arabia and their arab partners. on the other side you have the houthis rebels backed by iran. christine. ian lee in cairo, thank you. the u.s. is supporting the saudis in yemen. trying to secure a nuclear deal with iran at the same time. secretary of state john kerry heading the talks in switzerland insisting it will not effect the negotiations. the framework deal is four days away and this has president rouhani sending a letter to leaders involved in the negotiations. turning to iraq. a u.s. led coalition staged 17 air strikes in tikrit overnight. until now, iranian backed shi ite militias trying to oust isis from the birth place of saddam hussein. now the u.s. has entered the fight, they are boycotting the
this situation just keeping growing in the involvement and concerns about what it means for the region. reporter: that s right, christine. we saw second wave of air strikes hitting 15 targets conducted by coalition forces. we are hearing reports that targets near the presidential palace were also hit. in the port city of aden we are hearing there is chaos on the streets as pro and anti-houthis rebels square off. and the red sea city here in egypt, the air crew will hold a summit to discuss this. what we are seeing is an unprecedented arab coalition. we have not seen this air-backed coalition in decades. they are conducting this operation in yemen. egypt has mobilized a large
coalition because of the city ty of going after the isis targets in the city. they say they need the air power ability that the united states and coalition have. precision air strikes that the iraqi air force does not possess to go after the targets to allow them to advance. the problem, christine, the forces that have been doing most of the fighting along their side are not reacting well. they consider the united states an enemy, most of them do. now some of the groups are saying they will boycott the fight. they will not push forward. others are saying they will stay in their positions, but not advance into the city. a very difficult situation to see how the iraqi forces are going to do this on their own. we heard yesterday from the general lloyd austin saying that pre-conditioned for the u.s. involvement here in tikrit and operation there was that these
coalition being gathered. something we have not seen in decades. egypt mobilizing a large force. including airplanes and war planes and naval ships and ground forces. the saudi ambassador detailed the objective of the operation. we are preparing for all eventualities in the kingdom and outside of the kingdom. we are determined to defend yemen and degrade and destroy the ability of the houthis. reporter: if there is a ground invasion we have seen this before in the 1960s. troops went there and it turned into what many called their vietnam. they sent up to 40,000 troops there. up to 5,000 to 10,000 were killed in the bloody battle. they will watch to make sure something like that doesn t happen again. ultimately, this is a proxy war. you have tribes backed by saudi
the slopes. victims family members, 250 of them arriving on buses for a private memorial service. international correspondent erin mclaughlin is about six miles from the site where the plane went down. she has more on the recovery efforts. reporter: good morning, christine. people in the french alps say they are absolutely shocked by what has happened. let me show you the cover of the local paper this morning. it has a picture of the co- pilot, 27-year-old andreas lubitz as well as the headline that says simply why. people are really struggling to come to terms to understand what has happened. meanwhile, the recovery process continues. the first choppers leaving the staging area you see for the crash site to continue their work there. there is much work still to be