ph): But they think this attack has been perpetrated by negative (ph) forces by terrorists who do not want to see peace in Mali, who are praying (ph) to make all efforts to derail the peace process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: With me now, CNN military analyst, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, and counterterrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.

So, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

And, general, first to you. I mean just - I think for our American viewer, I want context on Mali. I know it's a west African nation. It's formerly a French colony. Northern Mali fell under Islamic militant control in 2012. For years now it's been battling this Islamic extremism. Can you just give us a little perspective, especially with regard to ties to the French?

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, you got it, Brooke, on all of those things. It's also part of the group of nations where part of the country is under the thumb of an organization called al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb in the north, that Sahara Desert region. And I'll tell you, you know, a few years ago, when I was commanding in Europe, my counterpart in Africa, the commander of the U.S. Army Africa and Africa Command, were focused specifically on the intelligence flowing out of this area because of the rising strength of AQIM. But they were specifically focused on Mali because that was about the time when President Traore was chased out of power. There's about six or seven different groups in that area. Your reporter just mentioned al Narabatoon (ph). That's the one that's claimed responsibility. There's also Answar al Din (ph), the tarek (ph) rebels, the Malcino Liberation Front (ph).

[14:05:49] So all of this polyglot of terrorists have the potential of conducting this attack. And none of them right now are associated with ISIS, but some of them are al Qaeda affiliates. But Mali has been under the attention of AFRICOM (ph) for several years now.

BALDWIN: Let me get to that polyglot of terrorists. You hit right on it.

And Daveed, you know, I know there have been no official claims of responsibility, but I was reading "The New York Times" today quotes Rita Katz (ph). She's the director of Site (ph) Intelligence Group tweeted that al Qaeda supporters have been praising the attack, quoting one who said that the Islamic state, quote/unquote, "should learn a thing or two." A, who is the enemy here and, b, what do you think she was implying - what was she getting at?

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: Well, in fact, it seems that there actually has been an official claim of responsibility. What we don't have yet is a written claim of responsibility. But if you look at the ways that in the past Al Narabatoon (ph) has disseminated its claims of responsibility, would go out to media outlets. And in this case, there are two outlets that heard from Almarabatoon (ph) operatives. One of them is al Akbar, which is a Moratavian (ph) news agency. The other one is the Qatar based news agency al Jazeera. Both of them have received claims of responsibility. So I think that there is an official claim in.

BALDWIN: OK.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Almarabatoon is - is affiliated with al Qaeda. And if you go back to when the French went back into Mali in 2013 to dislodge al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from northern Mali, you might - your viewers might recall that right after that there was this awful hostage siege at an Algerian oil facility. That hostage siege was carried out by Almarabatoon, which is led by a notorious operative named Moktar Belmoktar. They're one of the most capable jihadist and terrorist organizations in that region.

BALDWIN: So seven days after Paris is - just what about the timing of all of this?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: That's an excellent question. And I think we might be reading too much in when we look at it in the context of the ISIS attacks because, you know, there - as the previous guest said, not General Hertling but the one you had on the phone, you have events that are related to Mali itself. That is a peace conference that's going on and so they might be more regionally based.

There's a big competition between al Qaeda and ISIS worldwide for supremacy over the global jihadi movement. So a lot of commentators, I think, will be tempted to say that there's a war of outbidding. That is, they're both trying to outdo each other.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: But there's also an advantage to al Qaeda in ISIS' rise, in that as the world's attention is focused on ISIS, al Qaeda's more under the radar and they've been carefully rebranding themselves and are almost in some places seen as more legitimate than they were five or six years ago, which is something that we'll be regretting, I think, in a few years.

BALDWIN: Wow. We've talked about this -

HERTLING: And, Brooke -

BALDWIN: And especially when we were covering the rise of ISIS and the fact that these two terrorist networks are outbidding or trying to one up each other.

General, go ahead.

HERTLING: Yes, I can't agree with Daveed anymore on what he just said. We can't lump everything under the category of ISIS. This is not an ISIS group. At least it's certainly not yet. In fact, they won't even associate with ISIS because of what they see as the extreme violence of ISIS killing women and children.

But they've also got a little bit of a lean toward criminality in this area. There's a lot of gun runners and people who are out for money in these groups. And they have been - there's been an abundance of these kind of groups throughout the countries in the area. Miratania (ph), Kotivu (ph), Niger, Burkina Faso. All of the countries surrounding Mali right now have had similar problems with similar gang-like groups like this, although all of them fall under sharia law and all of them will be extreme terrorists. But none of them have the capability to really link with other larger organizations, although they all want to be seen as popular.

BALDWIN: So then - all right, so listening to both of you all very carefully, then - and, Daveed, to your point, that, you know, ISIS and al Qaeda, especially within al Qaeda, all very, very different. And they want to be seen that way. Then when it comes to taking them down, counterterrorism efforts, is that solution then very, very different depending on which group you're dealing with.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think it is. I mean, for one thing, we haven't been very good at playing divide and conquer, but there is certainly an opportunity there. Secondly, they have a very similar goal. Both of them believe in implementing a hard line version of Sharia law, reestablishing the caliphate and expanding. But at the same time they have a very different strategy for getting there. [14:10:15] ISIS is much more overt - or overtly brutal, as General Hertling said, whereas al Qaeda has for years been trying to adopt more of a population centric approach. One more rather than just dominating a population, they try to win it over, win hearts and minds. And that's part of where the conflict between the two organizations lies. And actually part of Almarabatoon, which claimed credit for this attack, pledged their allegiance to ISIS not so long ago, after which you had this internal purge within the organization. So this ISIS-al Qaeda rivalry has played out directly within this organization. But it's very clear that the claim that we've seen is from the al Qaeda-linked Almarabatoon.

BALDWIN: Got it. Got it. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and General Mark Hertling, invaluable perspective from both of you. Thank you so, so much.

HERTLING: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up, we have, back to France, major developments coming out of Paris today, the scene of thee massive siege on the suspected terror targets. Police discover another body. Whose body is that? And why investigators now say a woman, who was found, killed in that apartment, actually was not the one who detonated the suicide bomb as first suspected. Much more coming out today. Live coverage from Paris when we come back. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:40] TAPPER: It was exactly one week ago today that blood spilled on to the streets here in Paris. A massacre that would change this city forever. And today we have just learned that more people have succumb to their injuries. One hundred and thirty people now have been killed mercilessly. That's how the French prime minister put it a short time ago. Before the number was 129.

This as police here are revealing some surprising news. Another body found in the carnage of that deadly police raid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE: Where is your boyfriend?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not my boyfriend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: You hear there the hail of bullets and explosions that killed the architect of the coordinated Paris terrorist attacks. But also his female cousin, a woman whom we now believe died not by her own suicide belt, as French authorities originally believed, but by someone else's suicide belt.

Let's bring in Nic Robertson, Paul Cruickshank, CNN terrorism analyst, and Cedric Leighton, CNN military analyst and former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former deputy director for training at the national security agency. Nic, let me start with you. This confusion obviously speaking to the chaos and carnage inside this French apartment. The discovery of this third body raising the question, who else was in this terrorist hideout? What are you hearing?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it does. I mean what the prosecutor said later on the Wednesday, the same day of the raid there in Saint-Denis, he said it is - a lot of destruction in there. The floors have collapsed in the building. It's going to take a lot of time to do the DNA analysis, the forensic analysis, to figure out whether or not it was Abdelhamid Abaaoud. They have determined that.

But in that chaos and carnage now, they've now worked out or have a better analysis of what happened. Not only was the woman, the cousin of Abaaoud, not now believed to be a female suicide bomber, but they discovered that there were, in fact, three bodies in there. This was something that we were hearing, that that was a possibility, but it wasn't clear. They can say with certainty that it was two bodies.

Now they know that it's a third body. The third body is a man. They don't - they're not announcing his identity yet at this time. But given the amount of time it took to identify Abaaoud and the level of fire on that apartment and the number of explosions and the amount of destruction, perhaps that is something that will have to go through forensic testing. And it's just, at the moment, it's just not clear who that might be other than somebody associated with the plot that police say was absolutely eminent when they raided the premise early Wednesday, Jake.

TAPPER: Cedric, let me ask you. We're two days plus since this raid on this apartment. The fact that we're only now learning, a, the woman who died there was not a suicide bomber. She was killed by somebody else's suicide contraption, and, b, that there was an entire third other person in this carnage, what does that tell you about this raid and the scene there?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, FORMER MEMBER, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Well, the scene must have been absolutely chaotic, Jake. And what you're looking at is literally pieces and parts of human bodies. And it's obviously horrible to behold. But the basic thing that they dealt with was destruction of the people and destruction of the physical area around it. The building itself. The fact that the floor collapsed. The fact that there must have been damage to the walls and some of the other areas there. That tells me that this was an absolute disaster.

And so when you forensically piece that together, you have to take these little, minute pieces and then figure out based on things like DNA evidence and other patterns that are in there, like ballistic patterns. You actually have to figure out exactly what happened and how this all occurred. And it takes a very, very long time even for the best investigative services to piece this stuff together.

TAPPER: And, Paul, this makes us all reconsider this woman who we were initially told by authorities was a female suicide bomber. Now not only was she not a suicide bomber, we don't even know if she was a terrorist. She might have been an innocent victim for all we know as of now.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, but she was hanging out with people who were wearing suicide vests. So, you know, I mean, that - that's a certain pointer, isn't it? But there was this terrible destruction. I was told by officials just a few minutes after the raid that they actually suspected there would be more bodies. But they're only later able to make that determination, Jake.

[14:20:17] TAPPER: And, Cedric, let me also ask you. The manhunt for the surviving jihadi that we know of, the eighth terrorist, Salah Abdeslam, it continues. They're now talking about extending the manhunt to the Netherlands.

LEIGHTON: Right, because he was supposedly seen in Belgium and now we're looking at possibly that area of basically radius of travel extending all the way into the Netherlands. And it could even extend into Germany and other areas. But it all depends on patterns of behavior and also how often he uses different things, you know, different forms of identity or different means of transportation. That's all going to be part of the investigation at this stage.

TAPPER: Paul, we've heard now that French authorities say they've conducted almost 800 searches, detained 107 people, seized 174 weapons since the Paris terrorist attacks. Do we expect the searches to continue at this pace in perpetuity or just for the next few weeks? What do you suspect?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they're shaking the tree at the moment. I mean - and most of these people are not thought to be connected to the Paris attacks, but they're people that they've had under observation for a long time and now there's a zero tolerance approach. They want them to be aware that they know about them. They're going in. They're finding a lot of weapons. There's this nexus between gangsterism on the one hand and terrorism on the other hand.

TAPPER: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: And it's a very worrying nexus because these terrorists, who were also gangsters, are getting ahold of very powerful weapons. They have all those networks, criminal networks, necessary to obtain this and, you know, we're seeing this play out now on the streets of Europe where they're able to get ahold of these weapons of war. And that's why we're seeing these terrible fire fights.

I mean we saw a similar one in Belgium in January. I mean that was the - the largest, most intense commando raid in the history of Belgium since the Second World War. This one in Paris, I think you can probably make the same comparison. I mean there's never been anything like it. Here in France, since the Second World War, (INAUDIBLE) I can think of. And I think these things are going to become all too familiar in Europe over the next two or three years because ISIS is ratcheting up. Their ringleader's still in Syria, in Raqqa, who orchestrated this plot, Fabien Clain, they believe, who claimed responsibility for ISIS, and they have safe haven over there and they're trying to very quickly recruit fresh recruits coming in, sending them back to France. And the reason they're doing it so quickly, such quick training, is because people can just book a two or three-week holiday in Turkey, slip very quickly into Syria -

TAPPER: Yes.

CRUICKSHANK: Come back and then the European intelligence services aren't going to suspect that they got all the way into Syria because it's so quick.

TAPPER: Yes. Paul, Cedric, thank you so much. Nic Robertson, to you as well.

Brooke, back to you in New York.

BALDWIN: All right, thank you. We will get back to Paris momentarily.

But coming up next, on politics, would Donald Trump support a national database for Muslims in America? His answer definitely raising some eyebrows on the campaign trail last night in Iowa. And moments ago, he tweeted about that very issue. We'll bring in our politics reporter who is traveling along with him in South Carolina today, MJ Lee. She will join me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:32] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

That whole Muslim database idea, yes, Donald Trump just now saying that was not his idea. Here's his tweet from moments ago. Quote, "I didn't suggest a database-a reporter did. We must defeat Islamic terrorism and have surveillance, including a watch list to protect America."

Trump raised definitely some eyebrows last night when he appeared to support such a database to register and track Muslims right here inside the United States. Here he was talking to NBC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should there be a database system that tracks the Muslims who are in this country?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There should be a lot of systems beyond databases. I mean we should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border. We have to have strength. We have to have a wall. And we cannot let what's happening to this country happen any longer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that something your White House would like to do?

TRUMP: Oh, I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think the effect of that would be? How would that work?

TRUMP: It would stop people from coming in illegally. We have to stop people from coming in to our country illegally. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But for Muslims specifically, how do you actually

get them registered into a database?

TRUMP: It would be just good management. What you have to do is good management procedures. And we can do that. That's nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do you - do you go to mosques and sign these people up into the system?

TRUMP: Different places. You sign them up at different - but it's all about management. Our country has no management.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Trump, why would Muslim databases not to the same thing as requiring Jews to register in Nazi Germany? What would be the difference? Is there a difference between the two?

TRUMP: Who - who are you with?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a difference? I'm with NBC News. Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews?

TRUMP: You tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Nazi Germany?

TRUMP: You tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe -

TRUMP: Why don't you tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe there is?

TRUMP: You tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should Muslims be, I mean, fearful? Will there be consequences if they don't register?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. So we just wanted to play the whole thing for you. You heard the reporter asking the questions and you heard Trump's responses.

Let me bring in CNN politics reporter MJ Lee, who is on the trail with Trump for the campaign in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Also with me, Bob Cusack in Washington, editor-in-chief of "The Hill."

So great to have both of you on.

MJ, I want you to give me, again, I can't underscore context, precisely his language and did he address this at the rally a little while ago in South Carolina?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Hey, Brooke. Trump did not actually get asked about this database issue and he certainly didn't bring it up himself. So it was interesting to see him minutes after leaving this event space tweeting, sort of saying that this isn't an issue that he brought up himself but rather that a journalist asked him this question.

[14:30:09] Of course, this is an idea that has gotten him a ton of backlash, including from some of his rivals.