States to defeat extremism, and i know the president and administration is focused on fighting the islamic state and more than 10,000 of their own forces died fighting alongside the united states. while every gold star family is tragic, in the fight against isis inside syria, fewer than five u.s. combat deaths in that fight. because the partner force these folks we re talking about now took the brunt of that and the question is, how do you protect those people and how do you keep the pressure on the islamic sta state? i had the privilege seeing that area a lot in the past two years and meeting so many young women who led the fight against extremism and against the islamic state from arab backgrounds, christian background, kurdish backgrounds and those young women will pay the price first if you talk about what happens if the pressure goes off the islamic state. pictures you took while there. what s going their their minds
The group the turks consider to be terrorists. barbara starr broke this story, she s at the pentagon. barbara, there appears to be a lot of anger, despair, worry from the kurdish commander. reporter: a good deal of worry, a good deal of anger, telling the u.s. you are leaving us to be slaughtered. this is general muslim, head of the syrian democratic forces, partnered on the ground with u.s. special operations forces for many years now fighting isis inside syria. important to start with this. u.s. troops only authorized mission on the ground in syria is to fight isis. turks, a nato ally have come into fight the kurds, not isis. the u.s. position is that technically it cannot get involved. it cannot get involved on either side because it is not an isis fight. clearly president trump not having the juice or desire to make certain the turks did not
500,000 syrians living just along that border. we re going to continue to see this flow of refugees, and also going to continue to see, unfortunately, civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure in the region with very little indication that there s any international plan to come in and provide aid and sustain that aid over what could be a months long process here. the next big concern is of course the fight against isis, our syrian democratic forces who have been partnering with the united states military and going after isis inside syria have now indicated that they are going to suspend all operations against isis. another factor here is this camp down at al hall near the iraqi border where thousands of isis fight skpe fighters and their families with being held. they are still there. there s tno guarantees that the forces are going to continue to want to do that while their cam
Identified killed in the attack, one of the deadliest since the america entered that country. and his family described him as fearless in his youth. a personality that killed that filled the room and this was a patriot, a servant, a decorated navy seal and served eight years in the navy, pass a navy seal and leaving as a petty officer second class in 2005. got a job with a defense intelligence agency in 2017 and that s where he was in his service to our country when this attack occurred. leland: the attack occurring and now responsibility for the attack climbed by isis inside syria. so the potential for the president here in terms of what the discussion of the syrian policy was, now watching the caskets of american service members killed in syria come home, watching now the video of,
What are you hearing? as the president and first lady are back in the residence behind you there this morning. they re potentially getting some sleep. what we have is clarity on what the president s strategy is. as well as a hint on who his long-term secretary of defense can be. it s clear he s defending his decision to pull out of syria. he s also recommitting to iraq. there are 5,000 u.s. troops in iraq roughly. what the president is saying is they can be used for counterterrorism purposes. to go ahead and strike at isis inside syria. that isn t the outcome that secretary mattis would have wanted but that s what the president is saying his new strategy is. as you mentioned, it was a defensive speech. here s what he s saying. america shouldn t be doing the fighting for every nation on earth. not being reimbursed in many cases at all. so we re not the suckers of the