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New Day

Terrorists Attack French Satirical Newspaper

Aired January 07, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The president of France calls it a terror attack. That would make it the most deadly in two decades there. Here's what we know. Two heavily armed men at least, semiautomatic weapons, maybe a rocket-propelled grenade, attacked the offices of a French satirical magazine. Why? This magazine had a history of doing things with respect to Islam that were seen as provocative. That's what the magazine does. It does religious and political satire. It had been fire bombed in 2011 by Islamic extremists because of that. Today is its publication day. Today at lunchtime it was having its editorial meeting and that's when this attack happened. Alisyn, we're showing the video right now. This is what eyewitnesses picked up while the shooting was going on.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We need to tell you that the suspects remain at large at this hour. President Francois Hollande has raised the country's security level system to its highest meaning that all train stations, airports, houses of worship will be beefed up with much more security. We are on top of the story. Let's get right to Jim Bitterman. He is live on the ground for us in Paris. What do we know at this hour, Jim?

JIM BITTERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is quite a dramatic situation. There's a crisis meeting going on right now over at the presidential palace. The top ministers of France have been called in to decide how they're going to handle this whole situation because clearly this has gone over the heads of the security forces here and their ability to control things.

They have in the past foiled a number of plots like this, and President Hollande pointed that out when he went to the scene this morning, that they had foiled attacks in the past, but this one clearly was not foiled. The gunmen were pretty well-armed. They had Kalashnikovs according to eye-witnesses. One eyewitness said they may also have had a rocket launcher, and that they attacked this newspaper at a time when the reporters and cartoonists and editors would have been all around the same table at their editorial meeting. And so they clearly had done some planning on this. They knew what was going to happen at the newspaper and they knew when the most propitious time was to attack at least from their point of view.

According to some reports the editor of the newspaper is among the dead as well as one of the cartoonists who was responsible for the very famous Mohammad cartoon that got the newspaper in trouble in 2011, in fact got a firebombed back in 2011. Alisyn, Chris?

CUOMO: There is speculation this may have been more specific in its targeting than we know at this point, that they may have been looking for specific individuals, not confirmed yet. Let me rely on your expertise about something, though, Jim. We know that the French government says they thwarted some recent threats of attacks. But we haven't seen something like this before. This isn't a one-off. This isn't a suicide bombing. As we're looking at live pictures now as they're doing their after action investigation, this, to have two people in a coordinated attack who seem to know what they're doing, this is not just unusual in Paris. This would be unusual anywhere, isn't it?

BITTERMAN: Absolutely. This took a great deal of planning on their part. They had to get the weapons, which are not as easy to get as it might be in the United States, for example, but they had to assemble the weapons. They had to plan this thing out. They had to also look at the security around the newspaper, because up until recently there was fairly tight security, 24/7 police cars at the newspaper. They may have detected, as one journalist told us, that in fact the security had been scaled back in recent days and they may have detected that and chosen this moment for that reason.

But in any case, they had a great deal of planning that went into this. And also the key people at the newspaper were there at the meeting this morning, so they were able to, if we understand correctly, the reports are correct, kill the editor as well as one of the cartoonists who was involved in that famous Mohammad cartoon. It's something that I think is going to jolt a lot of French, and as I said earlier, the president himself has canceled all his appointments today. They have a crisis meeting going on over the presidential palace to decide what further the government may be able to do.

CAMEROTA: And Jim, quickly, we understand it that the gunmen are still at large at this hour. Do you have any other information on them?

BITTERMAN: None except what president, Hollande, provided himself. He said they'd be chased until the ends of the earth until they're captured. But there's no indication that he's been able to make good on that promise. The fact is that they got away. They were seen in the video very calmly getting into a car and driving away. They apparently, according to one report, hit a pedestrian as they drove away. And also it's been reported that as they drove away they said, "This is vengeance for the prophet," meaning the prophet Mohammad, and "We have killed Charlie Hebdo," meaning they killed the magazine.

CAMEROTA: Jim Bitterman, stick around for us at the scene. We want to go now to Joe Johns. He is at the White House where we understand the president has just been briefed on this attack in Paris. Joe, what's the latest?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's about it, and, quite frankly, Alisyn, the president is aware of the situation. I spoke with White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest just a few minutes ago here in the briefing room. He said while the president has been briefed, there is limited information at this stage of course because it just happened. It's not clear whether the president is going to address this issue on departure. He's supposed to go out to the Midwest in advance of his state of the union address. And we do know, of course, that Josh Earnest is telling CNN he's not aware of any eminent threat to the United States at this time. But it's morning here and all the briefings at the White House and in other places in Washington are just getting started right now, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Joe Johns, thank you very much for that update.

CUOMO: All right, let's bring in Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent, obviously. She's joining us from London. Christiane, obviously all eyes on Paris, but let's talk about what's going on there right now. Tell us about how quickly the Islamic population is rising there, what the concerns are there about any extremist factions within it. What's going on there right now?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, for a long time France has been the country which proportionately percentage-wise has had the biggest Islamic population there. However, that does not mean to say that France has been the vanguard of Islamic terrorism. We saw it in Britain in 7/7, we saw it in Madrid. This is a very, very severe departure from the usual attacks because this isn't random, as a senior French analyst has just said. This was directed absolutely at the press.

To that end, we heard if it's true, if it's true and it's bared out that these people apparently said as they fled "Charlie Hebdo is dead," that is the magazine that was attacked today which has a history as a satirical magazine of poking fun at all of life's absurdities, including the absurdity of militant Islam. So that is what it has been doing and it has had around-the-clock police protection over the years. It has been attacked and fire bombed before. It does tow a very, very dangerous line, these very brave journalists.

Right now in France, they have raised their terrorist alert to the highest in recent memory. The French president has called this obviously a terrorist attack. The attackers are on the loose. He vows to chase them. Hopefully they'll get them and find out what this is all about.

But also in the rest of Europe, there is a very, very heightened terror alert, worried about the threat because of these safe havens that have as we've seen emerged from Syria and Iraq with the rise of ISIS. So this is very, very difficult. The prime minister of Great Britain is meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel here in London as we speak. He has already tweeted he's obviously stood in solidarity with the French, but also said "We stand in solidarity with the efforts to defend the freedom of the press." Again, this is a clear attack on the press, and everything else is around the rise in Islamic fears and terrorism because of the rise of ISIS and because of so many Europeans who are going over to fight for ISIS, as we've seen hundreds from France alone.

CAMEROTA: Christiane, stay with us. We want to bring in Bobby Ghosh and Peter Beinart who have been standing by to give us context on all of this. As Christiane said, this is an attack on the press. And beyond that, it is symbolic on this particular satirical magazine because they have had the bravery to attack religion of all stripes. But they haven't backed even after they were firebombed in 2011 from attacking the Muslim religion and satirizing the prophet Mohammad. Today, as we just heard our reporters say, it sounds as though the cartoonists who did that famous cartoon of the prophet Mohammad in 2011 has been killed.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It's important to make this distinction and make the point often that this is an attack on free speech. It is not a response to, shall we say, as we've seen in Britain, France's participation in the war in Afghanistan or in Iraq. This is not a military target that these people have chosen. They've chosen a very specific target, and that's a message. It's a very chilling message.

If they did indeed say we have killed "Charlie Hebdo," the big question is, can this magazine survive. And I think given France's longstanding tradition of France's of satire, very robust satire in the public space, it is to be hoped that the magazine can survive.

CUOMO: Let also to get to what we're talking about here, though, Peter, in terms of what was so bad that was done, because the implication is that, well, if you put a representation of Mohammad, put up the cover, today's publication date of "Charlie Hebdo," if it they're not able to get their message out, we get it out for them. This is a satire of someone who is obviously about to get their head cut off, right. The person who is victim is supposed to be Mohammad. He is saying "Wait, I'm the prophet you idiot." And the guy who is going to cut his head off is saying "Shut your mouth, infidel." And it says in the caption on the top "If Mohammad were to come back." Now, there is a notion if you show him or say his name it's insulting to all Muslims and this is what they'll do. Bobby, that's just not true. Explain who is offended by what and what this really is about today that we saw today.

GHOSH: The first and most important thing that needs to be said is that for the vast majority of Muslims killing of innocent people in the name of their religion is far more offensive than anything else. That is the great offense. And we've already being seeing on Twitter lots and lots of Muslims coming out and saying that.

There is a tradition in Islam that you do not depict a human form and certainly not the form of the prophet. That is considered, that's not allowed. It's hard to go from that to satire, but the people who did this and the extremists who sort of, who froth at the mouth when something like this happens, they are people who are sort of taking offense at a bunch of different things and are going far beyond what the vast majority of ordinary Muslims are willing to do.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's important to remember Islam, like any great religion, has all kinds of interpretive traditions. In my own tradition in Judaism there are some who say that gossip is not allowed and therefore you can't practice journalism because that involves gossip.

CUOMO: Jews who won't write "God." They write "G-d." BEINART: Right. The point is it is all in how you interpret these

things and what your value system is. And this is a group of people who do not value human life, certainly do not value liberty, and as Bobby said, it's very important to say that an imam in France already, the imam said these journalists are martyrs for liberty. And this is I think so important right now that journalists because we have an obligation to them in our profession and Muslims because although they are not to blame, these people are speaking in their name unfairly. Come out and say that for us, our principles are life and liberty.

CAMEROTA: There's also an important thing that's happening right now simultaneously with the investigation of this attack, and that is on social media, people are re-tweeting the cartoons of this satirical magazine, some of the most offensive, outrageous old cartoons. They're re-tweeting them to send the message to ISIS or whoever these extreme is are, you can't stamp out satire. You can't stamp out free speech. In the age of social media you can't.

BEINART: And it just shows how absurdly counterproductive this has turned out to be. Not only is it horrific, but like the attack on Sony it's massively counterproductive because a magazine who most Americans have never heard of, whose images they have never seen are now being seen by million around the world just as happened with the images with the movie about Kim Il-sung.

CAMEROTA: Bobby, I was thinking about what went on in the days after 9/11 here in our own country, and I'm curious what your thoughts are about what's going to happen in the coming days and weeks in France in the coffee shops, among the people that live on the streets of Paris and around the country, in terms of their thoughts about Muslims and thoughts about extremists.

GHOSH: France has a Muslim population anywhere between five and eight percent, the exact number is hard to come by. One of the consequences of that is that if you're French, chances are you know a Muslim person and you're familiar with the discussion about Islam. So the hope is that there won't be sort of a knee jerk reaction.

There are, however, I said earlier there are right wing parties in France that prosper when something like this happens, that take advantage of these kinds of situations and stoke up anger and hatred, the anti-immigration parties as well, which there's an overlap between the two. And I have no doubt there will be people in France who will be if not baying for blood, certainly speaking in very angry tones.

CUOMO: That wouldn't be new there, Bobby. We had the riots a few years ago. You had this burgeoning population of Islam, is now the second biggest religion in France. France is a very secular country, but just behind Roman Catholicism you now have Islam there. And in the northern part of Paris you have a largely un-policed population of a burgeoning Islamic community that's raised a lot of concerns there about why isn't there police presence there, why aren't these people being integrated into society? And there's concern that exactly this type of extremism will take root in place of any type of enfranchising of these people. Let's bring in CNN international correspondent Fred Pleitgen. He's on

his way to Paris. He's in London right now. Fred, what do you have for us?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris.

Well, I think, first of all, you're absolutely right in that when you look at those pictures from that attack, and I know that many analysts are doing so right now and the French police doing so as well, then you will see the people who did this must have been accurate marksmen. I mean, like you, I spent a lot of time on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was in the German military for a while.

The first thing they teach you when they teach to you fire a weapon is you don't put it on automatic, you put it on semiautomatic and you try to place three shots in close proximity of one another. And that seems to be exactly what these people did when you look at the car window for instance.

So, right now, what we're hearing from the French authorities is they're saying is they're still after these gunmen. They apparently are still at large. The thing that the French authorities have been saying is they believe it's somewhere between four and five gunmen that appear to still be on the loose. They're trying to track them down.

It is, of course, something that's very much an ongoing situation but certainly when you look at those videos, when you look at also the aftermath of all of that, you can see that these were definitely people who were certainly well aware and knew what they were doing there -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, thank you very much, Fred. Be careful on your way over there. We're going to need the reporting from the ground. That's for sure.

CAMEROTA: Let's show you to let you know what we're talking about if you're just joining us, there's been a terrible gun attack in Paris, France, on a satirical magazine. At least 12 people have been killed, four people are grievously wounded at this hour, in critical condition. Some of the wounded are police officers.

There were eyewitnesses to the attack and some of them got home video. Let us show you how this attack unfolded. Three different vantage points on what has happened. We're trying to get more information about who did this.

I'll tell you, it is very frightening to watch the lack of excitement between those shooters. Again we're trying to get a picture of who those men are, heavily armed, Kalashnikov, maybe a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. How they're not frantic at what's going on, the calmness when they assassinate, execute the police officer that had been hit in the melee with them.

It really does suggest calm in the circumstances, which suggests training. That is one of the threads that we're going to follow along here as we stay on top of this recent terror attack in Paris, just happened at noontime there, lunch time there.

Christiane Amanpour is in London following the event for us there.

And, again, Christiane, you hear what we're discussing here, the specific context of this attack of who would have done this, how well- trained they could have been. When have we ever seen two men, not a suicide bomber, not a car bomb, two men going in, maybe even more, going in and launching a coordinated attack like this? This would be a new wave of threat.

AMANPOUR: Well look, it certainly looks like that. If you see the pictures that we're just showing, we don't know what order they're in. We don't see the full picture but we see snapshots. You know, the form, the way these people are standing suggests, the way they're dressed, obviously, the way you say they are fairly calm and cool and collected and going about their deadly business there suggests a level of experience and training. We'll see, we just don't know and we can't jump to conclusions.

The president of France is going to be giving a press conference at 8:00 p.m. French time, which is about 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time I believe today and we will obviously see what they have discovered in the next few hours, if anything.

But, you know, compare that to what happened in England not so long ago, several months ago when two people wielding knives rushed an off- duty British soldier. You remember they did so outside his barracks and basically beheaded him.

This is a completely different type of attack, even though that was a multiple person attack as well. This looks so much more different and they have escaped. Those two were still bumbling around at the crime site and arrested when the police came to get him.

So, yes, there are a huge amount of questions as to who and what this is. But, look, we've been warning and security officials have been warning for months now, obviously, since ISIS really reared its ugly head and started capturing territory in Syria and Iraq, that there was going to be blowback. We know that France has many, many people who are going over to fight with ISIS.

We don't know whether this is ISIS-related, but there is also a history of attack against these satirical magazines. We saw it in the early 2000s when the Danish cartoons started and lots of people were killed in the melee after that, in Denmark and in other parts of Europe and the Middle East. Charlie Hebdo re-printed some of those cartoons and Charlie Hebdo continued this satirical attack against the absurdities and the extremism of Islam and it seems that this was a direct counter-attack against that.

So, this is something that the Europeans have been incredibly worried about. France raised its terror alert to the highest in recent memory. It has had random, we thought, but certain number of attacks by people shouting "God is great" just before Christmas, a car drove into a group of Christmas shoppers. There was an attack in a police station. There was an attack on a Christmas market. All of this cause the terror threat to be raised and in Europe as a

whole because of what's happening with Syria and Iraq, because of the rise of ISIS, there has been a heightened terror threat and alert higher than at any time since 9/11, which is under way right now.

CAMEROTA: And, Christiane, we know a little bit more about what was happening with the victims of this attack. They were in an editorial meeting we understand from Jim Bittermann. They were in their editorial meeting, it was cartoonists, it was the reporters, it was the bosses, and somehow 12 were killed.

It's hard to tell from these videos that we're watching whether or not the gunmen even got inside but Jim Bittermann was reporting that the very cartoonist who was responsible for the Prophet Mohammad cartoon back in 2011 that was the target of the fire bombing that he has been killed in this attack. It's hard to know from these eyewitness videos how they were able to have that level of carnage, when we only see what's going on outside.

But you, Christiane, have been talking a lot recently about how dangerous the world is for journalists right now.

AMANPOUR: Well, look, it clearly is. The worst things we've seen in broad daylight on videotape around the world is the slitting of the throat and the beheading of a number of journalists, James Foley, Steven Sotloff, three Western aide workers as well were assassinated, executed, publicly beheaded like sheep in a desert by ISIS. We've seen mass executions by ISIS, of civilians, of minorities, of Syrian forces, for instance, who they've captured, of people inside Iraq as well.

So, yes, journalists and others are being targeted. This particular attack according to who is watching it and according to what we know obviously, what we know and we can report, has been directly targeted against journalists, against a magazine, against freedom of speech but really against what they don't want -- against, you know, they feel their sensibilities have been offended and that is what is going on right now.

And this is how this group right now is fighting this fight. It is also attacking the right of people to speak and to be able to express themselves. So, these are not military targets. They're not random civilian targets as we've seen in European capitals in the past. This is a direct tack to inspire not just death and closure of the magazine they probably hope but huge amount of fear and to cause others to stop using freedom of expression and using satire.

And interesting as I think you've been saying the reaction to that has been many, many people around the world posting on social media the very magazine covers, the very cartoons that apparently have caused offense, a sort of social media resistance. But, look, we've also been reporting on what's been going on in Germany over the last several weeks, these anti-Islamic demonstration there is and the counter demonstrations that are going on to try to push that down. There's a huge amount of unrest in Europe right now between Islamists, radicals and what's going on in the Middle East. CAMEROTA: Christiane, stand by for us if you would. We have more

developments.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, joining us on the phone right is Jean-Charles Brusard. He's a terrorist expert in France and has written a lot about Islamic extremist.

Sir, thank you for joining us.

Obviously, you're watching this unfold as we are here. We know the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" have been the target of attack before. We also know that France has had a great concern about returning jihadists, if you will, coming back to France and coming back to Europe.

Do you draw a direct line here to this attack?

JEAN-CHARLES BRUSARD, FRENCH TERROR EXPERT (via telephone): No, it's too soon to drive to conclusions. But what we can say is a terrorist attack coming from the terror operation in Syria and Iraqis from return yes. We have probably the first European contingent of young people fighting and training there.

We're also fearing radicalized individuals from inside France. Several terrorist attacks have been thwarted in the last year, at least five terrorist attacks have been stopped and so, this was something we're fearing, not on that scale, unprecedented scale in France, but we were indeed fearing the type of actions that have taken place today.

PEREIRA: Sir, the fear is understandable. So, talk about the preparations, in terms of how the police there are trained and prepared in counter-terrorism efforts. That has obviously been ongoing. Has it been sufficient, in your mind?

BRUSARD: Well, we have very important laws and abilities also from the intelligence and the police to track down groups and individuals who are tracking, these services are tracking thousands of individuals. It's always difficult because terrorism has moved from a form of terrorism from groups, to a form of terrorism carried out by individuals or very small groups.

So, it is much more difficult today. Protection measures have been taken in the past regarding public sites, tourist sites in Paris and other cities in France because of the threats, because of attacks also that were carried out a couple of weeks ago. So the measures have been reinforced today with the protection on various sites including religious sites, the press and also commercial centers.

But, indeed, what we're experiencing has been and under way in other countries, plots have been thwarted also in the U.K. We've seen what happened in Canada and Australia, that type of threat existed and we knew it was about to come to France.

PEREIRA: You talk about this moving foe and the morphing organism that is terrorism. You make a very good point there. Speak directly to the situation that we saw brutally unfold here at

"Charlie Hebdo." We understand it was -- did we lose you? Oh, OK, that was Jean-Charles -- oh, he's still there with us.

BRUSARD: Hello?

PEREIRA: Can you hear us?

BRUSARD: Yes, yes.

PEREIRA: OK, the speaking of that particular site of this attack today, the brutal killing of 12 people there, among them journalists, we understand a couple of police officers have been killed, among those critically injured.

This has been targeted before. We also have learned from our reporter on the ground that the protection of this facility has lessened in the last few days. What do you make of that?

BRUSARD: Well, indeed, it has been targeted in the past, has been targeted by actions including fire bombed a couple years ago and also by threats, repeatedly. It was under the protection of the police. At what level, it is still unclear at that stage, whether it lessened in the days before we don't know, but we knew it was under the protection of the surveillance at least of the police. It is difficult to say, again, at what level it was.

We knew it was a symbol, it was probably targeted as such, including the police forces, police forces were also targeted and executed, for one of them, a video has been circulating about the execution of one police officer so it was clearly intended to target, symbolly target.

PEREIRA: Some tough days ahead in Paris to be sure.

Jean-Charles Brusard, our thanks for joining us today.

Chris?

CUOMO: And significant urgency still going on right now. Let's get to a witness on the phone. Marie Turcan, she's a French journalist. She's with the publication (INAUDIBLE), and she was only 200 meters from where this took place.

Can you hear me, Marie?

MARIE TURCAN, FRENCH JOURNALIST (via telephone): Yes. Hi.

CUOMO: Thank you for joining us. Thank God you are safe.

Please tell us what you know?

TURCAN: Yes, we are safe and we closed everything from our newspaper because we have like you said, we are close to where the building where it happened. So, what I saw now, it's another medics car is going in front of the "Charlie Hebdo" building. So, we have seen some people being evacuated, some journalists who are safe outside of the building and now like you said, we know that there are 10 journalists who have been killed and two policemen.

There is a police car that has been completely -- with the windshield in pieces. There has been a broken bike and a broken car in front of the building where the two men car and the scene.

CUOMO: Marie, let me ask you, there's been a lot of speculation about how many attackers were involved.