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U.S. Ramping Up Security; Belgium Lacked Intel; Manhunt For Two Suspects in Brussels Attack; Paris Terror Suspect Now Refusing to Cooperate. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 24, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another look at the horror that unfolded inside the Brussels airport. Bodies buried underneath the rubble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The airport bomber still on the run.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The manhunt here now expanding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Word of another attacker involved in the Brussels' bombings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A second unidentified person being sought out in the blast in Brussels' metro system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An apartment in this building was very quickly identified as the main bomb-making lab for these attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the very same cell that carried out the Paris attacks. They don't stop until they either get killed or they get arrested.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in Brussels. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Right now in Brussels, investigators are searching for two men believed to be involved in the bombings there. The men, one spotted with the suicide bombers at the airport, and one now believed to have taken part in the train station attack. They are on the loose.

We're also learning, right now, that an international arrest warrant was issued three months ago for Khalid El Bakraoui. He's the brother who detonated the explosives belt at the train station in Brussels.

Our Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen is joining us now live from Brussels. Fred, police raided the homes of the suicide bombers. They were both Belgian nationals. What's the latest on the investigation and the manhunt for the two unnamed suspects in the attacks? FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that

manhunt is ongoing, Wolf. And, as you said, the police did indeed raid homes of both the Bakraoui brothers. They, in fact, told us today that they raided those homes yesterday. There was one raid where we were actually on hand and watched that happen. And a bunch of police officers went into that house, and they called forensic teams in and got a lot of things out of an apartment. Seemed to us as though it was paper bags with what could have been evidence.

Now, what the police says today is that these searches in those houses proved to be, what they say, inconclusive. So, it's not exactly clear what that means, what exactly they found there, whether or not that would give them any hints as to who else might be out there.

Meanwhile, the search does continue for those two other people. Both of them appear to have been spotted on CCTV cameras, one at the airport, one in the metro station.

We've seen throughout Brussels today a flurry of police activity. There were several raids that happened in various parts of the city. So far, there is no indication that anybody has been taken into custody on this day.

But, of course, the police is searching, first of all, for these two people, who they believe are on those videos. But also, they are searching to see whether or not there still is a wider network that could be out there that could have helped the people who conducted the Brussels' attack. And that could also be linked to the wider picture, of course, linking Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacks and the Brussels attacks, as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It looks -- it definitely looks like it was a broad, broad operation and that there may be more plots in the works even as we speak. All right, Fred, thanks very much.

The man believed to be a critical link between the attacks in Brussels and the attacks in Paris last November now says he wants to be sent back to France to answer charges there. Salah Abdeslam was arrested days before the Brussels' bombings. Police believe his capture may actually have accelerated the timeline of the Belgium attacks.

Let's bring in our Terrorism Analyst Paul Cruickshank. He's joining us from New York. Paul, Abdeslam's attorney all of a sudden says the suspected terror plotter no longer is cooperating with police, supposedly he was in the days leading up to the terror attacks in Brussels. What is this latest development mean for the investigation that also he wants to be extradited to France?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Wolf, Belgian investigators believe that Salah Abdeslam was never cooperating. They believe that he not only knew about this attack yesterday in Brussels, not only knew about it, but it was also going to be part of the attack, let's just say two days ago, in Brussels, and believe he was part of that cell. He was in a safe house with the overall ring leader of the Paris and Brussels attacks, Mohamed Belkaid. So, he would've, presumably, had knowledge of what was being planned. When they went into that safe house Tuesday last week, they found an ISIS flag. They found detonators. They found a Kalashnikov. All warning signs that the people inside that safe house, including Salah Abdeslam, had plans to launch an attack.

By the way, the other safe house that they raided after the attack in Brussels, they also found an ISIS flag there. They obviously also found a lot of bomb-making chemicals there as well.

[13:05:04] The idea here, Wolf, is this was going to be a bigger attack which was being planned at some point in the future. But that the cell accelerated their plans when Salah Abdeslam's safe house was discovered when he was captured. They felt cornered. The suicide note left on the laptop really confirms that. I don't want to go to prison like him. The Belgian officials believe him is Salah Abdeslam. This attack could have been at least twice as big as it was because three of the cell were either arrested or killed.

BLITZER: Yes, and what's very, I guess, crazy, if you will, after his arrest, his attorney said he would fight extradition from Belgium to France. Also said he was talking to police. Now, all of a sudden, the attorney says he wants to be extradited to France and is no longer talking to police over there. No explanations given for these -- this 180-degree shift is there?

CRUICKSHANK: No explanations at all given. The -- quite erratic statements coming out from the Salah Abdeslam via his lawyer. But they don't believe, Belgian officials, that he was ever really cooperating with them, giving them the necessary information that could've saved lives.

There was Francois Mulan, the Paris prosecutor, who did come out with a statement saying that Abdeslam had admitted that he had been tasked with being one of those bombers at the stand (ph) of France but claimed that he had backed out of those plans. So, he did provide them at least that but nothing at all about a planned attack in Belgium.

Investigators believe that he was on the inside of this plot, that he would have had knowledge and he would've, perhaps, they believe, been one of the suicide bombers tasked with launching a much larger operation in Belgium in the weeks ahead.

This group had assembled a huge amount of explosives, so much that when those three attackers were picked up by a taxi driver from that Scarbeck (ph) bomb factory on the day of the attacks, they couldn't fit all the suitcases filled with explosives inside that taxi car. They had to leave some of the explosives behind. That's why they recovered that 15 kilograms of TATP. They had enough explosives for a cell at least twice as big.

The concern right now, Wolf, is there are other members of this cell still at large. They know at least two are still at large. The guy who escaped from the airport whose bomb didn't explode, for whatever reason, and seen in the white shirt. And then, another individual who was at the metro stop with one of the suicide bombers there caught on CCTV footage there and who is at large with a large bag.

Now, given what was in the other large bags, they're worried that there could be more bomb attacks, that this cell could also launch more gun attacks in Brussels in the hours ahead. Remember with that Paris cell, exactly the same cell as behind these Brussels attacks, they were planning a second wave attack when the whole world's media were assembled in Paris, while the whole world's media are now assembled in Brussels -- Wolf.

BLITZER: What's so worrisome is that most, if not all, of these terrorists were well known to authorities. They were on various terror watch lists, Interpol watch lists and nothing was done. They were all, basically, hiding in plain sight which is very, very worrisome.

Stand by, Paul. We have more information coming in.

Authorities right now, they're sifting through a stockpile of bomb- making materials found inside one of the attacker's apartments. Perhaps most disturbing, the discovery of what's called TATP, the explosive known as the mother of Satan. It's cheap. It's easy to get and can be made with materials from a drug store.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports on this new weapon of choice for ISIS. We want to warn you, the video you about to see is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN (voice-over): Exclusive new video from inside the airport, just moments after the explosions. Mass devastation. Children screaming. Is this the aftermath of a TATP, or Triacetone Triperoxide, bomb?

Officials found 15 kilograms of the explosive where the alleged bomb maker was hiding out. It's a home-made explosive with a sinister nickname, mother of Satan. The name coined by terrorists because it's sensitive to heat, volatile and can potentially cause extensive damage. Experts say it's also cheap, with ingredients that are easy to come by.

PETER JONES, COO, TRIPWIRE OPERATIONS GROUP (on camera): 90 percent of the stuff we have here, you don't need a license to buy. I can go in a truck right now and in about a half hour away and come home with probably 90 percent of this.

WALSH: Brussels is not the first time TATP has been traced to terrorist attacks. Last November, Ibrahim Abdeslam detonates a suicide vest as part of the Paris massacre.

December 2001, Richard Reid is arrested after he tries to blow up a plane with an explosive device hidden in his shoe. One component, TATP.

July 2005, bombs explode throughout London. Fifty-two dead, more than 700 injured. Investigators discover the home-made bombs contained TATP. [13:10:10] September 2009, Najibullah Zazi is arrested for plotting to bomb a New York City subway using TATP. Zazi gets the ingredients he needs at a Colorado beauty store, a Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

SETH JONES, RAND CORPORATION: You're not going to generally get these people by trying to monitor what they purchase.

WALSH: Seth Jones specializes in counterterrorism at the Rand Corporation. He says TATP ingredients are so readily available, buying the items may not raise suspicions. That's why intel is key.

SETH JONES: Najibullah Zazi, who was identified in 2009, was involved in boiling TATP in his hotel room in Aurora was not identified for the ingredients he was purchasing. He was -- he was identified because of good intelligence in monitoring e-mail accounts where he came up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Our thanks to Nick Paton Walsh for that report. Nick, thank you. Let's talk a little bit more about the use of TATP in recent terrorist attacks. Joining us now, Michael Bouchard. He's a former assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives here in the United States. He's the chief security officer now for Sterling Global Operations. And joining us from Boston, we have the former Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis. He's now the president and CEO of a security services firm there.

Gentlemen, thanks very much for joining us. Michael, this TATP, is it a new trend from terrorists? And you spend a lot of time looking at these kinds of terror explosives. When you heard that TATP was used, what did you think?

MICHAEL BOUCHARD, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, STERLING GLOBAL OPERATIONS: It's not new. It's been used for a number of years. The PLO used to use it quite regularly. It's become more common lately with the terrorist groups and it's becoming more well known. And I think the problem here is more and more people, the bomb makers, are getting used to making -- they've got the right mixture now.

BLITZER: And it's easy to get that mix, right?

BOUCHARD: Very easy to get the mix. It's just dangerous to prepare it, and there are very few people that have the expertise to make the right type of explosive.

BLITZER: Commissioner, you were the police commissioner in Boston during the Boston marathon bombings. When you heard that one of the busiest airports in Europe had been attacked in this way, along with a subway station, what was your initial reaction?

EDWARD DAVIS, FORMER COMMISSIONER, BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT: Well, Wolf, it brought back a lot of memories from what we experienced here in the city. And the chaos, that video that you just showed, is really troubling. It shows that the individuals who were doing this are living up to their threat to harm women and children and to leave -- to leave no one unaffected by this barbary. It's crazy. BLITZER: You know, Michael, the whole notion of buying stuff legally

that could be used to kill a lot of people -- a lot of us remember Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer in blowing up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. It contained ammonium nitrate which you can relatively get easily, right? How do you deal with this kind of a problem?

BOUCHARD: It's tough because they can either steal it, they can buy it in small quantities, they have plenty of time and they're very patient. For somebody making TATP, it's best to educate the public that if you smell something like nail polish remover, that's acetone, in significant amounts, then that's not just someone cleaning their nails. It could possibly be someone making explosives.

BLITZER: What can you do at airports, Michael? When you walk into an airport, before you go through the security checkpoint. You're just walking in with a cart. You've got your bags or whatever. Will sniffer dogs be able to determine what's going on there? Should there be dogs all over the place, in other words?

BOUCHARD: Explosive-detective canines are trained to detect TATP, and there are chemical detectors that are in use in airports.

BLITZER: Mechanical devices that can detect that?

BOUCHARD: That can --

BLITZER: What do you think about that idea, --

BOUCHARD: -- detect.

BLITZER: -- Commissioner? Do you think it's time, at airports here in the United States, to start having an extra layer of security outside the TSA perimeter, if you will?

DAVIS: There's no question the time has come for that. My clients are asking for vapor-sniffing dogs now so that these soft targets can be better protected. And in the most significant thing I saw here is 15 kilograms of TATP, that's more than was used in the London bombings. And they left that behind. It shows you the capabilities of these organizations and how critical it is that we work on our intelligence and do what we can to stop this.

BLITZER: Commissioner, let's say there were security personnel, police officers, or others, inside the terminal before you get to security and there were dogs, canine dogs. And they sniffed and they determined these three guys. And we've all seen the picture with their little cart, their baggage cart walking around. Let's say they determined these were -- this was suspicious. What do the police officers do in a situation like this, fearing there could be explosive devices in those carts?

DAVIS: Well, they have to use the highest form of vigilance and safety in approaching someone like this. But in Massachusetts at Logan Airport, the high visibility police presence is always in the soft targets area -- target areas. And that's really what needs to happen. Those offices have to proceed with the utmost caution. But there are other people around and it's a very, very difficult job for them to accomplish.

The more you harden the target, the farther out you press -- you push the soft target part of it because no matter where you put that limit, there's going to be a line that gathers there, and that's where you need visibility in dogs that are checking so that -- so that when -- when these guys who were planning this see that, they go someplace else. That's the whole key to the security part of this.

BLITZER: And as bad, Michael, as these terror attacks were, the explosives we saw, 31 people killed, hundreds more injured, the fear now is, among U.S. counterterrorism experts, that it could be even worse. It could be a dirty bomb. It could even be a -- some sort of crude nuclear device that ISIS may want to try to detonate. How worried -- how concerned are you about that sort of worst-case scenario?

MICHAEL BOUCHARD, FORMER ATF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: I am concerned because whatever steps we take, or law enforcement takes, these guys, you know, take it one step farther and try and find out different ways. When you're dealing with people who are willing to die and are not afraid to get caught because they're going to commit suicide and kill other people, it becomes more and more dangerous and tougher to apprehend them.

BLITZER: Is that a real fear you have, as well, commissioner?

DAVIS: There's no question about it. This is a low-scale arms race that we're in with these individuals. And it just brings to bear the urgency of the situation and the fact that governments have to pull together to stop this from happening.

BLITZER: Ed Davis, the former Boston Police commissioner, thanks very much. Michael Bouchard, former with the ATF, thank you as well.

BOUCHARD: Thank you.

DAVIS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Coming up, Belgian authorities are making a chilling admission right now. How they, quote, "missed a chance" to stop one of the bombers and the changes that could now happen in airports, indeed throughout Europe, around the world, in fact.

Plus, American families desperate for any word about their loved ones. We're going to show you their faces. We're going to tell you their stories, as we wait to learn if they were, indeed, among the victims.

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[13:21:13] BLITZER: One of the men accused of carrying out the Belgium bombings had been captured -- had been captured, I should say, by authorities in Turkey last July. Turkey then informed officials in Belgium. Twenty-nine-year-old Ibrahim el-Bakraoui is the alleged bomber whose will was reportedly found on a computer in a trash can in the Schaerbeek neighborhood. The failure of Belgium authorities to link him to terrorism at the time allowed him to actually go free. Today's Belgium interior minister, Jan Jambon, said he had offered his resignation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAN JAMBON, BELGIUM INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): Given the facts, I think it is justified that people ask questions, that people ask, how is it possible that someone was released early. And we missed a chance when he was in Turkey to detain him. I offered my resignation to the prime minister. He, this morning, asked me to stay explicitly given the situation and the conditions we are in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now from Turkey is our senior international correspondent Arwa Damon.

Arwa, just how did Belgium miss connecting the dots, if you will, especially after Turkey raised such a huge red flag about this guy?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that's exactly what Belgian authorities are trying to figure out right now. Here's what happened, according to the Turks. Bakraoui was actually here in Gazianap (ph), where we are. This is a large city right up against the border with Syria. And one of the main transit hubs for individuals wanting to cross into the war zone, and especially a transit hub for foreign fighters wanting to go and join ISIS.

Bakraoui was not flagged previously to the Turks, but something about him raised their suspicions. They surveilled him, and then they detained him and notified the Belgians. The Belgians responded a few days later. And all of this, Wolf, was happening in July of last year.

The Belgians came back to the Turks and said, yes, we are aware of this individual, but he has ties to criminal organizations. We don't have any substantiated ties to any sort of terrorist organizations. The Turks said, look, we really believe that he's here trying to cross into the battlefield to join up with ISIS. They ended up deporting him and clearly the intelligence that they provided the Belgians with was not followed up on.

And this has been especially frustrating for the Turks, Wolf, because it's not the first time that their intelligence has been ignored. In one other significant instance, they had actually warned French authorities about a French national who ended up being one of the Bataclan attackers. And the Turkish president's message to Europe right now is, one, start acting on the intelligence we're providing. We need to have greater cooperation. And when it comes to Europe's war on terror, your best ally at this stage is Turkey, Wolf.

BLITZER: Arwa, the European Union, the ministers, they're holding an emergency meeting in Brussels today to talk about border security, intelligence-sharing, particularly the use of airport passenger data. What can you tell us about this meeting? They have a lot of work to do, clearly.

DAMON: They do. And they also need to figure out a way to better coordinate intelligence-sharing within the E.U., even though one would logically think that that is something that would already be happening. It's really not -- at least not to the extent that it should be.

When it comes to the issue of sharing passenger data, this has been pretty controversial because some of those who oppose it say that it infringes on people's liberties, while others say it is necessary for security. At this stage, there is no share passenger data system across the E.U. There's not even necessarily a shared list of individuals who are on, say, one country's no-fly list. Another European Union country may not have access to that same list. And that is why these individuals who do have European Union passports are able to transit through so easily and effectively fly under the intelligence radar.

[13:25:02] Plus, Europe is going to have to come up with significant mechanisms to up security at airports, at other high-risk locations. This really is a turning point for Europe when it comes to security, how it is sharing intelligence, and how it is then implementing that intelligence on the ground, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, these European countries, they don't share a lot of their intelligence with each other. And even it's worse in Belgium. Various communities there, various mayors and counties and cities, they don't share intelligence even amongst themselves, which, obviously, is a huge mistake.

All right, Arwa, thank you very much.

Coming up, the agonizing wait for families touched by the attacks in Brussels. With still so many people unaccounted for, relatives do all they can to hold out for hope. We'll have a closer look at this story when we come back.

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