to fight isis? wolf, indeed. defense secretary ash carter has been facing withering criticism on capitol hill for president obama s anti-isis strategy. today he unveiled some new plans but will it be enough to deflect that criticism? hundreds of u.s. special operations and support forces heading to dangerous ground in iraq and syria. these special operators will, over time, be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture isil leaders. this force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations in syria. reporter: the announcement to send more forces coming after the attacks in paris. the military will now do more risky missions, such as the special operation hostage rescue raid in october where master sergeant joshua wheeler was
in the center of the fight. after frequent white house denials that u.s. troops would face combat in iraq and syria, today the president is ordering dozens of u.s. special forces into combat roles, involving direct action against isis. these special operator will, over time, be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence, and capture isil leaders. reporter: the new expedition area force will number in the dozens, though support forces expandite total footprint to 200. this force and the operations this force will conduct will provide us additional intelligence that will make our operations much more effective. reporter: part of their mission, raids like this one in northern iraq in october. daring joint operation involving kurdish commandos and the u.s. army s delta force to freeze isis-held prisoners, demonstrating added danger of
that have been conducted over time, say over the past 6 to 12 months, the pace of operations has been pretty good. pace of air strikes, it s pretty good. the problem in these situations, though, when you start air strikes with this frequency, you re starting to destroy the same targets, trying to collect on. it s a two-edged sword. you lose the collection when targets start to move but as soon as they re-create networks they have a vulnerability meaning they ve got to go back up on the networks and that s an opportunity for intelligence. i want all of you to stand by. f breaking news. a prisoner swap that may cost the u.s. key source of insight into the world s most-wanted terrorists and keeping track of developments in 2016 presidential race. senator ted cruz has new momentum but stirring up new controversy today with answers like this when he was asked about contraception and allegations that republicans are behind a war on women.
going to be in combat. we re nowhere near numbers going back to 2008 or so when you had a peak above 150,000, still a fraction of where you were then. but a steady increase when operations against isis began. presumably numbers will continue going up. we ll see what happens. thanks very much. global war in isis hampered by differences. president obama revealed he warned the russian president vladimir putin against intervening in syria s civil war. jim acosta in paris where the president has met with world leaders including putin. any progress in breaking the u.s./russian stalemate. reporter: not much. president obama offer ed not mae much progress, convincing vladimir putin to change course in syria. the shift, if it ever comes, could take months, as isis grows stronger. that essentially means u.s. and
obviously a link to the quality of intelligence that we have in our assessment of this force and the operations this force will conduct will provide us additional intelligence that makes our operations much more effective. reporter: a raid in syria that killed top isis operative in may provided an initial trove of intelligence leading to improved information about isis. two operatives still in the u.s. cross-hairs? isis leader abu bakr baghdadi. now, carter insisted today that isis has lost territory, lost ground in syria and iraq but he was asked flat out, is the u.s. winning against isis? the secretary largely sidestepped that question and said the u.s. will win. wolf? yeah. he was pressed a couple times and said eventually the u.s. will win and refused to say the