U.S. Takes Fight to ISIS in Libya
BLITZER: The stories are horrific, public beheadings, corpses on display, and floggings from minor offenses. That is life in the ISIS-controlled city of Sirte in Libya, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. But that may be changing. As senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, reports, U.S. Special Forces are now shoring up the fight against ISIS.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the eye in the sky for America's quietest war on ISIS. In Libya, an especially adapted spy plane. (on camera): These flights part of a growing effort by U.S. intelligence agencies to learn as much as they can about ISIS in what many consider to be its most dangerous stronghold so close to Europe. (voice-over): Buried in the rock of the remote Sicilian island of Pantelleria, it's run by a handful of Americans. They fly over South Africa's coast, records show, likely Hoovering up electronic chatter, video, from above the failed state, a tenth of whose coastline ISIS now control. And down here is where it matters. The long isolated road between the Libyan city of Misrata and the ISIS stronghold of Sirte.</s>PATON WALSH: This day it is all bad news. ISIS using a suicide bomber to help in an advance, the furthest yet.</s>PATON WALSH: Fighters tell us that Americans are also on the ground here. (on camera): Along this road, we see reinforcements pouring down here. And one witness aid they saw what looked like four armored SUVs containing Western-looking soldiers. (voice-over): They're never about what we see. One Libyan official later revealed that a dozen troops operate out of a nearby air base. The Pentagon confirming U.S. troops are, quote, "meeting with Libyans," but wouldn't give details.</s>PATON WALSH: This man saying he managed to save his family as ISIS moved into their hometown.</s>PATON WALSH: This was the scene they left behind.</s>PATON WALSH: These chaotic militia are all that stands between ISIS and one of Libya's biggest cities.</s>PATON WALSH: Hours later --</s>PATON WALSH: -- ISIS sent another suicide bomber in an armored car.</s>PATON WALSH: It flew Misrata into a state of emergency --</s>PATON WALSH: -- flooding it with casualties.</s>PATON WALSH: Scenes they thought they'd seen the last of once they defeated Gaddafi are back again.</s>PATON WALSH: Over 100 injured and nine dead. On a scale the hospital can barely cope with. Relatives kept out, can only hear through the glass of news. (on camera): The most severely wounded brought out now, a steady stream of casualties, quite unlike anything the city is used to, along with that sense of ISIS never really having been so close or so threatening.</s>PATON WALSH: Funerals now too common, they say.</s>PATON WALSH: This for a man killed in the first of two suicide bombings, leaving his wife pregnant with their third child.</s>PATON WALSH: "A martyr, he is a friend of God," they chant.</s>PATON WALSH: After five years of war, it barely jars other routines.</s>PATON WALSH: America is for now here as little as it can be and ISIS is winning. The wait for outside help measured in sons lost.</s>PATON WALSH: It really couldn't be much more urgent, Wolf, that fight for Libya. John Kerry is saying that they will arm if they get a request from, quote, "the legitimate government of Libya." The problem is -- and this goes to the heart of the chaos in that country -- there are three different groups who claim they have the right to rule Libya right now. John Kerry has one particular group in mind. They're the latest to arrive on the scene. But it is that political confusion and chaos that let ISIS get a grip in the first place and that grip is growing -- Wolf?</s>BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for that excellent, excellent report. Coming up, putting a price on battling Zika. The funding bill hitting the White House against lawmakers up on Capitol Hill right now, all while cases of the virus continue to rise.