iraqis have been displaced. in response to isis and unforgivable treatment, the world has responded. this is a coalition effort. since this began in 2014, the coalition has strengthened and expanded. the international team is fully committed at the political and military levels to the destruction of isis. a coalition of 68 members, 65 nations with more joining as we speak, plus i sharing intelligence, providing troops and funds for combat and no less importance for the post combat recovery. in late march or secretary of state gathered diplomatic colleagues in washington where they discussed how we would deal with the post combat aftermath. secretary tillerson, mr. mcgirt and the colleagues in the coalition rightly focused most of their effort on how that this
administration strategy in his words to annihilate isis. he said this was an accelerated operation designed to destroy isis. let s bring in our cnn military analyst and retired air force colonel sed brick leighton and retired admiral john kirby. bold words from the secretary of defense. the goal to annihilate isis. this is an accelerated operation. no longer simply going to surround isis strongholds. they re going to go in there and crush them. yeah. this was a different approach. what he said was actually they are going to surround the strongholds and then strangle them from outside and within. in other words, not letting them escape bombings and then to live another day. that is a different tactic than what has been previously done against isis. and he also spoke about more delegation of authority. and that the president has delegated it at the appropriate level so they can move faster or
a little bit more with more agility. he talked a little bit i think framed sort of what s different now than how it was done under the obama administration. cedric, is it going to make a difference? they ve made steady progress over these last several months in this war against isis, but it s by no means over. that s right, wolf. the big issue here as john mentioned, what we re dealing with is actually destroying isis. what they re going to do is not only encircle them but the whole idea is to make it impossible for them to continue to exist as an effective fighting force, so that s going to require an increased concentration of troops. it s going to require an increased use of coalition forces. it s also going to require an increased and enhanced use of intelligence. and that is going to i think be one of the critical aspects of this operation. and what also sfrtruck me was tt was not just focussed on syria
indicate to finance terrorist operations. thanks to leadership and authorities provided by trump, thafrpgs thanks to the nations whose troops have gone toe-to-toe with this terrorist group. with the deepest sympathy for the families that have lost sons and daughters in this fight and with the greatest respect for the families caught up on the battle fields that we know are also humanitarian fields. we have retaken over 55% of isis territory there in the core. over 4 million people have been liberated and not 1 inch of territory seized from isis has been recaptured from them. excuse me, recaptured by them. let me turn it over to chairman dunford for more on our isis campaign. chairman. so there he is the secretary of defense james mattis. announcing a new trump
one of the things i think that was key to this is they were talking about that this whole business of surrounding them is really meant to keep them from going back home. and so when you re looking at the way they re doing this, they re actually going in and not only do they want to destroy isis as an effective fighting force but they want to make sure that it doesn t go back to reinfect areas like western europe or in france and belgium in particular or do anything else with, you know, any of these areas. so they want to make sure that they can destroy this effort on the part of sirs aisis and it s to be interesting to see how isis responds to this. it s a major operation. mosul, the second largest city in iraq, still has not been completely liberated. they ve been trying for two years to do that. raqqa and syria, the capital, that s still under isis control. they ve got a lot of work to do. thanks very much. coming up, take a look at.