joining us now is cnn analyst paul cruickshank and cedric leighton.ef of staff in washington. gentlemen, this was not as sophisticated as we have seen. there have been three attacks in the past 18 months in france. although isis has not claimed responsibility for the particular attack today, we can make assumptions and look at it and look at the different tactics. not as sophisticated. there seems to be less planning in this one where it is one guy in a truck and a weapon. >> reporter: that's exactly right. a few hours ago on this very road i'm on right now, the promenade de anglais in nice, a truck was driving 25 or 30 miles an hour for two kilometers plowing into men, women and children and more than 80 people killed here. most people being killed from the truck colliding with people at that moment. it was a very big vehicle. indeed you are right. this does not appear at first blush to be the sophistication of the november attacks where you had ten gunman roam around paris and launching attacks and communicating with one another. we do not know at t

. >> paul cruickshank is also with me, our terror analyst. paul, you and i have obviously been together in paris and brussels. when you hear how art drives this as a small tank driving through that crowd that it took so many bullets for them to stop it. as you see this truck moving here, this shows someone with clear intent. there is no question here that this is a drunk driver or anything like that. that at this point seems to be a ridiculous proposition. >> clear intent, mowing people down and plowing through them with this truck and according to some reports and two kilometers according to this along this boardwalk. the french police responding by killing the truck driver clearly believing that this was not just a runaway truck, but an actual attack that was taking place and one of the leaders of isis, abu muhammad al adnani has called on followers in the west and also in france to run people over with their car. he first made that call in september 2014 and just a few weeks later there was an attack in canada, in quebec where an extremist

paul cruickshank, why france?l, i think the biggest reason of all is the more than a thousand french nationals that have joined isis. this has given isis tremendous opportunity to launch attacks against france. i think that's the biggest reason why france is being targeted. not only the foot soldiers, the fighters, but people who are moving up the leadership structure of isis, getting involved in the external operations unit of isis, which is launching these accelerated attacks against europe. there was a german isis operative who was recently arrested and interrogated. he was told while he was in syria that isis had sent many app operatives back to france. they had all the operatives they needed, and they were just waiting for orders. that intelligence has to be evaluated, but the intelligence picture is very bleak right now when it comes to france. >> clarissa, you have lived part of that reason. you've gone to the neighborhoods in france and in bielgium where you have these large numbers of now second, even thi

so let me bring in paul cruickshank who has been with us here on ground in nice, our terrorism analyst so much -- and still, know, total transparency we don't know a lot about the answer as to why. but as far as this attacker and someone who clearly was very nefarious individual who left here to go on to syria, what's the connection with the phone number? >> well, with his phone number, they went back through past terror investigations and they found out that the attacker's phone number had actually surfaced in a terrorism investigation into a radical associate of a french jihadi recruiter, somebody from nice here, a guy called omar diyabi who is now with the al qaeda affiliates in syria. an associate of his was being investigated and the phone number surfaced during that investigation. they are trying to figure out was he just a social acquaintance or was there perhaps a more nefarious association between the two. as today progresses it's become more clear that was some radicalization. the interviews with some of these people were were arrested, other interrogations, have revealed a p

more in the developments and more into who this person is, with me now, paul cruickshank. a lot has sort of begun to come together today beginning with, you know, there are no obvious links evidence to, you know, jihadism. but tell me about this phone number that's popped up. >> they obviously obtained his phone number after this attack and they ran it through all of the past counter terrorism investigations and they found that it cropped up in a counter terrorism investigation here in france, this counter terrorism investigation linked to an associate of a very well-known french jihadi from nice. omar diabi, is somebody who was recruiting those to fight in syria with by youtube videos. >> he left nice to go to syria and before he left put out a ton of videos trying to motivate others. >> very influential against the generation of french nationals who went to fight in syria. they're trying to figure out was he just -- happened to be a social acquaintance of this man or was he part of the radical circle. they're looking back at that now. as we've been saying, the french int

. >> let's go to cnn terror analyst paul cruickshank right now with the details. paul, what are you learning? >> john, the semiofficial news agency of isis claiming this attacker was one of their soldiers. very similar language to the language they put out after the orlando shootings after the nice attack. they're not explicitly saying they directed and trained this individual, but they are saying he acted inspired by their message, their message to launch attacks against the west, to launch attacks against germany. we're also hearing from authorities in germany that on the cell phone of the attack, they found a video in which the attacker pledged allegiance to the leader of isis abu baghdad al baghdadi, doing it because of what is done against muslims around the world. germany is helping train the per, mega, peshmerga, providing assistant to them and also flying surveillance missions over syria, even if it's not itself launching air strikes over syria or iraq. so this appears to be another isis inspired attack. of course just last week, we saw an ax attack on a tr

i'm being told we don't have paul cruickshank with us. colonel, if you heard that, why don't you take it? >> sure, john. the issue for isis in france, this is a great country for them to attack because of the vulnerabilities they have and also you have a situation where there are so many people who have gone from france to join isis. you combine those things. soft targets with the number of people who know france and who ideologically feel they are committed to isis' philosophy and ideology. that is the defense that has come about. that is why france is a vulnerable country not because they don't try to prevent it, but they did a great job trying to prevent things in paris and other areas in france. terrorists only have to be right one time. this is the one time in which they were able to actually make things work for them. >> cedric, what does it take to anticipate something like this? does it take trying to obviously get in the minds of the killers and how do you do that? because they are just so horrific. who can dream up this? terrori

phil mudd, peter bergen, art roderick, bill baer, paul cruickshank. once they clearly now have this person, they have access to the vehicle, if they find a cell phone, something like that, that can be a huge step just as it was in the bataclan attack when they found the cell phone outside. >> there's a couple basic questions you got to deal with in the aftermath. we are watching tv. we are watching the episode from france live. if you're in the business you don't have time to grieve. the question is not what happened. question one, if for example you acquire a cell phone, who did he text today, did he text someone one minute before the attack, what's his call history, is there somebody else involved in this. >> you are saying the question is not what happened, because that's already done. >> that's correct. >> you are trying to prevent something else from happening? >> there's almost two parallel investigations. the law enforcement investigation, the scene investigation about what happened on the street and those are different teams. intelligence inve

the realities of trying to implement this kind of stuff are very difficult. >> paul cruickshank, how often, the intelligence services in places like turkey, morocco, elsewhere, how much is there sharing where their intelligence services with european intelligence? >> there's some sharing, but i have got to tell you, having spoken to officials across europe, there is enormous frustration with the amount of information that's coming out of turkey. it seems to have got better recently. but over the course of the last several years a lot of frustration about information coming back from the turks and some frustration about information generally coming from the region. western intelligence does not have good eyes and ears into places like syria and iraq in order to get intelligence about potential plots. that is slowly, slowly starting to change. special forces are going in and arresting people, interrogating people from the so-called caliphate, getting more understanding about how they run their operations and crucially, this external operations unit which they have set up. but it was a

so i want to bring in now cnn terrorism analyst paul cruickshank and fareed zakaria and your reaction, fareed, what happened tonight. the coup was not successful, was it? >> it seems it has failed. there are a number of signs that it has not succeeded. the head of the army never came out and asked for support, which means the army itself was never unified. turkey has had three and a half coups. all of them have been top-down directed. it knows how to do it. this was very different. a group of people seemed to have done it. >> they said these were junior members of the -- >> it seems that's what they are saying. certainly the chief of staff has not come out in favor of the coup. none of the key senior admirals or generals have. it's also interesting to watch those images. tushie is very different from egypt, which is the country that had a coup years ago. this is a middle-class country. it has a civil society. it has a media like cnn turk and other things. the opposition party came out in support of erdogan, even though they hate him. so there is a much richer culture here. >> they're

let me bring in all of those points and more, paul cruickshank.ut this person who lived in nice and left for syria who put out this propaganda on youtube and this phone number connection. >> also got hold of the attackers phone number and cross referenced it past -- counter terrorism investigations that they carried out in the past and they found that there was a link to a associate of a french jihadi, somebody from nice, and an investigation into this individual, the associate, that this phone number of the attacker cropped up in that investigation. what they are trying to figure out and go back and look at is whether he was connected to them because they were social acquaintances or whether he was part of a radical network in france. previously the interior minister saying that he believes that he was radicalized quickly, indications he had been radicalized quickly suggesting it happened not so long ago. >> what about from the media wing of isis calling him a soldier and not claiming responsibility but they specifically said this individual did

paul cruickshank is our terrorism analyst and he knows the area of area of munich well and he's with criminal investigative division of the fbi and chris sits on the house intelligence committee. >> i want to start with you. the president's been briefed on this attack. what have you learned that you can tell us? >> very little right now, erin, but we are grieving for our friends in germany and for whatever reason this terror attack was carried out, again we see that europe is in a new era of terrorism right now and we're reminded that when people who have evil hearts have access to very dangerous weapons this is what happens. >> and let me ask you, chris, what do you think happened here? obviously, when you hear this one of the things that stands out is this was a mcdonald's. this is an american brand, it is a western brand. a brand that stands for the epitome of the west and now that could just be coincidence and it could be something else. >> yeah, unfortunately, erin, we live in a time when the presumption that it's a terrorist attack when you see a mass, crowded place like a shop

for the latest, let's check in with clarissa ward and paul cruickshank in nice.t do we know about the person behind this, how it happened and whether or not there were any connections to others? >> well, i think at this stage, it's a really sort of muddled picture that is coming together here, because in essence, this appeared to be and was declared a terrorist attack but what authorities appear to be finding is very little linkage between the attacker and any known terrorist group. no terrorist group has claimed responsibility. authorities here have said that he was known to security services but only in the context of having a criminal record of essentially petty criminal violations. what's more, we are hearing french media reports that he was not particularly religious, he was barely a practicing muslim, he did not attend the mosque, that he was more interested in bodybuilding and also, french media reports that he was a deeply troubled personality. so it's possible at this stage that you are talking about someone who was psychologically disturbed, potentially

paul cruickshank along the promenade in nice. thank you so much. conventional. >> of course, he will be back in a half hour most likely at 10:00. but we do want to pass it off to smerconish who starts with you after this quick break. do stay close. americans are buying more and more of everything online. and so many businesses rely on the united states postal service to get it there. that's why we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. the united states postal service. priority: you so we know how to cover almost almoanything.hing, even a romantic rodent. [rickie] a romantic what? [squeaking noises] i'm a sucker for proposals. and we covered it, april twenty-sixth, 2014. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ who do you talk to for military advice right now? i'm hillary clinton and i approved this message. well, i watch the shows. i mean i really see a lot of great - you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows... w

cnn terrorism analyst paul cruickshank was working overnight to try to figure out why.guy, no known jihadi ties. >> he was not on the screen of the french counterterrorism. they hadn't picked out before this attack any indication whatsoever that he had a jihadi mindset. and still as of this hour, we've not been told yet of any solid information evidence suggesting that he had been motivated by islamist extremism. that's the working hiypothesihy. but at this point, there is no solid evidence that has been publicly presented that this was a case of jihadist terrorism. that may change in the hours ahe ahead. >> let me begin with you. what about the usage of a weapon as a car, this truck. because weren't terror groups calling for people to run over, to use cars as weapons, run over westerners? >> well, to use what they could. but specifically that car or truck line was one that isis had called for in 2010. and it is high-impact, low resourcing, and it was in keeping with their call for lone wolves, for people who were radicalized unlike people who were perhaps outside of th

paul cruickshank, here's one of my questions as we've been covering all these different terror attacksof sick ideology, and i don't know, wished martyrdom. the fact that these three gunmen are on the loose, then assuming not among the six dead, what does that tell you? >> well, it tells you that they're going to try an launch more attacks, if these are isis-inspired or isis-directed islamic terrorists, they're going to want to go out, as far as they're concerned, in their twisted view, in a blaze of glory. they will believe that they are br to go to paradise. they may been in a state of real sort of ecstasy and excitement because of that. and want to launch as much carnage as possible. then maybe an opportunity in these hours for them to claim this attack for whatever terrorist group they may or may not be linked to, to try and get some kind of message over social media. these days terrorists have smartphones and they are able to get these kinds of messages out. we've even seen in one recent terrorist attack in france the perpetrator filmed the aftermath of the attack and broadcast it