was the heart of the insurgency when american forces are there. american forces are a tremendously difficult time taking territory in precisely those areas. and there s some evidence to support the contention this is basically the same essentially group of people who are fighting american troops then fighting the iraqi government now. he sure. al anbar province was a hot bed of resistance to the u.s. military presence and to the construction of a new largely shiite dominated government. back in 2005, 2006, 2007, you had hundreds of people being killed every month çthere. in insurgency. and the u.s. did try to get some of the rural tribal people on its side in that area with some success. but the shiite government in baghdad did not like that program, did not want to arm the sunnis and didn t follow through. finally, there was a raid against a key isis figure or
militia that were very critical in the takedown of tikrit. they ve put them on their holiday. now the call is for them to cancel their holiday, cancel their vacation get back to their units, be mobilized. and ramadi is significant why? because geographically between syria and baghdad? you drive northwest past the airport, through fallujah out to ramadi and you re in al anbar province. okay. that s ramadi one of the stories. the other, this raid in syria. we just mentioned this isis leader s wife who they captured who s now in iraq, presumably they re sergt interrogating. what kinds of questions do you think she s asking? do you think she talks? yes, i believe she talks. two, they ask her about every day activity. who is he meeting with? who is he speaking with?
further disrupt the iraqi government, and they re able do do this in anbar. because the shia militia forces can t go out there, or they haven t been allowed to go out there just yet. it s complete sunni problems, unlike the north in tikrit which is a mix of sunni and shia. they ve got to build the forces out there. and that s, frankly, problematic right now. they re still in the process of training those forces to get them to fight. but some of the al anbar tribes have done that. we do know that the u.s. is expediting a shipment receive sources and weapons over there to help with this fight there on the ground. general, thank you so much. military analyst lieutenant general mark hertling. also a programming note. watch the fareed zakaria blind
very dire, saying fighting is ongoing. ramadi has not yet fallen yet. but officials are warning this is something that could happen now at any point. now, of course, we ve seen an increase in u.s.-led coalition air strikes takes place, late last night, as we know. and baghdad is saying that it s sending some of its troops to push it back. this would be a major blow for the iraqi government. and the u.s.-led coalition. this would be the first major city to fall to isis since the start of the coalition air strikes last year. and a major boost for isis, it really would be tightening its grip on the territory it controls. that vast territory, all the way from the syrian/turkish border on to anbar province and to baghdad. a very serious situation there. jomana, thank you so much. let s bring in cnn military analysis lieutenant general mark
coming in with this on thursday, and a very symbolic move. they took over the government could ha complex. this used to be the government nerve, they took over that complex. and they raised there has been real determination, christi, by isis to do this for months now. push after push. and we ve seen in the group trying to take control of what is left of al anbar province. the majority of this province, syria, saudi arabia, and also baghdad, really the majority of it has been under the control of isis pretty much for the past year. and there are only some parts of it that still under the government control. so isis taking over, hasn t happened yet in the fuel city as we know from the governor of anbar province. he described the situation as