Region of Northern Iraq on tuesday Iraqi Military chiefs went to the turkish side of the border haslam is here with the news group at the top of the hour up next its the stream for me peter dhabi and the team here in doha thanks for watching we will see you very soon. Documentary. At this time. By anthony ok and your in a strange five months off to caption murari city in the philippines i saw has been defeated but take a look at the devastation that has been left behind just a few weeks before the end of the battle aljazeera went to murali have a look. At me. Turner eleven. So i may need. To go on. Jets and. Protection to my family. But put it to you just watched was from a film by al jazeera as one a one Piece Program our colleague steve chow was with the Philippine Military as it made its final push to take back the battle took an unexpected five months much of the city is now in ruins and more than a thousand people are dead but is this really the end of the story some say there are historical grievances in the southern philippines that have yet to be addressed and many are now wondering whether i so will we group and try to make South East Asia its new battleground joining us to discuss this from him again city we have rafael cassano hes a journalist of a. B. S. C. B. S. News ace guerrero is am our now you advocate i was displaced from raleigh and Steve Chelsea epicenter for aljazeera is one i want to be surprised at how everybody welcome good to have you here steve you take pictures when your reporting and we see behind the scenes a lot as one picture that you shared with us its right here my laptop there really takes us to how did this all get started so many months ago tell us yes what are we seeing his where is this this is the house where the siege began on may twenty third you can see all the bullet holes that riddle through the upper floor of this building this was where the celt east and near of i so was hiding at a time when two units of military forces came in to try to arrest him and when they tried to arrest him they came under extreme fire from a number of militants Intelligence Services said that essentially it was a siege planned a few days later but because the military went after him. To learn how to love that mirror Southeast Asia so the siege began and you can see the utter destruction that happened in that house and its essentially spread as the fighters took over the city. And then five months later we saw pictures like this circulating on facebook this is from inside military a forum there are a defense and Security Forum based in the philippines and you can see pictures there of what they say are Philippine Military soldiers celebrating lower down on this picture this comment from jeff who says im glad its over but seriously six months he says though have actually it was five very poorly handled this wont be the last town for this to happen he actually got a response from the military for and they say this is actually the quickest spite against isis anywhere on earth of course the military was initially stunned and was caught bare handed but it was very very quick to turn things around a still want to weigh in here you have on one hand people saying this shouldnt have taken that long on the other hand someone pointing out that this perhaps was pretty quick in the grand scheme of things. Yeah personally i think i agree with the one that see that they shouldnt have taken this long because context was a the military and he was aware that there was an imminent and expected wreck because right now only to besiege there was probably a year ago. Bill. Was attacked by the voting members to read to the members of their who and i think that was the most serious of events in the attack or in the adjacent when this equalities in our city are enough reason for them to do something as early as possible but that was one year and then they were not able to stop it so i feel like there was a last negligence on the part of the local government unit or of the government in general and i appreciate peoples able to be obvious but i think its important to be critical about the root cause of the problem so that we can make sure that it doesnt happen again and we will be able to prevent it in the future assuming that there are there are groups that might that might be given that this kinds of things are not really over this by the death of their leaders race youre talking about you know the fact that their military and the police were aware of that and as a change was evident according to Police Sources that we talked to today told us exactly that that they were actually very aware of the exact day when this huge would happen however this was a community communicated to the military or to those units which first approached what happened want to try to arrest him if the military and police had been in communication with each other its very possible that they have stopped this hes from happening but you know there obviously was a lot medication we asked the military whether there was a severe failure of intelligence gathered. The military yes but still as you said you know theres no question that they were taken by surprise in a lot of ways you know when we go to turkey the president of the philippines said initially it would only take three days to finish this it was five months and not only take five months but. Just look here at some of the devastation that were seeing now from way and then the question here rafael from the locals from some locals and you can tell us how people are thinking about this now over calle some locals question mirali shelling as one headline from Al Jazeera English dot com what are the locals actually saying up out was was there too much force was that too much bombardment was it was losing so much of the city in order to push i saw a lot. You know its been very split between the locals weve been going around to different Evacuation Centers asking them what they really think of the military actions here well in mari city and the some say that it was really an overkill and they didnt think that. Airstrikes bombarding the city was necessary if they had enough troops on the ground to option of the neutralize the members of the mounted group but then there are some who are saying that you know they they accept what happened to their city as long as they returned theyre safe and theyre all for it so its really a mixed reaction between the local us depends on which part of the city they are you know some of those agreeing are mainly in areas which are considered controlled areas and did not really have a lot of devastation around it but you know we can really understand why some locals would think that it was really you know very clear because you know its really difficult especially in a city where its the center for commercial and for business in source so you know the businesses that have been lost there is a big blow to them and for this alone they will really think that it is really an overkill so theyre not fail i heard similar similar things as well when we were down on the ground and we kept pressing the military on their speeches there were some that argue that why didnt the military simply use you know special elite small units to go after you know all the now taiz and the isis fighters but you know at the same time this is perhaps one to reasons why the military kept taking us journalists name to parts of the main battle there yet essentially to show us that why it was so difficult the fact that the fighters are very entrenched in this city the fact also that due to a legacy oh. Family. Feuds in the city a lot of the houses were reinforced in terms of concrete walls so its very difficult to get in and attack the fighters that were entrenched inside it which is why they decided to go with the aerial bombardment but again you know i think there are a lot of questions as to whether the military you know needed that level of force and whether it was properly trained to deal in urban warfare you know the marines told us the National Forces told us that they were trained all mean jungle warfare and this may be why we saw one hundred sixty five soldiers killed in Police Officers killed in this battle so i want to share this exchange a couple people on whether or not it was overkill and whether this level of force was necessary or tell on twitter says selling wasnt necessary it only makes recovery difficult and could serve as a recruitment tool the government fails to rebuild and construct reconstruct on the other hand chorus as it is better to bomb the entire city than descendants soldiers and be killed by snipers or i e ds of course we know i. E. These are are things they are dealing with now buildings can be rebuilt but lives cant say so i want to play for you a video comment we got from a former resident and what she thinks about that overkill conversation this is a she and this is what she told the stream also feels sad because our see what we call the war Zone Movement into an ashes nothing was left and because of that i feel deep sadness for them because they will restart and not continue i didnt expect that these terrible things will happen in our city especially it happened in the corner of our c. P. No more busy streets no sound off nice in ash and no more and no more of my fellow modern os but i know and everyone knows that. Because we are strong and brave we believe that we will rise again is how are they always that were forced out how are they coping. Its very bad actually when you look at it in the t. V. Its the the things that you see is very far from that theyre actually experiencing when we use the word overkill its actually a euphemism because it entails air strikes and a lot of infrastructures were destroyed like what the tweet said but these are not just infrastructures we could be talking about buildings that has a cultural meaning or that has a religious significance towards the residents of c. T. And that tweet was right when he said this could be a you this could be a tool to be able to recruit because when people have nothing more they are more likely to become creamy to recruit especially that isis is not just brainwashing people that actually offering a lot of money who goes to the people that they hire so its important for us to talk about the airstrike and what it has destroyed especially when it when they launched this kinds of. Attack it was a very obvious that it was inefficient given that some of the members of the e f b were actually killed because of the very air strikes that they were launching so given that it wasnt effective we have got about to what extent were they willing to you know destroy them or that we see just to see that its an act of serving the people of my we see the im not saying that the a. F. P. Did not succeed but what im seeing is that its important to diagnose the mechanisms of how the arrive at the point of actually destroying the center of the seat you were most minor knows were most likely hoods at the marriott knows where and this is where they lie and so this becomes this gives a very big impact and in the process of the i believe each and because you have believed and usually focuses only on the shelter but. Address very big problems like the like. Back and how are they going to be able to you know. I guess let me just bring up this clip here from taking about murari which is the one i wanted to mention that is now online as a little clip where steve is talking to a young i saw recurrent his face is blacked out so we cant see who he is but he makes a prediction have a look at his prediction what he had to say. But is it too late to stop isis ambitions in the region that are going whether. Theyre. Mainly. For a year or more than a. Seeing. The long post but the longer new. Song. Steve that that prediction after all of the devastation of merari that how do you get the the population to get but there are so much work to be done but the idea theyre not even really gone. Thats right its quite disturbing according to this young recruit that we talked to he said that before the siege he was taken with a lot of other students from them address in morality to a Training Camp about an hour and a half away from the city and there he met up with about two thousand and i salute fighters and he said and many were from overseas other ones others from malaysia indonesia and many local filipino winds and theyre all being trained on making night training on how to shoot guns trained on how to kill you know nonbelievers in his words and he said essentially the plan was that only about half of them would enter morality for the siege and the other half would be waiting for commands to go elsewhere and whats very disturbing theres a lot of disturbing things on this front attack that you know they were already recruiting children and children from morality and elsewhere and you know and it seemed to be a very systemic approach that they were taking theres also some footage that they got a military released from i so it shows that this siege was two years in the planning and so it took two years for them to plan theres you know why wasnt again the military aware of this or why didnt the military and to stop this obviously these isis fighters managed to get you know a lot of weapons into morality to hold the military office so long five months is a propaganda coup for i so many security analysts say that it probably surprised even them that these fighters could hold this city for of that long this is the largest front that i saw has been made i met has been able to keep outside of syria and iraq and that has serious ramifications thats why i suppose put out a lot of propaganda videos telling a lot of people who support i still to now focus their attention on Southeast Asia and specifically the philippines according to this young recruit that we talked to he said you know the very fact is that many more will be coming after this and a says you. Said if the government doesnt rebuild morality fast enough and the the estimation is that its going to cost more than a billion u. S. Dollars to rebuild if they dont come up with that money if they dont rebuild the homes quickly and more importantly provide livelihood to a lot of use where will they go where will be so stephen im really glad you mentioned that because two of those things that you talked about we just got comments via you tube for fun walk on says now that i so ive been defeated in the city of what now i think you just answered that but this next one you touched on it this is from what even happens here on you tube watching live there are a lot of boys who were recruited by i saw a kidnapping from what happened to them i know you spoke to one mother who that happened to her do you know what happens to those who were recruited as child soldiers rough rough aliu may know this better than me could you spend far more time in the area from what we were able to gather is that there are Training Camps not too far away from around me that are still i still controlled and a lot of the used might have gone there at the same time the whole island of mindanao in the southern philippines there are a number of groups but it be that the i. A. F. That or or others that still support i saw and maybe factions of the other side yes so its possible that it might have gone there what are your thoughts roughly oh well thats actually one of the questions that we keep on asking the military forces whats going on with you best you sions the missing children and you know they always say that theyre all looking into really looking at the possibilities of where the where they may have been taken but. Talking to some of the residents especially those who know about the recruitment they do say that a lot of these boys have been recruited but are now placed in several areas training for another you know in preparation for what may be another siege and in a different part of the philippines but the problem there is. Especially for us local media who are who have been staying here for quite a for quite some time is the lack of information that we are getting because i dont know steve if you experience this while we were in the capital but you know the the access to the main battle area and different parts of the city its very confined its very limited and we always we always hear the reason being that they want us to be safe they dont want to incur any. Casualties on the part of media but the problem there is how are we going to get the facts how are we going to get the information if were not on the ground if were not allowed to go to places where we should be going to get. The figures and the response that we need made be from authorities or from the locals who have been experiencing this the entire time. Thats a good point that you raise you know we had to struggle and fight to get the access we did and it wasnt great access either compared to other places like afghanistan or iraq and syria and there was a sense that the military was trying to control the message they were sense of very sensitive about what we were able to film in the main battle area trying to tell us not to films the level of destruction in some cases and trying to they were trying very hard to send a message that they were trying to be respectful to the Muslim Community in morality these are all important points and they were very much trying to do that but at the same time you know there are serious questions as to you know what else was going on there when the military was was was battling with the forces there whether you know because theres a fact that civilians were killed in the crossfire and in the area of the barmans weve heard witnesses talking about you know one of the hostages that came out saw ten of his fellow hostages killed in an aerial bombardment could that london avoided and is that why the military didnt want that much media so close to the main battle area since yesterday just got a few moments left on the show just a couple of minutes roughly i want to twitter and it says residents of iraq recently returned to their homes off tomorrow real seen what kind of hunger brokering batty. Well this one was taken i think just two days ago and this is just one village this is one account guy ace would know this this is in but im going bust on one of those which is the exact place where. Its going on up in lawn had a rented apartment and thats where it all happened but you know this area is also a sense i dont know if its correct case but its also a Central Business district because this is where a lot of the trading happens there are a lot of stores but it wasnt very damaged compared to the main battle area you need is on the west on the eastern side on the eastern side of the city so the residents here were able to return after cleaning up after having the basic services restored with which is electricity and water but the following day after that we returned to the and but we did see that some of the residents just wanted to check and then leave because theres nothing waiting for them there you know they have no but at the end some some are our traders at the pub the ad market which is in the main battle area and you know they dont have any means of settling because no one will buy from there from them and theres nothing to sell to begin with so they just checked the place and then they left it so it i dont know if it really is about returning but its more on the lively and how these families will revive you know you know when you when you talk about returning we actually did get a video comment from the assemblyman for the region this is the atlanta of the on the former stream gas this is what he says the government must do to help those who are returning how to listen. When the secret diary of national the fed defense was very kind and saying that this is actually the first time that the military can gauge the market fighting for more than five months in an urban setting this is going to be needed to really make sure youve got the terrorists will be contained in one area and so that became so that it required for them to really use the military hardware. Meaning air strike for air for it in order to really you know contain the fighting within one area and so the question now really is. Can the government after what has happened whatever happened around and see all the damage just against the civilian british gas or the Government Properties against the infrastructure assets in general then can the government really be paid. To be done in just. A so why do you think you think the government will repay for the damage caused. You know theres theres so much trust issue going on civilians in the government but i would just like to emphasize that most of the person who are either of you usually say that the arm and the rust negligence cured because we say that this is the first time that the philippines has you know been attacked with extreme measures from the terrorists but i think that given the kind of info that they have or that specific im on that thats a year i believe that this shouldnt have been a first i mean of. All of the venting the harm you know you know you do this given the kind of time that they have because thats been existing like these in the military and in a a year or a year or probably even more than that in. I think its important. Larry i think i saw in my years being on the program we really appreciate your thoughts thank you rafael the son of god steve trial and i forgot the you can watch steve childs for what i want to film and add a zero dot com adult time to search for taking back murari and well see online a hash tag ice cream. The nature of news as it breaks because you can see there in the distance of shia militia vehicles to the dust you can see on the horizon there the peshmerga telling us are actually tanks with detailed coverage when the mine closed in one thousand nine hundred four many people lost their jobs stabbing is not time making money from around the world this is supposed to last for a month but people tell us that it only lasts for a day if you look around this is the only food available in this household. Provoking debate the Corporate Tax has not hurt job growth on the barack obama the what went on in georgia and thats not true tackling the tough issues restrictions on Media Freedom of the tree killings torture maybe you giving me room didnt give me crap challenging the established line every single one of the three and a half thousand people who is killed with a drug dealer yes how do we know that you didnt try them didnt prosecute them you didnt show them to show them one sort of join many has done for upfront at this time on aljazeera. Aljazeera. Where ever you are. Facing realities your president said that there would be a complete audit a hundred percent audit that audit hasnt happened getting to the heart of the matter so are you saying then that the future of the g. C. C. Will be in doubt. Here the story. On talk to aljazeera at this time. This is al jazeera. And live from studio fourteen here at aljazeera or to headquarters in doha im has a while come to the news grid out of first tear