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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Investigations Continue Into Terror Attacks in Paris. Aired 8- 9p ET

Aired November 16, 2015 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:16] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone.

This is, of course, a city in mourning. It is also the capital of a country now at war and a continent on edge in a far different world than it was just days ago. This is sadly that kind of story.

Today alone, we saw France's president address a joint session of parliament and the nation, something that is only happened three times since 1848. We saw national emergency declared and terror raids across the country. Just moments ago, officials in Belgium where the attackers originated raising the country's alert level.

We also just learned from a number of media sources here that the killers may have been living if a rented apartment in a local suburb in France, outside of Paris, a week ahead of the killings. Also today, we see the manhunt for an eighth suspect reach full swing and security tightened in London, in New York, and new NYPD security force mobilized. In Washington, a warning from the CIA that more attacks could be in the pipeline. Plus, a videotape threat apparently from ISIS against Washington D.C. itself.

And in state capitals all over the United States, governors telling Washington we will not accept Syrian refugees, the risk they say is too high.

In total, a lot has happened since we left you with the horrible story Friday night. A lot is happening at this hour and the next two hours we will be on the air. We want to get started by getting caught up on all the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The video is hard to watch and even harder to believe. Survivors pour out of the Bataclan Theater as shots continue to ring out.

What is happening, the man filming screams to those running away. We now know many of the answers. At 9:40 p.m. local time three terrorists entered the theater and opened fire. Two of them identified so far, both born and raised in France. They execute dozens and take others hostage.

JULIEN PEARCE, SURVIVOR OF BATACLAN THEATER ATTACK: We heard gunshots coming behind us. And when I looked back, I saw at least two men holding assault rifles and they were firing randomly to the crowd. COOPER: The siege last more than two and a half hours when police

units stormed the theater, all three attackers detonate their suicide belts. Eighty-nine innocents are killed, scores of others injured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was blood everywhere. People alive were covered with blood.

COOPER: At nearly the same time two other coordinated attacks are launched. Outside the Stade de France where 80,000 are attending a game, including French president Francois Hollande, a suicide bomber detonate his explosives.

Minutes later, two more suicide bombers blow themselves up in the same vicinity. A man walking by the stadium is killed, but in this case mass casualties are averted. Security guard says one of the bombers tried and failed to get inside the stadium, two of the bombers have been identify so far, one a Belgium is believed to have fought in Syria, the other posing as a Syria refugee entered Greece last month before coming to Paris.

A third group of terrorists is believed to have attacked four separate locations in the span of just 15 minutes. First here at a restaurant in a nearby bar, 15 people are gunned down. Seven minutes later, they continue their campaign of terror at this cafe killing five more.

Four minutes after that, they open fire here at (INAUDIBLE), 19 are killed. A few minutes after that, one of the attackers walks into this cafe and detonates his suicide bomb, killing himself and injuring others. He has been identified as a French citizen.

Another man believed to be the brother and accomplice of that suicide bombers gets away. He has been identified as Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French citizen. He was actually questioned by French police a few hours of the attack, but not detained according to a source. His getaway car found abandoned in a French suburb. An international manhunt continues.

Since the killings, memorials have sprung up throughout the city, the (INAUDIBLE), thousands have gathered to pay respects. It was here on Sunday there was a moment of panic when it was believed gunshots had been fired nearby.

There is police moving in from across the street there. It was about seven (INAUDIBLE). It seems like something happening about half a block away. The entire area around the (INAUDIBLE) has already cleared. In the end it turned out no shots had been fired.

Also on Sunday the beginning of a new military chapter from France. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the terror attacks and French fighter jets launched airstrikes on ISIS' self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, Syria.

Today, French president Francois Hollande declared war on the terror group.

We will eradicate terrorism. Terrorism will not destroy France because we will destroy it. President Obama's message spoken today as well stay the course with his ISIS strategy.

[20:05:25] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I do not do is to take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow in the abstract make America look tough or --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So that's broad strokes, what we know about the attacks that took place Friday. We want to get you up to the minute though on the latest on the investigations. And remember, there are multiple investigations going on not just here in France but Belgium, as well. Law enforcement here, intelligence agencies throughout the world as well and new threats to the United States.

Now working their sources for us, we have got correspondents all throughout the region, Jim Sciutto is here with me in Paris, Nima Elbagir is in Belgium, Deborah Feyerick is in the United States. But first, I want to bring in Jim Sciutto.

Jim, you are learning information about who may be the actual mastermind, believed to be the mastermind of this attack.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, a long briefing today with someone directly involved in the investigation of the French side. And signs point back to a Belgian, as you know, so many strands leading here to Belgian named Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, but he was in Syria. And as you heard from the French president from the beginning, they believed that this was directed and supplied and coordinated from Syria.

COOPER: And is believed just still be in Syria?

SCIUTTO: Still be in Syria. And what is particularly about him, he is very close to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Source I spoke to today said in light of that relationship, it would be unlikely that Baghdadi, if he didn't know about this plot more likely approved of the plot. So you see this having a strand right back to the most senior leadership of the group.

COOPER: And this is a guy who not only went from Belgium to Syria, actually then later on was able to bring his younger brother over with him, a 13-year-old.

SCIUTTO: It's yet one more case of someone involved in this attack in addition to several attackers themselves who were on the radar of French and Belgium authorities before this attack, which is going to be part of the post mortem on this is how did something so complex in light of those connections go through under the radar.

COOPER: Also, just in terms of the investigation, a number of vehicles have been found. There is the vehicle that was found outside the Bataclan, that was believed to have been driven by one of the terrorists obviously. And there was also now a vehicle that was found in a suburb of Paris that has some Kalashnikovs. It is French authorities. That was believed to have been driven involved in the attacks of the areas of bars driven by this man who is now there is an international arrest warrant for him.

SCIUTTO: That's exactly right. And we learned today of a third vehicle that they are tracking. A suspect that they chased all the way to Italy. They are not sure if he is involved in the attack but he was driving a very similar car that was spotted on some of the security camera footage. So you are seeing them. The truth is they don't know what is left of this cell, right. I mean, that's one of the difficulties here and that is one reason the level of alert is so high here.

COOPER: Yes. We should point out the man who is believed to have driven the car that was found in the Paris suburb was apprehended by French authorities on the way to Belgium after the attacks.

SCIUTTO: And let go.

COOPER: And let go. But he also, according to at least initial reports, had two other people in the vehicle with him when he was let go.

SCIUTTO: That's right. And to be fair to French authorities, he was stopped along the highway. At that point they didn't know that he was a suspect. Sadly as it turns out hours later his brother would be identified via fingerprints as one of the suicide bombers at the French stadium.

COOPER: The question, of course, is not only where is he? And there is an arrest warrant for him, but who were the other two people in the vehicle and did they have any association?

SCIUTTO: Exactly. And there are so many connections here like that where you have someone whether they knew each other, they might have stayed in same apartment or they went to the same mosque or they met on a jihad forum. That's the kind of web you're talking about here.

COOPER: All right, Jim, appreciate it very much. More on the - excuse me, Jim Sciutto,

More now about President Obama's speech. We will talk to Jim Acosta coming up.

We are going to talk more about the Belgian connection. For that, let's go to Nima Elbagir who has been reporting now in Belgium's capital and she is there tonight.

What is the latest there in Belgium? We know that they raised the threat level.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They raised the threat level and they reissued pictures of that suspected eighth attacker Salah Abdeslam. They have sent out two new pictures. This really gives you a sense that they are reinvigorating the manhunt.

Earlier today, when we were speaking during the raid in Mullenbach, here in Brussels, it did feel Anderson like they were finally closing in on what they thought was the house, if not where he was but at least pay closely connected to him. It was very, very heavy police presence, anti-explosive robots, heavily suited up bomb squads and then nothing. We were told no arrests were made and when we reached out to the prosecutor's office, he seemed very, I would actually use the word despondent in terms of any sense they had where this trail could lead them. But now later on this evening we had reissuing of photos and a sense they are trying to involve the general public trying to call for a broader help from people out there. Anyone out there who seen him, Anderson, who are can give a lead to pick up this trail.

[20:10:31] COOPER: Now, there were a number of arrests over the weekend. I want to ask the status of them. In particular, you know, we talked over the weakened about these three brothers, one of whom died in the attacks, one of them now there is this arrest warrant for who is believed to have drove the vehicle that was abandoned in the Paris suburb would then the vehicle into Belgium and was let go by police. But there was a third brother in this family arrested over the weekend and my understanding is he's been released, is that correct?

ELBAGIR: He has now been released. And he has been speaking to reporters and says that he has an alibi for Friday evening. And really just in a real illustration of the distance that can exist even within the same families with along with these young man that are radicalized, he's been a counselor in Mullenbach on the city council there for ten years. He was absolutely horrified at the thought of what his brother believed to have done and horrified at the thought of what he himself was accused of doing.

Those we have been speaking to within the Belgium security services says that we need to understand Mullenbach. We have to understand why Mullenbach has become really the nexus of all the investigation trails into this Paris attacks. They say you have to understand that Mullenbach is this extraordinary toxic cocktail of criminality, of unemployment and easily obtained forged documents and illegal weapons, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Nima Elbagir. Thanks for the reporting.

As we mentioned on the top, officials said there is no immediate credible threat that they know of against American targets. CIA director John Brennan today said he would not consider this a one-off event. He says he anticipates more in the pipeline. And in a video today reportedly from ISIS a threat to hit Washington the way they hit here in Paris. The response in Washington, obviously, stepped up security in. And in New York the first platoon of the NYPD's elite critical response team hit the streets, part of a force that will eventually number some 500 officers.

Deborah Feyerick is covering the threat back home and the response. She joins us now.

So this threat against Washington, what more do we know about it?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What we do know is that ISIS released a web video in which they said that they are going to attack the United States and that they are going to go after the American stronghold which is Washington D.C. And one thing that is a great concern to all authorities including the CIA chief is that this attack clearly took months to plan and yet, it sell went undetected. And U.S. intelligence right now is going back over the known intelligence. That's the whole thing. You can only fight what you know. When you don't know it becomes more difficult.

They are looking at watch lists. These men are not on any watch lists. They are looking at all signal intelligence and right now they can find no traceable communication. So these people, some of them were actually even unknown including the brother that you talked about, Anderson of the one of the suicide bombers. The brother who has actually stopped on the road questioned by police but they left him go even though he was leaving France on route to Belgium just hours after the attack. They let him go because they had no criminal record. And that is the big concern that somebody who effectively has no identity can simply slip into the United States and carry out this kind of attack, which ISIS has threatened to do.

Right now, it's aspirational, they can make a lot of threats. It is not yet operational at least not that anyone knows. But security across the United States is really a heightening and what I mean is they are much more visible in places like Washington and New York.

COOPER: Right. And we should point out there is an international arrest warrant for that brother who you talked about. And if in fact, he was the guy who drove the getaway vehicle, it's very possible he has a suicide vest just like every other one of the terrorist who was killed in the attack, all the seven of them had as well.

Deb Feyerick, thank you.

Just ahead, the strategy both here in France and back in Washington in response to all this for taking on ISIS and how to make sure that taking steps to prevent scenes like these will not end up creating more ISIS recruits.

Later, some of the incredible stories of survival including a pregnant woman hanging on for dear life outside the concert venue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:18:42] COOPER: France's national anthem, (INAUDIBLE), French president Hollande, addressing both houses of parliament. His opening words France is at war.

President Obama speaking today from Turkey taking heat for declaring last Thursday that ISIS was contained, as well his broader policy of keeping American troops out of the conflict. Today, the sometimes contentious news conference, Mr. Obama took aim at the critics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Typically, the things they suggest need to be done are things we're already doing. The one exception is that there had been a few who suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground. And let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria, what happens when there is a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we send more troops into there or Libya perhaps or if there is a terrorist network operating anywhere else in North Africa or Southeast Asia. A strategy has to be one that can be sustained.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining us now chief international correspondent and host of "AMANPOUR" Christiane Amanpour, also CNN military analyst and retired army lieutenant general Mark Hertling.

Christiane, the president defending his policy, at times being defensive about his policy at some questions being asked by reporters but clearly saying no major increase of U.S. combat troops on the ground either in Iraq or Syria.

[20:30:13] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are a couple problems with that. One, Most people who you talk to and who are looking at this from a perspective of real strategy say now is the moment for everybody to agree that the strategy is not working. President Obama strategy is been to encourage local forces, to take care of whatever is going on in their backyard including Syria.

That is not working and therefore, there needs to be sort of a come to Jesus moment whereby people reorganized the strategy. Two, the president said the ISIS is contained. There is a lot of confusion about his words or why he used, but the military and other political strategists say to me, well, obviously it's not contained because not only is it maybe being denied some land in Syria, but it's expanding Libya, the Sinai bringing down the Russian plane, Beirut, Paris. So it's not contained. So geographically, it is expanding.

The other thing that's very important for everybody to understand is that those very territories that President Obama rightly says have been reclaimed from ISIS. Have been reclaimed by the use of ground forces as well as U.S. air forces. In other words, local ground forces whether the Iranian-back Shia militias in Iraq, whether they are Kurdish Peshmerga, whether they are Syrian codes, that is what - that combination has liberated territory.

COOPER: General Hertling, I mean, you over saw ground forces in northern Iraq, in Iraq during the war. I'm wondering, what is your take on what the president said today? Are ground forces essential to make real and lasting progress against ISIS?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Ground forces are but again, I go back to which ground forces are we talking about? I would suggest as the president did today and I listened very closely to what he said, to try and figure out where he was going. And I think he doubled down on his strategy which in my view, Anderson, frankly is a good thing.

We have said from the very beginning that this is going to be a very long conflict, a very long conflict. We have been in it for about a year now. There have been some effects I think attrition by air power, with some indigenous ground forces, the Syrian Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, The Iraqi Shia militia, some Sunni militia, they are regaining ground from ISIS. They are taking it back and at the same time ISIS is imploding.

There are some indicators that part of the reason they have taken their fight outside Syria and Iraq, their so-called caliphate is because they are in fact, losing ground there. They want to take it to other places. And some of the other organizations they have teamed with have been there previously. They are just taking on the brand of ISIS. Will it Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula, Boko Haram in Nigeria, other forces in various different places are now all claiming that they are ISIS just because they see the brand as being very powerful.

COOPER: So General Hertling, do you think that if there were large number 10,000, 50,000 as the president said, U.S. ground forces, whether it is in Syria or greater ground forces in Iraq, that that actually exacerbates the situation? That that makes the U.S. more the focus of attacks?

HERTLING: I absolutely do, Anderson. I actually think any large number of ground maneuver forces placed in Iraq or Syria by the United States will exacerbate the problem. This has to be indigenous forces. And the reason I say that is because when I was in Iraq, partly in Afghanistan, you see that you become the focus of attention. And the local forces will then defer very quickly to the Americans and the Americans can never get it right because they are intermingled in this conflicted region that is blaming each other for all the things going on anyway and then it becomes very easy to blame by both sides or three sides or four sides the Americans.

The Americans are screwing this up. If they weren't here, things would be better. We just need to get these apostates out or the heathens or the infidelities and everything will be OK. They have got to want this more than we do and I think that's a going to be big part of the president's strategy.

COOPER: Christiane, for those who support the president's policy, they say look, why should the United States become the policemen of the world, yet again. And whether it is in Iraq or I Syria or in Yemen or in Libya, where there are countless number of terror groups and people in trouble.

AMANPOUR: Well, that is a legitimate question, why should. Others on the other hand say that it's been shown and proven that a world in which America is the leader is a better and safer world. But it obviously has to be done right.

I think everybody is getting really, you know, sort of uptight and bent out of the shape about the notion of American boots on the ground. There are other boots on the ground that could go in. There is a whole coalition of people who could be gathered to go in and local forces --

COOPER: But hasn't the U.S. tried to do that?

AMANPOUR: Yes, but haven't done it right because they have tied her hands of the local forces. They have said we will am and train you if you only fight ISIS. The local forces who have been fighting and trying to survive, Assad who is the much more awful to Syria than ISIS ever has, Assad is the one who is obliterated Syria. Assad is the one who sent hundreds - no, sorry, millions of people outside Syria.

So the U.S. conditions were impossible. And then they say it didn't happen. It couldn't happen. The whole thing has been wrongly handled from the very beginning if you talk to the strategists in the region, if you talk to the leaders around the region. And it is all base on a highly risk of strategy by the United States. And people are saying as much as General Hertling says, he supports the president's policy and many, many people do. Other military strategists including CNN military strategists say it's time to re-examine the strategy because actually it is not working and they are bringing the fight to our cities.

[20:25:50] COOPER: General Hertling, are there more local forces that could be involved in the fight and more and more --?

HERTLING: They certainly are. And I agree with Christiane that they should be the ones that are stepping up. But truthfully, I do believe we made a mistake in our constraints on the Syrian forces saying they only could fight ISIS. That was somewhat ludicrous. And we all knew from the very beginning that they would eventually fight Mr. Assad.

But there are local forces that could certainly be brought into it but they have not been forthcoming. I think General Allen over the last year has attempted to build various coalitions. He has made some gains in terms of border crossing into Turkey, some coalition forces that had joined the air campaign. But there has not been any ground forces that said we will step up other than the Syrian Kurds and they have done a good job, but they are also very intent on building a Kurdish national homeland as well as the Iraqi Kurds and that's what they are interested in.

So they all have their own self-interest and their own strategic design on this problem. None of them have been really focused on destroying ISIS as we would like them to be because other people don't do the United States as bidding.

COOPER: Yes. General Hertling, I appreciate you being on. Christiane Amanpour, of course, as always.

Just ahead, what we are learning now from survivors and from videos like this one. A woman hanging from a window ledge desperate to escape from the Bataclan concert hall where gunmen were executing people inside. We'll tell you what happened to her ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:00] COOPER: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has just spoken about the attacks here in France and the potential threat to the United States. The most immediate danger, he says, is from lone wolves. As we said, there is a lot happening tonight in Paris, the city is still reeling from grief and a country at war with an eighth suspect in Friday's deadly terror attacks still on the loose somewhere.

Again, Belgian officials have just released two new photos of the suspected eighth attacker who as we said, is still on the loose, who they believe managed to escape. Belgium has also raised their terror threat level to the second highest level. There is also this new development. According to multiple reports in French media, the terrorists rented an apartment in a Paris suburb before they launched their attacks. Nic Robertson is outside of the Bataclan Theater. He joins us now with the latest. What have you learned, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is - this apartment was rented in a suburb, in the northeast of Paris in Bobigny. A little under 24 hours ago, police first went in to raid that apartment. What they have discovered there, we are now finding out much later in the day now, is that it appears that it was rented a week before the attack. It appears, the reports suggest that it was used by the attackers prior to the attack and it was rented by Ibrahim Abdeslam (ph). He was one of the attackers, 31 years old, French-born living in Belgium, and he detonated his explosive suicide vest outside the Comptoir Voltaire after a gun attack on restaurants in that neighborhood.

So, at the moment, the leads that the French have, the information that they have does seem to point that this group of eight terrorists came together in one apartment in the week before the attack, again, suggestions for the French authorities here were there missed opportunities to know that these men were gathering? Were there some signs? Was there something they should have picked up? What did the neighbors see? Obviously, a lot of these details perhaps are going to come to light, certainly important for investigators in the coming days, Anderson?

COOPER: Yeah, you talked about missed opportunities. Do we know much about a communication between France and other countries on the intelligence front, on the law enforcement front?

ROBERTSON: It's early days, but one of the attackers we know who died when he blew up his explosive vest inside the Bataclan concert hall there, Ismail Omar Mostefai, he, 29 years old, lived outside of Paris, but he went to Turkey in 2013. And the French authorities were aware that he went there. A couple of years before that, he radicalized. And he was put on a watch list here in France. But when he went to Turkey, it didn't show up, it didn't show up for Turkish authorities that he was on any kind of watch list. He was able to pass into the country. Well, last year they say the Turkish authorities say they wrote to the French twice, two separate occasions asking for more information about Mostefai, this presumably was because some actions he was involved in, prompted the Turkish authorities wanting to know more. The Turkish say, they didn't get a response from the French, and he subsequently snuck out of the country.

So, it does appear on the face of it at the moment, again, we haven't heard from the French answering back toward the Turkish who said here, but on the face of it at the moment, the Turkish and the French at the very least here have not apparently shared intelligence information in the way that we understood all NATO nations and others were sharing intelligence to try to thwart ISIS.

[20:35:08]

This was something that was announced at a NATO conference over a year ago, Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah. And similarly, something that's going to be looked at in the days and the weeks ahead from all the countries here involved. Nic Robertson outside the Bataclan Theater. Of course, in the Bataclan more people were killed than in any other location. Today, we got another glimpse of the -horror that unfolded there on Friday. A video that has come out. We showed you some of it earlier. It captured the terror as people tried to escape from the concert hall and it shows some incredible courage, people helping each other. As hard as it is to watch, this is an important piece of the story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The woman hanging from the window is clearly desperate. She shouts out that she's pregnant. On the street below, there is chaos and confusion, concert goers spilling out into an ally way. Some are seen lying on the ground, others run for their lives. The woman hanging from the window begs for help, unable to pull herself up from the ledge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (speaking French)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the street below, the chaos continues. Severely wounded people have been dragged to safety, a man hobbling struggling to escape.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking French)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then again, more shots. And more panicked concert goers pour into the street, their footsteps echo against the pavement. The shooting continues. Then after more than two minutes, the camera captures a man on a nearby ledge tentatively making his way back into the theater pulling the lady to safety. The man says she has since reached out to him to thank him for saving her life and the life of her baby. The last image we see two men struggling to pull another victim out of the street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It's just so awful to see what so many people went through there at the Bataclan and elsewhere. The manhunt for the suspected eighth attacker still very much underway. These two photos just released of the wanted man who got away. More details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the manhunt, the terror attackers that kill so many here in Paris on Friday. French authorities now say that of the eight young men who carried out the killings here, one is still alive and on the loose. Here, again, is a look of the two photos of the wanted suspect. They were just released by Belgium authorities. CNN senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward is here with the latest on the manhunt and the investigations. Clarissa, what, in terms of not just the manhunt, but why is it so difficult to track these guys? And we're learning more and more in the days since this attack, but why is it so difficult to - for law enforcement, for intelligence agencies to keep a beat on them?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, for the last year or so I've actually been communicating with various different Jihadis who are inside Syria and Iraq. And it's important to remember, these guys are really technology savvy, they are very street-smart, they use encrypted messaging services, they use share spot, they know how to do secret chats on telegram. And also, many of them have criminal records. They know how to dodge the police. They know how to buy weapons. They know how to go under the radar. And that poses a unique and different kind of challenge to terrorists that we've seen in previous years.

COOPER: I also want to bring in Maajid Nawaz. He is a frequent guest on our program, a columnist for "The Daily Beast," a former Islamist radical. Also, Jean Charles Brisard, and author and expert on terrorism and how it is financed. I appreciate all of you being with us.

So, Charles, let's start with you. In just some terms of where the investigation is, how complex do you think this is and how will we know when the entire circle of people who are involved in this have actually been found, because it's not just this eighth guy who is on the run, he was found in a vehicle with two other people. They were all let go. There must be concentric circles of people who are involved in this plot.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD, TERRORISM EXPERT: Yes, it's a complex web, indeed. There is a logistical part in Belgium. There are probably decision parts in Syria, obviously, and there are people moving all around in Europe. And it's very difficult to track them down because there is no system in Europe. It's a free space, basically. There is no borders, and it's very difficult for the intelligence services to track them down.

COOPER: Is there communication and cooperation between the different European intelligence services?

BRISARD: There is bilateral cooperation. For example, it is working very fine between France and Belgium. Unfortunately, there is no system, no global system in Europe where you can put a name and track them down.

COOPER: For all of Europe, there is no Europe-wide data sharing.

BRISARD: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, we've asked for that since January, ten months ago. Remember, in Paris attacks, Charlie Hebdo, the government asked for that immediately. It's not done ten months later ... COOPER: It's incredible that there isn't some sort of central storing house for information.

BRISARD: The same way we cannot control the passports of the E.U. citizens when they are entering Schengen systematically. It's forbidden to do that.

COOPER: Maajid, you know, we're now hearing more about these three brothers, one of them has been released, one of them was killed and now, the manhunt is on for the third one. Does it surprise you when you hear of these small groups and how closely they are linked, a group of brothers together and even the alleged mastermind of this who is believed to be in Syria, his younger brother has also now gone to Syria?

[20:45:02]

MAAJID NAWAZ, COLUMNIST, THE DAILY BEAST: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me, Anderson. I've been talking about the way, in which jihadism has become atomized, the language has become a brand. What I mean ...

COOPER: Explain what you mean by atomized.

NAWAZ: Yes, so what I mean by that is totally decentralized. So, where it used to be state backed, it moved to becoming terrorists hierarchies groups, such as al Qaeda to the stage it's at now where mere conviction in the ideology, at least in this ideology and a determination to do something means people can self-start in different pockets of activity. That's what I mean by atomize. And when you get to that stage, then invariably you're working with people that you can trust 100 percent. Your siblings, your uncle, your brother, your cousin. People you grew up with. So, it's not so much that somebody is meeting or recruits anymore, and they are having technical theological conversations with them. What is happening is they are bonding on a human level and they are seeing their friends move in the same direction because it's become a little of (INAUDIBLE), become a brand that people want to be associated with if they want to become anti-establishment.

COOPER: And yet, it's people who - I mean this is not first generation immigrants who have come to France. These are people who are born here, these are people who've grown up here and who, you know, listen to French music, to rap music and yet, they have turned on this society which has embraced them.

NAWAZ: This is a very important point because I listened to President Obama's speech today, and there is a few pieces in that speech I disagree with. But what I really agree with is his focus that the backlash against - potential backlash against refugees is totally misguided because actually, we look at these attackers and their profiles - they are either French or Belgium French, or they came in on fake passports. Yes, they use the refugee waves, but they are people that are very familiar with these societies. The challenge with radicalization across Europe is with European born and raised Muslims. It's a secondary challenge when it comes to refugees and there are some legitimate questions to be had around that conversations. But up until now and it could change tomorrow, who knows. I'm not making any hard and fast predictions, but up until now whether it's with the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, or prior to that, and probably the next level of attacks, wherever they happen, it's probably going to be - by European born citizens. Unfortunately.

COOPER: And Clarissa, I mean the idea that relatively young guy based in Syria could have been the mastermind for this and also it's believed he may have been behind the attempt on that train that was interrupted by several Americans who subdued the attacker and other attacks, as well.

WARD: Exactly. We're talking about Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He is well known to authorities, 27-years old of Moroccan origin, but born and raised in Belgium. He was behind this massive plot that was uncovered earlier in January. He managed to escape and now he's there sitting in Syria, able to orchestrate and organize an attack of this nature. And you heard President Hollande today say these attacks were conceived of in Syria, they were organized in Belgium and they were executed in France. How do you deal with that situation when you have so many knows along this nexus? How do you try to get your arms around that? It's a massive undertaking.

COOPER: And Jean-Charles, after Charlie Hebdo, there was much talk about increasing funds for French intelligence and other intelligence agencies and law enforcement, increasing personnel in order to be able to follow, because the number of people you even need to accurately track this expanding network of people that's now under suspicion is huge. Has that money arrived? Has that -- you know, has the focus been put on it as you would like it to be?

BRISARD: Not yet. It takes between eight to ten months to have someone who has the experience, has enough experience to be on the field and to track someone and to understand the thinking of these individuals. Indeed today, we have more than 5,000 individuals suspected of being or jihadists or linked to radical Islam. We have also 2,000 French citizens involved in jihadi networks or in France or abroad, plus around 1,000, 1,500 sympathizers here in France of these organizations. So, it's a huge number that we have to follow and unfortunately, the resources that has to come has not yet arrived, and so there is only, what, 3200 intelligence agents.

COOPER: Is that right? 32 ...

BRISARD: Yeah.

COOPER: Jean-Charles Brisard, I appreciate you being on. And sorry it's under these circumstances, Maajid Nawaz. We are going to talk to Maajid in our next hour of the program, in fact, we're going to walk around some areas and talk with Maajid about what we see and talk to some Muslims here about their thoughts on what's happened and why they think so many young people here seem to be turning toward radical Islam. Clarissa will be back, as well. Thank you all, I appreciate it.

More ahead, in this hour, a man who lives across the street from one of the restaurants that was attacked describing what he found when he rushed to the scene to try to help. He told me that Paris is on its knees but will recover and for him, there will be no hate. He won't give the terrorists that, he said. We'll be right back.

[20:44:49]

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COOPER: We've been learning with each passing hour and day more of the details about each of the attacks last Friday. 19 people were killed when the terrorists opened fire at La Belle Equipe, one of the restaurants that was targeted. 100 shell casings were found at the scene, carnage is the only word to describe it. Romain Ranouil lives just across the street. He rushed to the scene shortly after the terrorists left. I spoke to him earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Tell me what you saw on Friday night.

ROMAINE RANOUIL, WITNESS: I live right in front of the restaurant La Belle Equipe where the shooting occurred and I was coming back from my grocery store and when I heard some sounds, I thought it was a scaffolding, you know, falling down because it was so noisy, so metallic as a sound, and but it stopped and started again, so I said it's not that. So, I just rushed outside and the guys had already gone and it was chaos already. There were like some cops coming in, first medic coming in and the medic started to bring some really badly injured people, actually, these were the people that could not do anything for. I saw some people like for example, a young girl she was laying on the floor under a blanket, a survival blanket and I just pulled the blanket to cover her feet and then I saw she had like a gaping hole on the side and she died like a few seconds later. She - I'm not even sure she was conscious when I saw her because she was staring at nowhere.

So, it was really hell, and there was blood everywhere. And then we removed the tables inside the restaurant to make some space and some people were pouring in and some other medics were, you know, making CPR, performing CPR on them.

[20:55:04]

RANOUIL: And there was blood splattered everywhere and then they died and they were lining up the corpses outside. The people who were working there. I knew a girl ...

COOPER: The people working there got killed, as well.

RANOUIL: All of them. They were having a birthday party, so I saw a guy who lost his two sisters. They were working in the restaurant. He lost his two sisters. I knew a waitress, a nice Mexican girl and she was not supposed to be here because she had found a new job in another restaurant that belongs to the same owner and she came back for the birthday party and she was shot and she died. They all died. What I've seen is it goes far beyond imagination and I still cannot really focus on anything more than a couple of minutes without seeing these faces, you know.

COOPER: You still see that ...

RANOUIL: Yeah, these people were 20, I've seen them die.

COOPER: Are you frightened?

RANOUIL: I'm not frightened. This is my home. What can I do? I've got nowhere else to go. And the only thing I've decided is not to hate anybody because that's what they want and I'll never give them hate.

COOPER: It's a hard thing to do, to not hate.

RANOUIL: I don't know because I've had Muslim friends and they are not like them. So, the guys who did that are not even human to me. So, they belong to another planet. I don't know where they belong. They are just like cockroaches, we have to get rid of them. That's all. No hate.

COOPER: Thank you very much.

Sorry for what you've been ...

RANOUIL: That's OK. That's OK. That's okay. The world is -- that's how the world is and we'll recover. We are on our knees, actually. But.

COOPER: You feel like Paris is on its knees?

RANOUIL: Yeah, Paris is crying, but then we are going to stand up and we going to lead, that's all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: We're going to stand up, we're going to live, that's all. That's what he said. It's something you feel throughout this city tonight and every night since the horror of what happened here Friday. Something you see at the U.S. embassy lighted with the colors of the French flag and at the Eiffel Tower reopened today. And a light as well. Paris is standing. We have a lot more new information on the investigation, a raised terror threat level and international manhunt that's underway. That and more in the next hour of "360." Stay tuned.

[20:57:21]