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New Day

Paris Attack Mastermind Targeted In Raid. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 18, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- Paris, as we just saw, obviously tragically on Friday. Brussels, that was the train attack thwarted by the three brave Americans plus others.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: There was a planned attack on a church also in Paris. He's been -- his name has popped up in various different investigations. I don't think the authorities were clear until last Friday that he was some sort of a leader.

He was certainly -- his name was in the air if you like among counterterrorism officials in Europe. Now they have a better sense of his importance to all of us.

CAMEROTA: Let's look at the scope of where he has been, obviously all throughout the Middle East and Europe. Bobby, does it surprise you that they would be looking for him in Paris? Would he be in Paris this week or would he be in Syria?

GHOSH: It's interesting. It kind of depends on whether there were second-wave or third-wave attacks planned. If there was going to be one attack, his instinct would to be get out of there as soon as possible.

If there were plans for more attacks, it's conceivable that he wanted to stay and supervise that. Perhaps this is a brash, overconfident young man. Perhaps he thought he would have escaped the dragnet.

We know that at various points, he has interacted with the police. There have been checkpoints on the road between Paris and Brussels, even on Friday night. Police stopped their car, looked at his papers. They had a picture of the person they wanted. They couldn't recognize him.

Perhaps this gives him a sense of overconfidence. It's hard to know what his motivations are. It is a little surprising. That's for sure.

CAMEROTA: Just incredible to hear how he has slipped through. Bobby, thank you so much for all of that information.

GHOSH: Anytime.

CAMEROTA: Let's go back out to Paris where we find Chris with all of the breaking developments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:35:47]

CUOMO: A huge turn of events here on the streets of Paris, you are looking at the massive outpouring of assets as part of a big police operation in Saint-Denis, this community outside Paris.

They were working on actionable intelligence after surveillance and very quick police work to the site of two apartments where inside they found a second terror team, equal or greater in size, firepower and explosive capabilities than that which did the attacks here this past Friday.

Inside, a female terrorist detonated something, whether it was by accident or on purpose, maybe a suicide vest or smaller explosive device. She died. A second terrorist, it is reported, was taken out, several taken into custody. Several police officers hurt.

It culminated in a bizarre moment where police officers at the door of a church in Saint-Denis wound up bashing a hole through, obviously wanting to discover something or someone inside.

Another big headline, a motivation for this massive operation was information that the alleged planner of these attacks may have been not in Syria as was previously thought, but right here outside Paris so close to where the attack had been.

As confusing as that is, that's what police believed. They went in there and founded this team. There's every reason for them to believe, they say, one, they were there just in the nick of time and two, there may be other teams like this. That's why you're seeing this huge team of force.

We have Jim Sciutto, Christiane Amanpour and Fabrice Magnier, a former Navy SEAL and also now chairman of a security company here. You are telling us, one, there could be more teams.

Two, that the terror network, since Charlie Hebdo, maybe before, like the roots of bamboo. Now the chutes are coming up and the increased police power will reveal them but also accelerate them.

FABRICE MAGNIER, FORMER FRENCH COMMANDO: The tactics have changed the last few days. We can imagine there are cells around the country and they are ready to attack back, by surprise, we've seen two attacks, others ready to attack. We have to understand, the enemy is there, sleeping, ready to act. One information, very important, the brain of this attack is still there.

CUOMO: Do you think so?

MAGNIER: They targeted the apartment because they were feeling abdelhamid abaaoud was there. That guy is not escaping, just in a comfortable place. Maybe there to culminate more attacks that France. Those guys don't care about dying. This is a main issue. We are not very familiar with this. So this guy is there, why? That's a very important information -- CUOMO: Christiane, France President Hollande came out and he said

again we are at war. He was giving an impassioned political to unity in the name of more action like this. That was controversial France before Friday, but now seems like the new normal.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They have employed, as we know, emergency powers to allow them to deal with this very real threat. He did say that again. He's amplifying what he's been saying in that regard ever since the attacks.

And using this term for Daesh, what they call ISIS, basically is an army, this notion of army, not just a bunch of terrorists but an army of Jihadis and terrorists, as he said.

Also I think laying the picture that these are not just sort of a bunch of terrorists who want to come up and blow out buildings and kill some people. They actually have a totalitarian aim. They want to take over. They want to take control.

They are this century's equivalent of last century's Nazism and totalitarianism. We need to raise our game, take the fight to them here and abroad. He spoke about the uptick and upsurge in French military action.

[07:40:05] He also said he was going to go to Washington next week, talk to President Obama about further coordinating intelligence and military action and the like.

Finally, he said, look, this Syria is now the world's biggest terrorist factory and we have to deal with it.

CUOMO: Not just theoretical but practical because their aims wind up suggesting their means. Now Jim, the idea that this was fast police work, I get that from you because you know here what led us to the point of that operation. What did they find and how did they use it?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Telephones, intercepted communications, including phones captured only in the last couple of days around the bodies of the attackers from Friday. They found these phones and acting on that intelligence, they were able to be led to these apartments.

That is, for our viewers, this is a scary time, understandably and justifiably so. You do see the police here and security services moving very quickly. This is good police work. Necessary police work, but they're acting very quickly.

AMANPOUR: I thought it was really interesting. The president did not give many details, but he said this heavy and dangerous operation was designed to neutralize the cell. These are the words he used. That was connected to and in contact with the barbarians who committed those acts on Friday night.

CUOMO: Fabrice, you're saying these are the powers that the police have needed here, that they have not had. MAGNIER: Exactly. We knew those attacks could occur, massive attack. And we got very strong signal from the agency, from the French authorities, military authorities and police authorities to reinforce our capability to detect those guys and also to strike. We have the demonstration. We have now no choice anymore. We have our backs to the wall.

CUOMO: All right. So that is the situation on the ground right now. We're obviously going to have continuing coverage because another revelation from the police and authorities has been that, yes, they detected this second team, but they have no reason to believe there could not be a third or more, hence, more activity to come certainly investigatively.

Stay with us. We'll have complete coverage right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:15]

CAMEROTA: We are following breaking news, an anti-terror raid in Saint-Denis, just outside of Paris. Two terror suspects are dead after that raid, not far from the stadium that Friday night was the scene of the attacks.

So we're being told those suspects were stopped just in time. They were about to carry out a new operation. This raid was launched after information suggesting the mastermind of the Paris terror attacks was inside an apartment.

Authorities were led to that apartment after surveillance of phones and other intelligence suggested the mastermind of the attack could still be there.

Here to offer his insight this morning is ranking member of the house intelligence committee, California Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: You bet.

CAMEROTA: So this, now the police have their hands on a couple of the attackers' cell phones. That will be a treasure trove, they hope, of information that will help them connect the dots. Let's talk about how these dots could have been connected before Friday. Were some of these attackers known to U.S. law enforcement?

SCHIFF: Some of these people were known to the U.S. intelligence community. Some of these folks were known to French authorities as well and this is part of the challenge. France has contributed more foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, I think, than any other European country.

Belgium which has heavily implicated here has contributed more per capita than any European country. Some of those people are coming back. Even when you're aware of them, finding them, keeping track of them and others as well, is a herculean task. CUOMO: Yes.

SCHIFF: We're fortunate here, Alisyn, because we've had far fewer Americans leave to join the fight. It's a much more manageable task but in Europe, it's an extraordinary undertaking.

CUOMO: Congressman, help us understand this. Is this some sort of master watch list where anyone who is a suspect is on it and the French authorities have access to that list and the U.S. authorities have access to that list or is this all just piecemeal?

SCHIFF: It's more piecemeal than a master list. We don't have a grand computer that we share, for example, with Europe where they input information and we input information. How it will work, the French see the cell phones. They run their numbers through their system.

We offer to run the numbers through our system. We may come up with people that we hit on that are in Europe that we can then relate to the French so that they can conclude their investigation or pursue other leads.

So it is cooperative but there are different rules and regulations in Europe, in France, in the United States, that don't allow for the pure flow of information.

CAMEROTA: But if there is no watch list or master watch list or these guys weren't on the watch list, could they somehow have made it from Paris into the U.S. or from Brussels into the U.S.?

SCHIFF: Well, we have no-fly lists and other watch lists that we maintain. If people show up on those lists they're not able to board flights for the United States. We do maintain our security. Each country, though, I think to some degree protects their sources and methods, part of the reason why there isn't a complete flow of information.

CAMEROTA: These particular suspects, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, were not on a watch list that would not have flagged them at the airport if they had tried to come into the U.S.

SCHIFF: Alisyn, I don't think that's accurate. I can't go into the very specifics of it, but I don't think that's correct.

CUOMO: OK, let me ask you about something that Speaker Paul Ryan has said he wants to bring up on the House floor tomorrow. He wants to vote on the president's plan to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees because of the humanitarian crisis over the next year.

Speaker Ryan has said that he believes it's time to pause this refugee program given what happened in Paris on Friday. What do you think about that program and that plan?

[07:50:00] SCHIFF: I really don't agree with that at all. The refugee program has been conducted with great success, in fact, since 9/11. There have been about 750,000 refugees that have come to 750,000 refugees that have come to this country. We've had very few problems with any of them.

In fact if you look at what is going on in France right now, the majority of these attackers if not all of these attackers may be European citizens, citizens of France and Belgium, yes, who may have gone to join the fight and come back, but they are by and large not refugees fleeing the conflict.

We have a vetting process that takes a year and a half for two years for these refugees to go through. It is not like the waves of immigrants literally washing up on European shores so very different situation here.

And I wouldn't want to see us overreact because frankly it is in the proudest traditions of this country while maintaining our safety first to also be a compassionate place that gives refuge to people fleeing persecution.

CAMEROTA: But of course -- but we have learned that one of the suspects had managed to somehow infiltrate a refugee population. Are you certain that that person would not have been able to make it in with refugee status into the U.S.?

SCHIFF: Well, it looks like and we're still trying to get all the facts, a Syrian passport was found at the stadium where one of the suicide bombers detonated himself. That may be a false passport and this may not be a Syrian refugee at all.

It may be a European who went to Syria and came back using a fake passport and may have come through these waves of immigrants, but that is a very different situation than we have in our refugee program.

Someone using a fake passport, first of all, we would determine it is a fake and they would not be let in. But also we would vet them, and if we couldn't determine exactly who they were or if we couldn't match the passport they had they would not survive that one to two year vetting process. So no, that would not happen here.

CAMEROTA: OK, Congressman Adam Schiff, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY and for all the information this morning.

SCHIFF: You bet.

CAMEROTA: Well, the terror attacks hitting extremely close to home for the manager of a Paris cafe. He lost 11 co-workers and friends who were out celebrating a birthday. He joins with his story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:10]

CUOMO: The reason we are here in Paris with continuing coverage isn't just about the flurry of police activity and gunfire and explosions this morning nor is it just the politics of the threat going forward and what needs to be done.

It is because of what already happened, the lives that were lost, those that were changed forever by what happened here on Friday. That is what matters most. There are lives that are just devastated and we haven't even begun the burials yet, let alone those who are still fighting for their lives.

Someone who understands the cost of Friday all too well is with me now. Virgile Grunberg, thank you for being with us. I'm so sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances. But tell everybody. You are the operator of a cafe that really felt the impact of Friday's attacks. Tell us.

VIRGILE GRUNBERG, MANAGER, CAFE DES ANGES: Yes. We lost colleagues. I lost employees. We lost customers who came in the cafe for years, family of colleagues and friends, dear friends, 11 of them. Eleven of them were all gathering for a birthday. There were twenty of them and some are wounded still at the hospital and 11 of them are dead now.

CUOMO: How do you make sense of this situation when you learned and thank god you weren't hurt and you weren't there but when you learned how much you had lost in this?

GRUNBERG: Well, it took some time to get all of the information. Of course, we knew right away what was happening. We weren't sure what it was exactly. We heard of the shooting minutes after it occurred.

And during the night, we locked ourselves in the cafe and we received phone calls all night long to tell us, who was gone, who was shot, who was not there, and a lot of people were invited and just had left the cafe before shooting. Some were supposed to go there later in the night.

CUOMO: So there's fear. There's heartbreak, but there is also the knowledge of great need. Some of your friends are injured. Others are still fighting to be able to get out of the hospital. There are families destroyed by what is lost. What do you want people to know?

GRUNBERG: Exactly. We want to get past the grief to act for the families especially I think my barmaid who was shot with her husband there, and they leave two orphans now. So we're trying to organize fundraisers on the internet for the funerals and everything.

But mainly for we want the children to be taken care of because now they are staying with their grandmother from Romania. She doesn't speak French. She doesn't have any money. She's completely lost and she's with her two kids.

It's really important for us now that their life can go on the best way possible and for all the families. And now we want to focus on those who are left with us and we want them to have a chance in life.

CUOMO: I know there is still shock associated with. This people are talking about it like it is over but it isn't. Everybody has to mind a way forward here. And as you get information about the online efforts, the websites let us know. We'll let people know about what they want to do.

And I hope that in your head and your heart you are able to get that resolved to move forward with life here.