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Explosive Mother of Satan Used in Brussels; Capture of Abdeslam May Have Accelerated Attacks; Molenbeek Community Fights Radicalization. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 24, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


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[14:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The taxi driver, who shot this video, reaches the food stand where his son worked, only to find it deserted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

BERMAN: Outside the terminal, survivors wait for help. Those that are able lend comfort to the wounded, though many inside did not survive.

Amid the wreckage and debris, a single flower, perhaps a welcome home for an arriving passenger, now buried among the shattered remains of this terror attack.

John Berman, CNN, New York.

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: That is so tough to watch.

That is the reality that faced so many people in that airport two mornings ago. And that scene in that terminal was most likely caused by the explosive TATP, its nickname, Mother of Satan. It has become the focal point of the Brussels terror attacks and many others including what happened in Paris last November.

CNN's Tim Lister joins me now to help us understand, what I've been reading about TATP, they call it Mother of Satan, it's the nickname, because it's so totally sensitive to heat. And the ingredients are for the most part pretty easy to get. I imagine that's part of the problem.

TIM LISTER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, that's absolutely the appeal to terrorist groups. Because triacetone triperoxide is very easily obtained off the shelves. The difficulty, though, is not in the making of it, it's in the exact strength and the transporting of it. It's extremely volatile when it's that TATP compound. I asked a terrorist in the '90s who were experimenting with TATP, mixing it with ever increasingly larger strengths and he was thinking the next moment would be his last. No, it has been their bomb of choice for about 20 years now.

BALDWIN: You know what it makes me think of? I covered a number of meth lab explosions when I was in local news some years ago. Now you try to obtain these ingredients, alarm bells ring when you try to buy large quantities. You talk about what's been found in these safe houses, the large quantities of these chemicals. Why are they available to buy? Or is that part of the issue, that they're not coming from the West, they're coming from Syria?

LISTER: No, every indication they're being bought locally. I don't think the Europeans have been nearly as aggressive in chasing down purchases as has the United States. One particular example in the U.S., a man in a hotel room in Denver was trying to perfect his recipe with TATP.

BALDWIN: With a beauty saloon.

LISTER: One of the leads the feds had is they contacted all the beauty salons around the suburb of Denver and found he walked in and purchased an awful lot, saying his girlfriend needed a lot of hair bleach. Well, that was a critical link into helping them follow him. They followed him all the way across the country to New York where he was planning to blow up a TATP bomb on the New York subway so it is a critical ingredient and it's a question of what reporting requirement also do you have for bulk sellers of these liquids. They'll have to tighten it up because ISIS is good at making TATP bombs and explosives.

BALDWIN: Yes, they're going to have to tighten it up. Intelligence is key in terms of monitoring. Maybe somebody sends his girlfriend to buy quote/unquote hair bleach, but they have to be looking at intelligence as well to find these people, yes?

LISTER: Absolutely, by the time they're making this stuff, it's too late. If you haven't got human intelligence on the inside of some of these groups and the Europeans have precious little human intelligence inside these groups, for whatever reasons, lack of resources, lack of Arabic speakers, the inability to understand these communities which in Belgium in particular are almost sealed. They don't communicate with the outside world. They don't turn in people. Unless you have that human intelligence, you're not going to be able to stop these plots simply by observing how much hydrogen peroxide has been sold at a do it yourself store.

[14:35:05] BALDWIN: Tim Lister, thank you so much for us, in London this afternoon. I appreciate that.

Next, a sudden and surprising development from the Paris terrorist who was captured, the eighth attacker, who was supposed to be involved in these attacks in Brussels. Hear what he is revealing and whether his lawyer passed any kind of signal.

Also ahead, a CNN exclusive. We talk to a man whose brothers traveled from Belgium to Syria to fight for ISIS. Why he says they left.

Back after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:31] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

With three of the Brussels terrorists dead and possibly at least two on the run, one man you're about to see could be critically important here. This is Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving suspect in the November Paris terrorist attacks, taken into custody in Brussels a week ago tomorrow, and police believe his capture may have accelerated the terrorist plot. Abdeslam's attorney on Saturday said he was cooperating, but today that attorney says that's no longer the case. Abdeslam also had been fighting extradition to France. Now he wants to be sent there to face charges as soon as possible.

With that, Jonathan is joining me, who served as legal counsel to some Guantanamo detainees. He is currently a law professor at Seaton Hall University. He has also written a book "Habeas Corpus After 9/11." That's the book.

So welcome, Jonathan, to you.

First, in terms of the fact that, you know, initially Abdeslam was cooperating and suddenly he's not. Why do you think that might be? Is that fairly common? Could he be made aware that this plot -- that perhaps he was to be involved in Brussels was carried out? Thoughts?

JONATHAN HAFETZ, LEGAL COUNSEL FOR GUANTANAMO DETAINEES & LAW PROFESSOR, SEATON HALL UNIVERSITY & AUTHOR: Yeah, it's hard to tell. It's obviously a fluid and fast moving situation. It's usual because of the profile of the prior attacks in Paris and the current attacks -- the recent attacks in Brussels, sort of the world's attention on this. It's hard to know exactly what's happening but I think there could be a lot motivating a number of different factors motivating him but it's all happening under a microscope on a very accelerated pace.

BALDWIN: How do they get him to cooperate with the legal system?

HAFETZ: I think they want to try to persuade him by showing him a number of different tactics. Professional interrogators are experienced at this. The way to do is to use the law to persuade him to cooperate. It's a combination of normally carrots and sticks.

BALDWIN: What's the carrot in this situation, if he is the sole survivor of what happened in Paris?

HAFETZ: Yeah, I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I mean, I'm just asking in terms of the law and what he wouldn't face if he gives up information?

HAFETZ: Well, it could be something in terms of his conditions, his trying to persuade him generally, trying to appeal to his moral sensibility. I think there are a number of different ways that smart interrogators can try to persuade them to give up information, assuming he has information. It's not entirely certain what he knows about any current plans. His knowledge may be limited.

BALDWIN: He may not know even how large or broad a terror network, correct, but obviously he knew information. He had fingerprints in what happened in Paris and what later happened in Brussels. To the longer term -- this is the sort of short term on the legal and why he should ate. Longer term, why should he?

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HAFETZ: Longer term, just to try to persuade him, he should cooperate, you know, I think it's in his -- it's ultimately going to be in his interest to try to cooperate. For law enforcement, it's important even if he doesn't know about this particular plot, to learn as much as they can about the terrorist networks. I think it's important the authorities proceed in a manner -- that there's ultimately not going to be any short cuts. They have to follow the law while being creative, which law enforcement has done. They've proven successful in many instances in the past.

BALDWIN: Jonathan, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Coming up next, many recent terror attacks involve siblings. Why is that happening? Why is it perhaps more difficult to catch them before they strike?

Plus, a CNN exclusive, you'll hear from the man who will only speak in the shadows about why his family joined ISIS.

You're watching CNN special live coverage. We'll be right back.

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[14:48:46] BALDWIN: In our coverage of what happened in Belgium, a number of Belgians have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS. The Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek has been under scrutiny for radicalization for some time.

Our correspondent, Nima Elbagir, went there and talked to members of the Muslim community who are trying to keep themselves and their family members away from extremism.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): How do I explain this? It's as if someone hit me with a very sharp thing in my heart. When my brothers left, I don't know how to explain.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ali says his brothers were among the first wave of Belgian jihadis to travel to Syria. He agreed to speak on the condition we obscure his real voice. Ali isn't his name.

(on camera): Why do you think your brothers went to Syria?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Honestly, I always ask them but I never understood why, but it is as if they felt rejected. [14:50:53] ELBAGIR (voice-over): 2011, street evangelizing, key to

the spread of their radical ideology, telling young Muslims they would never truly be accepted as a part of Belgian society so they shouldn't try.

This man is now serving a 12-year jail sentence for incitement to hatred. And Belgian authorities believes he served as a key pipeline of young Belgians joining ISIS. Some killed in Syria and some now cooperating in prosecutions.

Abderrahim Lahlali is a Belgian lawyer representing not only Sharia (ph) for Belgian members but also family members caught up in the war against ISIS.

One of his clients was due to stand trial for murder in Syria but the trial has now been postponed.

Lahlali believes the government could have done more to prevent the exodus.

ABDERRAHIM LAHLALI, ATTORNEY: You know, everybody was 18 years old. Is not an adult. So the thing they are saying now, people who are 18 years old, we cannot stop them from going to Syria. They know everything from everybody. When he was going, how he planned it, when he buy his ticket. But they let them go.

ELBAGIR: 10 days after the Paris attack, this 18-year-old man says he was surrounded by police officers at a local supermarket and pushed to the ground at gunpoint. His friends attempting to film were threatened, he says, with arrest.

YASSINE BOUBOUT, BELGIAN OF MOROCCAN ORIGIN: First, I was in shock. What's happening? What's happening? Already commanded me, OK, get on your knees now. I went to my knees. I stayed for like 20 minutes on my knees with my hands up.

ELBAGIR: After more than three hours at the police station, he was released without any charges.

(on camera): At any point did you ask yourself why?

BOUBOUT: From the beginning until the end, still why, why is it happening? Is it because I look like Muslim? Is it because I'm Moroccan? Is it my color, what is it? Even now, I still have the same questions, OK, why do they really hold me at gunpoint and why did they really arrest me.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): Belgian's interior ministry told CNN they couldn't comment on the incident. But stressed that allegations of racial profiling are taken very seriously.

Yassine believes there is more at stake here than integration of social cohesion. Experiences like he, he believes, play right into the extremist hands.

BOUBOUT: Kind of give those people who recruit a, a weapon to use in the way of they can look, you see those guys, or the society, it's a racist society, they don't want you hear, so that's a key factor for them that are used.

ELBAGIR (on camera): Do you feel Belgium?

BOUBOUT: No, because in the eyes of this society, Belgian is being white, atheist or Christian.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): The deadly terror attack on the Belgian capitol coming just near days after the capture of Paris attacker, Salah Abdeslam, in the heart of his childhood neighborhood of Molenbeek, has highlighted how little penetration authorities here have into many Belgian Muslim communities a the mutual mistrust. For authorities hunting out those who may have helped perpetrate the Brussels and Paris bombings, as well as any other ISIS conspiracists, is a race against time to rebuild that trust.

Too much is at stake for the families of those who left for Syria and of those who returned to strike terror in the heart of Europe. And their victims, it's already too late.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Brussels.

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BALDWIN: Nima with the exclusive. Thank you for doing that.

Coming up, an eyewitness described what he saw that was so bizarre moments before and after that metro station there in Brussels.

And this, as we could be moments away from getting a new composite sketch of another suspect in the center of this massive manhunt in Belgium.

Keep it right here.

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[14:58:40] BALDWIN: All right you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Continuous live coverage of the situation in the wakes of these horrendous terror attacks in Brussels this week. We are, of course, watching this manhunt under way for at least two suspected terrorists in the Brussels attacks. As we've been showing you, a number of surveillance photos, a number of the suspects, some who blew themselves up, the would-be suicide bombers, and those who are still at large.

CNN's Michael Holmes talked to a man who claimed he saw one of these individuals and helped police try to create some sort of sketch.

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ERIC PANIA, WITNESS: Two minutes later, I heard an explosion, a big explosion. People went -- with blood, blood everywhere -- MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of injuries?

PANIA: Injuries, yes. Before that, I tried to go outside. Before I saw, when I come down, I saw some guy, 25, 24, 30. I don't know the age exactly. He had a big bag. He was very nervous.

HOLMES: Sweating?

PANIA: Sweating like he was very nervous, and he was back and forth in the metro hall, back and forth, back and forth.

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BOLDUAN: Again, law enforcement looking for that individual who he described, looking back and forth, looking panicked at the metro station.