the problem for the sdf coalition is this.ow whether some of those fleeing could in fact be is supporters themselves. after screening, many of them end up at this camp. all have lived under the harsh regime of islamic state. not all against their will. noor left raqqa for lebanon two years ago, tojoin her husband, ajihadi. as the wife of a foreign fighter, noor was in a relatively privileged position. there were many women, especially yazidis, whose fates were much darker. women captured and sold between the fighters as sex slaves. she saw all this. those women are still there, in raqqa, prisoners of the caliphate. syria has been at war for more than six years now. longer than the whole of world war ii. the fight against islamic state is but one facet of an ongoing conflict that is drawing in the world's big powers. from a hilltop overlooking the manbij countryside, a local kurdish commander showed me the point at which all these competing forces come face—to—face. 0k, well, it's a pretty complicated picture, but basically it

the kurdish—led sdf are not on their own in this fight. have quietly built up a presence on the ground here in northern syria, providing weapons, training and firepower. with us help they've chased islamic state out of traditionally kurdish areas and beyond. expanding their control across the euphrates and into mainly arab territory to the west. this is manbij. the syrian democratic forces took the city last august, after two and a half years under is rule. this building was their courthouse. here, islamic state would sit in judgment over people they deemed to have broken their laws. punishment would be meted out in the car park opposite. a local shopkeeper witnessed many of the gruesome executions. even though is is gone from here, he asked us not to reveal his identity, forfear of reprisals. down in the basement, their brutal legacy lingers, like a ghost. in this dungeon, is tortured its prisoners. a policeman showed us the cell where his uncle was kept. barely big enough to contain a man. tiny air holes to keep him alive. when they let

. —— sdf. 0ver are backed by the united states. —— sdf.rts and the city centre. this kurdish commander said the islamic state militants are only firing mortar shells and rockets and claims their spirits are low. and now, after the arrival of reinforcement last weekend, sdf troops are reported to have taken another major step forward breaking through the walls guarding the old city. the us military said its warplanes based in the region fired missiles to punch two holes in the medieval walls surrounding the old city. sdf trips we re surrounding the old city. sdf trips were then able to take the fight inside the heavily fortified area where it is estimated at least 2000 islamic state fighters are now holding out. amongst those involved in this key battle is a british man who calls himself mercer gifford. they are making excellent inroads into the city which means that the confidence amongst the sdf fighters on the ground is infinitely high and we are looking forward to seeing raqqa completely done, finished, which is the heartland of the so—

tell us about the sdf and its relationship with the americans.d up by the united states since the beginning. when they said they we re the beginning. when they said they were going to go inside raqqa and ta ke were going to go inside raqqa and take care of islamic state, it it started to support radically on the ground last november and since they started talking about the main battle a year ago. basically turkey does not want these forces to take the front line in raqqa and they we re the front line in raqqa and they were against them in a battle a few months ago. these forces are basically on the ground backed up by the airforce. basically on the ground backed up by the air force. we have the kurds. there are a lot of different groupings trying to defeat is. absolutely and this is why everyone is fighting the same enemy, but they all have different interests and this is why syria is much more difficult than iraq. this is why raqqa is predicted to be more difficult than the battle of mosul. there are still 2500 militants in islamic state and mos

these are troops of the syrian democratic forces, or sdf, who are backed by the united states.owards the city centre. this kurdish commander said the islamic state militants are only firing mortar shells and rockets, and claims their spirits are low. and now, after the arrival of reinforcement last weekend, sdf troops are reported to have taken another major step forward, breaking through the walls guarding the old city. the us military says its warplanes based in the region fired missiles to punch two holes in these medieval walls surrounding the old city. sdf troops were then able to take the fight inside the heavily fortified area, where its estimated at least 2000 islamic state fighters are now holding out. amongst those involved in this key battle is a british man who calls himself mercer gifford. they are making excellent inroads into the city, which means that the confidence amongst the sdf fighters on the ground is incredibly high, and we're looking forward to seeing raqqa completely done, finished, which is the heartland of the so—called islamic state. and, meanwhile,

among theonfidence sdf fighters on the ground, it is incredibly high. we looking to see raqqa completely done. it is the heart of the so-called islamic state. reporter: to the east iraqi troops are very close to pushing the islamic state completely out of the other major stronghold, the strategic city of mosel. -- city of mosul. it has taken eight months to reach at this point with a handful of militants fighting in a tiny corner of the city. 's claims are almost at an end. with pockets of territory elsewhere the militants will still pose a threat. i.s. on the back foot in syria and iraq. the first visit to israel by an indian prime minister. expanding the relationship between the two countries. he hopes to transform the economic ties and build a robust security partnership. trump is attending july 4 celebrations at the white house this evening. worries far from home will demand his attention this week. he is off to the g 20 summit in germany where he will meet vladimir putin for the first time. ron christie is a former advisor for george w. bush. big w

these are troops of the syrian democratic forces, or sdf, who are backed by the united states. rockets, and claims their spirits are low. and now, after the arrival of reinforcement last weekend, sdf troops are reported to have taken another major step forward, breaking through the walls guarding the old city. the us military says its warplanes based in the region fired missiles to punch two holes in these medieval walls surrounding the old city. sdf troops were then able to take the fight inside the heavily fortified area, where its estimated at least 2000 islamic state fighters are now holding out. amongst those involved in this key battle is a british man who calls himself mercer gifford. they are making excellent inroads into the city, which means that the confidence amongst the sdf fighters on the ground is incredibly high, and we're looking forward to seeing raqqa completely done, finished, which is the heartland of the so—called islamic state. and, meanwhile, across the border to the east, iraqi troops are now very close to pushing islamic state completely out of its oth

these are troops of the syrian democratic forces, or sdf, who are backed by the united states.slamic state militants are only firing mortar shells and rockets, and claims their spirits are low. and now, after the arrival of reinforcement last weekend, sdf troops are reported to have taken another major step forward, breaking through the walls guarding the old city. the us military says its warplanes based in the region fired missiles to punch two holes in these medieval walls surrounding the old city. sdf troops were then able to take the fight inside the heavily fortified area, where it's estimated at least 2000 islamic state fighters are now holding out. amongst those involved in this key battle is a british man who calls himself mercer gifford. they are making excellent inroads into the city, which means that the confidence amongst the sdf fighters on the ground is incredibly high, and we're looking forward to seeing raqqa completely done, finished, which is the heartland of the so—called islamic state. and, meanwhile, across the border to the east, iraqi troops are now very

and for the sdf, i think we are able to give a lot of advice to those institutions. and, therefore, the accomplishment on the msf is quite substantial. >> thank you. one of the major topics of focus was north korea and it's in the news again this morning as i mentioned, and it is one of the drivers of change in our alliance. 20 years ago japan was still largely in the rear area. today there are so many threats to japan, directly from north korea, missiles, cyber, so forth. and now directed toward the american homeland. so that creates some -- it creates the necessity of the joint preparedness as allies between the u.s. and japan. and, of course, it also creates the potential for fissures and different threats. so i want to turn to north korea and i think we want to address, particularly for the american panelists, the role of the military instruments of power within the north korean strategy. it's often said the military aspect is not realistic. but we have heard it's not off the table. that's important for japan, but i would like to ask our american panelists about

but i have been working at the sdf and then i became the chief of staff. and during that period, the air, sea, the ground of south korea i think we have had always good relations, military basis and political relations sometimes is different. so in terms of the personal exchange, blue house, operational office turned down the request. the military members of the korea could not come and we could not visit them. there has been good collaboration between japanese and the korean forces, and this issue has been discussed and maintained efforts to conclude we came to the very close to conclusion, that was frozen. finally geasomia has been put in place and the frequency is not very high, but the majority of them are maritime exercise. but recently, the bmd, tri-lateral, the information exchange, training was carried out among japan/u.s. and the south korea. so tri-lateral relations abounded. and for the first time in msf conference, of course response to north korea, we have had a lot of information exchange between japan and the united states. and the general s

you have the sdf, which is a combination of syrian, arab and curds fighting together.remember, isis has been dug in in raqqa for some time. and even after you clear isis all up and down the euphrates river valley, there's still going to be pockets. the numbers change ho this, but the most recent numbers that we have is within the city much raqqa there's a couple thousand isis fighters. sometimes you hear less than a thousand, but they're almost double that along the euphrates valley where they hold towns that are sympathetic to them. so the cleanup operation in iraq in some ways is easier because you have a strong sorn -- well, not a strong, but you have a unified government that's taking place. when syria, you have a whole series of different coligsz. you have this nah sent cease-fire in the southwest of the country where there's very little u.s. involvement if none at all. and you have the russians as well as a regime that's still in power but the u.s. wants to move out of power. >> can folks get back to their homes in mosul? >> that will be sometime, right. you have

has been backing for months, so-called sdf syrian democratic forces, are making progress towards gettingng to get isis out of raqqa. its self-declared capital in syria. that will by any measure be an extremely important victory in the war against isis, but if they get it back, now the problem for president trump is it opens up a whole host of new problems, and mainly, russian backing of bashar al assad. you know, this is still assad's country. the fighters might get raqqa back, but what is president trump going to do for them to be able to hold on to raqqa? the billions of dollars in reconstruction, the civilian government that would have to be installed there and what happens if assad backed by russia also backed by iran begins to move his forces towards raqqa again? that could happen in the coming months, and will the fighters that the u.s. backs be able to hold them off? will this about separate enclave? because right now u.s. policy doesn't really address the issue of the trump administration trying to get assad out of power. it's something that the two men may well talk about and no

so, we are in fact, the sdf is a group that we have armed, that we have trained. what's happened is, the assad regime and russian airplanes have come against them, the very group they are supporting. we can't have it both ways. if we are not willing ourselves to send ground troops in, if we are going to rely on foreign proxies, and we do that in many cases because they are indigenous and can actually govern after the fact, we have to somehow make accommodations for the fact that if they come under attack from others and we are giving them close air support or support of other kind, we've got to figure out a way to address that. and i'm more than willing to enter into this, but would you like to respond as to how we might write a uamf that takes into account proxies might come under threat, how do we deal with that? >> this is something we can do together as a policy matter and legal matter. as a policy matter, you understand. -- you are right, senator. if we are supporting people in another country and they get attacked, we want to provide them support as a policy

what we've begun to do as a nation is we rely upon proxys, so we are, in fact, the sdf is a group we've armed. that we've trained and the assad regime have come against them, the very group they're supporting. we can't have it both ways. if we're not willing ourselves to send ground troops in, if we're going to rely upon proxys and we do that in many cases because they're indigenous and they can govern after the fact, we do have to somehow make accommodations for the fact that if they come under attack from others and we are giving them support we've got to figure out a way to address that. so -- i'm more than willing for you to enter into this since no one else is here. would you guys like to respond as to how we might write an aumf that takes into account that to the extent we can we'll fight through proxys. they may come under threat, how do we deal with that. >> this is something we can do together as a policy matter and legal matter. as a policy matter, you're absolutely right, senator. i understand if we're going to be supporting people in another country then they get attacked, w