this is you don't reduce life from berlin the united states begins a student raul from syria president donald trump claims victory over so-called islamic state their reports say state department officials will be home within the next twenty four hours but american backed kurdish an arab troops are still battling to oust the jihad is also coming up what is a good chance by really get an opportunity to gain ground on league leader dortmund lowly disserve handed dortmund their first defeat of the season and now wire me take out the lions as think host rb like to see. you in the.

harkness great to have you along every line the united states says begun withdrawing troops from syria after president donald trump took to twitter to claim victory over so-called islamic state u.s. lawmakers from both parties say they disagree with that decision that says american backed syrian democratic forces the as e.-f. attempt to clear the town of jena of islamist fighters the gene lies in the valley of the euphrates river close to the border with iraq it's the last stronghold of the to harvest a militia which once controlled a large swaths of the syria and iraq but as the mainly kurdish as d.f. inches closer to final victory over i guess turkey now is threatening to launch an assault against the kurds further north reporter daniel heckler filed this report from the for. lines in syria. these people have escaped the clutches of the

so-called islamic state. they're stranded in a camp two hundred kilometers from the front line. traumatized exhausted but free. after days of rain and cold weather the conditions are atrocious but it's better than being under the guns of the i s fighters locked in regard battle on the banks of the euphrates. used does as human shields so the warplanes can't attack from the sky. they were planted mines everywhere and they don't want to let anyone escape. or. they're criminals dirty thieves they took everything from us our money as well and then they left. the battle for the last bit of territory held by yes is a tough one. the militia has lost nearly all the land it held. around five thousand

fighters are putting up fierce resistance their leader abu bakr al baghdadi is thought to be among them. dozens of members of the s.t.'s have been killed in recent weeks mass despite as support from the united states and other allies. they've put booby traps and mines everywhere we were advancing but slowly and we have to take care to avoid civilian casualties. this is what's left by the fighting the streets of hygiene the form a terrorist stronghold most of the people who live here have fled. the mainly kurdish s.d.f. has captured the center of the town and most of the outskirts from my ass. fighting is continuing in the surrounding villages to jihadists are still managing to stay john bush is

a hit and run attacks. yes fighters try every day to attack our units and recapture the villages but we are pushing back with all we have. the american backed s.d.f. is now facing a potential enemy on another front. victory over the i.r.s. in the euphrates valley is within reach. but now turkey is threatening to march into code controlled areas on its southern border and caress seized the kurdish fighters as terrorists. these threats help yes precisely now when we're making gains in the fight for hygiene turkey threatens an offensive in northern syria. and that's bad news for the people still on the ice control not everyone has been able to flee thousands are still trapped in the last pocket of i asked territory. all right well let's first bring in a correspondent on shell of ora who is tracking these fast moving developments for

us from beirut and so they came they saw they want to i mean is it as easy as u.s. president donald trump claims in a tweet that the u.s. have defeated the so-called islamic state in syria have they been defeat it. well first it's not been easy at all and it's not just being us or the support provided by them that has defeated to a large extent territorially that has defeated isis to a large extent to totally. and if you notice that in this war russia and america. s.d.f. which is backed by the americans for would also iran back shia militia sports it's not just been the doing of donald trump or barack obama in this case what president trump is trying to see is that look i'm going to be delivering on my message that the american troops should withdraw and this is in preparation for that this street has isis been defeated territorially to a large extent but if you look at their campaign online on some of the encrypted

groups we can deal some of us journalists continue to get messages from isis that they will regroup and they have not been decimated and they're just fled and once the active war stops the will begin guerrilla warfare so that fear is still there but in that regard there are still a lot of ifs and buts how isis will regroup and where the leadership is have they been killed or the or they are in hiding all right until it let's continue in there on that point that you just ended with what would an abrupt american withdrawal mean for instance for the syrian kurdish forces on the ground. well for the city in kurdish forces this is bad news because they were centrally been relying on american support to have to do a static street and add up this weekend on so they have that may not happen if the americans leave which means that their sacrifices that they have need not have been worth it for them mcneice it's bad news for them and president is good news because

he can go back to his people and say look i've delivered on my message but if isis does regroup then tom will be asked these questions that he perhaps was hasty when it came to his withdrawal it's also a bit of a problem for the americans because they told the gulf allies they would be continued on and the positioning of american troops and city has once important but if you've exhausted troops and how will he be huntsman is gulf allies right over in the twenty seconds that we have left together are reports suggest that the turkish forces might attack kurdish troops who have been instrumental in defeating i guess as you've been reporting what would that mean if that were to materialize interior and i'm with us that would draw a will militants just fill the vacuum now well that is bad news for the kurds but we still don't know whether that ups will have to act the kurdish forces are not one has said that he will but he hasn't yet done it so maybe he's trying to crack some sort of a deal with the americans is bad news for the kurds but it will not impact the isis operation because hardin is on city iraq border and the turks want to deal with the

kurds who are on their border with syria as it doesn't impact isis in the immediate future later what happens remains to be see because if that if turkey attacks kurdish forces then it will give space for isis to regroup was s.d.s. attention will be do work to the other border a very very fluid theater of our reporting from beirut thank you. all right and let's go check in with my own shrader in washington d.c. we know where that part of the story is also unfolding first off before we start has there been an official confirmation about the decision to effectively were draw u.s. troops in syria only insofar as we've seen the president's tweet leyla the pentagon has not commented at all beyond to say that they at this time are continuing to act in the region. this really is coming sort of a surprise for many of the reasons that are already outlined here and it's sort of

at least question a sort of leaves hanging what are u.s. allies going to do now especially as the u.s. withdrawing if they actually do would leave somewhat of a power vacuum that would then be filled by the actors who are still in the region namely russia and iran and as on child mentioned the u.s. is partly there for its allies to try to contain iranian influence in syria. as you alluded to the timing is somewhat unexpected i mean everybody seems to been taken by surprise by the suggestion that these troops u.s. troops might be pulled out from syria is everybody on board with this decision. well that's an excellent question as we head to the generals have not said much sense president trump announced this this morning but it does sort of fly in the face of what several u.s.

leaders have said in the past days and it isn't out of brock a reversal of american policy in the region we saw the joint chiefs of staff just a couple of days ago saying that the u.s. mission in syria is far from over in large part because as was pointed out isis may be territorially contained but he said it would be naive to assume that they are completely defeated and we don't actually know how many isis fighters still exist the estimates range between two thousand and thirty thousand that's a huge range of people who might still be out there fighting for the so-called islamic state and even some people in trump's own party have been pushing back we saw one senator saying that this would be an obama like a mistake referencing the two thousand and eleven when president president obama also announced that he would be withdrawing troops from syria so not a lot of unity here but possibly just something that president trump wanted to say that he was able to accomplish during just the first two years of his term my

shrader reporting from washington thank you i want to tell you now about some of the other stories making news around the world. the european commission has revealed plans to handle a no deal drugs while these include measures to avoid disruption in key sectors like air traffic and financial trading british citizens residency rights in the e.u. would also be protected but new restrictions on trade and travel would come into force. berlin has marked the second anniversary of the terror attack that left twelve people dead and dozens injured in the german capital on december nineteenth two thousand and sixteen a radicalized tunisian man hijacked a truck killed its driver and plowed into a crowd of christmas market. the world food program says it's cutting services to palestinians in the west bank and gaza strip due to a lack of funding some two hundred thousand people will be affected by the cuts one of the programs need your donors was united states it announced funding cuts to

projects for palestinians earlier this year. several provinces in the southern in southern thailand are struggling with severe flooding following to rancho rains forty's are warning people living in low lying areas to prepare for evacuations some twenty five thousand homes are already affected. one is legally divorced man suffers their first defeat of the season on shoes day night falling to for to have to still drift to one scientist of the earth took the lead early on widow do you think about kill three can quickly tonight is seven full of the season after their break a full roche's strike from john at zimmer a double to promote its size advantage in a truly unstoppable strike from the german winner dortmund pulled one back to taco bell to stare but it was too little too late. all right but to research it went to losing that match defending champs by munich have

a chance to get the bonus league title challenge back on track they face leipsic later this evening and a victory would bring them to within six points of dortmund to the top of the table . haven't lost their thirst to retain the bundesliga title this season yet they have had some hick ups against some unusual suspects on match day twelve promoted side dusseldorf managed a three three draw in munich which gave the defending champions a serious wake up call. in byron's following home match the defending champions were wide awake even through nuremberg no problem thanks to their informed ace robert levin don't ski despite their current momentum byron's nico kovach snow's rb life seek are a viable opponent you know that's a shock too if you can for a lot see it basically play the same way as us and i quickly when they're talking which i do use of postmen and t.-mo vanna each scored

a brace last time out the tandem will be gunning to help light seek week frog buyer in the table. i mean this murky he means as we've seen already this season it is possible to points in munich if we could take old great points not be very happy. if by or fail to take advantage of dortmund slip by beating leipsic even more pressure will mouth or nico kovach. here watching you don't use myself a long way to tell you about here's what we've got in store for you high speed underground travel by car tech entrepreneur elon musk unveils his hyperloop a vision of beauty to come. get out first well how that story for you and all the days of business headlines coming up right after this and i think at the top of the hour.

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