Live Coverage Of Aftermath Of Paris Terror Attacks
HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow, live in Paris. Our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the tragedy of the terror attack that rattled this city last. Staff and students at Cal State Long Beach University in the United States right now mourning the loss of one of their own. 23-year-old Nohemi Gonzalez was killed in these attacks last night. She was out having dinner with her other friends who are studying abroad here, like so many do a Friday night. ISIS claims to have carried out the coordinated six attacks. Nohemi was a junior at University. She was in Paris for a semester abroad. She was studying design. CNN's Paul Vercammen joins me now with more from Long Beach. We just heard, Paul, the president,</s>PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they describe her on this campus as buoyant and jovial and really a superstar in design. The mood on the campus right now, Poppy, tragic, sad, heartbreaking, just some of the words they used. And then they began to describe Nohemi. And as a design student, she was actually a senior, they corrected that. Apparently extremely gifted one of her professors just telling me off-camera seconds ago, so talented that everybody in the department knew her. And not only was she gifted but she was sharing. She was a mentor. He talked about how close-knit this family is and how they worked long, long hours and how Nohemi was a positive influence on everyone and excited about going off to Paris. Another member of the faculty telling me that from what he understands, they had gone out for a night on the town, so to speak, going to dine out, fresco on the cafes, long beach state people with them and they had simply sat down with the unimaginable happened. They heard gunfire. And, Poppy, let me give you just more of a characterization of just how dynamic of a student that Nohemi was. She engaged in this global competition put on by Biomimickry. She and three of her colleagues and we might have a photo of this for you, there were some 70 entries from 22 countries around the world and Nohemi's group finished second in the competition. And we get some indications to the kind of person she was. Clearly involved in sustainable agriculture, healthy foods and more. What she designed, according to the competition, was called poly- snack. And it was basically a biodegradable bag that contained fruits and nuts and after you ate it, you were able to go ahead and plant something and that was a very complex project, one she was rewarded for internationally, Poppy.</s>HARLOW: You know, Paul, you hear the numbers, 129 dead, 352 injured, and now all of the individual stories, this just one of all of those brutally, brutally murdered in this attack yesterday. Paul Vercammen live for us in Long Beach. Thank you very much. And coming up later in the program, we will have a full list for you of the victims who have been identified at this hour and a little bit more about each of them. So stay with us for that. Meantime, the U.S. department of homeland security says, it has no active intelligence to suggest that any attacks are eminent in the United States. However, cities including New York City are increasing security out of precaution. Extra police officers have been deployed to protect potential targets like Times Square and also the statue of liberty. U.S. officials working around the clock this weekend in touch with their French counterparts on this investigation. And as we learned earlier, from Julie Kayyem, the FBI now has jurisdiction in this in because an American has been killed in this attack. Joining me from Washington, CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez, also with him, former FBI deputy director, Tom Fuentes who is with us from China. Evan, let me begin with you. Just speak to that a little bit, the fact that now that we know that there has been an American casualty. The FBI will have a more integral role in this investigation, if you will.</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. We expect, now that the FBI is going to be working a lot more closely with the French authorities to try to figure out exactly what happened here. They have a criminal investigation now that is ongoing. They expect that the French will be able to brief them a lot more readily, a lot more, you know, as soon as they have information because now the FBI has jurisdiction. And one of the things that is already happening is I was told just last night the FBI convened a conference call with special agents in charge around the country. And one of the things that the deputy director of the FBI told them to do was simply to go back and review all of their cases. They want to make sure that this is an opportunity to go back and check to see whether anybody who is on their radar who possibly might use this event as a trigger to go out and do something. This is something that they did. They are treating this almost like what happened after the garland attack. If you remember two attackers tried to shoot up a prophet Muhammad contest in Texas and that caused the FBI to start doing 24/7 surveillance on a lot of suspects around the country. We ended up having a couple dozen of arrests as a result of that. And so, we expect now that there's more activity from the FBI. They are shaking the trees, as one official calls it simply because they want to make sure they don't take any chances, Poppy.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. Evan, thank you very much. And Tom Fuentes, to you, as you look at this, from your perspective, as former assistant director of the FBI, you know, it's sort of unreal to think that ISIS has claimed responsibility for three attacks in the last three weeks, downing of the Russian jetliner, Beirut, the coordinated attacks this week, and now in Paris here. Do you believe there's a reason we're seeing these play out around the world and not in the United States at this point in time?</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think, Poppy, partly because the other countries, particularly in Europe, have more of ISIS than anybody, you know. They have had tens of thousands of individuals go to Syria and join and learn to fight, and learn to use weapons and then return back to their countries in Europe, and then they can train others there. So you have French nationals and others in those countries who are, you know, able to be trained by the people who have come back from the battlefield, you know, to try to train themselves. We don't have as many in the U.S. and yet it's overwhelming here. So it's a matter of time it could happen here. You know, the FBI director has already stated that the bureau has active ISIS investigations in every single one of our states, all 50 states.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>FUENTES: So in a sense, it's a matter of time.</s>HARLOW: That's a scary, scary thought. Tom Fuentes, do you believe that, as we look at the evolution of ISIS, you know, today, obviously with the G-20, and you had U.S. secretary of state John Kerry meeting with other leaders and also Russia's foreign secretary Sergey Lavrov coming out and sort of laying out their plan or their hope, if you will, for the future of Syria and what should happen to the Assad regime in Syria. We'll see it leads to elections that carry outlined there. But do you believe anything can change in terms of ISIS expanding ability and threat until the situation in Syria is handled?</s>FUENTES: I think, even if the situation is handled, that may take another couple of decades to do so. I think it is still not going to stop the entire problem. You know you can contain a virus, like Ebola, we don't talk about Ebola anymore, but you cannot contain the ideology. The ideology goes on. And I should add that attacks in Paris and Belgium were planned for the week of 9/11. And it was the police and the FBI working with them throughout Europe that foiled those plots just days before the U.S. embassy in Paris was going to be attacked. We never heard anything about those arrests because, of course, we had our own 9/11 coverage, which was obviously extensive, and for good reason. So this has been going on in Europe for decades. It's not a new phenomenon. It's just expanded phenomenon. And what used to be Al- Qaeda that is really kind of morphed into ISIS. The people that might have originally followed Al-Qaeda now follow ISIS. And in a sense, it doesn't matter. They'll follow somebody else if they're out there, you know, spreading the ideology, spreading the hate, and spreading the word that they should attack and kill in their own country.</s>HARLOW: But then you are saying you can't contain ISIS. We heard the president this week say ISIS has been contained, meaning on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq. Tom, is it a mistake to try to fight ISIS on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq rather than fighting them on the streets of cities across the globe?</s>FUENTES: We don't think it's a mistake, Poppy, but we have had two presidents in a row say that we're not going to allow Al-Qaeda or extremists Islamic groups to have a place to do their training, to have a spot to expand their training academies, you know, meaning Afghanistan and Iraq. So we eliminated that. But now, one-third of Syria, one-third of Iraq are giant training grounds, more prolific than existed in the past and thousands -- bin Laden would not have been able to accommodate the thousands of people that showed up to train in Afghanistan at his camps back in the late '90s compared to what they can do now all over Syria, all over Iraq. So until the present caliphate eliminated you're going to have training grounds. And again, it's still ideology. Only takes a handful of people to do these kind of attacks.</s>HARLOW: Tom Fuentes thank you very much for joining us. We are going to take a quick break. We will have much more of our live coverage from Paris right after this.