reporter: yeah, you know, george, it is the nature of the fighting out there in the desert region. it s very flat. what you see there is forces like isis and the syrian army making quick gains but being pushed back very quickly as well. it seems like what happened is there was a lot of fog and bad weather over that territory in palmyra which somewhat sidelined the russian and syrian air force toss conduct air strikes to hold isis up. isis used it for an almost blitz-like attack. right now, they re binding most of their troops in that battle for aleppo. isis made quick advances and apparently made it into the city limits of palmyra and very close to the ancient city there. apparently, it s cleared up. the russian air force resumed air strikes. they ve conducted some 64 air strikes overnight pushing isis back. at this point in time, it s first of all, unclear how far
islamic extremists. the second they re done dealing with assad they ll think about other people they want to wage jihad in the region. would that be isis in a fight for predominance or turn to us and israel and sort of unite with isis? i think they d first try to kick ices to the side because they want the glory to be about them which brings us really to the next question of who replaces isis? say everything goes our way, we push isis back. you say number one threat of 2016 potentially, if ices were to get pushed back, who replaces them? exactly. those apocalyptic end times prophecies they say they are fulfilling and how they recruit they ll remain even if you destroy isis and the general radical template also still remains. if you start beating back isis there will be another group that will look at their formula for success and replicate them. al qaeda might make a comeback or entirely new that we re not prepared for libya, what kind of threat do
this is their homeland. in the region. they can be protected. they also would have the effect of pushing isis back. because he would carve out a safe area, it would put 20,000, 30,000 troops, looks to me like the french will participate. the russians will participate. right now we are, as two newspapers described it as, once again leading from behind. president obama is kind of, you know, waving at the train as it s going by. he s in the philippines, there s a meeting next week. putin got together a better raid than we ve seen in a long time in a day. rudy, i want to talk to you a little bit about this. people are looking in and they go, okay, it s terrible what s happening in paris, but isis has made it clear, next stop, washington, new york, places like that. there is an item yesterday that we talked about, about how the new york city police department is preparing for 24 simultaneous attacks to happen, in new york city, at the same time. if they re that specific, what kind
it s important to keep in mind, george, that emwazi, born in kuwait and growing up in the uk is really even though he s played a very prominent media role with these gruesome beheadings of journalists and aid workers, he s not part of the leadership structure of isis, which is made up predominantly of iraqis, including iraqis with experience with saddam hussein s security hierk i can. hierarchy. so in the grand picture, not necessarily a huge role. there s not going to be huge impact from his killing. but you need to look beyond this particular incident to the broader picture. you see the kurds with u.s. air support on the offensive in sinjar, west of mosul. you see the kurds within syria also pushing isis back. you see the russians in some instances, hitting isis targets as well. so isis is really beginning to
is it wrong to say don t use russia to go after isis? the theory in syria is, russia, we don t like what you re doing,ization the united states, because we think you re really trying to help assad fight isis. well, the u.s. is right to say that because russia isn t about fighting isis in the first instance. it s about creating an alliance with iran and assad of syria and driving the united states and its allies out of the region. but the united states can say we ll leave if you ask the russians to come in. and at the same time, not say, we ll do whatever it takes to stop really beating isis back. we haven t said that. we haven t done that. and if question don t do that, the iraqis are going to look towards russia regardless of what they ve told me. what is your position and the white house saying we have have done more than anybody else. we have been the biggest friend