French terror police are right now raiding neighborhoods across France
WOLF BLITZER, CNN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with CNN's breaking news coverage on the Paris terror attacks. It's been a day of military retaliation against is and rapid fire developments in the global manhunt that is under way right now. Here's what you need to know. At this hour, French fighter jets have launched a major bombardment of the ISIS capital Raqqa in Syria dropping 20 bombs on terrorist targets including a command center, a training camp and an ammunition storage base. The French military says all the targets were destroyed and all French planes they say returned safely to their bases in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Also tonight, a French official tells CNN that at least three of the terrorists involved in the attacks spent time in Syria. An international manhunt that is intensifying for a Belgium-born French national who's suspected in the attacks. A source tells CNN that Salah Abdeslam was stopped and questioned by police a few hours after the terror happened across Paris but was not detained. We're told he was driving in the direction of the Belgium border. Also tonight, officials fear that other suspects or accomplices in the attacks may also be on the loose. Meanwhile, panic erupting in Paris earlier tonight. Take a look at this remarkable video. A crowd gathered at a memorial at one of the attack sites suddenly that crowd got spooked. People desperately dashed to safety. It turned out to be a false alarm with just two days after the massacre of at least 129 people, the fear of another attack right now in Paris is raw and real. Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is on the ground for us in the Middle East with the latest. What do we know about these strikes, Nick?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it's very hard to get accurate information out of Raqqa because this is a place hermetically sealed by ISIS. We're simply talking to outsiders. Let alone, trying to leave can get you killed. Now, we are dependent so much on information, Raqqa slaughtered silently, they initially said they heard about 30 airstrikes, refer to have the main target seemed to be, what they referred to as the</s>BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh, be careful over there. While French warplanes unloaded bombs over the so-called ISIS capital, the city ISIS terrorists tore apart stayed under lockdown. And this man, Salah Abdeslam, a Belgium-born French national, he might be the most-wanted person on the planet right now. CNN's Ivan Watson and Nic Robertson, they are working their sources in Belgium and France to get the latest on this growing investigation. Nic, you're in Paris. In its message claiming responsibility for the citywide slaughter, ISIS said eight, eight of its so-called terrorists, they don't call them terrorists, we call them involved, were involved. The Paris prosecutors says only serve were killed. Do they think this man could be the other terrorist?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Salah Abdeslam, he appears to be. His brother has been identified as one of the attackers. They attacked the restaurants. He detonated his explosives. His explosive belt, suicide bombing himself, if you like, outside the</s>BLITZER: They say he was actually stopped, picked up for questioning but released. Why did they stop him to begin with and obviously why did they release him?</s>ROBERTSON: Well, he is a Belgium-born French national. It appears that he was driving back toward Belgium. The French in the hours after the attack said that they were closing their borders. It doesn't seem that they were fully closed but they did have vehicle checks on the roads between France and Belgium in place. It appears he was stopped while en route back to Belgium. They didn't detain him because they didn't have what they call</s>BLITZER: I'm sure they'll taking a closer look to see what happened. Nic, stand by. Ivan Watson, you're in Brussels for us in Belgium. They have issued an international arrest warrant for this man, Salah Abdeslam. We saw police swarm a suburban neighborhood there, take several people into custody. Is it clear what police have learned from this men as we speak right now, Ivan?</s>IVA WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We still don't have results of whatever questioning has gone on there, but we know very clearly from the Belgian authorities that there is a strong Belgian link to the deadly attacks that took place Saturday night in Paris. You have this Belgium-born man named Salah Abdeslam and he is part of a group of three brothers that Belgian authorities are focusing their investigation on. One who, as Nic explained, was believed to have been killed in Paris during the attacks. Another who was arrested here in Brussels in a neighborhood called Mullenbach. That is a neighborhood with a very large immigrant community and that is also the neighborhood where Belgian police descended and arrested at least seven suspects today. At least two of the vehicles that were believed to have been used in the Paris attacks had Brussels license plates. Another vehicle rented from here in Belgium believed to have been used to take people to move back and forth to Paris. So there is a very strong connection here that the Belgian authorities are looking into. And, again, that Belgian-born man Salah Abdeslam wanted who was last seen heading in the direction of this country - Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ivan, we saw investigators focus in on Belgium in the aftermath of the "Charlie Hebdo" terror attack back in January. Now, again, it's central to this investigation. Here's a question a lot of people are asking. Does Belgium right now, or at least for the past year or two have a specific jihadi problem?</s>WATSON: You know, you've got top officials in the last 36 hours here in Belgium who said we do have a real problem. And they're pointing the fingers at that one neighborhood I mentioned, Mullenbach which has a very large population of first and second and third-generation immigrants. When you go to that neighborhood, you'll just as easily hear Arabic and Turkish as you'll hear French, the language of Belgium. And that is an area that has had jihadi and very serious fundamentalist Islamic groups in the past. There were roundups there last January after a deadly shootout between two men who were caught with Belgian police uniforms and weapons and explosives in another town. And that is an area that the interior minister of this country has said he's personally going to take charge on trying to figure out what is wrong, in particular, in that specific neighborhood. This country has had more jihadis exported to the Middle East from Western Europe per capita than any other country in Western Europe -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes, they certainly do have a serious problem there in Belgium. I want you to stand by, Ivan, as well. We'll get back to you. We're following the reports on this manhunt. I also want to talk about the latest developments in this war against ISIS and the terror attacks with the former chief of staff of the department of defense and the CIA, Jeremy Bash. He is joining us. Also Fara Pandith, who is joining us. She served as first U.S. state department special representative to Muslim communities. She's now a senior fellow at the Council on foreign relations. Also with us, our terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. Peter, you have some new information, I take it a source telling you the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has ordered attacks on all countries fighting ISIS including Iran? What can you tell us?</s>PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, according to a senior Iraqi official, Iraqi officials briefed a number of countries including France about a plot that they had detected ordered by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, in which a couple of dozen militants were trained for an operation in Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS, and that they briefed this to French officials as recently as 24 hours ago. Now, of course, you know, it's easy to say with 20/20 hindsight that this was, you know, sort of an overlooked piece of intelligence information. And as often in any of these types of events, Wolf, there's always plenty of signals in the system which suddenly become very clear after the event but were not clear before the event.</s>BLITZER: Jeremy, you worked at the CIA, you worked at the Pentagon. What does the U.S. military now need to do based on everything you're hearing, not just to contain is as they say, but actually destroy is in Syria and Iraq?</s>JEREMY BASH, FORMER DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, Wolf, I think the first thing that the United States military and their planners in the region are going to be thinking about is how to intensify, how to thicken, how to strengthen the effort of those air strikes into Raqqa. And as the defense secretary Ash Carter laid out in testimony before the U.S. Senate about a week ago, the three pillars to this strategy, one is to go right at Raqqa, the second is to really help the Iraqis retake Ramadi and the third is to conduct unilateral raids or raids with the Kurdish Peshmerga as was done in Sinjar province. But those raids, U.S. military actions are designed to retake military and decapitate the leadership of ISIS. That was the playbook we used along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in 2009 and 2010 to really decimate Al-Qaeda core senior leadership ranks, 20 to 30 people were taken off the battlefield. That has to be the focus strategy of the United States and our allies at this hour. That's what we did in the airstrike that took out jihadi John on Thursday. That's what we did in the airstrike that took out the ISIS leader in Libya. That's what we have to do intensify over the coming days and weeks.</s>BLITZER: Fara, you know, you're an expert on this region and so much of this coalition effort is based on these so-called kinetic airstrikes. But in order to really get the job done, some military personnel, whether the U.S., France, Arab countries in the region, some have to go in there on the ground and really fight directly in ground combat, right?</s>FARA PANDITH, FORMER U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO MUSLIM COMMUNITIES: So I think it's important to understand a couple of things. One is certainly there's an element here as Jeremy talked about in terms of the military dimension of this war. But you have to focus on the recruiting piece as well. And so far we do not have a strategy that has integrated both the hard power and the soft power. And I would say to you that at this stage with the colossal damage that happened on Friday night in Paris, it is time for us to re- evaluate where we've been and where we must go in terms of how we think about stopping recruitment. That is not something that happens just through western governments or Middle Eastern governments. This is a global problem. There are one billion Muslims under the age of 30 around the world. And ideology has no borders, so the way the extremists are recruiting means that we need to be very serious about shrinking that recruitment pool.</s>BLITZER: But Jeremy, some serious ground operation is required, right?</s>BASH: I think ultimately we will have to put and intensify our boots- on-the-ground effort. They will probably be mostly our special operations forces operating in Syria. I think we will also have to develop a better connection as we have been developing a better connection with the Kurdish forces. I think Fara actually makes an important point which is there really are two elements, but a major feature of ISIS propaganda is that they are winning. And the way we can reverse their momentum is taking their leaders off the battlefield and basically saying they are not going to win this thing. And the U.S. and our allies and France and other countries are going to gain the upper hand. A key piece of their propaganda on social media and out there to recruit is they are in ascendancy. I think we really have to reverse that narrative and put their leadership right back on our heels.</s>BLITZER: Yes. But they are pointing out that the attack in Paris was clearly from their perspective a propaganda win to be sure. All right, guys, stand by. We have a lot more to assess. There's new developments also coming up. Also how the FBI here in the United States is helping the French investigation knowing that the killers of ISIS may also be plotting to strike in the United States.