The president S Socialist Party has won most of the governorships in Regional ElectionsNicolas Maduro is hailing the result as and phatic victory but the outcome has sparked accusations of fraud from the opposition the update with the headlines on aljazeera coming up next here its inside story status. Witness documentaries that open your eyes at this time on aljazeera. Syrian Democratic Forces launch a major operation against on selfproclaimed the capital u. S. Backed rebels say its the final push for a so whats next for also for syria and for thousands of civilians trapped in the conflict this is inside story. Thank. You and. A welcome to the show i am sam is a than now when i saw took control of iraq in two thousand and fourteen the syrian city became the first to fall under the armed groups full control i saw fighters went on a rampage of killings and abuses they also use the city to plan attacks overseas or now three years later the u. S. Backed syrian Democratic Forces of launch what they say is the final assault on iraq are now its not clear how many eisel fighters are still inside the city or than as the Spokesman Says some ice or fighters appear to be withdrawing using civilians as human shields others have been allowed to leave after a deal was brokered by tribal leaders on saturday about deal also called for the evacuation of dozens of civilians whod been under ice and control. This powerful moment was captured on video as some civilians realized there were no longer trapped in being held by the armed groups lets bring our guests into the show now and we have joining us from beirut in lebanon sami neither director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs joining us on skype from a man sanyo koch save the childrens syria director and from that so in italy Joshua Landis director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma welcome to you all if i could start with sami in beirut so local officials as you may have heard in iraq a civil counsel talk about a deal an evacuation deal that allows some members at least of eisel to leave does this mean were not going to have that final bloody eisel standoff in iraq or. I mean this deed is very similar to what happened in like one month ago where the isis fighters have been recreated through air conditioned buses going all through their resort so this i mean put into question why this now and why couldnt it be possible before saving all this destructions and death tolls all the more that among the International Fighters that has been that have been evacuated they then where those responsible of bias and responsible of terrorist. Acts the second point i think were worth mentioning why i mean its the final destination there is or that seems to be the nexus of or the pope the point of all equally been enormous when it comes to. War because its about who will be controlling. Iraqi borders who will be in charge of uprooting in his last that it being there is or so what is as stake is a very important maybe this. Is the last battle or the one before the last battle and that second remark i think what kind of a strategy. To after this up to now hang on sam because you know you have nicely jumped ahead to a whole bunch of questions which we do want to get into but lets take them on a time and joshua if we can back up one more what kind of assuming here that there are so. To sort of last i guess you could say urban areas for eisold thats where theyre going is that the case. We believe so you know its not clear exactly where theyre hiding out of course the big prize is came about that it was and. And that that people are guessing where he might be and so well see the towns are falling fairly quickly we saw in iraq the last town that fell almost a thousand two hundred fighters gave up and increasingly were seeing these deals with isis fighters who are beginning to see that there is no valor enough in dying on the battlefield and are trying to escape probably getting out of syria altogether once theyve left a place like iraq i dont think theyre going to make a last stand in there as or any place else theyre going to try to find a way to slip away in the night in order to fight again the does this mean that the organization is being dismembered at this point just simply regrouping elsewhere where we dont know the american commanders are saying that its in chaos that its falling apart the command structure seems to be falling apart and were seeing fighters taking decisions to leave on their own without without communication with Central Command its very possible their communications have been cut off with kayla that daddy and that there is much greater decision being made in. The provinces so we dont really know what the state is and how organized that is but one would have met that under this intense bombardment that is being subjected to brutally in iraq but in syria not only from the Kurdish Forces allied with the United States but also from the syrian army as well as the iraqi army that. Things must be getting pretty chaotic sagna joshua mentioned that the intense bombardment we shouldnt forget this is still a city with a lot of civilians though now human Rights Groups were very critical of obviously eisel tactics but also some of the coalition tactics when it came to the operation to take mosul from the group lot of criticism about unnecessary civilian deaths on the part or caused by the coalition always seeing the coalition learn from that or are we still seeing unnecessary suffering caused by the coalition members. I think what you see is families and especially the children coming out of rocca is that theyve been hit with two kinds of two different events which have really had a Significant Impact on their well being first of all theyve been living under isis control since early twenty fourteen so the children we met are really just numb to violence right now they described witnessing the ending they describe seeing bodies lying around on the ground for weeks now and have been to school in three years they cant read or write its hard for them to imagine a productive future when you talk to children they just show the sense of really being now but then on top of that because of the intense bombardment thats happening you see children as well that are just completely terrified of airplanes and bombs falling they have nightmares during the night they cant sleep when they do try to sleep they hear the sounds of people screaming so these children have just been through so much for the last four years but then the most more recent bombing has definitely had an impact on them as well or a josh i could see you wanted to get in there so let me give you a chance to come back in on some of these points. Well i think its a fairly balancing act for the for the u. S. Army as weve seen with all these armies attacking they dont want their own men to be killed in street street fighting therefore they bombarded heavily they depend on air power and artillery and weve seen that in every one of these battles how do you dislodge fighters that are willing to die and also the the instructions of mcgurk in the heads of the American Coalition or the International Coalition has been that isis is to dot and theyre there not to be allowed to escape so these but look i guess the human Rights Groups like amnesty and so on which have been critical of some of the tactics would say how do you confront the well in a way which you dont use it doesnt cause massive million casualties. Yet its very difficult and clearly isis is also holding a lot of hostages and weve seen this over and over again in every one of the battles for the major cities that the these groups are holding tons of civilians because they know that there is intense pressure from that human rights organizations not to kill civilians and this paralyzes to a certain degree the attacking armies that want to use heavy airpower and just to blow blow them apart quickly talking about casualties and suffering it sammy is there a consensus about how what to do with iraq once this is over whos going to run it whos going to make sure there wont be another stage of chaos between other groups which take over. Up to up to now and a mother was to put in a place what they call a Civil Administration and actually won several administration has mean established for africa and played a part in two recreation of. The fighters so this is dumb ordered but now when it comes to iraq are the question is whether this a Civil Administration administration put in place would be a challenge by. The Syrian Regime because now its back and sponsored by there at the end this is one segment the would it have and this is the most important would it have been assessed thirty resources to rebuild iraq are because now iraq is a city that flies into loons and its thought that a devastated and this truck to and so the question is once more who will pay for that and the whether this city would have the resources to to rebuild it sammy is some point it seems like the syrian army and the s. D. S. Are geographically on the ground approaching theyre getting close to each other is that an indication that there is an understanding between the fact that there isnt doesnt seem so far to be any conflict between them there is some kind of understanding about how the show should be run there. Up to now there is a kind of agreement between russian and american overlooking whats taking place inside syria yes one can guess that is the nation still there are area or small areas of these agreements are given directly effects of the russian equivocates of whats happening and that theyre not region at the c. D. N. Iraqi border but after all i think that there is a kind of mega agreement between the two powers that is defining areas of influence and. That their own got their views of each of their players on the ground sunny sunny mentioned there you know the question of whos going to rebuild the areas which slip out of life was control and that only opens up a new chapter in the humanitarian challenges right. Youre right its not clear to us how rocca is going to be administered once isis is defeated we hear about the iraqi Civil Council we hear maybe the government will go in and you know were not really trivial to those discussions i would just say reckless certainly not ready to have people back to it its full of unexploded ordinances in mines and bombs those absolutely need to be cleared before anyone returns home homes have been destroyed Public Services arent functioning you know its going to be really critical that when people do go home when they all do want to go home that its safe for them to do that and that services are available so what happens to people so near until they can return home people are actually scattered all across Northern Iraq a governorate there are stem caps for displaced people theyre completely stretched because there are new arrivals every day including now frontiers who are agencies on the ground are doing their best to provide some sort of temporary relief in the terms of water and sanitation and food and temporary schools but thats not a really long Term Solution there are other people that have to travel relations and relatives in Northern Iraq and so theyve moved towards living with them there are others that are moving towards drought listener area hope youre trying to get into turkey so you really just see a population thats moving around trying to get support from wherever they can but they all do talk about wanting to go home. Joshua lets pick up on a point which sammy mentioned that the beginning there and lets toss the question of does isaw reincarnate itself into some kind of guerrilla fighting force rather than a selfproclaimed caliphate. You know before i get that question let me just throw jump in here because this city of koba which is a kurdish city just north of iraq up is an example that city was taken back from isis attacked it brutally and in two thousand and fourteen and the United States surrounded it and bombed it very severely in two thousand and fifteen destroying most of the city its a city about two hundred thousand people forty thousand people have gone back there but they only have electricity intermittently perhaps two hours a day there are almost no Services People are complaining like mad that theyve been abandoned by the International Community and this raises the question if you have one you know your phrase from iraq is who is in charge the United States has helped destroy and help arm the kurds to destroy these cities and drive out isis but the western powers have said theyre not going to help syria reconstruct until assad is gone until theres a transition in power but who really want to handle that is this a model for more chaos than joshua well i think it is a model for more care because nobody knows whos in charge Syrian Government cannot control iraq because its not under its control so so who is going to rebuild this area is the United States going to stay with the kurds and help nation building mcgurk the head of the coalition has said no we will give aid to help people reus stablish their lives in the beginning but were leaving thats what he has said so this leaves a question mark hanging over this whole row shabaka area thats been carved out by the United States because clearly both erda one in turkey and assad in syria have said that theyre not going to allow it to be a thomas the americans have said that they dont want. They believe that the the kurds should be able and that the whole region should be able to govern itself i think that america is going to get stuck in Northern Syria how much they will help to rebuild its not clear because they havent rebuilt i mean yet they havent put any funds in it you havent heard trump talk about this in any way or the leaders of the american polish right so. This raises a very important question ill come back to you in a minute then with a question which i initially asked you about this is interesting sami now that are we going to see then is the vacuums have a nasty habit of getting filled though they are they going to be filled the vacuum and im following what joshua saying correctly here it sounds like were saying theres a bit of a vacuum developing is there going to be filled by Regional Powers if the u. S. Doesnt really have the interest in the appetite to fill it or is it going to be filled by some other reincarnation of some other eisel ask or al qaeda esque force that red you know that arises from the despair on the right a little aces like russia. I think both of them the Regional Power will stay at least for a while. Namely iran and turkey i dont see turkey leaving seed in territory very soon. Not russia and whats at stake in syria and iraq and. And iraq is very important for the american to repeat the same mistake of two thousand and eight a rapid withdrawal would. Yes i agree with joshua that pressure is a position of the american and they want to engage in nation building but at some point they will be forced to now the second part of the question that resorting to isis or the i do believe that yes they will change strategy they will move into kind of. A style warfare because at the end of the day is not only a political military formation its an ideology and as long as the reasons for the emergence of this ideology are not down to it i think that this. It will continue its operation it will still be appealing. To a large chunk ok. For frustrated populations ok thats the interesting point let me let me quickly get a comment from joshua again before we go to sign the i do want to get funny in but joshua the whole idea of isaw and its breakaway from the al qaeda elements was the idea that they wanted to establish an actual state or country or caliphate for themselves rather than the al qaida approach of guerrilla warfare until they bring down all the regimes in this area. If eisel heads back cole heads towards a more sort of guerrilla fighting force does it lose sort of resigned thats royce existence yes it does look that the isis captured the imagination of the islamic world and the young radicals of the islamic world because precisely always are going to be able to say some young radical not the entire islamic world i think i think it would be fair to say that a lot of rain and that was tactics i think quite the horror and absolutely the radicals who wanted to kill it who were attracted normally to alqaeda began to be attracted to isis because they were going to create the state and they did it in spectacular fashion they conquered an area the size of Great Britain in one year so it was spectacular now that its being destroyed and dismantled in iraq and syria i think that its going to its going to create a real crisis for isis to reestablish an identity its going to be very hard crisis to survive i think in syria in kurdish parts of syria or in iraq as a Central Government reasserts itself itll be places like libya somalia and parts of africa where there is not strong Central Government that were seeing that recrudescence of isis group lets but thats thats going to be much harder for them to produce a new a new raise on debt as you say i think theyre going to struggle sunit if this sort of process of perhaps fragmentation continues hows that going to impact the ability of aid agencies to try and fill the void and provide some services one assumes you can go all the way and provide constant electricity in places like the or else they would have had it by now ri