Overlooking Raqqah News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

It may have happened a lot faster because he may have loosened exactly when air strikes or artillery can be used against isis. and i have to say looking at the latter stages of mosul and certainly in the fight for raqqah, there's a hell of a lot of fire power used. we don't know if that's because they loosened up when they are allowed to fire, how close civilians can be, et cetera. there's the hint that may be the case, often denied, but we can't say a new policy has been introduced by the newed a m. that's not true. what we have seen today is isis collapse pretty much in the main stronghold. ...

In the self-proclaimed capital of raqqah. and president trump himself is claiming victory, adding that he's responsible for totally changing the military. republican senator john mccain just reacted to that. >> i'm glad to hear that. no, that's oosh that's illuminating to me. i was involved in it throughout. do i believe the last eight years were failed? absolutely. absolutely. there was no rules of engagement, there was no success, there was no strategy, so i certainly agree that the last eight years were a bismol failure of our policies and strategy in iraq and afghanistan. >> all right, lie...

Doing cart wheels and spinning armored vehicles around the squares where isis once held public executions. it is over for them in raqqah, no doubt, but a different threat emerges. they will scatter as a rank target insurgency. some of the fallen fighters try to get home to launch terror attacks in the west. some of them staying in the deserts in iraq and syria looking to see if they can get sympathy in the local population and continue warfare there. and isis will continue as an idea, a virus on the internet, inspiring the lonely, the disenfranchised and deranged in the west to plow a car into...

There are no buildings in raqqah that don't show signs of the struggle. so as the units got more bottled up into raqqah, we stopped conducting air strikes until the kurds said, no, we still need additional air power. so we developed a coordination protocol where any air strike within a certain distance of a kurdish unit had to be authorized by the kurds. so we did take that into consideration. for civilian casualties, we try and try to not have as many as -- to limit them as much as possible, but you're dropping high explosives in concentrated areas. it is just going to happen. and we took as ...

Follow procedures, but they were able to react faster to emerge targets, they were able to drop more orders closer. but let's also remember that the syrian democratic forces, the units we were supporting on the ground in syria, got much better. we had been training them for a long time. so as they became more proficient, of course, it appeared that they were having more success. and we were able to conduct our missions on a much better manner with them. so i'm giving credit to both presidents. >> on the changing of the rules of engagement, is there a concern, because nick paton-walsh said one ...