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Traffic back and forth. i know, it s absolutely extraordinary. the first time i was told this i was shocked, but you see a sense of ease with the traffic back and forth. they come back radicalized and boast about it. that s what the ringleader did in the paris attack, he posted a video online saying i was inside belgium and i knew they were looking for me and yet i managed to come back out to syria. and all of these things are going to have consequences for the belgian authorities. no question. i mean, that is astonishing to hear, nima. and the fact that the ringlead er abaaoud was riding the subway here the night of the attacks when they coordinated and attacked six different locations. nima, thank you very much. we ll talk more about this manhunt for the accused eighth paris attacker. senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi assistant ....
Church here. we ve heard they have been banging on the door. can you see, it s a fairly chaotic scene. there are dozens an dozens of journalists. you can see police now are trying to push us back. it s not clear what the source of this late ever move towards the church is. did they hear something inside? do they have reason to believe that someone related to this latest raid may be inside the church. nobody seems to know that yet. it is also not clear to me how it is the police are not able to get into this church. but, certainly, what we can say is that the main suspect the main, the source of this raid, the target of this raid, is known to be an incredibly dangerous man. he is 27-year-old abdelhamid abaaoud he is belgium of moroccoan dissent. he was involved with a large terror plot inside belgium but was thwarted pack in germany. but as you know, chris, that ....
Plot was thwarted. but he managed to escape and it had been believed that he made it back to syria or iraq. we know that the department of homeland security, chris, as recently as may or rather as far back as may was complaining that they viewed him to be a potential threat, that they were concerned that isis was possibly developing the capabilities to launch a kind of complex or sophisticated attack here in the west. we also know that french and coalition forces who are fighting against syria, fighting against isis and syria and iraq had tried to targeted abaaoud before. that, obviously, was unsuccessful. now it appears, chris, he may be, indeed, right here in paris all along, not, in fact, in syria or iraq at all. i m not sewure if you can see. the police are outside the door of that church. one man sort of keeping a ....
In january, as you ll recall, he was thought to be the mastermind of that plot in belgium, coordinated by cell phone from greece in touch with the plotters and went back in belgium and also in turn in touch with the isis leadership in syria. and at the time, the belgians brought in the greek security services. they also brought in the cia to try to locate where this phone was communicating from. but by the time they went in, he had escaped. he escaped the drag net. he s believed to have gone back to syria. that s what he claimed in an isis propaganda magazine. and it appears from there, he s been able to plot more terrorist attacks. and including this one, this terrible one we just saw play out in paris on friday. but he s also being linked to a number of other plots against ....
Over there. there are a lot of different reasons but one of them is, they have, france, particularly belgium, have a very large population of middle eastern, north african people, many of whom are on the list that they want to keep an eye on. you heard earlier that the french themselves have admitted that they are overwhelmed with a number of people they have that need to be watched. and so, as a result of that, we obviously are focused first and foremost on the united states, who s coming, who is going, who is doing what here. it s much more difficult for the europeans to do that for the reasons that i mentioned and for other reasons. they have their problems over there. final question, senator, what u.s. officials have said to me, what really concerns them about isis is the tons of cash, they have a lot of money, oil revenue, when they took over mosul in northern iraq, a city of 2 million people, they robbed the banks, they took the gold, they took the cash. ....