u.s. and has been freed from cuban prison. whether we will see him is uncertain. and both the cia and the national director of intelligence are both refusing to confirm this. but, again, a former intelligence officer very familiar with this case, and cuban intelligence tells us this is the man released. all right. thank you very much. appreciate it. and coming up, we ll have more on both of our breaking news stories on the u.s. spy identified and isis leaders killed. plus, the exit interview in part one of my exclusive interview. outgoing attorney general eric holder opens up about racial tensions and law enforcement in an increasingly divided nation. plus, we ll talk more about what u.s. officials are calling the most damaging cyber attack ever inflicted on an american business. and who could be at risk next.
and i understand the pentagon is trying to point out that these air strikes are achieving something. but, you know, killing three guys, none of whom is the leader of isis, none of whom is a face in their video. i mean, these people may be significant figures, but they re not key leaders in the sense of that isis is not going to stop operating without them. and, i think we have to be realistic. stopping isis is not going to be about killing one or two people. i mean, if you think back to iraq in the heyday, first we killed zarkawi, that didn t stop the group. and we killed the predecessor. that didn t stop the group. in fact, it got stronger. so i think trying to, you know, trying to understand how we re doing against isis in terms of how many people we ve killed may not be the greatest, you know, measurement or way of measuring that. progress is not measured simply by getting rid of mid-level commanders. and i think, you know, even if
unraveling isis campaign in a more broader sense. so, again, you know, it s always good to see senior figures in this network taken out. but we have to temper this. this is not exactly new news. and, you know, the fact is, these people have been dead now for as long as a month or more. and you don t see isis unraveling in any great way. and you know what, just explore that a little bit, evan. what might be the sort of public relations reason. or the public communications reason for, as you said, grouping these three together, making this announcement now, given that there haven t been that many developments in terms of isis fighting on the ground? well, look, i think a lot of p5n we ve been launching air strikes now in syria and iraq now for months. and, you know, it s a fair question. at what point are we going to see material progress? and, i think, look, i understand that the administration is trying to bolster its policy,
give them a sense of, if you will, heroic status on the battlefield. so there is going to be, perhaps a negative backlash in the long run that this is used to recruit more followers. and lastly, would i be correct in saying that since taking mosu, which was a very dramatic turn for isis, that the group has had more difficulty acquiring more territory? we haven t heard recently of them being able to take another major city. are they now not advancing territorially the way they were a few p months ago? you would be correct in making that assumption. and from the perspective of they have not taken another city on the scale of mosul. particularly with they managed to do so in a matter of days earlier this summer. they have been able to take over smaller towns. kobani in syria along the turkish border. they ve taken over some small they ve taken over some small towns
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