joining me now is clarissa ward. she is a senior international correspondent for cnn, she spent the last six years reporting from syria, and it was announced yesterday that she was one of the recipients of the 2016 peabody award for her series undercover in syria. and here is a look at that. >> it was just an air strike here in the town of arija so we're driving very qukly. it's not clear yet what was hit but we are hearing that there are still plains in the sky. >> arriving on the scene our team found chaos and carnage. volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferry out the wounded. for many it was too late. a woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, an attempt to preserve her dignity. russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. this strike hit a busy fruit market. >> this is just a civilian market. this is not a military area. >> there are no military installations here or anything. it's a market. it's a market. a fruit market. is this what you want? >> >> rose: i'

. >> let's bring in senior international correspondent clarissa ward. she's live on turkey's border live for us this morning. what impact are you expecting these meetings might have on the situation in syria now? >> reporter: well, boris, i think it's tough to tell. i think secretary of state rex tillerson really has his work cut out for him. he is going to moscow essentially trying to ask the russians to disengage from the regime of bashar al-assad, to stop propping them up, and that's a very big ask because the relationship between russia and the assad family goes back decades. russia has spent hundreds of millions if not billions propping up the regime, selling them weaponry, helping them financially, not to mention its own military intervention. so, it is going to take a lot of persuasion to tell them that they should suddenly reverse course. it's important to remember that syria is really russia's only major ally or toe hold in the entire middle east. it has given them access to the mediterranean. and beyond all that, forest, it has really become t

lets begin our coverage now with our international correspondent clarissa ward. what are we learning of these air strikes. >> reporter: tlrl several air strikes after the u.s. strike over the air base. activists say there is one woman have been kailled and three others injured. the attempt by bashar al-assad to show defiance and show that'll not be cowed and military campaign against the opposition is continuing. as you mentioned, we know the air base, once again this is the air base that u.s. strikes targeted. although it is important to end the size that the u.s. did not attempt to render the base on usable. the attempt from the u.s. strikes point of view was to stop it from being used as a launch base as chemical weapons. the u.s. targeted 20 syrians claims there as well as weapon dump and storage facility. they did not destroy the runway itself. we know that the russians have moved with crew missiles aboardaboarrted towards the west of syria. this looks like a display of force. despite these strikes, the assad regime, and its backers in the form of russian mi

joining me is clarissa ward, a correspondent from cnn. spent six years reporting from syria and was a recipient of the peabody award for her series, "undercover in syria." clarissa: there was just an airstrike in this town. it is not clear what was hit, but we are hearing there are still planes in the sky. our team found chaos and carnage. volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferry out the wounded. for many, it was too late. a woman was dead on the ground with a jacket draped over her in an attempt to preserve her dignity. russia has claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. this one hit a busy fruit market. >> this is just a civilian market. there are no installations here. it is a market, a market. a fruit market. is this what you want? charlie: i'm pleased to have clarissa ward at this table. you are in town to celebrate with your friends and receive another reward? clarissa: a very exciting one. it's always a tremendous honor to receive an award from your peers. charlie: when were you last in syria? clarissa: i was

charlie: i'm pleased to have clarissa ward at this table. welcome. clarissa: thank you.ie: you are in town to celebrate with your friends and receive another reward? clarissa: a very exciting one. it's always a tremendous honor to receive an award from your peers, from people who do the same type of work. it's a particularly exciting one to win. charlie: when were you last in syria? clarissa: i was last inside syria when i made that series of pieces, "undercover in syria." that was last march. i have been trying to go again, especially after the recent strikes -- the u.s. strikes and the chemical attack. unfortunately, now it has become incredibly difficult to gain access. "the guardian" was able to get in there briefly but with the , turkish referendum, the turkish authorities were reluctant to allow journalists to visit the scene of the chemical attack and piece together what happened. charlie: of all the places you have seen, you still say that nothing compares to syria? clarissa: it is true. i go through in my mind, and it is not to minimize the horrors of any war zo

at lea let's get to clarissa ward on the border between syria and turkey. clarissa, do you know who's behind these new air strikes and the effect of those strikes? >> well, ana, there are only two possible candidates in terms of who could be responsible for these strikes because the only fighters jet in the air above d idlib, russian jets and the jets belonging to the regime of bashar al assad. it would appear that they are one of the two of them is the likely culprit. we're hearing from activists on the ground that so far one woman has been confirmed dead in the air strikes. three people have been confirmed as injured. it's not entirely surprising that the death toll is not that high because the town, according to activists who we have spoken to on the ground, has been largely deserted since that chemical attack earlier in the week in which as you said, 89 people are now confirmed to be dead. if it's indeed deserted largely, one can assume the message behind these air strikes was more about showing a posture of defiance, of showing that the regime of bashar

let's begin with cnn senior international correspondent clarissa ward. she is near the border between syria and turkey. so, clarissa, what are we learning about these new air strikes? >> fredricka, what we're hearing so far -- and this is from activists inside syria, that there were a series of air strike strikes. so far reports of only one woman being killed and three others being injured. as you said before it's not clear exactly who was responsible for these air strikes. but it's important for our audience to understand that essentially it is only syrian regime fighter jets and also russian planes in the skies bombing rebel-held idlib. this could be an act of defiance and attempt on part of the bashir al assad regime and army to show that they are active and somehow, perhaps, punishing this to town. this is the town where that gastly chemical attack took place. we're also seeing in concordance of a defiant posture of the regime of bashir al assad that the air base that the u.s. struck on friday is now operational again. and we've seen the russian milit

cnn senior international correspondents clarissa ward and matthew chance is with us now. clarissa, tell us what you're hearing about these latest air strikes in western syria, who's behind them and what's the possible explanation why this town is being targeted again? >> reporter: well, from what we're hearing from activists on the ground, ana, it's believed the town, which is as you said the town that was the site of this awful gas attack earlier in the week where 89 people were killed has been hit again. we're hearing from activists based there that at least one woman has been killed, three other injured. these sort of air strikes are very much regular occurrence in particularly in idlib province. certainly, it's impossible to believe that this is not also some kind of a message, some kind of a retaliatory punishment to the people. although i should say one of the reasons that the death toll doesn't appear to be very high is possibly because the town is reportedly largely deserted. but i think more broadly speaking, ana, what we're seeing today from the assad regime is t

clarissa ward, thank you. a critical response to consider going forward is how will this affect the very delicate relationship between the u.s. and russia. particularly, as we've just mentioned here, it reveals if the kremlin was complicit in this attack at all. the russian ambassador condemned the military action calling the missile strikes a, quote, flagrant violation of international law. watch. >> on the night of the 7th of april, the united states attacked the territory of sovereign syria. to redescribe that attack as a fragrant violation of international law and act of aggression. we strongly condemn the illegitimate actions by the u.s. the consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious. >> joining me now, thomas pickering, former u.s. ambassador to russia. mr. ambassador, welcome. >> thank you. nice to be with you. >> nice to have you on. i mean, just off of our conversation on russia, specifically, sir, how plausible is russia's complicity in this? >> i think t

. >> cnn's clarissa ward on the turkish border with syria right now. there are these meetings going on in moscow right now between the united states and russia about the syrians and about the people that you've spent so much time with covering. there was some support for the actions taken by the u.s. last week, but as they're watching what's going on in moscow right now, what are the people caught in the middle of this? what do the syrians want? >> reporter: i think if you talk to anyone, john, who supports the syrian opposition, there is a feeling of frustration that the trump administration has not gone any further than that one night of strikes that we saw on that regime air base. it's very much inside rebel-held syria business as usual by which i mean that the regime has been dropping bombs. there are air strikes across the area and more a tacts today in the town of kahn sheikhoun, and that is the town where the chemical attack took place and there are activists inside of the use of cluster bombs. again, we can't confirm all of these, but it gives

want to begin with cnn's senior international correspondent, clarissa ward, live along the syrian/turkish border. clarissa, it doesn't sound like secretary tillerson will pressure russia for regime change in syria. he says isis is the bigger foc s focus. does this alter the bigger picture? >> i don't think it does. even though we've heard secretary of state rex tillerson reiterate what the trump administration has been saying for some time, and frankly what the obama administration was saying before it, that the priority when it comes to america's interests in syria is to defeat isis once and for all, at the same time regardless of that, there is absolutely no doubt that this strike has affected the power dynamics of the various international parties who are involved with the syrian conflict. and i do think have seen tillerson of step away from comments a week ago which basically said it is up to the syrian people to decide whether assad stays or goes, to now the fact talking about the fact that it does not appear stability can exist syria with bashar al assad in power. while regime chang

i want to begin with senior international correspondent clarissa ward. does it appear to our allies in that region that the white house has a clear plan? >> reporter: i don't think anyone in the region in terms of allies sees a clear plan, partially for the reasons you were illuminating talking about the disparity that seems to exit between the type of rhetoric that we're hearing from the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley and what we're hearing also from the secretary of state rex tillerson. while fundamentally there seems to be agreement about the fact there has been a pivot is away from this idea that bashar al assad does not need to step down and that's a decision the syrian people should make, now there's more of a growing consensus in fact it is unlikely there can be any stability or peaceful resolution to the situation in syria as long as he remains in power. we do see a slightdy vergence of opinion as you played with that sound, a more aggressive stance towards bashar al assad and along with the fight against sis, while rex tillerson seems t

. >> let's go to clarissa ward there along the syrian/turkish border. there was a lot to that news conference. >> the thing that caught my ear to the point i still don't understand if he was speaking correctly is that he mentioned on three occasions barrel bombs. barrel bombs are these commonly used by the regime of bashar al assad. they are essentially crudely made barrels stuffed with explosives and nails and they are dropped out of the back of helicopters on to civilian populations. what he said was when he was talking about what would prompt or elicit another strike or strong reaction from the president he talked about chemical weapons and barrel bombs. take a listen. >> the red line for this white house chemical warfare, is conventional warfare enough to get the president to go further than this white house has gone before? >> the president has been clear there are a a number of lines that were crossed last week. he's not going to sit down. we saw that in the last administration. they drew these red lines and the red lines were run over. i don't th

wolf. >> clarissa ward on the border there with syria, be careful over there, clarissa. we'll check back with you. thank you very much. >>> joining us now is republican senator john mccain from arizona, the chairman of the senate armed services committee. thanks, senator. >> you're welcome. >> do you believe that russia played an actual role in the delivery of those chemical weapons to kill those civilians, including a lot of children the other day, that they were involved or at a minimum knew about it? >> i would imagine that they would probably know about it since they are allies of bashar al assad, but they are the ones that used the precision weapons against hospitals in aleppo. look, they are as bad as bashar al assad. come on, they have helped them with the barrel bombs. they have bailed them out time after time, but especially again. it was russian aircraft with precision weapons that targeted -- that specifically targeted hospitals, send drones over them, identify them and then attack them. >> putin promised the u.s. they would do whatever was necessary to remove

joining us tonight, clarissa ward, matthew chance, will ripley. he is the only american journalist in pyongyang. also joining us a panel of professionals. we begin with a look at how the administration is dealing with it. jim sciutto has details. >> i order a targeted military strike on the air field in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. >> reporter: to what extent does a single strike against a single target define president trump's approach to what u.s. intelligence agencies call the most diverse array of national security threats to the u.s. in decades, from syria to, russia, to north korea, china and isis? >> the world is a mess. i inherited a mess. whether it's the middle east, whether it's north korea, whether it's so many other things. >> reporter: what is the trump doctrine? >> we do what we can to make sure that our interests economically and national security are at the forefront. we're not just going to become the world's policeman running around the world. >> reporter: military action against one side of a war the u.s.

clarissa ward is with us as well. she spent a lot of time in syria as well. let's not forget, clarissa, over the past years, 300,000, 400,000 syrians have been killed in this war that's been going on. and millions have been made homeless what words did you hear that were encouraging from president trump. >> we have seen this movie many times before. we have heard the condemnations. we have heard the personal and i'm sure authentic accounts of how moved presidents and politicians and people in power have been to see these horrifying images of young children choking to death at the hands of a poisonous gas disseminated by their own government. but i did not see anything in the way of an indication that there would be a substantial shift on the syria policy. i just want to draw your attention to one thing president trump said. i'm not saying i'm going to be doing anything one way or the other. but i'm certainly not going to tell you. the indication there seems to be, i haven't made any decision yet. i am keeping all my options open. and i'm not going to be consul

joining us tonight, clarissa ward, matthew chance, will ripley. he is the only american

matt lewis, clarissa ward, mark preston, kevin man, simone sanders, and andre bauer. matt lewis, i am struck by how important this evening seems to the trump white house. you have aides tweeting about it. the president's been hyping it all week. they are very proud of the split screen we'll have tonight and he wants to deliver a clear message and that is? >>that there are two americas, working class americans and then there's washington elites at the hilton tonight. >> he's going to a place that he can -- he didn't win the counties surrounding harrisburg but he won around it by a lot. he's thanking them in a way tonight. he's touting his accomplishments, we expect. what evidence can he put towards these peoplehat i have made your life better. when it comes to the voters that he's talking to tonight, what can he say to directly make the argument that yes, i've made your life materially better. >> this is going to be a rally that's loud, proud and genuinely american. y'all are going to cover it as is everyone else. he's going to talk about the things that put us genuine

>> all right, i want to bring in bob behar, and clarissa ward.ob, how concerned are you about all of this? >> very concerned. if they managed to make batteries, anderson, into explosives or hide explosives or in this case probably chemicals, a mixture of chemicals. that is a new development, never been seen before. and getting through airport security is fairly easy. i mean, explosives -- emanate nitrates, easy to detect in countries like amman, and if they find a way to mix chemicals inside a battery in a laptop, it's almost undetectible. >> clarissa, you follow these terrorist groups who were certainly trying to perfect these devices for a long time. they moved to more sophisticated high tech explosives. you pointed out that there is no greater prize for them than bringing down an aircraft. >> that is right, anderson, it is almost an obsession with groups around the world, seen as the holy grail, because essentially in one fell swoop you maximize the casualties, and also deal a blow to the aviation industry, and also a threat to this global wor

. >> i want to bring in cnn senior international correspondent clarissa ward and nic robertson at theite of the g 7 meeting. secretary tillerson says the missile strikes delivered a message to syria's assad, but in a show of defiance the planes are still taking off from that air field and conventional bombs are still being dropped. what's the message syria is sending to the world? >> well, i think the message that the syrian regime is sending to the world is that it's business as usual. we will continue to carry out air strikes on civilian areas. we will continue to kill people with whatever -- we will continue to use the air base and it's business as normal. we continue to have the strong iron clad backing of both russia and iran who are by the way the pr predominant fighting forces on the battle field. if you want to talk about the message that's coming from the syrian opposition it's thank you very much for those strikes, but they're not enough. we need more help. bashar al assad must go. why does it matter if he is killing us with sarin gas or some kind of conventional agent. the

clarissa ward is live in the area. russia said america has no proof they used clepsz. they said removing assad was not the priority, president trump said. >> well, there's any number of reasons for using the chemical weapons. the president has been torturing and maiming and bombing and shooting his own people for years now and has killed hundreds of thousands of them. some believe perhaps he chose to gas his own people at this time for two reasons. one, possibly he felt somehow empowered that the international community had given up on trying to solve syria, that no one was essentially trying to stop him as he continued on his winning streak and two, potentially that he was also empowered after the victory in aleppo to the extent it can be called a victory, because nothing really remains of much of that city to this day, that perhaps he felt he wanted to focus on idlib province, the rebel-held area, the last rent-held strong hold in the northern part of the country. others have suggested it's possible after the comments we heard from secretary of state rex tillerson wh

tonight two of our journalists who spent time in syria, our international continues, dawa davis and clarissa wardump administration's response on the one hand saying this can't be ignored by the world. and in the next sentence they blame the obama administration for setting the red line and then not acting on it. but it doesn't seem like there's going to be any action on the part of the u.s. this time either. >> that's what's so devastating about this, there's some sort of moral come pass that has been broken because of what's been happening in syria for so long. actually take actions to make it stop. the donald trump administration does have an opportunity right here not to let history repeat itself, many would argue that they have a responsibility to do that as well. >> and again, we just heard from rex tillerson, essentially a change in u.s. policy, essentially where he said that basically it's up to the syrian people whether or not the future of syria and assad. i want to play something john mccain said about that. >> bashar assad and his friends, the russians take note of what americans say,

from the syrian border to bye g pyongyang, let's begin with clarissa ward along the turkish syrian border. how are syria and its allies responding? >> ana, we definitely are hearing some tough words from the regime of the president of bashar al assad and also its russian and iranian backers essentially saying if the u.s. pulls something like this again, there will be real consequences. now, this was always the argument that the obama administration had given for not intervening more forcefully or mill taerl inside syria. that perhaps in doing so it could precipitate or escalate an actual clash between u.s. forces and russian forces potentially leading to some kind of a global conflict or a world war iii. that would be a worst case scenario. at this stage we still don't really know exactly what trump's policy in syria is going to look like. we've seen some glimpses of it today hearing from u.n. ambassador nikki haley who said assad is definitely one of our priorities in the sense that he should go. different message from tillerson. of course the concern from some is that it's difficult to

clarissa ward. welcome to allclarissa, what ise that north korea is sending by this latest missile test? >> well, this is actually a strategy that we've seen the north koreans implement for years now. it's this kind of endless cycle of we do something erratic and crazy is that puts the hold world on edge and previously the world responded by saying let's sit down at the negotiating table and we'll give you more aid and you can extract some more concessions from us and this is why the trump administration said we want to end this era of strategic patience. well, the problem with ending strategic patience is you have to replace it with something else. as of yet we don't know what that is. while we don't know what president trump's red lines are, we also don't know what the young kims red lines are as well. that's what gives me some real cause for concern. i think obviously this is a response to heightened tensions in the korean peninsula. u.s. naval presence there. joint military exercises going on. t

clarissa ward is joining me. you say this is strategy, the hitler comparison? >> reporter: well, i'm concerned that it's less strategy and more saying that it's something that you regret. you're setting up a precedent where you are comparing bashar al assad to hitler. you are putting him on par with hitler who is i think widely considered to be one of the most evil man ever to have lived on the face of the earth. if you're creating that parallel, you'll find yourself in a situation where you will feel a lot of pressure to try to get rid of this leader before he engages in more evil acts. it's these rhetorical flourishes that can be a slippery slope. this is exactly how barack obama boxed himself into a corner with the so-called red line incident. so i think making these types of comparisons, while it's easy to say in the heat of the moment, they can have consequences and words do matter and mean something that would be my first point. my second point is he goes on to talk about russia and the reason we're confident that russia has a -- they don't want to be on

let's go to clarissa ward on the syria-turkish border. it fathers that the syrian dictator is defind tonight. roimt we >> reporter: i think assad is issuing a bombast tic statement calling the u.s. shortsighted and we are hearing reports from activists inside idlib province where the chemical attack took place that there have been air strikes from regime warplanes this evening. at the same time, i don't think there's any doubt that last night's u.s. strikes on the syrian regime had definitely had an impact on the battlefield. not so much perhaps in terms of curtailing the winning streak that the regime of bashar al assad has been on but certainly in temples of re-establishing america as having a prominent voice at the negotiating table, as having leverage and as providing a kind of p counterbalance to the russian domination of the syrian conflict. i don't think anyone this time a week ago would have expected that we would be hearing syrian rebels referring affection nate referring to president president trump in a fond term. nobody on the

joining us tonight, clarissa ward, matthew chance, will ripley.e only american journalist in pyongyang. also joining us a panel of professionals. we begin with a look at how the administration is dealing with it. jim sciutto has details.

clarissa ward is here. demi tree, let me just share this moment l.esident trump is welcoming the egyptian president to the white house. and the president said he has a friend in him and on the left side you see the handshake. on the right we're putting this up here because you asked about the merkel meeting and the chillier reception and the nonhandshake moment. what do you make of the meeting? >> this is a a big week for donald trump. the a obama administration saw him as oppressive on human rights. so this is a a clear shift in american foreign policy. but i think the big meeting is the end of the week with the chinese president because the relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. >> let me just follow up and ask you about that. how that will come up and one of the quotes here from trump, if china is not going to solve north korea, we will. when you read it, it seems like a threat. how does it sound to you? >> it sounded like someone who was told by president obama that north korea is the most eminent national s

i want to bring in cnn clarissa ward. she's long the syria/turkey border. president trump asked general mattis, the secretary of defense for an up date on the missile strikes. mattis said 20% of the operational syrian air force was either destroyed or damaged. are we getting a clear sense of how much damage was done to this syrian air base? >> well, wolf, it's really difficult to get a sense of just how much damage was done, because obviously each side has its own narrative. the syrian regime almost immediately started flying planes out of the air base obviously in an attempt to try to show that they were -- that their planes could still fly from there air base. at the same time that does not gel with what we heard yesterday from general mattis, secretary of defense mattis. he said that 20% of the syrian air forces fixed wing aircraft had been either severely damaged or destroyed. that is a huge amount if indeed it is 20%. that would mean they have roughly 100 fixed wing aircraft. we've looked into some defense analysts who said before the civil war they ha

our senior correspondent clarissa ward.itary and diplomatic correspondent john kirby, former spokesman at the pentagon and state department. this is going to make the north koreans very angry, very nervous. the "uss carl vinson," that battle group comes in and begins joint exercises with their arch enemy south korea that always generates not just nervousness but a reaction from north korea. >> it typically does generate a reaction and i think you can be assured the pacific command will be watching this to see if there is a specific tangible reaction to the exercise. but i talked to folks in the navy this morning and tell me this was an exercise although not long planned done in in the context of the recent provocations was not done in answer to yesterday's missile test but a chance to continue to hone some capabilities, some naval capabilities but to send a strong message we have a military presence in the region and it's potent and powerful and it's something that north needs to take seriously. >> presumably the north kore

. >>> let's bring in the panel, fareed zakaria, mark hertling and c and clarissa ward. have you seen or heard talk of a shift in the balance of power or any kind of change on perceptions of the balance of power? >> well, i think, anderson, you are not going to see a shift on the battlefield in terms of this is unlikely to really reign in the winning streak that the regime of assad has been on. but where you might see a bit of shift in balance is in this larger proxy war. for a long time now, the u.s. has essentially been sitting on the sidelines kind of ringing its hands over what to do and who if anyone to support while russia has sort of emerged as the dominant force in the syrian conflict. i do think that for better or for worse or with whatever intention there was behind it, these u.s. strikes have certainly forced everyone at the negotiating table, whether it's the russians, whether it's the iranians, whether it's hezbollah, whether it's those supporting the opposition to kind of reassess and take stock for a moment that the u.s. actually does have some leverage an