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Flurry of Police Activity in Saint-Denis Neighborhood; Two Apartments Raided in Search of Terror Mastermind; French Interior Minister Speaks on Investigation. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 18, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: For hours, there have been explosions, gunfire, at least two terrorists killed. Several others arrested.

[06:00:00]

Officers hurt. Speculation that this was an extension of a manhunt looking for the planner of Friday's Paris attacks. What is going on now is different active groups of officers looking in different apartments. That's where this team, what they're calling a team, was revealed that then resulted in gunfire and fatalities. They believe that they got there just in the nick of time before this team that they discovered could launch yet another wave of attacks. What those attacks would have been, we're not told at this time. But CNN has multiple sets of eyes on the scene.

Let's start with Clarissa Ward, senior investigative correspondent. Clarissa, what are you seeing right now?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, behind me is the church where, for the last half hour or so, we've seen police. They were banging away at that door, trying to wedge it open for quite some time. Then when they finally succeed in doing that, we saw them filing in there. It's not clear what the source of the threat or the intelligence that led them to this church is. We're about 500 meters or so away from the apartment building that was the source of the raids overnight.

But police filed into that church. You can see from their posture they appear to be pretty calm now. But certainly this has been a pretty chaotic, ongoing scene on the ground since about 4:30 local this morning. As a series of raids trying to, they believe, drill down on the believed mastermind of Friday's attacks -- a 27-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin. His name is Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He's known to have led a plot in Belgium back in January; that was thwarted. But he managed to escape. And, Chris, everybody thought he had gone back to Syria or Iraq. In fact, French and coalition authorities were actually targeting him in Syria and Iraq. Now it appears -- and, again, I say it appears, because this situation is very fluid. There's a lot of information coming through. We want to make sure we really lock it down before reporting it. But it appears that he is the focus, the target, of this raid overnight. No word yet on whether anything actually happened in terms of finding

him. But certainly we do know that as many as two people were killed, three arrested. A woman who was wearing a suicide vest blew herself up. So a lot of moving parts here, Chris. And we're continuing to keep an eye on this church to see if that may reveal anything.

And it's worth noting as well, the residents around here, all around us, they can't believe what is happening, Chris. This is Paris. This is Europe. People are not used to seeing police banging down doors, heavily armed, detonated explosions going off all through the night, suicide bombers. This is unchartered territory for Parisians. Chris?

CUOMO: There's no question, there's no other word for it but bizarre right now. Christiane, we've reached a point where officers just tore a hole through a church door while presumptively looking for a Muslim terrorist who might be inside -- probably not, based on the way that they entered -- after a night of explosives and gunfire in a place where they discovered yet another team that they believe was poised to attack.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These radicals, these terrorists, have been on the run. We've had international arrest warrants, manhunt been going on since Saturday. And let's not forget that it is not just Abaaoud who is considered the mastermind, but another one of the main organizers as well, who is Salah Abdeslam. Let's not forget that for the last two days, we've been talking about him as well. So there are a number of people that they are still trying to nail down.

CUOMO: But in 12 hours, the reporting went from, you know, they were trying to kill this guy in Syria, right before the attacks. Couldn't find him. And now he might be in a church in their own backyard?

AMANPOUR: Indeed. I asked Secretary Kerry yesterday when I sat with them to confirm these reports that they and the French had wanted to try to get him with a drone attack. He clearly wouldn't go there. He wasn't going to confirm or deny that. But he is known to be, Abaaoud, anyway, the most violent, the most high profile, the most important, if I could use that word, ISIS jihadi who has gone from Belgium there and back.

He has always, all along, he appears in these horrendous videos, making threats, performing the most unspeakable acts on tape. And quite a psychopath and has been connected, importantly now, connected with many other thankfully foiled attacks in Belgium, and including, of course, that AK-47 attempted spraying of a passenger train from brussels to Paris in the summer.

CUOMO: His intentions are clear. He's also proven elusive. Let's get back to the scene of this active operation. Atika Shubert, you've been the fresh eyes, the first eyes on the situation throughout the night. You've seen waves of activity.

[06:05:00]

And now? ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, it's officially over,

the operation. The French government spokesperson has said that it's over and that only security operations are under way.

Now, this is right in the heart of old Saint-Denis. That is the church where we saw them clear a hole through the door earlier, and we do still see police units here, although it is a lot more relaxed. We just saw a actually plain clothed officer get out with a rifle and move around to the corner of the church there.

What I think is happening here is that these are sort security operations, they're just kind of clearing the area out of any suspicious characters, anybody who's not supposed to be around here. But the actual operation to apprehend those suspects appears to officially be over.

And just to recap, we have two of the suspects who died, seven suspects arrested. This is after a night of automatic gunfire and explosions. Residents understandably are not only terrified by what's happened but just think it's absolutely surreal. So this is -- this is Paris today, Chris.

CUOMO: While the church bells are ringing where you are, police are tearing a hole in the door of another church. They may call that an operation being over, but certainly activity is still ongoing. And a lot about this is about where it goes from here. Fred Plietgen also on the scene. There's something changing by you. What is it?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIOAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Chris. We're seeing a lot of motion now from where that raid appears to have taken place.

And what you can see when you look down the street is that there are a lot of police officers that are moving away from the scene at this point in time. There's a group in front that's standing with some firefighters there. The guys with the orange sort of bands around their arms, those are all plain clothed police officers. Some of them also wearing their police jackets now.

The guys from the special operations forces do still be in place. But it seems to us as though, Chris, the situation down there, from what we can see, seems to be much, much more relaxed than it was about 45 minutes ago, when at that point in time they were still standing with their guns ready. It really does seem, as Atika was saying, as though there's still clearing operations going on. They're going through there. But it does seem as though, at this point in time, that they are more relaxed.

If you see the front, however, there is still a cop there that seems to be securing a perimeter also with a rifle and with that riot gear and the flack vest on as well. So they certainly are still very much in a mode where they're securing the perimeter, still have a lot of forces on hand. They have a lot of ambulances, firefighters; there are still a lot of assets they have down here. So clearly if this operation is winding down, it seems to be winding down in a very slow way. It's not like they're moving out quickly. Seems like there is still some work going on in those places.

But from the vantage point we have here, which, again, is a little bit elevated so we can see down that road where those apartments appear to be, it seems to us as though it's a lot more relaxed than it would have been about 30, maybe 40 minutes ago. Chris?

CUOMO: Understood within the context, Fred, of course, there is a randomness to this. The officers went to one of these apartments for one reason, the search wound up being expanded, there wound up being violence. So you never know what's going to happen. Stay safe and stay on the scene. Let us know what you see there.

Let's get some context here. Jim, what do we know about why they went there, how it expanded, and we arrived at this point?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: There was a break in this case yesterday when they discovered these phones by the dead bodies of the attackers on Friday, as our Evan Perez was the first to report, including a message, a text message on the phone, to the effect of "Let's get this operation started.." Including, very important, that there were encryption apps on those phones widely available.

CUOMO: Allowing them to go dark.

SCIUTTO: To go dark, which has been a concern of U.S. intelligence for a long told. I was told two days ago they were concerned that this cell went dark and that's one reason they were able to stay under the radar screens. That's a key clue, possible that's connected to the raids today.

The other point I would make is this, what we're seeing unfold today is good police work. Right? I mean --

CUOMO: We're also watching the French interior minister. Let's bring in senior correspondent Jim Bittermann. The interior minister walking up now. We believe he's going to give a statement. Take us through this.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: I think he probably will. This is what usually happens. I mean, the French are very good about putting out the ministers right away when something goes on in their territory, in their dossiers (INAUDIBLE) coming forward here, and I suspect he'll probably have a few words to say.

We're also supposed to hear in about a half hour, Chris, from President Hollande himself, who is addressing the mayors. And the mayors of France gathering -- the association of mayors gathering, 11,000 mayors. In France, the mayors have a different role than in the United States. They're actually have policing powers, especially in smaller villages where there aren't so many police.

[06:10:01]

They have their own police forces in some towns. So in fact the mayors are very important in getting the message out, providing security, that sort of thing. And they're going to talk about the values of the republic and all that. But I also suspect, because of the events this morning, there's going to be a lot about what happened.

CUOMO: Now, sometimes when you hear an official's going to speak, you assume it's going to be a non-event. That has not been our experience with this situation. When the French put out there, as Jim Bittermann was saying, when the French officials come out, they have things it talk about.

Jim, one other point, are you hearing what we've been hearing that this idea of these raids have been an awakening for the authorities, that they are discovering an intricacy of a network and of a criminality and of a terror framework in and around their midst that they were not aware of?

BITTERMANN: I think absolutely. I think that after Charlie Hebdo -- oh, now the interior minister is speaking now.

CUOMO: All right, we'll get a translation. Let's listen in.

BERNARD CAZENEUVE, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER (via translator): (INAUDIBLE). I would like to give my sincere congratulations of the police involved in the raid who intervened in extremely courageous way in the framework of this operation, who worked for numerous hours in conditions which they had never met up until now.

I would also like to congratulation the cool of the inhabitants. I would like to say to them that throughout this operation , we respected advice given -- they respected the advice given by the police and the local actors which contributed to the success in this operation.

Clearly, we -- during the coming days and the inquiry, we'll have to pursue the action that we're carrying out in the fight against terrorism. I'd like to immediately give the floor to the -- to the prosecutor of the republic.

FRANCOIS MOLINS, PARIS PROSECUTOR (via translator): I'd like to make a few observations. I've expressed myself more clearly in the second part of the afternoon. We need to understand that nobody -- people could not go inside the building. This sort was within the judicial framework of Friday night, following the criminal terrorist attacks that took place in Paris and Saint-Denis experienced. In this framework, there's been lots of work that's been carried out which made it possible to obtain surveillance and testimonies which made it possible to think that the name Abaaoud was likely to be in a flat in Saint-Denis, a conspirational flat in Saint-Denis, with these elements.

This operation was unleashed this night with the shootings that were described by the minister first of all with the intention of three people who were in the flat, secondly, by the explosion of a young woman who was still there and who exploded herself by exploding a charge, and then another terrorist was then found by and was then killed by projectiles and grenades. Two people were then detained who were trying to hide and two other people were then detained, the one who provided the accommodation and their acquaintance.

It is impossible to give you the identity of the people at the moment while these identifications and checks are taking place. Everything will be done to find out who is who, and these police and technical examinations and what the consequences can be drawn from the development of these investigations. Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. So we were just hearing the prosecutor give a breakdown of what was going on. You have to remember, if you're just joining us right now, it has looked like a war zone in this French neighborhood of Saint-Denis outside Paris for the last several hours. Police acting on information that the planner of the attacks on Friday may have been in an apartment in this community. They launched a massive operation. There were explosions, there was gunfire, terrorists have been killed, at least two are being reported. Many have been arrested. Officers have been injured.

This was about, Jim Sciutto, two apartments on the same street that led to what we're being told, just in the nick of time, the discovery of a second terror team.

SCIUTTO: Three headlines. This was just in the nick of time. They believe by getting in there at the time they did they prevented another deadly attack on the streets of Paris.

[06:15:03]

Two, as you heard the French police just saying right there, that they actually believe the mastermind of these attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was going to be in that apartment. As it turned out, he was not. But, third, just something we've been talking about for the last hour or so, you heard Cazeneuve there confirm that it was the phones that they found yesterday at the scenes of the prior attacks that led them to this apartment here. So how quickly that clue from yesterday, the several phones they found, in effect, that led them to another cell. That was a remarkable lead in this investigation. Made a real difference today.

AMANPOUR: Four people they said have been detained in this apartment raiding, including the owner, or the renter, or the person who the apartment belonged to. And furthermore, CNN investigative producer, Scott Brownstein, has confirmed through the police that the raids focused on two different, teparate apartments, on the same street. The raid from one of them led to the raid on the second one.

BITTERMANN: The pressure is on the interior minister here. He has been in the forefront ever since Charlie Hebdo. There's been repeated terrorist incident and every time he takes the heat. So he's out there with his prosecutor, Molins, and the two of them have got a lot of responsibility for protecting the French. So it's good -- I'm sure he feels it's a good idea to be out there this morning.

CUOMO: Well, there's a big emerging plus/minus in this situation. There is a state of emergency because of the attacks on Friday. That has increased police power, it's led to more raids in places they ordinarily wouldn't go. The negative is, as the fruit of those raids, they have developed an understanding of what's being described to us as a spiderweb network of almost an infestation of potential terror targets, leading them to a second team of what it seems, Jim Sciutto, of at least equal manpower, firepower, and explosive power to the team that launched the attacks here on Friday.

SCIUTTO: The parallels here are key. We heard of eight attackers, at least ISIS said. But French police identified seven plus a further two they were looking for in the first attacks on Friday. Here, you have nine people in this area, in these apartments, same size. There was at least one suicide vest we know from the police, several automatic weapons. It has many parallels to that first cell.

And I'll just tell you, we've talked a lot since these attacks happened. People ask the question -- are we in a different phase now? Has something changed, et cetera? We are, no question. But part of that is that, as you say, police have more power. They're not going to leave anything to chance. They're going to go on a hunch. You know, they're not going to wait for it to happen. They're not going to wait for a crime to be committed. And they have the powers to do that.

AMANPOUR: And they are saying, according to our producer, that actually as we've been reporting this morning, that this apartment building, this residential location, was under surveillance since yesterday.

SCIUTTO: When they found those phones.

AMANPOUR: Yes, so they didn't just turn up there at 4:30 in the morning. They've been watching those apartments.

CUOMO: Another part of the good and the bad of this emerging situation is good -- they were under surveillance, they found this other team. The bad part -- for that, let's go to Paul Cruickshank at our French -- our Paris bureau.

We report this with accuracy but hesitancy. The authorities and those with knowledge of the investigations say they have no reason to believe, Paul, that there couldn't be a third team or even a fourth team. They have no idea of the extent of the number of people they're up against or the imminency of their intentions. Is that fair to say?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think it's fair to say there's a significant amount of concern from security on the list, people who know how ISIS operates, that there could be several attack teams now. The fact there were two suggests that they wanted to launch a first attack on Friday. And then, when the world media descend on Paris, to launch another spectacular attack, which, of course, would be even more traumatic potentially for France and get even more attention for the ISIS cause worldwide.

I think it's significant that we are learning the way they managed to figure out the potentially -- Abdelhamid Abaaoud was at this apartment, that it was from the cell phones, according to the Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister. But also surveillance and also testimony that they've got from people, that may be stuff they got from the interrogation. So they're learning crucial pieces of information which is allowing them to get a better handle on this threat.

At this hour, it is still not clear what the fate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud is. Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, saying they're still trying to work out who the people were that were killed in that raid. Chris?

CUOMO: All right, so we're still learning some information. We also -- something that I don't think is incremental. I want to get your mind around this, Paul.

Early on when we heard about the explosion, it was reported from authorities that there had been a female with an explosive vest and she had detonated it. Then there was push back. We don't know that she was wearing the vest.

[06:20:02]

We know something exploded. Take us through, other than the obvious -- which it wasn't a vest, it was something else -- in terms of what they're dealing with, about what they know about the potential that these teams have had on them.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, I mean, with this information, Chris, about a potential female suicide bomber, I mean, that points to the fact that there has been a very large number of women who have come from the West to join ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. More than 500 Western radicalized women have gone over and joined. And of course, the concern is that some of them, just like the men coming back to Europe, and that they can fly, perhaps, a little bit more under the radar screen.

But there's been some concern for quite some time that women would be getting more involved, and it would appear, from what we're hearing, that this woman in some kind of fashion detonated some kind of explosive, killed herself in the process, Chris. We're still trying to gather information exactly what went down.

CUOMO: And also, you know, the scene on your screens right now, also is strongly suggestive of how diverse this perceived threat is. You have forensics people, you have explosives people, you have military, you have police. There's a lot of different types of assets because of two things -- one, what has been discovered, which was that a team of at least equal number and equal capabilities has been discovered in a community outside Paris. In the preceding hours to this broadcast right now, there have been explosions. There's been gunfire. At least two terrorists have been killed, several others have been detained. Officers have been hurt. That is what is known.

There was also a group of officers literally bashing a hole through a church door, all of this done on the suggestion that the planner of Friday's attacks may not be in Syria, as was suspected, but on a street in a Paris community in an apartment. And that's what these raids were with. No word he was discovered here. But, Jim Sciutto, this is not to cite incompetence. It is to cite the

randomness of what's going on, the holes in intelligence naturally, and also the wave of developments of understanding by French authorities as they're doing more and more raids.

SCIUTTO: Like you, I've loath to cite incompetence. They're so overwhelmed with the number of terror suspects here. But maybe we just speak about the incredible capability of this group that we're seeing here. That you could have the mastermind -- and the truth is they don't know where he is, but they had an indication he was in that apartment. Just a couple weeks ago, they targeted him in a raid in Syria. So their best intelligence at that point was that he was thousands of miles away in the Middle East, not here in Paris.

CUOMO: He could get here that quickly, though. Especially with ease of entry and movement.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely. And what we know is, over the last several months, he did exactly that. He moved back and forth between Syria and particularly Belgium, having faked his own death by having a relative make a phone call to say that he had died in a raid to help put him under the radar. If he is indeed here, back again in the midst of all this, it just shows their enormous ability to move back and forth under the noses not just under French police, but keep in mind, U.S. intelligence is helping them as well. The great powers of the U.S. intelligence community and the Western intelligence communities to monitor communication, movement, et cetera, that's a tremendous capability on the part of these terrorists.

CUOMO: All right. So we're going to take a break here. Again, there is an active situation going on just outside Paris in a community called Saint-Denis. Authorities went there on a lead that the planner of Friday's attacks may be in an apartment right here in this community. They went through two apartments on one street.

Again, there was death this morning, at least two terrorists killed, others detained, officers hurt, an explosion inside one of the apartments. Was it a vest? Was it a bomb? Does that speak to other capabilities and intentions? All of those are open questions.

Stay with us. We have more information about what's going on related to the Paris attacks.

[06:24:08]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: There have been a major turn of events outside Paris, just a flurry of activity for hours now. Explosions, gunfire, terrorists killed, terrorists detained. Police officers hurt. Where? Saint- Denis, a community just outside of Paris.

The target -- according to authorities, there was good information that the person who planned Friday's attacks may not be in Syria, as was expected just 12 hours ago, but here, outside Paris in an apartment. They went to a certain street in Saint-Denis. They went through two different apartments. When they did, there were explosions. Allegedly a female terrorist had either a suicide vest that she detonated or that went off or it went off accidentally, or it was some other kind of explosive. But it was there, it went of, she was killed. At least one other terrorist was killed in resulting gunfire.

What did authorities find? They found a team equal in number, firepower, and explosive capabilities to the one that took down these Paris attacks on Friday. Authorities say they founded this team and this location, quote, "just in the nick of time." Before what? That's unknown. But they do believe that attacks were imminent. It resulted in a scene on this Saint-Denis street of a church with a team of police in front of it banging a hole through the door to get inside. What they found there, we still don't know.

That is the backdrop that led us to where we are right now, still activity going on in the streets of Saint-Denis. But, with that, Alisyn, back to you in New York.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Chris, we want to get the White House's reaction to everything that we've seen this morning. And we know President Obama has been briefed on everything that's unfolding.

So let's turn to White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnest. He is with the president in the Philippines. Josh, thanks so much for being with us. Can you tell us what the president was told about this unfolding operation that we just watched happen?

[06:30:00]

And was this believed by the White House to be a second wave of attacks that was just thwarted?