pockets of resistance will be eradicated by the end of day today. at latest, early tomorrow. they do feel the bigger task ahead of them is clearing the entire city of all of these bombs. but this is as much a military effort as it is going to be moving forward a political one. they need to convince the sunni population to return that they re not going to be targeted in any sort of retaliatory strike attack by these predominantly shia forces that have moved through. it s a sensitive situation at this point. and tikrit is just beginning, and the dynamics in tikrit are very different than the bigger battle arguably that iraq is going to be facing in al anbar province to the west for example, not to mention trying to retake the country s second largest city of mosul. bobby, this description that arwa is giving us, of seeing some of these iraqi forces with a severed head there are concerns at this point because you have tikrit which is largely
there s been no help from the americans. they continue to work the training piece in a couple of key locations out west south and just north of baghdad. and also as you know they continue to work heavily on the al anbar province area. but they also do continue to work coalition area. and one of the pieces we spoke to with some of the militia out there even though they said they did not need the american help when you brought them to the side they do admit the coalition aircraft with the majority of those being u.s. air force and navy fighters conducting these sorties, that degradation they ve done of daesh, or isis over the last several months definitely assisted them with their push towards tikrit. ben, you ve covered this story for a long time. how worried are iraqi sunnis in tikrit and elsewhere that the shiites, in effect backed by iran, are going to be the big winners in all this? as you know no great love between these two ethnic groups.
adjacent to the william beaumont army medical central in el paso texas. the cnn affiliate has been posting photos. we re getting more information. the station reporting el paso police have turned over te scene to u.s. military police. federal law enforcement authorities are on the scene. we re watching what s going on. we re trying to get a better sense of injuries. the shooting incident still underway. we ll check in and get more information. i wanted to alert you to that breaking news. let s go back to the state department deputy spokeswoman, marie. i m very concerned about what s going on in iraq. 3,000 military personnel. they re advising assisting the iraqi military. it looks like isis is 10:00 their operations and they re shelling some of these. especially the air base in the anbar province and these american troops could be in danger. what s going on? well we knew that iraq is a
lightning speed across northern and western iraq taking the town of mosul, moving into fallujah and ramadi in al anbar province. but for the last two to three weeks, isis has not taken significant new ground, the u.s. says. instead, isis has had to go on defense, trying to hold onto what it has. they re having trouble paying their fighters. they re having trouble governing. they don t have the leaders to actually govern the spaces they ve attacked and taken over. reporter: but with isis still able to launch attacks at places like al asas air base where 320 marines are located, an urgent effort is under way there and at other bases to train iraqi units. the u.s. now plans to sell iraq 175 battle tanks and 1,000 humvees for nearly $3 billion. it s spending 250 mine-resistant
vehicles and 10,000 m-16 rifles all aimed at getting iraqi forces not just trained but armed and willing to fight isis and take their country back. now, the pentagon also revealed for the first time today that the military is investigating several allegations of potential civilian casualties from those coalition air strikes. outside monitoring groups have long claimed hundreds of people have been killed in those strikes. how worried are they at the pentagon that all that military hardware the u.s. is about to provide to iraq could wind up in the hands of isis if these iraqi soldiers do what they have done over the past year just take off their uniforms run away leave their weapons behind all of this u.s. hardware in mosul, other parts of the anbar province which the u.s. left behind for the iraqis already they ve wound up in the hands of isis. how concerned are they that a similar situation will take place this time?