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Chaos and Uncertainty After Attempted Coup in Turkey; Turkey's President Declares Government in Control; Deadly Attack in Nice, France. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired July 16, 2016 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

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BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: All right. We're following two major breaking stories at the moment.

In Turkey, chaos and uncertainty as the military tries to seize control of the country. But he president defiantly declares the government has stopped the coup attempt.

MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: And here in Southern France, we're learning more details about the man who killed more than 80 people on the streets behind me.

I'm Max Foster. We welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

ANDERSON: And I'm Becky Anderson in Paris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.

ANDERSON: And we begin with the tumultuous situation in Turkey. It is morning there now, after a night no one in the country will ever forget.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON (voice-over): Gunfire, explosions and tanks rolling through the streets in Turkey's major cities. A violent and bloody coup attempt by rogue members of the military unfolded through the night. At least 42 people have been killed in the capital of Ankara. And Turkey's Red Crescent says 1,000 people across the country have been injured.

While the coup attempt played out, the Turkish President Erdogan used face time to urge people to flock to the streets in his support. And they did it by the thousands, climbing onto tanks and jamming the streets before a cheering crowd in Istanbul just a short time ago.

Mr. Erdogan insisted he had prevailed.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRESIDENT OF TURKEY (through translator): This nation brought a certain government, using their own will by election. The government is in control. Fifty percent of the people elected a president and that person is on duty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: We're also seeing dramatic images of soldiers with their hands up, marching away from their tanks. Turkey's state run news agency says more than 750 people have now been detained.

Local media also got involved as the coup attempt unfolded, including CNN's affiliate, CNN Turk. Friday night soldiers entered its studios in Istanbul and took staff members out. In that Turkey's state-run CRP (ph) network, troops stormed it as well and clew (ph) down the signal. The situation very fluid still.

Journalist Andrew Finkel has been reporting in and from the country for decades. He joins me now on the phone from Istanbul.

And what is the situation right there at this point?

ANDREW FINKEL, JOURNALIST: Well, it seems that the coup attempt has really collapsed. The government that you described managed to get its supporters out on the streets in defiance of a curfew which the coup had proclaimed.

And that sort of enthusiasm essentially appears to have taken the perpetrators by surprise. They said, don't go, stay inside. Erdogan appeared on face time and then said, you know, go out onto the streets, occupy the streets, go to the airport. And this appears to be what happened. And rather than fire on their own people, the coup perpetrators appear to have basically given up.

They didn't give it up that quickly. There's been a great deal of violence. The Turkish grand national assembly appears to have been bombed. There have been -- particularly Ankara, the violence seems to have been much greater than elsewhere in the country.

But I think the obvious conclusion is that the government now has very much the upper hand -- Becky.

ANDERSON: Right.

Given the history of successful military coups in the country, how do you assess the failure of this one?

It was over, you know, relatively quickly and wholly unsuccessful, it seems.

FINKEL: Well, that's correct. In my lifetime, there have been three military coups in Turkey and the great difference between this one is that this one failed. I think partly there is -- I think there are several reasons.

One is that they don't appear to have had the entire army, the entire chain of command on their side. This -- if you read the history books, in previous coup attempts, the

key thing before they head to the general staff were committed, before officers committed was to know that, really, they have the whole army with them. And then, in this case, this doesn't appear to have been the case.

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FINKEL: And the other thing, of course, is that Turkey is a much more sophisticated society. It's -- than it was in 1960 or even in 1980, the days of the last coup. It's very -- in the old days, you could use the radio station; now there's the Internet. Now there's 80 satellite broadcasting stations. It's much more difficult to control society than it was then.

And if you have a popular leader, like Mr. Erdogan, who says, you know, go out and resist, then, of course, there's a dedicated core of his supporters who will do exactly that.

I suppose the real question we ask is why they thought they could get away with it in the first place.

ANDERSON: And who were they?

He has suggested these plotters that tried to assassinate him on Friday with a bombing in one of the Mediterranean towns in Turkey, where he was on holiday. In fact, he says that the hotel was bombed after he made his way back to Istanbul.

So who is he talking about?

Who is he pointing the finger at, at this point?

FINKEL: Well, clearly, there was a dedicated faction within the military who had no truck with Mr. Erdogan. And I think they very much feared that their time was up.

You have to sort of -- if you look at what's happened in Turkey over the last, let's say, 10 years, Mr. Erdogan has been very cleverly, very carefully, very determinedly to basically control the nodes of power within Turkish society.

He now has the entire press on his side; newspapers have been seized, opposition papers have been seized, television stations which oppose him have been unplugged from the satellite. You know, he's moved to silence opposition. He's been after the courts and now it's the rare judge who will make an opinion which goes against the way that the government would want.

So, really, the last bastion, I believe, was the military and he was determined to go after the military this August, in which there's a high military council, in which officers there promoted or demoted -- it's the sort of annual ritual that happens in this country.

And I think many of the officer core, there were certainly hints of this in the pro-government press in the last few weeks. Many of the officers were afraid that this would be their last opportunity, that they were going to be -- that the army was going to change completely and be a much more pro-Erdogan our party (ph) tool after this August.

And, of course, rather than prevent that process, they've obviously hastened that process -- Becky.

ANDERSON: Yes. Andrew, always a pleasure. Thank you for that.

Andrew Finkel is in Istanbul for you.

The coup attempt in Turkey has revealed divisions within the country's military. I spoke earlier with CNN's Bob Baer about this aftermath of this coup, the military trying to seize power. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Senior officers that I've been in contact with indirectly were surprised by this. So it's not the entire army. Clearly, they would have gotten Erdogan early on, captured him or assassinated him.

But what's weird about this is that Erdogan hasn't gone to Ankara to take the reins of government. He's still in Istanbul. So I think Ankara is still in contest at this point between these rogue military elements and the president.

And I don't think we've seen the end of this. And I frankly can't remember when the Turks were actually out on the street fighting. It hasn't happened in my time.

But there's also something else that I could point is that the U.S. government was completely taken by surprise by this. And I know why and, you know, the Turkish military just does not discuss internal affairs with our embassy or military attaches or the CIA.

So we are very much in the dark how this is going to go. And we're just going to have to wait until we see it on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, CNN intelligence and security analyst, Bob Baer, speaking to me earlier.

I want to bring in Mara Masiet (ph) now for more insight. She is a Middle East media and politics expert with Al Jazeera English and joining me now on the phone from Cairo.

And thank you for that. Military coups, nothing new across the Middle East. And certainly Turkey is no stranger to them. This one seems to have failed.

And there are now, we are told, more than 750 people arrested, including generals, colonels; even high court judges are being questioned. And the president this morning suggesting that these --

[02:10:00] ANDERSON: -- people are guilty of terror-type acts.

Your analysis as you watch things unfold in Turkey?

MARA MASIET (PH), AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Yes. Well, I'm talking to you in my capacity as a (INAUDIBLE) ministry relations in the entire Middle East. Have been observing the Turkish case since mid-2005 and the risk of the AK Party.

Let's just say my visualization (ph) on civil (INAUDIBLE) in the entire region shows me that there is a certain degree of obsilation (ph) in the Turkish case that we do not -- and we have not reached a degree of consolidation of democracy that has been claimed about the case.

By that, I mean the idea that there is objective civilian control over the military has been now put to the test. What's their finding, actually, is the sheer subjective military (ph) control.

And by that I mean a regime, in the name of Erdogan, that has de- professionalized (ph) the increasingly interventionist military of Turkey and turned it into a loyalist, regimist military.

And what we witnessed yesterday and that what will unfold in the next weeks is almost there is a revolt within the institution against the kind of regimist loyalism within the military itself.

So --

(CROSSTALK)

ANDERSON: What do you think will happen in the next couple of weeks?

MASIET (PH): Pardon?

ANDERSON: What do you think will happen next?

MASIET (PH): Well, what will happen next is more of the fissures that we will be observing within the military institution, meaning that the idea that there are factions within those who are resistant to the loyalist trends within the regime will be framed as the failure of the coup, right?

But that reflects (INAUDIBLE) actual democratic consolidation in Turkey. The regime has already touched other arms of the state; namely the police, for instance. And it has purged the very grandest (ph) supporters that supported the regime earlier (INAUDIBLE) in my research, I interviewed a former chief of staff Bajpul (ph).

And some of the -- who was on trial at some point in Turkey as of a high military officer for preparing for the coup, the (INAUDIBLE) and the (INAUDIBLE).

And (INAUDIBLE) that was six months ago or so. But the military -- the meritocracy (ph) of the military, the professionalism of an autonomous institution within the state has been compromised, meaning that those who are promoted are only the loyalists.

So he was concerned about the readiness of the military institution as an economist (ph) body within the states. And that will keep unfolding. This is not going to go away.

ANDERSON: Interesting. All right. We're going to leave it there. Thank you for that -- because we've got a lot more coming up on Turkey. Thank you for your analysis.

I want to get to Max in Nice, though, before we move on for more from there -- Max.

FOSTER: Yes, Becky, we're getting more details on the attacker behind the Bastille Day terror, that struck here in the south of France on Thursday. Also some more details on the investigation. So we'll have all of that coming up.

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FOSTER: Welcome back.

Now the French president has described in his words how the country will overcome all trials. And Thursday's terror attack which he's referring to there here in Nice is the third time that France has been significantly targeted in less than a year and a half.

And he's been overseeing the country over that time. A man plowed a truck through a crowd celebrating the French national holiday and we're learning new details about the suspect behind the terrible attack as well.

We have to warn you, though, that some of the video that you're about to see is disturbing. Our senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward. reports.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mayhem and carnage as a large truck careens through crowds of tourists and residents for over a mile, sending hundreds running for their lives. Tonight, the driver has been identified as 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a resident of Nice born in Tunisia. The terrorist was known to authorities for petty crimes but wasn't on the radar of counterterrorism investigators.

FRANCOIS MOLINS, FRENCH ANTI-TERROR PROSECUTOR (through translator): he was entirely unknown by intelligence services and had never been the subject of any file or indication of radicalization.

WARD: Authorities are combing through the suspect's house where he lived alone. A neighbor described him as odd. He wouldn't say hello, only nod his head. The attacker's ex-wife was taken into custody and is being questioned by police.

Together, they had three children. Investigators are trying to figure out if the assailant acted alone or had help and there have been no claims of responsibility for the attack by any group so far.

The horrific scene unfolded at 10:30 pm Thursday night. Thousands were gathered to watch fireworks celebrating French Independence Day. As the fireworks were ending and revelers began walking back along the promenade, the attacker first opened fire on the crowd from inside the rented 18-ton refrigerator truck.

He then proceeded to accelerate, indiscriminately plowing through the crowds for over a mile --

[02:20:00]

WARD (voice-over): -- swerving left and right to hit as many people as possible, including dozens of children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There were people crying, people covered with blood. It is so sad.

WARD: When police tried to stop him, the attacker opened fire.

MOLINS (through translator): Police chased the truck for nearly a thousand feet. The police officer was able to neutralize the person.

WARD: When the truck finally came to a stop riddled with bullet holes the attacker was dead, slumped on the pass edger seat. Inside the cab of the truck, police found a semi-automatic handgun and ammunition, as well as several fake guns and a fake grenade. Also, the attacker's ID card and cellphone.

Among the dead, two Americans, Sean Copeland and his son Brodie of Texas.

Tonight, President Obama is condemning the attack.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We pledge to stand with our French friends as we defend our nation against this scourge of terrorism and violence. And this is a threat to all of us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, that was Clarissa Ward, reporting for us there, bringing it all together.

But with me now is Andres Farfan (ph). He was actually on the promenade as these events unfolded.

You're on a balcony overlooking the streets, is that right?

ANDRES FARFAN (PH), BASTILLE DAY ATTACK WITNESS: Yes, that's right. I was in a dinner. We were in the balcony just after one of the most important hotels, Noresco (ph). We saw the fireworks. And just 10 minutes after, we start to hear people screaming.

We look down to the (INAUDIBLE) site and we saw this truck just going really fast, people trying to avoid it however they could. Some, they jumped to the beach, some they ran to the side where the cars were. But some they couldn't make it and when I --

FOSTER: Because he was traveling so fast, is that right?

Or did it feel like he was traveling fast?

FARFAN (PH): Yes. But I think because the most simple reason is that it was Bastille Day. It was a national day. I have never seen the promenade this full.

FOSTER: So they couldn't get away from the truck?

FARFAN (PH): Yes. It was impossible. During the fireworks, I think he had -- the attack had taken place during the fireworks, it would have been just even worse because it was full. I have never seen this so full. I could see it from up there. It was -- people couldn't work.

FOSTER: When the lorry was traveling through, what were your first thoughts, that it was out of control or it was -- ?

(CROSSTALK)

FARFAN (PH): Yes. We -- my first thought, oh, this -- maybe this guy had some problems, mechanical problems (INAUDIBLE) the truck. And he's going to stop somehow, like right now. But he didn't stop. He was really trying to get to crash with the most number of people.

So, at some point, I saw that there were so much people together and it was impossible that they could separate and they could avoid it.

So I couldn't see it. Some friends saw it. But I had to cover my eyes and I just heard the -- like the shocks, how it would take into -- I heard like five or six people --

FOSTER: As he was going into people, you were hearing that sound.

FARFAN (PH): Yes and it was like -- well, there was, also screaming, people screaming because it's just something incredible to watch. And then after five minutes, I came out of the apartment again and I saw the scene. And it was crazy. there's people in the floor and with the blood and...

FOSTER: Some people are suggesting the police could have done more to stop the truck because it traveled for two kilometers.

But do you think anyone could have stopped it?

FARFAN (PH): I think there was some police officers and even some people from the army. But here, it was really hard to be -- to have a control -- have control of this part of the promenade because, as I told you, it was really full and people was walking over the side. So I think it's normal that they couldn't reach the attacker sooner.

FOSTER: OK, well, our thoughts are with you and everyone here in France. And you kind of managed to sort of come to terms with it in some sense. It's incredibly emotional, trying to think about what happened then.

And now we have to go through the process of working out why this attacker did what he did.

And so far, no signs at all that he was radicalized, which people find difficult as well because there's no clear motivation here.

Earlier, I spoke with CNN law enforcement contributor, Steve Moore, about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: There is going to be a motive here and the only motive that seems to present --

[02:25:00]

MOORE: -- itself is radical Islam because of the method of the attack, the ferociousness of the attack.

This did not come with a suicide note. This is not somebody who presented with any type of mental illness that we're aware of right now. And if he has had suicidal ideations, we haven't heard from it from his wife yet.

FOSTER: But he doesn't seem to have been very religious, we're told, by his neighbors, never seen him in the local mosque.

MOORE: That's -- that's true. But I have seen these lone wolf attacks from people, who are at the end of their rope. And, at the end of their life, they decide that they are going to -- you know, they're looking at -- they're looking at eternity and they're thinking, I might as well go out with God on my side than not on my side.

And so people who had never had any kind of religious fervor, at least apparent religious fervor, will sometimes -- will sometimes grab some right at the end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Steve Moore reporting there and talking us through this.

And this very difficult next process of this investigation, apart from the fact that people here have to come to terms with actually what happened and who was lost here.

Becky -- I'm going to hand it over to Becky now. She is in Paris and she's coverage the very latest on that coup attempt in Turkey -- Becky. ANDERSON: That's right, continuing to follow events out of Turkey after what was an overnight coup. The latest when we come back.

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ANNOUNCER(voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.

ANDERSON: Welcome back to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Becky Anderson, for you in Paris.

It is unclear right now whether a coup attempt by rogue members of the Turkish military has succeeded at all. Turkey's president insists that he remains firmly in charge and he says the Turkish people took the military's tanks back.

There have been dramatic images of soldiers overnight, under arrest, being marched through the streets. And we are now learning 754 people have been detained in the attempted coup. That is according to the country's interior ministry.

And this follows a long night of gunfire and explosions in both Ankara and in Istanbul. Officials say at least 60 people have been killed and 1,000 have been wounded.

Bombs were thrown at the parliament building in Ankara. And you can see the damage in these pictures from the scene. I want to get more on what is this chaotic situation.

A number of people standing by to discuss this with me, not least senior international correspondent, Nima Elbagir, who starts with us now, joining us today.

You're in Nice. You're reporting on the chaos there on Bastille evening but you have spent much of the past few years in and out of Turkey, reporting ofttimes on the war in Syria and its impact on neighboring Turkey but also on the fallout from a domestic insurgency that has caused chaos in the country.

With that as the backdrop and the context, perhaps, for the instability that we've seen, how do you assess what happened overnight?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do have a precedent of course, Becky, Turkey's military has famously stepped in four times since the '60s. The last time in 1997. At times of great political and security instability. So although the Turkish government would say that this is a number, as they call it, of rogue officers, this has happened before.

And the last few months have not been kind to President Erdogan or to Turkey itself. They've been reeling from back-to-back terror attacks. They've been reeling from the realities of ISIS and homegrown terror networks infiltrating what should have been very secure installations, most notably the Istanbul Ataturk Airport attack.

And at the same time, President Erdogan's involvement in the war in Syria, which he was ratcheting up in the aftermath of that terror attack in Istanbul over the last few weeks, there has been deeply, deeply unpopular and that is underpinning much of the insecurity that we're seeing spill out in the streets because President Erdogan has called for his supporters to take to the streets.

But we're also seeing the supporters of a more secular idea of Turkey, those who have been concerned about the press crackdown led by President Erdogan and his allies. Those have been concerned that the basic founding principles of Kamal Ataturk and the Turkish state of secularism have been undermined.

So although the president and his allies have repeatedly come out and said, over the last 24 hours and overnight, that they are in control, as you said, the violence continues, the clashes continue and the arrests continue.

ANDERSON: Nima Elbagir is in Nice for you today. And I thank you for that.

We've got Jeff Kell on the line now. He's a photojournalist. He's been at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.

Flights there, as I understand it, resumed a couple of hours ago after being suspended earlier. Jeff, just describe to our viewers what's going on there at the airport and how things developed throughout the night.

JEFF KELL, PHOTOJOURNALIST: Right, Becky. At this stage, there are no flights boarding or landing as far as I can tell (INAUDIBLE) often in talking about today. The feeling at the moment has gone from a reasonable calm of (INAUDIBLE) go to the (INAUDIBLE) information at the moment is at a very minimal. And the airport staff was our only handful, have no idea what's going on. So the crowds are accumulating around these small number of airport staff and (INAUDIBLE) information coming over and people are getting a bit restless.

ANDERSON: You said that no flights have resumed or it doesn't feel as if there's anything moving at the airport. Turkish authorities certainly have told us that they expect Turkish airlines to be flying again soon.

You and I talked earlier on and you were just describing the atmosphere as it was.

Does it feel as if things are more under control now?

[02:35:00]

KELL: Everyone is a lot more comfortable with the scenario now. Everyone was in the terminal (INAUDIBLE) and people (INAUDIBLE). Even when they had the big demonstrators come through the terminal, through security without any (INAUDIBLE) and onto the tarmac and out again, people kind of -- well, they didn't join in but they stood aside and watched.

And it was a bit of an event. And (INAUDIBLE). But since then, there hasn't been any real angst or any worries from anyone about their own safety.

The other thing about (INAUDIBLE) is in the issue at the moment is the fact that we're all penned in here like cattle and there (INAUDIBLE) how we can come in or how we can leave. Gates keep opening and closing but throughout the airport, just (INAUDIBLE) a bit of frustration.

ANDERSON: Jeff Kell is a photojournalist, who has been at Ataturk Airport over the past few hours since this attempted coup developed and then was stubbed out, it seems, by President Erdogan and his supporters.

Thank you, Jeff.

Cyril Vanier (ph) joining us now from Paris. He's an anchor and an international correspondent for France 24.

You've extensively covered Turkey; President Erdogan accusing his plotters of trying to assassinate him on Friday with a bombing at a hotel that he was staying at.

Who is he pointing the finger at at this point?

CYRIL VANIER (PH), FRANCE 24 CORRESPONDENT: President Erdogan himself and his followers, including one of the leaders of the ruling AK Party that you spoke to earlier, have pointed the finger very squarely at Fethullah Gulen and the Gulenists. It's an Islamist brotherhood. It's extremely powerful in Turkey. It was once described as a state within the state.

Fethullah Gulen used to be a very close ally of President Erdogan but he fell out of favor. He helped him, in fact, get into power. He helped him consolidate power in Turkey. They have extensive allies within several stairs of the government. But they are now rivals.

ANDERSON: Where does Gulen then get his support?

Because he isn't based in Turkey, of course; he's based in the States.

VANIER (PH): Absolutely. He's been in exile in the U.S. for many years now. He gets this support really from not from the -- from straightforward politics. This is a brotherhood. So it's a spiritual religious thing. And they have allies and members of the brotherhood who are in the police, in the judiciary, in all branches of government.

ANDERSON: And that's interesting because tonight we have found out after what has been an absolutely chaotic night and a deadly one, it has to be said for our viewers, some 60 people have died, over 1,000 have been injured. We have just recently heard from the interior ministry that some 750-odd people have been arrested, including generals, colonels and high court judges. VANIER (PH): And Recep Tayyip Erdogan is stranger to purges. He has now said he's going to cleanse the military. And I would really take him at his word. He is somebody who knows how to do that and has done that in the past.

ANDERSON: There will be those who say that this has been a convenient night, albeit a deadly and chaotic one for President Erdogan. If he were to assume a narrative now which says crackdown...

VANIER (PH): He's somebody who has always tried to consolidate power in every which way he can. So via elections and through other means. We know that he wants to consolidate more power, turn Turkey into a presidential regime, something -- that's one of his domestic policy priorities now.

This may actually help him in the medium term.

ANDERSON: So far as his policies and his actions are concerned, he'd alienated so many in the international community and the West, where his policies in Syria and his policy towards a domestic insurgency, over the past few weeks, it has to be said, he seems to have been reaching out, to make friends in all the right places.

He will get words of support, I know, I'm convinced, from the international community after this.

(CROSSTALK)

VANIER (PH): already.

ANDERSON: He's getting them already.

How does this play into the wider story, do you think, here?

VANIER (PH): I think this is a very important part of it. I mean, there's -- first of all, the foreign policy of the president may be one of the reasons in fact that this happened in the first place because there's been a lot of backtracking just very recently over the last few months in terms of foreign policy.

And if you look at his priorities, Syria has been one of his priorities. He's been a staunch enemy of Bashar al-Assad ever since the civil war broke out.

How has that worked out --

[02:40:00]

VANIER (PH): -- for him and for Turkey in general?

Not very well. They have over 2 million refugees on Turkish soil. We know that they've now become vulnerable to attacks from the Islamic State group after him having ambiguous position towards the jihadists, so that's one aspect, fundamental aspect, by the way, of his foreign policy that is not really working out for Turkey with the benefit of hindsight. He's also changed his stance on -- beg your pardon, on Russia and Israel with a letter of apology, which is not his style, as we know, to Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is quite possible that the negative image this gives of Turkey is one of the things that plays into this attempted coup.

ANDERSON: With that, we're going to leave it. We thank you very much indeed for joining me here. You will be with me throughout the morning. I do want to talk about the terror attacks or certainly the attacks that cause terror down in Nice on Bastille evening, the kind of wider contextual story.

So stay with me for that throughout the morning.

Let's get you to Nice at this point and to my colleague, Max Foster.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Becky, more information coming in all the time on this horrific story that unfolded here, all the shock that came with that attack on Bastille Day. We'll bring you all of that after this short break.

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FOSTER: Welcome back to Nice, where people are coming to terms with the horrific incidents of less than 48 hours ago. We're learning more about the attacker, who carried out this horrific scene on Bastille Day on Thursday night. The details we're getting really are quite scarce, it has to be said. Officials say that his name is Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. He plowed a truck through crowds --

[02:45:00]

FOSTER: -- celebrating here on Thursday night. He was 31 years old. He was a Nice resident but he was born in Tunisia. He was shot dead of course by police just behind me actually after traveling two kilometers down the road.

Officials have searched his apartment. They've detained his ex-wife or his estranged wife. And the French prosecutor says there were no signs that he was radicalized but he does have a record for minor crimes.

I'm going to bring in Melissa Bell, she's international affairs editor with France 24.

Melissa, I just want to get a sense from you about how the authorities are handling this because have they jumped the gun a bit by calling this terror, by saying he was radicalized because he must have been radicalized?

There's a lot of gray area and what we know about him. He could have just been a madman, couldn't he?

How are the authorities handling this? MELISSA BELL, INTERNATIONAL EDITOR, FRANCE 24: Clearly for the time being, they don't know and there's a sense that they don't entirely agree. There was this extraordinary episode on French television yesterday when the prime minister of France and the interior minister of France very publicly disagreed about his level of radicalization. The interior minister suggesting that he might just have been a lunatic and the prime minister insisting on the links to Islamist extremism.

The fact is, nobody knows and there's some disagreement at the top of French government about the possibility that he was actually linked to any particular group. Nobody actually knows although the prosecutor, the authorities investigating those links do have a number of items at their disposal.

In the truck itself, his mobile phone was found, his bank card. This will give investigators precious means to help them find out precisely who he'd been in contact with.

They also, of course, raided his flat, the one he moved into after separation from his wife. There they have taken his computer. These are all elements that will give them ample opportunity to find out who he has been in contact with, what he's been looking up and therefore the extent to which he was directly inspired by someone to act or inspired simply by an idea.

FOSTER: At this point, we haven't quite got the evidence that it was a terror incident because we don't know whether he was -- what he was motivated by. Yet the authorities are calling it terror-related and already we're putting it together with the two previous attacks, when actually, it could be quite different.

BELL: (INAUDIBLE). This attack took place just after half past 10:00 on Thursday evening. By 3:45 that following morning, in the middle of the night, Francois Hollande took to the airwaves and he used the words "terror attack" and went further than that, linking it directly to Islamist extremism.

So you're right, the authorities in the shape of the president himself have been very fast to link this. And I'd just like to bring in one interesting thing that's come out in the last 24 hours. There is, in France, an MP, Khalil Harif (ph), whose job it was in the last few months to prepare France's parliament, this report on ISIS, on its preparation here in France, on its plans to carry out terrorist attacks in France.

(INAUDIBLE) what happened in Nice within the last few hours, saying as far as he's concerned, this is a question of ISIS being pushed back on the ground, no longer asking its recruits to come to Syria and to Iraq, as it for a long time did, and rather suggesting that they carry out these sorts of attacks on their home turf.

So again, another politician suggesting that the link could be quite tight. I think in fact there are many others that suggest and not least the interview that's been carried with Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel's father, who says that his son was (INAUDIBLE) not religious. It's what all of those who've have any contact with (INAUDIBLE) have said.

And all the indications are that we're probably looking at someone who decided to act more out of a fundamental instability in his life and perhaps in his mind than out of any true dedication (INAUDIBLE).

FOSTER: OK, Melissa, lots of analysis to be done politically and in terms of investigation. We'll be coming back to you. And thank you, as ever, for your analysis there from Paris.

There's still lots of stories coming out about what happened on Thursday night. And they're very traumatic to hear but they are very much part of the story.

I'm going to speak now to Julian Crozer (ph). He's a cab driver.

And you have family who were here and then you heard the news.

JULIAN CROZER (PH), CAB DRIVER: Yes.

FOSTER: And then you heard the news.

CROZER (PH): Yes.

FOSTER: So just describe your evening.

CROZER (PH): I was driving a client to (INAUDIBLE). And my mom called me and said it was a lot of people crying and (INAUDIBLE) towards them. And she explained me -- I saw the fireworks with my two daughters. They decided to go b the back road and (INAUDIBLE) decided to go through the truck was coming. They didn't know a truck was coming.

I believe my (INAUDIBLE) feeling and she went to the back road. And one minute later, she heard a lot of what she called crying, shouting. And then they heard --

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CROZER (PH): -- the gunshots. My daughter heard the gunshots. So they left. I told them to take a cab to (INAUDIBLE) house. And then when I came back on the scene, I saw people on the ground. It was 20 minutes later. And I think somebody was in jail. And in fact, it was a dad holding his son. His son was dead, his wife was dead. And (INAUDIBLE) was dead.

So it was really like chaos because nobody was there. And we tried to watch the police and the medical people to help us, to help this guy because of course, it was just really horrible to see that would be some (INAUDIBLE). So I stayed with him and nearly one hour and a half. But they could not remove the bodies.

So it was really like -- really traumatic, really traumatic as parents. And we are very upset against our government.

FOSTER: Why are you upset?

Because they couldn't have done anything, could they?

We heard from another witness who was up on a balcony, who said there's no way you would have been able to stop the truck.

CROZER (PH): No, but the thing -- the kind of things that we know for 15 years (INAUDIBLE), if you remember in 1994, they all (INAUDIBLE). Then it was going on with 9/11. Francois Hollande and many of us know exactly what is going on.

So they are putting the war on everywhere. They put the war on the museum at the population, which now try to defend themselves with some people, which try to do some craziness.

And we're the victims of that. And we should not be the victims of the decisions of our government.

FOSTER: OK, Julian (ph), thank you very much indeed for your story today.

Becky, there's a lot of anger, it has to be said, about the government. President Hollande, when he came yesterday, got a lot of abuse when he got out of the car and visited the scene here.

But there's, as you can imagine, from stories like that, there's such a high level of tension here and it's in the context of the attacks in Paris, where you are as well. People feel quite vulnerable.

ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely.

All right, Max. For the time being, thank you for that.

As the dust settles from the overnight coup attempt in Turkey, we're going to take a look at the history of Turkish coups. That is coming up, taking a very short break for you viewers, back after this.

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ANDERSON: All right, Turkey waking up to news of overnight coup attempt against the elected government. Coups are nothing new in Turkey and as we are about to see, the military there has a history of ousting civilian leadership. Have a look at this.

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ANDERSON: Thanks for joining us. I'm Becky Anderson in Paris. Max Foster, my colleague, who joins me from Nice in just a minute as CNN NEWSROOM continues. Stay with us.

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