accident. >> we will see how it goes he says he is able to sleep with his eyes closed for the first time since the fire that left him disfigured. have a great night. for a long time, but especially since friday, people around the world who want to see isil defeated have agreed something has got to be done, they just don't agree on what. france is already responding to the paris attacks with air strikes on isil's self proclaimed capitol in syria, the city of raqqa. how to fight isil? it's the "inside story." ♪ 12 am next

ext welcome to "inside story" i'm ray suarez. isil has promised more attacks like the one in paris last week including attacks aimed at the united states. in iraq and syria, the group has left a bloody trail of terror, suppressing some, murdering others in great numbers, and isil has reached out to the world, forging alliances with groups like boko haram in northern nigeria which are ready and able to destabilize governments in their home countries and bring murder and destruction to many more. just dropping bombs, obviously hasn't been enough. just trying to squeeze the flow of money hasn't been enough. and monitoring international communication to cut off the flow of willing recruits also hasn't been enough. so how does the world fight isil? that's our focus today on "inside story."

we'll begin with jamie mcintyre at the pentagon. jamie moments after the attacks in paris on friday right, the president of the united states offered aid to the french government. do we have any idea from the take? >> well, the united states and france which have a long alliance do a lot of intelligence sharing, but apparently there was a lot of time lag as intelligence was reviewed and passed along. orders were issued to cut through the red tape, make sure intelligence is shared immediately with french counterparts. and of course the immediate effect was the united states provided targeting information to france so it could decide which targets it wanted to hit on its fist -- first night, so the 20 bombs that were dropped,

those were targets that france picked but from a menu that the u.s. provided. >> long before friday night france was already involved in the air war against isil. do we know what changes now? >> the main thing they are doing is bringing more aircraft to bare. the united states has conducted most of the astrikes up until now. there were 2800 strikes, 2600 were the u.s., and only a handful were from the french. now the french are stepping it up, they are bringing an aircraft carrier in, and the president says that will triple france's ability to provide aircraft to carry out some of those strikes. so you are going to see a much bigger participation from france future. >> but in going after isil,

france to the degree it was involved in the air war against the islamic state, was concentrating its fire mostly in western iraq and avoiding attacking syria. after friday night, does that open things up a little bit? will they be in addition to raqqa, which is in syria, will they be striking isil more on syrian national territory? >> yes, i think so. the pentagon makes point of saying france nominates the targets the u.s. approves them. and because the u.s. already has so much air power there, the value of these strikes a little more symbolic than strategic. it just shows the united states is not doing this alone, it has a partner, and they are hoping that will encourage other nations to step up and do more as well. >> thanks, jamie. how to fight isil this time on the program joining me for a

look at what makes this group successful, professor of national security studies, and retired marine colonel and director of operations for ioda global. professor swift, how come this long group of nations has had such a tough time against this particular non-conventional army? >> sure. for several reasons, ray. the first is the characteristics that make isil unique. the second is the difficulty of operating in the environment that comprises isil east territory in the middle east, and the third is the difficulty of coordinating within the coalition itself. your correspondent to the pentagon noted until now the french had not been engaged in operations inside syria, because

they violated international law. unless the syrian government invites in a nation, it's illegal to engage in those types of operations, and that's something that the canadians, the british, and the french, and others of our allies has been concerned about. part of the reason the united states has taken the lion's share of the work. part of the other difficult is the west has made a strategic decision to engage in what is called off-shore balancing, to use its influence and power over the horizon to try to empower local groups that could bring the fight to isil on their own turf, rather than engaging in the extensive and expensive operations that we saw in iraq and afghanistan in the past decade. in making that choice the amount of leverage that the coalition has is slightly less than it would be otherwise.

>> when you are figuring out how to go to war something, is this a difficult enemy to fight? >> absolutely, ray. and before i respond to your question, i would like to pass on a sincere condolence to our french allies on all of those effects on friday. horrific, horrific event. back to your question, when you have an asymmetric threat and an enemy who is willing to expend their own forces, whether that be suicide bombers, whatever the case may be, have we seen this before? we have. we have seen it in iraq and afghanistan, but those were always supporting efforts to a much larger insurgency. in this case, you are seeing

this as a principle tactic, but also just the barbaric nature that isis presents, it's a different enemy. we have attempted to unz al-qaeda and the taliban, but isis presents a much more barbaric form, if you will, of an asa metric threat. >> we would have shown isil forces being killed in large numbers every night. would that have stopped you and young men like you who head east to turkey to get into syria? >> well, i don't know if, you know, we're ready for that. we -- we again reallily don't like to show images of the dead in that sort of way, but maybe, you know, to show the rest of the world, that for example, long lines at bread -- you know, for bread, or for gas, or electricity that's not, you know, on or poor medical

services, these are the kinds of things to show people to convince them that in fact, it's not what they are showing you in the brochure. that is one way to encounter that ideology. >> why is it so attractive? >> well, it's like a gang. right? these are individuals, young people who have plugged out of the society in which they live. the people around them are their enemy, and when this gang comes and says hey, if you join our gang, we will fight that enemy of yours, so it gives them an opportunity to manifest their blood loss if they have some. if they have a predisposition to criminal behavior, or they are in a bad situation where it's easier for them to become recruited, it allows them that platform for them to be able to get those things out of them, and especially when it comes to young men, that young male syndrome, these are all things we have to look at independently and holistically.

>>ing gentlemen, stay with us. the obama administration announced a plan to strike isil from the air, while training an army to fight the ground on the ground. an international consortium has been pounding away at the so-called islamic state. but what has been accomplished. how to fight isil? it's inside story.

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>> i'm ali velshi, on target tonight... >> ali velshi on target. digging deeper into the issues that matter. >> i'm trying to get a sense for what iranians are feeling. ♪ you are watching "inside story." i'm ray suarez. how to fight isil this time on the program, colonel chris nailer, christopher swift, and mobine shaf a former young radical. isil has a steady supply of money. it controls big pieces of territory in iraq and syria, corrected by travel corridors. men and women have filtered in from around the world to take up arms and join the convoys of white toyota suv's flying the group's black flag.

weapons acquisition, oil sales. it's more than just an army and the conventional approach of killing men on the other side is only of limited use, since isil fighters are prepared to die in order to take large numbers of enemy lives. colonel did we underestimate how hard it was going to be to build an opposition army on the ground in that part of the world? >> i think we potentially did underestimate it. but i think we also have several examples to draw from. because really what you outline ray in your opening is this is a internet work. and how do you attack an network? it's a systemic approach. just as you have to turn the tide for recruiting, for young european men and women,or western men and women that want to join this fight.

it's not as simple as dropping a bomb in syria, or suffocating the resources and finances. it has to be a multi-layered, multi-prong approach in order to stop the growth, one, of isis, and also to combat it in ways that are beyond just on-site, in iraq, in syria, in aleppo, that has to be part of the strategy. i'm not sure how well it is working. >> we talked the day after the president rolled out that policy. you were skeptical then. have your fares been realized? >> i think they have, ray, and i want to capitol horizon something. we need to have a multi-pronged, multi-fascinated strategy for dealing with that adversary.

we're dealing with an adversary that operates from the asymmetry call to the conventional. in the cities they control, they operate like a conventional military force. in places like paris they operate like a terrorist organization. and in every single gradation in between, they are adopting what they do and how they do it to the resources they have. we are launching conventional war on what we assumed would be a fixed target. what they have done in paris is respond to us with the tools at their disposal in that environment. we need to understand there's a spectrum of effects that comes from isil and respond each in kind. with the difficulty with the current administration's approach it has been a focus on containment and not nearly as much focus on all of

the other threat. >> how do you turn back the young men willing to join up, train, fight, and to die? >> well, i mean prevention is better than cure, of course. but you are not going to save everyone. we need to be very realistic about that. our expectations are going to have to be realistic. on the prevention side, it really has to come down to the muslim communitied. bottom up approach, not a top down state centric approach. and really muslim jurises to explain this is a group. they are described as the dogs of hell. the proagain

tor, of the antichrist. so when these people are only hearing the language of heroism, we need to show them, it's actually terrorism. >> president obama came to office, assuring people that the united states could walk and chew gum at the same time. with isil pursuing operations in its home territory, actively recruiting groups in africa, preparing for smaller and harder to detect operations, is the world showing it is able to the many different aspects of isil. how to fight it? it's the inside story.

♪ welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. the international extremist group that calls itself the islamic state has many operations going at once. it's an army, fighting armies in the field, a terror group,

kidnapping, raping, and killing civilians, a financial operation, selling oil and antiques, and a propaganda group, using the modern tools of persuasion to spread its ideas. how effective are isil's many enemies in its home region, in europe and elsewhere, in opposing all of these various aspects of this multifaceted and so far very successful organization. my guests are still with me. christopher swift how about that, given the tools that the world has to deploy, and the various stake horsed that have tried to join in organization, what would everybody be better off doing? >> the problems are things that we can't fix in the west. the first is governments are very good in the west at

targeting and limiting the ability of other governments to do things. so to the extent that the islamic state performs like a leverage. but when they are acting like a transnational terrorist syndicate, our ability to target and degrade them starts to go down. so the number one thing we can do in terms of our own policy is recognize that there are some aspects where government to government approaches will work, and there are other areas where we need to beef up our capacity to deal with the warfare that the colonel was talking about earlier. the second thing we can do is establish between the people who are part of isis, and oning isis, and those who are along for the ride, because they don't have any better choices or because they are being occupied by the organization. to the extent you can divide and separate isis from its various areas of support, financial,

material, and the flow of recruits, all of those things will help degrade the organization over time. but at the end of the kay, isis is a regional problem with global implications. and any solution has to be a regional one. so a plan that excludes turkey or the gulf states, is never going to work. all of those players have to put their differences aside and develop a coordinated approach. >> you talked about a bottom-up solution. this coming friday will be the first friday prayers since the attacks. young men will settle in, hear a sermon. what should be in that sermon this friday all over the world? >> well, it's very clear that this group -- this is a

deviant group. there seems to be a great ignorance among a lot of muslims as to what this group entails. or there are some amans who have said i'm going to talk about what isis is. and they will come to realize this is not a group defending the interests of islam. there is zero benefit, and 100% harm that has come to islam and muslims from their actions. and this is really the message that the jurises, the aymans, the leaders need to make clear. >> just today the president before leaving turkey and heading to the philippines reiterated that the

united states is not going to get ground troops involved in syria. so if for now this continues to be an air war, what can the united states and its friends accomplish from the air until such time as there is a more effective force on the ground? >> well, ray, i think there is a lot of utility to having an air campaign, in this case as the numbers you shared earlier, this can be effective. however, as i go back to really the heart of your initial question to the panel, is understanding what can we do? one, i think we have to understand what is this thing called isil, isis, daesh. whatever we want to call it, we have got to understand it, and to understand it means we have got to be ready to truly analyze this target. understand in this case what we

would call in the military, target audience analysis of what are we fighting? where are we fighting it? what is the segments of this target? much like levine as profess or swift today. i can speak from a personal perspective as i reflect back to october 10th, 2001, when our first strikes went into afghanistan and i was fortunate enough to be a part of that. >> the colonel makes a great point, and the point is after 15 years of war against these kinds of syndicates, we still do not have objective standardize's

adversary. >> i want to thank my guest s. i'll be back in a moment with a final thought on what makes attacks like friday night so effect in paris, beirut, mogadishu, anywhere.

♪ what is an attack like friday night easement to do? well, kill people, sure. but the number, 129 people, a opposed to 96, isn't as important to the way it works.

the logic of terrorism is to make the ordinary frightening. to take the every day and inject it with creepy dread. an attack as speck spectacular and unusual as crashing jets into the twine -- twin towers isn't as carry as having men kill people listening to a concert. if they see a frenchmen or woman they associate with the ats anities ach tashed to the attacks. the attacks take the actions of daily life and saturate them with risk. that guy there at the news stand could kill you right now without hijacking a jumbo jet. but it gets even more complicated, just a few dozen men kill a hundred or so more,

and unleash the mobilization of billions of dollars worth of equipment. isil is counting on being able to leverage just a small number of people who break the rules of civilization in order to goad there enemies into a disproportionate response. these things are good for business if you follow the logic of terror, because they tie your enemies in notts, keep them off balance, and provoke society-wide debate. but this time they are mistaken strength for weakness, and they will lose. i'm ray suarez. that's the inside story.

we are not fighting a war of civilizations because these assasins do not represent one francois hollande says france is at war and vows to destroy i.s.i.l. with the world news from al jazeera. also ahead a show of patriotic defiance. half of u.s. states say they won't accept syrian refugees after the paris attacks. plus seeking answers.