strikes killed isis leader who officials say had direct links to the mastermind of terror attacks and was actively plotting more terror. jim schutto, cnn, washington. steve is a contributor now to cnn. new year s eve, we ve got a lot of people heading out for the evening, does it matter in terms of the security challenge if they re looking at new york, paris, london, rome, sidney? anywhere in the world? no, no. each one is going to be a potential target for isis. they like lots of people in one area. so if you re a security officer, if you re planning this, if you re an fbi, looking to how to keep us safe, what are you looking at? you re looking at anything that could have come up in the last month. you re looking at all your current investigations. you re looking at anything that has the potential to attack these things. and you are your threshold for interdicting is much lower.
he appears to contradict the commander-in-chief. have we currently contained isil? we have not contained isil. have they been contained at any time since 2010 in. tactically in areas they have been. strategically they have been. of. just as the role in u.s. forces in iraq and syria expand expanded now growing by a facemask or of more than ten and coming up on a limit of 3550 troops that the president said he s going to have to raise 6 deployment. he does not believe this will be the final deployment to iraq and syria. jim schutto, cnn, washington.
a sense that it can and probably will happen again. have a party is what the government is saying. errol and rosemary, back to you. that seems to be the message, the defense of defiance, not being fearful, not being intimidated. the more people can return on and try to return to normalcy. that s the best weapon. as we monitor developments in europe, there s also big news in the west african nation of mali. heavily armed gunmen stormed a hotel in the capital on friday, killing at least 21 people. one american is moj the dead. and just a short while ago, u.s. president barack obama condemned the attack which one islamist militant group is taking partial responsibility for. jim schutto has the latest.
welcome back to cnn s live coverage of pope francis visit to the united states. he s in new york at a school in east harlem. but there are huge crowds gathering in central park, many of them ticketed just for the opportunity to see pope francis as he goes on a tour through central park. jim schutto is covering the crowds and the security in new york today. jim schutto oh, we re going back to the school for one second. i m sorry, the pope has come back out. let s take a listen and see if we can listen in. [ speaking spanish ] are you ready? ready? one, two, three.
as the pope makes his way throughout this school, our lady queen of angels school in east harlem, crowds are amassing in central park. there to watch the pope drive through on his tour through central park. security s very tight. let s bring in jim schutto to tell us more about this crowd while we keep an eye on what pope francis is doing on the right side of our screen. jim. jake, ill tell you, we ve been watching these crowds line up for hours now. about 100,000 expected in the park. as you noted these will be people who just get to see him go by really, catch a glimpse of him. but that for many is enough. he ll be driving through the park in his pope mobile. doesn t have the intimacy like we re seeing right now in east harlem where the pope is really in his element. i was thinking just then he couldn t be more in his element one, be with kids, two, be