and to basically conduct. a religious. campaign in the largely sunni serious areas ninety six percent sunni but try to convert sunni is this will inflame another religious war this time a religious war inside syria and the consequences would be many many more refugees and you know exactly where they ll come the ability to increase fourfold five fold the number of militias that are there depends among other things on money and the money comes from iran until recently came from among other places from the j.c.b. away this is not a false argument it s a true argument we ve seen that they ve used about twenty five billion dollars from proceeds that they ve got and one way or another from the easement of sanctions in . yemen in syria and lebanon and elsewhere so i think the konami
her experience. and good evening. and we have been warned for a while they are getting outside of their comfort zone and now we have proof. we do. isis is using the strategy of attacking internally. they are losing some of their territory in syria and see they seem to be focusing if you look in buirut and the russian airliner. what do you do? the ground forces are not adequate and isis said we want western troops in here and that was the goal from the beginning; see what do you do? at this point a strategy and that will be difficult. it will entail the political situation and war inside syria.
this man said he was praying when the blast blew a door right over his head. the victims carried by bystanders over rubble from damaged buildings and rushed to nearby hospitals. the twin suicide bombing went off the area is mostly empty, it s been cordoned off by the army. otherwise there s a lot of shattered glass on the street, a lot of blood. and it s really just a scene of chaos and carnage. reporter: within hours isis claimed responsibility. this neighborhood is a stronghold of hezbollah, the lebanese militia fighting alongside bashar al assad s regime in syria. isis sworn enemy there. isil doesn t think of itself as having borders. let s remember why you say isis, i say isil, they say i.s., the islamic state. and they see themselves as trying to establish themselves as a caliphate which means
to that ethnic group the yazidis who they captured and many enslaved last year when they swept into that town. but it s strategic. it s vital. it runs between mosul and iraq. self-declared caliphate raqqa and syria. today we saw them move in, take that road. a lot of heavy resistance from isis further out west met by very powerful kurdish air strikes but then they managed to gather the numbers and move towards city center digging huge trenches across that highway putting very large earth berms making it pretty much unusable. but isis they re still in the city center. we don t know how much fight they have left in them, jake. describe for us if you can what the conditions are like on the ground there. reporter: extraordinarily cold. very open spaces. a lot of air power being used. i think that kind of visibility we ve seen with the clear skies today has really helped the coalition pinpoint the strikes we saw. i mean, there were times when
talk to the prosecution about that. it has nothing to do with us. governor christie in cedar rapids, iowa, thank you so much for joining us today. thank you, jake. wolf blitzer s here with a preview of the situation room. wolf, obviously bombs blew up in beirut today. isis is claiming responsibility for the attack. you have former nato supreme allied commander wesley clark to talk about what this means for the larger war on terror and the war against isis. it looks like isis not only going after various targets in iraq and syria, which we all know about. but clearly now expanding that russian commercial airliner at sharm el sheikh 224 people were killed, now they re claiming responsibility for dozens of people killed and injured in beirut today in this bombing. and it s going on and on and on. general wesley clark s going to join us. we ll talk about that. ed royce, chairman of the house foreign affairs committee as well. wolf blitzer, look forward to that. more than 20 air