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Several Dead in Belgium Anti-Terror Raid; Belgian Police Mentioned No Ties to Terror Attacks in Paris; France Terror Investigation Stretching to Spain; Funerals Held Today for Two Victims from "Charlie Hedbo"; Crowd Applauds as Coffin of Cartoonist Passes; Authorities Stopped Ohio Man Allegedly Plotting to Bomb U.S. Capitol; FBI Stops Attack; Terror Web; Belgium Raid

Aired January 15, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 7:00 p.m. in Paris, 8:00 p.m. in Damascus, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We start with breaking news, breaking news out of Belgium right now where police had been looking for a suspect tied to last week's terrorist attacks. Several people have been killed, we are now told, in an anti-terror raid in eastern Belgium.

Let's go to CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. He's joining us from Paris. I know the initial information is just coming in, Jim, but what can you tell us?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, here's the latest we have. This an anti-terror operation took place in Verviers. This is in eastern Belgium. It's about 250 miles from here in Paris. It is federal police telling the CNN affiliate there that during a counter terror operation that three suspected terrorists were killed. At least one more taken into custody. They say this took place near a train station in Verviers.

To be clear, Belgian police, they have mentioned no tie to the terror attacks that took place here in Paris, including at the "Charlie Hebdo" office just behind us here. But it is a reminder that the threat of terrorism certainly not confined to France here in Europe. It is a real concern in a number of countries. And this might be an indication of the heightened sense of alert here as police attempt to chase down leads and crack down on any potential terror threats.

So, again, this, was according to the federal police, as they're speaking to our CNN affiliate there, it was a counter-terror operation intended to take these suspects into custody. Gun battle breaks out. Three of those terrorists are killed, another one taken into custody in the end -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Do we know if any Belgian police were injured or killed in this operation?

SCIUTTO: There's no announcement yet of casualties on the side of the police. The police have specified casualties on the side of the terrorists, none on their side. Typically, at this stage, they might. But that's no guarantee that there were no injuries or casualties on the side of the police.

BLITZER: All right, standby for a moment. I want to bring in Paul Cruickshank, our Terrorism Analyst. Paul, you're getting new information about what has gone down in Belgium right now as well, right?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Wolf, what I've been told by CNN European counter-terrorism official is that authorities in Belgium have been investigating several potential cells linked back to ISIS that they believe may have been directed, by the leadership of ISIS, to launch attacks in Belgium, in Europe in retaliation for the air strikes which Belgium and other countries have been involved with. But they're not making a link -- and this is important. They're not making a link between that, yet, and this operation that's just gone down in eastern Belgium.

But I think it provides some context here that there's great concern in Belgium about these returning fighters, that ISIS may have started to persuade them to direct them to launch attacks. We've not seen that yet. ISIS hadn't been doing that, up until this point. The assessment is that they've changed track and they're putting more priority, now, for attacks against the west, against the countries involved in air strikes against them.

So, that's some context right now. We don't know if this group of suspected terrorists in Belgium, which this operation has been launched against, is one of these groups. We just don't know that, at the moment.

BLITZER: All right, stand by, Paul. I want to bring in Tom Fuentes, our CNN Law Enforcement Analyst, the former FBI deputy director, and Bob Baer, the CNN Intelligence and Security Analyst, a former CIA operative.

Tom Fuentes, people may not realize but there's a long history of terrorism in Belgium, potential targets in Belgium.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Now, that's true, Wolf. And back in 2001, right at the time of our September 11 attack, there was a big plot underway in seven European countries. And the main part of that plot existed in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

BLITZER: And there were NATO targets in Belgium, plus --

FUENTES: Right.

BLITZER: -- with the U.S. embassy --

FUENTES: The U.S. embassy in Paris --

BLITZER: -- in Brussels.

FUENTES: -- was supposed to be bottomed along with a NATO facility near Brussels and another facility in the Netherlands. And it was broken up. The plot was investigated by the European services along with the FBI providing assistance. And no one ever heard of it here when the arrests started on September 14th because it was three days after our 911 which, obviously, commanded the top media attention in our country.

But that was a huge case. Convictions were obtained in multiple countries, including in Belgium, against Al Qaeda members. Unfortunately, the sentences all were in the four to five-year range up to 10 years. Not much. The people that were involved in those plots were out. They are back out and now many of them have gone. We've been talking for months about the foreign fighters, hundreds going from European countries to go fight with ISIS. And we've been talking about, at some point, many are going to come back to wage jihad in Europe. And now, we're seeing the result of that.

BLITZER: Presumably, some of them can be told just lay low, be a sleeper for years, if necessary. At some point, get ready.

FUENTES: Right, yes.

BLITZER: Some pretty worrisome development.

Bob Baer, you're -- you hear about an operation like this, and we're following the breaking news out of Verviers in Belgium right now. There's a counter-terrorism operation. Federal police go in. Three alleged terrorists are killed in the operation. One wounded. We're told federal police are getting ready for a news conference to explain precisely what happened. But what goes through your mind, as someone who has studied this and operated in this environment for a long time?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I've actually operated, Wolf, in Belgium and all intelligence agencies do and it's pretty lax. That means it's also lax for terrorists. It's a good place to set up. There are strong Islamic communities. A lot of talk (ph) theories there. And I think we're going to see a lot more unraveling of these cells there and shootouts as well.

Right after the Paris attacks last week, the -- somebody in the French law enforcement told me, we're going to see a lot more of these and especially since the Europeans are finally getting serious about that and understanding that they have a real terrorism problem in Europe and that these jihadist are coming back. The worse the fighting gets in the Middle East, the more there's going to be blow back in Europe.

BLITZER: I want to go back quickly to Jim Sciutto. He's in Paris. Jim, you're getting more information on what went down in Belgium?

SCIUTTO: Some more -- that's exactly right, some more information. Again, this is French police speaking to Belgian French radio, saying that this was initially intended as an inspection, not an assault. It turned into an assault when gunfire broke out between the terrorists and the federal police. It says that it took place in a place called Rue De Lac Olene (ph) in the middle of the city.

But, interestingly, and this is not confirmed but they are reporting this, this is French speaking (ph) radio quoting the French police, that is their belief that these suspects had recently returned from Syria. It just goes to the conversation about Belgian concern, like many other European countries, about what happens when those foreign fighters come back from the battle field in Syria? It's been a long- running concern.

And just another reminder that just last year, there was another deadly attack in Belgium, in Brussels, in fact, in May last year. Four people killed at a Jewish museum there. And investigators tied that attacker to having been a veteran of the fighting in Syria.

So, it's a reminder that that's an ongoing threat to Europe. What happens to those foreign fighters when they return home? And, again, this operation, according to French police, started as an inspection, turned into an assault, gunfire exchanged. That's when they had the casualties. To this point, they're saying on the side of the terrorists, three dead terrorists, but at least one person we're told now under arrest.

BLITZER: All right, let's see what happens. And we're standing by for this news conference as well.

Paul Cruickshank, you're getting additional information on the breaking news. What else are you learning?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, Wolf, I'm actually (INAUDIBLE) at Belgium. I talked to Belgium officials a lot about the terrorist threat in that country. They've been telling me, in recent weeks, there's an unprecedented threat, that they're stretched thin. There are 150 Belgium nations fighting in Syria. Thirty or 40 have been killed. Sixty or 70 back in Belgium. About 15 going off to Syria each month. They've been very, very worried about this threat for some time. And now, Jim's reporting that these appear to be Syria retonis (ph) that they conducted this raids against which, obviously, turned deadly.

I'm also separately being told that the Belgian authorities, for the last several weeks, were investigating groups of young men who came back from Syria to Belgium who they suspected had been tossed by ISIS, by the leadership there, to launch attacks in Belgium and in Europe. So, all of this very, very concerning as we learn new details -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Remind our viewers, Paul, about that attack -- that terror attack on that Jewish museum in Belgium.

CRUICKSHANK: That was in May of last year. That was by a French ISIS veteran who had had obvious contact with the group, had come back through Frankfurt airport who had gotten a collection (ph) of calls. And he went in in cold blood and he assassinated four people at that magazine. Investigators don't think that, in that case, the ISIS leadership necessarily signed off on the plot or directed him to launch the attack, that he may have done it on his own scene (ph).

But what I'm being told by my European sources is they're detecting a very significant shift now from ISIS. That ISIS are now starting to persuade these Europeans, who are with them in Syria and Iraq, to go home and to launch attacks, especially against the countries involved in air strikes against them. It's a very, very worrying shift, very worrying new assessment because of all ISIS's capabilities. Their training camps. The fact there are so many Europeans in Syria and their deep financial pockets. So, we may be seeing the start of something truly worrying in Europe with what's going on right now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I want all of you to standby. We're following the breaking news. Three suspected terrorists killed in an anti-terror operation in Belgium. We're getting more information and standing by for a news conference from the federal police in Belgium.

Also making headlines today, an alleged plot to attack the United States capitol. That plot disrupted.

And the investigation in the terror in France, that investigation now expanding. Here are some of the latest developments. An Ohio man is accused of plotting to setoff pipe bombs at the United States capitol then gun downing lawmakers and workers as they try to escape. The FBI says Christopher Lee Cornell plotted the attack with an informant posing as his accomplice.

The France terror investigation now stretching to Spain. A source telling CNN, Amady Coulibaly and his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, drove to Madrid on December 31st and stayed until January 2nd. They returned to France. She travelled to Turkey and onto Syria.

And funerals were held today for two more of the victims of the attacks at the offices of "Charlie Hedbo." The crowd applauded as the coffin of the cartoonist, Bernard Maris, known by the pet name -- by the pen name, I should say, Tinyu (ph), passed by.

Also coming up, we're getting new details on how authorities stopped an Ohio man who was allegedly plotting to bomb the U.S. capitol. We're following that.

The breaking news out of Belgium, an anti-terrorist operation just has been completed. Three suspected terrorists are killed. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: All right, a 20-year-old Ohio man now in custody, accused of plotting to bomb the Capitol building right here in the nation's capital. Federal agents also say Christopher Lee Cornell -- there you see a picture of him -- planned to open fire on members of the United States Congress, staffers as they ran away from the explosions. The FBI arrested Cornell yesterday in the parking lot of a gun shop, where he had just purchased weapons and 600 rounds of ammunition. But Cornell's father says he thinks his son was set up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CORNELL, FATHER: He may have lost his way somewhere in there, but I believe he was really vulnerable and I believe he was coerced in a lot of ways.

He never had enough money to purchase those guns. They supplied him the money to purchase those guns. The FBI supplied the money to purchase those guns. The kid never had the money. And he don't know his way out of Cincinnati. How in the hell was he going to go to Washington, D.C., and blow up the Capitol?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The FBI had been following Cornell since August after he posted pro-ISIS tweets under an assumed name. Cornell's father says his son had converted to Islam just six weeks ago. The FBI used an informant to get closer to Cornell as the plot was put together. It says that the public was never in serious danger. Christopher Cornell due in court tomorrow.

Let's get some analysis of this plot. Joining us now, Tom Fuentes, our CNN law enforcement analyst. He's a former FBI assistant director.

Tom, what do you think? This is the kind of operation -- it sounds very worrisome, but the father says the kid was just disturbed. He was never any serious threat. And the father alleges he was really duped into this by some FBI informant who was a bad guy himself.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think that if he was duped, it was duped by being radicalized in the first place. So he was venerable to that and apparently it took hold. The FBI didn't put out the tweets and the social media postings that he wanted to go to the Capitol, he wanted to do all these things. Somebody else saw that, informed the FBI about it, and they began the investigation.

You know, frankly, the FBI hates these cases because they can't -- once they've gotten this information, once they've started the investigation, they can't walk away from it. They own it. And if they do walk away from it and this guy does go do what so many others have done and kills people, then it's going to be, they dropped the ball, why aren't they protecting us, why aren't they investigating.

So they really had to see it through. Is he all talk? Is he just mouthing off and doesn't really intend to do it. And every step of the way, in recorded conversations, he keeps saying, I want to do this, I want to do this, finally culminating with the purchase of the two weapons. At that - at that point the FBI says, that's it.

BLITZER: He becomes a danger.

FUENTES: Right.

BLITZER: Once he had 600 rounds of ammunition and weapons, then potentially there's a danger, even if some informant pretending to be sympathetic to ISIS was talking to him.

FUENTES: Right. Exactly. So they wanted the investigation to avoid the entrapment claim that he intended to do this. And even if the FBI helped him a little bit, it has to be clear, this is his plan, this is what he wants to do. He went into the gun shop and purchased those weapons. You know, at that point, now they're not going to let this go any further.

BLITZER: At that point it's over. All right, thanks very much, Tom. Don't go too far away.

Still ahead, we're following the breaking news out of Belgium of several suspected terrorists killed in a raid by federal police in Belgium.

And from Syria to Bulgaria to Spain, now to Belgium, the widening network behind the Paris terrorist attacks. We're talking about how much all of this complicates the investigation. Lots coming up right here. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We're following the breaking news. Several people have been killed in an anti-terror raid in eastern Belgium where police have been looking for a suspect tied to last week's Paris attacks.

Meanwhile, as investigators dig deeper into the Paris terror attacks, they're also unraveling a giant web of terrorist connections to the Kouachi brothers. Tom Foreman is joining us now at the magic wall to break all of this down for us. And the key question is, if French authorities were on to so much of this, why couldn't it have been stopped?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it could have been stopped. But like it is in so many cases, they were surveilling these guys up until a few months ago but then they decided somebody else might be a bigger threat. What is very clear now is that French authorities absolutely have given up on the idea of just a few days back that maybe this was a lone wolf attack. They clearly see some networks at work here.

For example, Yemen. That is where they believe that one of the Kouachi brothers went and actually received money from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, maybe up to $20,000, not exactly clear the amount, but money to carry out this attack and that it was in the works for quite some time. That's the belief.

Up here, the man who struck in -- he and this woman killed a police officer and then struck in the kosher supermarket there. He took out a bank loan for about $7,000 in December. It's believe that that may have been used to finance part of what he was doing.

But here's the main thing. What is coming out in all of this news is evidence of truly a web of people who are connected to each other. Now, look, here are the main people we've been talking about all along, the Kouachi brothers down here, and as you move up here, his -- Coulibaly and the woman he was with. These three people are all dead now in all of this, but what they are finding as they look into this is that there are plenty of people out there who are still alive who seem to have been connected.

For example, she's still missing. They don't know where she is. This man was traveling with her. They don't know exactly where he is either. They're trying to figure out what that might be. They know that this man over here had contact with him and recruited him to some degree to this effort. They also know this man down here, who was picked up in Belgium, had contact with Cherif Kouachi. Of course the brothers had a lot to do with each other and they had ties to al Qaeda in Yemen.

And this is just the beginning of this process, Wolf. The French authorities and international investigators are putting this all together. And the one thing they have absolutely concluded is that these people did not act alone. They were involved in something bigger. Now, how big and whether or not that constitutes a full-on terror plot of great weight, we don't know, nor do we know if other people out there are still intent in carrying this on based on the original attacks, Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm confident we're going to learn a whole lot more in the coming days and weeks. Tom Foreman, thanks very much.

I want to go right to the White House. Let's go to the White House. The press secretary, Josh Earnest, is speaking on these issues right now.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Later on today we may be able to get you something.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The -- there are some reports this morning that the president, in his budget request, is going to ask for an increase of about 7 percent to the federal budget. Wondering if you can tell us whether that's accurate.

EARNEST: I've seen those reports as well. The president --

BLITZER: All right, we just missed what Josh Earnest said. We're going to queue the up, get the tape and let you know. But he's going to tell -- he was speaking on what was going on in Belgium. We'll get that sound bite from - we'll get that sound bite from Josh Earnest momentarily and play it for you. I don't - I don't believe he made a lot of news, but he was giving the first U.S. reaction to this counter-terror operation in eastern Belgium.

Let's talk a little bit about that and more. Once again, our CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank is joining us. He's the co-author of "Agent Storm," the story of a spy inside al Qaeda that helped lead the CIA to Anwar al Awlaki. Also Bob Baer once again joining us, our CNN intelligence and security analyst, a former CIA operative.

Bob, as we look at all these leads that are underway right now, these actors in several countries, I think there are about seven countries now involved in what could be an expanding operation. The details really sketchy still at this point, although we will be learning a whole lot more. How surprised are you by these developments?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Wolf, not at all. There's two things going on here and that's the conflict in Iraq and Syria, which is, we're seeing the blowback hitting Europe. But more than that, let's never forget that 9/11 was a plot hatched in Europe, in Hamburg (ph). There were wide cells there. They went from Spain to France to Italy and the rest of it. So what I think is happening now, and it's too early to say what happened in Belgium, but that the French finally woke up and they are on the phone as they put all these contacts together that this group had and are calling people and they're starting to roll people up. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this and I think we're going to see that there's a lot more cells than anybody suspected.

BLITZER: And, Paul, we talked earlier about the threat of so-called lone wolves, if you will. That's not what we're seeing in these Paris attacks. These were not just isolated, some guy or two guys sitting in their basement on the Internet learning how to use weapons or learning how to build a bomb, if you will. These are people who have some specific training and there was coordination.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, yes, I mean the belief is that at least one of the brothers traveled to Yemen, got training there with AQAP, which would have required him to formally join the group. That AQAP gave Cherif, one of the brothers, $20,000 to put this operation together. They then came back and essentially did nothing for three years. And we know the French put on heavy surveillance on them when they got back in the late summer of 2011. And it's possible that they waited for that surveillance to stop. And we know that it did stop in June of 2014. And we know that Anwar al Awlaki, the American terrorist cleric in Yemen, was telling these kind of recruits, when you go back, you should camouflage your radicalism. So it's possible that they waited for that surveillance to stop before launching this plot, Wolf.

BLITZER: And, Bob, how many people does it really take to investigate two or three suspicious guys who may have just come back from Syria or from Yemen? Let's say they - you know that these people were there, one or two. How many trained federal law enforcement types, whether - from any of these countries -- does it really take to undertake constant surveillance?

BAER: Well, Wolf, when I was assigned to Paris, I worked with the French police on surveillance. And one case we had was counterintelligence, but it's the same thing for terrorism. The French put a hundred people on the street. You simply don't follow people around. It's not like Inspector Clouseau, one guy, you know, wandering around the suburbs watching another person. You need hundreds of people. So the French, the problem they have is they can watch these people for a couple of years, but then they run out of resources and then they move down the list to a more threat -- what seems like a more threatening target. So I completely sympathize with the French on this. You just can't watch 5,000 suspects or however many there are in France with that number of people with the size of their police force. And, you know, there's not much you can do about it.

BLITZER: There certainly isn't. But obviously they're learning lessons from what has just happened.

Bob Baer, stay with us.

We have much more on the breaking news coming out, the news we're following out of Belgium.

Plus, police are still looking for Hayat Boumeddiene and her travel companion, seen in this image taken at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey. She's believed to now be in Syria. The life she's leading isn't necessarily of a woman on the run but of that of perhaps a militant trophy wife. We're getting new information. Stay with us.

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