helicopters and advisers on the ground. that will put u.s. personnel much closer, if you will, to the combat to retake ramadi. many senators making the direct point they think there should be a good deal of focus on trying to get to raqqah. isis self declared capital inside syria. their view is raqqah is a recruiting propaganda point for isis. as long as they control that city, they are able to draw fighters from around the world. raqqah is under assault from russian aircraft, russian missiles, russian bombs. the u.s. has pointed out that the russians are making another move, moving many of the air defense radars to western syria. essentially making that a no-fly area for u.s. aircraft unless they coordinate with the russians ahead of time. the battle field is more complicated and one more thing.
of some air defense radars that might be able to detect incoming aircraft. deployment of additional artillery pieces near the dmz. the concern, north korean artillery could hit population centers such as seoul in the south. signs of a potential preparation for a scud missile launch and dozens of warships and submarines headed out to sea. now it s up to the north to act and not simply just make assurances with respect to their own military activities there along the border. reporter: u.s. officials tell cnn they had two major worries. first, the north koreans took the unusual step of giving a specific deadline for threatening to attack the south if it did not stop loud speaker propaganda broadcasts. and second that the south korean government was considering military retaliation in addition to artillery shells
we do have a counter-provocation plan to deal with these situation, situation short of all-out war. reporter: when the u.s. saw the key units, u.s. commanders took the rare step over the weekend of ordering an immediate review of the war plan to defend the south. anytime the north koreans start playing games like this, you ve got to take is seriously. you dough know what their next step will be. u.s. intelligence satellite imagery and electronic signals show disturbing north korean military movements, including activation of some air defense radars that might be able to detect incoming aircraft. deployment of additional artillery pieces near the dmz. the concern, north korean artillery could hit population centers such s sowell in the south. signs of a potential preparation for a scud missile launch and dozens of warships and
we saw martin savidge navigating and going around and doing everything trying to get down, frantically trying to reduce altitude. it is an aggressive maneuver. what we saw on the radar returns was two-minute turn and remaining on heading for over an hour. go ahead. we need to try to zero in on the things that we can defend. and once you get the transponder an the acars turned off, now the airplane is free, except for that skin paint that the military radar can look at and the military radar that we have been getting reports on just are not that great. i m really concerned about the pilots right now. yeah. you agree with that, right? it is not that you agree it is not that great? i think jim sort of absolutely is right. i think the air defense radars that we re looking at have a better capability, but my question is if the military is saying it descended to 12,000 feet, that, to me, is something very unusual. why didn t they interrogate?
in the indian ocean. i mean, given the fact that the northern arc flies over a lot of countries, many of which have, you know, a lot of radar and in which the skates are being patrolled, relatively carefully, do the relevant facts point you towards it being more likely to have taken the southern arc through the indian ocean? well, the northern arc from a logic standpoint seems to be the way to go. not very much down in the southern arc. there are some remote islands off of australia and the australian vas tremendous air defense system. they would have been detected. in the northern arc, the same is really rue. there are air defense radars all along that arc. particularly in india and pakistan. and along the coast of vietnam. so to me, it seems like an unlikely scenario that needs to