guests. we ll have full coverage of all the day s top stories. let s begin with our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. barbara, what are you hearing about this iraqi military offensive? wolf, what is becoming very clear is ramadi is a test case for the iraqi military, can they really win against isis? iraqi troops roll across a floating bridge opening a path towards central ramadi. [ gunfire ] heavy gunfire continues to ring out, iraqi armored vehicles on the move fighting street to street. the entire area is mined and booby-trapped by isis. entire houses wired to blow up. tough work for iraqi troops even after weeks of u.s. training to prepare. this enemy has had time to set up their defense inside of this city. and it s going to be very difficult and it is going to be a very slow process for the iraqis to slowly, methodically
claims among the civilian population in aleppo that russia is purposefully targeting marketplaces, mosques, hospitals, as other reporters pointed out, but now he s convinced that s exactly what they re doing. he explains it as follows. this is the kill logic that the assad regime had employed in the early days of the syrian uprising. you go out into a crowd, shoot one person dead. the next day you have to shoot five people to make the same point because the crowd swells. it grows the ranks of a protest. russia wants to kill a lot of people immediately so that they don t have to kill even more people later on. they want to bleed aleppo. they want the civilian population to flee. the problem though is this. aleppo today consists in the main of internally displaced syrians, people coming from other cities and hamlets and towns and villages all throughout syria. this is the poorest of the poor. and they re hanging on, wolf, not because they re great patriots or stand in defiance of this on
iraq? it is important to understand the administration s policy about arming syrian rebels this would just kind of further the disaster and catastrophe. most recently president obama gave a series of speeches in which he referred to rebels as dentists and engineers that can take the outside regime and isis. the rebels we are supporting up until this point and that includes allowing saudi arabia while we turn the other cheek. they have the most experience on the ground in syria and flush them out several months ago. it is true isis has a stronghold in a town on the outskirts of aleppo city. i think united states priority is not about dislodging the assad regime but running a counter terrorism operation and using syrian militants as proxys. and i represent the shift in