dianne feinstein and others believe that putin wants to reach a deal to end this crisis, he doesn t want syria to have chemical weapons and he wants to show president obama he has the ability to end this peacefully if mr. obama can t and another motivation. to be center stage to be somebody that you reckon with, somebody you to have come to and seek his ace approval and the world has to come and kiss his ring i think is part of it. reporter: what is frustrating for american leaders putten s ties to syria would avoid any effort to punish assad. putin may be the only world leader to get assad to give up those chemical weapons. our thanks to brian. also in washington, the senate for now is setting aside the resolution for authorizing military force against syria. it will not vote on it or try to amend the language as the administration works on a diplomatic solution on russia. the obama administration and iran are apparently
i m wanted by the regime. there s also security threats. it s a very dangerous situation. but i ll be going back. reporter: van dyke has fought before with the rebels in libya. he shows me his libyan military card. he searched as infantryman and heavy machine gunner. i believe in self-determination. i believe people should be able to choose their own leaders. reporter: it s believed some americans have joined the fight. though nobody can say how many, one, eric harroun, was charged this week for fighting against the syrian government on the side of a designated terrorist group. while the u.s. wants assad out, it doesn t want syria to be a recruitment tool for jihadists. it s always a concern when terrorist networks in that part of the world, or elsewhere, seek to recruit americans, whether in the military or not. do you know any other americans fighting in syria?
government officials, military officials. according to the syrian observatory for human rights based in britain, 20,000 people have now been killed since the uprising in syria began and most of them have been civilians. harris? peter, thank you very much. and before we move on, i want to bring everybody up to speed, what s happening now. in vallejo, california from our fox affiliate in that area, we are getting word about what s happened with the stranded riders in that rollercoaster, and we re working the story, a superman rollercoaster at the six flags kingdom park in vallejo, california, right after the commercial break we ll bring you up to speed and have brand new video to show you. our news room is working on it now. election day 2012 is now a hundred days away. that s not a lot of time. take a look how the campaigns are shaping up for president obama and mitt romney, as the milestone is reached. one guy lost his hand when an alligator attacked him.
laid out from an unnamed official, you cannot have a complete dissolution because those will be needed in a political transition. in a nutshell, the obama administration doesn t want syria in 2012 to resemble iraq in 2003 and as soon as assad goes away, wants whoever is left standing to respect everyone, including minority groups, not all experts think that s sound advice. the notion that you simply keep the existing regime in place, just to place a few of the top leaders, i think, is badly misguided. earlier this week, a state department officials says that assad s days are numbered and the white house press secretary said, that assad s fall is inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. there are daily reminders of the fact that his power is loosening, that his control over the country is diminishing. we ve seen almost daily defections of high level
of fox news, showing what we re told is a rebel parading a tank from government forces. of course, we cannot independently verify this video. and the u.s. involvement in the the conflict. providing nearly 64 million dollar to humanitarian aid to those cut in the cross fire and 15 million dollars in nonlethal aid to the opposition. and defense secretary panetta arriving where the arab spring began last year and travel to egypt, israel and jordan and hopefully a national consensus that assad must step down as syria s leader. our peter doocy with more from washington. reporter: the thieree syria opposition is being told not the to gut the regime when it falls from power, and today s washington post, details are