Families Flee as Iraqi Forces Try and Retake Mosul
HARLOW: So as the president considers the next steps in Afghanistan, we know he's doing that right now because he's meeting with his National Security adviser, H.R. McMaster, Iraqi forces are continuing their push against ISIS in that key city of Mosul. This comes after weeks of resistance. The battle there could be ending soon.</s>BERMAN: Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in that city right now. CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman has the story.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Barely able to see through the blinding dust, western Mosul residents trudged to safety. Thousands have fled in the past days. "We've escaped from death," says this man. Three-month-old Meriam was carried out by her uncle. Miserable is how he describes life in the city under siege now for months. "God save us from that rotten gang," Abu Hussain tells me, referring to ISIS. With little food or medicine left, hundreds of thousands remain trapped in the city. Iraqi Forces have established what they call safe passages for fleeing civilians. Safe, however, may not be the best way to describe them. On the hill above, soldiers fire rockets over the civilians' heads into the city. And this is what has become of Mosul. An ISIS car bomb goes up in flames at the edge of the Mushairfa neighborhood. Iraqi forces launched this latest operation last Thursday morning from the north and the northwest. "Be careful," Major Mustafa Al-Azawi warns his troops. "Watch out for booby traps." The lone black banner of the extremists flutters in the hot wind. The bombardment is unrelenting. (</s>On camera): This is a final push in the battle for Mosul, a battle that began in the middle of October last year. At the time, Iraqi officials said it would be over by the end of 2016. Now it's well into its seventh month. (</s>Voice-over): In a nearby operations room, Iraqi officers and American advisers directed drone over the city. Unlike in the past, the Americans on the ground, like Lieutenant Colonel Jim Browning, can now direct airstrikes without waiting for approval from senior officers in the rear.</s>LT. COL. JIM BROWNING, U.S. ARMY: All it requires is me to be able to see it, with my partner. And once we are able to kind of communicate and say, yes, that is emphatically enemy, and we are under threat, let's deliver a strike and let's deliver it quick.</s>WEDEMAN: Iraqi leaders are hoping to regain full control of Mosul by the start of the month of Ramadan in late May. But Lieutenant General Qassim Nazzal of the Iraqi's Army's Ninth Armored Division, which is leading the fight, is more cautious. "Timetables and conventional warfare are possible," he says. "But this is guerrilla warfare with a well-trained enemy using snipers, booby traps and car bombs." And as always, civilians are caught in the middle struggling to survive, struggling to escape. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Mosul.</s>BERMAN: Remarkable pictures. Thousands of people struggling for their lives right now. Our thanks to Ben for that. All right, this just in to CNN. We just heard from a key U.S. senator, who said that the testimony yesterday on Capitol Hill from Sally Yates and James Clapper was so intriguing, this senator now wants to look at a new aspect of Donald Trump, then the candidate, now the president, his business dealings. And much more, next.