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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

French Seek Help Identifying Bomber; Key Suspect Eludes Brussels Raids; Brussels Terror Alert; Kurdish Forces Vow to Take Out ISIS in Raqqa. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 23, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00] RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): It's something obviously people are bracing themselves for.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. Ryan Young, thank you so much.

And thank you for joining us "AT THIS HOUR." LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

The work day is over now in Brussels, Belgium, except in that vital European city, the de facto capital of the European Union, and home of NATO headquarters. That work day really never started, and neither did the school day, and neither did the shopping day or the sightseeing day. Brussels effectively spent Monday as it did Saturday and Sunday, on lockdown. In light of what the government says is a, quote, serious and imminent threat of a Paris style terror attack.

Belgian security forces brought in 21 people in a series of overnight raids, but no weapons, no bombs, and certainly not the man that they are most desperate to the find. Salah Abdeslam is believed to be the eighth Paris attacker, the only one known to have survived. He allegedly dropped off three fellow attackers at the Stade de France, one of whom was this man, whose photo was put out by the French police in hopes that the public can fill in some blanks, starting with his name.

For his part, the French president today hosted the British prime minister, who says he will try again on Thursday to persuade his parliament to OK air strikes in Syria. France, today, stepped up those attacks with help from the newly arrived aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. I want to begin our live coverage this hour with my colleague Ivan Watson, who is standing by in Paris.

So we don't have a lockdown in Paris, but that city, that beautiful city of lights, is still on edge. Tell me a little bit about what they're doing with regard to the schools for instance in that city.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean it's not that muscular show of force in Belgium of, you know, armored military vehicles in the streets. You don't feel the police presence to such a degree here. But it's clear that the mood is a bit more somber. The ministry of education putting out guidelines by which parents basically are urged to drop their kids off quickly at schools, that administrators have the right to search children's backpacks when they come into school. A number of school trips have been canceled here, field trips here in Paris. So we do see a number of measures that have been put in place. And then you see them around the city as well where the cafes are a bit emptier, people tell me, than they would be normally. I went into a cafe last night, for example, and a security guard asked to look through our backpack before going in. So these are some of the measures we're starting to see implemented here after the deadliest attacks that the French capital has seen since World War II, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And who knows if that will be the new normal, backpacks searches to go into restaurants and cafes in that city.

The president of France is extraordinarily busy and his agenda is diplomacy. So walk me through what he's doing this week, Ivan.

WATSON: Well, as you mentioned, he had a visit from David Cameron, the British prime minister, and they visited the scene, the Bataclan theater, where the most victims were after gunmen stormed in and opened fire on a crowded rock concert. And then they made a joint statement. Take a listen to something that David Cameron had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: And it's good to be back in Paris, city whose people have shown such courage, determination and resilience. A city where millions came out on Friday night to live their lives and to send a very clear message to the terrorists that you will never win, you will never beat us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: So there you have the British prime minister visiting, a show of solidarity. The French president will be traveling to Washington tomorrow to meet presumably with U.S. President Obama. And then he'll be meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Wednesday. And then traveling on to Moscow, presumably to see the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. It's very clear that the French want to get involved in some kind of a diplomatic initiative in the wave of these attacks and we think that they're really looking at trying to get a new, fresh political push to try to resolve this terrible civil war in Syria and the threat of ISIS.

And we have to add that the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle began carrying out air strikes, fighter jets from that aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean, targeting ISIS in Syria, bring new, fresh, French air power to that conflict. More - more bombing essentially and the French military saying that they've destroyed two objects today. A lot of bombing going on in that war-torn country.

[12:05:20] Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Ivan Watson for us live in Paris.

Let's go live now to Brussels where CNN's Fred Pleitgen is standing by.

It must feel like it's a ghost town, a place I would never describe as quiet. But take me there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Ashleigh, you're absolutely right, there's very little going on in the streets here in Brussels. What you do see a lot of, however, is soldiers and military equipment. I want to show you something that I think illustrates the situation very well. If we look over there, that's an MRAP (ph). That's a Belgium military MRAP. So an armored vehicle. And if we pan over here, I want to show you where we are. We're actually right in the heart of Brussels, and that is the Belgian national Christmas tree that you see here. So it's right in the main square you see heavily military equipment. And as you can see around here, there are very, very few people who are on the streets, and that's sort of a sign that we've been seeing throughout the entire day. There have been soldiers walking around, obviously trying to keep things under control. A lot of police as well. There have been minor sort of police operations in certain place and many people that we've been speaking to say it's very, very difficult for them today.

Many people not really sure whether they should go out. Many people not going to work because they can't because the schools are all closed, they have no one to take care of their kids. The shops are all closed as well. It really is a city that is on lockdown, and that is very, very concerned about this - what the government says an imminent threat of a terror attack right here in a major European city, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: But that can't be indefinite. I mean that city has to function. Have they let on at all -

PLEITGEN: Yes.

BANFIELD: As to how long this is going to go on and when they feel that imminence might actually abate?

PLEITGEN: You're absolutely right, it has to function, it has to function for various reasons. And one of those reasons is it's not only the Belgian capital, is that it's also the administrative capital of the European Union. There's politicians and bureaucrats that come here from all over Europe and Monday is usually their main travel day. They cannot - they couldn't come here.

Now, the government says that it's constantly reevaluating whether or not to keep up this terror threat level. But at this point in time, they still haven't apprehended Salah Abdeslam and they're still not sure whether or not a cell that might be plotting terror attacks is still operating here. So they've been conducting raids. They've already apprehended 21 people, they say. It's not clear whether or not those might have been tied to any sort of plot. But clearly they, at this point at least, don't feel that they're in the situation yet where they can call off this terror threat. But you're absolutely right, people here are getting very, very edgy and wondering how long something like this is going to carry on, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Fred Pleitgen for us live in Brussels, thank you for that.

And joining me now with insights on all of this, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, fresh back from Paris, CNN contributor, author and senior editor of "The Daily Beast," Michael Weiss, also live with me.

And, Paul, if I can just begin with you. I know you have a lot of insights and a lot of contact sources within this community. What led to this? Like what kind of information pipeline did Brussels have that shut that city down and will it yield anything that will open that city back up?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: At some point on Friday, Ashleigh, information came into a Belgian security agency suggesting that there was a possible attack team that was plotting something against Brussels, just like they were plotting something against Paris. Indeed, the likelihood that there were two wave to this terrorist plot in Paris, but they didn't have a good handle on where this was coming from, how this was going to go down, or when it was going to go down, otherwise they wouldn't have issued such an unprecedented alert. They would have just made arrests. And so they don't really have a handle on this yet and that's why you have this unprecedented ongoing security alerts in Brussels.

They haven't been able to round up any key suspects yet, and I think that they will sustain this alert until they feel that the danger to public safety has gone away. The interior minister of Belgian has said, this goes beyond just one individual. This goes beyond Salah Abdeslam. What you're looking at here is concern about the wider logistical support network behind the Paris attacks, which was believed to be based in Brussels, in Molenbeek. Also that may be harboring Salah Abdeslam over there.

BANFIELD: And I find that one of the more miraculous pieces of this puzzle. And, Michael Weiss, maybe you can weigh in on that, the notion that this ringleader, some call him mastermind, of what happened in Paris may be finding very safe harbor somewhere in that city. How long can that last? And effectively how much support do you think he might still have, not just in Brussels, but right across Europe, some kind of an underground pipeline to get him out of there?

[12:10:02] MICHAEL WEISS, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, I mean - and Paul actually reported in January that European officials had estimated there's something like 20 different sleeper cells scattered throughout the continent with as many as 180 operatives. Now, you can do the math. How many terrorist operations have there been since January, including the one in Belgium. How many operatives have been captured or killed, and then subtract what the difference is. And that's who remains - or at least this according to - to European intelligence.

So it's absolutely possible and plausible that Abdeslam could be hold up in some, you know, apartment building or residence in Molenbeek. You know - and the real problem here, Ashleigh, is the sort of dissolution of borders within Europe, right? I mean this is now really defying (ph) the debate about the wisdom of the European Union project, the United States of Europe. What about sovereignty and state borders to interdict or stop the transit of both men and materiel across state lines. And this is a continental wide dragnet. This is not confined to France.

And I think, look, the Belgian authorities are operating on the principle, better safe than sorry. If ISIS were to strike again in Brussels, as you mentioned, not just the capital of the country, but NATO headquarters, the administrative capital of the European Union. And effectively Europe becomes more like Dialah (ph) province in Iraq. You know, a series of spectacular attacks, one after another, and ISIS will have turned, you know, the entire continent into a war zone. So I think they're - they're just incredibly anxious and trying to get as much intelligence and round up as many people as they can. But absolutely, I mean Belgium is honeycombed with these networks and cells, as is France, as is Great Britain and probably other countries in Europe.

BANFIELD: Michael Weiss, thank you for that. And our Paul Cruickshank, thank you as well.

Coming up next, with air strikes coming fast and furious from the skies above, we're going to take you to the ground level, what it looks like in the trenches right on the front lines in the war with ISIS. It is a CNN exclusive, the battle of Raqqa where ISIS says it has its capital, but how long can they hold it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:08] BANFIELD: Only on CNN, rare access to the front lines in a global battle against ISIS. CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has been taking us just as close as you can get to ISIS' headquarters in Raqqa, Syria. These pictures are extremely difficult and very dangerous to obtain. He was able to join up with some Kurdish fighters who have a defensive line in place just in case a ground invasion breaks out. And it is moment by moment. All of this as France and Russia have been stepping up their air strikes after the Paris attacks. And the Russian bombings as well have been helping out.

Look at these pictures now. That is Cyrillic. It's a show of support to France from Russian pilots writing in their language. Russia's ministry of defense just released these videos. They show messages on the missiles that are ready to be fired on ISIS targets in Syria. And in case you can't read Cyrillic, let me do some translation. On one of the missiles, the Russian pilot writes, quote, "for our people." And on a second missile a Russian pilots writes, "for Paris."

We are just working very - in a difficult situation to do this reporting and Nick and his team are always in a tight spot. So we're going to make sure that we have the safest spot for him to report from and CNN's military analyst, General Mark Hertling, can explain why this is such a precarious situation.

General Hertling, in any given time, it's really hard for Nick and his team to report from that spot that is so close to Raqqa. They can actually see it across the way. But in this particular time, it's almost like any moment is go time, isn't it? I mean isn't that what the Kurds are waiting for at this moment, the kind of air cover that will give them a moment for a really robust and aggressive ground invasion so they can take Raqqa away from ISIS, take their capital away?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, I don't think you're just going to see the Kurds doing that, Ashleigh. In fact, I think the Kurds are more than likely mostly going to remain in those defensive positions. It is an uprising among the free Syrian forces that will probably invade into Raqqa, and they believe they will have an uprising within the town itself, which is critical.

But, yes, you're absolutely right, Nick has been phenomenal in his reporting and getting in the front line. And sometimes what he is doing is not coordinated - does not coordinate much with what the media is doing back here in the United States. So he can't always come online, as you well know. But he is doing phenomenal reporting with the Kurdish fighters. They are doing great work. And I think you're going to see, as he reported earlier, there's going to be a lot more Arab forces attacking into Raqqa, as well as standing up inside that city.

BANFIELD: So, General Hertling, from a military perspective, help me understand why the following is true, and that is this, ISIS, based in Raqqa where Nick is, is fighting against al Nusra. They're fighting against Assad. They're fighting against a very robust coalition of a number of countries for the better part of a year now. They're fighting against other factions. They're fighting against al Qaeda, and yet they're still growing. I don't suggest they're growing with, you know, geography, but they have been able to do some pretty horrible things in this last several months. Why is that?

HERTLING: Yes, they - they have - yes, they have, if you believe all of what they've put on social media. But, frankly, Ashleigh, I don't believe all that. I think they have a very good social media team. You've seen indicators that they are starting to be beaten by the fact - I mean Nick's reporting from Sinjar last week showed that if they did not counter attack, that tells me they are having problems generating fighters. They had a lot of good fighters early on, but a lot of those fighters have been killed by the bombing campaign. They are now getting new fighters in, but they don't have time to train them to carry on the progress that they once had. And that's why you see the shrinkage of their territory and the lapse in their capability to maneuver and move outside the city.

[12:20:26] You also have a bunch of countries who are fighting ISIS, each with their own national objectives. The Russian military, when they came into Syria, they were backing Assad. Assad is one of the reasons that ISIS is so powerful. And al Qaeda, and the al Nusra Front is so powerful is because he counters them at every turn. The United States has been going against exclusively ISIS in this case. The Turkish government has been impeding the Kurds from fighting ISIS because the Kurdish/Turkish alliance is not real good. So what you're talking about is a real dynamic situation of a bunch of enemies that each have different objectives and it's causing a great deal of confusion. You're just beginning to see some indicators that all of the countries are coming together to fight this scourge, which is called ISIS. BANFIELD: In a moment I'm going to ask you about maybe shrinking

geography as our secretary of state has just said for ISIS, but maybe a growth inability to do western attacks. I'm going to ask you that in a moment.

But first, I told you it was really difficult to get Nick Paton Walsh. We'd grab him when we can. And I have this very short window to ask him a few questions.

I know you're just grabbing a telephone and you're doing a quick report for us, Nick, but maybe set the stage for me and let me know from your perspective and the fighter that you're with right now, how long can ISIS hold that town that's within their sights?

NIC PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Ashleigh, we're back into the safety of Irbil here. But where we were Friday now on the close front line there, since we've left, there have, in fact, been clashes between ISIS and those Kurdish fighter, the YPG. Now, we understand coalition air strikes came in, four targets were (INAUDIBLE), the town we were mostly doing our reporting around. But it seems to be controlled by ISIS, but it's now firmly in Kurdish hands. Those air strikes hit around that particular area.

What's important, though, to note is that these other (ph) enormous trenches, massive defenses built by the Kurds, likely manned, but I think they can get away with less manpower because of the air support they get from the coalition. The question is, do they have the numbers to move forward? They seem to be optimistic. The Syrian democratic forces, and this is complicated but it's important, that is an umbrella alliance which many say that actually was an American idea, trying to get Kurds to work alongside Sunni Syrian Arabs. So it's important because Sunni Syrian Arabs, the ones - the ethnic group that live inside of Raqqa, you know want to see, given the complicated sectarian ethnic divide in Syria, Kurdish forces rushing into Raqqa. So they want sort of a mixed up multiethnic force that moves towards Raqqa but we don't know their numbers at this stage.

We met some of them on the ground. Those people talked positively about how they felt they had thousands of tribesmen inside Raqqa who were also Sunni Arabs willing to rise up alongside them and fight against ISIS. But you have to bear in mind too, the tight, repressive hold ISIS has on that city, it works against them, because there are many in there, it sounds like, who might want to fight back against them, but it works for them, too, because the population are terrified to some degree. So a lot still to be done. A definite sense of American special forces advisers being already with these people around Raqqa. They didn't tell us on the record, but we heard them muttering to each other, don't talk about the Americans. There is, I think assistance there or on its way. The question is, how fast can they move from the place where they are now, which is aspirational to where they need to be, which they will move in large numbers toward the complex built-up urban area.

Ashleigh. BANFIELD: All right, Nick, you and your team have just done extraordinary work and so the rest of us here in the very safe confines of our offices wish you luck and please be safe in your reporting and thank you for doing this incredible work.

General Hertling, if you could jump right back on -

HERTLING: Yes.

BANFIELD: And dovetail what Nick was just saying. We're all so curious to find out if the - not only the Kurdish forces, but the coalition above and anybody else who may be on the ground, and maybe not even telling us are on the ground, are going to be able to take that city back. I need to ask if that even matters anymore? Does the geography even matter when we've now got Paris, when we've got the bomb over the Sinai, when we've got these threats in New York City and Washington? Is the battle more in the west or will it actually be a head of the snake if you can take their geography away?

HERTLING: It is both, Ashleigh, and you're hitting on some key elements that we've been talking from the very beginning about with this fight against ISIS. It is certainly critical to take out their capital, to regain that capability, to take that ground and free it so the Syrian people can have that city back. It's a critically important city.

[12:25:14] You're seeing some shrinkage around that area. There's certainly some attacks going on against Raqqa. We saw what's happening with Sinjar. What hasn't been reported is, what's happened over the weekend in a town called Polafar (ph) where the Kurds have retaken that town. So if you draw a straight line between Raqqa and Mosul, they are losing ground along all of those key cities. But the fact that Raqqa is the self-proclaimed caliphate, that is important to take over.

But you're absolutely right, that's just one element, one line of effort of this campaign against this group. There also has to be homeland security in all of the western countries. There's got to be a continuous emphasis against their ideology and against their social media network. We have to cut their funding and stop the flow of jihadis. So all of these things are important aspects of this campaign.

BANFIELD: Yes, military coalition and an IT coalition it would seem is just as critical.

General Hertling, thank you so much. It's great to have your insight, as always.

HERTLING: Thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And coming up next, the Thanksgiving holiday is here, complete with jam-packed airplanes, jam-packed airports, people lining parade routes, filling up football stadiums and movie theaters and you name it. With the ISIS threat hanging over all of them, what is being done to keep Americans safe? We've got that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)