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At This Hour

Blasts, Gunshots at 2 France Hostage Sites; Mayor: 2 Terror Suspects Killed; French Ambassador: Grocery Store Hostage-Takers Dead.

Aired January 09, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: More unclear, though, is what the other two systems in the shooting of the French policewoman have been up to over the last 24 hours, something Hala Gorani raised earlier. This massive manhunt that's been under way. Where have they been for the last 24 hours? What have they been doing? Was this supermarket that they ended up in, a kosher supermarket near a Jewish neighborhood, was that a target of opportunity? Was that something that was on a list of potential targets? Clearly, the Kouachi brothers and perhaps this other gunman who's been linked to them -- if the other terrorist was involved in the "Charlie Hebdo" attack -- they clearly wanted to remain operational after the "Charlie Hebdo" attack. They had an escape plan in place. Did they have a list of other targets, a list of other potential targets and perhaps was this supermarket one of them or was it simply a target of opportunity that they -- that this gunman picked just in the wake of being on the run?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The authorities say that they believe that the two brothers had been moving out of necessity not out of plan. That they'd been scrambling, essentially. That that's how they wound up where they are right now. The word they're using to describe the status is "down." That both terrorists in the industrial park are "down." What they're not saying is whether down means under arrest, injured, or dead. But they do say they are both down right now.

In terms of what's going on at the marketplace, let's get to Jim Sciutto. He has the best eyes on that situation.

Jim, do you know anything more?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you what I've seen Chris, and Anderson, in the last couple minutes. Yet, another ambulance rushing across that bridge there behind me up to the scene of this kosher market. By my count, that's five ambulances that have rushed in. We've also seen a stream of what looked to be what we would call in the states EMS workers, emergency services workers in those recognizable florescent vests rushing across the bridge as well. I know other hostages were seen leaving the market safely but we have seen a number of health emergency workers moving in as well.

COOPER: Jim, Chris is getting more information.

CUOMO: The mayor is telling CNN that the two brothers at the industrial park are dead, that they've been killed as a result of the assault. COOPER: So this is the mayor of the local town where this attack --

where this standoff was taking place. So the two brothers you're seeing on the screen, Cherif Kouachi and his older brother, Said Kouachi, 34-year-old; Said Kouachi, 32-year-old Cherif Kouachi, they are dead. These are the two suspects who police believe were involved in the attack on "Charlie Hebdo." The I.D. for Said Kouachi had been found in one of the getaway vehicles that was used. Clearly, a huge mistake on the part of these attackers who wanted to remain operational, who wanted to escape from the "Charlie Hebdo" attack in order to continue creating mayhem in Paris and possibly in other locations throughout France.

CUOMO: Another indication of the completeness of the operation, the assault at the grocery stores. As, Jim, you may be seeing, the turning on of the local lighting had been turned off and kept off so there was more cover for authorities so now they're turning on the lighting there, another sign it ended. We're waiting on details of those hostages, especially if they were kids involve.

COOPER: We're also waiting on details of the status of the hostage- taker in the kosher supermarket attack, whether that suspect is dead or alive. But it seems that standoff has been resolved one way or the other. There's not a lot of ways it can have been resolved. Either way that suspect is alive or dead. The status of the hostages also unclear.

CUOMO: Much trickier operation, too. The industrial park is big, different ingress. Two men, one hostage. In the marketplace, the grocery store, it's tight. They believe there was only one in, one delivery door in the back that gave very limited options, a lot of advantage to who was inside as a terrorist and there were many lives to be accounted for then, especially having children involved who aren't going to move as quickly or as well in their own defense. That was a hard operation and that's why it's been described as having been more violent and maybe that is why there were injuries to the authorities.

COOPER: There's still a lot of law enforcement and the intelligence community wants to know about these two brothers. We've been using their names. Let's hope history does not, in fact, remember their names. Let's hope history remembers the names of those who lost their lives at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo."

Again, the hostage-taker, we don't know whether he is alive or dead from the supermarket. Police will be assessing both these operations.

Also, there are a lot of questions, of course, about how these guys were able to drop off the radar of French intelligence. There sheer number of suspects that French intelligence has to deal with and has to try to monitor as overwhelming their extensive capabilities.

Tom Fuentes, I believe, is still with us.

Tom, what do you make of the operation? What do you make of the operations? Clearly, they have both been resolved and we've gotten word that the magazine attack suspects, the two brothers, are dead. TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Anderson, I'll be

very curious to hear from the police whether they initiated this because they decided it was time or whether the hostage-takers did something, maybe opened fire or did something that indicated that they had to initiate the rescue attempt and take them on at the time they did.

It also shows something, Anderson. Much was made the last couple days that they wanted to live, they could have died in the suicide attack when they attacked "Charlie Hebdo" and maybe they really want to live. I think now it shows they wanted to better choose when, where, and how they died. I don't think they had an intention ever of surviving this. They just wanted to extend this for as long as they could, extend the media coverage as long as they could and just not end it immediately when they did the attack on the magazine.

COOPER: Tom Fuentes, obviously the question remains whether there are more members of -- I don't know if it's appropriate to call this a cell but whether there shall more colleagues of theirs linked to these guys. There's the female suspect that police have released the photo of. Her location seems to be a question for French law enforcement or whether there are more members who had a hand in the attack on "Charlie Hebdo."

FUENTES: That's a big concern and will be a concern for a while. Where did they get these weapons? Where did they store them? What safe houses did they have? Where did they train once they returned to France? Who else might be involved? Not only that, not only the cell that they might have been a part of when this whole thing started, but now fan club, unfortunately, that they've generated, The supporters out there that have watched this unfold for a couple days and may want to join in or initiate their own. You know, we refer to them as copy cats. But it's really --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Tom, I have to break in here.

I want to go to Jim Sciutto.

Jim, I'm told there's activity by the market.

SCIUTTO: There's more activity. You can probably make out these lights over my shoulder. I've counted six ambulances going to the site of this kosher market as well as a couple dozen emergency workers, looked like EMS workers rushing in there as those tactical teams moved out. Indications there were casualties in this attack and -- but we don't have those numbers confirmed by French authorities at this point.

And also just to be clear, after that initial burst of gunfire and explosions, there was another round of gunfire that we heard just a few minutes ago so a sign that this operation did not end as quickly, perhaps, as the operation we saw taking place in the northeast of Paris, an indication, perhaps, that it was more difficult but clear signs here that there may have been casualties in this attack. COOPER: Jim, where are you getting that indication that this one took

longer?

SCIUTTO: Well, just from witnessing it here, Anderson, because we heard and we were here, present. As those first round of explosions happened and, a few minutes later, you had another explosion, another burst of gunfire indicating the operation was continuing.

COOPER: So it went on for several minutes?

SCIUTTO: No question. I'd say at least 10 minutes. Even after that second round of gunfire we heard, we still saw the tactical teams in that recognizable telltale all-black uniforms, including the black masks and body armors and their automatic weapons drawn. We saw additional teams running across that bridge of this highway behind me towards the kosher market as if there was still something to respond to. Then sadly, trailing them were those ambulances going in and then leaving it apparently taking wounded away.

And you're still hearing a siren there, I can imagine, as well as they continue to head in.

COOPER: Tom Fuentes, again, to have an operation that takes several minutes in a hostage situation like this that's obviously worrying. You have multiple hostages involved here, at least one hostage-taker, we don't know if the female suspect was involved in this hostage- taking incident. But this operation did take several minutes once tactical units started going in, that's obviously of concern.

FUENTES: It's a great concern. It makes you wonder whether there was more than one person in there as a hostage-taker. Maybe the initial assaults was into the main body of the market and one of the other persons with the gun went into a closet or back room or storage area outside and encountered the second person. It may indicate more than one person was in there.

CUOMO: Now, you recognized an issue, Anderson, that winds up to be bearing fruit right now. The source close to the investigation said they detached special assets in the area where the brothers are from, and there are real and actionable concerns about what may be going on with other people related to these brothers. Remember, there were some nine arrests or detentions done in connection to this. Authorities are not sure how extensive a web of association there is here and it is a continuing concern. They see what happened at the grocery store as an outgrowth -- at that kosher grocery store as an outgrowth of the distress of the two brothers. And they're worried that word of these assaults may lead to another wave of violence or more terrorist actions so they have sent assets into that area. That's happening right now as well.

COOPER: Again, the question is, are there other members -- if this was, in fact, a cell, if one can call it that, was it just a three or four person cell or were there more people involved? That's something we don't know the answer to but something which French intelligence is looking at closely as they try to piece together, the whereabouts of these other suspects over the last 24, 48 hours but also in the weeks and months previous to this. We are learning more.

And Paul Cruickshank, terrorism analyst, is joining us as well.

Paul, we do know, more than we did 24 hours ago, about the movements of these two brothers at least internationally, movements to Yemen. And there are reports of recent movements of the younger brother to Syria as well that we haven't been able to confirm.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: That's right. Anderson. There's more certainty about the travel to Yemen of one of the brothers that he trained with al Qaeda in Yemen in 2011. Now, al Qaeda in Yemen wouldn't train somebody unless they were recruited into the terrorist organization, unless they also swore allegiance to the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen so I think we may see that al Qaeda and Yemen is a stakeholder to some degree in this terribly spectacular attack that we've seen unfold in Europe and arguably the most spectacular terrorist attack in the West since 9/11. And if al Qaeda in Yemen was indeed involved in that, I think their reputation in the global jihadist community is going to go up. They're going to get more recruits, more fund-raising opportunities. This attack we've seen play out in Paris has electrified the global jihadist movement.

CUOMO: Paul, two things, can you, one, clarify what "involvement" means, when you're talking about al Qaeda in Yemen, if one of the brother there is went there and got some training that helped him hold the weapon straight when he shoots and gave him somewhat of a comfort level with violence, couldn't that be the only involvement of al Qaeda and the rest is just boasting? Also, when you say this will be a recruitment tool, how is this type of cowardice and haphazard running around and desperation of being taken out by French force an effective recruiting tool? Can you address those two, please?

CRUICKSHANK: It could be that they got training, one of the brothers in Yemen and years later decided to launch an attack of their own volition. But one of the brothers was there in Yemen in 2011 when Anwar al Awlaki was very much operational looking for Europeans to send back to Europe to launch attacks. So if one French recruit sort of suddenly turned up on their doorstep, this would be manna for heaven from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Al Qaeda was looking to do exactly this. Al Awlaki, in Yemen, had called several times for attacks on cartoonists. This group in Yemen was also looking to launch attacks in France. In fact, in 2010, Saudi intelligence warned the French that this group were looking to plot attacks in France. Well, then in 2011, you have this French recruit come into the group and get training. He would have had to swear loyalty to the group to get access to that training in Yemen. That would have given him the skills to launch this attack and perhaps recruit others.

CUOMO: Paul, thank you very much.

We're getting information from the mayor near the industrial park saying the hostage was released. The information about who the hostage is, female as it had been assumed or male and the name and their status have not been there but they have been released. So there's good news, especially for that person and their family. It's a good time to reset now. There's been a lot of activity here. Anderson Cooper has been guiding us through a flurry of events

involving two separate standoffs between French authorities and terrorist suspects. One, the industrial park. That's where the two terrorists who massacred members of the staff here at the "Charlie Hebdo" offices wound up after an intensive manhunt over the last two days. They got cornered in an industrial building. Eventually there was an assault by French police. It started with flash bangs. It looked like smoke coming from the building but those are just for purposes of diversion. There was a successful attack in which both terrorist suspects, the two brothers, were killed. And we are now told from the mayor that the hostage has been released and that's why that operation was obviously called "Satisfactory" early on by sources close to that investigation.

Separately, there has been a second standoff and the terrorist suspect involved there is the same people -- same person according to police responsible for shooting two police officers and killing one, a female officer, yesterday in a separate attack, separate from "Charlie Hebdo." He and his girlfriend, on your screen right now, were identified as suspected by French authorities.

Subsequent to that, the man on your right and maybe the woman on the left of your screen, we're not sure, but the man on your right certainly wound up taking multiple hostages in a kosher grocery nearby to where we are right now in east Paris. There was a simultaneous offensive on both standoff sites at the same time using similar diversion tactics and this assault on the grocery store was called much more violent. We're hearing that that was also satisfactory in its conclusion but the details there are lighter.

That, about, Anderson, sums up how we got to where we are right now.

You're looking at live picture of the grocery store. The lights have been turned on in the surrounding area. Again, a little bit of a demonstration that whatever was going on there is now over.

Now we have Kim Dozier on the phone. She is with CNN doing -- she's live with us right now doing global analysis, obviously, for us.

Kim Dozier, you've seen a lot of situations like this, however, not exactly like this, right? Two different standoffs, simultaneous assaults, two different sets of hostages. What do you make of it?

KIM DOZIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Not a situation exactly like this before, but this is exactly what U.S. counterterrorism officials have warned was in the offing. They've intercepted communications between leaders in al Qaeda in Yemen and the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria where they've debated how do we capture world attention when counterterrorism officials across the world are able to stop some of these complex 9/11 attacks. So the decision has been go for these smaller attacks that capture media attention but don't take a lot of skill to carry out. When you think about the original attack on "Charlie Hebdo," essentially those are the same skills you need to knock off a bank, to commit a bank robbery. Everybody who watches a crime show knows "wear gloves, wear a mask." You can give someone the kind of training they need to fire and kill at close range in about a day. You choose brothers. They have communications with each other because they're family, so that's hard to track. It just means they fear we're going to see this proliferation of this kind of small-scale attack over and over worldwide.

COOPER: Kimberly, not just here in France, in Western Europe, but potentially in the United States as well?

DOZIER: Absolutely. That's one of the reasons U.S. and French intelligence increased their operation. It started -- there was a real forging of cooperation when French military went into Mali, around 2013 to attack there. U.S. elite military officials worked with French intelligence to feed them what they needed to attack targets on the ground. That kind of cooperation has continued through U.S. and France over hostages held in Syria, for instance.

What U.S. officials tell me, they have noticed French intelligence seems to have the same issues that the U.S. had pre-9/11. They will be sitting down with domestic French intelligence service and then later with French intelligence service that concentrates on foreign intelligence and realize that the two sides have different sets of information that they don't seem to be sharing with each other. It's likely, after this incident, there's going to be a lot of looking back among French security agencies to ask the same kind of things we asking here after 9/11. Who knew what? When did they know it? Was there some sort of wall that kept information from getting from one agency to another that could have said these guys are getting close to staging an attack?

COOPER: Kimberly, what's also a grave concern to the United States and people in the United States, and I think a lot of people do not realize, is the reliance people have on U.S. intelligence and French intelligence and British intelligence as well. And if French intelligence, which has a very good track record in keeping abreast of problems in France, if they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of potential suspects inside this country, as are British officials as well, that has blowback on U.S. intelligence capabilities as well.

DOZIER: It does, indeed. I have to say U.S. officials I've sat down with have seen this coming. They have talked about the orders, ability to travel from turkey, Europe. There are only so many intelligence offices --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Kimberly, I've got to jump in. Our viewers are looking at live pictures here. Clearly, these are civilians. This is from the supermarket area. These pictures are on a slight delay.

CUOMO: Those are hostages from the grocery. We don't know if everybody got out. We don't know the composition of the hostages, if they are kids, we don't know. You just saw the reality, a bunch of hostages making it out. We also know people lost their lives there. Was it the terror suspect, was it his accomplice or was it a hostage? That is unknown. We also know SWAT Member definitely took injuries there. We're told no fatalities but there are injuries. There are people down and injured.

This footage is not live but it's just from moments ago. So there is at least some good news coming out of this situation.

COOPER: The French ambassador, I'm told, has said that the supermarket was stormed, the hostage-taker is dead and hostages are alive. I can't verify whether that means all hostages, but I believe it means all hostages who are currently held. There have been reports earlier of fatalities at the start of the hostage-taking incident. Again, we haven't been able to confirm that. You still see officers there. This is on a tape delay. Officers with guns drawn. You just saw -- you can see there, actually the top of the screen by the blinking lights --

(CROSSTALK)

DOZIER: Definitely seem to be treating someone on the ground there. It seems to be a triage.

COOPER: Treating someone or getting equipment. I can't tell -- somebody just lifted something away from there. They are dealing with something on the ground. It looked like they brought a person out there. Again, we are seeing these images as you are seeing them for the first time. There seems to be a small group.

Jim Sciutto is joining us as well.

CUOMO: -- one officer has a gun raised --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: There's clearly, there's somebody on the ground there --

CUOMO: Right.

COOPER: -- off to the left. Looks like some sort of bandage has been put on the person, white bandage by the blinking car. You see about two or three tactical officers dealing with that person. And then in the foreground you see at least one officer with a gun drawn, rifle drawn.

CUOMO: Trained on the entryway of the marketplace. We saw the hostages get out.

Again, we still don't know who the two dead are. One of them, we're hearing from the ambassador, was a hostage-taker. The other is it an accomplice, hostage, is it a SWAT person? We do not know.

COOPER: Jim Sciutto, we're also seeing some loaded into the ambulance. Jim, we wonder if you're hearing something from the scene. All along, we were clear there was at least one hostage-taker. Unclear whether the female accomplice of the hostage-taker was there with him. You're seeing her picture. That picture had been released by French authorities probably about two or three hours ago -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, Anderson, I think we can say with some confidence, the situation is here as well. The French ambassador announcing the terrorist here, as he said, has been neutralized, has been killed. We, as we've been watching the movements here, have seen a marked change just in the last several minutes. You've seen more of those emergency workers moving closer to the site assigned. It's safer for them to go there. We've seen more tactical units moving away. Still, a lot of activity with emergency workers. The sounds of the sirens, of ambulances moving in and many of them rushing away from here as we've seen in those other pictures, signs of images of people being treated at the scene.

This seems to make sense to us, because after we heard those initial rounds of gunfire and explosion, a second round of gunfire a few moments later, very quickly we saw ambulances moving in responding to something on the ground. It is then when those pictures you were just showing our viewers a few moments ago when those pictures were shot, showing someone being treated on the ground. That's the sad news. The good news, based on what the French ambassador is saying, but also a change in the tenor of things on the scene, the moving in and freer movement of emergency workers around the sides and the scene of this kosher market and moving away of those tactical units. It looks like this hostage standoff has been resolved as well.

COOPER: That's certainly good news, indeed. A lot of details yet to be learned.

We're getting those images from French television, which you're seeing there.

CUOMO: Again, just to bring you up to date. Right now, you're looking at slightly delayed video we're getting from friends on French television. The back of the picture by the blinking lights of that small vehicle, there was someone treated there. They have since been moved. You're watching that group of men move them.

You're looking at the hostages that were released from the grocery store. This happened. Was it all of them? Were any injured? We don't know the details yet but certainly many of them made it out OK.

We're also being told, as you see on your screen, three hostage-takers dead. That calculus as far as we know at this point, are the two brothers taken out in separate assault, separate standoff in an industrial area, and the African-American man, who had been pictured as a suspect in a separate picture yesterday.

COOPER: Not American. The man of African descent.

CUOMO: Right, thank you, African descent. Sorry, Anderson.

And who was the other person killed? We don't know. We know there's been injuries to authorities, to SWAT members. We don't know the extent. We did see from this video someone that appeared to be a SWAT member triaged by some of his own, so we don't know the extent of the injuries.

COOPER: Right. Obviously, as you pointed out -- and your sourcing on this has been very accurate all throughout this -- the operation obviously in the supermarket a lot more complex than the operation in the industrial park. The operation in the supermarket involving multiple hostages, as well as at least one hostage-taker. We don't know if there were any more. There is this female suspect. We do not know whether she was involved in the hostage-taking incident, the operation with the brothers. There was one hostage. That hostage has been freed according to the local mayor in town and the two brothers themselves are dead. That operation in a more isolated area, industrial park, in a printing shop with multiple entrances that tactical units could use.

Again, there you see from moments ago hostages running out under the protection of tactical units.

CUOMO: Right. So that was the good news. Did all of the hostages make it out? That we don't know. We're waiting to learn.

Simultaneously, as this was going on, there is a separate, not operation, but a movement of assets into the area where they believe these brothers and maybe the man of African descent clear were connected if not conjoined in what happened here at the magazine. They went to that neighborhood. They are worried about the threat of what we've been loosely calling a cell could be. Could there be another wave of attack as a result of this.

It's not hysteria. It's based on their reasoning that what they think happened here was that in this space of time since the shooting where the woman police officer was killed, that man and his girlfriend, who are identified by authorities as the suspects, had an ability to flee. They were off the radar. They came back, the authorities believe. And their reckoning, at this point, maybe they came back because of what was happening with the brothers. And -