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who was gruesomely executed by isis fighters in iraq. >> actually in syria. we have an extraordinary revelation by the obama administration in the last few minutes. earlier this summer, u.s. special forces several dozen of them landed inside syria for the first time we know of combat boots in an attempted hostage rescue of james foley and several other hostages being held by isis. these were the most senior special forces the u.s. has on the level of delta force, seal team six, we have seen spring into action so many times before. they had intelligence. they went to a site in syria. that location not being disclosed. they came in by helicopter, several dozen of them. they were backed up in the air by combat aircraft by

intelligence and surveillance aircraft keeping an eye on them at all times. when they got to this facility, they engaged isis fighters on the ground. we are told they killed several of them. we are told one of the special forces personnel was wounded, no u.s. personnel killed, but when they got to the site, none of the hostages were there. very sad news on that front. i can tell you that the administration is indicating they had intelligence that they would be there, they were going after a particular part of the isis network that they believed was holding foley and other hostages. they had some very specific information. they are not saying how they developed that information. we know it is public information that other hostages that have come out of syria have been able to report some details of their circumstances while they were being held. this information exceptionally sensitive because there are

certainly still many people being held inside syria against their will. the administration acknowledging it because several news media outlets clearly were on to the story, but offering very scant details other than this extraordinary development that u.s. military personnel were inside syria earlier this sum perp that's about as dangerous as it gets. the assad regime forces clearly would have an attacked the americans if they were there. any number of syrian factions including isis would have att k attacked the americans if they knew they were there. this is just as dangerous as it possibly gets for u.s. commanders. >> the heroism of that attempt and the heartbreak they were no longer at that site. standby. we're going o get more details from the she's on martha's vineyard where the president is vacationing. what are you learning?

>> reporter: this is a lot to come out in a short period of time. we just heard from the national security team not long ago. we weren't asking about this specifically because we didn't know about it yet. but asking about any attempts made or specific threats noun against james foley's life in the recent past or beyond. all they said at that time was that they used every tool in their disposal to try to gain information about foley's whereabouts and to find him and bring him home. so what they have said right now is that earlier this summer the president authorized an operation to attempt the rescue of american citizens, plural. the president authorized action at this time because it was the national security team's assessment that the hostages were in danger with each passing day in isil custody. the government had sufficient intelligence and when the opportunity presented itself,

the president authorized the department of defense to move aggressively to recover our citizens. unfortunately u that mission was not successful because the hostages were not present. and then they go on to say that given the need to protect the military's operational security, they are not going to give anymore details about what exactly transpired during that a attempt. >> michelle kosinski, thank you so much. joining me is retired general michael hayden shs the former director of the cia and nsa. he's now with a global security firm. thank you for being with us. is this the first you are hearing of this? >> it's the first time i have ever heard any of the enriched details that barbara gave you from the pentagon. i had heard rumors, but nothing specific. i don't know any of the fine print. i don't know when or where. i can tell you, though, it's what we do. we're good at it. we work very hard at this.

>> you cannot really overstate the danger of taking on an operation like this, right? but also certainly the goal behind it, there's so much risk in trying to achieve something like this. >> there's tremendous risk. we're kind of an emotional roller coaster. we had the horror of yesterday. now today we hear a story of brave americans supported by really good intelligence efforts risking their own lives in order to save an american citizen. >> yesterday we saw in the video the horrific video where one american journalist lost his life. isis issued this other threat for another journalist that they are going to kill him essentially saying to president obama, his life is in your hands. certainly some of this is very much a gruesome pr offensive on the part of isis. but at this point, are there any options to try to save this man?

and other americans? >> it totally depends on how good you think your intelligence is. do you think you have an idea of where these individuals are? if you don't, you can't. you just don't have options here against this kind of an enemy. you can't deter them or desuede them from this. the only tool you have is to prevent, and you can't prevent unless you know exactly where you are. >> i want to go ahead and bring in our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. you must have a number of questions as you are learning this news of the attempted rescue. >> i wanted to ask something because after all your years of serving in the air force, serving in the intelligence community, you have a lot of knowledge about what the threat would have been facing those commanders in syria. e we heard so much in recent past that one of the big restrictions, one of the big reasons you can't put troops in

syria is a because of the air defenses, the syrian government has very strong weapons and systems that could shoot down u.s. aircraft. so for the u.s. helicopters to get into syrian air space, land several dozen u.s. commandos, there had to be an awful lot of very covert, very secret action against some of syria's capabilities to make them able to get in and get out. >> you're right, barbara. let's not overestimate the syrian air defenses. after all, israel destroyed a nuclear reactor in syria several years back and able to manage going through the defenses. let's not overrate them. that doesn't discount the danger, but this is what our special forces do. flying map of the earth techniques very low, based upon your information they did have some top cover they could call in if the situation went south. let's remember, these guys did

this multiple times per night in iraq taking on aqi at that time. >> that idea we have seen obviously -- we know of the operation to try to capture or kill osama bin laden very successful. this one, obviously, not turning up to be fruitless, very unfortunately. but can you talk a little bit about, i guess, whether this is something that could it be carried out again or do you have a feeling that there's really no way to stop isis at this point? >> well, kben, absent the specific intelligence, we can't prevent and they are not deterrable. now we have made this public. there may be some people out there watching this saying, we put them on their toes. but you and i didn't know about the raid before, but isis knew. this doesn't give them any additional warning. .

>> so why are u.s. officials coming out and disclosing this now? this happens all the time. we don't hear about it as members of the public. many journalists don't. why now? why are we learning this now? >> barbara suggested or your reporter suggested that it was beginning to bleed out that some news agencies had gotten the story, so it's better -- it really is better if you have a part of this you can tell, go tell it and close it off. that way others won't say too much and reveal something about your tactics that will do harm to future operations. >> what are the next steps here? we have seen airstrikes apparently in response to the killing of jim foley. the state department has made a request for more assistance. what are the next steps? >> well, look, the lives of these individuals, the life of jim foley, the life of other hostages, that's always very,

very important. but fundamentally here, we have a really serious strategic problem. we have a fundamental estate not in the middle of nowhere like afghanistan, but in the middle of the middle east. and those people there intend to do great harm not just locally but regionally and then globally. we actually need to take on this threat not just, it's very important, not just try to protect or rescue our citizens, but we have to got to take the wood to isis and simply make them less capable of doing the kind of harm they clearly intend to do to us. >> i want ask you about this in a moment. first, i want to sort of see, is this the first time that we know of u.s. forces, u.s. special forces being in syria? >> there was a raid against one fellow while i was the director of cia. we did cross the border. it became very public. it's a very shallow raid. we did kill our suspect.

so it's not quite the first time, but it's certainly the first time i'm aware of in this current. conflict. >> you say take the wood to isis. what needs to be done and why is it isis such a threat to america? >> well, first of all, the president has articulated a policy. we're going to prevent genocide and protect americans. that's good. but you know what, the presidents's actions are pretty much beyond those limited objectives. we were providing close air support to peshmerga forces. we're all tired of war. . we all have fatigue about this. but i really do think that's the right course of action. we need to do more of that. we need to degrade isis, which is more than a terrorist organization. it's a government and it's an army and we just simply have to make them less capable. if you're looking for a metaphor here, and i'm not taking part of any detailed planning that's

going on, but we need to begin to treat isis territory in iraq and syria the way we have tre treated wu sear stand. make them worried about their survival rather than planning to threaten yourself and mine. >> thank you so much. stick with us. and we need to take a quick break. more of this breaking news of an attempted rescue, an extraordinary rescue attempt in syria. perfect timing. we're offering our best-ever pricing on mobile plans for business. run the numbers on that. well, unlimited talk and text, and ten gigs of data for the five of you would be... one-seventy-five a month. good calculating kyle. good job kyle. you just made partner. our best-ever pricing on mobile share value plans for business. now with a $100 bill credit for every business line you add.

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summer there was a special operations attempt to try to free jim foley, that american journalist who was so horrifically and unfortunately beheaded by isis as we learned yesterday. we're talking about this operation that ultimately was not successful. we have learned from u.s. officials and reporting from our pentagon correspondent barbara starr that when special operations forces tried to attempt this rescue, the hostages, jim foley, as well as others, had been moved. i want to go ahead and bring in retired general michael hayden who used to head the nsa and the cia. and this is startling what we're learning, that this is a way that the u.s. has been dealing with isis. does this really change our perception of how they're dealing with this threat? >> i hope so. i hope it's a suggestion of other things that are going on. the president doesn't need me to grade his policy statements. but i looked at the speech today. there's genuine grief, genuine

anger. then the president said something along the lines of we can all agree that isis is incompatible with the 21st century. that sounded a lot to me like assad has lost all legitimacy, must go, or putin's foreign policy is 19th century foreign policy. those are all true. the question i have is so what are we going to do about it? perhaps this raid is a suggestion that we're going to do more about it than we have in the past. look, we did harm isis a bit but that was incidental to trying to rescue the american. i think we need to do a lot more with the specific purpose -- >> what does that mean, though, more? more air strike, ground troops? >> look, i actually think, you know, the tide of war is receding and so on. it's not receding. there's a line in tolkien about it takes but one sword to make a war. and i think we're seeing that in isis.

we've got to respond. we can do it with manpower, unmanned aerial vehicles, we can do it with our friends in iraq like the kurds and we might have to do it with some of our own forces on the ground. >> other options besides ground forces, americans have shown they're weary of that, but certainly that's something you're in favor of. i want to bring in on the phone someone with incredible perspective on this. a former navy s.e.a.l. he was a member of s.e.a.l. team eight. chris hebben joining me now. we know this is dangerous, but really with your expertise put a finer point on how risky an operation like this is. >> well, any time you head into someone else's territory, the odds of difficulty increase and the margin for error is increased, but special forces guys, we train to the tip of perfection and we're ready to do these operations. there's always an inherent risk. you're only as good as your intelligence reports and intelligence is fleeting. we have electronic intelligence, we have human intelligence,

signal intelligence. it's this hodgepodge of information that they put together and you hope that it's up to date and current. sometimes it is and you get the job done and sometimes it's not and you go away empty handed, but as long as no one got hurt and maybe you take it to the bad guys and you take out some of them, it's still a pretty good day. these guys came up empty handed but no one got hurt. but there's always a risk. >> chris, stand by for us. we'll be right back. moderate to severe is tough, but i've managed. i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn's was not under control. he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of

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we're following breaking news, the pentagon just revealing that the u.s. attempted a rescue operation this summer to try to save a number of american hostages held by isis in syria. a u.s. official tells cnn the mission was to rescue the american journalist jim foley along with others who are being held hostage at an undisclosed location. isis released a gruesome video yesterday showing foley being beheaded saying it was retaliation for u.s. air strikes against isis. the terror group is also threatening to kill another american journalist held hostage right now. we've also learned in some of these details that no u.s. personnel were killed in this operation. one was slightly wounded. several isis operatives were killed. but perhaps this news, telling us, giving us more information about how the u.s. is dealing

with the threat of isis in syria and iraq. i'm brianna keilar, thank you so much for watching us here in "the situation room." erin burnett "outfront" starts now. >> another police officer in ferguson under fire tonight. we'll show you the video that just got him suspended. plus new evidence from the michael brown shooting raising questions tonight about the moments just before his death. and breaking news on the brutal beheading of the american at the hands of isis. late word tonight that the united states attempted a rescue mission this summer. it is an extraordinary development in the story. we have all the details. let's go "outfront." good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. thutfront" tonight we begin with