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Pictures Inside Kosher Market Attack; Al Qaeda in Yemen Claims Paris Attack; House of Representatives Get Ducks in a Row; President Obama Vowed to Veto Bill Taking Aim at Immigration Orders; Major Development in Flight 8501 Mystery

Aired January 14, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer.

Up first, chilling new images provide more details from inside the kosher market in Paris where four people were killed in a terrorist attack. We're working to get access to the pictures and will have them for you as soon as we can. These are still pictures from surveillance footage. It was obtained by CCTV. They show the attacker believed to be Amedy Coulibaly, with what appears to be a handgun. He's wearing fatigues. He has what looks like a bulletproof vest on.

And other images show employees apparently taking down surveillance cameras on the orders of the gunman. Bodies of some of the four people killed by Coulibaly can be seen on the floor. A baby stroller sits abandoned in the aisle of the market. And you see people huddled together. You see groceries scattered on the floor. All this unfolding just hours before police stormed that market and killed Coulibaly.

Let's get some perspective on these new images. We have Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto joining us now from Paris. Jim, you've seen the images. We're still trying to get some access to them. But what stands out to you when you look at them?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're harrowing images from inside this kosher market in the very midst of the attack in what would be an otherwise mundane scene, a CCTV image of a small little grocery store. But you see the fear playing out in those images. As you mentioned, a stroller abandoned. We did know that there was a child hiding with some of the other people who were in the store, at the time of the attack, in a refrigerated room downstairs, possible it belonged to his parents. Not clear.

But also, you have a moment there where some of the hostages who survived are in one aisle because of the time stamps, apparently, after the initial hostages were killed. So, they would have been witnesses to murder there seen on tape soon afterwards.

And then, as you mentioned, just operationally, that the attacker clearly called on the staff and the -- and the shoppers in the store to take down those CCTV cameras after some time. They were running for some time. But, at one point, he figured out that would not be a good idea, particularly as police were surrounding the place, to have a vision inside the shop. So, they were then forced to take down the cameras.

KEILAR: I want to talk about some of the new information that we have coming in and then see what you think about it. We have this video statement, the commander of AQAP, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, says the terror group picked the target, laid out the plan, financed the operation. He describes the Kouachi brothers who carried out the attack as heroes. And the statement says that radical American cleric Anwar al Awlaki was the mastermind of the attack. One or possibly both Kouachi brothers may have met with Al Awlaki in Yemen, we know that.

And this American-born cleric was killed, of course in an American drone strike, in 2011. New pictures have emerged of the gunmen after the "Charlie Hebdo" attack while they were on the run. The images published by a French online journal are from surveillance video at a gas station. And you have, Jim, the commander of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula saying the attack on the "Charlie Hebdo" offices was years in the making. Why the claim of responsibility now?

SCIUTTO: Well, the timing is interesting. Clearly, they want to claim responsibility. They want to claim credit for this attack. To happen on the day when another edition of "Charlie Hebdo" comes out, it's possible it's tied to that. Although, it is also a week to the day from the attacks. Now, with claims of responsibility like this, I'm told you always have to take them with something of a grain of salt. It's not 100 percent established that this was commanded, controlled, directed by AQAP.

That said, there are substantial ties. We know the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the murder here at "Charlie Hebdo," that they did travel to Yemen. It is believed that they received some training from AQAP in Yemen. And there's also, now, a money trail that both French and U.S. authorities are tracking. They believe the attackers given some $20,000 in Yemen to carry out an attack at a future date. What's not clear is the degree of direction. And that's something that's going to be -- continue to be looked into in the investigation.

KEILAR: All right. Jim Sciutto for us in Paris, thanks.

And let's talk now about those AQAP claims, about this video. We have National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. We have CNN Global Affairs Analyst, and managing editor of "Quartz," Bobby Ghosh.

Peter, I want to ask you this same question, why did it take so long for AQAP to say, this was us?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Look, Al Qaeda didn't fess up to 911 until, you know, years later. You know, claims of responsibility, including, by the way, for failed attacks, you know, AQAP, the group that has claimed responsibility for Paris, about three days after the failed Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit, claimed that. So, that's -- you know, there's often a lag. I don't -- I think we're making more of it than is needed. KEILAR: It doesn't mean too much. We shouldn't read too much into

it.

BERGEN: We shouldn't read too much into it.

KEILAR: OK. And so, then, you have this video, Bobby. There are claims that are linking this attack to Ayman Al Zawahiri to Osama Bin Laden. What do we read into that?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, there -- as Jim said, this is a claim. And there's no doubt that there were -- there were connections between the Kouachis and AQAP. How much they actually ordered, conceived and sort of carried out this attack on instruction from Yemen, that we don't know yet. It might be an opportunistic claim that, well, this is something that happened, let's -- and our name has already been mentioned, let's take as much credit for it as possible.

The reference to al Zawahiri is almost -- it seems to me to be almost pro forma. They recognize Zawahiri, now, as being their overall leader with Osama Bin Laden being killed. And so, there's a tendency to ascribe everything, that he's the font of all wisdom, that he's the font of all ideas. So, there's a tendency to sort of ascribe everything to him. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that myself.

KEILAR: So, don't read too much into that. And then, something that's striking, Peter, is that AQAP is claiming responsibility -- and you can both weigh in on this, claiming responsibility for the "Charlie Hebdo" attack but not for the kosher market attack. And yet, you would sort of think that the two are very much connected, these were all associates. What do you think about that?

BERGEN: Well, I think that gives the claim of responsibility on the Hebdo attack more credibility. I mean, they're saying that the other attack was not something that they had anything to do with. And, you know, I'm a great believer in just listening to what people say. When one of the Kouachi brothers says, Awlaki financed me. I -- and these are one of the last words he ever said on -- when he was alive in an interview with a French journalist, why not take that at face value? And now, we have -- we have -- we have so much information in the system about this Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula link and now this claim of responsibility. To me, it seems pretty much an open-and-shut case.

KEILAR: OK. So, it seems --

GHOSH: Well, Coulibaly has taken -- has said, in his video, that he pledged allegiance to ISIS -- to ISIS. So, it would be awkward for AQAP to take credit.

KEILAR: Actually, that was us, for them to, sort of, say that.

GHOSH: Yes. When you have it directly from the man's mouth to the point about taking people at their word. What it shows us, though, that on the ground, the distinctions between the two groups don't always matter to people carrying out this attack. We've seen this in Syria over and over again. Al Qaeda-associated elements and ISIS- associated elements are perfectly capable of walk -- of working to -- with each other. The difference is such as they are at a sort of -- are at a high level. But to the foot soldiers, to the mid-level commanders, it doesn't matter.

KEILAR: "London Times" reporting there is increased chatter about public beheadings which I think is something that people have been concerned about, not just in London but now we have this specific report of this. Do you think this is a real threat, Peter?

BERGEN: Happening in the west?

KEILAR: In London.

BERGEN: In London.

KEILAR: Yes, in England.

BERGEN: You know, hard for me to assess. I mean, we recall Rigby who was, basically, somebody, you know, who used a machete and the soldier who was killed in 2013. I mean, it's plausible. Certainly, there are -- you know, we've had -- by the British account, there are 500 Brits who have gone to Syria. Many of them returned. The British have told me, look, there's no way that we can follow all these people. So, you know, it's not out of the question.

KEILAR: Yes. Certainly, it does terrorize the population when they -- they're worried about just going about their normal day.

GHOSH: Which is exactly the point, creating terror.

KEILAR: That is the point. That is. Bobby Ghosh, thanks so much. Peter Bergen, thank you.

And Republicans in the House of Representative -- Representatives, I should say, they got their ducks in a row. They approved a new bill today that would fund the Department of Homeland Security through September. But the Republican-backed measure would also roll back President Obama's executive actions on immigration. That includes the 2012 order that ended deportations of so-called dreamers. The bill, now, goes to the Republican-led Senate. But President Obama has vowed to veto any bill that takes aim at his immigration orders. As it stands, funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to run out at the end of February.

Coming up, long lines across Paris this morning to buy the new issue of "Charlie Hebdo" magazine. We'll talk about the controversy that it's creating. We'll get reaction from the Muslim community.

And also ahead, a major development in the mystery of AirAsia Flight 8501. Stay with us for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Chilling new images provide more details from inside the kosher market in Paris where four people were killed in a terrorist attack. And we, literally, just got access to these pictures. We are trying to show them to you for the first time now. If we can pull them up as we talk to Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. He's joining us now from Paris. I'm hoping we'll be able to display these, Jim. But these are striking and they really show the chaos and the terror -- here we go. Here are the pictures, the terror that are inside of the store here. And this picture is, perhaps, one of the most striking to me, Jim. It's the picture of the stroller abandoned here in one of the aisles because we do know that there was a child inside that was a child who actually took refuge with some adults in a freezer. We don't know if this stroller belongs to that child. But, you know, you certainly might make that leap.

SCIUTTO: That's right. Several of them managed to escape downstairs without the knowledge of the attacker. One of them was an infant, about two years old. They were taking refuge in a freezer, as you say, which they managed to turn off, although it was very cold in there. Just one way they survived.

Now, we're seeing the attacker, Amedy Coulibaly. And you can tell, him there on the left, one, that he's wearing body armor. Two, you can see there as well, he has one of the hostages with his or her hands up against the wall. Just a moment of fear. Not clear if this is one of the hostages who survived or did not. But, again, you know, otherwise a mundane scene from inside a kosher market which turned that afternoon, just this past Friday, into a location of terror.

KEILAR: And you can --

SCIUTTO: -- A deadly terror, as it would turn out.

KEILAR: -- you can see what appears to be a gun, actually on the right side, the gun that he appears to be holding there to the right. And if we can move -- can we move to the next picture here? These are pictures that were captured on closed circuit television. Some of them actually show, on the gunman's orders, some of the hostages pulling down the cameras. This -- I don't know, Jim, you can see this. What does -- what does this appear to be other than some of the hostages gathering? This seems to be that very same room.

SCIUTTO: That's right. It does. It seems to be a different angle of the same room. And the person with white hair in the center -- lower center of the screen looks to be the same as the person who had their hands up against the wall in the previous shot, just based on the color of his hair and the color of his shirt.

It's hard to tell who the figure is at the very bottom center of the screen, whether that's an attacker or another hostage. We do know that after some time during the hostage-taking, that the attacker ordered the hostages to take down the CCTV cameras. He realized - he must have realized at some point that this would be a way for the authorities to see inside, perhaps make plans for a raid inside the shop. And there are other images we have where you can see the hostages reaching up close to the camera to take them down.

KEILAR: All right, and maybe can we pull up one of those pictures so that we can see this? It's really just chilling. Here we - this is - and so this appears to be one of the hostages who is taking down the camera. He has something in his hand. I don't know if that's part of the camera. But this is one of just a couple of these where, under the gunman's orders, they were told to dismantle this closed circuit television system, Jim.

SCIUTTO: That's right. It does seem - and it's hard to tell for sure, but it does seem that this one follows the previous photo, that you had perhaps the hostages preparing to climb up to take down the camera and now you have a closer shot succeeding that as they do.

KEILAR: All right, let's pull up - let's pull up another picture. Can we pull up another picture? All right, we're waiting on these. These literally just came in. We just got access to these photos, these brand-new photos showing the scene inside of the kosher market where Amedy Coulibaly - this is - so this, again, is the picture of the stroller in the -- the abandoned stroller in the supermarket aisle here. There are other photos that show groceries strewn about, people gathering. This is the -- Amedy Coulibaly on the left holding a gun with someone with their hands -- a hostage with their hands up against the wall.

We have other pictures to show you. We're going to try to get access to those. And we'll be bringing those to you as soon as we can.

You know what - where are we headed next? We want to go to Lieutenant Colonel James Reese. Let's bring him in. He's a former Delta Force officer. He's our CNN global affairs correspondent. Let's get more now from him on these newly released pictures that are from inside of the kosher market attack. Here with me as well, we have national security analyst -- that's not true. We do not have Peter Bergen with us. We're going to go to Colonel Reese.

Colonel Reese, you're seeing these photos for the first time. Do they tell you anything new?

COL. JAMES REESE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brianna, they are.

And if I'm looking down a little bit, I'm looking down at the pictures as I'm trying to speak to you here. So the one picture - it's two before the one we're looking at right now. That gentleman's reaching up and he's -- as Jim Sciutto was saying -- trying to pull the camera down.

Where you have, you know, the terrorist here watching, what's going on there is, he is putting in what we call an exit bar. It looks like that's a -- probably a back door or a service door on the grocery store. In a lot of these places they have security bars so at nighttime, after they close the shops down, the bars go in so no one can kick the doors in and rob the place. So the terrorist is doing a pretty good - Coulibaly's doing a pretty good job of strong-pointing the grocery store because he knew eventually, you know, the raid - the raid team was going to be coming in to get him. So he tried to keep everything to one place that he could try to control and that was the front door. KEILAR: And we'll recall that when he was taken out by police, he

really made himself very visible to police at the front of the store through glass. So this is, to you, what level of, I guess, sophistication is this where he's gone in here, he has a hostage securing the back door and he has hostages dismantling the CCTV? That we're -- there's one photo we have -- and we're still waiting for another that I've seen but we're trying to gain access to -- where there is a hostage up on a stool in the middle of the store taking down one of these cameras. What level of sophistication is this, colonel?

REESE: Well, you know, he's thinking about it. He is going through the steps of what we call strong-pointing his objective. And he's going through the process. It's a decision-making process which tells me that - and we've been talking about this for, you know, over a week now and Jim Sciutto and I have been going back and forth. I'm not sure these guys were really set to be martyrs. Because you think about it, what we've seen in the past, if they really wanted to martyr themselves, why wouldn't they keep the cameras on so they could have this aspect that they knew was going to get out later for propaganda? So he's going through a process. He's trying to strong-point it. And he's - I think he's looking for a way out eventually.

KEILAR: What do you - when you say strong -- oh, really? OK.

REESE: Uh-huh.

KEILAR: So before I come back to that, I just want to describe what we're seeing. To be clear, because this was something I wasn't sure of, that is not a body on the ground. We don't know what that is. It appears that there's some sort of - I don't know if it's a shopping cart on the right or something. There seems to be a bag hanging from that or a chair. Maybe that's a coat. We don't know. But you can see just the chaos that all of this sort of -- the chaos as part of this with the groceries on the floor.

This is a new picture you haven't seen before in to us from the closed circuit television inside of the kosher supermarket. A gathering of hostages. And what's unclear to me here, Colonel Reese, is you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight hostages gathered here. Are they -- I would imagine they're not necessarily seeking refuge but that Coulibaly's very aware of where they are and he's just having them congregate here or do you think they could be hiding? What do you think?

REESE: Yes, I mean, we've seen this -- history is when hostage situations is, the hostage-takers need to get control of the hostages. So they want to put them in a place that - you know, like put them -- like mice in a corner. They want to push them in a corner, put them into a room, put them into a place that just one person can control a large amount of hostages so they don't lose control inside because once they lose control inside the area they've taken, that's when all - you know, everything breaks loose and that's usually times -- we start to look for times to conduct a raid is when chaos starts going in and the hostages lose control of the situation.

KEILAR: OK, I want to bring in Bob Baer. He's our intelligence and security analyst. He's a former CIA operative.

Bob, in the -- what you don't see on the camera here that is very fascinating is, as all of this is going on, there were a number of people who had sought refuge in a freezer that it appears Coulibaly was not aware of, right?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think so. He was a one-man operation and it looks to me like he didn't really case the place in advance. A really truly professional takeover, they would look at all sides, find a way to bar the front door. Hijackings and hostage-takings I've seen before, people knew what they were doing, intended to stay a long time, took more preparations. It looks to me, and we'll find out more, that he simply went after this supermarket because it was an anti-Semitic attack and because of Jewish customers.

KEILAR: So you read this to be maybe less sophisticated in that he was sort of winging it?

BAER: I think he was. I think this was - you know, the attack on the magazine was the centerpiece of this operation. And it looks to me like he was part of a pick-up team.

KEILAR: Yes.

BAER: You know, the statement coming out of Yemen today didn't really embrace the attack on the supermarket.

KEILAR: That's right.

BAER: That was probably coordinated on the ground in Paris. They said, well let's -- as long as you're going to do the magazine, "Charlie Hebdo," let's do this supermarket so it's a two-pronged attack. But he - you know, other than having an automatic weapon, he didn't look very prepared for this. And the fact that the phones still worked and people called in and, you know, he wasn't in there for the long term.

KEILAR: That's right.

OK, we have more pictures ahead that we are going to show you after a quick break. We'll be talking to our experts and telling you what these pictures just in to CNN here in the last couple of minutes, what they show us, what they reveal about the kosher market attack in Paris. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We have some breaking news here, some pictures, closed circuit television pictures of the kosher market attack in Paris just being released moments ago -- or just being obtained moments ago by CNN, I should say.

I want to bring in Bob Baer. He's our intelligence and security analyst. He's a former CIA operative. We also have former Delta Force officer and CNN global affairs correspondent Lieutenant Colonel James Reese. Colonel, this is interesting because it seems like looking at these

pictures, this one right here, let me describe, is Amedy Coulibaly, who appears -- you can see actually in his right hand, at the bottom of the screen, the weapon that he's holding. And this is one of the hostages appearing to secure the door with a security bar. So this tells us, obviously, he's going in there perhaps -- this is what Bob was saying -- to try to survive this, right? Is that - is that what you read in that, Colonel Reese?

REESE: Yes, I do, Brianna. As Bob said before, I agree with him, I do not believe this was a planned attack by these guys. But we need to make sure that, you know, when we see these events - you know, sometimes people -- we think these guys are dumb and they're not. He got in here. It was a chance contact. He took the - he took it down, took these people hostage and then he went through a thought process. He went through a decision-making process and said, I have to defend myself now because they're going to come after me.

I truly believe he did this because he heard reports that the brothers had been, you know, held up north and this was a chance for him to maybe take some of the pressure off, you know, his brethren there in the network by doing this. But he went through a process.

And in this picture right here, it's kind of interesting is, photos that were released last week that they found in his apartment and everything are very similar. He has a flak vest or a vest underneath. It's kind of a - you've got the graying and green and brown patterns. What's interesting to me is, that pattern is the same pattern of flak vests that the Germans and the Danes wore in Germany in the early part of OEF. And then what he has on top of it is a black assault vest that he carries his ammunition in and any other type of equipment. So that's what he's dressed in right there.

KEILAR: OEF, Operation Enduring Freedom, is that what you mean?

REESE: Yes, that vest he has on is Operation Enduring Freedom. That pattern of dress in the flak vest he's wearing.

KEILAR: Which tells you what, it's military surplus?

REESE: Yes, it's military surplus. And I was talking to one of the folks down here today, and a lot of these things you can literally buy off eBay.

KEILAR: Wow.

REESE: You can order off eBay.