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CNN NEWSROOM

Hostage Standoff at Kosher Grocery Store; Terror Suspects Hold Hostage in Print Shop

Aired January 9, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: There is a lot to bring you up to date here on at the -- at the top of the hour here. Let's just want to pause here as we welcome our viewers around the world and in the United States.

Welcome back. I'm Anderson Cooper reporting from Paris. If you are just joining us there are a number of fast-moving developments. Here's the latest.

Two days after terrorists stun Paris with its deadliest attack in years, we now have two separate standoffs playing out around Paris right now. Two standoffs between gunmen and police and hostages reportedly caught in the middle of both those standoffs. The actual number of hostages not confirmed at this point.

On the left side of your screen the men accused of Wednesday's bloody siege are now apparently pinned down by police inside a small print shop northeast of Paris. A local lawmaker saying one of the gunmen told police negotiators, they are ready to die, he used the word martyrs. That they are ready to die as martyrs.

On the right a police standoff with a gunman inside a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris about 25 minutes or so from the location where I am right now. There are reports of five hostages there.

Our Jim Sciutto, who is on the scene, did see somebody being taken away on a stretcher, put into an ambulance and taken off for medical treatment.

Two scenes are not far apart, just 25 miles, about 40 kilometers apart. There may be a connection, much more bone-chilling, sources say, the grocery standoff may have ties to Wednesday's attack.

There's a lot to report. We have reporters all over the scene. Let's start with the standoff now in the kosher grocery store.

CNN's Jim Sciutto is at the scene. He arrived there as police reinforcements were converging, as you can imagine. SWAT teams are there, an ambulance raced away.

Jim, explain where you are, what you're seeing, what's the latest information you have.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, I'm directly across the street, a highway from the Hypercacher, this is the kosher store where this event is taking place.

And I could tell you, Anderson, it's like a scene out of a movie. I'm next to two dozen tactical police. They are wearing body armor, some of them standing behind, body length bulletproof shields. Across the street I see another dozen of them crouching down in position, just about 20, 30 feet from the entrance of this store as if they're staging for some sort of assault, prepared. And then down on the street dozens more of them.

Highly tense situation, and you can see -- you can see the -- in fact, as I'm speaking to you, Anderson, I have a gentleman with an armed -- with a machine gun pushing me a few feet further back understandably because we're within sight of this store, which means of course we're within gun range, gun site of the store as well.

They appear to be staging for something but as we know, Anderson, these tactical units, they move when they have to. They're aware of reports that there are hostages inside, and of course they want to keep those hostages safe. And as you mentioned just in your introduction to me as we were coming here I counted three ambulances heading in the opposite direction, one with police's escort and I saw another person as you mentioned being put into an ambulance on a stretcher.

There have been reports, though the police have not confirmed publicly, that two were killed at the scene but the tension here really just remarkable and the manpower here right now remarkable as well. Police with machine guns, police in body armor, police behind body length bulletproof shields, extreme tension at this point.

COOPER: Jim, let's go over what we know and what we don't know for sure. Police now have just released these two images of these two suspects, a man and a woman. Is it clear that these -- that at least the man is a suspect in the shooting the policewoman early Thursday morning?

SCIUTTO: It is clear that that is the suspicion. As you know, Anderson, and we've cautioned our viewers constantly, that these events have been changing so frequently over the last 48 hours.

But that is the best information we have now and that is the best information that police are putting out right now, that the shooter from yesterday's shooting -- keep in mind this is the second shooting following the one at the cartoon magazine, the shooter from yesterday's shooting in which a female police officer was killed in Paris is believed to be the same shooter who is now hold up in this kosher market here that I'm watching now, and it is reported with additional hostages.

Any tie between this and the shooting at "Charlie Hebdo," not established operationally, but police have said that the shooter here and the two shooters holed up north of Paris at Charles de Gaulle Airport, rather on the other side of Charles de Gaulle Airport, knew each other, they were from the same neighborhood. They were in a youth group -- a youth group where it is known that the radical preacher who is believed to have radicalized the "Charlie Hebdo" shooters frequented there.

He tried to establish connections with the young men there over things like soccer games and what soccer teams they supported, established those connections and then carried them along the path to radicalization.

That is the only connection that we're aware of right now, not aware of an operational connection between these two shootings yet.

COOPER: There have been some reports, Jim, about the cell that had been involved in a plan to try to break out an Algerian national from a French prison several years ago. There was never enough evidence to actually bring the -- either of the Kouachi brothers to trial involved in that -- in that alleged plot, but there have been some reports of a linkage to this male suspect that we're showing there on our screen as being part potentially of that cell.

SCIUTTO: That's right. And this gets to the long jihadist rap sheet that the shooters involved in these events had before the horrible events on Thursday unfolded. One of them, the younger brother, the younger of the Kouachi brothers, went to prison, remember, for attempting to recruit fighters to Iraq. He was stopped at the border of France, attempting to travel himself to Syria to go fight in Iraq in 2005.

Then you had this additional suspicion involving both those Kouachi brothers in 2010, and remember, as you and I have discussed, Anderson, these brothers were under surveillance, understandably in light of that rap sheet but they were taken off surveillance.

The way these hard questions as to why, it is tough, 5,000 known or suspected jihadists in France. Impossible to have the manpower to track all of them, but it would appear that the shooters in this case had enough to continue to be surveiled. They were not. That's a question that the French are going to be asking themselves now and in the coming days.

But again, you know, hard to second-guess them because, as in the U.S., the French have many more jihadists to suspect and to track them. They have the manpower to do, and that's why we know that U.S. counter terror officials are going through what they know about known jihadists to see if any of them need to be placed under additional surveillance.

COOPER: Jim, the other thing that we're not clear on right now and is an important point is how much of this is a preplanned action on the part of these terror suspects, how much of this is just them trying to find any target they can under pressure from this massive manhunt that has been going on. As you were reporting the policewoman who was shot Thursday morning, she was shot near a Jewish school.

This is obviously a kosher supermarket near a Jewish neighborhood on the day before Shabbat. You could not have hit a worse possible time to go and attack or perhaps from the terrorist standpoint a better time to go and attack a location like this. That's something obviously we do not at this point know, whether or

not this was something that there was on a list of targets that they had planned to attack or whether this was something just in the -- you know, under threat -- under pressure from this manhunt, they were trying to grab whatever they could.

SCIUTTO: A very fair question, because here you have, listen, as I'm looking at this kosher supermarket, it's very obvious it's large. It's got a big banner that says "cacher", kosher in French. It could have been a target of opportunity or he could have been aware that it is here, and came to this and made a plan to come to it.

But it's interesting when you look at the other -- the "Charlie Hebdo" attackers where they are now at this industrial park north of the airport, that would not appear to have an obvious connection to something that would make it a target for these attackers. They were on the run, perhaps they went there because it was the best way for them to hole up. So circumstances could be similar here or it could be a target of opportunity or it could have been something that he planned before.

The police just don't know right now but I'll tell you, Anderson, the scene here really remarkable. If you could picture -- if you could picture a scene from a movie with counter-terror units in full body armor, with body-length bulletproof shields, with automatic weapons drawn, I'm seeing dozens of them here surrounding this place. Some at a safe distance, some within just 10 or 12 yards from the front door, ready to go in, if they have the opportunity.

COOPER: We should also point out that back in 2004-2005, the younger Kouachi brother in the trial that he was ultimately brought into in 2008 for attempting to go to Iraq and also recruit others to go to Iraq, that there was testimony that initially he had talked about wanting to hit Jewish targets in the city of Paris, that this radical cleric who he had been -- begun working with had actually told him this was not the time to -- for jihad in France, to focus more on attacking U.S. targets in Iraq.

Clearly, though, it seems, at least in this case, obviously the fact that this is a kosher supermarket, cannot be ignored.

Can you explain how large a facility this is? How big a supermarket this is? What kind of a -- you know, a situation are police dealing with?

SCIUTTO: Sure, let me describe it. I'm sure you can hear behind me, Anderson, the sound of sirens as more police approach the scene. So the supermarket looks like what might be a small chain supermarket in a U.S. city. Has a large banner on top, "Hypercacher," cacher meaning kosher in French. Appears to be part of a chain here. It is on a main corner, in a housing project here next to a highway.

The highway has been closed off to traffic, and on that highway you have a number of police vehicles, and what are clearly special tactical units lined up. How do I know that, as you look at them, they're all in black, they have masks, they have body armor, they have automatic weapons drawn.

These are the same teams that we've seen responding to the "Charlie Hebdo" shooting, as those attackers holed up in various places northeast of Paris. So now you have this part of town on lockdown.

I'll tell you, I came across a powerful moment just about a half hour ago, Anderson. As the police were pushing residents back, there was a mother and she was crying, pleading with police saying that one of her children was in school in here, and we learned -- we've heard in French reports that all the schools in here in this neighborhood have been placed on lockdown, so imagine that drama as a parent here now, not being able to get to your child, knowing that those schools are on lockdown but certainly not.

And goodness, I can sympathize as a father, certainly not certain that they're safe. That is the kind of drama that is playing out here right now for yet another neighborhood in France.

COOPER: And, Jim, is it known how many hostages there are being held right now in this location and how many wounded and/or fatalities there have been, if there have been fatalities?

SCIUTTO: Not known by confirmation, Anderson, but reports in French media say five hostages currently inside there, and there was a report that two were killed.

I want to caution because, you know, those things can turn out to be wrong later, but I got an indication certainly of casualties as we arrive here because, as I said earlier, we saw those ambulances rushing away. I saw someone being loaded on to a stretcher, I couldn't tell if that person was injured sadly or deceased but not -- certainly not -- very reasonable to make a connection between those ambulances and what's been unfolding here.

COOPER: So, you saw three ambulances in total leaving the scene?

SCIUTTO: I did. One of them was a police escort, rushing away from the scene. Obviously a crisis there, so three leaving the scene, and one at the scene putting some, very close to the scene putting someone on a stretcher into the back of it.

Police seem to have the area under control from what I can tell here now, Anderson.

COOPER: And, Jim, just so our viewers know on our screen on the one side of our screen, we're showing two suspects that French authorities have just release their photo, there are suspects wanted in the killing of a French policewoman killed yesterday, Thursday morning here.

Is it believed that the male suspect, it is believed that he is the man inside this kosher supermarket? The female suspect, is she believed to be in there as well or is it simply one gunman, one potential terrorist at this point?

SCIUTTO: Best information, again, and I'm always supplying the best information we have at this point, the information is one gunman although the police released the picture of his girlfriend as well. Not known what her level of involvement is but the police say one gunman. One reason that is substantiated, Anderson, is that police have established a connection between the shooting, the hostage situation here at this point, and the shooting yesterday, the second shooting following "Charlie Hebdo" that killed that female policewoman and that was also one shooter.

So, reasonable to make that connection and conclude that one shooter in both those incidents, but police have to prepare for everything, and I'll tell you, that's why we're seeing so many, such a deployment of force here, dozens of special tactical officers here to respond.

COOPER: And we should point out early on, after the policewoman was shot Thursday morning in Paris, police were quick to say they had no evidence there was any connection to the attack on "Charlie Hebdo."

Clearly, now, they seem to believe that this suspect -- they have evidence that this suspect was involved in the shooting of this policewoman, and they have made linkages between whether they were operational or not between this suspect and the two brothers. We don't know, and I think, it's always important in these situations to point out as much what we don't know as what we do know, we do not know whether this shooting suspect and even these two shooting suspects in the killing of this policewoman Thursday morning were also involved in the attack on "Charlie Hebdo," was, in fact, this man, the third terrorist, the third gunman seen on the video escaping from "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters.

There is now also a second standoff going on, and we're going to continue to check in with Jim Sciutto on the scene. I'm joined here on the scene in Paris by Jim Bittermann and Hala Gorani.

But there's a second standoff happening right now in a small town not far from the Charles de Gaulle airport, and I want to turn to that standoff. That is involving the two accused terror suspects from Wednesday's attack, just a few blocks from where I am, at the "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, he's on the outskirts of that scene. Explain where you are and the latest information you have about what's happening.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. I'm actually right in front of the makeshift police headquarters that the police set up earlier this morning. You can see it right over there, sort of a gym kind of area. You can see there's police officers in front of it and it is really a very similar scene to what Jim was just describing that the place here is just absolutely packed with police who are basically just doing their thing and cordoning the area off.

What happened is around 10:00 a.m., the local people tell us they heard helicopters overhead all of a sudden in the village, then a lot of police came and shortly afterward, it appears the two suspects appear to be cornered inside an industrial area and specifically inside a print shop.

And I've spoken to some local people here. They say the print shop is well-known, the kind of place you go to get your business cards, to get little leaflets printed. It's a very, very small enterprise.

It's about 400 yards in that direction, and people here say they know the folks who worked there very, very well. It's actually cordoned off at this point in time. Police have the area under siege. And what they've made several rings around the area. So, you have a very heavy presence, of course, directly around that shop and a lot of checkpoints also on the roads leading in and out of this area.

Until right now, this area is under lockdown. What's going on the people have been told to stay inside, from what I'm seeing not everybody seems to be adhering to that and also the schools are on lockdown as well. Some of them at this point are being evacuated. We've seen some of the schools here where some parents have come to pick up their children, you can see right now we're panning around, a school behind us where people are waiting to see if they can pick up their kids at any point soon.

So, folks here tell us that they are very worried about the situation. At the same time they do believe it's under control, and from what we're hearing from our sources it appears as though the police have at least tried to make or did make contact with the two people who are holding at least one hostage and those people have told, this is according to a French official have told police they want to die, quote, "as martyrs."

Of course, this is something that in the past they had a lot of chances to do that in their spree that they've done so far and have not done so. But this is what they've told the negotiators that apparently have contact with them as well.

It appears as though right now, Anderson, this is very much a waiting game. The police isn't taking anything fast. There's a lot of movement of officers here. They're certainly taking things very slow. It seems, trying to negotiate with these people. They want to solve this somehow.

And, of course, the last thing they want to do, Anderson, is endanger the life of the hostage these two people seem to be holding -- Anderson.

COOPER: Fred, do we know the exact series of events which led these two suspects to actually have ended up at this printing shop in this small town?

PLEITGEN: Yes.

COOPER: I mean, there had been a lot of talk last night when I was on the air of a manhunt near a large forest. There had been one report that a helicopter this spotted potentially these two suspects entering to forest.

PLEITGEN: Yes. COOPER: Then we heard a report earlier this morning about a vehicle

being stolen. What do we know about how they ended under here?

PLEITGEN: Well, it really is somewhat of an odyssey, if you will. I mean, these events took place, of course the massacre at the "Charlie Hebdo" building there took place Wednesday. These people managed to escape out of Paris even though the manhunt at that point was already going on. Remember yesterday most of the police operation was going around the town of Reims, which is about two hours, 90 miles north of Paris.

And that's where the police was cordoning and area. As you said that area was a rural area with some villages, but also have a very large forest and I'm also told it's not only a large force but it's also a forest that apparently has a lot of caves in it, and police apparently searched a lot of caves in that area trying to find these people. They cordoned the area off, and nevertheless it appears the suspects managed to get out, managed to hijack a vehicle and took the driver and went down here.

Now, as I said the people tell us they were waking up early this morning, around 10:00 a.m., when all of a sudden, they heard a lot of helicopters in the air, all of a sudden there was a lot of commotion, and that's when the police moved in here. But it seems as though even with that big police operation going on, and even with the police saying they believe these people were about 90 miles north of here in Reims, and remember, there was one gas station owner who said they went there and came up to them and demanded gasoline and food and made their way away from there with the getaway car.

So, it was clear they were in the area. They did manage to commandeer the vehicle and get down here and holed up. The police say they're pretty much sure these two individuals are holed up in the print shop here in the small town, which is really right at the outskirts of Charles de Gaulle airport.

In fact, earlier two flights had to abort a landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport because the police operation was going on, of course right now the suspects inside a building, there are no longer disruptions at Charles de Gaulle Airport but from standing around here the planes are a couple hundred feet above us as they come in to land at what is France's biggest airport.

So, right now, the police are trying to solve all this but you're right, it was an absolute odyssey that these two suspects have been conducting, and has now ended them up here in this small town outside of Paris -- Anderson.

COOPER: I want to stay with Fred Pleitgen and also Jim Sciutto on the scene. I want to bring in Jim Bittermann and Hala Gorani.

Jim Bittermann, our Paris-based correspondent here.

And, Hala Gorani, you grew up here in Paris.

Jim, obviously for French law enforcement, I mean, this has been extraordinarily trying several days, the largest manhunt. Have you ever seen anything like this?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Nothing like this before. I should just say that and n these hostage situations, there are multiple hostage negotiating seems around France, scattered around different locations, several in Paris, I am not certain about that. They have hostage negotiating teams in different places. They have both going, which is involved northeast of the airport, but they also have a raid which is a SWAT team type negotiating group, and they've, in the past, been able to peacefully negotiate the end to a number of different kind of co conflicts, ranging from domestic crises to bringing in somebody mentally disturbed, or something like that.

They've been, in the past, very successful with that. So, we'll see what happens today but obviously they're standing off here, just waiting for something to develop.

COOPER: And, control room, let's keep up on the screen the images from both those locations, and also that map that gives a sense of location. Let's keep giving our viewers eyes on both situations, as we continue to discuss this.

Hala Gorani, I mean, what's interesting is we hear now according to local politician these two brothers the Kouachi brothers, one said they want to die as martyrs. If that had been their intention at the attack on "Charlie Hebdo", they could have easily done there.

They could have remained on location. There could have been a standoff there. They had an escape plan in place. They clearly wanted to continue to carry out attacks.

HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Based on their movements they were trying to save themselves every step of the way so there is some hope for hostage negotiators. We were speaking with an expert earlier, Anderson, about what the priority is right now for the SWAT teams, the intervention group, the GEGN, Gendarmerie, their priority is to save the lives of hostages. So, therefore, to establish communication, to establish a conversation, a dialogue with these hostage takers.

This is their first priority. The interior ministers as well as, as far as the hostage standoff north of Paris also said that. This is our first priority to try to resolve this peacefully, which is why in many cases you see them standing back. The raid forces, for instance, according to many reports haven't made a single move yet. They're now establishing what the situation is before they decide what to do going forward.

COOPER: And, obviously, Jim, negotiating with people who are willing to die extremely difficult situation for hostages.

BITTERMANN: Absolutely, but they did have that opportunity, as Hala said, to do that before. They could have given their lives if martyrdom was in their mind. That's what they could have done.

You know, one thing we should emphasize, Anderson, we're not degree with rocket scientists here. Both of these guys -- history of both these guys indicate they're kind of losers. I mean, they were wannabes. The younger brother wanted to be a soccer player, he couldn't make it, wanted to be a rap star, couldn't make it, trained up as a sports coach.

COOPER: Fitness instructor.

BITTERMANN: Yes, fitness instructor or something. So, you know, maybe wants to be a terrorist now. He's made it here certainly. Certainly, this was planned out but now in the aftermath of this --

COOPER: And also the fact that an ID was left in one of the vehicles, which led, helped to lead police directly to these brothers, obviously early on when we were watching the attacks, it seemed like they clearly had some level of training, but the closer you look at their tactics, it's not as if they are elite commandos in any sense of the word.

Jim Sciutto is on the scene of the hostage standoff taking place in eastern Paris at the kosher supermarket.

Jim, again, just explain the situation there as it is now.

SCIUTTO: Anderson, I just want to reconfirm, do you see us now from the scene? Can you see behind me, the officers behind me?

COOPER: Yes, we do, Jim.

SCIUTTO: OK, fantastic. So we are just describing to you over my left shoulder here just behind these police with automatic weapons, across this small highway there, that is where the kosher shop is, I would say, about 200 yards from here.

In addition to these three officers off to the right, I can see perhaps 20, 30 more. Then down on the street on the left here as well, you see a number of them in the distance behind the fence. They're crouched down as if they are preparing or at least be prepared to car are you out some sort of operation there.

They're only within I would say ten yards of the front door of this kosher market here, Hyper Cacher it is, "kosher" in French. Best information for police is they have one hostage taken in there. They believe there's a hostage taker who killed the policewoman yesterday in Paris, as always with this, this information changes quickly but that's the best information we have from police now.

As I was coming here, I saw a number of ambulances leaving the scene as well, and I saw someone being carted into an ambulance on the back of a stretcher, one of them with police escort, rushing away from the scene. There are reports though, unconfirmed at this point, that there have been casualties here. Those ambulances appeared to be taking those casualties away and at the same time we've seen tactical units constantly being added here as they decide how to respond.