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Witness Discusses Magazine Terrorist Attack; Significance of Terrorist Masks, Coordination of Escape; Support for French Magazine Pours In

Aired January 07, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Let me turn from you to someone I've been told we now have on the phone, Wandrille Lanos. Wandrille Lanos is actually one of the first people who walked into the building, this magazine office building, this morning after those shots were fired.

So, Wandrille, let me just make sure, can you hear me?

WANDRILLE LANOS, WITNESS & JOURNALIST (voice-over): Yes, I can hear you very well.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin with -- I understand you are a journalist. You work at a TV agency along that same stretch of roadway where the magazine office was. Where were you when you heard the first shots?

LANOS: When I arrived to my office this morning in Paris, I saw the face of one of my colleagues who had run down the stairs and he was calling out for help for people to help as much as we could. I didn't really understand what had happened. We ran back together to see what had happened and in the corridor I could smell the strong smell of gunpowder everywhere. We walked in and it was obviously a very disturbing scene to see the bodies on the floor. Some people were crying out for help.

And we sort of -- someone asked us to sort of help move some of the furniture to make room for the emergency teams that were on their way and some of them were already on the scene and so we decided to move and that's when we -- that's when I realized there were more bodies that were under the tables as well and people that might have tried to sort of hide from the attackers or I have no idea. I don't know what happened.

So that's what happened. And then very quickly the police came in. The rescue workers came in and the police sort of -- the place was packed with people so we decided to go to our offices and to leave room for the emergency professionals to work properly there.

BALDWIN: What an awful, gruesome scene you and several others, I'm sure, saw this morning. How many people did you see injured? How many bodies did you see? What were people saying?

LANOS: It was very weird because as I was running up the stairs with my colleague, he told me that the view was hard and the scene was disturbing obviously. I assumed that we would find maybe one or two bodies there. As it happened with another newspaper in Paris, there was a shooter who got to the scene and fired at a couple of people and then left and then what was really disturbing for me and I think for many of my colleagues who are there at the scene with me was to realize that there were so many bodies on the floor.

There was one room I got to, to remove the furniture, as I told you earlier. I saw maybe five bodies. Nobody was moving. Clearly, you could see there was blood everywhere. You could see the gunshots. It was really violent and gruesome.

BALDWIN: Hard to put that into words. You know, this particular satirical magazine, no stranger to controversy. They've been firebombed because of a cover in November of 2011. I know they had police protection for multiple years. Just recently, I understand the police van that had normally been parked in the front of the building 24/7 was gone. Was there a sense among journalists or colleagues or those in nearby office buildings, people were aware that this magazine was a target.

LANOS: We all knew. He had seen what had happened before when the firebomb went into the building. Everyone was quite aware of the risks. I never assumed they would carry out an attack. I remember joking with some of my colleagues when I saw the police patrol car down there at the building. Sometimes we saw -- it seemed farfetched. It happened once. How in hell would it happen twice? Obviously, we were very wrong. We knew that they were targeted but not to that extent. We would never assume that -- maybe they would threaten. They would send a package or anything but never to that extent. Never to that extent.

BALDWIN: You are aware they were targets. They were aware they were targets. There were wanted posters for a number of these cartoonists in "Inspire" magazine, which is a major terror magazine. They were targeted. Did you know any of these cartoonists? Did you know any of these "Charlie Hebdo" employees and how did they feel knowing that walking in and out of these offices every day protecting freedom of expression but knowing anything like this could be possible.

LANOS: I didn't know them personally. I would see their faces here and there from time to time in the corridor. We would just greet and say hello in the morning and that's it. I didn't know them personally. I feel that everybody is there was very passionate about what they were doing. It's a workplace where you have to feel committed to what you do to be there. I think everybody there felt the same. They were working with passion and I think they were right not to give in to threats obviously.

As a journalist, I think it's important that we tell the story we want to tell and when you know the story is right, you have to tell it. I think that's how they felt as well. Obviously, they were very opinionated. That's sort of what they fought for. I think they were really pass passionate but it's disturbing to see this could happen right there and especially across the corridor where I work every day.

BALDWIN: You know, I think it's also important to remind our viewers as we report sadly on terror attacks globally that in France and Paris, nothing of this nature has happened in two decades. Not since 1995 when a bomb on public transportation killing eight. If you can just let me in on how people are feeling this evening in Paris. I've seen pictures of demonstrations this evening, powerful pictures of people holding up pens and even the president of France talking about we must protect our freedoms. What's the sense in Paris tonight?

LANOS: I think it was very difficult for me to assess the events today because we were isolated all day long. We were taken care of by professionals and we were provided psychological help as well. We were clearly isolated for most of the day. And when we sort of got out of the hospital where everyone was gathered and taken care of, we got word that there was a meeting at the square in downtown Paris. Some colleagues and I decided to go and you saw the place was completely packed with people. People were holding signs and calling for "Charlie Hebdo" to stay alive metaphorically enough.

In the end, it's reassuring and comforting to see that there is some kind of -- people are conscience that freedom of speech is important. It's important in our democracy. I think there's a feeling that's not only shared by the community of journalists and reporters here and there but it's shared with the whole country of France and I think it is sort of reassuring to feel that and know that we're not alone out there. Our story does matter and they want us to carry on.

BALDWIN: We must protect that. As journalists, we stand with you.

Wandrille Lanos, thank you so much for sharing some time with me after an incredibly difficult day for you and so many colleagues there in the "Charlie Hebdo" building in Paris, France. Thank you.

Coming up next, we'll talk about the significance of these gunmen wearing masks this morning and the coordination of their escape. Stay right here. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Right now, all around Paris, massive crowds are forming. You see these pictures. Tens of thousands of people gathering for peaceful protests holding up signs reading not afraid. You see that there holding up pens. Symbols of freedom of speech. Inside the AFP newsrooms, signs, "I am Charlie," in response to this atrocious attack on a satirical magazine. 11 others were injured.

The attack taking place at the building of "Charlie Hebdo," a magazine that has printed cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Police do have what they believe here as the gunman's car but multiple gunmen, we're hearing two but they are looking for three people still on the loose. Movements suggest they were trained. When you watch these videos and talk to experts and there's one detail that hints at the calm and order and sense of control these attackers apparently had, because I want you to take note before getting in that getaway car -- and we can loop it again to watch the left-hand side of it here. You can watch it with me. If we can watch it again. Here we go. Left side of the screen. Gets in the passenger seat and reach for a sneaker. Taking a moment to pick up a sneaker not in a complete rush. It speaks volumes for the control they had.

Let me bring in Fareed Zakaria.

Let's begin on that point and some of the other observations. Just watching our coverage and listening to everyone all day long, the observations of the taking time to pick up the shoe perhaps part of a change of clothes for later. The fact that they were head to toe in masks. The automatic weapons. Paris prosecutor said possibly Kalashnikovs.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: He picked up a sneaker because he didn't want to leave any trace or evidence that could help police track him. What strikes me, as we've always thought, there were two kinds of terror attacks. There's the groups that are trained and have camps, ISIS, al Qaeda in Afghanistan, in Syria, and then there are the lone wolves. We call them lone wolves because they're local and homegrown and radicalized on the Internet and the idea is the latter group will not be highly skilled. This is going to be a mom and pop operation.

The super trained ones are more worrisome but we're tracking them. They would have to come into the country. This terror attack explodes that distinction. Here you have what appears to be locals, fluent French, no accent. Very well trained. Highly coordinated. Well planned. Picking up the evidence. Wearing gloves so there are no fingerprints anywhere. Wearing masks so there's no I.D. So this is, in some ways, really the worst nightmare, which is a local group of people who have the ability to train or be trained at the level of ISIS fighters or al Qaeda fighters.

BALDWIN: That's the point Deborah Feyerick was making in talking to her sources was even NYPD taking note of this and almost having to change mentality of policing here at home.

Let me follow-up with the next point in cases like this pretty quickly we see a claim of responsibility and, thus far, we haven't seen that, although we have seen a tweet from someone familiar with ISIS indicating they are taking responsibility for those attacks. How much weight do we put on that?

ZAKARIA: It's too soon to tell. The gunmen are still around. This is again very unusual terrorist attack. Gunmen did not allow themselves to be shot there and they haven't been taken into custody. They are probably trying to make their escape. Whoever is going to take responsibility may be waiting until they know that the gunmen are in a secure location. ISIS has a very good communication strategy. It's highly unlikely they would rely on random tweets from some associated person if they wanted to take responsibility my guess is they would put out a video or do something very dramatic. They may still do it if it is them.

But as I say, so far, what is striking about this is how local it seems. These guys know Paris. They know the language fluently and they understand how to get away. The two cars. All of this is urban warfare and urban terrorism and not what people are trained to do in Syria.

BALDWIN: Totally different. Changed the game. Fareed Zakaria, stay with me.

Let me bring in one more voice, one more guest, Samuel Laurent, live from Paris, the author of "The Islamic State and al Qaeda in France."

Nice to see you, Samuel. Can you hear me?

SAMUEL LAURENT, AUTHOR (voice-over): Nice to see you, too.

BALDWIN: OK. I see you are in Paris.

(CROSSTALK)

LAURENT: Hello.

BALDWIN: Hello, yes. You're live on CNN, Samuel.

Here's my question. Fareed was making the point about how this is changing the game in the face of terror. These are seemingly local perhaps French natives from perhaps a much larger organization. When you watch the video, very trained, what's your read on this?

LAURENT: Well, basically, what you have to understand is that the situation has changed a lot from the time of al Qaeda. Basically, al Qaeda was operating cells that were breeding them and they were targeting a specific objective. Nowadays, with Islamic State, what has changed is that the leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, is supposed to be leader of the believers. He issues orders, and basically some of his orders, in October and November, has been to kill the French by any possible means. That was his words. So basically, that could be bombing. That could be firing them. That would be car hitting on the markets that we saw. That would be poisoning the water.

We see a new pattern emerging in which, far from being more professional, jihadi operating in Europe are less professional. They are trained. They are battled hardened from Syria. Once they come back, they basically act on their own. So therefore, my reading of that is that the landscape of Jihadism and terrorism is deeply changing and proving to be a much harder task than it used to be for the intelligence service because it's very, very difficult now to spot and to stop the threat as it's becoming basically -- it's just popping up from everywhere.

BALDWIN: We heard from the president of France saying that there had been plots that had been thwarted. When you look at a plot like this, what are challenges any kind of anti-government and anti-terrorism government task force has to stop such targeted trained men such as these?

LAURENT: It's very difficult. I would say that the job hasn't been properly done in Syria. We lacked information about Syria for years now. Obviously we now lack information about the inside functioning of jihadi groups even in Iraq and especially in ISIS.

So therefore, it is very difficult to establish who is leaving, what are their missions, how are they trained and what is the network in Europe in which they are coming back to? Let's not forget that the man who killed the Jewish in Brussels last year in the Jewish museum was trained by ISIS and has come back and signaled to French intelligence and stayed untouched for three months in Europe because he has benefited from this huge network totally informal but very efficient.

The challenge now is huge and for the moment I would say there's no real solution in order to track and to stop those people. The situation in France or in Europe is very different than the one you have in the U.S. The Muslim community is much bigger and, obviously, the laws are very different. Everybody regards any touch to private life and to private liberty as something very litigious. Therefore, it's extremely difficult now for the government or the security services to act and to find a solution to this problem. I think we can expect more of what happened today.

BALDWIN: Let's hope not.

Samuel Laurent, thank you very much.

Fareed Zakaria, I appreciate you, as well.

Next, reaction pouring in from around the world from fellow cartoonists after their colleagues were killed, murdered in Paris today. We'll speak with one of them, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: If the attack on "Charlie Hebdo" was intended to silence and intimidate critics of Islam, it may have had the opposite effect. This hash tag now all over social media, "I am Charlie." Within the past few hours, it's been repeated more than a half million times. And even the U.S. embassy in France changed its Twitter avatar to that image we just showed you. Journalists, comedians, others around the world are fighting back against the assault on free speech.

For more on this, let me bring in our CNN senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, host of "Reliable Sources" and Robert Russell, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International, a human rights group working with cartoonists around the world.

Welcome to both of you.

ROBERT RUSSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CARTOONISTS RIGHTS NETWORK INTERNATIONAL: Thank you.

Robert, let me begin with you.

My first thought even just talking to Fareed about the potential chilling effect. You have these cartoonists murdered today in Paris. How might this affect cartoonists globally?

RUSSELL: All cartoonists have to re-evaluate their commitment to their craft. 99.9 percent of the time they come out stronger and more committed than ever before, particularly if a cartoonists has been attacked from one source or another. They usually come out of this traumatized but, on the other hand, recommitted to their craft.

BALDWIN: Talking about the power of the pen, which we'll get to with the symbol of the pen in Paris, in peaceful protests in a moment.

Brian Stelter, let's be clear, we talked in 2011 with the firebombing of the same office building because of the cover of the Prophet Muhammad and it's not just that region that they attack. Sort of no one is immune here at this magazine.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: It was in all forms and stripes. They knew it was risky to do that. Some cartoonists had talked openly about that. They rather take that risk, face the danger that it entails and they now many news organizations face difficult decisions on whether to reprint and show some of these cartoons.

BALDWIN: That's what I wanted to ask you about. Here at CNN, we go through many, many decisions when it comes to certain images we are going to show you. At a place like this, what decisions are made?

STELTER: It's very sensitive. To show images of the Prophet Muhammad is offensive to some Muslims and CNN, in the past, and today, for example, is not showing close-up images of these cartoons that this magazine did print. Some websites have decided to republish them and they are a symbol of the protest. What I see today is the pen. We see some beautiful images --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let's show those images. Here you go, here.

STELTER: People holding pens up in the air. If we can show this wonderful cartoon from Australia. It was made just in the hours after this attack. It has a very short caption, "He drew first." It shows this gunman, on one hand, and cartoonists on the other side. This is it right here. We'll see a lot of this in the coming days. Cartoonists all over the world in a show of solidarity and we've seen moments of silences in newsrooms across the country and the world.

BALDWIN: Robert, here's the thing. We talk about decisions that go into these incredibly controversial cartoons. You know, even the president of the United States has spoken out on this today specifically stating I'm just quoting we share values with French people. Yet, when you look back in 2012, the White House questioned the judgment behind the decision of "Charlie Hebdo" to publish potentially offensive cartoons. Where is the line to be drawn?

RUSSELL: That's the fundamental question where the red lines are. Red lines move this way and that way, depending on the political winds of the moment. Every cartoonist and every publisher and every editor have to sit together and make decisions about what they're going to promote and what they're going to show to the public and what they're going to consider might be a little bit too far over the norm.

The staff were consistent heroes and were brave. They understood their risks. They had been threatened before. When ISIS said that Frenchmen should die, it would be a wonder they wouldn't be one of the targets.

But they're just -- they just demonstrate a courage in the face of threats that is such an inspiration and is so awe-inspiring that they just become our instant heroes. Our whole organization and our network just sends our deepest sympathy to the staff and to the families.

BALDWIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Robert Russell, I appreciate your time.

STELTER: Sadly, one of the deadliest days for Western journalists in modern times.

BALDWIN: Wow.

STELTER: And just to put it in perspective, we're talking about police officers who have also died, but one of the deadliest days for journalists in many years.

BALDWIN: Awful. Awful. Awful. Brian Stelter, thank you.

STELTER: Thanks.