A Look at Sleeper-Cell Scenarios
BERMAN: Welcome back. John Berman here, live in Paris. A major development today in the devastating attack here one week ago today at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo," al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula now says that its late leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, planned this attack years ago, that the group paid for it and planned the whole thing. A U.S. official tells CNN that one of the Kouachi brothers left Yemen, where the group is based, with up to $20,000 to carry out these attacks. I want to bring back Fran Townsend to talk more about this, along with our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank. Paul also wrote a terrific book, "Asian Storm," about the spy inside al Qaeda in Yemen who led the CIA to al-Awlaki. It was a U.S. drone that killed al-Awlaki in 2011. And, Paul, that gets to the central question here. This video claims that al Qaeda in Yemen planned this attack, said Anwar al Awlaki was directly involved. That was back in 2011. That is when these brothers, or at least one of them, was in Yemen. Is that how that group operates, planning an attack?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Short answer, yes, it's exactly how that group operates. Anwar al-Awlaki was looking to recruit Europeans for attacks back in Europe, the idea being that they would be trained in Yemen and sent back to Europe for attacks. We know that because Morten Storm, this double agent, told us about this. In fact, he was asked by al Awlaki to do this, to try and find these European recruits, while he was working for Western intelligence. We also know from Morten storm that al-Awlaki was telling these recruits that when they went back to Europe, they should camouflage their radicalism. And it appears that's what the Kouachi brothers did because in June 2014, they were taken off the French surveillance list because they were judged no longer radical. And it's after that it appears that they then put this plot into operation, perhaps because they sensed they were being no longer followed. So it's quite possible that this is a sleeper-cell scenario here. We haven't seen that many kind of sleeper-cell plots in the past of this duration, it should be pointed out, however. Mostly when these Westerners go and get training with al Qaeda, it's been six months to a year after which they have launched an attack or a plot, and we saw that with London bombings, for example, and a plot in New York to attack subways in 2009.</s>BERMAN: Paul, it's a frightening scenario if it went as you said. It almost follows the exact map of what you say al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been trying to do for years, launching a sleeper sell in the West. Which gets me, Fran, to a key question here. This happened in France. Could this type of operation, with this type of sleeper cell -- that's the term that Paul used right there -- a group of people who sort of drifted off the radar for a few years, it happened in France, could that happen in the United States?</s>TOWNSEND: Sure. But we should be clear that the population that has left France and gone to fight and then returned is much larger, as we understand it, than what we hear from law enforcement officials here in the United States, and so just the size and the scope of the problem is much larger, which makes it a harder problem for the French to address. It's why, as Paul says, they're constantly looking at who they have under surveillance, who can they take off the surveillance list so that they can focus on the most radical. Could it happen in the United States? Certainly, it could. As Paul says, this is a longer time, though, for them to be quiet. We don't really understand why yet. We know that authorities are looking into that. Was it because of the death of Anwar al Awlaki that that delayed them? Was it because they had difficulty getting weapons? And one of the reasons they may have coordinated with</s>BERMAN: Paul, speak to me of the symbolic significance, the apparently continued symbolic significance, of Anwar al Awlaki. This man was killed by U.S. drones in 2011, yet you still have these people who carried out this brutal attack right behind me claiming allegiance to him and the group saying that he directed this operation.</s>CRUICKSHANK: Well he has still huge symbolic significance, John. This is an American who inspired a generation of Western extremists to plot attacks - to launch attacks. Somebody who was a very charismatic preacher who put out all these videos which are still online and Western extremists still consume all this stuff online. He's still very, very popular indeed. He's the guy that inspired the Boston bombings. He inspired that attack on the streets of London against a soldier in 2013. Also, somebody who was previously operational. And I think one of the worries is going to be that maybe there were other Western extremists who also met al Awlaki before he was killed and could still be waiting to launch their operations. I think that's certainly a possibility now. Whether that's in Germany or in the U.K., or even in the United States, there's going to be a lot of concern about his enduring legacy, both in inspiring attacks, but also in planning them from beyond the grave.</s>BERMAN: I think those are exactly the types of thing the U.S. intelligence, not to mention European intelligence, officials are tracing right at this very moment. Fran Townsend, Paul Cruickshank, our thanks to you. Let's go back to Christine in New York. Christine?</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Great discussion, guys. Thanks, John. Up next, it's hot off the presses, flying off the stands, "Charlie Hebdo" selling out around the world in defiance of the terrorists whose aim was to stop the presses. The details ahead @THISHOUR.