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French Authorities Raid Apartments to Apprehend Suspected Terrorists; Possible International Strategy to Fight ISIS Examined; Interview with U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison; 8 ISIS-Linked Suspects Arrested at Istanbul Airport. Aired 8-8:30 ET

Aired November 18, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: 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. It is still life. I know it is different, but it is still life.

VIRGILE GRUNBERG, MANAGER, CAFE DES ANGES: We're hanging on.

CUOMO: Thank you for being here.

GRUNBERG: Thank you very much for having me.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

Now this is Friday. Since then so much as happened. In just the most recent hours police believed just in the nick of time they stopped a team before there could be even more attacks perhaps even of the scale we saw an Friday. We have a lot of information for you. We're going to give it to you right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: All right, in the last few hours here outside Paris there has been a flurry of police activity, explosions, gunfire. At least two terrorists killed, police hurt, others taken into custody. Here is how it happened. Police got actionable intelligence that the alleged planner of what happened here in Paris on Friday might not be in Syria, might be holed up in an apartment in San Denis right outside Paris. It led them to one apartment, then a second. Upon entry, a female terrorist -- we'll show you now some of the pictures of the hours overnight. A female terrorist according to authorities detonated an explosive. It may have been a suicide vest. They know they're looking to recover at least one in connection with Friday's events.

That led to gunfire and ultimately injuries and death and the detention of several suspects. Authorities say they arrived just in the nick of time to stop a team -- a second team of terrorists at least equal in size, fire power and explosive capabilities to the team that launched Friday's attacks. That is what happened in the last few hours.

Right now we have Clarissa Ward, senior international correspondent. She's been there watching this moment. Clarissa that culminated in a group of police bashing down the door of a church maybe looking for someone or something in connection with Friday's attacks. What is the latest?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Chris. We've managed to get to a position on a balcony where you can actually see the scene of where these raids took place overnight. My camera man is just going to zoom in there. You can see journalists have been blocked off on both sides of a stretch of what is usually primarily a pedestrian street. This area, where two different apartments were raided overnight, seven people detained, at least two people dead.

And it has been a very fluid and very chaotic situation in this neighborhood all morning. I've been speaking to residents who are from here. They said that they haven't had a wink of sleep, that there were gunshots, that there were explosions, that it is incredibly frightening.

It is important to remind our viewers, Chris, that Parisians simply aren't used to this. They haven't experienced anything like this quite before. A massive police presence just an hour or so ago. We saw 40 police vehicles departing the scene.

And I want to pan the other way now just to give you a sense of the lay of the land. We talked earlier about that church. That church is at the end of the street. We were there just a few hours ago when a large group of police actually banged down that door. We don't know what they were looking for, what exactly was inside that church. But certainly it is fair to say this entire area is on high alert. You can see they have cordoned off the area completely. Journalists have been pushed back. We still see a large police presence here.

But there is really a sense as well that known knows exactly what happened during this raid, what the focus was. We know likely another terror threat. And we know the primary suspect, the focus, the target of this raid was the alleged mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27- year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin. It appears that he is still at large. There were words that he was in Syria or Iraq, now of course focusing back here in Paris. So a very fluid situation, authorities keeping incredibly tight-lipped, unsurprisingly as this an ongoing man hundred, Chris.

CUOMO: There's no question it is ongoing. We have eyes above. We also have eyes right next to the first department that initiated this operation in terms of focus. Fred Pleitgen is there. Fred, what do you see now?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris. I'm about I would say about 50 meters or 50 yards away from where that apartment is. And what's going on right now is the cops have actually let us a little closer towards that apartment. They have opened some of the streets that were cordoned off. However, for the longest time what you were seeing here was a massive police operation going on. This whole area was filled with vans, was filled with ambulances and other cars as well. [08:05:10] One of the other things that we saw is on a lot of the

rooftops there were snipers in place as well, monitoring the situation, keeping an eye also from a distance on the apartments, ready to see whether or not anything would happen there. Now, what the police did is really flooded the area outside of the apartment with forces. They had their special operations forces the BRI on scene that cordoned the place off and stood in front of the building at the ready with shields also seemingly to prevent if terrorists were to open fire from them getting in, ready to storm the building at any point in time.

Now, the other thing that happened, Chris, was that of course they evacuated a lot of the people who were living here. And some of them are now allowed to come back because a few of the streets have been opened up. But many of them are not allowed back yet because they are still sweeping through the area, making sure that they haven't missed anything, slowly starting to open the place up.

But Clarissa is absolutely right. This place of course is very much on edge. And, you know, I was talking to a resident earlier today who witnessed the gunfire going on in the middle of the night. And the police told him in no uncertain terms, get back. Get out of here. This is a big operation that is going on, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Fred, stay safe. No question they have every good reason to be on edge. People had thought things were starting to get back to normal and then this. But let's bring in our panel to understand exactly why these events are unfolding. Fabrice Magnier, former French Navy Seal, chairman of a security company now. You are saying there will be more of what we're seeing this morning, not less. Why?

FABRICE MAGNIER, FORMER FRENCH COMMANDO: Why? Because the strategy is start attacking cells for the last few years. And in order to find the network. And now they are accelerating the process to strike our society. So the last attacks demonstrate this, and they are quite very well coordinated to be able now to strike again.

CUOMO: Now the French authorities have had suspicions about this being somewhat of a spider web or a network in and around Paris. But now with the new state of emergency in Paris you are saying they are able to learn and disrupt what they suspected before?

MAGNIER: Exactly, the red and checks demonstrate that we are ready. We are able to do it. So we have the capability to do much more. So terrorists they have to understand that. We are not -- we did not reach our limits about that. We can go further. So we will get more and more information and we will get more and more capability to stop them.

CUOMO: It's very frightening on the one hand, Christiane, but on the other hand this is the activity that hopefully leads to progress in this. That's what President Francois Hollande was saying this morning using that talismanic political and legal phrase of "We are at war." That enables the state of emergency and also hopefully builds resolve around more public support of this increased police activity. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I think it's frightening, obviously, because of

what Fabrice says, that there could be more out there, but comforting in that the French police and security forces are fully mobilized to go and do this kind of thing. Now we still don't know exactly who they have and where Abaaoud is where Salar Abdeslam is, the other man we know.

CUOMO: The alleged eight attack on Friday.

AMANPOUR: Yes, exactly, who's been on the run. The French president I thought was very clear and interesting in his comments today just a short while ago, said this was a very heavy operation, very dangerous, but it was aimed at, quote, "neutralizing the cell" that had been connected to and in contact with the cells that committed the what he called barbaric acts of Friday night. So this is definitely a group that they believe were in contact and in sort of a co-planning situation.

CUOMO: On the one hand that puts you at a huge operational disadvantage when tough enemy working in concert that well. And yet it also gave them a break here because when they found those cell phones your reported to us yesterday that gave them links to start surveillance that led to this. Explain how.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The break case in this case was interceptive communications. The police have said that. And remember, this apartment just under surveillance for the last 24 hours so that clue coming urgently and them acting urgently.

Among those intercepted communications, these phones discovered at the scenes of these attacks on Friday, phones used by attackers, including encrypted communications interestingly enough. And just the speed with which they acted, I don't think we can underestimate that. Clues found yesterday, intercepted yesterday, a raid really done in the early hours of the morning. And as they say just in time.

[08:10:00] Another point I would make, and we just had Representative Adam Schiff on the air, he's the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee briefed on these investigations, say that several of these attackers known not only to the French we've said but also to U.S. intelligence.

We talked a lot about the French being overwhelmed by the number of people they have to track and stop and arrest et cetera. The U.S. knew about them as well. And it just speaks to the U.S. is watching so many potential attackers. We know they are helping the French in very close concert. But the truth is the west is overwhelmed by the number of potentially attackers that they are dealing with right now with the strength of the Islamic State.

AMANPOUR: To that end of course they have to do what they are doing here. But the president says they have to destroy ISIS. The president of France is going to Washington. He'll be talking to President Obama trying to get a much more robust cooperation in this fight whether it is intelligence, military, whatever it might be. But it was interesting talking to Fabrice a couple of moments ago, you know, what actually needs to be done on the ground to destroy ISIS.

CUOMO: What do you think? From a military perspective, because we understand it all goes hand in hand, detection, prevention, military, but what do you think that needs to be done that isn't right now?

MAGNIER: I would call the main identity. They are trying to create the state, the state of a terrorist state able to launch attacks worldwide. First of all we have to kill that kind of idea because all the radicals around the world will like home.

AMANPOUR: An example.

MAGNIER: An example to follow. So we have to stop that image.

CUOMO: How?

MAGNIER: First air strikes, massive air strikes on all the logistics equipment, vehicles, gas, food.

CUOMO: They say they are doing that. You say it is not enough.

MAGNIER: No I don't say it is enough. I say we have to do it and sustain. And also see about the result of this. And if it is acceptable, continue. And see what is going on. We want to fight against ISIS, and then if that not sufficient we will have to discuss a little bit more. Now an international coalition we have to do. We have to do it massively. And all the countries should send troops in that place and stop it definitely.

CUOMO: But you know the controversy with that, and you know firsthand from fighting on the ground yourself. But they say if it is not the region's war, if those countries, if those states don't own this and fight their own battle, that France, the U.S., England, whomever can't come in and win that war for them. Do you believe that? Or do you think the outside forces can win it?

MAGNIER: For me the outside forces can win if we are all together. But the situation is very complicated. We have two main blocks, those who work with Bashar al Assad and those who are against Bashar al Assad. But the region is war. And everybody is deciding how to strike ISIS without striking the other party.

CUOMO: Russia.

MAGNIER: Russia, Iran. Russia actually, they have no main problem with this. They are striking. They are doing what they want actually. So it is a main issue for American, French, U.K., Canada, and others about what to do now. Do we do further with the risk escalation of the major war there? Or do we do what we can do on the ground or not?

CUOMO: That is the complication here that is often overlooked, certainly in American politics, which is, well, you say you want to more. Do it. Is it that simple.

AMANPOUR: Nothing is simple. This is a massively complex situation. But it's one that's been allowed to metastasize through the four and a half years of the Syrian war but just leaving it to implode like this. It's a failed state. And kind of long story short the vacuum there has become a laboratory for a caliphate which is a terrorist factory, and, as President Hollande said, a big terrorist factory, the biggest in the world.

So you remember the United States invoked Article 5 of the NATO convention, in other words an attack on one is an attack on all. There are former NATO leaders and even people around here asking will Francois Hollande invoke Article 5? And if he does, then what?

But I think what you're seeing is people understand that nobody is ready to make a huge invasion or have another Iraq 2003. But by the same token know that the only way to stop this right now is not to wait piecemeal to let them keep going and having these civilian casualties, but as Fabrice said, to gather whatever kind of forces possible to destroy them now, because they are not just religious warriors or little terrorists.

[08:15:00] That is just a means. They have totalitarians who have imperial ambitions around the world, like Nazism, like communism of the 20th century. Totalitarians who want to reach all over North Africa, who want to reach into Turkey, to Rome, to here and obviously Baghdad and Damascus.

They have huge ambitions, like the Nazis did. And frankly, it's worth remembering what President Putin said in the United Nations General Assembly when he got ready to start bombing ISIS. He said, "We must all gather" this is in September, "gather a coalition to fight back this fascism, extremism, Nazism as we did together in World War II."

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Quick thought, security official describes to me this way, that the ISIS strategy had three rings. Establish a state locally. They have done that. Spread to the region. They've done that. You have them in Tunisia. You have them in Libya. We know this in Sinai.

The third ring is to attack the west. That is the third front of this war has started. And another worrisome thing which is troublesome, they have in effect insulated themselves to some degree against military action in Iraq and Syria because they have other bases now. They have protected themselves with other -- you know, we talk about whack-a-mole but in the most severe and threatening way possible.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, to be sure you need a galvanizing moment. The question was, was Friday that galvanizing moment? We'll see.

Francois Hollande is going to travel to United States. Certainly, he wants to up the ante. What will that mean?

We have a lot more to talk about that is coming out of this recent activity in France. What will it mean for the United States and the rest of Europe?

Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:11] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We are tracking all the breaking news out of Paris.

Police are still on the scene of two apartments they raided in that suburb outside of Paris a short time ago. Officials say the suspected terrorists inside were close to carrying out a major operation. And officials believed the mastermind behind Friday's attacks was holed up inside. But they did not get him this morning.

Joining us now to talk about this and so much more is Minnesota Congressman Ellison. He's co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the first Muslim elected to Congress.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REP. KEITH ELLISON (D), MINNESOTA: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about all of the ripple effects as we're seeing back here as a result of what happened in Paris on Friday.

As, you know, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says it is time to pause the refugee program that would have brought in 10,000 Syrian refugees, all result of the humanitarian crisis happening there in a this war- torn country. He says that given everything that we've seen there on Friday, it is better to be safe than sorry.

What do you think of that logic?

ELLISON: I think that it's a long vetting process anyway. And I think we have an opportunity to give haven to people who have been abused and terrorized by the terrorists and I think we should proceed on but with all deliberate care and a careful vetting process, as we've had and as we expect to see from people like Jeh Johnson and other people who are using international databases, multiple levels of screening.

But I think that it's important to be careful. I think he's right about that.

But I think to put our program on pause might signal to Daesh that they are having an effect on what we do. And I think Daesh, we need to disrupt and destroy their narrative.

See, these people create such a hellish condition for Syrian refugees that they are leaving this so called Islamic State and we are the ones giving safe haven. I think this helps us show to the world that Daesh is not to be supported, and what I'm speaking to now is some of those people they're hoping to recruit.

So, I think for several reasons it is important for us to move on, but deliberately, carefully, thoroughly. But we cannot let Daesh believe that they are disrupting our activity.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about some of the possible holes in that vetting process that you speak of, because we know that one of the attackers, in the Paris attacks, had a passport identifying him as a Syrian refugee. And he went through some refugee camp. He came in through Greece. He spent some time in a refugee camp.

How can you be certain they couldn't use that exact same ploy to get into the U.S.?

ELLISON: Because I believe that we have had nearly three quarters of a million refugees since 2001. And we've been remarkably successful.

And so, I think that we have professionals. We are looking at multiple databases, international in scope. We're having multiple layers of interviews and the record so far has been good.

But, look, this is not the first time America has had refugees who have come from war torn countries where there are terrorist elements. We've had Somali refugees, Liberian refugees, refugees from all over the world, and yet American homeland security and others have vetted these people in a very successful way.

So I don't think it is time for us to panic. I think it is time for us to confront Daesh, disrupt their false narrative. Demonstrate to the world that the West is the one that is compassionate, that they are the ones who are pitiless and merciless, and that -- and we need to confront them in every possible way.

CAMEROTA: Speaker Ryan wants to vote on this, on the pause, tomorrow, I believe on the House floor. We've seen 31 governors who agree with him. Who say they don't want to take any Syrian refugees into their states.

How do you think Congress will vote on this?

ELLISON: Well, you know, who knows? You know, the fact is that Paul Ryan is the head of the Republicans, who is the majority. So that might give you some indication. For him to say something like that, he may have some support.

But at the end of the day my question to him and everybody else is this -- do you really want Daesh to dictate terms to the United States? We have a vetting program. We have a program that needs to be bolstered, reviewed and needs to currently updated and improved.

But to stop it just because of these people? I'm not comfortable with that. I think we should be as careful as possible. But we need to make sure that the world knows, especially Daesh knows that we're not afraid of them and we're going to offer safe haven to children and women who are fleeing their terror.

[08:25:01] And that's my thought.

CAMEROTA: OK, Congressman Keith Ellison, we appreciate you sharing your thoughts on NEW DAY. Thanks so much.

All right. We will have much more about that police raid that we watched unfold on the Paris suburb, but we do more breaking news. A group of people believed to be linked to ISIS arrested in Istanbul's airport. We have all those details ahead for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: We're following a lot of breaking news.

There has been a major turn of events on the streets outside Paris, explosions, gunfire, arrests, death, all surrounding an operation by French authorities to target who they believe was the target of Friday's attacks. We're going to take you through that, but there's also news of more reports of more arrests made not here in France but in Turkey, Istanbul's airport.

This was going on. May have involved Moroccans with the terror connections. They supposedly made these detentions right before this group were boarding a plane to Germany. They told police that they came to Istanbul for tourism and that they had booked a hotel. But police said that this appeared untrue after checking with that hotel.