for more on this, let's bring in charles mcdermott. talk about how this operation will work. charles: it was an interesting statement from the iraqi government. they said they would launch the operation, but nothing has started yet. they give interesting details. they said the sunnis will take part, the shia militias will take part, and the iraq he forces, which suffered a big defeat. it is a lot of face-saving for that baghdad government. nothing has happened just yet. genie: you mentioned this face-saving for the iraqi government. tell us more about that. charles: ramadi fell. it is really an embarrassment. troops were reported to have left as they did last year in basel -- in most tool -- in mosul. there were massive waves of car bombs, and they -- the face-saving is not just for baghdad but also for the u.s. because their strategy has not proven to be working. genie: charles, thank you for that. charles the german -- charles mcdermott reporting. the first hearing in the trial of the "washington post" t ehran correspondent on charges of espionage. jason rezaian has dual ira

our team coverage starts in iraq with grn correspondent charles mcdermott. charles, what happened in baghdad? >> this is two mawive bombs that attacked hotels, luxury hotels. this is north going to be the end of this. i don't think anyone should be really surprised. as soon as they established positions around ramadi, which is very close and fallujah i mean, you had to expect some attack on baghdad. i think this is a huge victory, symbolically for isis. and they are going to continue these attacks. >> well, charles sort of the thinking on -- in this part of the world is that isis wanted their territory. they got it with ramadi. they were building their caliphate, and the hope was that they weren't going to go further down into baghdad. so now we see that they have actually moved into baghdad so it sounds like that they have much greater aspirations in iraq. >> well, let's talk about what that really means. had what you are talking about is shia vs. sunni. isis is a sunni movement where they have their support and where they have their -- the people that back

charles mcdermott joins us live. tell me about why palmyra is such a strategic gain for isis. >> it's strategic because it's on a cross roads. it allows them to launch attacks into da mat cuss and it controls the road into iraq. strategic for a lot of reasons. there is also an oil field there. it is also very symbolic. a lot of the refugees came. it's what isis does. you know they take the targeted. it is a propaganda machine. and with these beautiful relics i mean this is a huge win for isis symbolically strategically. they're doing what they do infamously well. >> how could no one beat them? where are the syrian forces on this? how is isis able to do this? >> okay. that's -- i haven't seen any casualties. i don't know if there are any out there. this is the first time isis has taken big civilian population from the syrian military. and that's a big trend. this also means they have the stain lagss themselves now. so it's a big win for them. >> and they destroyed ancient artifacts, right? >> i don't know if they have