Clarissa Ward answers your questions on ISIS and Syria

After the United States launched the first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria with a coalition, CBS News foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward hosted a live Q&A on the "CBS This Morning" Facebook page to answer questions about what's going on in Syria.

Question: Which other nations are involved in strikes against Syria?

Clarissa Ward: There is a coalition of Arab countries involved in the strikes against Syria -- Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar among them. Obviously, this is an important part of the U.S.'s strategy for dealing with ISIS. They need the support of Sunni Muslim powers in the region to ensure that this looks like a war against extremists and not a war against Islam.

Question: Why has ISIS gotten so strong so quickly?

Ward: Good question! There's a number of factors. Most importantly perhaps, is the completely power vacuum that has been created in Syria after three years of brutal civil war. There's no law, no rules and it's very easy for a group like ISIS to thrive in that situation with their brutal "take no hostages" tactics. Secondly, ISIS controls the oil fields in Syria so they have a good stream of revenue. Thirdly, they are originally an Iraqi movement (Al Qaeda in Iraq) and they encompass some of the most experienced and battle hardened fighters from the war there.

Question: Do you think that we will we ever be forced to used ground troops? Considering all the lives that were taken away during the Iraq/Afghan war!

Ward: Military analysts seem to agree that it will be difficult to beat ISIS without ground troops because obviously there are limitations to what can be achieved with air strikes. The U.S.'s strategy hinges on the development of the so called moderate rebels in Syria and on support from the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army. The problems there are 1) the moderate rebels are poorly equipped and organized and don't enjoy huge amounts of popular support in Syria 2) the Peshmerga (Kurdish army) don't have any interest in fighting ISIS once they've been pushed back a bit from their border and 3) The Iraqi Army is, let's face it, a disaster and even with ten years of U.S. training and equipment they've shown themselves to be unable, or unwilling, to beat ISIS on the battlefield

Question: Clarissa, did I hear a reporter pronounce Qatar as "gutter"?

Ward: Many Americans pronounced Qatar as "gattar". The letter in Arabic sounds more like a "k" but in some dialects it sounds more like a "g".

Question: If it comes to the U.S. and allies putting troops on the ground for combat, how many "soldiers" have ISIS got now ready to fight on the ground ?

Ward: It's difficult to know exactly how many fighters ISIS has -- estimates range from 30,000 to 70,000. But they have a very effective and aggressive media campaign and new recruits from around the world are steadily signing up... testimony to the fact that ISIS's toxic ideology is a huge part of the problem.

Question: How many Western hostages are they holding that could potentially be beheaded?

Ward: To my knowledge there are two more American hostages and two more British hostages being held by ISIS. There may be others that I don't know about.

Question: The strikes in N. Syria against a different group -- would these have happened on their own, without the cover of the ISIS strikes?

Ward: The strikes against Khorasan, or the Nusra Front, are a complicating factor. It's hard to say whether they would have happened without the cover of ISIS strikes. U.S. intelligence officials say they had an imminent plan to attack the U.S. But the Nusra Front, even though they share ISIS's extremist ideology and are an offshoot of Al Qaeda, have broad popular support in Syria. And they have actually been fighting against ISIS, sometimes alongside the Western-backed rebels who the U.S. hopes will fight this war on the ground. Attacking Nusra potentially puts those U.S.-backed fighters in a tough position because they simply don't the weapons or man power to fight the Assad regime and ISIS and Nusra at the same time.

Read through the entire Q&A: