officials say that thousands of kurdish forces backed up by u.s. air strikes are on the assault against the city of sinjar in northern iraq. according to the officials, it s thousands of those kurds against only several hundred of the isis fighters that have been holding sinjar but the problem is, they are dug in. they have dug trenches, they have ied traps so it could take some time before they take that city. now, interestingly enough, there is a small number of u.s. special operations forces who are forward deployed with the kurds to provide some advice in carrying on this ground battle, but we are told that they are well from the battlefield itself. now, the u.s. is confident that the kurds should ultimately be able to take sinjar, recapture the city, because it s probably the most capable force there in
the russians felt compelled to about now. the regime some say but on its last legs, if you will, coming under increased attack in damascus and didn t have the manpower to sustain this ground battle anymore. thank you for explaining a complicated but vital story. still ahead, the latest on the storm s path and what you need to know about the flooding along the east coast. but first, why the phrase better late than never might not apply to hillary clinton s schedule. that s next. stay with us.
they are continuing to push forward. and as you mentioned, it is an important test because some of these troops we believe have been recently trained by the united states and we ll see if they fair any better than the previously u.s.-trained iraqi army that fled from mosul and tikrit last june. ana? ben real quickly, i want to ask you about we re learning of an iranian general who is there in the ground battle with iraqi forces battling isis and given the history of iraq and iran i mean how big of a role is iran playing on the ground there with iraqi military men and women? reporter: it does appear i don t think there are any women fighting in the iraqi army. i suppose not. no. reporter: it does appear this man, sulamani who is the head of the elite army force is on the ground outside tikrit. now, according to the
to that effort. reporter: in jordan the u.s. embassy advising citizens to avoid shopping malls due to credible threats. and as isis threats continue to churn online the pentagon working on classified efforts to challenge isis in cyberspace tracking its encrypted web and social media accounts. that work is just beginning and because it s live and we re in a wartime situation, that s not going to be an area we can talk about in a lot of detail. reporter: on that upcoming ground battle if u.s. forces are going to be involved president obama is going to need to see a recommendation from the u.s. military in the coming days. barbara starr, cnn, the pentagon. many thanks to our barbara starr for our report. we are also following some news out of afghanistan. the taliban has claimed responsibility for an explosion outside the iranian embassy in kabul thursday morning. this is a new video just coming
can talk about in a lot of detail. reporter: but back to that ground battle if it is going to unfold in the coming weeks and if u.s. troops are going to be involved in it on the ground president obama is going to need to see a recommendation from the pentagon in the coming days. jake? barbara starr, thank you so much. while all this is happening, we continue to learn more about the three isis hopefuls the men whom the fbi say pledged their lives and financial resources to the terrorists mission of creating anarchy here in the united states. let s bring in republican congressman from illinois adam kinsinger. thank you for being here. appreciate it. i want to talk about these three new yorkers arrested. you had an arrest in your district of somebody accused of trying to bring material support to isis. what s going on here? we didn t see this huge group of americans trying to join al qaeda. what s going on with isis? yeah. in rockford illinois, in my district, we had this pretty