friends. it is wednesday, december 27th, i m willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. a lot to get to including israeli forces shifting military efforts to southern and central gaza with officials warning the war could take many more months. and hours from now, antony blinken and alejandro mayor kas are set to meet with mexican president obrador. plus donald trump continues to claim he should be immune from any prosecution surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. we ll have the latest there. also ahead, bus drivers across the country increasingly under attack on the job. we ll dig into an alarming trend and what officials are doing about it. with us this morning, jonathan lemire, susan paige, and retired four star navy admiral james stavridis. good morning to you all. let s begin together with israel expanding the ground invasion in gaza. this as the united states continues to urge israel to protect civilian lives and shift to a more low intensity oper
u.s. troops have come under attack 78 times by iranian backed groups. good morning. alexandria: good morning, according to defense department u.s. contractor was killed after a group crashed unmanned ariel vehicle into a building in northeast syria 1:30 local time. once determined it was iranian origin, the war posing group says eight iranian fighters were killed in that action. lloyd austin said the airstrikes were conducted in response to attacks by the group irgc. we will defend our people. no group will strike our troops with impunity. republican congressman matt gates offered this, it is deeply sad to see americans killed and troops killed in syria. this is price of guarding oilfields in other countries. iran continue to stain desert sand with the blood of america s best. since 2021, air kurilla says u.s. troops have come under attacks by iranian backed groups and we will defend our people and respond at time and place of our choosing. we are postured in the face of an
u.s. troops have come under attack 78 times by iranian backed groups. good morning. alexandria: good morning, according to defense department u.s. contractor was killed after a group crashed unmanned ariel vehicle into a building in northeast syria 1:30 local time. once determined it was iranian origin, the war posing group says eight iranian fighters were killed in that action. lloyd austin said the airstrikes were conducted in response to attacks by the group irgc. we will defend our people. no group will strike our troops with impunity.
to try to get out of this? i mean, you said that they probably know the cause of these explosions. i would say assume it s ieds set by these groups. so what are they actually trying to find? the identities of these attackers? first of all, you want to find out if it is an ied set by the group or if they used some kind of rpg to try to get the terrorists out. so, yeah, you re going to try to find that. you re trying to find out who the victims are and who the attackers are. the way you do that very simply is you find all the missing people reports, you match the bodies with the dna taken off of the family members who reported them missing because, frankly, fingerprints are useful in third world countries. and then the ones who have nobody missing them are reliably going to be your terrorists. peter, in terms of al shabaab, their capabilities, do they have capabilities inside the united states? we know a lot of americans, a few dozen americans have been
me, they ll solve it themselves. but, anderson, just this year, just this year, 36 million taxpayer dollars have already been sent to these clinics that are now suspended. so we re talking about a lot of wasted money here. it was so frustrating when we had the guy on from the program who said, well, he had no idea who, previous to him getting to his position, was responsible for oversight and who dropped the ball and he s not able to name any names. really frustrating stuff. drew, we will continue to report. and great reporting. thanks, drew. if you ve got a tip, go to cnn.com/investigate. up next. al qaeda interest in opposition groups in syria is growing. replacing the assad regime with shari a law. a number of groups seem to aligning themselves with al qaeda backed groups. and later a development in the case of marissa alexander. a woman in prison for firing a