he was there. how on earth was someone like that, that specific guy of all people, able to get into paris undetected? this is just an unimaginable intelligence and law enforcement failure given how high-profile he was. nbc s chief foreign correspondent richard engel today interviewed a french government terrorism adviser. and richard, put it to him that that seemed to him basically like finding out after 9/11 that osama bin laden himself was hanging out somewhere in new york city even after the attacks, having personally been on scene to orchestrate them. yes, these guys were able to move all too easily from one country to another, one city to another. it almost seems as if osama bin laden who was killed in a raid in queens just outside manhattan, he was right near the spot. yeah. what does that say? that says that it s very difficult to keep track of more
most notorious wanted islamic extremist terrorist in belgium and france. the top french prosecutor today said that french authorities have thwarted six total terrorist attacks since the spring. he has been known to them as being involved in four of the six. excuse me. the french sentenced him in absentia in france to 20 years in prison this past july. in france there is not a more high-profile terrorism threat or terrorism suspect or counterterrorism target than this man. and that has made it very hard to understand how after all the attention he s brought on himself from law enforcement and the security services, it s made it very hard to understand how he could be still leading even more active operational terror plots in france even after all his other failed or thwarted attacks just this year. just made it hard to understand that he was still operating with enough freedom of communication, enough freedom of movement to be
himself french police named another suspect in that attack who was not himself arrested. same guy named suspect from the church attack in april. and the reason that named suspect was not arrested after either of those two attempted terrorist attacks even though he was a named suspect in both is because police couldn t find him. they did not believe he was in france or even in europe. right after the charlie hebdo attacks this past january police chasing down the source of some of the weapons used in those attacks, they ended up in belgium carrying out a ton of police raids including one in which police were met with a huge onslaught of gunfire. abdelhamid abaaoud, the named terror suspects for those two terror attacks, he was
osama bin laden himself was hanging out somewhere in new york city even after the attacks, having personally been on scene to orchestrate them. yes, these guys were able to move all too easily from one country to another, one city to another. it almost seems as if osama bin laden who was killed in a raid in queens just outside manhattan, he was right near the spot. yeah. what does that say? that says that it s very difficult to keep track of more than 10,000 people who have been listed as being security threats of an islamic variety. what s the answer? more cops surveilling more people or better lists, the real actors, the real dangerous ones? the lists i would argue to have proven to be actually the more robust part of the system. what has been definitely not
says the organizer of the paris terror attacks was himself at that raid and killed in that raid, which means he was in paris. he was there. how on earth was someone like that, that specific guy of all people, able to get into paris undetected? this is just an unimaginable intelligence and law enforcement failure given how high-profile he was. nbc s chief foreign correspondent richard engel today interviewed a french government terrorism adviser. and richard, put it to him that that seemed to him basically like finding out after 9/11 that osama bin laden himself was hanging out somewhere in new york city even after the attacks, having personally been on scene to orchestrate them. yes, these guys were able to