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Manhunt for Brussels Terrorists; ISIS Claims Responsibility for Belgian Terror Attacks; U.S. Officials on Guard against Copy Cat Attacks; Flight from Brussels Searched in Orlando. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 22, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can see that search light is still on. They're still scanning whatever they might be looking at. It certainly seems like there are armed people inside that chopper. It's not only one chopper that's here. That's the one we're seeing right now. But there's actually another chopper here hovering I would say maybe a couple hundred feet above this one. Also sort of scanning that same area. At this point, it's unclear what they're looking for.

You can see them adjust the search light. There appear to be armed people inside that chopper. Not sure whether it's a police sniper or someone. But certainly someone who was at least for a short time taking aim at something out of that helicopter which has been -- we've been on the show, which has been hovering above here for a considerable amount of time. Which lead us to believe there must be some sort of major operation going on, that perhaps this helicopter is supporting. Hasn't moved very much. It's been hovering there. It hasn't moved very much in terms of where it is. So it keeps hovering sort of in the same place. We see someone pointing a rifle or something out of that chopper intermittently. Perhaps, again, supporting some sort of police operation that might be going on in the ground in this massively cordoned off area that we're in now.

It's a huge cordon. I would say it's at least two and a half square miles in size. We are around the area of the Schaerbeek railway station, it's not really a suburb of Brussels, it's still fairly toward the city center of Brussels, not central Brussels, but an area that's not far from the center where police seem to be focusing operations now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Fred, how far, for people who aren't as familiar with Brussels, from where you are right now, we're watching this helicopter with this armed law enforcement official sort of hanging on the outside to wear that eighth Paris attacker, Salah Abdeslam, was found on Friday? Are these neighborhoods near one another?

PLEITGEN: Yes, that's a very good question. They're not very far apart. Brussels is not a large city. It's not one where many people have their main place where they live. There's a lot of people in the European Union coming in. I would say, it's interesting, because I was in that area where Abdeslam was found. I would say it's maybe three miles from the area where he was found, maybe three, four miles away from the area where he was discovered which is called Molenbeek. This area is called Schaerbeek. To drive, it might be a 10-minute drive, maybe a 15-minute drive.

BALDWIN: So it's close.

PLEITGEN: All of this isn't very far away.

BALDWIN: OK, Fred, stay with me.

Bob Baer, I want your astute eyes as well, as you're looking at this. We've been talking to Mitch about, you know, looking for, you know, people, perhaps explosive, perhaps, you know, high-powered weapons. Analyze this picture for me, please, sir.

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what you have to do in the absence of intelligence is start making raids. It's what our special forces did in Baghdad, in Kabul as well, hit one house after another, collecting intelligence as quickly as you can, moving on. You have to stop the momentum of these attacks. The only way to do this is send in the Special Forces essentially and hit these places. Any suspects, you know, without warrants. There's no other way to get ahead of this. They're doing the right thing. The helicopters are watching to see who runs. I mean, Belgium is at war now. There's a lot of people dead. It's a difficult tact to counter, these TATP bombs in an airport or a metro and they're doing what they can do. It's the absence of intelligence which has sent the police into these neighborhoods. I think we're going to see a lot more. The problem is nobody knows how big these networks are. Or whether they're independent or there's multiple ones or whether they communicate at all, simply because these people have gone black. They've beat the data mining. This is what's concerned the Europeans.

BALDWIN: On that note, Graeme, on Bob's note about the networks and going dark and who knows how large and how intricate and how many sort of tentacles and how far they reach, can you just talk about what we do know? And also I'm curious with regard to what appeared to be these coordinated attacks. And of course, we had coordinated attacks in Paris last November. If it is -- to your point, if it is ISIS, would they be calling the shots from Syria, or would this be part of the network closer to home in Europe?

GRAEME WOOD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: So I think we do actually know something about the size of the networks in Brussels. They're large enough to hide Europe's most wanted fugitive for the last four months. So it's going to be extensive. There's going to be a lot of support. And these kinds of raids have been going on for all of that, the last four months. Belgium has been trying very hard to find these people.

And it has failed, which is bad news. Because it means that many of the tools that we thought were going to keep us safe simply are not. The networks are large enough so they don't require the coordination with Syria. There are enough people there apparently where they can keep someone safe. They can have space for laboratories to assemble bombs and to plan these kinds of attacks. So whether or not they are directly calling shots from Syria, the infrastructure is there and obviously the Belgians are taking very seriously the threat. They're unable, despite their best efforts, to keep the attacks from happening.

[14:35:38] BALDWIN: Graeme, staying with you, what do you make of the timing then? I said, what, are we four days, it was Friday we sat here for two hours talking about the extraordinary capture of Salah both the airport and the subway. What do you make of that?

WOOD: I don't think it's coincidental, of course. You know, when Salah Abdeslam was taken, I'm sure that there were a lot of people who were worried about what he might say, worried about what kind of intelligence that the authorities could get from him, and they might have activated plans that were already in progress earlier than they originally intended. But that said, to build an explosive belt, to find people who were ready at a moment's an notice to kill themselves this just takes more than a few days. I think it's fair to say these plots were being hatched for quite a long time. They might have been initiated and executed much sooner because of the taking of Salah Abdeslam, but they're, again, working from a deep infrastructure and a lot of planning that's been happening since the Paris attacks.

BALDWIN: Graeme Wood, please stay with me. You've written extensively on ISIS.

I want to take you back. Live pictures here. This is a Belgian police chopper. This is high above a community called Schaerbeek, just around the Brussels area, the capitol city of Belgium.

Fred Pleitgen is there, and crew, on the ground monitoring vans coming and going. The area cordoned off by law enforcement.

Raids taking place right now, Fred. For people just tuning in, tell us what you know about what has been found in these raids thus far.

PLEITGEN: Yes, the latest information we're getting, Brooke, is there was possibly explosives found, possibly also an ISIS flag. It's interesting, because we were just speaking to a couple people who are outside here of the police cordon. They were telling us many of them had been evacuated from this neighborhood inside, the area inside of the cordon. So they're trying to get people out. Maybe they have someone cornered inside. It was about -- I would say about ten minutes ago this chopper all of a sudden arrived on the scene and I can tell you when were there when it was coming in. It came in very quickly and very, very quickly found whatever it is that it's sort of zeroing in on now with that beam that you see, that light that you see coming from that chopper. We also believe we've identified someone with a rifle sitting inside that chopper, intermittently taking aim at something. You can maybe see the rifle sticking out of this open door. The people here are telling us they believe these raids, which are have, very big in this area, that these raids are being conducted because the police seem to believe that perhaps the bombs that were used in the attacks today were perhaps manufactured here. We don't have confirmation yet from the police of any sort.

They're on the ground here. They're not saying anything. They do have this place cordoned off in a big way. We've seen a big police van driven by masked police officers leave the scene. We've seen an ambulance driven by maybe paramedics or something in masks as well. This is very much an active operation going on involving a lot of police officers. I saw some pretty big trucks in there, involving air assets as well. This isn't the only chopper. There's another one hovering above as well, not too distance.

BALDWIN: Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much.

Quickly want to follow up on one of Fred's points.

Mitch, to you, about the nails and the chemicals. With that, and, again, I don't know, I'm not there, but would it be in cases you've worked on almost like a booby trap for people -- for fear of law enforcement, because I know raids are happening in Brussels or would it be perhaps part of a future bomb?

MITCH SILBER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: It can be -- frankly, it can be either one.

BALDWIN: OK.

SILBER: Because these are primary components we're seeing in self- made IEDs that people are using for suicide bombers but it could also be, you know, a booby trap.

I think the big issue that Belgium has to confront is they have about 500 people out of a country, total population, 11 million, who went overseas and got experience in Syria and Iraq. Think about the United States, 300 million people. We have maybe 250 at most. That's the high end. So Belgium has the highest per-capita number of is-linked foreign fighters. And when they come back to Brussels, you know, as you heard from Karen, there's pressure on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, here is a place where they can act.

[14:40:24] BALDWIN: I think that point cannot be highlighted enough.

Evan Perez -- Evan Perez is one of our justice correspondents. He's standing by now with a little bit of news as far as any sort of threat on the U.S. front.

Evan, what are you hearing?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, one of the first concerns that happened this morning in light of what happened in Brussels, was the issue of whether or not there could be copycat -- a copycat attack. The FBI today has increased its surveillance of people already on their radar. People who are known extremists. Possibly who could be -- who could be inspired to carry out something like what happened in Brussels. That we know is already under way. As well as cities around the country, from Boston to Chicago to New York to here in Washington. You're going to see more police presence at high-profile locations.

We know, for example, here in D.C., the metro is doing more security sweeps to make sure that people feel safe and also to ward against possible attacks. We've seen increased presence as well in places like Times Square and Penn Station. Amtrak says it is doing random inspections in some areas. There's no indication of any intelligence showing something could happen, no indication of a plot in the United States. But certainly one of the things U.S. officials are doing is trying to get as much information from the officials in Brussels as to whether or not there's any indication of plots under way by this cell in Brussels. So far, no indications yet, but it's something they're keeping a close eye on -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: OK, Evan, thank you so much.

Evan Perez is Washington.

Anthony May is joining us now, a retired ATF explosives expert.

Anthony, I have several questions for you. Just beginning with these live pictures. As you watch this all unfold, active raids under way. We've been watching this happening in Brussels for many months. When you were hearing from our correspondent saying they're finding nails, chemicals, what sort of alarm bells does that trigger for you?

ANTHONY MAY, RETIED ATF EXPLOSIVES ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Good morning. Well, it really doesn't trigger any alarm bells, but what it does do, it links those sites where those nails and chemicals are being found to the bombing at the airport. On an earlier CNN report, there was a witness who made a reference to nails being used at the airport bombing. So we're basically -- we're going to tie those two sites in together with the nails.

BALDWIN: And when you hear nails, I immediately think of, you know, my time in Boston, covering there on Boylston Street. When you hear nails, we were talking to Karen Greenberg, saying this seems to be more of an al Qaeda hallmark, even though ISIS is claiming responsibility. Do you have thoughts on that?

MAY: Well, not really. They're probably sharing technology. The nails basically is a design for anti-personnel. When they built these bombs with nails, they intended to kill and injure people. If you look at most of the damage or injuries of the -- of those who survived, we have injuries to it is, to the lower extremity, which is indicative of possibly caused by the nails.

BALDWIN: Anthony -- let's throw the picture up. For people who haven't seen it, we have this photo, the surveillance photo taken earlier this morning at the Brussels huge international airport there. You see these three men, two in the darker colored clothing. Those now, according to the Belgian prosecutor, are the suspected suicide bombers. The man in the khaki, lighter colored jacket, this is the wanted man, the wanted suspect.

And if you can, just -- as you are looking at this photo, analyze it for me. What do you see?

MAY: Well, seeing the three men, the two in the dark clothing, sitting basically walking close together. The third guy in the white indicated they're traveling together. Two individuals dressed exactly alive, both with long-sleeved shirts, dark clothing, khaki pants and a glove on each of their left hands. Now, it's unusual in the fact that we've got two people walking with a single glove on their left hand while their right hand is naked.

The guy in the middle seemed to be very bulky, indicating that, you know, there could be something up under that. The glove itself, the unusual nature of that glove, it's probably used to hide the triggering mechanism, which could be something simple as a rocker switch. Basically, he wants to be able to walk freely through the airport, holding that detonator in his hand, but not having it so conspicuous that people could notice. It's just this whole scenario here seems to be unusual.

Now, here in the U.S., in our airports, we have the behavioral detection officers roaming the airports, exactly what they're looking for. They're looking for people dressed oddly, things that don't fit into the norm. And, you know, this should have been or could have been picked up on by someone in that capacity.

[14:45:46] BALDWIN: Should have, could have. To me, quick glance, you just see two guys in long sleeved black T-shirts. Yes, I agree, the one glove on each left hand is absolutely curious.

My follow up would be, I was talking to Mitch Silber, who did intel analyst with NYPD, he was saying perhaps the man in the lighter colored jacket could be the guide or the individual who is part of the plot making sure they follow through. Making sure they hit the triggers. Is that something you've seen before?

MAY: We saw that in Baghdad a lot, especially when they used children as suicide bombers. They would have a handler to ensure they got to their target, that they didn't chicken out. In those cases, the handler themselves sometimes had the remote detonator. There's no indication of that here. The individual in the white jacket, who knows what his role in the bombing was. We also had a larger package bomb, probably concealed in a roller bag.

BALDWIN: Why do you think that?

MAY: Well, looking at the damage, if you have a picture of the airport itself it would be helpful to put that up there.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Sure, let's throw it up.

MAY: You'll see a lot of the ceiling tiles laying on the floor. If you also look at that terminal, we're looking at a terminal that has a pretty high ceiling. I'm guessing, based on the photograph, probably upwards of 20 feet from -- a ceiling. A large amount of explosives is necessary to cause a blast wave to move through that terminal to cause that kind of damage. There is one photo that I saw earlier this morning where there's actually a lot of overturned carts, baggage carts. People laying on the ground. And there's a fire going. That's most likely the blast seat. Again, all that is low. Now, here's the thing with the bombings. The suicide bomber himself, he's not going to leave a blast seat --

(CROSSTALK) BALDWIN: Hold on. Let me stop you there, a blast seat. Anthony, what is a blast seat?

MAY: It's a term we use in post blast investigations. We want to identify the blast seat, the origin of the explosion. And typically depending how the device is placed, it will leave different types of signatures. That tells us whether the bomb was carried on a person, whether it was sitting on the floor in a bag. That's the first step in doing the investigation, is identifying that blast seat. From there, we start collecting evidence, reconstructing the device, building investigative leads such as the nails, which are now being discovered in a -- in that residence that you were talking about earlier. But finding that blast seat is the very first step in this. And most likely where the fire was occurring, that's our blast seat. And that's low to the ground. That was probably in a roller bag and a large quantity of explosives used to cause the extensive damage in that airport.

BALDWIN: If we're talking nails, and you mention the blast seat, blast signatures, what are investigators doing as we speak in that departure hall area of the airport? What are they looking for?

MAY: Well, right now, get the injured out of the way. Those who are deceased, unfortunately, will remain because they're going to contain evidence within their bodies that's going to have to be collected. But what they're doing now is they are trying to figure out how extensive their crime scene, which is what this is, extends, cordon that off, and go in and search for components of the device. The components of the device are still going to be there. The configuration's changed, the damaged. But investigators will be able to put that bomb back together in some reasonable sense to develop investigative leads.

[14:50:02] BALDWIN: We're talking to Anthony May, a retired ATF explosives expert, with excellent analysis on the airport now, blast seat, blast signature.

Bob Baer, let me bring you back in. You and I talked Friday when we were reporting on the tremendous capture of the eighth Paris attacker, the sole survivor of those coordinated fatal Paris terror attacks. What sort of tactics, if we're hearing he is cooperating with law enforcement, A, what do you think cooperating means, and, B, how are they getting him to talk?

BAER: Well, at this point, I mean, clearly, he's not a dedicated jihadist. He didn't blow himself up in Paris. He's more likely to talk. He didn't sacrifice his life during the arrest. So he's concerned about himself and he's probably trying to cut a deal. He may have heard rumors about these other networks but, you know, Islamic State is very good on tactics.

They compartment information so the chances of his being informed of these airport and metro attack I think is very remote. He probably didn't have actionable intelligence to tell interrogators. He's trying to cut the best deal he can so he doesn't get life in prison. He's sort of passing on rumors. I really doubt in these four months he was included in any other plans or networks. It would just be an act of folly on the part of the Islamic State and they're better than that.

BALDWIN: I want to follow up with that because I'm also curious. He said he was answering some of the questions as far as four days later, we have these attacks.

Let me hold that thought. Live pictures in Orlando, Florida. Why am I talking about Orlando when we're talk about a story that originated in Brussels? A plane has just landed from Brussels in Orlando this afternoon and we've been told that plane has now been met by law enforcement. They're searching every single one of the passengers' pieces of luggage.

So with that, and with that live picture in the upper left-hand piece of your screen, Mitch, I'm turning to you. Walk me through what they're looking for.

SILVER: Well, one of the things we were most concerned about during my time at NYPD was the idea that European citizens, "clean skins," quote/unquote, who may have traveled to a theater of war, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, would come to the United States and try and conduct some type of activity here and because they weren't known to European law enforcement, because it was a European country, visa waiver, it would be much easier to get to the United States.

The likelihood that anyone's brought anything on to the plane, physical that's explosive or can conduct any terrorist-type activity is low. But I'd be concerned about the people themselves, because all they appear, to the U.S. is as just a Belgium citizen, unlikely to know if they've done overseas travel. The individuals aboard that plane are being scrutinized more so than anyone they're carrying.

BALDWIN: So that's Mitch on what's happening there in Orlando.

Graeme Wood, final question to you on Bob Baer's point, and apparently this eighth Paris attacker is talking. My question would be, might that piece of knowledge for any of these other, you know, so-called jihadis in the Brussels area, would that speed them up, make them want to attack quicker? Because they know law enforcement is hot on their trail?

WOOD: It's possible. It's not so much because they thought intelligence was going to be coming from the captive, Salah Abdeslam, but also they wanted to deprive the Belgium authorities of their day of victory. A lot of jihadists Twitter about today has been gloating and triumphal. But it's also pointing to the fact that, a few days ago, Belgium thought it was on the offensive, though it would be successful. So they like to steal the limelight away. That might have to do with the timing of this attack and possibly other ones that are on the way.

[14:54:25] BALDWIN: Graeme Wood, thank you, Mitch Silber, Karen Greenberg, Bob Baer.

Again, you are watching live coverage here, breaking news of these fatal attacks this morning in Brussels, Belgium, both at the huge international airport and then an hour later at the subway station. We have new information coming out. We have new photos, suspects. Do not miss a beat. We're back in a flash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:59:29] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Breaking news coverage here in the wake of the deadly terror attacks in Belgium's capitol. We have live pictures for you of these raids under way. This is the Belgian police helicopter honed in for the past 30 or so minutes on something or someone. You have this massive police presence saturating this neighborhood, Schaerbeek. Searchers have found nail bombs, chemicals and ISIS flags as part of these raids.

ISIS is claiming responsibility. They're saying, yes, it was ISIS who carried out these suicide attacks both at the main international airport in Brussels this morning around 8:00, local time, and then one hour later at a busy subway station.