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170 Guests, Staff Taken Hostage in Mali Hotel; Italy Hunting Down 5 Terror Suspects. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 20, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:58:28] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Viewers in the United States and around the world, you are watching NEW DAY, and we are following breaking news from here in Paris. Yet another terror attack. This an active hostage situation in Mali's capital after 10 or more gunmen stormed a Radisson Hotel there.

Let's get to CNN's David McKenzie, live in Johannesburg with the breaking details.

David, we're hearing that they're going floor-to-floor. We know that there have been deaths. What can you tell us?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, it's an evolving and very serious situation in the west African country of Mali. What we know, according to a U.N. spokesman, is that around 7 a.m. local time, we believe that there were two to three gunmen, in fact, who were in diplomatic cars of some kind that went to this Radisson Hotel, which is very popular with foreign nationals, expats as well as businessmen traveling into that region.

We do know that there are some 170 guests and crew -- guests, crew and people there who are potentially being held by those hostages. Several people were able to escape, including just details now as three U.N. employees were extracted, according to a U.N. spokesperson. This area has been known for its insecurity, particularly in the northern part of Mali, but this is a major escalation right in the heart of the capital, very much a center of French and foreign interests in that country -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. David McKenzie, thank you very much.

On the phone now, I want to bring in a man who owns a restaurant right next to the Radisson where this is ongoing right now, says he heard the attack. What can you tell us about what you heard and what transpired after that?

OK. All right. Communications are not great. Right now, we've got some storm conditions here, and obviously, we're speaking to Africa so when we get him back on, we will.

Right now let's go to the panel. Christiane Amanpour, Jim Sciutto, Melissa Bell, the international affairs editor for France 24, an around-the-clock news service here in France. OK, we know what's going on. It's evolving right now. At least

ten gunman. This is a terror situation. This is a deadly situation. They're going floor by floor. There are counter authorities trying to deal with it. It's called a hostage situation, 140 guests at least, 30 employees, as well. Some U.N. employees have been extracted.

So that's the situation on the ground. Let's talk about why. Tell us a little bit about the context of where this is happening and how it involved the French.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know the details right now. And nobody's claimed responsibility, but they are saying that "Islamists," quote/unquote, went in there and, as you said, going floor to floor. You know, there are three dead already.

A hostage situation brings back memories of one week ago, the hostage situation that led to a slaughterhouse at Bataclan. Also the context. France has been very proactive, pushing back al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb from 2013-14. They had a very big force there doing that. It was successful. Then last year that involved into a slightly smaller, more narrow Special Forces operation. And they've been very successful.

This hotel, we understand, is one where many foreign flight crews go, Air France crews go, other flight crews go when overnighting and obviously foreigners at that hotel. So it could be revenge for this, or the second wave of different attacks in different places.

CUOMO: One little bit of more favorable news in a horrible situation, obviously. The early estimate of ten gunmen have been reduced. It may be two or three. Nevertheless, there's chaos inside that hotel. I believe now we have Amin Trie (ph) on the phone, owns a restaurant. Heard this as it began.

Amin, if you can hear me, what did you hear? Take us through it.

AMIN TRIE (PH), WITNESS (via phone): Hi, Chris. Let's say that, some people have seen two terrorists, and they went to the -- in front of the hotel and some (ph) the security there. Then they gained access to the hotel. After that, they start -- they made some -- some inside deal. So we don't know yet. Really starting through there.

Around 8, we heard a huge explosion coming from the hotel. We don't know yet it was inside or outside the hotel.

Later, the terrorists went to the roof of the hotel with the hostages. There were 170 hostages there. Actually, now a few of them have been released. As we talk now there is a police force on the hotel trying to, to get the hostages, and...

CUOMO: OK. Amin, thank you very much. Please, stay safe. We want to learn what's going on, obviously, but safety should be paramount. Stay at a safe distance. You know these things. Please check back with us if there are developments that you are able to observe. But again, safety is paramount. All right. So we hear that report. And it does confirm the

initial context for this, Jim, that they did have a group of insurgents go in, lock the place down. They're going floor by floor; it's fluid. But in a situation like this, what are the countermeasures?

SCIUTTO: This is a Mumbai-style attack. Right? In fact, it has many parallels. A number of gunmen taking over a hotel. We talked a lot about how U.S., European counterterrorism officials have been worried about just that kind of attack for months. We saw that, in effect, on the streets of Paris on Friday. It is a great way to grab attention, to kill a lot of people, and to hold their attention for some time. That's one thing to keep in mind.

The other thing to keep in mind is terrorism is a competitive game. Right? We don't know of any tie to ISIS to this. In fact, it's more likely to be al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb. Al Qaeda, conscious of how ISIS has stolen the attention. Right? It's stolen the world stage.

And we've seen this before. One group attacks. The other still tries to establish its relevance. We've seen Ayman al-Zawahiri, when ISIS has carried out attacks, to sort of perk up from his cave in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and say, "We're still relevant," call on attacks themselves. So it's potentially competitive, as well.

CUOMO: What a perverse sense of competition. Melissa Bell, again, the international affairs editor for France 24, take us through this a little bit more.

[06:05:09] MELISSA BELL, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR, FRANCE 24: As you were just saying, it is very different groups that operate in Mali, and what government sources are telling me is that they believe that Ansar Dine could be behind this. This is a group, you'll remember, in 2012, when the Tuareg Rebellion took this turn. This is the turn (ph) when Islamist groups began operating and took over the northern part of Mali. This group was at the forefront of it. And its leader, Iyad Ag Ghaly, reappeared last year after a long moment of silence -- of course, after the French went in and pushed the groups back -- vowing to revenge and threatening French interests.

Now, he is an ally to the south of the country. You have to remember that Mali is a country that's really split in two. There's the north in which the French operates and continues in the south. Of course, where the siege is happening in Bamako.

And Iyad Ag Ghaly's ally is a man called Amadou Koufa. He's a very vocal preacher who very recently these last few weeks called for attacks against French interests, and sources within the Malian government believe that these groups could be involved. These are very different groups.

CUOMO: Take us through the relevance -- take us through the relevance, also, as Mali as a transit port from Morocco into more hotbed areas of Northern Africa, Libya, Algeria. That's relevant here, too, in terms of the type of action. BELL: This is exactly why it happened. The reason that the

Islamists are in control of the north of the country is that, in the wake of the Libyan Revolution, all of these arms and men float across the border into Mali. These are extremely porous borders. You're talking about the Dile (ph) region, which is hard to control and vast.

And these groups came in, tremendous amounts of arms, huge amount of manpower; and the Malian army was overrun, why a push took place in Bamako in 2012. They were no longer able to fend off the Islamists, and they were being massacred in northern Mali. That led to more chaos and, indeed, the taking of the north of the country by the Islamist groups.

CUOMO: In terms of how to stop this situation, we have heard that local forces are being assisted by U.N. forces. There's some type of U.N. meeting going on inside this hotel. The numbers, the procedures we're not sure. We do know the U.S. president, who's in Kuala Lumpur, has been briefed on the situation. We have Michelle Kosinski with him.

Michelle, can you take us through what was involved in this briefing? What are you being told?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris. We haven't gotten a response of what's going on right now from the White House.

What they said is that the president was briefed while he's on this trip by his national security adviser, Susan Rice, and that he's asked his national security team to keep him apprised of the situation.

We expect to hear from him soon after a bilateral meeting with the Malaysian prime minister. So he may address the situation then. But what we've seen throughout this trip, which is supposed to be all about economics, his pivot to Asia, but it has been darkly, darkly overshadowed by terrorist attacks and then tough questions about what to do next, and how to keep the American people safe, Chris.

CUOMO: OK. All right, Michelle, thank you very much. As you get information in terms of what the White House understands in this ongoing situation, please, let us know, and I'll get back to you.

But let's not forget where we are now. We are in Paris. One week to the day since these horrific attacks that certainly served as a wake-up call to the world and the depth and breadth of the fight against ISIS. And there is still a lot of ongoing activity.

There are new developments that came as a function of this operation that took out the so-called planner of these France attacks. So let's bring in Fred Pleitgen. He's monitoring the developments for us.

Fred, what do we see today? Obviously, not a good marker in time, one week now since one of the worst days in French history. What do we know? FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's some new

developments in the case. There's some CCTV video, some surveillance video that has turned up from a subway station right close to where one of the getaway cars was found. That black Fiat Leon. And the person on that surveillance video is Abaaoud, is the mastermind, the alleged mastermind of this attack.

Of course, we know from there, he then made his way back to that apartment and be also new information that we're getting from that as well, that apparently, there's been a third body that's been discovered inside that apartment, a male body, and don't know who that body belongs to. They don't have any positive DNA tests on that yet.

They're also still saying that they don't have positive DNA tests for the female body, but we believe that it's -- that it's his cousin but...

CUOMO: Keeping it at three, deceased?

PLEITGEN: The third one added today, keeping it at three at this point. And we have to keep in mind, as we've been seeing this, it's very difficult for them to operate there. There were still, throughout the day yesterday, controlled explosions that were going on. The French put out a warning to residents there. They do hear a few explosions. Don't worry. So it's very difficult for them to work. They're right now three inside that apartment.

CUOMO: I want to go to Ivan Watson. He's in Belgium. Some point of context here. One of the reasons that there's reluctance to call this guy a mastermind is not just the factor of heroization but also that authorities here feel you don't have to be a genius to plan something like what happened here. And there are many others that may be able to step into his role and do so quickly. So that's another reason for minimizing his relevance.

[06:10:07] But that said, there's an eighth suspect from the Paris attacks, an eighth terrorist on the run. They believe he was in Belgium, and that's where Ivan Watson is, senior international correspondent. What's the latest from there?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, authorities here and across Europe are still looking for this fugitive suspect from the Paris attacks. Twenty-six-year-old Saleh Abdeslam, born here in Belgium. His older brother blew himself up in the deadly Paris attacks, and a third brother was detained for questioning but released by Belgian investigators just a couple days after the attacks.

Noe has spoken out, again, to CNN now, after initially making a public appeal for his fugitive brother to turn himself in. He's given another statement. I'll read it now: "If Saleh is still alive, I want to tell him that Abaaoud is dead. He doesn't need to be afraid of him now. He must go to Belgian authorities, because it's the only way to avoid being shot down by police."

Again, that is an older brother of the fugitive suspect of the Paris attacks, Saleh Abdeslam, who was briefly questioned by French authorities after the Paris attacks, while apparently driving from Paris towards Belgium. He has since disappeared, though his vehicle was later found here in Brussels by Belgian authorities -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Ivan. Stay with us for any developments as they go on. Another added to the victim pile of what they did is this man's family. We're now in an impossible situation of justifying their connection to him.

So we see that from France there's certainly a spider web situation being uncovered here, whether it's Belgium, what we heard about in Germany, the arrests in Turkey, what's now going on in Mali, northwest Africa and Italy. There have been reports consistently since the attack here that there was coordination with Italian officials to, quote, "chase down people" from operations here that may have fled and now situations that may have been originated in Italy itself. For that, we have CNN's Delia Gallagher, joining us live from Rome. Delia, what is the situation there?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, Italy is on alert level two. That is their highest security level, outside of being under direct attack.

The Italian foreign minister said last night that they do have names of five potential terror suspects in Italy, whom they are working to identify. That's the extent of what he will say on the matter at this time.

The U.S. embassy here in Rome issued a warning to U.S. citizens identifying three potential sites for terrorist attacks. St. Peter's Basilica, La Scala, the opera house in Milan and the cathedral. Obviously, urged U.S. citizens to be vigilant around churches, synagogues, hotels and restaurants, as well.

The interior ministry, Chris, says they've moved 1,000 military to guard sites around Italy. The police say that they want to give a visible security presence here and throughout the country, and I can attest to that, in the metro, around the Vatican, and around these important sites we are seeing beefed-up security.

Not necessarily new, Chris. We saw this in September of last year and in January, when there were ISIS videos specifically mentioning Rome as a potential target. And of course, French authorities very firmly saying they do not have any credible information about potential attacks at this time, Chris.

CUOMO: Delia Gallagher, thank you very much.

Good news/bad news. Good news is we're seeing rapidly increasing coordination among countries, sharing information in the fight against terror. Bad news is a lot of situations for them to do so.

Right now we are following breaking news out of Mali, northwest Africa. There has been what has called a terrorist attack there on a hotel in the capital. Some unknown number of gunmen entering in, taking more than 160 guests and employees hostage. There are reports of deaths already. We have late-breaking details next. Stay with CNN.

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[06:18:14] CUOMO: Breaking news, another terror attack. Right now, gunmen are staging a siege on a Mali hotel. At least three people are dead. The number of hostages upwards of 160 guests and employees. We have somebody on the scene, Olivier Salgado.

Now, he is a spokesperson for a United Nations' mission in Mali. He just had a crisis meeting on this situation.

Olivier, what can you tell us? We hear that there is news that U.N. forces are helping the local Mali forces deal with this situation?

OLIVIER SALGADO, SPOKESPERSON, U.N. MISSION IN MALI (via phone): Yes. What I can tell you is that at 7 a.m. this morning, two to three people entered the hotel. It's one of the biggest hotel in the metro area with AK-47. They came, and immediately, they started shooting at people, before entering the hotel.

We had three U.N. personnel inside the hotel amongst many other people. They were extracted. What we are doing right now is that we are supporting the Malian authorities on the side with our quick reaction forces.

We also deployed emergency equipment and trucks with ambulances, too, and I can give you many more details, because you have to understand that the operation is currently happening as I speak. Apparently, the people entered the compound of the hotel with diplomatic plates. That's what I can tell you.

[06:20:04] CUOMO: Diplomatic plates in cars. Explain what that means, Olivier, and also the nature of this operation you're talking about. Is this an intention to negotiate or is this just about a counter-siege to take out who's in there and rescue as many as possible? Take us through those two points.

SALGADO: I can't tell you what the intention is. What I can tell you is that people are entering with AK-47 in the hotel. I'm not sure they are here to negotiate anything.

Regarding the diplomatic plates, you have many, many international organizations operating in Bamako, and in Mali, so that's just diplomatic plates. A fake, or a stolen car, I don't have details on that.

CUOMO: All right. Just so that we're clear. Are you saying that the gunmen showed up in vehicles with diplomatic plates?

SALGADO: Yes, that's the latest information I got. Yes.

CUOMO: All right. Olivier, thank you. It's just the communications aren't great. I want to know, is there any additional detail you can give on what they were saying as they entered? Any context for that? SALGADO: I don't have the confirmation on this. I heard many

stories, but I can't confirm anything so far. You have to understand, it's happening as we speak.

CUOMO: All right. Olivier, thank you very much. Thank you very much. The communications aren't great, but thank you so much for reaching out to us. Let us know if you have more information, please, so we can stay apprised, but again, please, stay safe in doing so.

Olivier Salgado, a spokesperson for the U.N. mission in Mali.

So that's what we know right now. It is active and ongoing. It is a terror situation. That is how it's being reported. Two to three gunmen entering this hotel in the Mali capital. Obviously there with deadly intentions. People have lost their lives. There is an active operation to try to get others out and take out the gunmen. We'll give you more as we get it.

Now, help me Christiane. While I was trying to listen, you were trying to explain what he was saying to me. The men showed up with diplomatic plates on their vehicles.

AMANPOUR: That's what he's saying, basically, and it's just this whole business of stolen identities and how these people, whether in Paris, whether in Mali right now are using stolen identities. He said and he confirmed again when you asked him again, that these people came in with AK-47s in vehicles that were carrying diplomatic licenses.

And he further explained that Bamako is, you know, the center of a lot of diplomatic, even U.N. vehicles have special license plates. So there's a lot of that opportunity, and obviously, he believes that they were stolen vehicles. They came in and so got through all the checkpoints, of course.

You know, just like these people with stolen passports have done through European borders, one of them at least committing this crime. So that seems to be the news that he was telling us, as well as there's an operation under way to try to end this.

SCIUTTO: This is a well-known, very powerful tactic we've seen in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, stealing police uniforms, military uniforms so that you get past. Here in this case they're going under cover of diplomats. Right? It's very powerful.

We know the security there is very high. It's a great way to get in. The other point I would make is you see police forming a cordon around the hotel. We know this from U.S. counterterrorism officials. The whole way to respond to these kinds of situations has changed dramatically.

CUOMO: That's why I was asking about the negotiation principle. That used to be a model. We saw that a little bit of that at the Bataclan.

SCIUTTO: Negotiate, try to get him on the phone. The understanding is that doesn't work, because they're going to start killing. Right? We saw that.

AMANPOUR: People coming in with AK-47s. I don't think they have any intention of negotiating.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely not. And you know the police department trains its officers now, you get to a scene like that, you get inside. You don't wait for the tactical team. You don't negotiate if you can, because they know waiting means, sadly, more bodies.

CUOMO: And Melissa, one of the reasons I was asking is that part of the analysis of what happened here was that, when the authorities, the assets got on-scene, there was some deliberation, some delay in terms of what to do at the Bataclan as opposed to just going right in as you arrived. True?

BELL: And of course, once they realized that they were dealing with people whose intention was to massacre rather than hold people hostage, then the decision had to be made to go in.

And of course, the point about those stolen cars and identities is a very important one. We're talking about a part of Bamako that is in the middle of world government ministries. So its controls are super tight. They're checkpoints all over the Malian capital, and in front of this particular hotel, you have to go through several security checks.

Your car, the people inside are checked, properly checked before anyone can get into this hotel. So obviously, they had -- they had to find a way in, and the way in was diplomatic plates and vehicles that could get through the checks unnoticed.

[06:25:10] CUOMO: All right. So here's the status. Right now there's an ongoing described terror situation in Mali, in the capital in a hotel. Gunmen showed up in vehicles with diplomatic plates which may explain their ease of entry and AK-47s and they are laying siege to this hospital, inside at least 150 or upwards of that number between guests and employees.

It has become deadly already. Mali officials and their assets as well as U.N. assets are responding right now. It is an active operation. We have late-breaking details coming in as I speak. Let's take a quick break. Stay with CNN for more.

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CUOMO: You're watching NEW DAY. We are following breaking news right now. This, the one-week mark since the attacks here in Paris, and there is another terror attack going on right now in Mali. That's west, northwest Africa. At least three people are dead. It is an active situation.

Let's bring in CNN's David McKenzie, live in Johannesburg with the details -- David.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, what we know, Chris, around 7 in the morning local time...