Police: Eight Dead In "Act Of Terror" In New York City
COOPER: Well, of course, just steps away from the side of the worst terror attack in the nation's history. Today, a new milestone, the deadliest terror attack in the city since that day in September 2001, it is unfortunately not the first since then. CNN Miguel Marquez has more.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): September 2016, a bomb made from a pressure cooker explodes in Manhattan's downtown Chelsea neighborhood. One separate similar device is discovered nearby unexploded. The bombs to several planted in New York and New Jersey by ISIS inspired Ahmad Khan Rahimi. He was captured after a shootout with police.</s>JOON KIM, ACTING US ATTORNEY: Inspired by ISIS and Al Qaeda, Rahimi built, planted, and detonated bombs on the street of Chelsea, in the heart of Manhattan and in New Jersey, hoping to kill as many innocent people as possible.</s>MARQUEZ: Dozens were injured but no one die, one of New York's closes calls post 9/11.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK: That there were no fatalities is something to give thanks for today. Because when you see the amount of damage, we really were very lucky that there were no fatalities.</s>MARQUEZ: That same year, three men arrested in a sting operation after authority say they planned to bomb Time Square and the New York City subway system. Two men were arrested in foreign countries and extradited to the U.S. all pledged allegiance to</s>ISIS. BILL BRATTON, NEW YORK POLICE CHIEF: We are the number one terrorist target in this country and potentially in the world.</s>MARQUEZ: In 2012, a 21-year-old Bangladeshi man inspired by Al Qaeda thought he had built a thousand pound bomb to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. He hoped to strike at the heart of the American economy. In 2010, Times Square, again, a failed plot by Pakistani born, Faisal Shahzad. Inspired by Al Qaeda and possibly funded by the Pakistani Taliban, Shahzad came close. Bystanders and authorities tipped off when smoke started pouring from his</s>SUV. MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK: Firefighters, emergency service officers, and the bomb squad responded and the bomb squad confirmed that the suspicious vehicle did indeed cane an explosive device.</s>MARQUEZ: 2009 saw two plots, one led by African born Al Qaeda inspired Najibullah Zazi to attack the New York City subway system by suicide bomb, the other plots by three Americans and one Haitian immigrant, all Muslim, targeting synagogues and U.S. military aircraft flying out of New York State. Their motive, deaths of Muslim in Afghanistan during the U.S. led war there. The massive fuel tanks in lines at New York's JFK airport were targeted in 2007. The plot involved four men, one a JFK cargo handler, another a former member of the parliament in Guyana. Their motive, general hatred toward the west and the plot will have hazard could have been serious.</s>MARK MERSHON, FBI: It would have been a significant loss of property, certainly, and very likely a significant loss of life.</s>MARQUEZ: A 2004 sting operation netted a 21-year-old Pakistani man for plotting to blow up busy New York subway station just days before the Republican National Convention. All of these plots either conceive (ph) or partially carried out none deadly until now. Miguel Marquez, CNN.</s>COOPER: With me now is CNN National Security Analyst, Peter Bergen, as well as CNN Terrorism Analyst, Paul Cruickshank. So, Peter, thoroughly there have been a number of close calls in New York City, obviously, since 9/11. Plots foiled, attackers caught, none of those attacks have been like this attack today, however.</s>PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. I mean, a number of attacks in that piece we're observing informant driven, the two serious attacks were in 2009, 2010. There were Al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban trained. Lucky they didn't pan out. But it shows, you know, from a terrorist perspective, Faisal like school shooters, they learn from other incidents. We've seen 15 of these vehicle attacks in the west, Anderson, since 2014. They killed 142 people including the eight people who were killed today in Manhattan. And, unfortunately, you know, this is the tactic of choice now, it requires no training, it requires also, of course, you're not buying weapons or buying chemicals for bomb making or going overseas for training, the kinds of things that would bring you to the attention of law enforcement. They're very hard to guard against. We got in a Thanksgiving parade coming in New York. New York police department does a pretty good job of kind of trying to wall off these kind of key event to vehicle traffic, but you can't protect against everything. But certainly, when these big events come up, that's only something that law enforcement needs to consider.</s>COOPER: Paul, I mean, there was the attack in Chelsea last year where a bomb was actually detonated but no one was killed. This is the first terror attack in New York where there fatalities since 9/11.</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: That's right, the first one Jihadi terrorist attack with fatalities since 9/11. That attempted attack, the bombing in Chelsea we both covered that last year, Anderson. That was a very close call. There could have been dozens of people killed in that attack if they not placed the explosive device either inside a very narrow, a heavy duty metal dumpster. It was high explosive in that case. But now we have seen a terrorist attack get through. About a year ago, ISIS put out an issue of their magazine calling for exactly these kinds of vehicle attacks in United States, even against the Macy's Day parade in New York. I'm looking back through, which I've just done, a publication, there's a striking similarity between what we saw play out on the streets of Manhattan this afternoon and the advice given in that magazine right down to an ISIS claim of affiliation written on paper. And so, one of the things the investigators are going to be looking at is whether this individual had accessed that particular issue of the ISIS magazine. I think there's a high degree of likelihood that he did.</s>COOPER: Peter, according to a senior law enforcement official, this attacker left a note or have a note in the vehicle or around the vehicle, claiming he did it in the name of ISIS. We don't know if this was ISIS-inspired or directed by ISIS.</s>BERGEN: Yes, I mean, there's several levels. I mean, going back to some of the discussion you have with General Hayden, you know, the fact that ISIS is no longer able to train large numbers of westerners in Syria and Iraq, you know, you're not going to see the Paris attack where a 130 people were killed by ISIS trained in Syria and Iraq. But what we're seeing a two kinds of attacks, one is what the FBI calls enabled. And we will certainly investigate. We're going to see if this happened here. Whether there was some kind of direction by a virtual ISIS recruiter somewhere in the Middle East or perhaps in Europe who directed this guy to do this attack, or was he was simply inspired like Omar Mateen in Florida without any direct contacts with ISIS. So right now, those are the two questions investigators surely will be looking at.</s>COOPER: Paul, we know this attacker is an Uzbek national came to the U.S. back in 2010. You said there's been a significant problem with the Jidahist and Uzbekistan, are there any of those Jihadist groups there affiliated directly with ISIS?</s>CRUICKSHANK: There is a significant problem with Jihadism and Uzbekistan. They'll be looking at travel patterns whether maybe he went back there. The two major groups in Uzbekistan the IMU, which is affiliated with ISIS, and the IJU, with is affiliated with Al Qaeda. There are a lot of Uzbeks that have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join groups like ISIS, to join Uzbek brigades affiliated with ISIS and Al Qaeda. And there is a hell of a lot of Jihadist propaganda which is put out in Uzbek. And one extra note, there was an Uzbek national that was responsible for a deadly truck attack in Stockholm this year which killed a number people in the Swedish capital. So there is track record of Uzbeks getting involved in these kinds of plots and Uzbek groups having links to terror plots in the west. In fact, there was plot all the way back in 2007 against the U.S. Air Force Base, the Ramstein Base in Germany linked back to an AL Qaeda affiliated, an Uzbek group in the troubled areas of Pakistan, Anderson.</s>COOPER: And Peter, just in terms of vehicle attacks like this, I mean, there really is very -- it's very difficult, obviously, to prevent these sorts of things.</s>BERGEN: Yes, I mean, unless we plan to turn ourselves into some sort of prison system where, you know, anywhere where there is kind of large crowds and vehicles able to access them that we're going to kind of cut that off. Of course, that's -- you know, we're not going to do that. It couldn't happen in New York City for all these reasons or any other crowded western city. So the way to stop these attacks is the FBI has done a study of dozens of attacks in the United States, overwhelmingly the people who know the most information are peers and families members. We know, for instance, in the Orlando attack that the wife certainly knew something about the possible attack and has been charged as such by the FBI. In the San Bernardino attack, somebody provided weapons, a friend knew that there was a Jihadist terrorist attack potentially. So it's enlisting peers and family members to come forward. That's difficult because they're going to be concerned about, you know, people facing long sentences, but that's the way you find the kind of person that's carrying out these attacks.</s>COOPER: Peter Bergen, and Paul Cruickshank. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We're going to more when we come back in just a moment.