Affiliated Attack News Today

The scale of the attack. the same month the french military assault is happening. what they attacked was a remote, gas processing facility and it was apparently way too lightly protected and full of westerners and other international civilgens who they found were easy to take hostage. >> and now to another big and still developing story tonight, americans citizens among dozens of people taken hostage in algeria and its right next door to mali where incidentally, french war planes have been bombi...

They became members of the islamic state, so-called islamic state.&p however, other groups, those organizations are still operating under al qaeda. >> so, we should see this as an al qaeda affiliated attack? >> this is absolutely al qaeda affiliated attack. and interestingly enough, last month al qaeda said that mokhtar was dead and didnt say how he was killed. maybe he was hit in libya, but it took him a while to die but we cant verify the statement but it said that he was dead and we have to l...

Personality and a leader that you would expect his group to fall apart, if he was dead? would you expect them to be able to pull off a big attack like this in mali if they had just lost their leader? >> this is not the first time al qaeda conduct. they did something very similar attack in the capital of mali at a luxury hotel and killed lot of people before but now a lot of the attention is because of what happened in france. especially because of the french intervention in mali. is it considere...

At the beginning of the civil war in mali, in the beginning of the al qaeda attack in 2013, after the situation in libya, and it became a disaster, a lot of fighters went from libya to mali and this is when the war started in mali. during that time period, boko haram appeared to have working relationships with some of the extremists operating in mali. boko haram, i think last march, they became members of the islamic state, so-called islamic state. however, other groups, those organizations are ...

>> reporter: bryan, algerian officials say the hostages were taken by heavily armed islamic militants linked to al qaeda and they were responding to the military operation by the french here in mali supported by american cargo aircraft, spy planes. and its a natural gas facility, and its located in the remote sahara desert and they approached 3 unmarked vehicles. they took at least 20 and perhaps more than 40 people hostage, at least three americans, 13 norwegians and others from britain, irelan...

Over the course of the day and as best as we can tell right now, what happened today in mali, there were multiple attackers, they were armed with guns and possibly grenades and they held upwards of 100 civilian hostages from many different countries, u.n. workers, all sort of people and in the end, the attackers are all said to have been killed by security services on scene and the death toll for the civilians is thought to be about 20 people at this point. again, i stress those numbers are subj...

Imminent threat of an attack in the brussels region and this is just hours after a terrorist attack was launched against a hotel in mali. there has been one claim of responsibility for that attack and its still unclear who is responsible and whether we should see this latest attack is related to isis, al qaeda, both, or neither. here is former fbi agent and an expert in counterterrorism. thank you for being here. does it matter in a counterterrorism sense? >> absolutely. you have to know whos be...

Al qaeda a commander has been killed in chad. the army says they killed maktar in a. >> the attack on the oil refinery gas plant, january 2013 and in the march, the leader of the attack, the one-eyed guy reported to be dead. they said they killed him in chad. he was not dead. they did not kill him in chad because you fast forward and this past june he was reported to be dead yet again, this time thanks to fighter jets targeting him in libya. >> libyas interim government says he was killed in the...

Its a little bit of a sideshow. its interesting, and, you know, it gets -- the most interesting part to me is the substantive questions about our intervention in libya and whats happening with al qaeda in north africa. when you look at the things washington is talking about at the end of the day, i see a bureaucratic turf war. i see cia and state pointing the finger at each other for who dropped the ball on the security in that compound. i dont see a white house cover-up. by the way, to the poin...

I see cia and state pointing the finger at each other for who dropped the ball on the security in that compound. i dont see a white house cover-up. by the way, to the point former vice president cheney made, you know, if they were trying to tell a lie about the video and demonstrations, it lasted three days. voters went to the polls knowing there had been an al qaeda affiliated attack there. what was covered up? a cover-up that lasted 72 hours. a pretty inept one. i dont see scandal there. >> th...