Brussels Raised Terror Level to Maxim Threat Level
POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you live from Paris tonight. It is 9:00 in the evening. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. We begin tonight in Brussels. It is a city on lockdown, because of the quote "serious and imminent possibility of a Paris-style terror attack." That warning coming today, directly from the Belgium government, as it raised the terror level there to the maximum threat level. The fear that individuals with weapons and explosives could target multiple locations at one time. Today, the subway in Brussels, the capital, completely shut down. Shops are closed, people are being urged to stay home or at least to avoid large crowds. We are also learning about arrests made in connection to last week's attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Police in Turkey today arresting three men, including one suspected of scouting potentially the target sites for the Paris attacks. A fourth suspect was also picked up in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. Police seizing weapons from his home. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir is live for us in Brussels this evening. It is astonishing, Nima, when you look at what we're seeing in Brussels right now, the fact that this city is on high alert, the fact that this city is basically shut down.</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And that the raids continue. The searches continue. Just this evening, Poppy, we have seen reinforcements coming into Brussels' town center. Police searching, just a few roads up from where we are now, we saw them using flashlights to look all the passing vehicles, including transit, buses, taxis. They are clearly looking for someone. And a few moments ago, sirens were just passing behind us here. Definitely you get the sense of the city on high alert. There is still some traffic here, but given this is a European capital on a Saturday night, not what you would expect. It is absolutely astonishing to see Belgian soldiers surrounding hotels. They have asked people not to congregate in the center of town. This morning, we were in one of the main shopping districts where some of the few shops there that had opened were very quickly closed by police, Poppy. And you could see this very contained effort to not raise panic, to not scare people, but at the same time, they are clearly dealing with something very serious here, Poppy.</s>HARLOW: Nima, have they been specific at all about what the threat is? I mean, you have got the prime minister of Belgium coming out, saying it is an imminent threat, but are there any details?</s>ELBAGIR: Well, the sense we are getting is that there are two threats to this. So there is the threat where there are part of this ongoing investigation into the broader network around the Paris attacks, but there is also this very real, very imminent threat of a Paris-style attack that they are trying to come to terms with and really trying to get ahead of. And we get that sense, also, because of the sparseness of the details that they're willing to share. Even when we were standing on that street corner, watching those searches, very quickly, police vehicles moved to block our access in terms of what we could see. They are trying to limit the information that can be used against them by any potential attackers. While at the same time, balancing the reality that there are still tourists in this town, Poppy. There is a population that is afraid and there are people here who are visiting, who are trying to carry on with their holidays, and not give into the panic. And that is really a huge challenge that faces this government today.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely, Nima Elbagir in Brussels, thank you very much. Here with me in Paris, Nic Robertson. And Nic, directly to those arrests in Turkey, three men, one of them arrested on suspicion that he may have sought out and basically staked out where they were going to murder 130 people, injure almost 400 more. What else do we know about what happened in Turkey?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hugely important for French officials right now, because he may be able to connect that - maybe join the dots and connect to, who were the facilitators, who are the financiers, who are the people behind it? Ahmed Dahmani, a 26 years old Belgian of Moroccan descent, and we remember the ringleader here, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Belgian and Moroccan descent and if Belgium together. We don't know why or how the Turkish authorities knew to move on this man, but he was meeting two other men, Turkish authorities belief were members of ISIS, believed they had come from Syria, believed that they were going to take Dahmani into Syria to get away from intelligence officials, whisk him away. So this has been shut down now. He will be a huge benefit to both Belgium and French officials. Interestingly, the town where he was arrested, Antalya in Turkey, the same town President Obama was in just a week ago for the G-20.</s>HARLOW: Sure, for the G-20.</s>ROBERTSON: Absolutely. This shows you, these people are kind of doing all of this out in the open and playing sides.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. And then, you still have, of course, the hunt for Salah Abdeslam, the eighth attacker here in Paris. Any leads on that yet?</s>ROBERTSON: No. I mean, people have asked the question, is he the third man who was killed in the raid in Saint-Denis? Logic tells you he was not because he was last seen going to Belgium. But from authorities here, they haven't announced who was the third person that was killed. We know that he was a man, that's as much as we know. We believe last that in seen heading towards or into Belgium, the Belgium authorities have two people who were with him. They went to pick him up. They described him as being nervous when they picked him up. But he called to ask him, they come and pick him up. But where is he now? He seems to have gone to ground, though. We know with this network, they are able to go to ground, move around Europe without being spotted. They have networks. That's what happens when they go to Syria, when they go to Iraq. They're with others from other countries, like-minded members of ISIS. So they have their networks. They have their trusted people and come here and know where they can go to hide. And that's seems like what's happened to him right now. And of course, Belgium authorities and French, hugely important to get him as fast as possible.</s>HARLOW: He has to have some sort of help, because how could he evade the best intelligence in the world right now. Nic Robertson, thank you so much, live for me in a very windy Paris this evening, I should say. Let's go straight to former CIA operative and CNN security and intelligence analyst, Bob Baer, also with us, CNN contributor and a journalist himself, Stefan de Vries. Bob, let me begin with you. Building on what Nima said, last night Brussels declared the highest threat level. People have to stay away from airports, anywhere crowded. Basically, this is a city on lockdown where the train, the metro station, is not even running. And this is also a city where you have the highest per capita number of citizens who have less to join the jihad. You have got a huge black market for weapons there. What makes Brussels so vulnerable?</s>BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: It's the poverty, the North African immigrant population has been marginalized over the years. Belgium doesn't have a particularly strong government, central government. There's not very good coordination between the police. But, you know, at the end of the day, just the poverty and dislocation of these people, and of course, the wars in Syria and Iraq and this easy transit of people across Turkey, Greece, and into Europe, and getting this battle training. And then, thirdly, I would add, the availability of weapons. When I used to work in Brussels and this part of the world, you just couldn't get automatic weapons. And this is something new since the Balkan wars and really</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. And I want to bring in Stefan here as well. Because what we just saw happen here is both the lower and the upper court house here in the French government passed almost unanimously a state of emergency. And that gives the police very sweeping powers, preventative detention powers, search and seizure that is very limited by law for three months. You say that is a bad decision. Why?</s>STEFAN DE VRIES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's a very tough decision, because it's basically puts democracy on a standby. There were only six members of parliament who voted against this bill and so there are over 900 members of parliament. So you have an idea how unanimous this is.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>DE VRIES: On the other hand, there are a lot of critics now saying that the government is acting too quickly. It's not thinking rightly because these are times of emotions. So they are basically acting on emotions. But it is, according to the government, the answer the French people would like to hear. There was a poll this week that over 80 percent of the French, they support the Francois Hollande's actions. So it shows that the French are probably waiting this kind of response.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. Bob Baer, to you, do you think that that is necessary to have these sort of overarching police powers for the next three months, to gather the intelligence roundup, the people, that they suspect may be connected to this terrorist web. I mean, when you think back to New York and the United States in the wake of 9/11, we didn't have something similar.</s>BAER: Well, I think it's unfortunate and I agree that this is very dangerous for Europe to have these powers. But on the other hand, I see why Hollande did this, simply because there had to be a reaction from the French government after the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks and the attacks in Brussels before, you really do need to, you know, they see an obligation to suspend the constitution, effectively, because they have to do raids. They have to haul in people that are mere suspects and haven't committed crimes. And this is a way to collect intelligence, but on the other hand, what we're seeing is a full-on insurgency in Europe. And the predictable police powers that are brought to bear against it. And let's hope there's not more attacks, because I think the Europeans, a couple more of these are going to be completely fed up and governments will start to change.</s>HARLOW: Stefan, for you, seeing the reaction, you were here after "Charlie Hebdo" and now, seeing the reaction of the French people in the wake of two of these horrific attacks in ten months, what has changed?</s>DE VRIES: Well, the things change -- the big difference, generally, is that in the attacks on "Charlie Hebdo" and also on the supermarket, they targeted ideas or ideologies like a religion or a magazine. These attacks were completely different, because they targeted just random people, without any distinction of age, of class.</s>HARLOW: Does that scare people more?</s>DE VRIES: Yes, I think Parisians now realize that even having a coffee on a terrace can bring them into dangerous. And we have seen that tonight in Brussels, which is a very, very vivid city. A lot of bars. It is a very nice place. And now, all the bars and restaurants are closed in the heart of Europe. It's very difficult to comprehend what's going on there.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. Bob Baer, to you. I do want to ask you about what we heard from the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, because he came out and he warned of the possibility of ISIS having chemical weapons. Do you think that's possible?</s>BAER: I think it's almost certain that they do have them. There's been credible reports coming out of Syria that ISIS is using chemical, you know, chlorine, for instance, against the Syrian army. And the ability to get chlorine and use it in Europe is a possibility. And I don't think they could kill a lot of people with it, but just the sheer terror factor of it would be enough for ISIS' goals.</s>HARLOW: Bob Baer, thank you very much. Stefan, thank you. I appreciate you being with me. We are going to take a quick break. We are back live with our continuing coverage from Paris right after this.