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CNN NEWSROOM

Terrorist Manhunt; Countering Terrorism

Aired January 13, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour here. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being with me here on this Tuesday.

Got a lot to talk about, new details here in this hunt for wider ties and more suspects in the Paris terror attacks.

But, first, I have to show you just some incredibly chilling new video. This was taken moments after the shootings inside of the offices of "Charlie Hebdo." And in it, as you see here, the two masked terrorists, the Kouachi brothers, calmly returning to their getaway car. When you wait for this whole thing to play out, you see them beginning to fire on this police cruiser, all the while yelling about avenging the Prophet Mohammed.

Take a look, this video releasing as French authorities are also now scrambling to track down any of these terrorists' accomplices, possibly six of them. That number is coming to us from the Associated Press. Today, let me tell you about this new arrest, this Frenchman just detained in Bulgaria. He may be best lead police really have right now, but not this man. There is another man who could be key here.

This is a radical by the name of Djamel Beghal, once known as al Qaeda's premier European recruiter. He was convicted of conspiring to attack that U.S. Embassy in Paris. And now we know he was also the mentor to one of those Kouachi brothers, as well as the gunman at the kosher grocery.

A lot to talk about.

Let's go to Paris to my colleague Frederik Pleitgen, our CNN senior international correspondent there just working all these different angles.

Fred, let's just begin with this video. We have to presume that counterterrorism officials, police are combing through every single frame. Fred Pleitgen, can you hear?

OK. I'm guessing no, he cannot hear me. Let's move along and see if we can get Fred up momentarily.

Let's examine the video a little bit further with former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, former chief adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and now a director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.

Ambassador Benjamin, thanks for coming on.

DANIEL BENJAMIN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: You have seen the video. You know investigators are combing through it. What are they looking at? What are they looking for?

BENJAMIN: Well, they will be looking for a whole range of different things, techniques that may suggest, you know, what kind of backgrounds the perpetrators had, other faces, other people, other voices that may be involved, anything that may suggest that there's other equipment that hasn't been found, any number of different things. The videos get scrutinized a great deal.

BALDWIN: How do you mean specifically techniques that would lead to X, Y, or Z background? Are you referring to certain gestures or certain ammunition you would see and that would lead to, let's say, AQAP?

BENJAMIN: Well, not exactly.

There was a lot of talk after the attack initially about the way that the shooters moved, how they held their weapons that suggested that they'd had some kind of formal training. That is something that will be scrutinized. There is, you know, an understanding of the different kinds of training that go on. We do have accounts from people who are inside, people who have been arrested over the years.

And that may help us piece some of the different items together here.

BALDWIN: That's right. We're learning a lot about the backgrounds, going to Yemen, trying to travel to Iraq, the people they met behind bars. You also have said the attacks alone at "Charlie Hebdo," that could inspire, you know, copycats. Do you think this video here would have that same effect?

BENJAMIN: I don't think the video specifically will. But this is a moment of high tension.

Whenever you have one attack that has happened and others who may be on the fence who have been thinking of acting up, of showing that they, too, are part of the struggle may be inspired to do to so. That's why law enforcement and intelligence will be at a peak, will be particularly active in this post-event period.

That is always the case. And, of course, we know that al Qaeda and jihadist groups in general like to have their attacks come in series. Now, my own strong feeling is that we have probably seen what we are going to see, but you never know among the radicalized members of the community in France and Europe who else might be thinking that this is their moment to act.

BALDWIN: I hope we have seen all that we can see. Mr. Benjamin, let me hit pause on our conversation and bring our senior international correspondent in. We have got him now. Fred Pleitgen is in Paris.

Fred, tell me what you're hearing about the video.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

We know it was an amateur video obviously filmed by people who seemed to have some sort of balcony position. From our vantage point, it appears as though that if you look behind me, that the car was actually coming towards the position that we are at right now. Of course, this is something that's being hotly debated here in Paris right now.

People, of course, were very shocked immediately after this happened. Now you can just absolutely see pretty much the entire course of events after the two Kouachi brothers came out of the "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters. And I think one of the things that really shocks people here who watch this video is the fact they're so calm and act so calmly to reload their weapons, to check each other's weapons.

And this is right after they have just killed up to 11 people in the "Charlie Hebdo" headquarters, so they have just committed a mass murder. They have gone in there. They went into one of the meetings and executed people in there. Then they come out and they still seem to be absolutely moving not slowly, but certainly very, very surely. They don't seem to be nervous at all.

Then they're confronted by the police car. We're going to see them get in the car. They're confronted by the police car. And the first thing that you notice and that people here obviously take note of as well is how badly outgunned the police are in all of this. They get confronted by the police car. It's a head-on confrontation. They get out, they open fire.

The police almost immediately has to reverse. And I remember one of the things in the early stages of the coverage we were doing that -- I think it was our own Chris Cuomo who was saying that he was quite surprised at the bullet holes that were found inside the car's windshield afterwards, how close they were together, because he said that it shows, and he's absolutely right, that this must have been someone who was a fairly decent marksman doing all this.

This is not something that you would do if you're firing a weapon like this for the first time. We can see now while they were fairly close that cop car was moving. Still, they managed to put a lot of those bullets into a very small area in the windshield of that car. So, certainly a lot of very telling things. This video, I believe, is going to be very, very important in the days going forward, because keep in mind that the police is trying to -- the authorities here are trying to piece together what exactly happened, what were the motivations, where did these people get their training from?

And, of course, the Kouachi brothers are dead. There's no way they're going to be interrogated. Another person who is, of course, of interest is Hayat Boumeddiene, one of the possible accomplices who was with the other gentlemen, Amedy Coulibaly, who went into that kosher grocery shop. She may be able to glean some information, but she might very well be in Syria. This is certainly going to be a very, very important document going forward, I believe.

BALDWIN: But I think all your points too just about the ballistics and about their movements and how they were shooting totally speaking to Ambassador Benjamin's point about what exactly authorities will be looking at that will then lead to backgrounds.

Finally, Mr. Benjamin, let me just end with this. We now know Department of Homeland Security, we know they are enhancing airport security. An official told CNN this is actually the result of a recent article in the al Qaeda magazine "Inspire," which describes how you can make homemade bombs. The concern here now, of course, is the threat of having these -- making these nonmetallic IEDs, so nonmetallic, so they won't be detectable in airports, only if you have these full-body scanners. And only big airports do.

My question I guess is this. As these terror groups become increasingly advanced, what concerns you most about what they're capable of?

BENJAMIN: Well, actually, the nonmetallic or liquid IED, improvised explosive device, has been a threat since the mid-'90s, when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef tried to carry out an attack that was going to blow up a dozen wide-body aircraft over the Pacific.

There has been renewed concern about that due to the skills of some bomb-makers affiliated with the AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen. The fact is that, you know, the terrorists are somewhat innovative. AQAP is particularly innovative. I, at the moment, am more worried about the fact that there are lots of assault weapons floating around continental Europe, a place that's had very, very few of them, than I am about these new innovations, because they're hard to master. They're harder to produce.

It's really the experts out in Yemen who are going to be able to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Is that where they're coming from? Where are they coming from?

BENJAMIN: Well, so I think most of the activity we're seeing is self- starters in Europe who may have some allegiance or some experience with these groups abroad.

"Inspire," of course, is the online magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And that's where this material was posted, and that's why people are concerned. "Inspire" was also the magazine, the online magazine that called for an attack against "Charlie Hebdo." And AQAP has been calling for individual acts of jihad, to put it in Anwar al-Awlaki's phrasing, for quite some time.

BALDWIN: Daniel Benjamin, thank you very much for weighing in, and to you, Fred Pleitgen, in Paris, thank you very much.

Coming up next, al Qaeda threatening new attacks on the West, just today, the magazine at the center of all this releasing another edition. This one, on the cover, you have the Prophet Mohammed. We will speak live with one Muslim who says the magazine needs to stop.

Plus, brand-new sound from a hostage who hid from the gunman in the grocery store. Hear what he says they did in that deadly standoff. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

"Charlie Hebdo"'s new cover does exactly what the terrorists did not want it to do. It shows the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. CNN has a longstanding policy of not airing his image because it offends some Muslims. That's how we feel about any sort of offensive religious image.

But there will be three million copies of the new "Charlie Hebdo," some of the first batches seen here. Reportedly, they will be distributed in some 25 countries and 16 languages for the next eight weeks.

What the cover shows is the Prophet Mohammed holding a sign that says "Je suis Charlie," "I am Charlie." That message has unified France and really the world against terror since gunmen massacred 12 people at the magazine's offices last week.

Above the Prophet Mohammed's head, it reads, in French, "All is forgiven," and in Mohammed's eye is a tear. The cartoonist who drew the cover broke down today as he was describing how he created what he calls a drawing of catharsis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RENALD LUZIER, "CHARLIE HEBDO" (through translator): And I looked at it, and he was crying. And then above, I wrote, "Everything is forgiven," and then I cried, and that was the cover page.

We had found the cover page. We had finally got this wretched cover page, and it was our own cover page. It wasn't the cover page that the terrorists wanted us to produce. There are no terrorists. There is just a man who is crying, and that's Mohammed. I'm sorry, we have drawn him again, but the Mohammed we have drawn is, above all, a man that cries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is the cartoonist that goes by the name Luz.

And according to "The Guardian," Luz survived Wednesday's attack because he was late to work that day, the same day his colleagues were gunned down.

With me now, Omer El-Hamdoon, president of the Muslim Association of London.

Omer, thank you for joining me.

OMER EL-HAMDOON, PRESIDENT, MUSLIM ASSOCIATION OF LONDON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: You heard that cartoonist's explanation. Despite that, I understand your reaction to the cover has been disgust and annoyance. Tell me why, sir.

EL-HAMDOON: Well, first of all, we were hoping that "Charlie Hebdo" would really take a more sensible approach to this whole matter.

We have seen how cartoons like this have offended millions of Muslims throughout the world. And, really, it's not just about -- I know that they're probably publishing this cartoon to send a message to terrorists and say, look, we are not going to be intimidated. And that's fine. That's a message that we all need to send, that violence is not the answer here.

But at the same time, it would be nice if they had shown sensitive -- being more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, because those are Muslims who many of them walked in the rally on Sunday. There's obviously a Muslim policeman who was shot by the terrorists. So rather than do this kind of act, it would have been better to say, look, we understand that this is offensive, and we're just not going to do it.

BALDWIN: You, of course, have heard the argument, just of course just the right to freedom of speech. This is what the mayor in the city from where you're joining me told "The Guardian" newspaper after this unity rally in Paris.

This is from the mayor of London: "You cannot have a march through the streets of Paris attended by 46 world leaders, four million people, climaxing with the shout of we are not afraid, and then not print the central object of contention. You may not agree with what they have done. You may be offended by what they have done, but you should defend their right to publish it."

Does he have a point, Omer?

EL-HAMDOON: Well, I think if you look at what Teju Cole has said, prominent writer and artist, he has actually said, look, the right to be obscene or the right to obscene and racist speech doesn't mean we have to promote and sponsor this kind of speech.

So I think there's one thing about, you know, having the right to offend, but it's almost become like as if it's the duty to offend now, as if like the whole media outlets want to offend for the sake of offending.

Now, look, as Muslims, we don't have a problem with freedom of speech. In fact, that's what we would like, to see freedom of speech. But we believe that freedom of speech is not absolute, and it's important there are ethical codes that are adhered to by even journalists, that they don't go around just offending for the sake of offense. BALDWIN: That's part of our longstanding policy here at CNN, be it

the Prophet Mohammed or something else depicted, something else religious.

Let me ask you bigger picture. I have been reading a lot about just the sense of disenfranchised Muslims within different communities, perhaps more immigrant communities, ostracized. I know Islamophobia really is a huge problem in France. And then you have these experts, Omer, who are now saying groups like AQAP, that their intention is actually to drive up this anti-Muslim sentiment, this prejudice in Europe, which then ultimately will isolate these men and women, and as they're hoping, eventually have them wage this so-called jihad.

Have you heard that? And what are your thoughts?

EL-HAMDOON: Well, I think to a certain extent, that's what's happening, because when you are pushing Muslims to the margin and you're actually marginalizing them through this kind of behavior, Muslims actually in the West generally want to integrate. They want to be a part, they want to be involved in this fabric of society.

So really, what you're doing here is, by this offense, which is not really -- I mean, it's not like criticizing Islam or just saying that we disagree with this, we -- it's just an offense for the sake of offense. You're actually marginalizing Muslims and you're actually playing into the narratives of the terrorists who are trying to promote their agenda through saying to you, look, the West hates you Muslims. So the best way for you is to join our alliance, which obviously is not what anybody wants.

We want the best for the society. We want peace. We want harmony. And we just feel that in the name of freedom of speech, this is all going to be eroded.

BALDWIN: Omer El-Hamdoon, thank you so much for your voice and your perspective. Appreciate it.

EL-HAMDOON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Terror attacks like the ones we saw in Paris and around the world absolutely horrify us. They shake us, but does that mean terrorism is working? One writer says it sure is and that is why these attacks will continue. He joins me live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It hasn't even been a week since the attacks at "Charlie Hebdo," and the facts are still emerging from that attack in Paris. Now new video of the gunmen outside the "Charlie Hebdo" offices offers this fresh perspective. It's chilling and it's tough to look at.

This is just another angle of what happened at that terrible scene. Here, masked brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi returning to their car and then in a moment open fire on police after murdering staffers at "Charlie Hebdo."

Now, the Paris attacks have all of us once again reevaluating how best to respond to terrorism.

So, let's talk to Hamilton Nolan, who is a senior writer at Gawker, and Bobby Ghosh, the managing editor of Quartz and a CNN global affairs analyst.

And, Hamilton, let me begin with you, because you wrote this piece. Let me just quote part of it for our viewers. You write: "We are richer and mightier and far deadly than any of our terrorist foes could dream of being. And yet," you write, "we happily play into their hands. We declare a war on terror of our own making, an absurd construct with no possible victory. We overreact so harshly to every injury that our reputation as bullies and savages is confirmed."

Wow. You argue that the U.S., that the West has responded the wrong way to terror attacks. How would you propose, Hamilton, that the U.S. and the West should be responding?

HAMILTON NOLAN, GAWKER: I think terrorism is a crime, and we should respond like we would to any crime.

We have a justice system in place that's designed to deal with crimes. There have been crimes throughout history. We don't need to start an unwinnable global war on terror in response to these things. We don't need to sacrifice the ideals that we claim to represent in response to these things. Terrorism is a crime, and we if treated terrorism like a crime, hundreds of thousands of lives would probably be saved across the world.

BALDWIN: Bobby Ghosh, how would you respond to that?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think we're thinking a little too narrowly from an American or Western perspective.

These same terrorist groups or groups that follow the same philosophy, if you like, have been quite happy to attack and conduct terrorist attacks in countries that are not part of any global war on terror, in Africa, in Asia. They're conducting attacks on civilian populations that have no truck with the Western war on terror.

So, I think we have to acknowledge that, yes, terrorism is a crime, but it is not any crime. It needs to be treated in a different way. I'm not disagreeing that the response is sometimes heavy-handed and counterproductive, but I don't think that treating this merely as we would treat a crime, as we would treat, let's say, drug gangs or organizations of that nature, I don't think it quite works.

In Kenya -- Kenya is not part of a global war on crime. India is not part of -- I beg your pardon -- on terror -- India is not part of a global war on terror. There are a lot of attacks that take place in those countries and others by the same groups.