ramadi is the capital of the anbar province. it s about 70 miles west of baghdad. the anbar province has largely been controlled by isis. when isis took control of ramadi back in may, you may remember that u.s. defense secretary ash carter questioned the iraqi s will to fight. but the help from u.s. training and more than 630 u.s. led air strikes since giuliani. the military has been able to step up the fight against isis to retake ramadi. possibly setting the stage for offensive to he retake mosul in northern iraq: before that happens though, iraqi forces still have to clear out booby trapped buildings and mine fields in ramadi that could take weeks, if not longer. then it s a question of whether iraq s military can maintain control of ramadi. kimberly? ramadi falls to isis back in may of this year marked a fatal set back.
move to the next building or the next objective. reporter: so while getting ramadi back for the iraqi forces is a vital military win, of course there are also politics at play here. it is very important to the white house that ramadi falls back into iraqi hands. a big demonstration that the president could make that is isis strategy is indeed working. wolf? barbara starr at the pentagon, thank you. tonight revealing new personal details about the san bernardino terrorists, tashfeen malik s visa application was just released. our justice reporter, evan perez, has been going through the files. what s your analysis, your takeaway? well, this really shows you that this process, this k-1 visa process is really geared towards trying to flag people who are trying to commit visa fraud, marriage fraud, essentially trying to set up sham marriages in order to just emigrate here. the form that these two filled out has a lot of detail about their meeting. they say that they met online.
well, isis is being fought in various cities around iraq. it s important we remember that. this gives us a look. i know you spend a lot of time on the ground in iraq. talk to us about why ri maddie is so significant for the iraqi army. this is in so many ways president obama s plan, to get sunnis to fight against isis, to get that in the anbar province which is where this is. it s really this patchwork against isis. this is why it s key. this is one of those fault lines as you look at the map there of. the hope is if ramadi falls, iraqi force kansas city turn their attention to the north and maybe take mosul. thank you for that insightful video analysis. apple s ceo tim cook opening the doors for a rare look inside the largest company in the world. we ll take you inside. and we re tracking some unusual holiday weather as another blast of warm air makes its way from the midwest to the east coast but at least it still looks like christmas in i would
the strategy calling what they be done against isis a success. here is josh earnest earlier this week. what s true is that the strategy that the president has deployed alongside our 60 coalition partners, has more often than not yielded important success. obviously, it s retaking mosul is going to be a difficult campaign as well. but we continue to have confidence in the strategy. confidence in the strategy. ramadi falls, then we get it back in part. it s not us, it s an iraqi army that we re calling incompetent. what is the strategy? i don t know what the strategy is. i think the president should be much more aggressive in terms of bringing allies together in the middle east. there are countries in the middle east, the saudis, the emerodies, jor deignians who want to lead the fight. they need american vision.
baltimore. suzanne malveaux thank you very much. coming up next here on cnn, video captures some of the final moments before the iraqi city of ramadi falls into isis hands. i ll talk with someone who was nearly killed while documenting the war there some years ago. his account of how ramadi turned from relative calm to the city under siege, as he calls it. also fighter jets scrambled amid a series of threats made to flights midair. we have an update on that. stay here. you re watching cnn on this memorial day.