Stay updated with breaking news from Battles isis. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Minutes. today marks the sixth day of a major offensive in iraq to retake the city of mosul from isis control and it s happening as reports are streaming out of the embattled region that isis militants may have executed 284 civilians. matt, can you give us an update on the fighting taking place in some of these reports we are getting that isis executed up to 284 civilians? reporter: what we are seeing right now are the early reports of this, and we don t know if it s true, and the united nations said they are opening an investigation into the allegations, but if they are true and even the early allegations of the 284 people being killed that is consistent with how the islamic state has behaved in other battles, and now, remember, ayman, this is a group that says it has divine ....
Providence backing it and how do you explain to your followers if you are losing a battle you are also going to be blessed by god, and one thing they do is try to blame rebels or spies within their midst and execute them and this is the kind of thing we have seen along the euphrates river corridor earlier this year as they were starting to lose battles, the islamic state would start to execute their own ranks and civilians accusing them of being spies and this is consistent with their own propaganda, they can t lose a battle and it has to be because of spies in their midst, and there was a 12-hour long gun battle in a city an hour and a half south of mosul and that s part of isis, another signal that isis is probably losing or knows they are losing the fight in mosul, and they wanted to demonstrate they have the capability to lash out elsewhere, and it was an ....
Largest city and rebuilding a fractured state and it s an incredibly important plank of stabilizing the middle east, and the fact he doesn t seem to appreciate that is interesting, and, you know, his sort of view is we should do a surprise attack and just bomb it and take out the leadership and it s like it s a video game movie set reality he seems to be operating in, and not one that is far more complicated and difficult and as you said earlier involves millions of civilians on the ground. regardless of who wins the election, it s going to be a major foreign issue to deal with mosul and fought the battle itself and reclaiming phoes you will, but what happens afterwards, and did you get a sense trump or clinton has a clear vision as to what the united states should do about mosul and that ultimately about taking the fight to isis in syria. it s fair to say trump ....
To get the leaders of isis who they felt were in mosul and about three months ago i started reading they want to get the leaders, and they are going to attack mosul. whatever happened to the element of surprise? trump s comments on the push into mosul led one reporter to write this article, and it shows how little he knows. and a foreign affairs reporter from the washington post, good to see you and have you with us. good to see you. let s see what donald trump got right about iraq in the debate? what do you think he got right in the debate? well, not very much. he began his whole response on mosul on relatively solid footing, this argument he and other republicans make about clinton and the obama administration s premature with draw from iraq has a bit of validity, but then he goes on from there to take all sorts of interesting tangents, including ....
Ingenious move and draw the counterterrorism forces from mosul to an hour and a half south to where they were able to distract them with the massive day-long bloody attack. this is, again, all signals, and while it looks like they are bad signs, these are signals that isis watchers say is consistent with battles isis has lost in the past. if those 284 people turn out to be executed, it s going to be a million or so people trapped, an ominous sign. and mosul was one of the issues donald trump and hillary clinton clashed over in the final debate? it s so sad. we had mosul, but when she left and took everybody out, we lost mosul, and now we are fighting again to get mosul. the problem with mosul and what they wanted to do, they wanted ....