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Possible "Imminent" Threat Puts Brussels on High Alert; A New Arrests Linked to Paris Terror Attacks; The Desire To Dance Saved His Life; U.S. Citizen Among The 19 Killed; Backlash Grows over Syrian Refugees Entering U.S.; Mother Battles ISIS Recruiting After Losing Son. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired November 21, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:24] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone. Welcome to our viewers from the United States and around the world. I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you tonight live from Paris for our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the tragic terror attacks.

It's 11:00 p.m. here in Paris on Saturday night. And we are focused on this city and we are also focus right now intensely on Brussels. Because Brussels is the city unlock this evening. The Belgium government warning there's a quote, "serious and imminent threat," possibly of a Paris-style attack. Officials have placed the city under the maximum terror level dispatching an army of police and soldiers to patrol the streets amid the fears that people with weapons and explosives may want to target multiple locations at once, exactly like what we saw take place here in Paris.

Today, the subway is shutdown tonight in Brussels, shops are closed and people are being urged to stay at home at least, at least to avoid large crowds being told by the government not go to the airport. We are also following a new development regarding the police raid that ended in the death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the attacks here in Paris.

For more on that my colleague Martin Savidge is with me here live in Paris. When we look at how he died, he died in the raid in Saint Denis on Wednesday. But we've also now learned that the third person died and that the police here in Paris have the DNA for that person. Now, of course everyone know, is that Salah Abdeslam, the 8thth attacker who's been on the run.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right.

HARLOW: Is it?

SAVIDGE: They don't know because they say that the DNA they have even though they've isolated it, they have not been able to say who it is. Could it be Abdeslam? Some have speculated that. But we also know that French authorities saw him on the road going towards Brussels. Shortly after the attacks that occurred here in Paris. So it seems unlikely that he would have doubled back and then been in that house on Wednesday, but you can't rule it out. HARLOW: Right.

SAVIDGE: Then there is also talk that, you know, in one of the surveillance videos authorities have, they allegedly see not two attackers, but three in a vehicle.

HARLOW: Right.

SAVIDGE: And they're wondering now, OK, could that mean there is another person that's out there and could this be that person. DNA they have but yet they have not been able to identify. So, there's still a number of loose ends that are out there, very troubling to authorities and of course very troubling to people here.

HARLOW: And then that goes on, a sweeping change here in Paris for all Parisians. They now have a three month state of emergency which is a declaration not only in word but in meaning for police power.

SAVIDGE: Correct. Yes. This is something that, you know, that they have rarely seen in this country but only on a few times. And it really means that authorities do have sweeping authorities. I mean, almost every night they have been conducting 100 raids or more. They have almost 800 people in custody. So, sweeping powers that authorities have, clearly many people in this country feel it's appropriate given what they just suffered through.

HARLOW: I think over 80 percent in a recent poll that they support this.

SAVIDGE: And the other thing that they also were supporting is that, now there are no plans and you cannot carry out any kind of large demonstration, whether that be in support of say, the people of Paris or whether it would be in person.

HARLOW: So, like we saw with Charlie Hebdo, the attacker in January, they can't have that again?

SAVIDGE: And at least until the end of the month. That's when they'll reconsider this. And the reason for that is, of course, you already have the police focused on doing so much.

HARLOW: Sure.

SAVIDGE: You can't have them out there also trying to control a large demonstration.

HARLOW: Right. It's a great point. And you have those 1500 additional troops that they brought in Paris that you and I have seen on every corner, all over the city.

All right, Martin. Thank you very much. A very special report coming from Martin Savidge from our 7:00 hour that you will not want to miss. Also that we are learning more about four new arrests made in connection to the attacks in Paris. There was one arrest made today in Belgium. The other three were made in Turkey and those are of particular interest because officials say one of the men picked up in Turkey served as a scout for the targets that those terrorists could hear in Paris, that he actually came here, scouted them out before they were struck. He's been identified as a 26-year-old named Akhmad Dafmini (ph), he is a Belgian national of Moroccan descent. The other two men arrested are accused of trying to help him travel to Syria to evade authorities and right now Belgium's capital on a security clamp down, the single highest terror threat possible for Brussels.

And most of the bars, restaurants that would be open and lively on a Saturday night are completely shuttered. Police have warned people really to stay at home, to avoid large crowds, not even go to the airport. That's because of a possible imminent threat, those words coming from the Belgium government, imminent threat so significant that they have put this shutdown in place.

[17:05:14] Joining me now, former FBI assistant director, and CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. He is with me. Also with me is a journalist and CNN contributor Stefan de Vries who is also one of the first to be there after Charlie Hebdo. Nice to have you back with me. Thank you very much.

Tom, let me begin with you. We're hearing these reports tonight of police swarming parts of downtown Brussels, shining lights into cars. They must know something very specific to raise the threat level to the highest and to say to the people of Belgium, this is imminent.

TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: You would think so Poppy. But, you know, they've made all these arrests and it could have taken one person saying, ha-ha-ha, we have got this plan, we're going to attack you soon. It could be a phone intercepted, could be just phoning in a threat like they do at soccer stadium and say, we have a bomb or we have a plan. We're going to do an attack. So, there's any number of ways that a threat could be brought to the attention of the authorities that would cause that to happen.

HARLOW: Stephan, to you, you were there, you were hear when Charlie Hebdo happened, you were on the scene moments after. The state of emergency that Martin Savidge and I were just talking about. You've said that you actually think it's a mistake to give police in Paris that much power. Why?

STEFAN DE VRIES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's a very dangerous measure. Usually it only can last for 12 days in the constitution and that's for a reason because it's such a thorough effect on democracy. It's basically putting the democracy on a standby. So, now they've not -- with three months and there are already a lot of laws in France to fight terrorism. There are a lot of legal instruments that can be used to fight terrorists who lead any investigations to do House searches but this extension is a sign to the French population by the French government saying, look, we're doing everything we can and the human rights organizations are already criticizing this measure by saying how can you defend civil liberties if you're actually restricting them and that's one of the main debates we will have the next couple of months. The very thin line between freedom and safety.

HARLOW: Tom, in the United States after 9/11, did we see anything akin to what we're seeing in France now with the state of emergency? FUENTES: No, I don't think we did. And I think that, you know, the

authorities in the U.S., the FBI, the local police, you know, still upheld our constitutional standards and I might add, in the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI solved and prosecutions ensued in a number of cases where mosques were vandalized or criminal damage to properties, threats were made against Muslims, where their rights were protected. So, we didn't see this same type of backlash but I think that the desperation on the part of the French is that their intelligence gathering wasn't strong enough previously and they're trying to play catch up. They didn't know about these two cells, one committing the attack and the other they engaged in a shootout, they were unaware that they were about to plan those attacks and actually carry out one of them.

HARLOW: Right. Stefan, we heard Manuel Valls the prime minister here say this week that ISIS could even potentially have chemical and biological weapons. As a Parisian and a journalist, when you hear that, what do you think?

DE VRIES: Well, I think he's probably right but I also think that it's part of a large war rhetoric. The French president has said we are at war, of course the government, he has to sell this war to the French population and threatening or making people fear that they are maybe chemical attacks, possibility of chemical attacks --

HARLOW: So, you think it's true -- you think it's true or you think it's fear mongering?

DE VRIES: I can't exclude everything. I mean, that there may be a slight possibility that ISIS is preparing chemical attacks, of course, it's very easy to buy chemicals in any Department Store or do it yourself store. So, it is hypothetical possibility. But I do think that the government is using, well, a lot of very strong language right now just to show the French population that they're doing something, if it's useful or effective, that well, that has to be seen in the next couple of weeks, months.

HARLOW: Stefan, thank you very much for joining me. And I'm so sorry for everything that's happened to this city.

DE VRIES: We'll survive.

HARLOW: Yes. You will. Absolutely. That's what we've seen, solidarity and strength here. Thank you very much. Tom Fuentes, to you for your expertise, thank you very much. Much more of our coverage of the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, next. Stay with me.

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[17:13:20] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage from Paris. I'm Poppy Harlow. This weekend, thus far, we have already seen authorities in Belgium make arrests in Turkey and in Belgium as well. All of the suspects with alleged ties to ISIS.

Joining me now to talk about all of these developments, CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and CNN Global Affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. Kimberly, last night, what we saw in Brussels, declaring this heightened security threat, the highest level that they can possibly go, they've gone. They've shuttered public spaces, they've told people not to go to airports. We know that in Brussels you have the highest per capita number of citizens who have left there to join Jihad, you've got a huge block market for weapons. What is it that makes Brussels so vulnerable?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the porous borders and high privacy laws. I've spoken to both U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials who say that those privacy laws, especially that the Belgians take such pride in are the toughest to navigate, or can be, when you're trying to track a suspect from the Middle East across the European map. They can lose them in places like Belgium and especially in Germany. So, what you're looking at now is a government and a people who are saying, we're facing a real threat, they've suspended some of those rights at the moment but they may be facing a long-term debate just like we've had in the United States and continue to have, how much of your personal privacy are you going to sacrifice in order to be safe?

HARLOW: Right, absolutely. Lieutenant General, to you. You have said that you think that the terrorist attacks that were carried out here in Paris one week ago, actually emboldened the attackers in Mali that killed 19 innocent civilians yesterday.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. I think that was part of it, Poppy, but certainly when you're talking about the Sahel or the Maghrib, you know, AQIM, in the northern part of Africa, has been emboldened across this last year plus. The groups that we're talking about, the different groups that are in Mali, some of the other groups that are in Ruritania (ph), Nigeria, Burkina Faso, all of that area that has connection with the AQAM -- AQIM, I'm sorry, seems to have been waiting for a tax, although they have conducted these kind of attacks in the past. But I think some of the things that have been happening in Europe has almost been a call to action. Certainly there might be some connections although they are very different groups. It's certainly -- some of them are thinking it's time to do that now.

HARLOW: Kimberly, you have said the U.S. officials keep telling you what they're actually most surprised about is that it took this long for committed militants to launch an attack in Europe like what we saw in Paris. Why are they saying that?

DOZIER: Because they've watched this flow of militants, or at least young men who've had experience fighting in war zones, flew back to Europe and not get tracked in many instances because they're either part of the refugee flow or they're part of a criminal network that is good at smuggling people in and out of some of these places. And so, they have got the intent, they've got the numbers and they've got access to weapons. We've talked about the fact that she can buy an AK-47 in Europe for between 700 to a thousand dollars. So, means and then an open society that makes these attacks all that much more lethal when they happen. It's an awful combination.

HERTLING: And Poppy, if I may add to that.

HARLOW: Of course.

HERTLING: Yes. Having served my last tour before retiring, as commander of forces in Europe, there was a continual watch of the movement of all kinds of people and not just terrorists, but also human trafficking and as Kimberly says, the weapons coming from Eastern Europe. The former soviet bloc. There's a lot of AK-47s, there's a lot of RPGs in that area. And for a very long time, the military forces, the U.S. military forces were tracking those so- called rat lines across Europe, all the way coming from Syria, up through the Balkans into some of the areas that have their criminal activity that would sell weapons. So, again, there's got to be a little bit of a separation between those who want to perpetrate this criminal acts of terrorism with those who are just attempting to get rich by selling the arms and the ammunition to those. A criminal source and a terrorist source are the two things we watch very closely through our intelligence sources and try to pass on through the 49 different countries in Europe, which all have varying levels and degrees of intelligence capability.

HARLOW: And we've heard our Clarissa Ward reporting a lot on these young jihadists that we've seen attacks here in Paris. This lethal combination of Jihadists combined with street thugs with law and criminal records and the toxic mix that that is. All right. General Hertling, Kimberly Dozier, thank you very much.

For all of you watching, you're going to want to stay with us tonight because at 8:00 Eastern, we're going to take you deep inside of ISIS. Who are these terrorists? What do they want? What drives them "Blindsided"? It's a special report by Fareed Zakaria, 8:00 Eastern only on CNN.

Also, on Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m., a CNN Special report targeting terror, "Inside the Intelligence War." Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto had that for you coming up on Tuesday evening, next.

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[17:22:54] HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage this evening from Paris. We're learning the stories of many of the people who survived the horrific attacks here one week ago. Denys Plaud is one of them. And he says, the only reason he survived the Bataclan attacks is because he went up to the balcony during the show because he wanted to dance and the main floor was too packed. That is when the shots rang out. He hid in a small room with 12 people, 12 people he told me he now desperately hopes to find.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENYS PLAUD, BATACLAN ATTACK SURVIVOR: It was a passing from happiness to nightmare.

HARLOW: Happiness to nightmare?

PLAUD: Yes. From few seconds happiness and then nightmare when it's time to think to survive.

HARLOW: Being on the balcony --

PLAUD: Yes.

HARLOW: You believe that saved your life?

PLAUD: Yes, absolutely. Because when I arrived to the concert, there were so many people on the ground floor, and I wanted to dance and I said to myself, the only way to do so is to get on the balcony.

HARLOW: You're still looking for the people you were with that night?

PLAUD: Yes. Exactly. Because it's very important for me to get back here in relation with those people who suffered the same -- so much as I did.

HARLOW: Do you remember the last person you spoke with that night before the gunman burst in?

PLAUD: I met a guy, 50-year-old, we had a conversation and the terrible thing is that when I got out, I walked over his corpse.

HARLOW: You walked over his corpse?

PLAUD: Yes, so I was the last person to have a conversation with him.

HARLOW: You took a video in the concert right before.

PLAUD: Yes. Yes. They came out like terrorists and with machine guns.

HARLOW: He wants the band playing that night to come back to Paris and play again, this time in peace. He told me about his close friend who is traumatized by the shooting, who wrote a note to the band.

PLAUD: Please don't stop playing rock and roll, please come back to Paris. We love you. Sometimes I feel like a war veteran and --

HARLOW: Like a war victim.

PLAUD: Yes. My parents who are old, 80-year-old, they were born in 1935, 1936, they experienced war and they often told me that you don't know your right to being a peaceful country because we experienced war and I told them when I saw them back, I experienced war, you know. On Friday night, it was a modern war and I was right into a bloody battle field.

HARLOW: Still, he insists he will once again dance at the Bataclan, the same place where he almost lost everything.

PLAUD: I will go there and dance at the next concert in homage to the victims. That's my way to pay their --

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: He will dance again, that is his way to pay homage to the victims, he told me. Denys Plaud, thank you very much for sharing your story. We will have much more live from Paris, next.

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[17:29:41] HARLOW: We have learned that an American citizen was among the 19 people killed by those terrorists in yesterday's hostage standoff in Mali, two of the attackers also died. They have taken more than 100 people hostage in that hotel. Anita Datar was in Mali on an international development project.

[17:30:00] Her former partner served as Presidential Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton's senior policy advisor while she was in the Senate. Hillary Clinton remembering her as a lovely, lovely mother of a 7-year-old.

Turning back now to Paris, right now, none of the attackers have been confirmed, confirmed as entering Europe as refugees. There is suspicion that one of them did pose as a Syrian refugee with an altered fake passport. Also, what we know at this time is that that person strapped a suicide vest onto themselves and detonated it. In the United States, huge, huge political back and forth over this. Backlash growing against allowing Syrian refugees to enter this country right now. The House defied President Obama on Thursday passing a bill to suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraq refugees into the United States pending security upgrades. You had many Republicans voting in favor of it, joined by 47 Democrats.

Joining me now, the lawmaker who proposed the bill, U.S. Congressman Richard Hudson.

Thank you so much for being with me.

REP. RICHARD HUDSON, (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Great to be with you, Poppy. Thank you.

HARLOW: I hope you can hear me, and if you can, please walk me through the key parts of this legislation, what specifically you want to see changed.

HUDSON: Thank you, Poppy. You know, America's a very generous country. We have a long history of allowing folks to come here seeking asylum. But the problem arose when the FBI director a few weeks ago in testimony before Congress said we can't properly vet most of these Syrian refugees. So what we've done in the House of Representatives in a bipartisan way, a two-thirds vote, said that we want to pause the program until we can put in place a vetting process that the FBI director feels comfortable with so that then the Homeland Security secretary --

HARLOW: But that --

HUDSON: -- can attest that these folks aren't a risk.

HARLOW: To be clear, it's not clear what Comey, the FBI director said. He said you only have so much information about people that are coming into this country. I think we might have it on the screen to pull up just to show our viewers. There are a number of things the refugees go through, a number of checks before they're allowed into this country. It's typically a 12 to 24-month process for Syrians. Because of security concerns, it takes even longer.

I want you to listen to what U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said this week.

I think -- do we have that sound? All right, let's play that sound from Secretary of State John Kerry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Since 9/11, we have allowed 785,000 refugees to come to the United States of America, all vetted, all screened. Out of the 785,000, 12 were found to be perhaps problematic with respect to terror, and they were arrested or deported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What's your response to the secretary of state?

HUDSON: Well, I don't take issue with what he's having to say, Poppy, but what the FBI director said in his testimony before Congress was we can't properly vet these folks because if they haven't done anything to rise to the level to attract our attention so we put them in our government data bases, his quote was, "We can check until the cows come home and nothing will show up."

HARLOW: That's right.

HUDSON: And what he said was that because you can't check with third parties in Syria -- because in a normal background check, you'd knock on the neighbor's door and talk with people that knew them, check with former employers. And what he said was we can't do that because that neighborhood's been bombed out. That former business doesn't exist. So because of the FBI director's concerns, all of the House of Representatives is saying, in a bipartisan way, is let's pause until we can put a process in place so the American people can feel assured that we know who these folks are that are coming in.

HARLOW: So, one of the parts of the process you'd like to see enacted is you'd like for this to require the signature, the direct sign off of the director of the FBI, the head of Homeland Security, the head of National Intelligence to sign off on every single refugee.

So, here's what Jeh Johnson, director of Homeland Security, had to say. This is a quote. "This bill that has been posed is a bad bill because it seeks to micromanage the process in a way that's counterproductive to national security, to our humanitarian obligation and the overall ability to focus on homeland security."

He's saying, Congressman, that this actually risks Homeland Security to do what you'd like to see in your bill. [17:35:13] HUDSON: Well, I'd love to hear the secretary's

explanation for why he says that, because just a few weeks ago, testifying before Congress, he says the background information is incomplete and, quote, "that's a real challenge." So, I'm not sure what his thoughts are now. I think it may have something to do with the fact that President Obama issued a veto threat and they're now trying to sort of walk back after a very bipartisan vote in the House where Republicans and Democrats both said we don't want to stop the flow of refuges, we don't want to say no Syrians, we don't want to limit one Christian or Muslim or any group, we want to be welcoming to refugees. But when FBI director and Jeh Johnson testified before Congress saying we can't put together complete background checks on a lot of these folks, and that's a real concern for the American people, Poppy.

HARLOW: The U.S. government, when you look at the data from the government, it shows it just entered 2200 Syrian refugees were admitted in recent years, looking from, I believe, 2011. More than 50 percent were children and only 2 percent are single men of, quote, unquote, "combat age." When you look at so many children and some widows as well, do you think there should be a differentiation or are you talking about even children included in this?

HUDSON: Well, my heart goes out when you see those children and families trying to flee the violence in Syria. I have an 8-week-old baby boy at home and when I see those children, I think of him. And so our heart goes out to the folks. And I think it's a lot -- it's a different situation when you're dealing with a military age male or a child. If we're looking at 7-year-old child trying to vet them, there's a different standard that the government uses. And I was careful when I wrote this legislation not to tell the FBI how to do their background checks. We're letting them do it to their standards. And so for example, if I'm a naturalized Syrian who's come to America, I'm a Syrian, and my mother is one of these refugees, it would be a lot easier to vet her because you have this connection, than it would be a military age male we don't have any information on. In some cases, it would be a lot easier to meet this test.

HARLOW: But to be clear, what you're calling for, this halt for now, would include children, am I correct?

HUDSON: Well, as you said earlier, the vetting process sometimes takes one to two years. We're not saying stop the process. So, if they're being vetted now, they'll continue to vet them. I'm not sure there would be any kind of delay. I trust the folks at the FBI and Homeland Security to be able to put a process in place. But most of these refugees that are still abroad, about 60 percent, are military aged males. So, there's a large group and it's going to be tough to put backgrounds together, but it doesn't mean you stop the process.

HARLOW: Independent Senator Angus King, of Maine, has come forward. He sits on the Intelligence Committee. He said it would be much harder for a terrorist to get into the country through the refugee program than as a tourist. Are you in agreement with him? And are you at all concerned that perhaps you're not focusing enough on the tourist side of this? HUDSON: Well, I haven't seen the Senator's comments, but I wouldn't

disagree. There are other real threats to our homeland security that we need to be addressing. There's a bipartisan task force with the Homeland Security Committee that will be coming out with other legislation when we return after Thanksgiving. Issues like visa waiver countries, folks who come here who don't need a visa because they come from countries we trust. There's a real gap there and that's something Congress will be addressing. It should be a bipartisan issue.

HARLOW: Yeah.

HUDSON: And my hope is we'll address that, too. But my legislation is very narrowly focused and only deals with the situation in Syria and Iraq because of the comments by the FBI director that there was a problem there. So my bill is not a panacea. It's not the end of the process. It's simply the beginning.

[17:29:46] HARLOW: You bring up, looking at the visa waver program, there's a bill being formally proposed, after the Thanksgiving holiday, which would keep foreigners who have travelled to Syria or Iraq in the last five years from using a visa waver program. So, we'll be watching capital Hill as you guys debate that one.

Thank you very much for your time, Representative. I appreciate it.

HUDSON: Thank you, Poppy. It was a pleasure being with you.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

We'll have much more of our live coverage from Paris next. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing coverage this evening, live from Paris.

As we learn more about the terrorists who carried out the horrific attacks here, we're hearing from a mother who knows about losing a son to radicalism. Christiane Boudreau says, at first, she felt hopeful when her teenage son, Damian, discovered Islam after a failed suicide attempt but that hope turned to despair when she found out he left Canada to die fighting for ISIS in Syria. She has now made it her mission to keep other families from living that nightmare. We will talk to her live in just a moment.

But first, Drew Griffin has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Christiane Boudreau may not look like it, but right now, she is battling ISIS.

CHRISTIANE BOUDREAU, ON MISSION TO FIGHT ISIS RECRUITING: These recruiters are really slick and they make you believe that it's something different than what it is and they kept stocking online and a couple times she'd ignore him and he'd blow up.

GRIFFIN: A 23-year-old woman is being stalked, close to joining ISIS and traveling to Syria. The woman's family contacted Boudreau and an intervention began.

BOUDREAU: I'm so proud of her.

GRIFFIN (on camera): Successful so far?

BOUDREAU: So far.

[17:45:10] GRIFFIN (voice-over): In less than two hours, in her Calgary home, three separate families reach out to her, desperate for help.

BOUDREAU: Well, it shouldn't even be happening to your family.

GRIFFIN: They call, they find her for one reason, she has lived this nightmare.

BOUDREAU: There is Damian raiding the pantry in the fridge again.

GRIFFIN: Three years ago, her son became a target of radical Islam recruiter.

Canadian authorities now believe Damian and several other young Muslims were recruited straight out of a downtown Calgary mosque and literally led to the battlefield without their families suspecting a thing. Christiane's son, Damian, would be dead in months, killed, fighting for ISIS, just outside Aleppo, Syria.

BOUDREAU: How can somebody take such a bright mind and twist it and convince them they're doing the right thing? They believe they're doing right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: And Christiane Boudreau joins me live from Calgary, Canada.

Thank you for being with me.

I want your opinion first on why do you think they're so successful getting into the minds of these young people, especially young men like your son and convincing them they should die for this cause?

BOUDREAU: Well, lot of it has to do with they're spending a lot of time and resources on focusing on our youth and developing a relationship. So, they take the time to connect with them, surround them 24-7, building those relationships, manipulating motivations and guiding them in a different path. That's not something we're doing. We're not intercepting our youth, we're not mentoring our youth or guiding them and we're not spending our resources on them.

HARLOW: I think some people watching this think, how can you not know? You've lived that first hand, not knowing, actually feeling hopeful when your son found Islam and you thought turning his life around. What do you say to those people?

BOUDREAU: The difficult part is not only are they living at home. And we're so emotionally connected to our child. We pay so much attention to our relationship in that sense that it's so easy for us to miss all these other signs of them going astray or we just don't want to really believe them or seem like we're panicking for nothing and there's a stigma and judgment on parents if we do say we need help with our youth, who do we turn to? Where do we go to get out outside logistical point of view? It's being run through computers, social media, various other venues that we didn't understand before. So, there needs to be education and awareness for the parents and support for them to recognize what they're seeing and where they can go for that help.

HARLOW: The father of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the younger-than-30, this mid-20s man, who was the mastermind of the attacks here in Paris, the attorney for his father spoke this week, through his lawyer to our Erin Burnett about his son being radicalized. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATHALIE GALLANT, ATTORNEY FOR FATHER OF ABDELHAMID ABAAOUD: It was during 2013, his son was beginning to make a lot of critics concerning the way the father was educating the small kids because he was educating them like European. And Abdelhamid Abaaoud was upset because of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You experienced something similar, right, with your son? He started criticizing aspects of family life. He wouldn't eat with you if there was wine at the table. What are some of the warning signs that parents need to look out for?

[17:49:27] BOUDREAU: Back in the early times, in 2012, it was a little bit easier to see some of those warning signs if we'd known what to look for and that was the rigidity all of a sudden with his religion. He had three years of peaceful faith and been integrating but when he started to change, rigidity was there, started discussing conspiracy theories, more than one wife, alcohol issues, not being able to ingratiate with the belief system was a big one. Originally open, bring friends home with us then all of a sudden his life became very private. All of his phone calls taken outside. He would have his friends meet him around the corner. We weren't seeing the same circle of friends. He wasn't working at same place. He was on the social system at that point. You can see him withdraw from regular lifestyle. You can see behavioral changes, lifestyle changes. Personal changes, he was agitated there was a sense of urgency, something wrong. For some parents, you can see depression, perhaps suicide. It's the same sort of ideals that go on through their mind where they make that decision. Sometimes they go right back to normal again, and we can't see anything. But if we feel it in our gut, there something wrong, we reach out for help for what it is.

HARLOW: Christiane, thank you. Thank you for joining me and giving me this perspective. It's very important. Appreciate it.

We'll take a quick break. Much more live from Paris, next.

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[17:55:39] HARLOW: CNN is about to celebrate the amazing work of this year's top-10 "CNN Heroes." Here's a look behind the scenes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-HOST, NEW DAY: I'm inside the American Museum of Natural History. We are set to honor 10 everyday people who are doing truly extraordinary things. I'm giving you your very own backstage pass. Let's get going.

(voice-over): Since 2007, "CNN Heroes, All-Star Tribute," has been an annual event. From assembling the stage, testing lights, to placing the cameras and rolling out the red carpet, this army of seasoned pros know what it takes to make this evening memorable.

(on camera): Got to keep it fresh, Kelly?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Keep it fresh, every year.

PEREIRA: Isn't that clever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Great story.

PEREIRA (voice-over): Host Anderson Cooper and A-listers galore turn out to salute our honorees for their work helping others.

Rising music star, Andre Day, was drawn to the evening's positive message.

(SINGING)

ANDRE DAY, SINGER: The purpose for creating the song in the beginning was that it was something encouraging and inspiring and healing for people. I think it works well with the theme of tonight.

PEREIRA: A 21,000-pound blue whale rarely has to share the spotlight. But on this special night, our top-10 "CNN Heroes" will take center stage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The minute you walk into the place, you are just overwhelmed. It's intense. This event is going to be spectacular.

PEREIRA: And maybe motivate all of us to make an impact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)