supply lines. the kurds say they ve taken more than 150 square kilometers so far. reclaiming sinjar is a big step to breaking up the caliphate isis says they re creating. reporter: the sun broke, bringing with it a vast trail of pashmerga crawling around the back of mount sinjar. their advance longn t expected and aimed here at sinjar s western flank. isis beaten back, barely a local vehicle left standing. they ve asked for new weapons but used what they had, facing booby traps all around. mo tars and continued air strikes had one key target the highway that runs through sinjar.
that may be changing. we have either isolated their communications better, better persistence surveillance. that usually means more drones over the area. i think being able to operate out of turkey has given up a much better edge, especially over syria. it appears the intelligence is getting better. do you fear this, if confirmed, will are result in retaliatory strikes by isis? they may try, but my assessment is isis is already doing everything they can. if isis is proouch b to be responsible for bringing down the russian jetliner, they re trying to do that in retaliation against the russians. we saw an operation possibly related to isis in beirut today. that would have been isis going after hezbollah. and lep nies shiaa. they will try anything they can.
crowd, maximizing saz you llties. casualties. a third bomber, killed by the blast before he could detonate his own explosionives. but a fourth was allegedly captured, seen here taken away as security forces fire into the air to clear the crowd. this man said he was praying when the blast blew a door right over his head. the victims carried by bystanders over rubble from damaged buildings and rushed to nearby hospitals. the suicide bombing went off, the area is mostly empty. it s been cordoned off by the army. otherwise, there s a lot of shattered glass on the street, a lot of blood. and it s really just a scene of chaos and carnage. reporter: within hours, isis claimed responsibility. the lebanese fish fighting
our breaking news this hour. the pentagon says u.s. forces targeted the isis executioner known as jihadi john. he terrified the world from behind a mask, appearing in videos showing him brutally murdering isis hostages. his real name is mohammed emwazi, believe to have had been born in kuwait. senior officials say they knew they had jihadi john in their site whence they launched the drone strike, but the pentagon is still trying to determine whether he actually died in the air ride. the path to radicalization and the alleged murderer has been a few years in the making. the first time authorities got a hold of him was more than five years ago. jim schuto reports. i have 72 hours.
syria enjoyed a life of privilege. his friends said they never saw signs of his future as a terrorist. he was such a beautiful young man, really. you know, it s hard to imagine the trajectory. it s not a trajectory that s unfamiliar for us. emwazi s path traveled to tanzania to go on safari. but he was detained on arifle, held overnight then deported to the uk. authorities suspecting his true intention was to travel to somalia. in 2010, he was detained again by counterterrorism officials in britain. just two years later, he traled to syria where he joined isis. his friends claim mistreatment by british authority, set them on a path to terrorism. our entire national security strategy for the last 13 years