without other stores. you can't swim alone. welcome to the front lines on the war on isis. this is the syrian town of chobani and this is all that remains of main street. this city has been holding out against an isis onslaught of thousands of militants for the last several weeks and it's been paying a heavy price. to understand, you need to know what's happening here. we'll have reports from here coming up as we explain the u.s. led strategy on isis, what's working, what's not in our live report that begins right now. >> good evening. i'm richard engle. we've now left chobani and are

coming to you from irfa. it's been three months since the u.s. launched a war against isis. as a nation we've. at war in this part of the world for other a decade. and it looks like we could be at war for another ten years, maybe more. tonight, we're going to ask some tough questions about the war against isis. we'll be joined by michael hayden and one of the top commanders during the iraq war. earlier this yore, in an off-the-cuff remark that drew heavy criticism, president obama said he had no strategy yet for taking on isis. then he addressed the nation. >> my fellow americans, tonight i want to speak to you about what the united states will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as isil. >> the president promised this war would be different with no

american boots on the ground. he said there would be iraqi groups on the ground in iraq and syria boots on the ground in syria. it sounds goods, but where are they? i've been reporting on this region for years and people i speak with tell me that this is one of the key problems with the u.s. strategy. it's disconnected from what's actually happening and seems, quite frankly, to be based on wishful thinkings. i imagines that the iraqi government is legitimate. it imagines a middle east that doesn't exist. they've been able to capture mosul and take over half of syria. in less than six months, isis erased the border and carved out an area the size of maryland. washington calls this state a cancer. the cure, it says, is not o e to

send in one army, but to prop up five armies. in central iraq, the u.s. is rebuilding and retraining the army. in western iraq, it's paying sunni tribes. in north earn iraq, it's sending guns to the kurds. in southern syria, the regime is still in power and growing stronger. the fact is these groups hate each other. in the wider region, the u.s. is counting on support from muslim countries. but they've at times supported radical groups like isis. is u.s. has tried to sort out the divisions in the past, it did not go well. now we're trying it again on a larger scale and by remote control. the president said it will that take years to can grade and

destroy isis. he's been very cautious, vice president biden, not so much. >> we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice. hell is where they will reside. hell is where they will reside. >> well, for the past several weeks, the gates of hell have had a very specific address. the town in southeasterly ya just across the border here. but the u.s. didn't chase isis there until it was almost too late. but chobani is still holding on as we found out when we visited the little city that stood up to isis. >> there are two things about chobani that made this small, kurdish city in syria the focus the first is its location. just across the border from you are turkey. the world's press watched and

reported as large parts of the city were reduced to smoking piles of rubble. the other is the heroic resistance of the people in chobani. theirs is a remarkable tale of courage under fire. it's a tale that couldn't be told because surrounded and cut off from around the world, chobani was too dangerous for reporters to visit. in a slickly produced video,they introduced a report presented by one of their hostages who had been forced to become a mous mouthpiece for its captors. >> the western media and i can't see anywhere here in the city of chobani, have been saying recently that the islamic states are on the retreat.

>> he went on to claim that isis had control of 90% of the city and is now involved in mop up operations. we decided to risk a trip into the besieged city to see for ourselves. we crossed in no man's land and entered chobani. what we found was a city demolished but undefeated. >> meanwhile, on the free side of the city, kurdish men and women outgunned and outnumbered are not just standing their ground, they're smiling. this 34-year-old is a field commander on the southern front where much of the fighting is happening. zplt. >> translator:. [ speaking foreign language ] >> now we run, she says.

sheets hung across intersections cloak from enemy snipers. you stay low and rum fast. in chobani, you never enter a building through the front gate or the front door. she walks us to the council room describing a recent battle to take the building back from isis. >> she says there were about 40 isis fighters just in these rooms here. it's not that they're just fighting between buildings and across streets. but room to room. you can see some of the damage. you can see the bullet holes. this was real close quarter fighting. >> she shows us where the enemy is. we watch them all the time and make sure to shoot them before they get too close. [ gunfire ] outside i asked why so many of her fighters are young women. as kurdish women, she says, we would rather lose our lives than our land or our principles. those principles are in evidence every. these fighters are members of

the protection units. there are no formal ranks, no organized units and everyone calls each other comrade. the kurds are a throwback. progressive idealists that may be descending into a region of medieval darkness. >> one way to evade the captors, they were just punching holes in walls so they can move from place-to-place without exposing themselves to the open air and exposing themselves to the snipers. >> we run up an exposed stair case to the top floor of a residential building where the bedrooms have been turned sniper's nest. this schoolteacher now spends her day in this room watching and trying to find the enemy just across the street. born and raised in chobani, she says leaving was never an option.

chobani is our home. where else would we go? we will stay here and fight. it's especially important for women to stand strong in the middle east where they're rarely heard from. we stand here as symbols of strength for all the women in the region. >> so you're fighting for chobani and women's rights in the middle east? zblth yes, she says. right now i'm fighting for chobani but wherever a minority is attacked, i will be there for their rights. it's these grand ambitions that have made chobani such an obsession. most of the residents and the surrounding villages, an estimated 200,000 people escaped ahead of the isis advance

leaving behind their possessions and refugees in nearby turkey. only the old, the sick and the very stun e stubborn still live here. his family is among them and there are plenty of civilians you can see these children, these are your neighbors. >> translator: the house is crowded. no one here is leaving. how could i leave my land and my people, my brothers and neighbors died to protect this place. how can i leave it. those who remain here rely on a system of mutual assistance for everything. there is only one bakery in town and the bread is distributed for free all around the city. the few doctors left in town treat the wounded in a make-shift clinic. even the weapons are a result of community organizing, like this homemade tank used to ferry fighters to the front lines.

isis, on the other hand, has state-of-the art weapons, including tapings and armored vehicles. the only reason chobani survived this long is because the u.s. is conducting daily air strikes and helped negotiate reinforcements from the free syrian army. but they're now driven into their positions and driving them out of an urban area is a challenge. but did it need to be this difficult? only a few weeks ago we were watching on a hill in turkey along with refugees who watched horrifying as isis fighters closed in on the city. the militants made no effort to hide their movements. they were marching in without a care in the world. >> they see isis fighters in their villages. and if the americans really want to bomb isis, they're not hard to find.

american officials said publicly at the time that defending chobani was not a priority. >> as horrific as it is to watch in real time, what's happening in chobani, it's also important to remember that you have to step back and understand the strategic objective. >> with the world's cameras trained on the city, the u.s. was eventually embarrassed in coming to the rescue. the city has now become a key battleground. a test case in the american strategy in the fight against isis. >> this man is a legendary fighter from chobani. we are very grateful to america for the help it has sent it, he says, but it came very late. we are going to need a lot more of it. for those of us who hold the line, all of this is just a distant echo. to pass the time, this woman

sings a song for her fallen comrades. she knows that chobani can only be remembered one of two ways. as the site of a horrible massacre. which is why everybody in chobani, the old and the young, women and men, carrying a special bullet around. they call it the bullet of honor and plan to use it to take their own life if the enemy manages to get through the line. better that than falling into the hands of isis alive. >> a lot more to come from here tonight. including an exclusive interview with westerners who have traveled to syria to join radical islamic groups. we'll talk with the commander who is in charge of training the iraqi army. an army we spent years training. i'll ask him why that army collapsed.

>> this is the last point cross over the border. we don't know what we're going to find inside. there's a lot of shelling, isis fighters. this is the last time we're going to be in turkey until we get out. hopefully everything will be fine. this is the equivalent of the sugar in one regular soda. and this is one soda a day over an average adult lifetime. but there's a better choice. drink more brita water. clean, refreshing, brita.

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she's saying that even though we're inside, we should still be careful. just changing rooms, you can expose yourself to being shot. >> the rise of isis was

stunning. a group that few people ever heard of now has an estimated 31,000 fighters. that's a real army. but the truth is this is not an new army. so who are these militants a and where do they come from. we should warn you that some of these images could be disturbing. they consider themselves warriors for islam. rebuilders of the call will caliphate. an islamic empire that spanned the middle east and beyond for centuries. violators are punished in public squares by flogging, crucifixion and beheading. women accused of adultery are stoned to death.

on the battlefield isis fighters are zealous and blood thirsty. they're also effective. because they're applying the lessons learned from fighting in iraq. back in 2004 when sunny arabs first started attacking u.s. forces, we referred to them as insurgents. the name they used was al qaeda in iraq. american troops killed and detained thousands of them, including one low ranking insurgent. he was sent to the bu ka detention center which inmates called the al qaeda academy. but he was apparently released after a few months. he wasn't a high value detainee. american officials would late rue the day he was sent free to

return to the vicious insurgency which by now was in full swing. >> a short time from now we'll hear from the president who tonight will speak to the nation and unveil his new iraq strategy. >> the strategy i outline tonight will change american's course in iraq and help us succeed against terror. >> to turn the tide, president bush in 2007 ordered to send an additional force of 30,000 americans bringing the total number of troops to over 70,000. the overwhelming force with a seemingly endless budget claimed control of iraq. the sunni insurgency appeared to be crushed. >> the u.s. is trupting major news out of iraq today. >> in a mopup operation in 2010, iraqi and u.s. forces killed al qaeda and iraqs two top leaders. about a month later in a

statement, the group announced it had a new name, the islamic state in iraq and a new leader, the low ranking insurgent arrested in 2005 was now a leader. the american priorities had now changed. the u.s. was ready to walk away and in december of 2011, it did. some of the soldiers have been waving, other taking picture to remember this moment, the moment the iraq war ended. >> the president of the united states. >> president obama assured americans that iraq could make it on its own. >> we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self reliant iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. >> those words may yet haunt us all because of all of the sacrifices the u.s. made, nearly 4500 troops killed and around $2

trillion spent, iraq isn't sovereign or stable or self reliant. but back to 2011. something else was going on besides the u.s. pullout from iraq. the arab spring erupted. regimes across the country started to fall. and in the chaos, an opportunity to turn the ids lambic state in iraq into something far more violent and for more successful, the group we now call isis. the arab spring hit like a tied l wave. millions gathered her 0 the square to overthrow dictatorships. in libya, the u.s. went even further.

bombing omar gaddafi out of power. the administration, perhaps without meaning to, was charting new policy in the middle east and the syrians took notice. they, too, marched to the four decades of the asaad family's dictatorship and expected washington to back them. instead, demonstrators were massacred by their government and the u.s. did nothing. peaceful marches gave way to a horrific civil war. the syrian government would go on to kill more than 200,000 of its own people and drive millions from their homes. the u.s. pledge e pledged a moderate national syrian group. but didn't give them what they really wanted, guns and ammunition. we spoke to rebel fighters at the time. they said if the u.s. wouldn't come to their aid, they would

take help from others including radical islamists. that was all the opening baghdad needed. raised their black banners and changed their name again to match becomes the islamic state in iraq and syria. isis. he declared himself successor to the prophet muhammad and ruler of the islamic stay e state. >> obey me, he said, and i will obey allah in ruling you. his men have been on the march ever since. many americans were startled. but make no mistake, this is an old enemy. and it's gradual reemergence from the embers of al qaeda in iraq to a fire that's engulfed the entire region happened right before our eyes. it should have surprised no one in washington.

>> to understand why the rise of isis did catch the administration off guard, we have to, once again, look at the legacy of the iraq war. the u.s. spent billions of dollars training and equipping the iraqi army for the specific mission of combatting extremists. yet, as soon as isis showed up, the iraqi army ran away leaving behind its weapon for isis to pick up. for years, militant leaders and politicians from both parties told us the iraqi army was ready. here's what lieutenant general mike babaro who was then in charge told me in 2010. >> i see a force that's capable. that's out on the streets ef day providing security. they're absolutely liable. they're fearless and have taken tremendous losses alongside with us. >> i caught up with lieutenant general barbaro again this week northern iraq. >> you know, rich, until this

past summer, i always believed the forces were stronger than the centrifugal forces pulling it apart. >> was the u.s. military wrong to put so much confidence in the iraqi army as it was? >> i would say the u.s. military, myself included, we were wrong by not making a stronger case and insisting that we needed to stay in some numbers to continue to train, advise and develop this unfinished force. >> you think they should have kept a residual force, 10,000 or so? >> absolutely. we all believe that. >> before u.s. troops left iraq in 2011, there was a debate in washington about leaving behind residual force on american trainers to continue working with the iraqi army. but the administration and iraqi government couldn't agree on terms. so the white house decided to pull out all of the troops.

>> why didn't the military convey that message more strongly to washington, that the army wasn't ready? >> we knew it. i know the pentagon knew it. but i think it was a stated policy that this was the bad war. and we were going to be out of here by december 2011. >> and when the american troops left, the iraqi army deteriorated. the military's weakness was exposed last summer. the militants were planning a prison break. soldiers stripped off their uniforms and left their weapons behind. isis ended up with a city and an arsenal. >> you have 1500 isis fighters arrive and two full iraqi army divisions run away. a scale of 15-to-1. >> right. >> what kind of army cuts and runs when it has such an overwhelming majority in terms of numbers and fire power?

>> well, you have an army that hadn't trained, that was corrupt, that was led by political cronies and military commanders. >> these are the birds? >> these are it. >> okay. >> back in 2010, as we were flying out to the training area, general barbaro expressed confidence that the iraqis were ready to take on their enemies. >> do you think the iraq security forces will be able to maintain security and hold this together as american troops draw down? >> yes, i do. i'm confident that they are up to the task and are ready. they're already in the lead. >> do you think the iraqi security forces could handle a major crisis. not just the day-to-day events, but something dramatically serious were to o did you recall, could they contain the situation? >> i think so. >> journalists were often criticized for being to pessimistic about iraq. do you think military commanders were too of the mystic?

>> no, i think we were realistic. we said the iraqi security forces were an unfinished product. >> you told us things were great. >> no, i didn't say that. we saw iraqi tank crews training individually. and we said they've never maneuvered together. i think we were pretty realistic about it. >> the u.s. spent about $25 billion on the iraqi security forces. is that money well spent? >> in hindsight, no. how can you argue today it was money well spent. >> this must be one of the biggest failures of the iraq war. the mission was to create a force that could hold the country together. it didn't work. >> it hasn't worked. but the conditions -- i mean, there's different conditions on the ground. isis gets a vote. our sayings is the military gets a vote. no one predicted isis. no one saw i coming. >> and that really is the point.

no one saw isis coming. with that in mind, we have the former cia director general michael hayden coming up. we'll also have a report on westerners. stay with us with a lot more to come. >> he's showing me that through this little peephole, you can see the isis position. and they're only a maximum 200 yards away. you can understand by being here the proximity in which the two sides are fighting against each other. with healthcare costs, who knows. umm... everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor.... can get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today.

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welcome back to turkey. it's very early in the morning here in turkey. what you are hearing now is the kwaul to muslim prayer. over the last six months, there have been reports of westerners joining isis. but why? just ahead, the story of a man who left australia where he was born and raised to become an islam fighter. he says the intervention is pushing men like him to sympathize with the islamic state. it's a unique perspective and one you don't want to miss. stay with us. more live from turkey in just a moment. so this is isis on the isis frequency that they're picking up calling for troops to come to their position.

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one reason isis has been able to consolidate its power is us, citizens from western countries leaving their homes behind to fight alongside isis. the number of americans on the battlefield right now ranges from dozens to hundreds. there's the 38-year-old man who left san diego and died fighting. the denver teenagers all girls sent back to their parents. and isis is, by no means t e, the only terrorist group recruiting citizens from western nations. but the question remains why? what motivates people? kirsten simmons has this report.

isis, how is it still growing and threatening the west? [ gunfire ] the front line in their holy warred, an unprecedented propaganda machine. >> the flames of war are only beginning to intensify. >> chop off the heads of the americans, the french, whoever you may bring. >> but why are young westerners joining the ranks of isis? >> the people of america. >> the fighting has just begun. >> according to counterterrorism, there are now several thousand among an estimated 15,000 from all corners of the world. they're lured by an intoxicating brand, the utopian vision of an islamic caliphate ruling the world. >> isis is not the only islamist

group in syria. nbc news has been given a unique, on-the-ground look and a level aligned with isis. death has become a way of life here. near the this syrian town, a desperate attempt to save an injured child after a bombing. >> there have been two children badly severely injured. one of them is in critical condition. >> the syrian president's work apparently. the injured girl's brothers and sisters hold hands. the man in the mask is a british jihadi. he says seeing children hurt inspires him to fight. >> we have to defend our sisters and brothers. this is our main priority. this australian is a medic. >> it is upsetting because every day you see body parts of little kids and you see women and children getting shredded to pieces from the bombs.

anybody is going to get upset and have some sort of hatred toward anybody that is associated with this. >> and these fighters are now questioning america's involvement. its bombing campaign in syria. they ask why the west hasn't targeted assad's regime and only taken action on westerners who were executed. >> one of the differences which killings 15 kids compared to, you know, a man dying, getting cut in the throat. >> they say the west intervention is pushing them to actually sympathize with isis. >> going to create a resistance toward the west and the allies of the west. >> in a london basement in september i met a controversial peacher. he's been outspoken in his

support against america. >> i think they should be terrorized and horrified by what is taking place. >> not long after that interview, he was arrested and released unremorseful predicting that the leader of isis will inspire attacks on the west. >> this is quite a serious situation that you have on your hands. >> what does that mean? >> well, that means, you know, potentially, if you ask people here, and they're affiliated to him, that they can respond to that. >> in the united states? >> in the united states, in britain, france and europe. >> that's not a threat? >> it's not a threat. it's an understanding of reality. loep wolf attackers inspired online or on the battlefield

have the west on edge fearing that terror, with just one person, can cause. back in syria, he stays focused on fighting asaad. its foreign fighters have no plans to return to their homes in the west when not in the bad e battlefield. these men live strangely normal lives and do everything together. this dutchman says from day one, he's been treated like a brother. >> i'm living better than i was living in new york. >> they pray and play soccer together and are prepared to die together. this is a world where war is ordinary and isis offers an attractive cause. a world where some are united against common enemies. bashar al assad and the united

states of america. >> that was keer simmons joining us live now from london. what are western officials doing to deal with the threat of foreign officials returning home? >> pretty much anything they can think of, richard. as you know, when you fly from here in london, the region where you are, for example, there are always security officials at the airport trying to vet people. the extraordinary thing about the video in my report there, filmed, by the way, by an impressive independent journalist is the insight it gives into the thinking of young islamists who still view this as a fight for freedom, despite saying that's not the case. an understanding that mindset is the task of western intelligence. but so many fighters are heading to syria. when i speak privately to intelligence officials, they

admit it is a huge challenge. and of course the u.s. depends on those agencies to stop people with european passports flying to america. there has been a series of arrests in the uk and as far away as australia. but that reinforces the point that so many extremists are flocking to join and coming back to the west. >> the u.s. is intervening not just against isis. it's intervening in a civil war and as you know all too well, an incredibly complex region with overlapping alliances. and that may be ultimately increasing the threat to the west, richard. >> thanks for joining me tonight. despite more than three months of american led air strikes,

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welcome back to turkey. there have already been nearly 900 u.s. air strikes in iraq and syria. but, so far, they are not

stopping isis. in fact, the opposite may be true. data obtained by nbcnews.com from a respected british think tank, the janes terrorism an insurgency center shows that isis attacks are on the rise. in june, there were 104 of them in iraq. in august, the number climbed to 171. attacks dropped off slightly in september, but then returned to 141 in october. u.s. military officials insist the air campaign is working. this data suggests otherwise. in fact, just this week, the militants announced that they plan to introduce their own currency. they call it the islamic dinar and say it's backed by the group's gold and silver reserves. who knows how deep their pockets are, but minting coins is a sign the group thinks it's here to say. and take a look at this -- it's a video that appears to show a large crowd gathered in an isis stronghold in syria.

the man speaking on the microphone is praising alaa and says the crowd is about to see divine justice, punishment enacted on three terrified soldiers from the syrian army. the isis ringleader whips the crowd into a frenzy, saying the soldiers are guilty of murder and rape. it's impossible for us to know if any of this is true. then he calls on the people, the citizens to beat the soldiers to death with the heels of their shoes. the video is hard to watch, but i think what's interesting is isis put it out. in their twisted world view, this is just and perfectly acceptable. this is the kind of imagery that makes many americans want to bomb isis. but doing that comes with unintended consequences. look at another video of a convoy in syria. it's huge. some of the vehicles are armored, and they're all out in the open. and this is not isis, but another group directly linked to al qaeda. we're not talking much about al qaeda these days, but they're in syria and they're actually getting stronger.

by bombing isis, the u.s. is making it easier for other groups to spread their wings. joining me now is general michael hayden, former head of both the nsa and the cia. general hayden, thank you very much for joining me. >> thanks, richard. >> you've heard these numbers that seem to suggest so far air strikes haven't reduced the number of isis attacks. how would you explain that? >> well, richard, first of all, i would say they've had an effect. they've punished isis, they've made them go to different kind of tactics, techniques and procedures. they've made it more difficult for them to communicate. it's hard to prove a negative here, but i would suspect the battlefield situation would be worse had we not been conducting these attacks. that said, doing this through air power alone, without corresponding ground forces is a next to impossible task. >> how would you assess the overall strategy? because that is the effective

strategy, to bomb them and try to put together a coalition of forces on the ground. how would you assess the success of that strategy? >> well, the first thing we wanted to do, richard, to my eye was to stabilize the situation in iraq, and broadly we've done that. we've straightened out the line of confrontation, got critical elements of the infrastructure on our side of the line, like the muslim dam and the oil refinery. that's where we are so far in iraq, stability, not counterattack, not resurgence on the part of the iraqi government. with regard to syria, the most that can be said right now is that we're punishing them and the best, i think, we can get out of the current circumstance is merely to contain them. >> if you were advising the president, what would be your recommendation? >> we need american forces in the forward edge of the battle area, richard.

you can't bring in close air support, which is defined as air power integrated with the fire and movement of friendly ground forces. you can't do that remotely. you've got to have our folks embedded forward for advice, for command and control, to stiffen resolve, and finally to synchronize air power in its most useful form. >> so you want to put troops back in iraq and syria? >> we need reliable ground forces in both countries if we are to be effective. i would start with iraq. and, richard, no one with my experience -- and there are a lot of folk with my experience here. no one is calling for american maneuver brigades back into the iraqi desert. but you can't do this from brigade headquarters in the north in the chain of command. you've got to be integrated with the forces that are actually in contact. >> so how many people are we

talking about? are you talking about thousands of american troops who are embedded with frontline positions in iraq and syria? are you talking dozens? what kind of scale are you talking about? >> overall, richard, and this includes all of the forces that are there, training, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, logistics and so on, i think we're talking 5,000 to 10,000 total. and look, the president just doubled down. we're moving to 3,000 already. >> we're moving back into this. and who knows if this will go even further. general hayden, thanks very much. >> thanks, richard. >> the obama administration says it's taking an approach. officials have said there are limits to what can be achieved by military force and the people of the region need to step up and overcome the challenges that they face. as one official put it with, we couldn't do it for them when we had troops in iraq. we couldn't do it for them when

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we've talked a lot tonight about the shortcomings of the u.s. strategy against isis, how it's unclear and inconsistent, that it ignores reality. but the truth is, there are no easy answers here. the president and our country face a difficult choice between two very bad options. one option is to fight isis head on, which means a war, a big war with american troops fighting and dying for years to come. the second option is to walk away from the region, increase checkpoints at airports, moderate extremists and basically let the middle east sort out its own problems. but then isis would continue to have a safe haven. the president, instead, chose a middle ground. a strategy that tries to manage this war from afar with a few american advisors. but here's the thing. this so-called middle ground could become a slippery slope. because both the number of advisers and the scale of american involvement are likely to grow. they already have.

and data show so far it's not working. usually half measures don't end wars, they just keep them going. thank you very much for joining us and good night. big chill. another day of record lows expected in some parts of the country as winter makes an early arrival. where will it be worse today chill in the air at a gathering of world leaders. president obama delivers a stern message to one of his counter parts. risky business, the battle on tap toll ill on immigration up a the keystone pipeline pop could it all end in another government shutdown? for the first time ever, you can buy one of the superhero shows of all time. why did it take so