and last week in baghdad so i thought i think that some of the things that our colleague from moscow may have heard in syria didn't seem to translate to the senior commanders there. so let's talk about president trump from the day he started on the campaign trail he said he was going to get americans out of stupid wars in the middle east now i don't know if the syrian boy wasn't listening i don't know if a succession of diplomats that had been working weren't listening but the fact remains that the only thing that should be shocking is how quickly the announcement was made and how spontaneous lead the announcement was made but if anybody who wasn't listening to him consistently say that we were going to pull out of syria then i don't think that they were listening so what i would also say is this notion that the americans should stay there a couple of more years let's be clear we've been in syria longer than we fought the second world war the military has now come out with

a plan to train and equip forty thousand local police how long would that take that would take months or years then if there was any final resolution to syria it would probably look like the balkans were a peacekeeping force would be needed so then the americans would stay even longer. listen the americans are tired of forever wars this president is tired of forever wars there may be some argument among his advisers about the timing and the shape of that withdraw all but everybody knew that this president intended to pull the troops out of syria. nicholas and moscow what is the official russian position hey wolf how with the russians going to take advantage of this current situation do you think. well just an hour ago large reporting was given his annual big press conference and actually when he was asked a question about the situation about the u.s. decision to withdraw from syria he asked like what is that about we so far we don't

see any indications of that and he gave an example is that united states. are present in afghanistan for seventeen years and they promised to pull out of afghanistan every single year but they're still there but he didn't exclude the chance that trump will initially implement that decision that was the official also put in actually agreed with trump that the united states. helped significantly to. to. basically eliminate isis or degrade it's going to be what is in syria although not completely defeated as we still have some pockets of vises and had to finish in northern syria let in they then go in london there are still pockets of i saw fighters within syria and within iraq itself but they're no where near the kind of threat that we saw in two thousand and fourteen two thousand and

fifteen do you still think that there is a massive level of troops needed and particularly international advisors like the u.s. a two thousand does a lot of troops at that level do you still think they needed to fight those small pockets of fighters that we're being told are still there look trump is now making the same decision as obama when he completely pulled out troops of iraq a few years later i says created and took one for of iraq sort of trump is completely gone i would draw all troops from syria and later maybe also iraqi parliament will decide to that u.s. troops will leave there is a big risk that isis going use the fighters they are that they still have now to reorganize and then at some point later in the future take again parts of syria or of iraq and then again pose a fret to the west and carry out that the. acts in washington and london and other areas i think if you just pull out everything if you don't take your responsibility in the region it's going to backfire just like what obama did so trump is doing now exactly what obama did several years ago when he pulled out u.s.

troops from iraq this is very significant threat to the role to the international community and we should not remember that although isis they lost a lot of territory still have thousands of fighters and this is also confirmed by the pentagon last summer that still both in iraq and also in syria they still have several thousands of fighters and those fighters can reorganize and at some point again pose a threat to the west i'm just going to pick you up on a point that the iraqis would completely disagree with you that they needed the americans right now they said that the americans came in and gave them support but the actual fighting was done by the iraqi security forces it was done by the popular mobilization forces and it was an iraqi victory while i says iraq is not the feet of there are still thousands of isis fighters and i think the iraqis will not be able to defeat isis and will sort out us our support without us our support and u.s. support on the ground the iraqis will not be able to defeat isis it was

a joint effort the iraq is made like a huge factor in the fight against osh but the without the support of the americans the peshmerga also the kurdish forces and iraqi forces would not be able to defeat isis in this area as i was myself an air bill when isis was standing on the door of our bill the capital of the kurdistan region and without u.s. airstrikes isis would have taken maybe our bill they could have also felt that even back that so i don't think that without u.s. support that iraq is good the defeat of defeated isis. to them of having washington d.c. what do you think without u.s. support may well come back this is what we seem to be hearing. well first of all i should have picked up my cell phone and called my colleague because i was in baghdad at that very time and i've been working with iraqis for many many years and my colleague from moscow is exactly right the iraqis are the ones that have done the fighting the iraqi military was swept off the battlefield and ran off the battlefield but it was able to be turned around primarily with the help of the

militias and the u.s. support and what i would say is that's exactly what this plan will envision the united states did not do the fighting i spent a lot of time with the federal police in iraq and they had thousands and thousands of casualties but they were supported by american airstrikes american training and equipment and american intelligence and that's exactly what we're going to continue to do in syria the only difference is that we're pulling two thousand ground troops out of there. that even a bet even ambassador jeffrey didn't understand why they were there so he was the first one to say these ground troops aren't making that much of a difference i do not believe that the american policy is to withdraw completely from syria i believe the u.s. policy in syria is the same as the u.s. policy in iraq provide training intelligence air support but let the people on the ground let the locals do the fighting not the americans alexy clinical if in

moscow well it's the russia us relationship like now what should it be now that we've had this decision to withdraw on the ground advises from north east and syria. well just as i mentioned and now we're go put in actually praised the. expressed satisfaction with the level of cooperation between russian and united states military intelligence security services on on syria but also i wouldn't jump into conclusions that after u.s. withdrawal or even scaling down of their presence russia is happy about that i wouldn't say so because it also brings certain. risks and limitations because even they say gesture or statement of the u.s. withdrawal from from syria i think it's just as trumps general policy as announced

a lot of things like withdrawing from different trade deals and basically he's trying to renegotiate and they know jumping back again so basically here we can see it may be. a similar logic that you declare one thing and behind us and turkey might strike a deal and you also can see that two days ago in that it states state department actually cleared three point five billion dollars south of us to turkey actual which is the sign of washington's desire to reconcile to moppets relations with turkey so actually there is some some cames going behind the scene and we still should see as i also previously mentioned we don't know the exact modalities of that was drawn their exact parameters and as my colleague in washington rightly mentioned we shouldn't overstate this statement and also.

do not underestimate u.s. presence regardless of its even withdrawal of its military units but it's trained there is military advisers air support reconnaissance and other. thanks. gentlemen we are running out of time but i do want to let him and general mark kimmitt a question each all in the turkey u.s. relationships just very quickly i'll begin with you in d.c. general mark kimmitt what is the deal that's been struck do you think if any between turkey and the u.s. oh i'm glad you mentioned that i'm glad my colleague from moscow mentioned the importance of turkey listen over the past fifteen years our relationship with turkey is been in a nose dive from the time that turkey did not allow the americans to use turkey to go through for the iraq war to the issue of golan to the issue with the khud to the issue with our support for the white p.g.a.

. i think in many ways president erwan convinced president trump that among everything in his considerations about syria he needs to consider about the long term relationship with turkey and that's critical they are the largest military in europe and in nato they are a valued u.s. ally in the region in a number of terms they fought with us for years and years in different conflicts they hosted us nuclear weapons and candidly i think that thinking about the relationship with turkey far more so than the relationship with other elements inside of this equation i think in many ways is probably the smartest thing president trump is doing in this policy turkey is important to the united states and this may be a step to bring it back just very quickly we all running out of time in london let me have and will have the u.s. and the turks got together and sold out the kurds it seems going to the reaction i

mean michael vick before mentioned that turkey is a nato ally also turkey allowed thousands of jihadist to go to syria it was the reason that turkey didn't fight isis that the u.s. decided to work actually with the curse against isis so i think this is a very serious threat to the stability to just drop the curse and leave them to prop open to a possible so i'm afraid we are it's a time that thank you very much to all our guests always cut you off they have lot in it than welcome but general mark kimmitt and alexey klebnikov and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting a website zero dot com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a.j. inside stories for me imran khan and the whole team hit by for now.

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hello once again from doha everyone i'm come out santa maria and this is the news hour from al-jazeera it is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cyber crime committed by china against america and other nations stealing trade and technology secrets worldwide chinese hackers are accused of global economic espionage also sunday's presidential election in democratic republic of congo has been delayed for a week the election commissioner is blaming technical problems trumps defending his decision to pull american troops from syria saying it's time for others to fight in the middle east. and sri lanka's president sways a new minister climbed up from a political crisis.

now the united states has announced criminal charges against two hackers who allegedly worked for the chinese government the justice department accuses them of waging a cyber campaign that focused on large scale theft of commercial intellectual property a campaign allegedly targeted entities in the u.s. europe and asia all in breach of chinese bilateral international commitments they are also accused of stealing data from one hundred thousand u.s. navy personnel and spying on nasa and u.s. department of energy. it is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cyber crime committed by china against america and other nations in two thousand and fifteen china promised to stop stealing trade secrets and other confidential business information through computer hacking with the intent of providing competitive advantage to companies in the commercial sector but the activity alleged in this indictment violates the commitment that china made that was

a commitment they made to members of the international community to the united states to the g. twenty and to apec now we want china to cease its illegal cyber activities and honor its commitment to the international community but the evidence suggests that china may not intend to abide by its promises or of how to tell who's watching this one from washington for us as if things weren't bad enough relations between the u.s. and china now we have this on top of it espionage. exactly and these are pretty widespread allegations they used a lot of tough talk now in all likelihood these two men are likely to never face us handcuffs or us trial because it seems highly unlikely that china would extradite anyone who the u.s. government says actually works for the chinese government and there aren't exactly talking about how widespread the damage was they said there were a lot of fields that were affected but they won't name the companies other than to

say it's a who's who of american companies and that they were still they were stealing intellectual property and confidential information so we don't know the extent of the private sector but it is fairly remarkable to think about it they say that these hackers gained access to the computers inside the department of energy which controls the nuclear stockpile nasa the space agency and the u.s. navy they said that you mentioned one hundred thousand sailors personal information so that is quite the treasure trove for any sort of spying services to have and again they're not just talking about this case they're talking about the broader relationship with china let's listen to the f.b.i. director christopher ray china's goal simply put is to replace the u.s. as the world's leading superpower and they're using illegal methods to get there they're using an expanding set of nontraditional and illegal methods china's

state sponsored actors are the most active perpetrators of economic espionage against us in short. to strengthen themselves and to weaken the united states and while we welcome fair competition we cannot and will not tolerate illegal hacking stealing or cheating. you have to put this in the broader context of what's happening right now with what most economists call the most important trade relationship in the world which is between the u.s. and china obviously the president of the united states donald trump has started a trade war china retaliated and the markets seemed to relax a little bit after they kicked the two leaders met and said ok we're going to take ninety days we're going to figure this out we're going to start negotiating since and we've seen at the u.s. request canada a rest of the really high placed tech executive from china allegedly for violating sanctions and we've seen now this is going to create even more uncertainty it is

having an impact the stock market right now is down by hundreds of points again it is now lost this december is been the worst for the u.s. stock market since the great depression so this has actual consequences and now this looks like it might just make that relationship that much more tense now i should point out the stock market not just down because of china but now president trump is threatening to shut down. much of the federal government if he doesn't get five billion dollars for his border wall which the congress says they're not going to give him so it's a couple of things but this isn't helping not ok in washington thank you. our other breaking news this hour is the presidential election in democratic republic of congo it has been officially delayed until december thirteenth the announcement was made in the last couple of hours by the electoral commission president that had been scheduled for sunday about the bowl outbreak in d c and a fire that destroyed polling machines in the capital are being blamed for this

delay. for us malcolm so close only three days away now we add another few morons who has. been delayed by. mandate ended in just send the twenty sixteen because no election was the for. the end of his mandate. from opposition activists demanding for the election take place. to continue to be a state in power and finally the election was meant to go ahead on sunday just a couple of hours ago here at the electoral commission building the presidency electoral commission could be called on sunday wasn't ready. we. cited reasons of technical difficulty other issues in the country. and logistical

problems the opposition. being very skeptical about these kind of reasons for the whole of the last longer they've put aside the delays jamie. by the ruling party. trying to trying to keep themselves. so tell us more then welcome about how you think people might react to this given as you pointed out it has been two years delayed already there has been unrest in the lead up to this one of these just the general tension i think over the whole process. there is tension gradings electoral commission. when speaking in show one again he said. the country not just because of a one week delay but whether opposition supporters will see it in the same way we're waiting to find out there are demonstrations today at the main university campus on the outskirts of the campus so that campus before very large thousands of

students historic a place of on rest is watched over by a. peculiarly tough. think something the government really control but they can complain they think that it is out night a journey still very difficult. demonstration of what people here way to be now it . is another part of the city and it is a vast city fifty seven million people many of them jobless many of them not with much patience for the government or with the election commission which many people here don't trust waiting to see if it will be positions forces taking to the streets coming days thank you for that update malcolm webb. we should not be surprised that donald trump's decision to suddenly withdraw u.s. forces from syria so says the man himself liking the decision on twitter on wednesday the president used the medium again on thursday morning to lay out the

reasons why here are some of it getting out of syria was no surprise i've been campaigning on it for years. russia iran syria and others the local enemy of isis we were doing their work and it didn't stop there does the usa want to be the policemen of the middle east he said getting nothing but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who do not appreciate what we are doing alan fischer looking at this one in washington d.c. he is absolutely holding this line isn't he alan despite the opposition that's coming from congresspeople. well there are those who could argue that donald trump doesn't quite understand the complexities of syria of the middle east of the whole entire region but what is clear is that before he was president he said it was his intention to pull the united states have said he didn't believe that they should be involved in there in any way he opposed those

who suggested there should be much more united states in gauge men including the late senator john mccain he said it in april he said he wanted to pull out of syria he said we're going to do very soon this ingestion area is the military complex the military establishment and others asked him to slow roll that idea and then he made this announcement just on a couple of days ago the citing that he was going to go ahead with this and he wants this done very quickly indeed source file as he is can said he is standing up and ordering an election promise he made he is the president if he decides that then it is for the military to make sure that they can do whatever they need to do and do so safely but you're right even in the last hour we've heard from lindsey graham who is a supporter of the president he says he wants him to succeed but he says he's got this wrong here and the reason he's got it wrong is he thinks it will embolden iran

it will give them a corridor all the way through from tehran to lebanon to help supply hezbollah which he says puts israel at risk and he also says the cards stood by americans and fought very bravely and if we pull out we're leaving them to turkey to syria and also to are such an isis and he said it is not in america's strategic national interest to pull the troops out of there and he is sending a letter to the president which is also signed by democratic senators asking for an immediate rethink is that going to happen probably not but it's in donald trump's interests isn't it because any u.s. president any president anywhere probably who brings troops home that's a great strategic move for them. well the difficulty some republicans have is that they were very critical of barack obama when he pulled out of iraq and they see

that because he did that he essentially and donald trump has said this himself created isis the exploded because the united states was not there to dump that don't at a very early stage and so they're concerned about that but there are others who would see first of all the military don't want to pull out of syria but the military are in charge of policy that is what politicians are elected to do they can advise the computer information in front of the president but in the end the guy who won the votes gets to make the decision and there are others analysts who say that there would be concerned with the united states staying in syria because that then becomes a base where they could perhaps plan and carry out attacks on iran and perhaps even launch a war from there so there are those who think that donald trump getting out is absolutely doing the right thing there just seems to be

a low chorus of voices here suggesting that this is bad timing and not something that they want to do it is a gamble by donald trump it is a gamble two years into his presidency by donald trump it is a gamble that he hopes has to pay off or when it comes to reelection this is something that people will point out and hold over his head and fissures in washington thank you allan. meanwhile the united nations syria envoy stephan to mr is given his final address to the u.n. security council was briefing members on his meeting with iran turkey and russia which was in geneva earlier this week to mr appealed to the fifteen member body to remain united and to help facilitate a syrian owned syrian led roadmap for peace diplomatic editor of course is james bays that the united nations this is his last speech his last address in a role which well i mean you'd have to argue he didn't exactly succeed in.

yes absolutely i mean i've just was speaking actually to the special envoy in the last five minutes and i asked him his message to the syrian people and he said that even if he's leaving the job the u.n. will not abandon the syrian people earlier on in the chamber of the security council we had scenes which are not very usual not normal protocol here which was mr de mistura getting up from his chair and going around and shaking the hands of all of the other ambassadors of the security council looked a little bit like a victory lap but of course the u.n. can't declare victory very much a failure of diplomacy for the last eight years including the last four and a half years of mr demers stores time on the security council the only ones who can claim victory i think the syrian government and the russians because while mr the mr has been trying to do diplomacy they've been trying to sort things out militarily on the ground the latest efforts have been on the constitutional

committee that's lasted most of this year a russian proposal for a constitutional committee and the syrian government to put lots of obstacles in the way of mr de mistura quibbling over the names for that committee the russians actually put a new net list of seventy names forward on cheese day in geneva that led though i think to the u.n. saying that they weren't representative they were they were mainly pro regime and i'm told there was a furious phone call between the u.n. secretary general antonio good terrace and the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov despite all of that in the security council yesterday mr it was putting a very positive spin on things and third the vision involved for four years and four month. almost exactly the length of the first world war they've hit him people have been enduring a conflict for thurman and a half years longer than the thick on world war this conflict is being and remained a tragedy put it in people it is being dirty brutal horrific war it death scene all

defaulted mess with the region the world prevailed so far rather than the will of the syrian people so stephanie must oras last speech to the u.n. security council and notable that the most significant development of recent months i would argue of this year is that decision by president trump to pull out u.s. troops from syria guess what in a long speech stefan de mistura didn't mention it once so i think it's going to reduce the diplomatic leverage of his successor the norwegian pederson but i think the u.n. wrong footed like by this as have the u.s. as our allies and many parts of the u.s. administration ok thanks for that james bays at the united nations here's what's coming up for you on this news hour. the reality is that the waiver process is such

. a bittersweet end to a legal battle that prevented a yemeni woman from seeing her dying son in the united states protests spread in sudan as people struggle with skyrocketing inflation. and in sport how this particular football press conference turned a bit sour the latest on reports linking the spurs manager with a move to manchester united coming up a little later. in a major policy change the united states will start sending some asylum seekers who entered the country illegally back to mexico mexico has agreed to accept them for humanitarian reasons but says it still has the right to admit or reject the entry of non mexicans into its terror tree. so let's check in with john holman harry is in mexico city for us been reporting on the mike and situation for some time now john how does this change things.

what is quite a big announcement here coming from the united states i think first of all for our audience first explain what's happening there's a lot of people that cross the border illegally from mexico into the united states a lot of them from other countries in central america and then hand themselves in to the first floor and a fool officials to ask them for asylum now while their case is being processed they stay in the united states even detention centers all just living in that country and due to a backlog in the american courts that can take months or even years now obviously if you're a hard line to migration of ministration like this one is in the u.s. that's a really bad look so what they're trying to do now and what the mexican government's agreed to do is to put those people back into mexico while their cases are being processed in the united states now from mexico that's really going to cause

a problem because those people especially on the mexican border are going to be funding vulnerable penniless being put into a situation where there's a lot of a lot of cartels on that border between mexico and the united states and so they're going to be vulnerable to gangs that have been preying on migrants even before this mexico's well it is not a wealthy nation compared to the united states and it also hasn't been putting money into the refugee agency that deals with a lot of these people so the mets can governments really going to have to come up with a plan to deal with those probably thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people that are going to be vulnerable and are going to be now admits console why or has all this happening now john the main is this to do with a change in leadership in mexico or is this been pushed for for a while. it's definitely been talked about for a while between the two governments but you're right mexico now has

a new president he took over on the first of december and what we heard a little bit earlier in this week is something that he's been pushing for very hard he says the way to stop migration isn't by putting up a wall it's for the united states to inject more money in the south of mexico and in central american countries like honduras and guatemala that a lot of these people are coming through fleeing poverty violence now earlier in the week the u.s. administration said they were going to do that they were going to reject at least a bit more than five billion dollars in programs for development now horror how much of that money is new is definitely debatable but i think that announcement and this coming straight after giving the mexican president what the united states administration wants it's difficult to think that there isn't some sort of agreement all the negotiations going on behind the scenes here ok thank you for those updates john home and in mexico city after struggling for months to see her

dying son a yemeni mother has arrived in the u.s. to say goodbye to him the boy was born with a degenerative brain disorder but his mother had been prevented from traveling to the united states because of the white house travel ban on citizens from yemen and a number of other countries john hendren has more on what became a pretty emotional story from san francisco. at sentient.