newspaper here in new york has gone to war against the national rifle association and its executive vice president, specifically its public face, wayne lapierre. last week in the wake of the paris terror attacks, thedale news ran a cover the nra s sick jihad. this week they mock him as jihadi wayne complete with a photo shopped image of wayne as a terrorist. the daily news is assailing the nra over its opposition to a bill from democratic senator dianne feinstein and republican congressman peter king designed to prevent people on the government s terror watch list from purchasing guns. from 2004 to 2014 as the washington post reported, over 2,000 people on that list who the fbi suspects have some connection to terrorism were able to legally purchase guns in the u.s. think about it. even though the government views the people on its watch list as possible terrorists or related to terrorism it does not prevent them from legally buying firearms. among those on that list were the k
theater assault last night was known to police. amid the carrage at the bataclan carnage at the bataclan theater, officials pulled fingerprints from one of the terrorist. from that, according to the paris prosecutor, they know they have at least one home-grown attacker. a 29-year-old man born in the southern suburbs of paris. a common criminal, the prosecutor says, who d been arrested eight times. translator: an individual who was never put in prison and who in 2010 was identified as radicalized. he was never involved in any kind of terrorism. reporter: petty criminals from poor paris neighborhoods who go on to launch devastating attacks. if it sounds familiar, the kouachi brothers who carried out the charlie hebdo attack ten months ago were from a poor section of paris. at least one spent time in prison. both became radicalized. it s a problem not unique to france, analysts say, but is certainly seen on a larger scale there. france has one of the largest muslims contingents in
attention to individual cells. are these individuals who have been trained in syria or iraq by isis, or are they inspired by the group, where did they procure weapons? are there followup plots that could be activated? is there greater coordination from other individuals that play the role on the periphery? a lot of different questions will come into play. we can ill afford another event like this taking place. unfortunately, these type of incidents are becoming the new normal. and the scars of what took place on the friday the 13th of november will be long felt. you make a good point saying that questions will be asked about whether there were any failures in intelligence when it came to this particular series of attacks looking at the attack at charlie hebdo. the kouachi brothers were known to authorities, so were the thwarted attacker on the train. he was known to european intelligence officials. yet, they were able to obtain
international that speaks to an international group with local support showing the expanse of isis and what it s able to. do the other worrisome season is if one of the attackers was known to police, it goes back to the issue we saw with charlie hebdo when all of us were covering that in january. that it you ll remember the kouachi brothers who carried out the attack on charlie hebdo, they had been known to french investigators prior to the attack. one had been under surveillance by french police before being taken off it which you could call perhaps an intelligence failure. the trouble as we well know in this country, there are hundreds of suspected jihadis. to cover and surveil hundreds of suspected jihadis, you need thousands of security forces, a factor of ten really to keep one under constant surveillance. something that is impossible in this country. you don t have the resources. it speaks to that and going forward and helps explain how a turn under the high terror alert
this after the attack by the kouachi brothers and the attack on the supermarket. there s a lot more to be discovered. a lot more improvement that s required at a security level. were there bits and pieces of information of these gunmen? had they appeared on the french intelligence radar? in the past we ve seen failures in french intelligence. i fear that we may see another in this instance. i want to talk more about french intelligence, just given your expertise in this arena. we ve heard many experts say that french intelligence is solid, very good. but do you get a sense that they will be challenged when it comes to pulling together the pieces in this case? french intelligence is very good. but more in a post-operation event. they re very good also at dealing with siege situations like hostage taki-taking. when it comes to preemptive plots, they ve had problems. there have been limitations. as i mentioned, the kouachi