you're kurdish allies the next step in fighting i so now uncertain as the trumpet ministration declares it won't be us forces and resources leading the charge rosalind al jazeera washington falling trumps announcement there are reports of turkish troops being sent to the syrian border turkey's threatened to strike kodesh y p g targets in northern syria the group is being backed by u.s. special forces in the fight against eisel from the turkey syria border zana had a report. these syrian refugees have been living in this turkish border town for three years they say they can't return home as long as their towns and villages are controlled by the syrian armed group the y. peachey while fighting eisel the why p.g. backed by the us had taken control of predominantly arab and mixed areas across northern syria their residents say those territorial gains are about creating a kurdish state an accusation denied by the y. peachey. in two thousand and fifteen the white b.g.

enter tel aviv under the pretext of fighting isis but they forcibly displaced the autopen looted their homes they started to impose the kurdish language and what they call democracy close like preventing us from practicing religion. the y.p. she could lose the autonomous enclave government in north eastern syria a plan to pull out of american troops will leave it vulnerable the group controls an area rich in oil and agricultural land valuable economic assets for the government and to mask this which is struggling under sanctions president bashar assad has repeatedly said he wants to retake this corner of syria either by negotiation or force the y. p.g. may be trying to cut a deal. the us is no longer planning a rapid pullout turkey has reportedly convince president donald trump to coordinate the withdrawal also that there will be no vacuum u.s. and turkish officials will meet in washington on january eighth it seems ankara

wants the enclave to be handed over to representatives of arab majority towns that have been under the control of the y.p. . turkey believes the y p g is linked to the outlawed kurdistan workers' party the p.k. k. which has been fighting for self rule in south east turkey. turkey doesn't have that authority or ambitions in syria and they want to. project their and it wants the threat along its southern border it will cooperate with the syrian opposition. to give up its agenda and couplings with. a military option is still on the table president to tell you border guard says a new operational strategy to eliminate both the y.p. g. and i still is being worked on turkey and the us may be in agreement on what happens next but there are other players in syria including russia that will also

want its interests secured. a check on the turkey syria border iran's revolutionary guards have held military exercises in the strategic strait of hormuz through which nearly a third of them over oil dreaded by sea passes. helicopters and drones on friday the iranian army trailed a u.s. aircraft carrier into the gulf iran's an increase in pressure from the u.s. which has renewed sanctions over its nuclear program. time for short break here now to zero when we come back the hunt for a former rebel commander in colombia who refused to accept a landmark peace deal comes to a dramatic end plus an industrial city in south korea turned into a top tourism up more not stay with us. from cool brisk knows in few weeks. to the warm tranquil waters of southeast

asia. hello again welcome back we're here across the levant we are looking at some cooler conditions not much in terms of rain across the region we do have some clouds slipping across parts of central turkey going into the eastern areas but we don't expect to see much in terms of rain out of those clouds over here towards the west a lot of fourteen degrees few here on sunday down towards beirut about eighteen degrees maybe some clouds in your forecast really staying the same as we go towards monday so a fairly stagnant situation across much of the area in terms of weather down towards quite city winds coming out of the northwest a cool day for you with the time to there of about nineteen degrees well here across the gulf a little bit cooler as well temperatures into the low twenty's for many locations over here towards riyadh it is going to be the high teens staying like that as we go towards monday really we do have some clouds over here towards medina the highest temperatures though on the map look at this we are going to expecting mecca to reach a high of about thirty three degrees going down possibly to about thirty two degrees by the time we get towards monday and then very quickly as we go down

towards the southern part of africa most of the rains going to be well to the north over here towards parts of mozambique as well as madagascar but we are watching a psych loan out here in the indian ocean that's going to be some heavy rains to militias not make a land fall but also some big swells there over here towards durban it is going to be a mostly cloudy day with the temperature a few of about twenty five. the winter sponsored by cats on race. the lights are on. and there's nowhere to hide isn't the easiest way to solve this to allow u.n. observers who you invited into the country earlier this year to finish the job i haven't said it's a right wing conspiracy or anybody's conspiracy straight talking debate do you think we're going to see some kind of sea change in the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia we have an obligation there is that journalistic integrity and then to in this case it was betrayed totally up from its own al-jazeera.

welcome back a quick reminder at the top stories here on the al-jazeera a tsunami has struck the indonesian coast coming up in just forty three people the pick there was long some of the straight between two of the country's biggest islands a local disaster management agency says at least six hundred people were injured when waves of a town cars and damaged buildings. the top u.s. official in the fight against isis quits have a president donald trump's sudden decision to pull troops from syria but the guts to parch out follows the resignation of u.s. defense secretary james mattis. and the u.s. government remains shut down off the politicians failed to break an impasse on budget spending the senate has not been adjourned until thursday. that's been two

years since the out as they were john is not what hussein was arrested and jailed in egypt he hasn't been charged with any crime despite international calls for his immediate release his imprisonment has been repeatedly extended. reports. for two years saying has been locked inside an egyptian prison his right to trial denied his legal rights reject it the al-jazeera journalist for recurring role in two thousand and sixteen to visit his family after he landed he was questioned and detained he's been in solitary confinement ever since without being formally charged he suffered a broken arm and was refused proper medical treatment which egyptian prosecutors accuse the qatar based journalist of broadcasting what it describes as false news and of receiving foreign funds to defame state institutions he strongly denies the allegations and so does al jazeera echoing international outrage the u.n. has been calling for his release rights groups have reported an unparalleled

crackdown on adoption journalists since the. we deposed the first democratically elected president mohamed morsi in two thousand and thirteen the suppression has increased under former general now president of delphi tal sisi the committee to protect journalists says at least twenty media workers are being held in addiction prisons. hussein's detention has breached egypt's own penal code since he's been held without trial for more than eighteen months the maximum period allowed for anyone being investigated for a crime he should have either been released or taken to court neither has happened two years in his family and others are left waiting for justice katia lopez civilian al-jazeera nicaragua's government has raided and shut down a t.v. news station it comes a week after similar operations that non-governmental organizations and the newspaper the director of the one hundred percent news channel may get more

appeared in court accused of terrorism president daniel ortega has been accused of silencing his critics to control anti-government protests which more than three hundred people have died since april. protesters and police of plastering more demonstrations in the french capital paris against president marconi's government fighting broke out in one area and protesters started throwing missiles one policeman took out a gun to disperse the crowd but then had the opposite effect the officers were surrounded and forced to flee on the motorbikes so-called yellow vests protest began of a five weeks ago against plans to increase the tax on fuel opposing which will later scrapped the bonus smith was with the protesters in paris. this is been an all day protest march nonstop through the street. from the town of owning right on. the day. to follow them all the way as police try to block various routes. peaceful in

a couple of small stations but they all of us protestors have wanted it to be peaceful and they try to make sure that everybody has stayed on the right side of the law there are about a thousand people left at this time of the day number similar to last week and many people here that we've spoken to not a troll interested in the concessions present manual on how to make they say they don't go far enough that too little too late and they will keep protesting rising to the new year thousands of people have been demonstrating again in hungary over the past week in protest of changes to employment rights and pay the new legislation which the opposition is calling the slave law allows companies to demand more of the time from their employees from budapest robin forced to walk or reports. hungry at christmas time with more than two percent average growth low taxation it's an attractive place to come and spend your money. hungry economic

model depends a lot on german car manufacturing and twenty seventeen it made up twenty nine percent of industrial output soon a billion dollar b.m.w. plants will provide thousands of jobs in the east but there's a problem a shortage of skilled workers the government hopes its new labor law will fix that allowing over time of more than four hundred hours a year but that has angered working hunger areas more than eighty percent according to recent polls opposed the legislation that will make them have to work full operation groups of united in protest from the left and the rights calling it a slave law it's. andries government says that's not the case the hungary and regulation is fully in line with the european regulations and has nothing to do slavery that's political cold which is being used by extreme support of the philippine and political activists on the ground the real problem is that as a matter of fact these political protests are nothing to do with the labor govt a

lot of them are very educated some believe the law will only worsen the problem and variance have been working much longer hours in recent years not anyone in western europe so if you just check european union statistics eastern europeans work more than western europeans in hungary and work more than people in western europe so there's already a lot of overtime in the system and secondly wages are very low so if you make people work longer hours for the same wages is just an incentive for people to move away the way the government sees it the garion economy is a victim of its own success with near full employment but it might have more to do with the fact that hungary has a strict immigration policy and skilled gary ans seeking better opportunities abroad. young hungary and like are increasingly interested in leaving hungry and starting their careers elsewhere i might add are hungry and students and

i just saw exactly the same motivation and that they just wanted something better than hunger we can offer and at the same time they just so that. that trends are not looking promising and hungry hungry is not a load countries including poland slovakia and the czech republic are struggling with their own labor shortages. the showing of low cost labor powering europe from its east is beginning to wear off. robyn first you walk out zero budapest. for neighboring serbia they have been protests too with thousands of people taking part in anti-government demonstrations for a third consecutive weekend they claim the president alexander is becoming more authoritarian last week opposition politician focused on of it was attacked. large crowds have taken part in the funerals of four palestinians killed on friday by the israeli army mourners gathered in gaza for the burial of the men who were killed during weekly protests against the israeli and egyptian blockade of the territory

among the victims was sixteen year old managed to. demonstrate that the daughter of a fraud since march. now after months hunting him in the colombian jungle security forces have shot dead the former guerrilla leader known as the one time i thought the model of use to surrender in a twenty sixteen peace deal he was accused of drug trafficking extortion and murder charlotte bennett's reports. flanked by senior ministers colombia's president rallied reporters for his big news boy. can't confirm that troia was killed in an operation he was killed by the heroes of colombia. this is quote your full name walter patricio arizona he was one of the most elusive and powerful rebels in colombia wanted for drug trafficking extortion and murder. while cho commanded the all of us in a state of front

a group of up to eighty former fark rubles who have refused to twenty sixteen peace deal with the colombian government they continue to traffic cocaine and fight security forces. colombian police and military searched the jungles for him for months yes it's really a pretty strange this is an effort of persistence we may not find out to today but it could be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow in a week or two we're not going to rest or stop this offensive the manhunt escalated after his group kidnapped and murdered to equip dorrien journalists and their driver in march colombia and ecuador put on their most wanted list and offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for information leading to his capture. more than three thousand army police and special forces were deployed to find him then on friday from the form of frontline and cocaine capital the colombian president took the podium and made

a you your you know how to get out of today i want to make clear that for quatro our party is over colombe a menace in many communities in colombia will now sleep in peace because one of the most horrendous criminals that our country has known has fallen. show was shot and killed in a military operation near the ecuadorian border challenge ballasts al jazeera. an industrial city in south korea is now home to the world's largest outdoor mural the work covers nearly twenty four thousand square meters. reports from incheon city it's become a source of pride for the residents. it dominee this part of injuns skyline and industrial i saw turned into an eye catching thing of beauty standing nearly fifty meters tall a facelift in a city known for its industrial grime. is a city of manufacturing and industry where we have many aging buildings like this

which poses a problem for us this is what they were grain silos but with an imaginative i it wasn't hard to see them as a row of books on the shelf so that is what they became sixteen volumes that tell the story of a boy's journey from childhood to adult hood while depicting the complete cycle of the four seasons in john is probably best known to people outside south korea as a location for the international airport that serves the capital seoul but officials here seem determined that the city should be recognized for far more than just the place you fly in and out of with hopes that some of the millions of passengers who use the nearby airports can be persuaded to stay a while in incheon the city has big tourism aspirations. and now other industrial

buildings are being looked at as potential canvases for more art. a lot of companies with similar styles of us have said they want to paint them aware that what might please the public don't put those paint brushes away just yet bright al-jazeera incheon city south korea. a charity in brazil has hosted a christmas lunch for the homeless and sao paolo meals were prepared for a thousand people living in the streets of latin america's most populous city the organization raise the money through a crowdfunding campaign an estimated twenty thousand people escaping rough in sao paolo. are tough a quick check of the headlines here on the al-jazeera a tsunami has struck the indonesian coast getting up and sixteen people with twenty or more missing. resolutely sometimes straight through of the country's biggest

islands a local disaster management agency says almost six hundred people were injured when waves overturned cars and damaged buildings but john gill found his with the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies he says people had no warning there was no deal of tectonic activity earthquake activity there. so we're going to trigger you know to be on this image of the guys were all over. the it is. in the some of the character so this would have been agree with very little in recent weeks. if the morning so there was a forty two weeks ago here in the region you know under the meter to a meter so this could be much worse a top u.s. official in the fight against eisel has quit a president donald trump's sudden decision to pull troops out of syria brett mcgurk departure follows the resignation of the us defense secretary james mattis the us

government remains partially shut down after politicians failed to break an impasse on budget spending the standoff as a funding for president from planned mexico border war in the senate is now been adjourned until thursday when used to go girish and to produce a solution that is a trap of all parties which means chetry both in the shadow. a majority and. and a presidential signature at that point we will take it up almost senate floor. senators will be notified one a vote is scheduled and in the meantime. the discussions and negotiations continue. for tests police have clashed during more demonstrations in the french capital against president michel and his government fighting broke out in one hour when protesters threw. one policeman took out a gun to disperse the crowd but that the opposite effect. of them surrounded and

forced to flee and then motorbikes. but those are the headlines continues on al-jazeera after up from station that's what. every week brings a series of breaking stories. as we turn the cameras on the media and focus on how they report on the stories that matter. and. it's been fifteen years since the united states and its allies invaded and occupied iraq millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of dead later some supporters of the war still believe there's nothing to apologize for in an op from special i'll challenge the u.s. military's former chief spokesman in iraq retired general mark kimmitt.

mark kimmitt thanks for joining me on up front as brigadier general you served as the deputy director of operations and chief u.s. military spokesman in iraq after the invasion fifteen years on from that invasion and occupation of iraq by the u.s. and its allies do you have any regrets you have anything you want to apologize for you think the u.s. should apologize for or don't think so i was on the record as apologizing for the abu ghraib problem the opera group situation obviously some of our soldiers had screwed up their the embarrass the nation the embarrass their credibility inside a brac i apologize for that but i think by and large there is nothing to apologize for nothing to apologize for so when. the us invaded iraq in two thousand and three in defiance of international law no w m d's found no al qaeda connections terror threat to the us increased thousands of people tortured hundreds of thousands killed millions displaced from their homes iran's influence increased in the region

eisel born in iraq several trillion dollars burned through in the process you know that requires any kind of you know well we got some things wrong well we certainly did get some things wrong but that's what happens unlike being in the media where you can write a editorial saying i got it wrong you don't get to do overs in history you don't get to do over in these types of the bents look i understand your point of view you had that point of view since two thousand and three you're selecting your facts to promote your thesis but i think that's somewhat of it in the company point of view it is circling the media well plenty of top u.s. general about to tell you no no no not in their opposition to what i've read your article from two thousand and thirteen and and that's exactly what you said in two thousand and thirteen and you're repeating it now so what so why don't i quote someone else plenty of top u.s. generals of the time at the time for get do overs they won't eric shinseki former army chief of staff antony's any former centcom commander even colin powell in

private former general secretary of state the time how dead doubts about the war but you didn't did you i mean you still seem to be a true believer you went to work for george w. bush after retiring from the military when you well let's be very clear i was in europe when the invasion one off i had no influence on the decisions that were made but like good soldiers when i was assigned to iraq i did my job and that's exactly what did you and that's exactly what five hundred thousand other soldiers did as well i'm just wondering did you have your doubts at the time i'm not sure there's ever been a soldier that's gone into a war or gone into battle that hasn't had some doubts countless inquiries in the u.k. in the u.s. have said the intelligence wasn't just wrong it was heavily politicized selected cherry picked to use an argument you're using about my argument it wasn't just that in. going into iraq i don't think you can get every nation in the world that satellites in the situation to selectively cherry pick intelligence there's always an outlier that was the majority of the world riposte to the iraq invasion so if they they interpret the intelligence very differently you're going to vote that way

in the u.n. they didn't they didn't vote that way in the u.n. did you get a u.n. resolution to support the war was in violation of international law one of the things i said earlier did in fact the security council meet and oppose the war did the u.n. security council approve the war. you didn't answer my question because i'm not here to answer a question and i'm not here to answer well i'm going to have to answer my question that's very. very odd thing to say in an interview meant to. selectively choosing selective anything you say is selective so that's a let me also question you on so then also what did the united nations security council approve the war in iraq kofi annan said it was a violation of international law no they didn't but at the same time eleven forty one gave a lot of reason for the war to occur would we like to do a do over of course we would would we have done it differently of course would you have done it at all is the question let's start what i'm wondering well let's take a look at syria today the conditions are very very much the same authoritarian leader he is leading a group that is

a minority inside the country heavily oppressed his people and look what's happening there you talk to two thousand and fourteen about the greatest disaster two thousand and thirteen about the greatest disaster and refugee flow and humanitarian problems inside the middle east and syria is worse in syria's worse in iraq's number two and zero just a little for the syrians it's the two worst refugee crisis because by assad in the u.s. government it's not great company to be in is it now it certainly is not but the facts in the reasons are different do you believe that saddam if still in power would be running sort of some mesopotamian holiday spall of course he would be oppressing his people the arab spring would have reached his want to counterfactual you can't say we have gone in and we're responsible for tens of thousands of deaths millions of refugees but you know what have we not done it would have been worse we don't know that do we you know if we many people died as a result of an illegal we did not enjoy into the war on a counterfactual every intelligence service in the world particularly in the wake

of nine eleven which i think you discount completely believe that there was a weapons of mass destruction threat if we had not believed that as a government if we had not believed that as a nation if we had not been. that is military we wouldn't have gone and having now knowing what you know now would you go in again jeb bush for example instead of the horse we would not have but you don't get to do that that that's the prevalence of the media you don't get to go back and do it again but you do get to say i'm sorry we got it wrong we should've done it we got you're not going to say we got it wrong ok so you do think what don't look toward someone that's what i don't want to some checking what's that which but are you saying that was wrong we didn't have the facts then that we have now of course we would have enjoyed having the facts then we wouldn't have done it that way and we may have done it a different way and the other countries of the same facts and didn't but your invasion is such a case such as rome's germany russia china. did the german intelligence services

not have the same intelligence as you they did but that was a political decision not an intelligence but a good political decision engelman went in there we had listened to the nations that thought yes i want to know and the chilcot inquiry the official investigation to iraq was lambasted the british government for its how it used intelligence and how it legal illegal it so what you're suggesting is that there was a conspiracy of almost every intelligence service in the world you know to politicize and i'm saying there was definitely a conspiracy by members of the bush administration to lean on those facts politicize those facts cherry pick those facts and present a false case full well i mean why did you have to do that why didn't your country with all of that is what we certainly believe was on board ok and the other countries were on board as well which other countries name how many countries supported the war in iraq there are one hundred ninety one hundred in the world seventeen countries on the trees america and the only major countries australia britain the united states of america i mean count on one hand ok so the idea that this get the majority of the world pulling was was against the war the majority of

the world didn't support the war at the united nations in any shape or form or objected to it but just what i take you know the biggest protest we saw at the time in the us if you forgot the millions of people on the street so there were millions people in the streets so let's hear what millions of people in this you are suggesting that there was and there are millions of people who served in the united states fine let me clarify now millions of people around the world protested against the war ok but let me ask you this question tell me you of an event ever were poll testing suggested it was time to go to war. i'm sure there are many wars of popular support but a more on all popular sport once they were kicked off before the war nobody wants to go to war nobody i didn't want to go to war none of my soldiers wanted to be there but we had a job lot of people did want to go to war dick cheney george w. bush tony blair let's just talk about your view of iraq at the time and since there was some of you that you've never really want to tick cept how bad the situation in iraq is even at the time when you were spokesman back in two thousand and four when

images were being shown on news channels of iraqi civilians being killed by u.s. forces you famously advised people to quote change the channel but the facts are the facts thousands of people did lose their lives in iraq continue to die today you can't just look away you can just change the channel when confronted with the well it was awed that in fact it was your channel that asked the question showed the pictures which later turned out to be false to suggest that american soldiers were going out there to intentionally massacre of civilians i find reprehensible you don't think the us soldiers carried out massacres of civilians their own i don't what was the head to the massacre what was the mahmoudiya massacre what was the massacre we. have no idea what you're talking about i think you are inventing situations telling me that twenty four people unarmed iraqi civilian men women and children were not killed and had some of them shot multiple times at close range that didn't happen in november two thousand and five you believe that happened there was never an investigation done on that so all the journalists all the human rights watch experts all the older people have looked at these massacres in balad

in memory dia for dead civilian family following the gang rape of latino that's all made up i'm not saying it was made up i'm saying those situations happen were they done by americans were they done. for goodness sakes when all of us soldiers were charged in mahmoudiya with those killings what's your response to that my responses five soldiers may have been alleged to have committed those atrocities if you were convicted by a civilian court how do you alleged to have done that i'm confused it's a very weird say in american courts convicted those four us five soldiers. you know aware of that i'm personally not aware of it and i don't think many people are aware of that but let's get let's get back because what you're saying is you're taking a specific incident three different incident three different sort of any and and trying to indict the entire american military and law and i don't know you and i do my job by the way not to indict the whole american nation with respect you don't speak for the entire american nation and nor do you and i never claimed and nor do

i know what you do i mean or do you accuse the entire american neighborhood i'm glad we agree i don't know you is anyone of anything i was responding to your specific rather bizarre claim that the americans haven't killed anyone in iraq intentionally no civilians when there is evidence that they have plenty of it over fifteen years you're suggesting that americans routinely and you are going to tell you that you can win and i'm not i mean one in thirteen will read your own two thousand and thirteen article ok i don't know we're going to talk about my twenty thirty to i'm going to ask you simple questions and you're having struggling when i'll see them not just going to i'm not struggle i'm told you know what yes i'm going to work i am going back to the simple thesis that is the new two. or three you've been opposed to the iraqis have indeed and what you are now doing is you are that's like do you know and so my question is is it because i'm very sad because of the american soldiers killed intentionally you say no i give you evidence you say i'm not aware of the evidence that you quote while to go to me that's a very odd way of again i'm not challenging your facts i'm challenging your intention for asking the specific question an interview with a guest i have them every week but right now let's talk about what you said so for

example you said at the time change the channel i'm saying ok you can't really do that when people are dying. let's talk about. how many civilians were killed in fallujah do you think by the u.s. forces and no one thousand and four have no idea why you should tell me when you should tell me you were in charge of the u.s. military was doing the killing i was in charge of the u.s. military and a senior u.s. military seen you in the audience are in there ok i agree so how many people died in future how many people died in combat inside a full week of the civilians were killed by you. us forces in fallujah intentionally known how many total killed i don't know if you can i certainly care every every going to loss of a civilian life in years to fire every loss of a civilian life is a tragedy i accept that everyone's a tragedy i'm saying how many died in fallujah i don't know why you don't that's a bizarre thing you go to war you bomb a city you don't bother to find out how many people you killed intentionally or unintentionally we got out of the body count business years ago the

numbers while relevant are not something that we quote nor do we keep in our back pocket different studies show suggests between eight hundred maybe more civilians were killed in two thousand and four in the two attacks on fallujah against insurgents by the us military than ten times what we do know intentional and there was documented killings by journalists on the ground i would tell you right now that. it is unfortunate every time a civilian is caught in the middle of a crossfire collateral damage or soldiers go to extensive extensive manner to try to avoid that but there hasn't been a clean war in the history of warfare a senior british army officer at the time told the telegraph newspaper which is a pro will paper in the u.k. my view in the view of the british chain of command is that the americans use of violence is not proportionate and over response to the threat they're facing they don't see the iraqi people the way we see them they view them as to mention subhumans the nazi language they're not concerned about iraqi loss of life of their

own allied offices saying i'm going to find one hundred officers that would speak that you again you're cherry picking the facts it is certainly. open but i could probably get a thousand army also has to challenge that saying won't tell you that the americans went extraordinarily took extraordinary measures over that making it up as his agenda and i'm going to give that opinion but he probably was never attacked by operation center watching a strike by apaches or by or a craft and watch them get waved off because we were concerned about civilians in the still end up killing several hundred civilians. flattening the city i mean people who went to police just saw the destruction that was done i have no doubt of that i mean i saw it as well and that is unfortunate in many ways it is. well it's extraordinarily sad for how it affects the civilians but it turned them against americans that this is war this is war and so that symbols and we followed those rules did we intentionally attack civilian targets no but you are

aware that under the rules of war even without intentionally targeting if the attacks a disproportionate and huge numbers of people die quote unquote collateral damage that's a problem too you can always zero back and we didn't mean it we didn't mean to kill ten thousand people or whatever it is again i would accept that right again you can i will repeat to you we followed the rules of engagement we went to extraordinary lengths to avoid collateral damage and you still into the killings. many people and we ended up unfortunately killing people that we would not have intentionally killed had we known that the reader was there or that it is not the business of the american military to kill civilians for stuff as we discussed earlier there are plenty of examples where that has happened you guys are using you guys used allegedly used white phosphorus and depleted uranium weapons against not just military targets but civilian targets which is denied by the us military to be fair but what do you step it is absolutely no you didn't use it i don't mean the american military admitted to using against civilians i think you are saying you

civilians you're exactly right if we did not intentionally use one phosphorus and yet what do you say to the fact that plenty of studies since two thousand and four show quote dramatic increases in infant mortality cancer leukemia and the city of fallujah they link rates of miscarriages and disability in children born in fallujah to us moment military operations i don't know has there been any at the p.d. i'm a logical i can't pronounce a word i have had studies done in the bulletin of environmental contamination in toxicology nov twenty two of found unusual numbers of birth defects surfacing in the city a study carried out by professor alister hay at leeds university said the studies are extraordinary there's been a five fold increase in birth defects in fallujah is that something is that something is that something you feel i would want to know. about response i feel extraordinarily set about that. but you don't take responsibility for what i take responsibility for is certainly knowing that ethically morally it hurts when we

kill civilians we certainly don't do it intentionally that's the cost of war and what you try to do in war is achieve victory at the smallest cost so let's treat the being has a list of our smallest cuts in civilian cultures not just fallujah in two thousand and four in may the u.s. bombed a wedding party killing more than forty iraqi civilians the massacre it's been referred to by many iraqis you want to have the u.s. military took to the podium and said quote there was no evidence of a wedding there may have been some kind of celebration bad people have celebrations too and yet the associated press straight off to get video footage proving that it was a wedding and those were innocent people again you're talking about ex post in our priore op priore the intelligence was very clear that there were known insurgents at that location and that because of that they believe within the rules of engagement the authority and in many ways the responsibility to attack that

target. ex post i'm not sure what was found out at the time i made that statement we had absolutely no evidence that there was a wedding party if it had been determined after that that there was a wedding party again but that is what will have celebrations too is a very flippant response to forty two dead including thirteen eleven women and fourteen children at that time there was no evidence of forty two people dead and when you found out to do people are dead general mattis now defense secretary then a commander on the ground said bad things happen in war i don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men just on why so many iraqis were so antagonized by the u.s. presence when that was the kind of attitude towards innocent deaths yes do you regret making those remarks the kind of months you and general mattis made i have no regrets of the remarks i made no music matters his remarks were a mistake i'm not here to talk for general mattis so then what do you regret him could be you're not regretting you're not going to the one i said i regretted my own comments when they in fact in fact were seen as flippant and after the fact if they were seen as wrong i certainly regret that it wasn't the only comment you made

that upset a lot of people when also when iraqi journalist at a press conference in february for why u.s. helicopters were mounting night raids flying so low to the ground terrifying iraqi children you replied quote what we would tell the children of iraq is that the noise day here is the sound of freedom and again you're taken of the context my wife taught school inside of military schools for decades and that's exactly what she told her children when they had to what it does make it right that a teacher will console her children when our tillery fire is going near that location would console them us saying don't worry you'll be fine not that's the sound of freedom from american occupied again if you read the quote that's what i said my wife said but is it correct to have said that either you or her it certainly worked in the case of the children that she taught do you really think iraqi children across the country many of whom suffer now from mental disorders p.t.s.d. do you really think they were thinking that was the sound of freedom when they were getting bombed with a lot of what they didn't think at the time of me make. in that comment it was poor

choice of words however it had been taken out of context both in terms of how that was just read and i took it out of context i projected what my wife was saying to children which call them half a world away but you can see how that looked at the indifferent and offensive to a generation of children who've been scarred by war insulted by your country well i don't think that there are too many people and children scarred by that one comment not by that comment but i'm not raids by the bombing that you were defending in your role as chief minister but i think every child that is in the middle of a war zone is affected by that yes i mean iraqi children entire generation growing up in a war zone i think something like five presidents george bush sr bill clinton george bush jr barack obama donald trump have all bombed iraq five presidents running this one country has taken a lot of bombs from the united states my children let's go back to the children you

were there last one i want to go did you see children walking around shaking from the sound of bombs going off not in the part of iraq i was in nor i but i also met dozens of orphans thousands of iraqi children being laid off and there are studies showing that one in ten iraqi kids in mosul p.t.s.d. cannot rest any the toll you yourself say that was and is but it's a war that you guys know and i am not suggesting for a moment that war is not bad and i'm not suggesting for a moment that war doesn't kill people i'm not suggesting for a moment that war doesn't sometimes kill. innocent civilians that's the price of war so as a soldier what you do is try to minimize that at all costs and anybody that believes that collateral damage doesn't happen in war is a living in a fool spirit ninety percent of eighteen to twenty four of the rockies in a poll not long ago said that they believe the americans are an enemy that's an entire generation of young people who've grown up they don't fans of what you and

your colleagues achieved i agree why do you think that is do you think we've been talking about for the last half hour if we didn't believe that we wouldn't be having this conversation so when you were there in iran can you watching the your fellow soldiers locking up people who some of you some of whom you believe are security threats and putting them not just in abu ghraib but come to current crop or and all the bases did you think at the time did you imagine that you know what we're laying the groundwork for i saw you know i did what did you say at the time what did you say to your colleagues you actually predicted that this would happen i didn't predict it i was worried about it i was worried at the time that the mass incarceration of what the troops on the ground believed to be security threats would come back to haunt us yes and yet you said i told that to my colleagues and i told that to my spirit so that knowing that thinking that then and knowing what we know now you still started this interview saying we don't have anything to apologize i don't think we do have anything to apologize giving them or helping give the world eisel well first of all let's make sure we understand eisel was not

created inside of iraq was it created well they started out primarily inside of syria al qaeda or if you're suggesting that it's a business that started in iraq and moved to syria. we can have that the scream and because we didn't start in syria did you know it was. still going on you know what you know actually in iraq knows how we started inside of a jordanian prison. agree with that but you know what i'm saying is the link between the iraq war and i still that's one of the legacies of or are you discussing that the legacy of iraq is that it created islamic extremism i'm saying the legacy of iraq is it did help give the world yes there was no weisel prior to two thousand and three you can put a name on it the question is simple did the iraq war. which many people believe start the rise of fixed excess abated and i think you would agree most intelligence agencies in the world you love to quote intelligence agree that iraq increased the terror threat to the world to the region to the us i think it was yeah i'll

stipulate that sure ok last question last december following the recapture of one of the last remaining i saw in iraq the country's promise to hyderabadi said the end of the war now it's the end of the war against eisel back in august twenty fifteen there general odierno who is the u.s. army commander on the ground he warned that we could go into iraq with a certain amount of american forces we could probably defeat eisel the problem would be we'll be right back where we all six months later do you think that still holds true today well first of all he wasn't the commander twenty fifteen he was commander twenty five however you brought up a very good point which is why the united states took a new strategy after the rise of beisel rather than having the american troops those boots on the ground doing the fighting we went into a training advising and assisting role who's been killing eisel inside of iraq probably i can say it's been the iraqi military it's been the iraqi federal police it's been the iraqi counterterrorism service and i believe that by killing i saw

and by conducting operations play such as mosul we are not creating that antagonism which we did the first time mark kimmitt thanks for joining me on that front thanks for having me thank you. well i think you're going to hurt your adored by millions because stones my stainless critics and arrived just prime minister on a grave of national celebration. now one hundred days into his leadership people ask whether delivering on promises would be as easy in practice as it was in haiti right now the nation is not feeling confident right now people are disappointed with the bombing in minus one hundred days on al-jazeera one of the really special things that working for al jazeera is that even as a camera woman i get to have so much empathy and contribution to a story i feel we cover this region better than anyone else working for us as you

know it's very challenging the body but the good because you have a lot of people that are divided on political issues we are we the people we live to tell the real stories i'll just mandate is to deliver in-depth enemies and we don't feel inferior to the audience across the globe. medieval western society it was a feudal society that detail to keep the wind out of the ball and as soon as the pope ended his speech some people stood up and said god will sit down and the entrance to the city was horrific they killed people in the streets in their houses and in. the crusades an arab perspective at the sold one shop at this time on a. it's the fos day of school in bob an elementary school in mosul. this school is a military base firing rocket propelled grenades some of nearby about it falsus.

most helpful gauteng what it is like to be in school up to three years hope war. six year old. ass like his home and almost wiped out his entire family he now lives in the popular destroyed house with his father. grandfather. prepares his son for the first day in school he's hopeful new friends will help is that a company. swept away without warning i saw mommy triggered by a volcano kills dozens of people in indonesia.

in jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up another major resignation from u.s. president donald trump's administration over his decision to remove american troops from syria. more violence in the french capital as police are targeted by anti-government protesters. and al jazeera journalist the same two years in jail in egypt without charge. i saw nami has hit the coast of indonesia killing at least sixty two people and injuring almost six hundred others waves being a half a metre and a meter high hit areas along the some of the straits between two of the country's biggest islands reports. indonesian pop band seventeen was performing in western java when the waves from the tsunami swept away the stage musicians and fanned the water flowed up to twenty metres in land killing dozens

injuring hundreds and damaging buildings there is a very big. if the morning so. we. read you know under the metre two metres so this could have been much worse. indonesia's to be a physics agency believes the waves could have been caused by undersea landslides from the eruption of another. that's a volcanic island formed over the years from the nearby kirk atoll a volcano search and rescue crews are now looking for dozens of people who've been reported missing. very family kids we are people that are treated. this is a traumatic event specially given all the things that indonesia has certain rights you know for once in september more than two thousand five hundred people were killed by a quake and tsunami that hit the city of palu on the island of so the way city just

east of borneo. the number of casualties from this disaster going over a four day holiday weekend is expected to increase as rescuers reach affected areas paul charger john al jazeera well robin andrews is a science journalist and vulcanologist he says the tsunami was most likely caused by volcanic activity. i think happened was i'm not crackers which is basically the descendant of the much larger crack at that kind of explode in one thousand nine hundred three. they there's a suspicion. an underwater landslide triggered by you know a sort of spike in eruptive activity pushed a significant amount of water around the center straight which caused a tsunami. and some of us break into was actually on the beach one of the beaches the times that they didn't even go any shaking so it's quite clear that this wasn't

generated by an earthquake like the one in soloway z. in september it's something. they're probably volcanic is happening here but they're still trying to work out exactly what indonesia does in the ring of fire it's it's it's there's always volcanic eruptions happening there always sometimes there are tsunamis. and it's really no more active than normal actually it's just every now and then there's a confluence of events which unfortunately results in people being kind of literally swept up in these disasters but this sort of thing what happened all the time in indonesia it just it's not related to anything else happening it's just something that will naturally always happen there it's one of the most geologically active sites in the world the end of a chaotic week for the white house has been marked by a second resignation from u.s. president donald trump's administration the top american diplomat dealing with brett mcgurk has quit a trump surprise pullout of troops from syria he follows us defense secretary james

mattis who is also resigning over the decision our state department correspondent roslyn jordan has more. u.s. president doll trump made two major foreign policy decisions this week he said he's pulling seven thousand u.s. troops out of afghanistan and trump is pulling out all two thousand u.s. service personnel from northeast syria a decision he's been defending on twitter. on syria we were originally going to be there for three months and that was seven years ago we never left when i became president isis was going wild now isis is largely defeated and other local countries including turkey should be able to easily take care of whatever remains we are coming home defense secretary jim mattis quit in protest on thursday on saturday it was revealed that a top u.s. diplomat in charge of coordinating the fight against eisold is also quit the

military mission is enduring defeat of isis we have obviously learned a lot of lessons in the past so we know that once a physical space is defeated we can just pick up and leave this was brett mcgurk the special envoy briefing reporters on the anti eisel fight in syria under a summer eleventh mcgurk knew everyone in the region and he reportedly told colleagues this week the president's new policy on syria would make it impossible for him to continue in his post. already both congressional democrats and republicans have called trump's syria decision dangerous and deployed jim madison's departure from the pentagon now those who had been fighting alongside the americans are looking to these legislators to try to change the white house's mind dear senator lindsey graham south carolina kurds in syria appreciate your strong opposition on the wrongfulness of trump's unilateral decision to withdraw from syria and your principled stance on standing by your kurdish allies the next step

in fighting eisel now uncertain as the trumpet ministration declares it won't be u.s. forces and resources leading the charge rosalyn jordan al jazeera washington following trump's announcement there are reports of turkish troops being sent to the syrian border turkey threatened to strike kurdish y p g targets in northern syria the group was being backed by u.s. special forces in the fight against eisel from the turkish syrian border xenophobia reports these syrian refugees have been living in this turkish border town for three years they say they can't return home as long as their towns and villages are controlled by the syrian armed group the why peachey while fighting eisel the why p.g. backed by the u.s. had taken control of predominantly arab and mixed areas across northern syria their residents say those territorial gains are about creating a kurdish state an accusation tonight by the y. p.g.

. in two thousand and fifteen the white b.g. enter tel aviv under the pretext of fighting isis but they forcibly displaced the autopen looted their homes they started to impose the kurdish language and what they call democracy close like preventing us from practicing religion. the y.p. she could lose the autonomous enclave government in north eastern syria a plan to pull out of american troops will leave it vulnerable the group controls an area rich in oil and agricultural land valuable economic assets for the government and to mask this which is struggling under sanctions president bashar assad has repeatedly said he wants to retake this corner of syria either by negotiation or force the y.p. gee maybe trying to cut a deal. the u.s. is no longer planning a rapid pullout turkey has reportedly convince president donald trump to coordinate the withdrawal also that there will be no vacuum u.s. and turkish officials will meet in washington on january eighth it seems ankara

wants the enclave to be handed over to representatives of arab majority towns that have been under the control of the white. turkey believes the y. p.g. is linked to the outlawed kurdistan workers' party the p.k. k. which has been fighting for self rule in south east turkey. turkey doesn't have the editorial ambitions in syria and they want to end the separatist project there and it wants to end the threat along its southern border it will cooperate with the syrian opposition but who will convince you to give up its agenda and couplings with. a military option is still on the table president to tell you border guard says a new operational strategy to eliminate both the y.p. g. and i still is being worked on turkey and the us may be in agreement on what happens next but there are other players in syria including russia that will also

want its interests secured. a check on the turkey syria border iran's revolutionary guards have held military exercises in the strategic strait of hormuz through which nearly a third of all oiled traded by sea passes. the annual exercises showcase combat helicopters and drones on friday the iranian army trailed a u.s. aircraft carrier into the gulf iran is something creasing pressure from the us which is winning sanctions over its nuclear program. a u.n. team has landed in yemen to observe the departure of a saudi a morality back to government forces and who the fighters from the data the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in the key port city during talks in sweden reports. arriving in aden the head of a united nations monitoring mission patrick is a retired dutch general with experience of some of the world's worst conflicts the

t.-r. c. sri lanka and cambodia other members of the u.n. team touched down in yemen's capital sanaa the group will be heading to the strategic port city of the day where they're tasked with monitoring a franchise cease fire and overseeing the vital reopening of the port a gateway for food and aid supplies into a country where millions of people are in desperate need of both. the general for sure has an expertise in this domain and we know that he will meet with the other side very soon after that god willing the mission of the observers that had data will start. in her day her life is returning to the city streets the ceasefire between saudi u.a.e. backed government forces and hooty rebels is seen as the first significant breakthrough in peace efforts since the war started in twenty fourteen and. we look forward to the ceasefire we hope it's going to be observed not only here but nationwide. and. we hope the saudi led coalition will learn

a lesson after four years of war we haven't faulted all retreated even if forty years pass we will never budge or abandon our basic principles of dignity freedom and independence. the monitoring mission comes a day after the un security council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the deployment of observers to following negotiations in sweden the warring sides also agree to a prisoner swap of some sixteen thousand detainees. the u.n. calls yemen the world's worst humanitarian disaster has killed an estimated sixty thousand people as many as eighty five thousand children may have starved to death because. it's hope that by bringing peace to.