iraqi police and tribes are massing to fight back. but isis controls two other towns close to the capital, fallujah and karma. they would have a straight shot into baghdad from their strongholds in syria. u.s. officials were quick to frame the loss as part of the long fight against isis. the campaign against dash is a long one. it s going to take a long time. we ve already said that. reporter: but monday, an admission this is a loss. there is no denying that this is a setback. but there is also no denying that the united states help the iraqis take back ramadi. reporter: a stark change in anner row of success the u.s. tried to build involving a weekend raid. abu sayyef said to be a money
michael hanlan senior fellow at the brookings institute. is this a major setback in the fight against isis? you know, i think it is significant. i think people were hope inging a few months ago that by this point in the mid spring we would see the iraqi forces liberating mosul, which is the biggest city in the north and west the biggest city they took that isil took last year. but we re nowhere near that. there was a modest success and now this major setback in ramadi. i hope secretary kerry is right to say it may only last a few days or weeks, but i m not sure i m as confident as he is about the liberation. and if we have to depend on the shia militia to do it or the iraqi government that may be sewing seeds for further trouble. i see this as a fairly significant and bad development. beyond ramadi will other key
the fight against isis this weekend. the obama administration announced saturday that a senior isis official was killed in special operations ground raid in syria. abu sayyaf was in charge of the oil operations. but the group is claiming a victory in iraq. they have captured the city of ramadi. keir simmons has more. reporter: iraqi security forces appeared to flee ramadi, escaping the isis advance. video unverified by nbc news shows humvees packed with iraqi military in full retreat leaving a crucial city seeming desserted. a propaganda video purports to show isis fighters walking ramadi s empty streets. a hospital ransacked. video of intense fighting. the secretary of state insisting this morning isis remains on the
man, killed guarding a trove of vital documents. a worthy risk u.s. officials insist even though few isis experts have heard much about him. this was supposed to be the months in which the u.s. worked with the iraqis to retake mosul from isis not wonder how they might launch campaign to save ramadi. and tonight the issue is we know 25,000 people have fled according to the u.n. ramadi in the past few days of fighting. but how much of that city that used to have a million in it probably has 300,000 roughly, how many are still inside the deserted streets facing either a brutal life under isis, or more terrifyingly potentially execution if isis view them as baghdad loyalists? thank you very much. i want to go to barbara starr at the pentagon. barbara, this raid that the united states is championing this was a very big raid. they were able to get a very big player from isis. others are skeptical from that.
this is not going to be enough. this is a drop in the bucket. the islamic state, isis is a true menace to the stability in the middle east. and with this offensive they re carrying out in syria against homs against palmyra and now ramadi and fallujah we have to find a way to stop them. i m not advocating putting boots on the ground. but we ve got change the game here because we re losing right now. john kerry says don t worry about it we re going get it back. don t worry about ramadi. but when you look at a map, you re looking at the capital of iraq almost encircled by isis. who is telling the real story? the story about isis growing stronger and an isis takeover of iraq or john kerry in the u.s. who says don t worry? the state department doesn t have a clue what to to be it and neither does the military it s such a bad problem. you look at ramadi it covers major roads, roads north up the euphrates and roads to jordan.