the counter offensive by iraqi government forces we are joined now via skype from baghdad by matthew bradley of the wall street journal. >> matt thanks for joining us, what is the latest at this hour? >> the latest is the .. last couple of hours is the appearance of the islamic state leader abu who made his first video appearance just today .. and in the last couple of hours, a video that was on social media and supposedly shows him giving what is called a hukba or sort of like a sermon to a meeting of muslims in a mosque in mosul, a city in iraq yesterday. so this is a very big deal because abu is only, the only known photos of him available and he is a notoriously elusive character and now a lengthy video sequence of him for the first time, and it is a very interesting development. we are now putting a face to a name of a jihadi leader who really has eclipsed al qaeda and the leader of al qaeda in the last couple of month in terms of power and in terms of popularitied. >> you know, you are in baghdad. what is the mood on the streets right now in baghdad? how close are sort of these forces