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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

"Charlie Hebdo" Puts Mohammed on New Cover; Frenchman Arrested in Bulgaria Tied to Shooter; Paris Attackers With Ties to Top Al Qaeda Recruiter; CENTCOM Social Media Hacked

Aired January 13, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: An arrest in Bulgaria with definitive ties to the Paris terrorists, we have details.

Funerals today, meanwhile, in Israel for the four dead Jewish men killed in Paris while the White House universally criticized for not showing its presence in Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We should have sent someone with a higher profile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: We'll hear from someone who was there, U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley.

And the U.S. military's Central Command social media hacked by ISIS sympathizers, the fallout and the vulnerability it exposed, ahead @THISHOUR.

Good morning to you. I'm Michaela Pereira.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN COANCHOR: And I'm John Berman, live in Paris. We do have some major developments in the Paris terror attacks. A new arrest and a new threat, this is what we know @THISHOUR.

A Frenchman is being held in Bulgaria. Authorities say Fritz-Joly Joachin was arrested while trying to cross into Turkey on the first of the year. The French news agency AFP says that Joachin had been in contact with one of the two brothers who carried out the attacks at "Charlie Hebdo" behind me here in Paris.

A security source tells me that this man was arrested with his son, trying to get to Syria, and this security source tells me also that contacts they are investigating, they are not sure whether or not they were involved with planning an attack, but it does seem as if this man at least knew one of the Kouachi brothers.

This comes as an al-Qaeda affiliate warns that the worst may not be over yet for this nation. The terror group's North African branch, al- Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, posted a threat on jihadist websites as officials here intensify the search for possible additional members of this terror cell, the seeming terror cell behind last week's attack.

Other news going on this morning. I just got back from a pretty emotional news conference where the current serving staff members of "Charlie Hebdo" are working. The "Charlie Hebdo" offices were behind me. That's where so many people were killed one week ago.

They are working at another location, and they are releasing their first issue since the terrorists struck. They will hit the newsstands tomorrow, and the new issue has a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a tear in his eye on the cover.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERARD BRIARD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "CHARLIE HEBDO" (via translator): He's so much nicer than the Mohammed that is wrongly shown by the people who fired the shots. Our Mohammed is a much nicer guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I want to bring in my colleagues here investigating every angle of this story. Isa Soares is with us here, and CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is here as well.

I want to start with the investigation, Isa. We have heard all morning there was this Frenchman arrested in Bulgaria right about the first of the year.

Now, it's unclear what kind of contacts he may or may not have had with the Kouachi brothers, but at a minimum now, you had someone that knew the Kouachis, arrested trying to get to Syria, and someone who knew Amedy Coulibaly, his girlfriend, seen crossing into Syria. A lot going on here.

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually the web of terror has seen the links now coming to light. Day by day we're getting these new links.

Like you said, this Frenchman of Haitian descent -- he's 29 years of age. He was picked up in (inaudible) Bulgaria. He actually arrived -- he was imprisoned on the -- arrested, rather, on the first of the month, but he'd actually been there for a while.

And it's incredible because there was already an arrest warrant for him but not for terror-related charges but the fact that allegations that he took his child from the wife. That's separate.

Nevertheless, this apparently what we're hearing right now is the fact that he's wanted for terror links for the brothers. So this is what we're getting. That's one side of the investigation.

The other side obviously that we're hearing is the question of the lady that disappeared, Boumeddiene. That's something that's crucial. She is crucial to this investigation because she's the link between Coulibaly and she's the link between the brothers.

And now we know that she boarded a flight from Madrid to Istanbul. We know from the authorities there that when she arrived they kept an eye on her. There was surveillance. They didn't know it was terror- related. They were just keeping an eye on her.

She was going to restaurants. She was visiting tourists sites, but then they noticed that she actually wasn't doing anything offensive. She was fine. They left her. And then all we know, we've heard from Turkish sources that she's actually gone into Syria.

So all this is actually beginning to paint a picture of the layers of this investigation, and as you said, John, this coming on the day even before France can bury its dead, we're hearing new threats from al- Qaeda in Mahgreb.

Let me just give you a sense of what they said and really what France is facing in terms of its threats. This is what it said. "France pays the cost of its violence on Muslim countries and the violation of this sanctity," they said.

"As long as its soldiers occupy countries such as Mali and Central Africa and bombard our people in Syria and Iraq, as long as its (inaudible) media continues to undermine our prophet, France will expose itself to the worst and more."

And as you know, AQIM, it has its roots in Africa, as you know, from the 1990s, and now we heard today from Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who was speaking about an hour or so ago, where he said, trying to justify the troops, the number of troops they have on the ground, about 6,000 troops.

But we also heard they are intensifying surveillance here in the country and hiring more people, more technicians, really, who can talk about -- who can investigate the cybersecurity and cyber awareness, because that is a crucial part of this whole investigation.

BERMAN: We're really seeing two types of fears here, one, perhaps, that this other group, other groups besides the ones they are looking at may try to capitalize on the security environment here, and the other thing that's important to know, as you say, security officials have told me that one of the reasons they beefed up security here with 10,000 troops and 8,000 additional police is because they do believe there probably are still accomplices here, and they can't rule out the possibility that they could be planning something else.

SOARES: Absolutely, and like Prime Minister Manuel Valls said yesterday in an interview for CNN, he said he believes there are more accomplices. Those were his words. And he said, whether they are not necessarily a trigger person but someone who actually helped fund, helped organize and behind these three individuals, he said there must be someone else, and that's exactly at the level of the investigation that they are at.

BERMAN: Hence the highest level of security here.

Isa Soares, thank you so much for being with us.

So the massacre happened behind me now last Wednesday, the massacre at "Charlie Hebdo," and if anyone thought that just because so many people who worked on that magazine were killed, just because they were all killed that the magazine wouldn't come up again, they were wrong.

The surviving editorial staff forged ahead with what could be their most important issue ever, certainly the most poignant. They printed this overnight, putting out 3 million copies, 3 million copies opposed to the 60,000 that they normally publish. And so many people just waiting to get their hands on them.

Now just a short time ago I attended a news conference at the office where they have been working, and when they walked into the room, the staff, there was a round of applause, and the man who drew the cover talked about it just a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RENALD "LUZ" LUZIER, "CHARLIE HEBDO" CARTOONIST (via translator): It wasn't the cover page 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've drawn him again, but the Mohammed we have drawn is, above all, a man that cries.

Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And the cover, we should say, shows the prophet Mohammed wearing a T-shirt that says, "Je suis Charlie," and Mohammed is crying in this photo and it also says, "Tout est pardonne," "all is forgiven."

Joined now by CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter. The cover was awfully poignant. This news conference that I went to, Brian, was packed. I mean, journalists from all over the world crowded into a small room.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Usually rivals but celebrating this magazine.

BERMAN: And we had to go through a lot of security to get into that room. It was fascinating. And there was applause from reporters all over the world for these people who managed to get this issue out.

STELTER: They finished it last night, sent it off to the printing press. Now it's delivered all across France, but also in other countries. We'll see it come out elsewhere and we will see it translated into English and into Arabic. I think into other languages as well in the future.

We spoke right after this press conference to the editor of "Liberation." That's the newspaper that helped this magazine get back on its feet.

BERMAN: Gave them office space.

STELTER: Gave them office space. And the editor said this is not just for one week. That's what I thought was most honorable. This is not just for one week. He said we'll do this indefinitely, even a century if they need.

He said he's not scared of retaliation or any threats from copycats or other types like that because they did help publish this depiction of Mohammed, and furthermore, he went on and said he thinks there will be actually more than 3 million copies eventually printed of this magazine when all is said and done.

BERMAN: In so many languages. They're putting this out tomorrow, and then I guess they are taking two weeks, a longer break than usual, to sort of get everything in order.

STELTER: They are still grieving. We should keep that in mind through all of this. They went back to work on Friday. Some of them were in the building when this attack happened. Some of them barely survived. Some of them are still in the hospital. And wet they managed to get this published.

BERMAN: We should make clear because I think we do have to make clear that we -- obviously we've been talking about a cover and we're not showing it to you. CNN is not showing the cartoon.

STELTER: CNN and many news organizations choosing not to. This is part of a longstanding practice. Images of Mohammed depictions, cartoons of the prophet Mohammed are highly offensive to some Muslims. They are a taboo within Islam.

And so we have seen some websites and some French media go ahead and share this cover, share it rather widely. It's available online.

But there are news organizations like CNN that feel not only would it be offensive to the audience, but it could be a safety risk for staff, for crews that are in the field.

BERMAN: They were holding up a printed copy there at the news conference, but they did not hand them out at the time, again expected to be on the presses here or on the newsstands overnight.

STELTER: Some folks are waking up extra early to go to the newsstand tomorrow morning.

BERMAN: Brian Stelter, always great to have you with us. Thanks so much.

Coming up for us next, tracking the killers here, French authorities, they knew alarming details about two of the terrorists in the attacks here as recently as one year ago. So why did they let them out of their sights? Details ahead.

PEREIRA: Also ahead @THISHOUR, U.S. Central Command, social-media accounts hacked by ISIS supporters, the damage that was done and the fallout, ahead.

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BERMAN: Happening right now, a Frenchman whom officials say was in contact with one of the two brothers in the Paris attacks has been arrested. This 29-year-old was trying to cross into Turkey, at the time, from Bulgaria.

AFP, of course, says that he had contact with one of the Kouachi brothers. A senior security source tells me here that this man's ultimate goal was to get to Syria.

While that's going on, we're learning just how deep the terrorist ties were for the men behind the Paris attacks. Documents show that Amedy Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were close associate with a shared terrorism mentor, a man who was once considered to be al Qaeda's top European recruiter. So let's talk about both of these angles right now.

Joining me is our national security analyst Peter Bergen and law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, former FBI assistant director.

And Tom, I want to start with you with this latest information, this arrest in Bulgaria of this man that may have known one of the Kouachi brothers. A security source tells me his goal was to get to Syria, so if that's true, you have this man who knew a Kouachi trying to get to Syria, you have the girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, the kosher market killer, who we think already is in Syria, and all of this happened in the week or so before the attacks here. Too much to be a coincidence, Tom?

TOM FUENTES, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think it's a coincidence, but it's going to depend on how substantial the evidence is in France to convince Bulgaria to either return him to France or hold him longer, and we know that there's a separate criminal charge also outstanding for him. We're going to have to see what the French provide to Bulgaria to justify having him returned to France.

BERMAN: At a minimum, what this does show, though, is that the authorities here are going down the phone records, tracing all of the contacts that the Kouachi's had in the weeks and months prior to this attack and perhaps, it was that level of contact that made them close in on this man who is now in custody in Bulgaria.

Peter, I want to ask you about this other threat. This shared mentor, this man whose name is Djamel Beghal, who was once considered to be one of the lead al Qaeda recruiters in Europe. What do you know of this man and what does it tell you that the suspects in both of these attacks, at least one Kouachi brother and also Amedy Coulibaly, seemed to know this one man?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well Beghal, you know, has been in and out of French prison, initially for his role in a plot to -- an unsuccessful plot to blow up the French Embassy - the American Embassy in Paris around the time of the 9/11 attacks. Also in that conspiracy were members of al Qaeda who met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, who traveled to Afghanistan for training. So this guy connects these plotters in Paris to people who are within the al Qaeda central core.

That doesn't mean that al Qaeda directed these attacks in Paris, John, I mean, I think the evidence for al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula being the directing force is overwhelming, but of course, al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula is basically a wholly-owned affiliate of al Qaeda central.

So the other point I think is that these guys are all part of this Jihadist milieu in France. They are in and out of prison. They got to know each other. They were part of a network that was sending foreign fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq and they've been all connected for a very long time. It goes back about a decade now, at least in the case of one of the Kouachi brothers.

BERMAN: And, Peter, what are we learning about the lingering significance of Anwar al Awlaki, even three years now after his death? Because he seems to be the shadow hanging over the attacks here. He, of course, was the American-born terrorist killed by U.S. drones in Yemen in 2011.

BERGEN: Yeah, I mean, John, even in death, this guy - his idea -- Killing the man turned out easier than killing his ideas. New America Foundation, where I work, we calculate that there were two dozen cases since he died in the United States of people accused of Jihadist crimes where his propaganda or his writings featured in the case. And in fact, the Boston Marathon bombings, the two people alleged to be behind that, were listening to his lectures. A woman who stabbed -- tried to kill a member of parliament in Britain and seriously wounded him, she listened to 100 hours of his lectures. So this guy, unfortunately, because of his status is one of the most articulate English-speaking clerics, and because of his status as a so-called religious figure, keeps cropping up. And I take at face value the fact that one of the Kouachi brothers said that his trip back and forth to Yemen was financed by al Awlaki. There's no reason to disbelieve that.

BERMAN: What you see here, sadly, is the power of an idea, even an evil idea. Peter Bergen, Tom Fuentes, thanks so much for being with us --

FUENTES: John, could I go back to a little bit of history of that? Never mind. Sorry.

BERMAN: I think, sadly, they are about to run the music to get us to break, Tom. But I promise we will get to this as soon as we can. Tom Fuentes, Peter Bergen, thanks you.

And Michaela, with that, we will go back to you in New York.

PEREIRA: All right, and we will head back to Paris with you, John, later in this show.

But ahead @THISHOUR, "American soldiers, we're coming. Watch your back." That message, not coming off of a terror website, but directly from the United States Central Command. CENTCOM social media hacked. We'll discuss the vulnerability this hack exposed next.

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PEREIRA: @THISHOUR the FBI is looking into a cyber invasion of the U.S. military's social media account. Hackers claiming to be ISIS supporters posted messages threatening U.S. military personnel. They also posted ISIS propaganda videos on Twitter and YouTube sites of CENTCOM. U.S. officials say no classified information was leaked, nor were military networks ever compromised.

We want to return to retired Lieutenant Colonel James Reese, he's our global affairs analyst. We have with us today, Mark Rasch. He's a cyber and privacy expert who used to prosecute cyber crimes for the Justice Department. Gentleman, thanks so much for joining me.

Mark, I'll start with you, because I think we have to be straight about this. This was not CENTCOM servers. This was not a data breach. This was the social media sites, Twitter and YouTube. How big of a concern is this or is it an embarrassment merely for CENTCOM?

MARK RASCH, CYBER & PRIVACY EXPERT: It's an embarrassment for CENTCOM, but it's also a shot across the bow for people who use social media. Because what it did, they accumulated public information, broke into a social media account and posted it. For most places, that's not a big deal. But here, they were doing so for political reasons and look, they got the White House Press Secretary to actually address this issue. So they were able to raise awareness and they were able to get publicity for their cause.

PEREIRA: Colonel, how can investigators really find out and follow the mouse trail, if you will, or the cyber footprint to discover if this is indeed really ISIS or ISIS supporters, because the fact that it sounds like the language of a 13-year-old girl, "I love you, ISIS," that's not the language ISIS typically uses.

LT. COL. JAMES REESE (RET.), CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Michaela, you're right. There are a couple things we've already found out this morning, we've done a little basic research that many people can do. You're right. ISIS never calls themselves ISIS, we all know that. We've been tracking that for months. The second thing is, you know, most hackers, when they hack, you know, their background's off tour, they have security between them, so no one can come back and backtrack their IP address. And right now, the way we've looked at it, the IP address is from a nonsecure computer, which doesn't make any sense from the sophistication that ISIS has shown in the past. So I agree with you, it's probably someone sitting -- someone in the U.S. playing games.

PEREIRA: Okay, so then the question, Colonel, a follow-up there is why? Why play these games? Is it capitalizing on the fear the public has right now of this terrorist foe we have?

REESE: Absolutely. The bounce, you know, in the media with what's going on in Paris with all the Islamic extremism, there's a lot people who just sit around and they're bored. They have nothing else to do, they get online, they find a hack, and it just becomes a game. Which is unfortunate, because it spikes everyone's curiosity. It spikes their concern. And I believe the FBI will be able to backtrack this and probably in a day or so we'll find out who did this.

PEREIRA: Mark, I want to go back to your comment about this being a shot across the bow. I mean, these kinds of things are always a wake- up call. These things are always lessons for us to learn. So what's the takeaway here?

RASCH: Well you know, with every one of these wake-up calls we keep hitting the snooze button and being woken up again. Each one of them is another wake-up call. We need to have a comprehensive strategy for information and security, not just at the government level, not even at a corporate level, but at an individual and an organizational level. People need to pay better attention to this and do a better job of it overall. It's good hygiene, more than anything else.

PEREIRA: We must practice good cyber hygiene, Mark Rasch told me so. I say it lightly, but there's a great amount of veracity to that statement. Gentleman, always a pleasure to have you. Lieutenant Colonel James Reese and Mark Rasch, we'll talk to you guys again. Okay?

RASCH: Thank you, Michaela.

REESE: Thanks, Michaela.

PEREIRA: 27 minutes past the hour. Let's head back to Paris and to John Berman.

BERMAN: Thanks, Michaela. I just washed my iPhone to keep up with the cyber hygiene.

Coming up for us next here from Paris, the Department of Homeland Security in the United States steps into action after the attacks here in France, enhancing its presence at federal buildings. While they're doing that, the TSA says, you should get ready for more random screenings when you fly. We're going to tell you about these ramped up precautions and what you will face exactly. That's next.

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