bashar al assad. it sure appears that way. if you look at the target sets on both day, neither of these appear to be isis targets. you can t say the russians don t know what they re striking. they ve got access to syrian, iraqi and iranian intelligence. they know who s on the ground where. so when they launch these strikes, they know they re going after anti-regime rebels. i think they re just paying lip service to this isis thing. much like the turks did with the isis versus the pkk. repeat, paul, that reuters report that hundreds of iranian troops are in syria right now. they re ready to start a ground war, if you will, against bashar al assad s opponents, including u.s.-backed rebels, if you will, joining hezbollah fighter flps could be a real escalation of what s going on if the russian air force attacks from the air and these other elements attack from the ground. well, that s absolutely right, wolf. that could be really severe unintended consequences here.
confrontation. i don t think it s a matter of if, i think it s a matter of when. unless the major powers here, the russians and the americans, can come to agreement. it doesn t look like either side is willing to back down right now. let me ask paul, how strong are these pro-u.s. rebels in syria right now? because we heard that in the u.s. training of these rebels, make only 4 or 5 are still training. well, they re not very strong at all. much more stronger, the army of conquest and islamist constellation of groups which include ar asham, the al qaeda affiliates in syria. it appears that group have been targeted by the russians over the last two days. i think one very big concern, the way i see it, is isis and al qaeda, there could be some fence mending in syria over
air strikes. we indeed are interested in cooperation with the coalition. we cannot be part of the coalition which operates without the security council mandate and without the request from one of the countries on whose territories they operate. but we understand the reality. and we want to avoid any misunderstandings. at minimum. at maximum, we want to have a cooperation which would make the counterterrorist fight more efficient overall. all right, let s get some perspective. paul cruikrusshank is author of life inside al qaeda. also joining us, rick francona, cnn military analyst. and phil mudd is a cnn terrorism analyst. despite the comments by the russian foreign minister, the consensus at least here in washington seems to be this operation is mostly designed to prop up the regime of president