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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Manhunt for Terror Suspect; Bomb on Russian Plane. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired November 17, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


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[12:00:18] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, live this evening for you in Paris.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Ashleigh Banfield, live in New York. Welcome to a special edition of LEGAL VIEW.

The war with ISIS no longer contained within Iraq and Syria. From the downing of a Russian passenger jet in the Sinai, Egypt, to the deadly bombings in Beirut, to a suicide blast at a funeral in Baghdad, to the coordinated attacks throughout Paris. ISIS says it's responsible for it all. Four hundred and thirteen deaths if you add them all up, the wounded toll reaching 623, just over the course of two and a half weeks.

Let's begin with Pairs. The worldwide manhunt is on for this man, Salah Abdeslam, the eighth suspected attacker. A Belgium born French national considered very, very dangerous. This morning in the city's 18th district, heavily armed police came to check in on a suspicious car parked along the street. A black Renault Clio with Belgian plates. French media outlets say that Abdeslam was the person who rented that vehicle. He also rented an apartment just days before the attacks. Here it is. Here's video. It's from a French magazine Le Point. And as you can see, police found syringes inside this apartment. Syringes that may just have been used in the making of those explosive attackers' suicide vests.

Across France overnight, a total of 128 new raids. The entire country in a state of emergency that could last three months. In Germany, local media reporting that five people have been arrested in connection with the Paris attacks. This as we're learning that France and its coalition allies tried to target the alleged mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud in air strikes in Syria and that was one month ago. But a source close to the investigation says they could not definitively locate him.

I want to take you now live to my colleague, Poppy Harlow, who's standing by in Paris.

Poppy.

HARLOW: Ashleigh, thank you very much.

Authorities today in Belgium had at least three key suspects on their radar in the attack that played out here in Paris on Friday night. They knew that one of them traveled to Syria. What they did not know is that he came back. We're talking about Bilal Hafdi. He was believed to be so young, just 19 or 20 years old, a Belgian resident. He put on a suicide vest outside of the Stade de France. He blew himself up, along with two other suicide bombers. His vest, along with the others, perhaps constructed in this apartment. The video showing you - we are showing you is from the French magazine Le Point. As you mentioned, Ashleigh, we saw there's syringes inside.

Days before the attack suspected - the suspected eighth attacker, Salah Abdeslam, rented out an apartment outside of Paris where those men apparently stayed and plotted this and built those bombs. Inside, scattered pizza boxes, along with syringes, tubes and material being tested right now to see if there are any traces of that critical explosive compound, the very volatile one, TATP.

I'm joined now by CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, and CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruikshank.

Nic, let me begin with you, just about the significance of the car that Ashleigh showed us. The fact that this man is wanted around the world, this 26-year-old believed to be the mastermind of all of this. The car that he rented, found in Belgium, has plates from there, he is nowhere to be found. Is it likely he could have gotten away without more accomplices helping him, because at one time we were told this ring was 24-large, not eight-large?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's possible. It's possible that he's gone underground with accomplices at the moment. The significance perhaps of the vehicle and what we can - what we can discern from the way that the French security authorities have approached the vehicle and subsequently having removed it and what they're doing. So it's got Belgium plates on it. He was last seen heading towards Belgium. Did he get there and somehow manage to rent another car? That would seem so unlikely -

HARLOW: Right.

ROBERTSON: Because he was already - there was already an arrest warrant out for him. So was this a car that he had before? Was this a car that he preplanned, prepositioned as an alternate getaway vehicle? Do the French police think that he's come back now to Paris to perhaps get in that vehicle to drive off somewhere? Again, this is - this is - we don't know. This is supposition. But the fact that the armed French police went door to door in that neighborhood in the north of Paris after discovering the vehicle, they were armed and went door-to-door, gives you an indication that they think there is more to be learned in that neighborhood.

[12:05:17] HARLOW: Absolutely.

ROBERTSON: Somebody else there that can help him. And that's what he needs right now because he's going to have a hard -

HARLOW: Help, shelter, hiding.

ROBERTSON: He's going to have a hard time doing it by himself.

HARLOW: He is. That's just about that area, the 18th is about 45 minutes north of where we are.

Paul Cruikshank, to you. You've learned something incredibly significant. When you talk about the local genesis of all of this, a Frenchman, formerly with al qaeda, now with ISIS, his name, Fabien Clain. What do you know about his significance in all of this?

PAUL CRUIKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I was just told by a French source, security source, briefed by investigations that in that video of claim of responsibility that ISIS put out, you can hear the voice of Fabien Clain, who's a senior French ISIS operative with significant form (ph) in terrorist operations over the last decade. Somebody who was arrested in France, part of an al Qaeda in Iraq recruitment network, the predecessor organization of ISIS. He was then released and then traveled to Syria and moved up the ISIS hierarchy.

HARLOW: When did he leave (ph)? What -

CRUIKSHANK: Well, he only had a four or five-year sentence for that and so he was released. He went back to Syria, climbed up the ISIS hierarchy. They believe to be working in Raqqa with a group of other French and Belgian operatives, including possibly Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the other masterminds -

HARLOW: Nic was just speaking about who - you know, and when you look at this, Nic, you know, four or five year prison sentence. There are only certain things that they can hold them for, for so long. But wouldn't -

ROBERTSON: And he gets out and goes straight to the border and leaves for Syria.

HARLOW: Sure, but wouldn't someone like Fabien Clain be someone that, OK, even when he's released they are - they are keeping an eye on him intently?

ROBERTSON: We were talking to a senior politic official earlier today. He said it takes 15 to 20 people to watch one person 24 hours a day. They simply don't have the resources. Eleven thousand people who are sort of on a watch list, if you will. About 5,000 they believe to be perhaps with connections to terrorism, or at least to hard core radicals. So it's beyond the resources and capability to do it.

But I think also this is very instructive, Paul, and what you think about this, but it's very instructive that this Fabien was able to climb the ISIS ladder so quickly.

HARLOW: Right.

ROBERTSON: These guys we're talking about, who the - who are the ringleaders. Abdul Hakim (ph), yesterday, we were talking about him. Abaaoud, 26 years old. These are young men now who climbing the ladder fast and they're trying to act with vengeance.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Very quickly.

CRUIKSHANK: Two important things to add on - on Fabien Clain. European counterterrorism officials say they suspect that he had a planning role in that attempted attack on the train where those three American heroes thwarted that attack. Also a plot by ISIS to launch an attack against churches in Paris. And he's also believe to be playing a significant role in (INAUDIBLE) Islam magazine, the French ISIS magazine. What have they been calling for, what have they been saying, we're coming after you, France. European counterterrorism officials had strategic warning that an attack was coming.

HARLOW: And keep in mind, just like the mastermind of this attack, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Fabien Clain, no one knows where he is.

Thank you both, gentlemen. I appreciate it very much.

Ashleigh, back to you in New York.

BANFIELD: Poppy Harlow, thank you for that. Nic Robertson and Paul Cruikshank, thank you as well.

We want to turn now to Russia because suddenly Russia is really stepping up its assault on ISIS. This after the revelation came that it was one kilo of TNT. That's 2.2-pounds of explosives that took down that Russian airliner over the Sinai in Egypt. It was, in fact, a bomb. It's official. And the Russian government, because of that, is now offering a $50 million reward for information about those who were behind it, the people who brought that plane down killing all 224 people on board on October 31st. And if you think that you have heard Russian President Vladimir Putin talking tough before, just listen to the ice in his voice as he vows to hunt down the terrorists responsible.

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PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (through translator): The murder of our people in Sinai is one of the bloodiest in terms of the number of victims of such crimes. We won't easily wipe away the tears in our hearts and souls. It will stay with us forever. But that will not prevent us from finding and punishing the perpetrators. We should not apply any time limits. We need to know all the perpetrators by name. We will search for them everywhere, wherever they are hiding. We will find them in any spot on the planet, and we will punish them.

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BANFIELD: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[12:10:01] And our senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is live for us. He's in Moscow right now.

Matthew, it wasn't but minutes until we heard that the air strikes that Russia is sending into Syria, that the bombings that Russia is sending into Syria are being stepped up, and they're in Raqqa, which is not normally where Russia has been bombing before. MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they've

been doubling their air strikes according to the Russian defense ministry, carrying out 127 combat missions in the past 24 hours, which is, in fact, twice as many as we see on a regular day in Russia's intervention in Syria. So really intensifying it.

They're also bringing into play different e weapon systems. Today, for the first time, they deployed strategic long-range heavy bombers into the Syrian campaign, firing at least 34 cruise missiles at various targets across Syria. That's all coming to us from the Russian defense ministry.

More than that, it seems that this attack in Paris, the confirmation that this was a bomb that took the down the Metrojet airliner as well, is forcing countries like France, like Russia to reconsider their international relations as well because both France and Russia now say they will work together more closely to combat ISIS inside Syria. The French president, Francois Hollande, has decided to come to Moscow on the 26th of this month to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss closer cooperation. And Vladimir Putin just today has instructed his navy, the Russian navy, to work as allies, in his words, with the French naval unit that is currently in the Mediterranean to coordinate their attacks inside Syria.

And so, you know, this is a massive departure when you consider that France is a member of NATO, that France is one of the European Union countries that has sanctions against Russia. It is now increasingly working with Moscow over this shared desire to eliminate ISIS.

BANFIELD: And now David Cameron in England has put Syria back on the table in front of parliament. So we'll watch to see the developments there. A lot of sleeping giants waking up big time.

Matthew Chance, thank you for that in Moscow live for us.

If the attacks in Paris, the downing of the plane in Egypt weren't enough, ISIS is now also claiming responsibility for the Thursday bombings in Lebanon that left more than 40 people dead in south Beirut and at least 239 other people were injured in those attacks. Nine people have now been arrested. Seven of them are Syrian. Two of them are Lebanese. CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of ISIS' claim of responsibility.

Up next, the Boston Marathon bombers were brother, two brothers attacked "Charlie Hebdo," the magazine in France. That was back in January. And now brothers are also among those being blamed in the Paris attack. And they are not the only three sets. What turns families into terrorist factories? And can they be stopped and can they lead to clues to move forward against them?

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[12:17:28] BANFIELD: The term brothers is often used by terrorists as a figure of speech, but as we've seen in these latest attacks, those speaking of being brothers are being literal. They are indeed blood relatives. One brother who was questioned but not charged in the Paris attacks spoke with us about his brothers who were involved.

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MAHAMED ABDESLAM, BROTHER OF TWO SUSPECTS IN PARIS ATTACK (through translator): I think that people do not quite understand what we have been through. But my brother, who has participated in this terrorist attack was probably psychologically ready to commit such an act. These are not regular people. You cannot have the slightest doubt that they have been prepared. That they must not leave any trace which would cause suspicion that they might do such things. And even if you saw them every day, their behavior was quite normal.

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BANFIELD: Quite normal and yet that man, Mohamed Abdeslam, said that his brothers started going to the mosque more and actually quit drinking, too. Those are the brothers. We're still looking for Salah Abdeslam, Ibrahim is dead.

So, there's so much to go on - I want to bring in our experts on this. And there are some other examples of brothers in jihad. The man described as the mastermind of the Paris attack, the Belgian citizen, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, recruited his own 13-year-old brother to be a jihadist. So far he's also escaped capture. And the previous Paris attack at the French magazine, "Charlie Hebdo," was carried out by Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said. And on U.S. soil, of course, we all know the 2013 Boston Marathon attack was carried out by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The older brother killed in the shootout with police. The younger cooling his heels at the supermax, appealing his death sentence.

Joining me now, CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona and retired Major General James Spider Marks, and CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd.

Phil, first to you. I don't even know what to make of Mohamed's interview with Erin Burnett because while he says that his brothers were changing and were going to the mosque more and not drinking, one of those brothers, Ibrahim, actually owned a bar that was so drug ridden it had to be closed down right before these attacks. So is that brother outright lying? Does that brother just not know anything about his brothers? And will that brother be tailed for the rest of his life?

[12:20:18] PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: The brother's not lying. This is consistent with what you've seen over time in these cases. A couple of characteristics that - Ashleigh, that sound common to me, from what I've viewed at so many cases at the agency and then at the FBI. One is compartmentation. That the cases that I've witnessed here in the United States, you could have somebody - the first major case I remembered was a university student who was studying engineering at a major U.S. university. That individual was simultaneously in communication with an al Qaeda intermediary in the U.K. This compartmentation is pretty common in the cases I've seen because, obviously, these young people typically know that as soon as they say something, this path they're going down will stop. The same holds true for kids, for example, in Minneapolis who didn't tell their parents.

The second thing he's talking about is, when these folks go down this path, we think of terrorism as violence, as a political statement. One quick comment, Ashleigh, and that is, it's emotional and it's social. That is young people come together and they persuade each other that what's happening is appropriate. So we've got to take it out of this basket saying, these people are evil themes (ph) who are sort of some separate race. They're not. They're just kids who go south, find somebody else who has the same views, they socialize and then they act. This is pretty straightforward.

BANFIELD: Colonel Francona, There's a report, you know, from a Pennsylvania university saying that 64 percent of some of these terrorists actually telegraph their intentions to friends or to family. And with a statistic like that, you would think that you have an - you know, you have a leg up on trying to thwart these attacks. It's not like the theater bomber or the theater shooter who wouldn't tell anybody. He just showed up and shot. Some of these people, the majority of the people, at least two-thirds of them, are telling people, sharing this information. Isn't that supposed to be helpful to us?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, you would think so but - and this happens every time in every case, whether it's a school shooting or a mass murder or a terrorist attack, it's always after the fact that we find that - everything was quite normal. So it's social, and people talk to each other, but everybody's afraid to turn the other person in. So it's always after the fact that we find this out.

BALDWIN: So, Spider Marks, the French president declared a state of emergency. That gives him three months of alto more constitutional freedoms than he would have had otherwise for arrests and interrogations and holding suspects, et cetera. He also wants to expand the search powers, actually change up the constitution in France to sort of elongate that ability to go after those that are suspected. But in a circumstance like this, we already had two of those brothers questioned and released. So I'm not exactly sure that that's going to do anything when they already had these guys under their thumb and couldn't do anything about it?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, you know, Ashleigh, from this point, we have to move forward. Clearly, we will have more incidents where there will be individuals that will be captured, will be brought in or will be suspected of activities. There will be some questioning. Unless there is a full access to what I would call the intelligence databases, and there is sufficient data within them, and that the key words that are being used will allow you to now percolate up some of those behaviors in advance so that we can determine what we think might happen going forward.

Now, this is all the business that Phil has describe. This is the intelligence work. The forensic -not only the forensics going into what we know, but the psychological forensics as well so that we can identify behaviors. Clearly what happens in most cases, and in my experience in terms of the issuance of the security clearances just for a second, is that in most cases, the individual will pass the polygraph, will pass the - either the counter intelligence or the lifestyle poly, and then going down the road that individual will then, through behaviors, declare himself or herself as an individual that needs further watch, through behaviors. So in many cases, these individuals will pop up and will, through a training that would primarily get them into a compartmented type of a circumstance, they're going to have to pop their heads out in order to further the execution of the task that they're trying to do. So their behaviors will reveal what's coming next. It's up to a very tight filter in order to catch that.

BANFIELD: All right. Spider Marks, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Rick Francona, thank you for that. And Phil Mudd, I appreciate that.

Before I let you go, Phil, I want to throw one more question at you -

MUDD: Yes.

BANFIELD: Because I'm just not satisfied with the notion that we have all these clues with the familial connection to these terrorist attacker -

MUDD: Yes.

BANFIELD: And yet we had them. Again, we had two of them. Two, Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam were both questioned back in February and at least one of them was stopped leaving the attack and released. What good is it to have the intelligence on these guy? What good to stop them and interrogate them if you can't get to the bottom of anything before they blow themselves up and a bunch of other people?

[12:25:21] MUDD: Time out, Ashleigh. Let me tell you what goes on in these cases.

There's two things you need to think about. One is fairly straight forward, and that is triage. It's like an emergency room. Who's highest on the list to get technical surveillance. That's really expensive. You're not only listening to somebody's phone and their e- mail, you might have to - have to be hiring translators. So the first you've heard a thousand times is the triage problem.

The second's even tougher. We seem to think that there's a direct correlation between radicalization and violence. You're expecting among two brothers for a government, the Belgians, the Americans, the French, to understand when two brothers are going to transfer from radicalization in their minds to conducting an act. I don't know how, as someone who used to do this for a living, you can consistently guarantee that the person you pick up for radicalization is actually going to act on his thoughts. This is a thought process. It's not simply a question of whether someone is radicalized in a mosque. That's perfectly legal. Radicalization is not against the law.

BANFIELD: Yes. Yes, you're absolutely right, it is absolutely maddening, though, to think that we had them close -

MUDD: It is. It is.

BANFIELD: And yet they were so far.

Phil Mudd, thank you for that. Appreciate it.

MUDD: Thank you.

BANFIELD: For the full interview, too, I direct you - this is an incredible interview with Erin Burnett. The brothers of the two suspects in the terror attacks, one blew himself up, the other's on the run. Erin speaks to the third brother. Be sure to watch "Erin Burnett Outfront" 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight.

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