guaranteed! your ticket to a better night s sleep overseas now, where the iraqi government and its forces are advancing on the city of ramadi in a battle to oust isis militants from the city. ramadi fell on the militant group back in may. since then, iraqi troops have been fighting there. they are backed by the u.s. and coalition air strikes. iraqi officials tell nbc news that although progress has been slow, the government compound there could be liberated within the next 24 hours. nbc s jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon following all of this for us. jim, what have we learned about the iraqi advance army and the kind of support they are getting
putting together are not just going to collapse at the first collision with an isis fighting force. i think they are demonstrating that now. in addition to supporting iraqi forces in the drive to recapture ramadi, we know the united states is leading air strikes against isis targets both inside iraq and in syria. are these air attacks beginning to show results in softening isis defensive positions in those two countries? the air strikes have been going on for about a year. we certainly know that isis has some resilience on the ground. but is it going to make a difference this time around? they are killing people. it s not just u.s. air strikes which have been carrying much of the load but particularly in ramadi, british forces which have just entered this fight have been very key. there have been tornado fighter jets and british drones that have been key to the ramadi operation. again, with u.s. coordination and u.s. leading this. you have other parts of this that are certainly kil
marri ramadi. how important is it to recapture the city when isis still controls important pieces of territory including mosul and other pieces of syria? i think it s a very important piece and another part of the equation. they need to demonstrate an ability to take back ramadi and to demonstrate a civility and way to deal with the population after the fact that is going to bring over sunni tribal leaders who continue in large part to remain on the sidelines of this. while the u.s. has been able to attract some sunni forces into this and train them, they still are very, very small in terms of the overall fighting force that s going back into ramadi. this is a trust building operation as much as it is a military operation in ramadi. but as you pointed out, there are a lot of other parts here including fallujah, between baghdad and ramadi, remains under isis control and of course, the northern iraq with mosul and others are also under isis control. it s important to demonstrate that t
fighters. but as jim miklaszewski just laid out, there are a great number of civilians within this city and you are fighting within an urban situation, particularly in the southern part of ramadi, you have got reports coming out that they are actually corraling civilians, up to 5,000 or 6,000 of them, whether it s a hostage situation or civilian shields, i don t know, but the problem is that kind of aerial bombing doesn t help you much in terms of trying to make those decisions between taking out the isis fighters and trying to protect civilian life inside ramadi. let me get your opinion on one more report that came out today. this one from the wall street journal. it suggested that the u.s. has had contact with syria for years, in fact, that the obama administration was talking to syrian officials in an attempt to reduce the deadly violence resulting from the five-year-old civil war in that country. these talks obviously weren t fruitful given the fact they didn t stop the fightin
american or other afghan officials, government officials, when that suicide bomber drove a motorcycle in amongst them and blew himself up, killing those six and wounding three others. the entire mission is still under investigation but it appears that those six u.s. airmen were involved in some kind of operation involving a meeting between u.s. and afghan leaders just outside bagram air base there northeast of kabul. nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski, thank you. for more on the fight against isis let s bring in steve clemens, washington editor at large at the atlantic and msnbc contributor. steve, good to have you with us. as jim was just mentioning there, iraqi forces making a push to try to retake the capital of anbar province, ra