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CNN NEWSROOM

How the Australia Hostage Standoff Unfolded; Interview with Expert on Lone Wolf Terrorists; Handling Hostage Situations; Obama Addresses U.S. Troops in New Jersey

Aired December 15, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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


ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news here on CNN. Let me get right to it. Australian police say they have now accounted for all of the people who were held for more than 16 hours by a gunman inside of this Sidney, Australia chocolate shop. In fact, just last hour, we heard from members of law enforcement, the updated reporters on the fate of the gunman and the hostages. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER ANDREW P. SCIPIONE (ph), NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE: We have accounted for at this stage 17 hostages, that includes the five that escaped yesterday and a number that have been caught up with, some with traumatic injuries, some with medical conditions. We have, as you have reported, two deceased amongst the hostages, and six that were uninjured. We also have a lone gunman who has been shot and killed and we have a male police officer who has been injured as a result of a gunshot wound to the face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Today's hostage standoff absolutely shocked Australians and, for a time, put enormously busy section of the city on lock down. Government buildings and the opera house were evacuated and closed.

Here's how it all unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: The siege began about 9:40 a.m. when, from behind a glass door, a lone figure emerged wearing a black bandanna across his forehead and a gun shrunk over his shoulder pacing the store he laid siege to.

MIKE BAIRD, NEW SOUTH WALES PREMIER: We're being tested today in Sydney. But whatever the test, we'll face it head on.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: Two of more than a dozen hostages were forced to raise the black Sunni extremist flag of their terrorist captors.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people out of being themselves. Australia is a peaceful, open, and generous society. Nothing should ever change that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our number-one aim is to resolve this incident peacefully.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've just been told two more people have just run out. We had three escape about an hour and a half ago. We have just heard that two more people have now come out. So that means five.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How many people do you think were inside at the time that this was happening?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to say, but judging by the roster that I have, and like the number of tables I saw that were occupied, probably around 20 or so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gunman or alleged offender opened up a bag to get rid of her. She ran, saying "Gun, gun, gun. Gun in the blue bag."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're dealing with a lunatic. You're dealing with a person making outrage obvious claims. He wants the government to acknowledge this is a terrorist operation. He's doing this on behalf of ISIS or ISIL.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A gentleman called Haron Monis, an Iranian cleric who is currently on bail for various offensives.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: You can hear the loud explosions behind me. I don't know if it's gunfire or a small explosive device. That is certainly gunfire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can see a woman there from these life pictures from Martin Place being carried out by officers.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: I can just see now -- I don't know whether you can see on this live shot a whole bunch of paramedics are running up Martin Place.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: Ambulances are racing through, past us, bringing patients out. We had an ambulance driver to ask the camera people to move out of the way because they had a patient that they needed to bring out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was really, really very saddened. We were waiting, everyone, the authorities, police and ambulance and fire, indeed, were all waiting for this siege to end. They have to end eventually.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: I am joined by Kathy Novak, of "World News Australia," there live for me. 6:30 in the morning your time, Kathy, in Sydney. Let me begin with the hostages. We know 17 are accounted for. Two of whom have been pronounced dead. Multiple others injured. How are they doing?

KATHY NOVAK, WORLD NEWS AUSTRALIA: Well what we do know is those people who have been confirmed dead are a man and a woman in their 30s. We're told by police that four others are injured including a police officer, but we understand those injuries are nonlife threatening, those people have been taken to hospital. Of course, this all unfolded in the middle of the night where I was standing watching on throughout all this. We heard very loud bangs and a very panicked response and ambulances rushing to the scene. Police vehicles rushing back out the other way. And of course, now we know they were taking away these people who had been injured. Police say they were forced to storm the cafe where these people were being held for about 16 hours by this lone gunman. Police say they were forced to storm the cafe because they believe that if they hadn't gone in at that time more lives may have been lost. But that's what we know at the moment.

Of course, there are still a number of questions about exactly what the motivation was of this gunman and more details to emerge. But Australians certainly waking up here today to this breaking news that the siege has ended but, unfortunately, not peacefully and not without the loss of life of two of those hostages.

BALDWIN: It's absolutely horrible what's happened there in Sydney and easy to start wondering -- as you point out, way too early to know the motivation. We know a little bit about this gunman that was charged with sex abuse charges and linked to his ex-wife's murder and then walking the streets of Sydney and the obvious question is why? How?

NOVAK: Absolutely. This man was on bail. He's already been convicted of sending offensive letters to the families of deceased soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan. And since then, had been charged with a string of violent offenses, as you say, sexually related offenses, and also being accused of being the accessory to the murder of his ex-wife. Charged with those offenses and out right now on bail. So certainly not a stranger to police.

Many questions being asked as to how this person was allowed to be roaming the streets. Certainly, how he got his hands on a weapon and it all ended in this. This is unheard of here in Sydney. These are very busy areas of Sydney. Usually, very peaceful.

We're seeing the morning papers starting to come up. I can show you here. You see the "Sydney Morning Herald" with the headline "Terror Hits Home." This basically sums up how Australians are viewing this, that it hit Australia on home soil. Australians are not strangers to terrorist attacks. There were a number of Australians caught up in the Bali bombings. But this is the first time we're seeing it here in Sydney and resulting in deaths of two innocent people.

BALDWIN: Thinking about the community there in Sydney as everybody is waking up this early money.

Kathy Novak, of "World News Australia," thank you so much.

And we'll stay on this continuous coverage. On the other side of the break, we'll talk to an expert on lone wolves. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I want to get you back to our breaking news. The gunman that took those hostages in Sydney, Australia appears to have acted alone.

Jeffrey Simon joins me from Los Angeles. He wrote the book "Lone Wolf Terrorism, Understanding the Growing Threat."

Jeffrey, welcome.

JEFFREY SIMON, AUTHOR: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Let me just start simply, when you think of lone wolves, you think of someone who is inspired by propaganda online or someone who has enough, you know, impetus to go to Syria and to train. Is there a typical profile of a lone wolf?

SIMON: Not really. Lone wolves have crossed the entire political, religious, social spectrum. We had lone wolves as young as teenagers and as old as an 88-year-old white supremacist who attacked the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. a number of years ago. Lone wolves do not have to go the Middle East and come back. They can be radicalized via social media or Internet or latch on to an ideology and become an excuse for their personal problems and take actions, which then justify their entire being.

BALDWIN: Sometimes, you know, with the ramblings on social media one sees it in context of authorities or authorities are well aware of someone. I think of the situation in Ottawa not too long ago when that gunman stormed their version of Capitol Hill, or this man in Sydney, both were on the radar of authorities. At what point, Jeffrey, can officials really intervene?

SIMON: That's the problem because you want to be able to protect civil liberties and privacy rights but monitoring the Internet to try to identify these individuals before they act is a key strategy. But we don't yet really know what those tipping points are, where somebody is just venting or somebody is going to create violent activity. In this case, the individual did have a prior, you know, police record. He was known to authorities. But outside of watching him 24/7, he really was still free to go where he wanted and then attack the chocolate shop.

BALDWIN: When you have, though, these lone wolves -- we'll call them wannabes jihadist -- do you have to have a different strategy in working against them?

SIMON: Absolutely. Because a lot of times they do fly under the radar and you can't try to disrupt a cell because they are not part of a cell. Intelligence sometimes can be lacking. So trying to deal with them you have to come up with new kind of counterterrorism strategies. Military responses, obviously, would not work. And so it really is becoming the challenge as we head forward in terms of trying to deal with this problem. It's not just a problem for the U.S. or Australia. Worldwide we're seeing a growth in this phenomenon. Norway, a few years ago, had one of the worst lone wolves attacks ever.

BALDWIN: On that island, a summer camp, all those young people. I'll never forget it.

So you bring up a point about, we talked to the Ali Sufon (ph), and he knows a lot about this, and he said the biggest challenge is countering that narrative that propaganda coming from real jihadists. How do we do that, Jeffrey?

SIMON: He's exactly right. That's a challenge we have to do. The problem is, the Islamic extremists, especially ISIS, has been very savvy in using social media and using the message. And as we phrase the message, it becomes a problem in terms of what exactly are you going to try to say in terms of showing that what they are going to be doing is against the teachings of the holy book and is not what the majority of peace-loving Muslims around the world would profess to. It's trying to get that message across that basically this is not the way to go about trying to express your views or any of your sentiments.

BALDWIN: Jeffrey Simon -- your book "Lone Wolf Terrorism, Understanding the Growing Threat" -- thank you.

For police and hostage negotiators, the standoff at that chocolate cafe in Sydney was a tough challenge. Australia's biggest city. Blocks away, you that have iconic Sydney opera house, the city's biggest landmark, and close to the New South Wales parliament, close to the U.S. consulate. That cafe is right in the middle of everything.

And we hardly saw the gunman at all. All we saw of him was this picture here. One image of him, this freeze-frame, inside this cafe.

Chris Voss, I bring you in, former negotiator for the FBI and CEO of the Black Swan Group.

Chris, when you see this lone gunman here appearing at the window, you know, one of our thoughts this morning was, if you have law enforcement presumably snipers, why not, when you have a shot, take him out?

CHRIS VOSS, CEO, BLACK SWAN GROUP & FORMER FBI NEGOTIATOR: Thanks for having me on. And that's a great question. One of the real problems with that is they don't know for sure what that glass is made out of and when you unleash deadly force even on a sniper shot like this, they will shoot through glass you have to make sure the bullet will get through the glass on a straight trajectory. That's one of the problems. What will happen to the bullet when it hits the glass? If the threat to harm of hostages is not high, it makes more sense to wait a little while to try to get a better shot, to have more deliberate assault if that becomes necessary. BALDWIN: Makes sense. Then you have in any sort of typical hostage

situation but, oftentimes, there's demands.

Let's play a clip. This is a radio deejay who passed along a demand from this gunman.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

CHRIS HADLEY, RADIO HOST WHO SPOKE WITH HOSTAGE: You'll have to bear with me. I'm apparently talking off air to the same young person I was talking to in the last hour. We just have to take a break. I cannot put this person away. It would be irresponsible. But I got to hear what he has to say. I'll take a break. I'll tell you in a moment. I'm coming back. I'm talking to a person off air inside the Lindt Cafe.

(END AUDIO FEED)

BALDWIN: So here you have this radio deejay. Can you talk about how difficult that kind of communication must make it for the job of people like you for these negotiators?

VOSS: Absolutely. That's actually one of the signs of a much higher threat level. If you got a hostage taker on the inside and he's trying to communicate only through intermediaries they were having trouble establishing direct communication. If he won't talk to you directly he's making a point not to let you talk him out. That's a higher sign of imminent harm to hostages and something the hostage negotiators have to be concerned about.

BALDWIN: Then the demand themselves. It wasn't like he was asking for a plane or a boat to take him to some island. He was asking for two things. He was asking for the black ISIS flag and he wanted to have a conversation with the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. How do you, as a negotiator, whether you're talking to a radio deejay or get direct contact with him, how do you determine what to give him and how high up the chain of command that got today?

VOSS: Well that's very important. I understand both of those things in context the thing he wasn't trying to get away there. No demands for a boat or a car. He doesn't see living past this. If he wants to talk to the prime minister, that's the ultimate place he wants to go to if he's orchestrating a killing journey. That may be the last thing he wanted to do before he killed the hostages inside. So you begin to assess that kind of a possibility and don't let him do that. How high up the ladder do they pass that? It probably went all the way up to the prime minister.

BALDWIN: Chris Voss, thank you.

VOSS: Thanks for having me on.

BALDWIN: We know, President Barack Obama was briefed about the hostage siege in Sydney today. And, in a matter of moments, we'll see the president expected to address as many as 25,000 U.S. troops. We'll bring it to you live from New Jersey. Stay here. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: As promised, here he is, president of the United States expressing his gratitude to members of all branches of the armed forces in New Jersey.

Before we listen to him, Jim Sciutto, what should we expect to hear from the president?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This president is speaking to servicemembers during war time. We have an expanding campaign against ISIS in Iraq and over Syria. You have a continuing presence in Afghanistan for at least two years, the larger one that is expected, 1,000 more troops take there through 2015. You have the holidays coming up. This is an important role for the president. The soldiers care about it. We were with Secretary Hagel when he visited Afghanistan and Iraq for similar reasons, to say, listen, the country is behind you.

What we don't expect to hear from him though, Brooke, is a comment on this attack in Sydney, this hostage taking that ended sadly with bloodshed. We know he was briefed on this and certainly following this lone-wolf risk here at home on U.S. soil, his intelligence agencies, counter-terror officials, et cetera, following it very closely.

BALDWIN: I see Chris Christie in the audience and Cory Booker.

Mr. Sciutto, thank you so much.

Let's listen to the president.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So they are doing a good job.

It is great to be back. You know, I was here last year and visited with some of you on my way to the Jersey shore. Christie and I went down to Ashbury Park, spent some time on the boardwalk. Played a little Frog Mog. Chris's kids taught me how to hit the hammer to get the little frogs in the buckets. It was hard. And then Christie beat me at football toss, which really aggravated me. And he bragged about it afterwards, which is OK. I'll get a rematch at some point.

We weren't there just to have fun. We came because after Hurricane Sandy people across the state, including those of you at this base, had to pick yourselves up, pull together, rebuild, show that here in New Jersey, here in America we're stronger than any storm. Like a friend of mine from New Jersey likes to say, wherever this flag is flown we take care of our own. That's what we do here in New Jersey and what we do all across America.

And this facility exemplifies that spirit. For nearly a century, our flag has flown right here. Millions of Americans passed through the old Fort Dix. This is where they shipped out. This is where they were welcomed home. One of them was Don Drysdale, Hall-of-Fame Dodgers pitcher. He had the same thought as a lot of new recruits in basic training: What the hell am I doing here?

Another recruit remembered, "I cleaned a lot of latrines with toothbrushes. Among those demobilized here was a soldier from Tennessee, a guy named Sergeant Elvis Presley. He was all shook up. His homecoming was a little differently. Apparently, the king drove off in a limo. If it were up to me, I would give all you all limos when you come home. Because part of the message I'm here to deliver on behalf of the American people is very simple. It's just to say thank you. Thank you for your extraordinary service. I thank you as your president because you inspire me. And of all the privileges I have in serving in this office, nothing comes close to the honor of serving as your commander-in-chief. And I also thank you on behalf of more than 300 million Americans.

We Americans may disagree and debate and argue sometimes. That is part of our democracy. It is messy sometimes. Sometimes it results is in gridlock in Washington, but whether Democratic, Republican, liberal, conservative, Independent, white, black, brown, poor, rich, no matter how we pray, when it comes to the troops, when it comes to you as Americans, we support you and can never thank you enough.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: That's especially true now during the holidays. We can gather with family and friends because you're willing to hug yours good-bye and step forward to serve. After a long day, we can come home because you're willing to leave your home and deploy. We get to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, go to soccer games and go to dance recitals because you're willing to miss those of your family. We're free and safe and secure over here because you're willing to serve over there. That's the noblest spirit of your sacrifice. That's the selfless character of our military. Those are the precious gifts you give America, not just this time of the year, but all year, every year. You never stop serving. You never stop giving. You're like Santa in fatigues. Although, albeit one of those C-130s is a little more efficient than Santa's sleigh.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I figured I would get something out of our guys on that.

I also want to be here, though because after more than a decade of war, our nation is marking an important milestone. Ever since our country was attacked that awful September morning, 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Many people here have deployed there or to Iraq. And you deployed multiple times in some cases. There are people here who lost really good friends, patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice, including 54 fallen heroes from this base who we will honor forever. For more than a year, Afghan forces have been in the lead to secure their country and that means more of our troops have been coming home, including right here to this joint base. So let me just say to all of you who have returned from Afghanistan in recent weeks, on behalf of a grateful nation, I want to say welcome home. You're home for the holidays. We're glad to have you back.

BALDWIN: Welcome home, and thank you for your extraordinary service. This is what we hear from the president of the United States there speaking at joint base, in New Jersey, speaking to all branches of the armed forces and, again, I second that. Thank you.

If you want to keep watching go to CNN.com.

Meantime, want to get you back to our breaking story, this violent to end an hours-long hostage standoff in Sydney, Australia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNSHOTS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Rapid gunfire inside of this chocolate business, this cafe as Australian officers storm it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)