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Back tikrit, but the second largest city of iraq mosul now needs to be taken and thats what theyre going to try to do in 2016. theres a very good chance that isis will be punish pushed out over the next year. >> mosul is key in all of this, isnt it? >> yes. sure is. >> general, thank you. >> sure. and now to the race for the white house. republican front-runner donald trump continuing his onslaught against bill and hilary clinton. he had this to say this morning. >> thats what they said. they ...

Iraqi forces pushing them further up the river bed in effect. im going to go back to where we are now. and this is where they were beginning of the year. >> in the river valleys along the tigris, theyve taken back tikrit, now the prize in mosul. along the euphrates baghdad tora ma di is now clear. >> you noted earlier mosul is five times the size of ramadi, so five times as difficult? >> well, its going to be five times more difficult because not only that the main supply base for the iraqi army...

Think what secretary kerry referenced the iraqi government come out and say they want to take aggressive actions to take back ramadi. i remind you just a month ago with the backing of the united states with coalition forces they took back tikrit. theyve had successes. theyve taken back about 25% of populated areas. obviously ramadi was a setback, but they are committed to fighting and committed to taking back land from isis. >> you heard our pentagon correspondent barbara starr report that the u...

This is something we do every month or so to measure that progress. this is today, may 2015 yellow areas, isis support zones. red areas under isis control. lets look to three months ago, february virtually unchanged. there are some areas where isis lost some ground around the turkish border gained some here. coalition forces took back tikrit from isis but you have ramadi falling just a few weeks later. again, lets look at the map again. today, three months ago, really almost difficult, almost im...

Caliphate in iraq and syria. and were doing that. we are taking back territory from them particularly in iraq. i was just talking to our commanders this morning. and in anbar province now we have thousands of tribal fighters organizing to fight isis. and thats going to be ongoing over the coming weeks. 1,100 of them volunteered just two days ago in anbar province near fallujah. and as they are defeated in iraq and syria, they will try to inspire attacks around the world. weve been seeing them do...

Control and the orange lines under isis influence, and this is the battlefield three months -- two months ago, rather. its not a big change. and we have seen -- i cant really identify the change there, and we have seen back and forth. yes, coalition and iraqi forces gained back tikrit. it looks like a see saw from abroad. where are the victories and how do you quantify success on the ground? >> first, its a long-term campaign. its three yards, hard yards, every single month, month to month and i...

Close to the vest by the big government agencies near d.c. >> lets bring in chris wallace now, host of fox news sunday. i dont feel like were getting everything. the joint chairman of -- talked about how this city is not essential to the future of iraq and today they say were about where we thought we would be. are they being straight with us? >> it sure doesnt seem like it. remember, it was a couple of weeks ago when iraq and to a certain degree iran and the u.s. air strikes were able to finall...

Fighting there is still ongoing, erin. all right, arwa damon, thank you very much. ar arwa and her fearless reporting on the ground. i want to go to jim sciutto in washington. dempsey spoke at his first press conference. you heard arwa in iraq give a very different readout of the situation on the ground right? she said they have made significant gains in al anbar province, she is talking about isis how important ramadi is a very different message than we are getting today from the defense depart...

Actually hold the city. theyre also concerned about reprisal attacks coming from this shia volunteer army that has been instrumental in winning back tikrit but there are concerns that some individuals within this volunteer army might carry out revenge attacks against those sunni families. we also not just spoke to families from tikrit but others who are living in these makeshift buildings, half-constructed homes. and they say that even though their particular areas were cleared three to four mon...

Tikrit major developments in the iraqi city saddam husains hometown. it became one of isis most prized strongholds. now back under iraqs control. iraqs forces have waged their campaign to win back tikrit since isis militants overtook the city last june. still, officials are saying there are ongoing operations to quote/unquote cleanse the remaining outskirts in parts of the province including remaining isis booby traps rigged in homes and government buildings. the joint effort to liberate the cit...