not of the execution but of the video coming out of the jordanian pilot, lieutenant colonel rick francona the significance of this happening in succession? >> well, it is a reaction and the king had to do something. they had threatened to do something, and they carried it out out. now we have to see what they do next. the king has a mandate and the tribes are on his side. there was talk in jordan and is this really our battle. that has now passed a on the the king is on solid ground, and he is going to be taking increased military action and we will be seeing increased jordanian participation in the coalition, and we don't want to have independent operations, because we want them to do it in conjunction with the coalition, and do it forcefully and effectively to have the designred effect on isis, but everybodile welcomes their special operations who are by the way an excellent military force >> and not short riffed that they executed a top operative to al qaeda. >> yes, zawahiri is the founding father of isis and baghdadi the leader of isis now shgs, was one of zawahiri's top men, and put

i want to bring in colonel rick franco francona francona. welcome. >> good morning. >> the u.s.needs to defeat isis. isn't mission creep inevitable now? >> i think so. we have to address isis wherever it pops up. as isis expands we have to take action to defeat it. i think the authorization to use military force is broad enough to address that. it doesn't restrict operations to a specific area. one question we might look at is egypt going to join the coalition now as an active partner. i think it was refreshing to see egyptians avenging christian blood. there have been a lot of accusations against the el sisi government he has not been active enough going after christian violence. this is a welcome sign. >> egypt says it needs help and approached the u.n. what should be done? >> egypt has been in a bad way since el sisi gained power. the united states regarded that as a coupe and restricted parts for the f-16 fleet and they need parts for apaches to address the threat in libya but their other border in the sinai peninsula. egypt does need help from the united states and internat

we have lieutenant colonel rick francona, a former military attache in the middle east. he joins us by skype in california. colonel, when we look at the military options on the table for the jordanians, how soon do you expect action here and what will it be? >> i don't think we're going to see anything immediately. i know there's a demand among the jordanians that they do something, something be done quickly. the king has a mandate now, i believe, to do something. i've talked to people in the jordanian air force today. they're anxious to do something. but this is not something that you can just throw a switch and do. they have to plan what they're going to do. they have to dpagather the intelligence and coordinate this with the coalition. we don't want the jordanians running off and conducting independent operations. it's better if they do it in the umbrella of the coalition. they can use coalition refueling, intelligence, electronic warfare, other support of the units in the area. we would also like to see increased jordanian cooperation. everybody would welcome more jo

joining me now to discuss cnn political commentator peter binert and lieutenant colonel rick franconae to both of you. >> good morning. >> colonel, the u.s. military is planning a spring offensive. they'll outnumber them 12 to 1. you have been to mosul. this will involve door-to-door fighting urban combat. explain why this won't be so simple. >> any time you go into a built up area you have a lot of danger because of the streets and the fact that we've told the isis fighters that they've got about two, three months to prepare for this. they're going to set up booby traps, lay down fields of fire. this is like the marines going into fallujah a couple years back. it will be block by block, street by street down to house by house. and we're not sure the iraqis are really trained up for this yet. i think they're really pushing the time schedule up. >> really? like expound on that. pushing the time -- >> yes. >> why? say more. >> the iraqi army that existed in 2013 when isis came into mosul doesn't exist anymore. we basically started from scratch. you have to re-officer reequip, retrain. w

. >>> cnn military analyst rick francona joy joinsnow joins me. rick this certainly a disturbing video. it's particularly worrying for a lot of reasons not the least of which is the reason that isis is expanding its territorial presence into libya. how well established do you think they are in the country? >> there's been a radical islamist presence in libya for some time. what's worrying is now they are self self-identifying with isis. we see them coalescing into this one big organization called isis. and it presents a real problem because as this group expands, the west united states has to figure out how do we counter this. while we can come up with a military solution or military operation in a restricted area like syria and iraq what do we do in expanse to north africa? this presence a real challenge to the west. >> of course this is also a concern for europe given the close proximity to libya and the fact that the militant in that video says isis will take its fight rome or to european countries -- what do european countries need to be think

. >> for more on all this rick francona is a retired u.s. colonel.a lot to touch on at this hour. i want to start with the syrians. first of all, how involved in the syrian christians involved in the fight against isis? >> well, there's a split between the kurds and the assyrians on this because generally, the assyrians are supporting the assad government because they're afraid of an islamic takeover. the kurds, on the other hand they're a different group. some support the government some are anti-government. all of them are anti-isis. what they want is to be left alone. they would like to have their own syrian enclave. so the two groups will work together against isis but generally, they're not that cooperative. now, the problem will be there are some reports, and i don't know if it's confirmed that the women that are being taken hostage and wanting to be exchanged for prisoners that the kurds have taken. it's doubtful that the assyrians are going to be released for kurds. i just don't see that happens. so the situation up there is very grim and man

cnn military analyst rick francona explains isis' growing presence in libya. >> there's been a real radicalislamist presence in libya for some time. what's worrying is now they are self-identifying with isis. you know before we had them identifying themselves as al qaeda or different extremist groups. but now we see them coalescing into this one big organization called isis and it presence a real problem because as this group expands the west united states has to figure out how do we counter this. while we can come up with a military solution or military operation in a restricted area like syria and iraq, what do we do in expanse to -- when it ex-pansion to north africa? >> in the iraqi town of sinjar, fires are engaged in gun battles with isis militants. isis has maintained a strong hole over sinjar over the border here. >> many refugee are in the neighboring mountains. phil black spoke to two women about their experiences at the hands of isis. >> reporter: sinjar is now mostly empty. blackened and battered by war. isis holds this town firmly. from a peshmerga position above, we hear fast-

john mcguire traveled and now national security analyst peter berg nen and refired francona and untold stories from the fight against muslim fundamentalism. peter, this video, it is an escalation in the way they are murdering hostages. clearly, seems to be designed to shock and continue trying to dominate headlines to get attention. >> yeah but i think it's going to spectacularly. if you go back to the hoelgt bombings where female suicide bomber the isis wanted. they killed 60 people. most were attending a wedding. >> three different hotels in iman. >> it was a huge goal for al qaeda. the head of al qaeda at the time jordanian, almost an apology saying we attacked these hotels because israeli spies were frequenting them. that was the goal on steroids here where these groups position themselves as a defender of islam and muslims and yet the victims are overwhelmingly muslim and in this particular case killed a fellow muslim in the most grizzly way imaginable. as the jim foley execution precipitated the coalition against isis that we have i think this will participate more arab involveme

. >> lieutenant colonel rick francona thank you for your insight. appreciate it. >> thanks carol. >>> the accusations that they delayed attempts to rescue kayla mueller are false. a spokesman for the national security council says quote, u.s. forces conducted this operation as soon as the president and his national security team were confident the mission could be carried out. now among the hostages they were trying to find was american journalist james foley. foley, who was abducted while reporting in war torn syria, was brutally killed by isis last summer. earlier this morning his parents talked with cnn. >> we were too quiet. we -- we followed a policy of secrecy initially at the request of the captors and our government. eventually we heard nothing and became frantic and went public. i think in this country the only way to change feeling activity is through public debates, votes. >> had the world known that 18 journalists and aid workers were held together, i think in their most hopeful moments the captives really envisioned a coalition of gover

joining me now, cnn military analyst, luc francona and former chairman of the house intelligence committeengressman, this news this idea that isis is planning to kidnap westerners in jordan and lebanon, bring back into syria. it would certainly be an escalation in the tactics but as i said in the calculus of isis it makes a certain amount of sense. >> absolutely. you know this goes way back. al qaeda in the magrav in northern africa was the number one splier of cash to al qaeda corps, the leadership through ransom. remember isis used to be an al qaeda affiliate. so this has been through their ranks from northern africa to the middle east to afghanistan. we even saw the taliban have discussions after the taliban five exchange say, hey, we need to go out and buy some western hostages to keep them for some negotiation ability. this is a, very plausible and b, in both lebanon and jordan it is because of the border issues there, the large number of people from syria coming over the large number of refugee camps, this is absolutely plausible and that's what makes it i think, credible. >> colonel

and so lieutenant colonel francona what do you think about the isis prisoners there? they are feeling their future is bleak? >> yes, the calculation is going to be not changing the strategy much. the woman and the man that were hanged are not going to be inkreescreased are revenge by isis, because it can't be any worse than it has been so the executions were more to satisfy the demand for action of the king of the government. as jomana said they were people out there on the streets demanding that the government do something. we knew it would happen. we knew it would happen fairly quickly, and it has happened. >> and you mentioned that they probably can't get any worse, but they mag tonage to do it each time. do you know anything about the number of hostages they hold? >> well everybody focuses on the number of hos sajs they care about, and there is an american being held, there and you have to assume that the future is very, very bleak. absent some sort of rescue attempt, it is very, very difficult to secure her release. >> and given the fact that the jordanian pilot,

i want to bring back our former fbi assistant director tom fuentes, retired colonel rick francona.ick, i don't understand it. i don't claim to understand it. but we're hearing these new cases that happen every week about young people who are being recruited and making their way over to join in this battle. i mean how do we explain this? >> it's baffling to me. and especially in light of what we've seen over the past couple of weeks. after the burning of the jordanian pilot and the reported burning of these 45 iraqi security officials in anbar province you would think that that would revile so many people that it would hurt recruiting efforts. yet we're seeing the exact opposite. we're seeing people flock to this organization. it must be the draw that these people feel that this is the pure islam and this is what i want to be a part of. but to me it's just counter intuitive. i can't explain it. >> tom, in light of the fact that you've got this recruitment that is happening here a lot of propaganda particularly online here this would seem to me -- if it's working, seems to be working

bring in military analyst lieutenant francona. good to have you this morning. >> good morning, victor. >> secretary carter has taken office and already in afghanistan. he said the operation to take mosuls this is a, quote will be iraq led and u.s. supported. do you think that support will likely include combat troops? are the iraqi forces strong enough to do it? >> well i think erin hit the key right there, skepticism. there is a lot of skepticism in the u.s. military about the iraqis' ability in this short period of time to be ready to send five brigades into mosul. the numbers sound good looks good on paper, but when you talk to the people actually involved in this, they don't feel that the iraqis have grasped what they need to do and there isn't that real desire to get into an urban warfare situation in mosul. and the people in mosul, of course, need to be supportive of this. what we're hearing is that they don't want a shia army coming back into mosul. the iraqi army is largely made up of shia. in fact the most effective units

so joining me now, let's talk to lieutenant colonel rick francona. thank you for being with us.esterday's attack iraqi forces fought off isis with the backing of u.s. air power. if isis were to attack this base again, the base where at least we know 300 plus u.s. marines are stationed, does that change or modify the strategy for the u.s. at all? >> yeah. i think it has to. and i think they will attack again. this is nothing new. we've been seeing this for several weeks now. they've been probing that base been clashes there before in which the americans were involved. they've got their eyes set on this. if you look at where the base sits halfway between baghdad and the syrian border, and it's on the -- it's off the euphrates river, al baghdadi is on the euphrates river, and it's an area they want to control. they want that whole valley. this air base sits in the middle of the area they want. they're going to attack it again. what does the united states do? do we double down and reinforce it? do we bring more people in? do we evacuate the base? evacuating the base is basically sur