people showing a high level of capability in a basic level to people who are professionals. these are not professionals. they're simply n my world, probably top five, top 1% of the unprofessional sometimes trained people that i saw at the head of plots. for example, a kid trying to blow up a christmas tree on the west coast during christmas a couple years ago, not well trained. you saw that plot, that attack in ottawa. so sophisticated, not professional. >> all right, fair enough. thank you so much, philip mudd as always providing some context and expertise to this. we appreciate your time today. cnn's continuing coverage of the aftermath of the french terrorist attacks and today's massive unity rally begins right now. >> again let's take a live look there, look at all of the people

waving their flags at the center of where this unity rally in paris is going to start. it is so packed, people are even standing there on the statues. we're expecting 1 million people for the rally that will honor victims of last week's terror attacks and who are defiantly telling terrorists, will you not control us. so glad to have you with us. i'm christi paul. >> i'm victor blackwell. we're just a little less than an hour away from the massive unity march getting under way. as many as 1 million people, look at them here, hundreds of thousands collected already expected to take part and they want to send a message. terrorists who gripped this country in fear for three long day also never win. marches will wind their way from the plaz-de la republic to the plaz de la.

nation. >> many are meeting with france's french. french place source tells cnn terrorist sleeper cells have been activated within the last 24 hours. jake tapper, you are at the place where this unity rally will begin. help us understand what it's like there right now. >> it's very exciting, the crowd is very enthusiastic, christi, gathering now for hours. the crowds are in the thousands. they were in roughly the hundreds when we got here. they've been standing on the statue behind me and doing all sorts of chants, who are you, charlie, who are you, charlie, a reference to "charlie hebdo," the french satirical magazine whose members were so brutally slaughtered last wednesday, they've been singing the national anthem, merci to the

police for providing them with protection. they are planning to use what they're calling exceptional measures today to protect everyone participating in this rally, including those world leaders, attorney general eric holder from the u.s., british expect david cameron, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu as well as mahmoud abbas. we're learning new information this morning about amedy coulibaly, the terrorist suspect who police say gunned down four hostages, four innocent people at a jewish market on friday as well as having killed a french policewoman on thursday. let's get more on this from cnn senior international correspondent jim bitterman, located at the plac place de-la-national, where the unity rally where i'm standing will end later today. welcome. first of all we're learning that

coulibaly, this terrorist pledged allegiance to al baghdadi, the leader of isis. tell us more about that. >> well, this is a video apparently that has come out on some of the islamic websites this morning, and in fact, it shows a picture of coulibaly, actually three different scenes of coulibaly posing with his weapons but also pledging allegiance to al baghdadi, the self-proclaimed head of isis, in syria and iraq, and as a consequence, it adds a little bit of confusion to the story in the sense that we have been told up until now that he was part of a group trained by the yemenis, and not necessarily connected with isis, but in this video, it's clear from the voiceover that he is pledging allegiance to al baghdadi and he's called in the video a soldier of a caliphate. so in fact, it indicates clearly that he has some allegiance to

al baghdadi as well as perhaps to al qaeda of yemen, as we have been talking about for the last few days. jake? >> jim the interior minister in france spoke about the security measures being put in place for today's march. tell us more about what i imagine must be extraordinary security. >> i think it is extraordinary security. as you mentioned there may be up to 50 heads of states from the international community here, who are joining this march and so the french police have mobilized 2,200 agents just for the march here in paris, including snipers on rooftops and all sorts of things along the way. lot of people, a lot of plain clothed agents you wouldn't be able to identify in the crowd, typical for french

demonstrations but clearly today of this a huge problem on their hands in the sense they have to assure the safety of all of these world lead ears who have come in as well as the french leader. eight former prime ministers are taking part in this unity march to show some national unity, and of course, president hollande himself may be marching along for a brief part of this. so it is a real nightmare. here's what the interior minister, michel cazenueve had to say earlier. >> apparently we to last audio. we bring in cnn national analyst peter bergen. peter, i want to talk to you about this video of the paris gunmen, the terrorist amedy,

coulibaly pledging allegiance to al baghdadi. it's a video released by isis on twitter, i believe. what's your take on it, how legitimate does it seem to you? does this suggest necessarily that coulibaly had any contact with isis or maybe he just was homegrown and pledged allegiance? >> jake, i think it's probably the latter. it's hard to tell you about a look at the stills from that video, it looks like a shot of his bedroom in france. typically when you see an isis video released with the fighters coming from overseas they're very dramatic and out in the desert area or clearly in a location that is syria or iraq. here we've got a guy who is probably in his suburban bedroom in froons who is sort of self-identifying with isis and this has been put out by somebody of his on a jihadist militant site. that's my take. i don't think this is indication

that he went to syria and was trained by isis. that doesn't preclude the idea he might have but in this video itself is t would be unusual for an isis fighter in syria not to show him doing something much more dramatic than what we see in this video, jake. >> peter, the kouachi brothers were obviously known to french authorities. one of them had done time in prison for trying to recruit jihadis to fight against american soldiers in iraq. i believe it was in 2008 one of them had traveled to yemen to train. french intelligence is being criticized now, rising voices in the media and counterterrorism experts saying that they missed a lot of warning signs. what's your reaction? >> well i think that's true but i think in almost any major terrorist event when we look back that's always the case. the cia the two members in the

united stat united states before 9/11 and crashed the plane. the london bomber wasn't followed sufficiently and the boston marathon bombers, tamerlan tsarnaev came to the attention of the fbi and almost certainly involved in a triple murder in boston, which wasn't sufficiently investigated. so it's not untypical for when you look back to see warning signs. in a way that's, you always see that these kinds of folks have come to the attention of law enforcement, almost invariably the case and it would be worse if they just came out of nowhere, right? faisal al assad from the pakistani taliban tried to blow up a bomb in times square, he drove his suv into the most

heavily policed place in the world which is times square on a saturday night. so there will obviously be some 9/11 commission here, jake. there certainly were multiple warning signs but the two brothers and clearly the ball was dropped. >> peter bergen, thank you so much. that's right, this event is being referred to in france as france's 9/11. obviously the loss of life not as great but it does seem as though at least from commentators in counterterrorism and public officials here that things have changed in france. we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, more cnn live coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in paris, france, as well as coverage of the unity rally that will be kicking off any moment now. stay with us. (son) oh no... can you fix it, dad?

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welcome back. i'm jake tapper and this is cnn's continuing coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks here in paris, france, as well as today's unity rally. i'm standing here at the place de la republique, where thousands and thousands of frenchmen, women and children have gathered. they are chanting "who are you, charlie, who are you, charlie" a reference of course to "charlie hebdo," the french satirical magazine that was broughtally attacked last wednesday, 12 people killed. the magazine publishes this

wednesday, they are going to be putting out at least a million copy, in defiance of the terrorist attacks by the kouachi brothers. french officials are still looking, of course, for that fourth terrorist suspect, the female suspect, hayat boumeddiene. she's now believed to be in syria. let's bring in cnn's atika shubert standing at the site of friday's attack, the kosher supermarket in paris where four innocent people were killed. atika, tell me what we know about hayyat beat boumeddiene's movement. the thought she was in syria is that she's not involved in the friday attack in the kosher supermarket or the thursday attack, the cold-blooded murder of the french policewoman. >> reporter: i think the fact is that police are still trying to piece together all the different

parts of this puzzle. we're still coming up with new details every day. in fact, for example, just now the paris prosecutor has said that it looks like a jogger who was shot in the neighborhood where coulibaly lived with pew med yen was shot with the same gun used in the kosher market behind me. there's still other parts of this being put together. one of the key questions is what role did hayat boumeddiene may have had in all of this. when amedy coulibaly gunned down four people and took hostages at the kosher supermarket, police immediately issued this arrest warrant for him and his partner, hayat boumeddiene, suggesting she had been alongside her husband for the attack. police said she was armed and dangerous. france's public prosecutor linked the couple to the attackers at ch"charlie hebdo." tropical storm it appears from the investigation especially phone taps that cherif kouachi's

spouse had called more than 500 times to cue bali's partner, hayat boumeddiene, which shows strong relationship between the couple. >> reporter: this is where coulibaly was living, a ten-minute drive to month rouge where coulibaly is believed to have gunned down the police officer and 20 minutes from the supermarket where he took hostages. police are still inside the apartment investigating. their names are clearly printed on their mailbox and armed police still stake out the couple's apartment. photos of boumeddiene in 2010 quickly surfaced showing her in full macab armed with a crossbow. now as the investigation widens, it appears boumeddiene was not even in france at the time of the shooting. tirkish officials say she arrived january 2nd in istanbul, most likely destined for syria.

french security forces agree. that's not the first dead end. initially police named three suspects in the "charlie hebdo" attack including an 18-year-old of hamyd mouraud. he was in school more than 100 miles away. he voluntarily turned himself in. saturday he was released. in the rush to find the attackers, french police cast a wide net, but investigators are still seeking answers from anyone who may have been involved in france or abroad, including hayat boumeddiene. now one of the big questions is how much coordination did coulibaly have with the kouachi brothers. now, he's claimed that these attacks were cdone in coordination but also separately. we know that from phone conversations he's had with local media. police are trying to figure out

the exact time line and how much preplanning and coordination there was for all of these attacks. jake? >> atika, if hayat boumeddiene was in syria during this attack, do authorities have any idea whif she knew about the plans for this attack? >> reporter: they haven't said just how much she knew. just how much involvement we had. all we know is that she was obviously quite close to coulibaly, they were living together and then she traveled to turkey and is presumed to be in syria now. we don't know much more than that. it's still an ongoing, fluid situation and they're trying to figure out exactly how coulibaly and the kouachi brothers planned this, and remember, just in the last 24 hours, and police here have said that coulibaly triggered other sleeper terror cells in the area to conduct more attacks. he did that by making calls from that market to his friends, urging them to carry out more

attacks, and that is why police here are still very much on edge. they've swept this area clean. they've detonated explosives, controlled detonation of a suspected package and they continue to check, they pushed us back here. this is very much still a city on edge, jake. >> atika shubert, thanks so much. fill mudd, former cia counterterrorism official telling us earlier when it comes to the idea of sleeper cells, we shouldn't necessarily think of them in terms of getting instructions from a foreign terrorist group but also possibly just being self-motivated individual lone wolves who activate themselves. we'll have much more on this uni unity rally, which will get started in less than half an hour. cnn's continuing live coverage of it continues from france, right after this. hey, i heard you guys can help me with frog protection? yeah, we help with fraud protection. we monitor every purchase every day and alert you if anything looks unusual.

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welcome back to cnn's continuing -- welcome back to cnn's live coverage of the aftermath of the paris terrorist attacks, as well as the unity rally, which is kicking off here in paris. i'm jake tapper, i'm standing at the place de la republique, where thousands and thousands of frenchmen, women and children have gathered to express solidarity, to express defiance, to express the concept that this is a nation that will not be cowed by the terrorist attacks of a bunch of cowards who come armed to slaughter innocent people. this nation will stand forward and stand strong. i want to go right now to frederik pleitgen with more on today's rally. frederick? >> reporter: hi, jake. i'm right in the middle of the crowd, as you can probably hear, and see as well. right in the middle of the crowd there's literally already tens

of thousands of people who have gathered here and of course, if you look at this rally here, it is one that is of course about unity and also one will free speech and liberty, the key french values and the folks here are chanting things like "we are not afraid" also saying they will not let their way of life be challenged by some people who commit terrorist acts and also what is important or what i think is really important, you also have a lot of members of the muslim community of france who are here and who are displaying solidarity with all those coming out. we are in the middle of the crowd. we want to talk to some people. hi sir. what's your name? >> voltuan. >> reporter: good to meet you, sir. tell me why you came out here, sir. it's about unity but about more than that for france? >> yes, because we are terribly shocked by what has happened, because the 17 people citizens who were killed by terrorists, it is awful, and it must not

happen again. so we are here to say stop with terrorism, terrorism must be crushed by repression and not only repression, we have to get rid of terrorism. it is an important message i want to say. >> reporter: what's also important here is that the muslim community in france, the jewish community and the christian community need to show solidarity with one another. is that correct? >> yes, yes. you are true. we are all linked together. we have to be tolerant and to be fraternal. we have to be like sisters and brothers in this world. life is so short. we have to spread love, like gandhi. >> reporter: do you think in france today there is a new debate about what the society needs to be like about how france wants to move forward to create this unity? >> yes. >> i'll help you hold this. it's actually getting quite

windy and starting to rain. this gentleman is working really hard to keep this sign up. >> this is great mobilization, going to have great consequences. this is going to have great consequences. >> look at that. >> reporter: the sign falls on my head. >> great and positive consequences i think because we are going to mr. a new links between people, to stop terrorism, to stop intolerance and really to set real democracies in france and also all around the world, with democratic participation, more people. there is a great lack of democracy even in rich countries. >> reporter: thank you very much, sir. i'll show your shirt quick, je

suis charlie shirt. >> we all are charlie. >> reporter: something we've been seeing a lot. the crowd is cheering "charlie" a show of solidarity. in the end folks displaying solidarity with the folks of charlie after that terrible attack even also people quite frankly shocked what happened oef their country in the last two days and showing none of this happened in their name and they will not tolerant int intolerance. >> frederik pleitgen, thank you very much. the rain starts to come down on the tens of thousands of protesters, up to a million people are projected to be at this unity rally which will start at the place de la republique and proceed to the place de la nation. the live coverage of the unity

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mixed with tender chicken flakand homemade gravybles make for the best chicken pot pie. marie callender's. live pictures for new paris right now, where world leaders who have gathered there with the french president are leaving the palace on their way to the rally, which is set to start in about 28 minutes at this point. we've got u.s. attorney general eric holder there, germany's angela merkel, british prime minister david cameron as well as many, many others, jordan's king abdullah, the second queen

rainier, palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas all headed to what you're looking at here, this gathering of what is expected to be 1 million people who are denouncing the violence that has been in paris, the killing of all of the people, the 12 people at "charlie hebdo," and you can see the flags that are flying as they tell terrorists there, you will not take from us our security, our freedom or our liberty. >> and it's not just the 12 people who were killed there at the incident on wednesday, but also those hostages who lost their lives on friday, as those standoffs ended. we saw a lot of the french flags in this crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, but there were flags of other nations. we saw there the flags of israel. we know that benjamin netanyahu, the prime minister of israel, is there. he tweeted out this morning, he traveled to paris to stand with the jewish people there in

france. the congolese flag, the flag of senegal. we have jake tapper at the place de la republique. i know it's raining there, it's cold but i'm not seeing a single person move. they are there to send a message, jake. >> reporter: that's right. you hear the rain as tell starts a heavy wave of it passes through the crowd and nobody is leaving, none of the people here at the place de la republique are trying to get out from the rain. very few of them even have umbrellas. this is a massive crowd, very excited to be here, very strongly showing solidarity, very strong lly standing up for the right of the french people to say what they want to say. i want to bring in christiane amanpour right now. christiane, good to see you. i didn't know if we were going

to get you, you were just broadcasting live on cnn international a second ago >> that's right. the whole world has gathered to support what happened here in france and say a resounding no, we're not going to stand for it. it's not just french flags out there. it's flags from all over and people from all over who have come to give a much louder message to this nation and the world than what the terrorists did on wednesday. >> our friends in california should know that you are being represented. there is a california flag for some reason over there, people proud to stand here in solidarity, i guess in that case with america's oldest ally, france. >> that's absolutely true, and remember, the bells of notre dame, when the day of mourning was declared here on thursday, one day after the terrorist attack, rang for ten minutes. the last time they did that was for 9/11, to remember the victims in the united states. and the last time they did that was after world war ii and world war i. it's a very rare occurrence but this is what we're faced with today and the resounding coming together of these people, the

french prime minister has said that they expect a human tidal wave, and this is already showing that. and he also said today, you know, we're all charlie. we're all police. we're all jews, we are all french together. >> very inspiring. >> this attacked every possible aspect of society, and people aren't going to stand for it and aren't going to take it, and for us, this is personal. this is our tribe that's been attacked. this is journalism. >> journalists, yes. >> this is the right to speak. the right to express. >> the right to offend. >> even to offend. none of this requires the response of murder and a bullet. >> christiane, a banner headline in "le monde" newspaper on friday. [ speaking in foreign language ] . "france's september 11." obviously 17 people killed, horrific, but nowhere near 3,000, and yet it does feel like that same kind of moment where

this country will not be the same. >> i believe that's correct, and the reason they said it, if you remember after 9/11 "le monde" famous iconic headline cover was "we are all americans." now it was "this is france's 9/11." the truth is as the foreign minister said to me, there has never been an attack of this size in this country in 50 years, so that's since the war, since the occupation and this is massive, even for a country that has had terrorism in the past. i was here in the '90s, there were terrorist attacks. many of my predecessors covered those from the '60s, '70s and '80s, but this is big and this will change. >> christiane amanpour, we'll talk more in the coming hour. thank you for your insights. i want to turn to cnn's erin mcpike, she is live this morning from the white house. erin, thanks so much for being here. france is the united states of america's oldest ally.

who is the white house sending, if anyone, to today's unity rally? >> well, jake, of course the u.s. ambassador to france, jane hartley, will be there to show some support for france, and also attorney general eric holder is there but he is also in paris today for a meeting that's hosted by the french interior minister, as well as the homeland security deputy secretary is also there, and this comes on the heels of u.s. officials telling us in the last few days that they expected attacks on the west like the one that happened in paris this past week, and this idea from u.s. officials that these attacks are happening in perpetuity, they're going to continue, as we talked about yesterday, it's like the war on drugs, they're comparing it to, also we heard from andrew parker, the director of the british intelligence agency mi5 saying these attacks are harder to detect, that they're happening with very short planning and so all of these people are coming together from

western nations to try to figure out a way that they can share intelligence better, they're brainstorming today on how they can prevent future attacks. on that note, we also heard from the white house early this morning back in september, the white house announced that they would be holding a summit on countering violent extremism. they were going to originally hold that summit in october, but then it got pushed off, and this morning, they announced that meeting will be happening on february 18th, and i want to read part of the announcement to you. the white house says "our partners around the world are actively implementing programs to prevent violent extremism and foreign terrorist fighter recruitment. the summit will include representatives from a number of partner nations focusing on the themes of community engagement, religious leader engagement and the role of private sector and tech community." so obviously, jake, a lot of meetings happening, brainstorming to prevent these attacks that are going to continue and trying to find some way to stop it.

jake? >> erin mcpike, thank you so much. we appreciate it. i'm standing right here at place de la republique, and a police helicopter just passed by, and the crowd started applauding, chanting "merci la police" you hear them, thank you to the police, thank you to the police, they are saying here. obviously a policewoman killed on thursday, a policeman killed on wednesday by these terrorist s in this series of attack. we bring in an expert samuel laurent. thank you for being here. there is obviously very intense, very heightened security right now in paris for this unity march, with all these world leaders, from germany, great britain, israel, the palestinian territory. give us some understanding, some idea of what french police are doing to try to keep everyone

safe. >> well, okay, they're really trying obviously to monitor the unpredictable. there is no information about precise threats against the demonstration, the demonstrators, or even the world leaders that are coming around, but as you say, some cells are existing, some cells have been activated, and hundreds of jihadis have flocked back from syria and iraq to france, so the threat is real, and fortunately question say that this is a huge challenge, and this would be a huge price for anybody willing to perpetrate the terror act today in basically in front of the entire world community. so we have to be aware of al qaeda cells of the type that has been operated in "charlie hebdo"

and also advise people and as well as what we call lone wolves so basically there is a multiple threat. as you can hear, maybe helicopters are flying around. there are snipers on the roof. it's a very, very tight and unprecedented security measures that have been taken here to surround and basically secure as much as it's possible paris, but again, nothing can be guaranteed 100%. >> for people just waking up in the united states, earlier today, an incendiary device was thrown into part of a newspaper in germany and what may be significant about that, sam, is that that newspaper published the "charlie hebdo" cartoons, the ones that had offended individuals and put them in the line of fire by these islamic extremists, and now the newspaper experiencing this act of vandalism.

thankfully nobody was there, nobody was hurt. i imagine, samuel laurent, counterterrorism expert, that the initial investigations will look into whether or not there's a connection. >> yes, and obviously nothing is confirmed, but the connection is rather obvious, i would say. if it's not obvious in terms of organization, we do not know whether a cell is involved, but at least in terms of ideology and this is the problem, even if two people or two groups are acting not in connection in terms of belonging to the same group, whether it be isis, whether it be al qaeda, still the ideology that underlies their action is basically the same, and this is radical islam, and the problem is that all over europe we have those kind of threats, because europe is an open space, so basically french can go strike in germany. german can come and strike in

france. french can strike in belgium, like we saw with the killings of the jewish people in the brussels museum. so therefore it's a very interconnected countries inside the european union and danger faced by one country is unfortunately felt directly by another. >> that's right, the open borders make fighting terrorism and in fact any crime in addition to terrorism very, very complicated for law enforcement to combat. samuel laurent, thank you so much, as always, for your insights. we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, more coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks here in paris, france, and in just 15 minutes this unity rally will get kicked off. stay with us. stay with cnn for that. back after this.

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live pictures here from place de la republique where hundreds of thousands of people have gathered to say je suis charlie, "we are charlie" and to speak with the terrorists who took not just paris but france through three days of terror that you will not win. you see there of course the french flag but flags from many nations as people have gathered to support france. maybe they have chosen the

country as their new home country and saying we are here in solidarity with not just the people of france but the journalists who have the right to write what they choose and as jake tapper just pointed out, sometimes the right to offend. >> and if you look at the people there, some of them have been standing there for up to three hours. this is a crowd that has just been growing and growing since 6:00 a.m. eastern time. ♪ you can see them -- now they're singing obviously, which they have doing, we believe the national anthem. they're standing on as you can see that statue, because there is a little real estate there it seems for people. >> yes. >> as they're getting there, but fred pleitgen has found himself a little swathe of real estate in the middle of all of this. we want to go to him now, as he's in the middle of all of these folks. fred, can you give us a sense, since we're just watching, what is it like, what does it feel like to be there? >> well it's a very positive atmosphere, christi.

there's something i heard which i haven't heard in a long time. the people here were just shouting "viva la press" so long live the press, something we don't hear very often. it is a positive atmosphere. if we pan up to the middle of the place de la republique people are holding up a large pencil. the pen and the pencil have sort of become symbols of this movement, which is one which is a stark reaction to the events we've seen unfold here over the past couple of days. people are saying we cannot allow freedom of the press, we cannot allow freedom of speech to be infrom inged on from radi forces in the country. they could have allowed themselves to be divided, radical forces could have formed the debate but in the end the unity movement has come out in force today and showing strength. since we are in the middle of the crowd we want to talk to the

crowd. benoit, good afternoon. it's morning in america. >> yes. >> reporter: tell me why it was so important for to you come out here today? >> it was important to witness that we are not afraid, and to be here, nothing will deter us to be here to work for freedom. >> reporter: how pivotal, important a time do you think it is for france to redefine its social contract with itself basically? >> to show nothing has changed in france. we always gather with all our strengths, freedom, all this kind of thing. nothing is going to change because of threat, because we are not afraid about the threats, about all this kind of fear. there is no fear in france. fear of division, we are not divided anymore. we have never been divided and not divided today. >> reporter: thank you very much, benoit. good to speak to you. i believe you're from france.

these are three ladies who came here. we have france -- >> england. >> netherlands. >> reporter: england and the netherlan netherlands. i with a tonight speak to you, how important was it for you to come here and also show that your country won't be divided? >> i couldn't imagine not being here today. i'm really moved to be here with my friends from other countries. i think the slogan je suis charlie is true for everyone in the world today and also to show we're not scared. you can hear the shouting sometimes and i think that's what terrorism is about, to scare us, and we are sending we are charlie and we are not afraid. >> reporter: one of the things happening in the recent months was a troubling development in france. on the one hand you had the rise of right wing politics, but you also had a rise in islamic radicalism. i don't say it's many muslims, only a tiny fraction but many who for instance fought for isis in iraq and syria. how important do you think it is

today to show that this is actually the mat zblort france, that it's not the right wingers, that it's not the rodicals on the other side who are going to be leading this debate. >> well because we're talking about extremists, either the radical islamists or the nationale we're talking about extremists. that is not fraps. fraps is made by its citizens, its freedom and values and that's what everybody here today is showing. >> reporter: thank you very much. thank you to all of you. we have to get going because the march is going. we're going to try to walk with the march a little bit. i'm not sure how long our signal is going to hold but certainly we'll be bringing you live pictures and try and make our way with the marchers going from place de la republique to place de la nation. it's that way. >> fred, thank you so much. we'll check back with you as the march continues. we'll take a quick break and talk more about this video that has been posted online of one of the terrorists pledging allegiance to isis.

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the the unity march has begun. live pictures of people in paris, people saying to terrorists you will not define us. peter bergen, cnn national security analyst has been watching this as well. people i'm curious, we're watching, this watching their defiance and their inspiration. the terrorists are probably watching this as well. what change might an event like this actually activate? >> the french have taken an aggressive attitude overseas about terrorist groups. you may recall christi in early 2013 the french army went into northern mali, called by al qaeda in the islamic maghreb, and defeated al qaeda in the islamic maghreb before they were attacked in this manner. i would imagine when the french say they're at war with the groups i don't think that's simple rhetoric. i think you'll see a much more aggressive french stance which is already pretty aggressive

against these groups from a military standpoint, christi. >> nearly a million people expected at the ral lay today and there are world leaders there who are standing not just with french president francois hollande but the french people. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu tweeted out he was traveling to paris to stand with the jewish community there in france. we know that angela merkel the chancellor of germany who got the president of the palestinian authority there as well, leaders from turkey, from around the world who were there, eric holder, the u.s. attorney general. you've got also the u.s. ambassador to france representing the united states, not just there in solidarity but also offering some real support as it relates to counterterrorism. top law enforcement official there helping them fight this terror threat. >> and it will be interesting to see what comes out of their meetings together. thank you so much for watching

our live coverage. we appreciate you being here as always. >> "state of the union" starts right now, with live continuing coverage next. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning from washington. i'm gloria bornger a eborger an "state of the union." today a massive showing in the fight against terror. you're looking at live pictures of paris, where world leaders from up to 50 countries are joining what could be a million strong at a national unity rally. the demonstration is in response to last week's deadly and horrific terror attack at the offices of the french magazine "charlie hebdo," and a pair of hostage situations that took 17 lives. today's rally is taking place as france