the peshmerga are moving through the village. securing the area street by street and more and more civilians are appearing. they can speak freely for the first time in over two years, but there is still some tension here. the fighters are concerned that among those coming out onto the streets there could be suicide bombers. but there were no threats concealed among the villagers. they were savouring the chance to reclaim old pleasures, banned by the jihadis. the black flag of is has been pulled down from the mosque. the peshmerga vowing never again will it be allowed to fly here. here's a thought, imagine surgery but without knives or scalpels, just sound waves. that's what doctors at a hospital in london have used to operate deep inside the human brain. the pioneering treatment was performed on a patient who suffered from uncontrollable trembling in his right hand. it could also be used to control the tremors caused by conditions such as parkinson's disease. over the past something years it's got worse and worse. selwyn is a pai

more than 10,000 peshmerga have been wounded.f we had better equipment, just imagine if you would send your own son and daughters to the battlefield. how would you like them to be equipped and protected? it's the same for us. >> if eisis is defeated there, the real question is governance after that. >> you have people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. with all this different components, there has to be some sort of an agreement or understanding about the future governing of the province or guarantees about the security and the stability of the province as a whole. unfortunately, that was postponed. there's no agreement reached. >> for the kurds, there has long been this desire it seems for independen independence. the obama administration has treated the situation very strictly as a one iraq policy going through everything through baghdad. are you hoping that somehow that changes in a trump administration? >> we think that this is a god given right to the kurdish people like every other nation. why should the kurds b

there is a handful of allies, a french and german folks working with peshmerga but there is darn fewns anywhere near the front and that's the only place you can lead from. u.s. led is a fiction. >> you bring in a important dose of reality tonight. you can add in kimberly dozier who has reputation for the daily beast wrote that steven townsend predicts it will take two years of hard work to clear the so-called islamic state from employee as you will and rocca and burn out the remnant that will likely flee to the fast empty did desert between syria and iraq. look, we have to give our military the time that it takes to do this properly and effectively it doesn't happen overnight. i get that, but, remember, this starterred with president obama saying isis was the jv squad. >> it got worse from there. we did absolutely nothing of any real substance to help the only people who were beating isis and that's, of course, the peshmerga. the whole problem with this and general townsend spot on and there will be criticism about why can't we go faster? you can't go faster with the limited number o

the area is now controlled by the peshmerga, a pro—western kurdish force.the factory‘s output is all around us. this is pretty much a bog—standard ied — a roadside bomb. it's not terribly sophisticated but absolutely does the business. i've been reporting on wars like this since the early 1970s. proxy wars, sectarian wars, dirty wars, with civilians getting the worst of it and being forced to become refugees. gunfire more shooting. it all brings back quite difficult memories for me. the worst incident really, i suppose, in my entire career 13 years ago, during the invasion led by the americans of iraq, when my team and i got caught up in a, well, what they call a friendly fire incident. report: the kurdish troops had been advancing all morning and had just captured the town of dibajan. in order to get there, we tagged onto a convoy of american and kurdish special forces. it was very soon after this moment that the bomb landed. bomb strike shouting it's the ammunition going up. just keep your head down. they're coming back. it's coming back. get away from he

also williams should have the freedom peshmerga all civilians should have the freedom to seek somewherethere are messages coming from the teams on the ground, it is an ongoing situation. it could be any minute now, it could be delayed to early hours of the morning. conditions are really terrible. there are about 100 on each bus. the red cross were telling people on the buses there are about 50 buses. we don't have confirmation but there are 100 people in each bus so you are 100 people in each bus so you are talking about 5000 people in a really terrible conditions. it's really terrible conditions. it's really cold and they are standing up on the buses, no toilets and no food stoplight when they are eventually out, where will they go and what will they find when they get there? says they will find some there are some shelters, some tents set up for the purpose. however, the buses are really crowded so they have nothing with them. they will find themselves in the cold with no clothes, no blankets, no heaters. and eight agencies will try to identify their needs and fulfil them. aid agencie

leadership of prime minister a body cooperation between the iraqi security forces in the kurdish peshmerga in the battle to retake mosul has reached a level that would've been unthinkable a year ago. we are taken steps to help promote and maintain the unity. we know that's the only way to keep isil defeated. as i said earlier, success in in iraq and syria is necessary but not efficient to deal a lasting defeat. that's why were focused on two other critical objectives of our campaign. combating isil's metastases around the world and helping protect our homeland. when it comes to combating the metastases, we've taken strong actions in support of capable and local forces in libya and afghanistan and elsewhere. in libya, the u.s. military has provided air support and forced to isolate and clap their -- collapse their control. as a result, isil is being ejected. in afghanistan, on chairman don my recommendation the president this year gave , expanded authorities to u.s. forces to proactively assist and enable our afghan partners and operations that would have strategic effects. we also the deci

in iraq, we been helping iraqi security forces and the kurdish peshmerga to systematically dislodge isilm city after city -- ramadi, falluja, kiara, others. our coalition is now doing the same in mosul, having isolated the city, the iraqis, with our help, taking back easter most of mosul and moving west. there is a complex mission will take time to accomplish, but i'm confident that isil's days in mosul are numbered. in syria, our local partners put an end to isil's expansion and then began to systematically roll it back towards raqqa, an important objective since the so-called capital of the caliphate and the hub for plotters of external attack. after helping capable and series -- and motivated local syrian forces defended kobani, we enabled them another forces to retake other places, denying isil control over those areas and cutting off their primary lines of communication into turkey and iraq. we are now helping our local partners isolate raqqa from which there's only 15 miles away. as the isolation phase continues we are generating additional local forces necessary to seize and hold

islamic state, they're doing things to help intelligence gathering, they're honoring the kurds, the peshmerga. remember isis is the biggest battle that led the united states into the intervention in syria. that was isis versus the pkk, they consider the kurds to be mortal enemies, at least kurds backed by the united states and germany. >> that horrible assassination that happened. the attack was chilling and graphic, we're going to play it now, and then we'll discuss it. [ gunfire ] >> alla akbar. >> the killer stood behind the ambassador. do not forget aleppo, do not forget syria. russia inserted itself into the syrian war they have been bombing hospital civilians, could this be a national attack, a pay back? >> it absolutely could. the motivations are, pretty clear from what he's saying, it's some sort of focus on russia for its support or at least the perceived support of what is happening in aleppo. there are two aspects to this that are quintessential -- he knew it was going to be filmed. we have these amazing photographs, this is going to have consequences well beyond that room imagine

responsible power in europe and beyond, and, for example, the green party voted to give arms to the peshmergacently, which is kind of a first. >> thank you so much indeed. there are so many bigger issues coming out of this attack, focused very much right now on finding the culprit. president obama moving to protect his legacy. apple a review of their futuristic ear buds coming up. p protect his legacy. apple a review of their futuristic ear buds coming up. . >>> barack obama's days in office are winding down, but he's still wielding the power of the presidency to make changes that a successor may not like all that much. cnn's athena jones reports on that. >> reporter: president obama moving to secure his legacy on the environment and beyond before he hands the presidency to donald trump. tonight, new measures to bar off-shore drilling indefinitely in parts of the arctic and atlantic ocean, in part to prevent environmental disasters like the bp oil spill. >> i share people's concerns about the off-shore drilling. i remember the bp spill in the gulf of mexico too well. >> it's an issue that has

all of us witnessed this unprecedented cooperation between the iraqi security forces and kurdish peshmerga which has been essential to this campaign. our coalition since the beginning of this campaign about two years ago, we trained about 65,000 iraqi personnel who are now fighting professionally and fighting heroically. they're trapped in mosul, unable to resupply or replenish their dwindling ranks. throughout this campaign we've conducted over 500 air strikes, destroyed about 100 car bombs, 100 tunnels, 300 bunkers. this is ongoing every single day. we're often asked how long is this going to take, and the answer is, in mosul, it will take as long as it takes. it's useful to remember other campaigns against isil, cobauny, raqqah, significant campaigns. each of them took about six months. some have gone faster. fallujah went faster than anticipated. and the key thing is what isil does in these cities, they set up concentric rings of defenses. once you break through the crust of that defense you don't know what's going to come next. eventually they reach a culmination point. they cannot re

and the peshmerga taking villages and towns around mosul.ut now it's become a street by street, house by house slog. now, according to some accounts, the iraqi military have been able to retake one-third of the eastern half of mosul. of course, it's anticipated that the -- was anticipated that the eastern half would be the easy part. it's the western part where it's believed that isis is really dug in. and speaking to people on the ground there and people who have just come out within the last 24 hours, they say that there are many civilians who are basically stuck in the middle. you'll recall that before the offensive began, the iraqi military dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets on mosul urging residents to stay in their houses if they felt safe. many of them actually heeded that call. but that has created a situation where you have civilians caught right in the middle of a battleground. yesterday, we spoke to some people who had just come out of mosul who said they were in the lower part of their house, the ground floor, on top, on t

special forces teams, train and assist, command and control, and marry it to kurdish, peshmerga forces, iraqi security forces to syrian kurdish forces in syria. that's were beer doing the same thing in somalia, bringing all those skillingsets to the african union force, trying to stablize traumatic, that's the template, not occupation. but to find partners who we can support who themselves want to fight this -- there aren't that many people in the world who really want to police na a seventh century fundmentallist, islamist society anymore. so there are willing partners out there but we have to be willing to help them. we learned the skillset that is useful to empowering proxy forces on the ground and you're going to see in mosul and -- and it's pretty powerful. takes time because if we had american troops you can do it quicker, but as we said there's a big downside to having big mesh footprint and we learned that, too. >> time for one more question. >> thanks very much. i statement steve greta. my question is about cost of military operations. know it's an issue related to risings nat

against isis, although it's not running bomber raids in syria or iraq, it's been arming the kurdish peshmerga some of the weapons have wound up in syria. we've talked about the refugees. it was only a matter of time before somebody did sneak in under the guise of being -- fleeing a humanitarian catastrophe but was actually already trained or certainly predisposed to conduct a terror operation. and yes, isis are students of geopolitics. they watch programs like cnn. they know if angela merkel is toppled from power, it will come to the benefit of these far right, anti-muslim movements. this plays into the isis narrative, because they believe in a binary. this is the land of islam and the land of disbelief. so to have far right and neonazi groups go around attacking refugees or basically building up walls, that plays directly into what al baghdadi has been sermonizing for two, three years now. >> great insight from all of you. thank you guys so much. >>> just ahead, new questions about donald trump and conflicts of interest as he prepares to take office. and are there concerns about the security

in iraq, we been helping iraqi security forces and the kurdish peshmerga to systematically dislodge isil from city after city -- ramadi, falluja, kiara, others. our coalition is now doing the same in mosul, having isolated the city, the iraqis, with our help, taking back easter most of them moving west. there is a complex mission will take time to accomplish, but i'm confident that isil's days in mosul are numbered. in syria, our local partners put an end to isil's expansion and then began to systematically roll it back towards raqqa, an important objective since the so-called capital of the caliphate and the hub for external attack. after helping capable and series -- and motivated local syrian forces defended kobani, we enabled them another forces to retake other talents, denying isil control over those areas and cutting off their primary lines of communication into turkey and iraq. we are now helping our local partners isolate raqqa from which there's only 15 miles away. isolation face continues according to our plan where generating additional local forces necessary to seize and hold

we were sitting in the mariana hotel interviewing a peshmerga fighter who is auto mechanic for his day job or during the interview he said my brother is a commander on the front lines outside between here and mosul. would you like to interview him ?we were sitting in the marriott and i said of course i would. he called and talked to the base commander. they called and said be ready tomorrow morning. we drove through the checkpoints. we went over the tigris river. by that point we are probably a half hour drive from also. so --m also -- morals mosul. samir turned to me and said we just we just passed the checkpoints and we're going to take you as a present to isis. a little kurdish humor there. i went to a army base and to be -- i had been an afghan army base rented interview and met a lot of army officials through my travels. to be there on the base and to talk to the soldiers who were there about how isis formed and their attitudes for sunni and shia and their experience through the two goforth was a coronary. brian: who do they play prices? mr. gruber: a lot of these , sort of like t

and one day we were sitting in the marriott hotel interviewing peshmerga fighter. said, the interview, he you know, my brother is a commander on the front lines between here and mosul. he said, would you like to visit and interview him? and i said of course i would. i called him and he said, have to talk to the vase commander and the next state they called and said be ready tomorrow morning and they picked me up, we drove through the checkpoints and when over there, by that point we were probably a half an hour drive from mosul. at one point samir turned to me and said, we just passed the customer get checkpoint and it is a good time to tell you i am going to take you as a tiny little present, to isis. a little kurdish humor there. i went to a army base and to be there on the base and to talk to the soldiers who were there about how isis formed and their attitudes towards sunni and shia and their experience through the two gulf wars was extraordinary. brian: who do they blame for isis? interestingthe thing is a lot of these prices, you get somewhat different perspe

i'm willing read with the national, could you bring us up-to-date on plans for election to the peshmerga and election law? >> the election commission that had been long overdue to replace this is part of the electoral reforms has now been established so the seven members of the election commissions have been appointed and the independent electoral complaints commission has also, the commissioners have also been appointed and they are working out the details. the plan for the elections, hopefully the parliamentary election as opposed to what you are referring to for some time next year. >> the gentleman here in the front. >> thank you mister ambassador. the afghan american chamber of commerce, we have evidence to date that borrow the business matchmaking. my question is around investments, and in afghanistan the biggest question for ed investors is the poor performance of the public section and the need to go back tophone some form of regulated private security . >> i am speaking at your event tomorrow and i promise to keep it more on the side of security but i felt this audience was more