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Tech Companies Against Government Access to Data; U.N. Official: At Least 3 Dead in Mali Hotel Attack; Video Shows Suicide Blast Involving Terror Suspect. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 20, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

SCHMIDT: Then you start adding in the issue about, OK, well, we're an international company. So another country will ask us, now, we want the keys to that, and we go on and on and on. And so then when you -- look at the whole end run. You don't do anything to hurt the country by helping the country.

[07:00:21] PEREIRA: Right. So bottom line is there, Howard, I want your take on this. Is there a solution to this, or is this going to be one of those endless tug-of-wars?

SCHMIDT: Well, I believe it's going to be an endless tug-of-war, because I look at the technical aspect. I look at the policy aspect, the business aspect, and I can't think of any one, go do this, and this will fix the problem. There are a lot of assets on both sides that have valid, valid ways of doing things, but nothing is going to come in and solve the problem for everybody and make everybody happy.

PEREIRA: Howard, Laurie, we'll both pick up this conversation again, because it is not going away anytime soon. Thanks for joining us.

Seven o'clock here. We're following a whole lot of news. Let's get right to it.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: To viewers in the United States and around the world, you are watching NEW DAY. And we are following breaking news out of Paris here. One week to the day of the Paris attacks, another attack going on right now in Mali. Armed gunmen taking on and laying siege to a hotel there. At least 150, maybe more, people held inside of this Radisson in Mali's capital.

We have global coverage with CNN's David McKenzie live in Johannesburg.

David, the latest?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest is, in fact, some good news, Chris, in this ongoing hostage situation in the capital of Mali. The state media is reporting that 80 people have been released or rescued by Special Operations force, moving into that hotel, in the recent moments.

There could be still at least 100 people, though, Chris, in that hotel, in a hostage situation. I want to bring you some new video of the security forces moving in at the scene. It's a combination of local forces from Mali, Special Operations forces, as well as a U.N. peacekeeping force, which is heavily involved in this operation.

Earlier we learned from the U.N. that at least two or maybe three gunmen were in what they believe were diplomatic cars or cars with diplomatic plates. They arrived at around 7 a.m. local and then stormed the hotel. Three people confirmed dead. Two Malian citizens, one French citizen.

And it's hard not to say how international this hotel is in this country. It is the place for flight crews, for business people, for diplomats going through Mali, a key western and international asset. So far we know there are French, Chinese, Indian citizens in that hotel and perhaps many others indeed -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, David. There's a lot going on right now. This is new video that we're showing you of the actual interior of the hotel. You see lots of mixed assets on the ground.

We also have a journalist that is very close to the situation on the ground. So let's get to them right now. Katerina Hoje, a freelance journalist on the scene there in Mali. What do you know?

KATERINA HOJE, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: I am a couple of streets down from the hotel. All of the streets leading up to the hotel are, of course, blocked, or closed off by Malian army soldiers and police. The situation is calm but tense. We haven't heard guns or explosions in a while. As far as I know, Malian forces and possibly international forces, not necessarily the U.N. peacekeeping force, who have a presence in Mali, have entered the hotel.

ATV is reporting right now that 80 hostages have been released from the hotel, or, really, have been freed. This is not an ongoing negotiation. It is a military operation to take out these terror suspects who laid siege to this hotel. That is the latest going on right now.

CUOMO: We were just hearing from Katerina Hoje, a journalist in Mali, who's surveying, saying that there's a relative period of calm right now. Hasn't heard any explosions in a long time.

Let's turn to the panel we have. CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour; CNN military analyst Paul Cruickshank, terrorism analyst, rather; and CNN senior national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

Christiane, the good news, it does seem to be calm there right now. Hopefully, there's some kind of result. We are hearing reports from ATV that they got maybe 80 people out.

AMANPOUR: That would be good news, but that means there's still dozens left in, and it's really a horrible situation. And we don't want to, you know, prejudge, because of what happened here at Bataclan and these horrible terrorists with these terrible aims. And I think one of the most important pieces of information we heard from the U.N. spokesman who you interviewed last hour was that they came in with Kalashnikovs, two or three of them in a car that was stolen, obviously. It was stolen. Diplomatic license plates which allowed them to do what they're doing.

[07:05:19] And that is, of course, what we're hearing and what we know about those terrorists who came here to Paris. They were stolen I.D.s. There was at least one, maybe more, according to French authorities, who infiltrated refugees and who took advantage of the borders which opened. No checks. No checks against Interpol database and a big traffic and a big market in stolen I.D.s right now.

BLITZER: In terms of who's fighting against the terrorists, we know there are Mali forces, obviously. The U.N. and also France president, Francois Hollande, speaking right now, saying that French authorities are doing everything they can.

They also have military presence there, as does the U.S.

Jim, in terms of the complexion of this place, why would this be happening in Mali? What is the situation there?

SCIUTTO: Well, you have a witches' brew of terror groups there. Some tied to ISIS, some tied to al Qaeda. I'm sure Paul will detail potential candidates who are behind this attack and keep in mind, this is a place that France deployed ground troops. You know, all this debate about ground troops in Iraq and Syria, France felt the need to deploy ground troops there two years ago there to fight Islamist forces there. They still have them.

The U.S. has ten, not a big number, but they're training Mali forces, because, again, it's a priority for the U.S. They know that they need help on the ground there.

CUOMO: To place a target. If you have the French, if you have the U.S., it becomes a target.

SCIUTTO; Absolutely.

CUOMO: Tell us, who could these guys be, Paul?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, you're looking at ISIS or you're looking at al Qaeda alliance groups. On the ISIS side of the ledger, there was a major group, a powerful group in Mali that in May of this year declared a legion to al Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of ISIS, and movement in jihad in West Africa.

It's possible this may be its coming out party, so to speak, in Mali, a very powerful group over there. But you also, on the al Qaeda side of the ledger, you have the one-eyed Algerian terrorist that's been in the news a lot. The Americans tried to target him in Libya in June, not clear whether he was killed. His group carried out an attack in the capital in Mali in March, where they killed...

CUOMO: The people we're talking about in terms of this region of the world. We're talking about porous borders in Europe. It's that exponentially worse in Africa. You have Mali on the border with Algeria, a transit point from the Morocco leading into Libya. So there's a lot of connectivity here.

AMANPOUR: And also after the Arab Spring, you had all of this sort of mayhem and all this splintering of al Qaeda and all these franchises. So there was al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, that they call themselves, which the French, when they started threatening Mali -- and the French have interests there -- and started destroying cultural sites, I mean, really important things that they were doing, and killing people from the opposite, you know, ethnic groups and this and that. The French went in and pushed them out.

CUOMO: Right. So now, one thing here. Let's just shift our focus back to France for one moment. A big part of the dynamic here as we mark one week and how things get better here is going to have to deal with relations between the French and French Muslims.

We just had a Muslim leader from a local mosque on who was angry, OK? He was frustrated. He's saying you're not going to solve terror by terrorizing your Muslim citizens. That is going to be met with a lot of controversy. People are going to say -- too bad. These people are Muslims that did this. The community is the going to be targeted.

AMANPOUR: I talked to the grand mosque chairman yesterday, so he is the chairman of the French Islamic faith, as it's called here, the big council of it. And he was outraged at the actions of those terrorists and he said...

CUOMO: So was this guy who was here.

AMANPOUR: Of course, but he didn't give any namby-pamby, you know, "Oh, woe is me. And oh, you know, we don't do this." Of course, he said most Muslims of course don't believe in this.

But he also said that, very sadly, some of the young people are getting pulled further and further into what he called a fundamentalist direction. And he said that when he comes out, I asked him what about big marches from the Muslim community? Just bring them all out. Show that it's not in our name, if those of your hash tags and this and that.

And he said, "I do that, and when I do that in this mosque in the center of Paris, and I'm the chief here, they say to me, you don't represent the Muslims. You don't represent the young. They think differently from you."

And he said -- and I think this is crucial, because French President Francois Hollande said that Syria is the world's biggest terrorist factory, just like Afghanistan was for al Qaeda when they plotted 9/11. And he said these ISIS targets are giving themselves such, you know, kudos, by having land from which to plan and to operate and this and that, the only thing that's going to change that is to deny them the land. Take the land away from them.

CUOMO: Understood. Jim, you wrote a book about this. And this is something that falls on deaf ears, especially in the United States. When Muslims say, you know, if you don't want to address poverty, you don't address what's making people disaffected, that feeds terror also, the response is almost unanimously, "Don't you blame this on what's being done to you. This is what you're doing to everybody else." Where do you see the balance?

[07:10:22] It's a difficult balance. This is playing out in the presidential race here. I interviewed a presidential candidate this week, Bruno Le Maire, from the Conservative Party. He says that Francois Hollande as being too soft on the Muslim community.

He's talking about, in effect, preventative detention of many of these 11,000 who are in this system, basically a sort of warning system about potential jihadis and radicalized. You know, this is in a political debate in the U.S. right now in the presidential race. It is very much here, but you have a debate.

Because listen, these are difficult decisions for governments to make. You want to be more alert, but you don't want to antagonize the communities. Because frankly, you need the community's help.

And I'll give an example. Is the anger in those communities real against radical Islam? The father of Abdelhamid Abaaoud called his son a psychopath. He attempted to go to Syria. They alerted the police here. They said, "My son is trouble."

CUOMO: The leader (ph) of one of the attackers went to the French police and said, "I can't control him anymore."

SCIUTTO: I can't control them. So they try to help.

AMANPOUR: Saying with some of these kids who have been groomed to go over, we've had a story about a mother who tried to tell the police, "My 16-year-old..."

CUOMO: Yes.

AMANPOUR: "... was allowed to cross the frontier and you did not stop him." A minor traveling alone.

CUOMO: What do we also hear? Let's go to Clarissa Ward. She's in Saint-Denis. And Clarissa, as you have been reporting, you hear something else, which is that in communities like this sometimes there is a reluctance to report, a feeling of isolation, there is a question of identity. What is your take on this issue?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I would say two things, Chris. First of all, there is not a lot of trust and communication going on between communities like this and the French authorities. And there is also a sense when you live in a neighborhood like this that you want to stay out of trouble. That you want to keep your head below the power pit and stay below radar.

We interviewed a woman yesterday who lived in that building where Abaaoud was living, and she said, I asked her, I said, "Did you not notice him? Did you notice this other woman, his cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen?

And she said to me, "Listen, in this kind of a neighborhood, you just want to keep your head down and mind your own business." And that's exactly why rougher neighborhoods like this are much more, they're easy prey for people like Abaaoud, because they know that, relatively speaking, it's easy for them to hunker down here and far less likely people are going to report on them than say, if they were staying in some apartment on the Champs D'Elysees.

So there's no question that people like Abaaoud are exploiting the tensions that exist in French society. They're exploiting the vulnerabilities of the disaffected youth, which is absolutely a reality here in France.

BLITZER: Clarissa, thank you very much.

Now let's go to Belgium. That has also been a flashpoint here. Much of the planning, much of the activity, much of the membership of what happened here in Paris came in some way out of Belgium. We have senior international correspondent Ivan Watson there. Ivan, you've been reporting about this. Why does Belgium have such a robust, radical environment? And the question of poverty. The question of services, of education comes up, but people don't want to hear it. They say it's jihad, not poverty. What's your take?

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that there's clearly been, and we've sensed this in our discussions in some of the neighborhoods that have tended to draw a lot of recruits to ISIS, that there is a sector of society here, very frustrated, very alienated by what they see.

Again, this is what people have told me. As western governments bombing Muslim countries for years. They see that as a great injustice, and there was even a woman who spoke to us yesterday and said, you guys keep attacking Islam. You guys keep attacking Muslims. I feel sad that this Abaaoud guy died because he was fighting to defend Islam.

So when you have that kind of sentiment on the ground in communities here, you can see why that would lead in the end to young people becoming radicalized, and convincing themselves that violence is a way forward.

Of course, there are voices on the other side of the debate here from within the Muslim community that denounce people like ISIS and say that they're awful for everybody in humanity. But again, that gets back to where some of the support comes from, and why a little country like Belgium would be, per capita, the biggest contributor to the ranks of ISIS in western Europe, with an estimated 500 young people from Belgium who have gone and joined groups like ISIS in Syria -- Chris.

CUOMO: And Ivan Watson, thank you. And Christiane, button it us. You hear this, it leads to one conclusion?

AMANPOUR: Well, the conclusion is, that these people who go over to join ISIS are not religious people; these are not Muslims. These are psychopaths, and they belong to a sect. That is what the Muslim leaders, and that is what many people are starting to say.

And you've heard U.S. officials call ISIS a death cult. It is a kind of a cult. And many of these people are very troubled and even their own families calling them, you know, sociopaths, psychopaths, I mean, like Abaaoud's family.

So of course, it's not the Muslim community, but it is those who hijacked the book for their own gang-land, "Let's wave Kalashnikovs around. Let's, you know, make ourselves feel great," led by these very charismatic people who say and who do have global totalitarian ambitions. That is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

CUOMO: People aren't really open-minded about the explanation after something like this. They just hear that they were Muslims. They see the violence and really, the analysis.

AMANPOUR: The Muslims have come out here from day one with their...

CUOMO: To say it's not them.

AMANPOUR: We have to be very careful about that.

CUOMO: That's why we've got to report both sides, even though people don't often want to hear it.

Let's get back to New York and other headlines this morning, as well -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris. Thank you for that. 7:15 here on the East Coast. Breaking overnight, Jonathan Pollard, an American who spied for Israel, has been released from a U.S. prison after 30 years. Pollard was arrested in 1985, convicted of selling U.S. intelligence secrets to Israel. He's now 61. He will have to spend the next five years on parole and is barred from leaving the U.S. without permission.

An American Yeshiva student is among three people killed in the latest Israeli/Palestinian violence. Israeli officials say a West Bank attacker shot at a group then rammed them with his car, killing 18- year-old Ezra Schwartz from Boston and two others. Earlier Thursday, in Tel Aviv, two Israelis were killed in a stabbing attack.

The president of the Minneapolis police union has a strong defense for one of the officers who shot and killed Jamar Clark Sunday. The union and the officer's lawyer say Clark had control of one of the officer's guns during the fatal scuffle Sunday. It has led to days of protests, claiming Clark was handcuffed when he was shot. Protestors demanding the release of video from the area. Officials say that will not be released until the investigation is over.

House lawmakers voting to stop Syrian refugees from getting into the U.S. without much tougher screening. Ahead, we'll speak to a congressman who sponsored the bill to find out what he wants to see happen. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:18] CUOMO: New developments here in Paris. You've heard about the operation that took out the alleged planner of the attacks here a week ago today. Well, now you can see it. Here is cell phone video of the actual operation that involves a female suicide bomber detonating herself. Here it is.

Now, obviously, that explosion, the matter coming out of that window, that was someone detonating their suicide belt. This shot by a local neighbor on her cell phone. That was the situation of the operation. That was near the beginning. It would go on for almost seven hours. Five thousand rounds were dumped in there by the French forces.

The reason they it was that they are telling us that this was no ordinary group of bad guys in this building. This was a team with military training that wanted to exit these apartments and actively engage the military in close proximity, one, because they felt they had equal tactics and training, which may be the case, because they are going abroad and getting military training.

And secondarily, because several of them had the suicide belts, which would have given them the ability to blow themselves up and take out large numbers of the French forces, which is why this -- one of the reasons it took so long was that the French force had divided. They kept half their S.W.A.T. assets back, because they were afraid of encountering this suicide belt. A reasonable fear, obviously. Because they didn't to just want to lose men and women in this assault because of proximity. So that's what was going on. That's the latest information in terms of giving us insight into it.

Let's discuss what this all means. We have Melissa Bell from France 24, the international affairs editor there. And military analyst and former member of the joint chiefs of staff, Cedric Leighton. Thank you very much for both of you for being here.

Tactically, for these commandos, what I was just saying -- obviously, you've helped me understand it, which is why I'm able to report it. This is a new threat. Bad guys who do not fear your capabilities, who believe they have equal training, want to take you on in proximity. And if it doesn't go well, kill themselves and take you with them.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, MILITARY ANALYST: Right, because they don't care whether or not they die. That's the big difference between their philosophy and the philosophy of police and law enforcement officers who are engaging them.

CUOMO: But even five years ago we didn't hear about terrorists wanting to come out into the open and take you on man to man?

LEIGHTON: This is very different. Because in the past what you had was people who were afraid of counterterrorism forces. Counterterrorism forces who basically had the corner on those kinds of tactics.

Now, these groups have studied the tactics of counterterrorism forces. They're adopting counter tactics. And what you see here is the actual operational use of those counter tactics, where they're going through, they're detonating themselves in a way that was never done before. They're confronting them like you said, Chris, one on one. And because they're able to do that, it creates a new dimension of change in the whole counterterrorism arena. So the tactics of the counterterrorism forces around the world for are going to have to evolve when they deal with something like this.

CUOMO: One obvious change we've seen is no more negotiation. If they take hostages in a place, like what we're following right now out of Mali, the hotel there, there's no more talking to them. The assault is immediate. The first assets on the scene go right in.

Something else I'm hearing from investigators that I want your take on. ISIS, well, all these operations. This is great. You're going to keep this pace up under the state of emergency? Just -- and the guy slowed me down and said, "Remember, when we burn the bushes, the snakes run." He said, "And that creates waves of issues for us, accelerated timing of attacks." You know, more counteractivity as well as beneficial activity and intelligence.

Help me understand that.

LEIGHTON: So what's basically happening is the operational tempo is what's being sped up here. Both sides are reacting to each other, and in the course of conflicts like this, just like you would have in a standard conflict, but here it's exacerbated because it can happen anywhere. You're having a different style.

Used to be that, like you said, you went into a negotiation phase with almost any hostage situation. Doesn't happen anymore, because the hostage-takers know that that's what the tactic is, and they've decided, "We don't even want to negotiate. There's no reason to talk to each other. We are here for our mission, our purpose. And we are going to go in, and we're just going to take out as many people as we can."

That's why we saw the disaster here in Paris.

CUOMO: Melissa Bell, two aspects for you. The first is, this state of emergency, you have your Senate voting on it today. It is presumed that Parliament will give President Hollande the authority that he wants. It would be rare in French history, but circumstances like a week ago, very rare as well and not wanting to be repeated.

Is there a chance that French society, when it sees that one of the outcomes of this increased police activity is, perhaps, potentially, more attacks, because it is forcing the hand of these cells that fear detection, do you think there could be pushback because of that?

BELL: I think at the moment the government is benefiting from huge popular support for what it's doing. So there are these questions about whether he's going too far, because there is extended state of emergency you talk about. There's also new legislation being prepared by the French government, which would go even further. Stripping binationals, for instance, of their French nationality and so on. Things that people who care about civil liberties and fighting things are very worried about.

But for now, the French government has, I think, 94 percent of the French people in the latest polls support what the French government is doing. That is strong, a strong response to this, getting a grip on the situation and making sure that it can't happen again and then extension, therefore, of these powers.

So the fear from the other side is that the government's going to take this support and the cross-party consensus that it enjoys at the moment to push through perhaps more than it should.

And we've been talking about the fourth piece of legislation on terror in the last three years in France and already since the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, France has installed some of the strongest Internet surveillance legislation that there is. I mean, they have these extraordinary powers already that they've given themselves since January. And there are those who say perhaps what we need are not more laws, but more people keeping an eye on these terrorists and so on. Which is also one of the things Francois Hollande will do.

CUOMO: The second aspect probably equally as important, part of that 6 percent, assuming it is 94 percent acceptance rate, part of that 6 percent will be Muslims who feel they're being unfairly targeted because of this. We just had a local leader. He said those guys are not Muslims who did this here in the name of Islam. They kill Muslims more than anyone. He condemns those attacks, but he says you will not fight terror by terrorizing your citizens. He's talking about Muslims who are the focus of these operations. Where's the balance?

BELL: It's going to be very hard to find that balance, and it's something that Muslims are at pains to express to make themselves heard, moderate Muslims, that is, here in France.

And you have in France Muslim's largest community. A big issue for France, and they're going to want to feel not being stigmatized, that people aren't confusing things in their minds, as happened after "Charlie Hebdo," as you're hearing a lot of Muslim leaders being hurt and themselves going out and saying this was nothing to do with us. And it's important to keep the issue separate in people's minds.

For now, though, Francois Holland really able to get through what he wants. People are scared. You had what happened a week ago today. You have the extraordinary raid that you mentioned on Wednesday. And of course, yes, they did go in and patch them, but when you consider what these forces came up against, and you were talking a moment ago about the violence of these siege. The 5,000 rounds of ammunition, French forces, and which will be elite special French forces sent in. And afterwards, we heard from the French prosecutor that they'd encountered violence that they'd never witnessed before.

Now people all around France are watching this and saying this is at home. This is in Saint-Denis. This is in the suburbs of Paris. And you have this -- the man who is in charge, Abdelhamid Abaaoud that morning on French soil, captured, we've learned today, a few moments after the -- the attack on the other night on CCTV footage, walking around the Parisian metro as though there weren't an international and European arrest warrant out for him.

So I think there's a lot more fear right now than there is concern for civil liberties. And I think...

CUOMO: To see how it progresses.

BELL: For now the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is very much outside the thing (ph).

CUOMO: Melissa Bell, Cedric Leighton, thank you very much.

We're going to take a break. Remember, we are following news here out of Paris of this siege of a hotel in Mali. At one point, there were 150 plus people inside, many of them released. It did turn deadly. There's late-breaking details. Stay with CNN.

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