Andrea Mitchell, Jim Miklaszewski, Josh Earnest, Bob Corker, Barry MCaffery, Tulsi Gabbard, Tom Costello, Jonathon Capehart, Kier Simmons, Anthony Roman, Michael Goldfarb, Chris Jansing, Kim Ghattis, Sam Stein, Bill Neely, Michael Steele, Greg Feith, John Cox, Cully Stimson are all on the show Mika. Joe is out this week.
The New York Times reported at about 815PM last night that Germanwings Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France. As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed amid a relatively clear sky, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.
If you would have seen my instant Message conversation last night, you would have seen me say that I had shivers down my body. It totally changed the entire complexion of how this incident happened. I also heard that there are alternative ways for people to get in and out of those cock pits. And, my friend said it was against Union rules to be a lone in cockpits. I said that it varied at the private airlines but Anthony Roman is saying its not allowed and very unusual for anyone to be alone in any cock pits. The other thing is that even if her had to go to the bathroom somewhere on the plane, man, why did he not go before they took off from the ground? He had to go pretty quick or within the hour of take off.
I have a question though and why is it that every cockpit does not have cameras with real time footage at some places on the mainland? All drones have that technology and again, why is it that there are not cameras set up in every airline's cockpit for someone to monitor that footage from anywhere down on the ground. Again, in the same ways we watch footage from drones. That seems like east technology to implement., It seems like it would not be that expensive in relevance to the alternative to implement on the ground and in the airlines cockpits. It would give us real time information about anything that happens on a plane and before any potential tragedy and it would create jobs on the ground setting up this system and working it. It honestly is a no brain situation to implement a system like I describe here. And, every unknown Michael Goldfarb just mentioned would be known in real time.
A senior French military official involved in the investigation described a “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter. “The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer.” He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
While the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading to the Germanwings crash on Tuesday morning, it also left many questions unanswered. The French aviation authorities have recovered an audio file from the cockpit voice recorder, but did not say whether it was partial or complete. Clockwise from top left: Oleg Bryjak, a bass baritone at the Düsseldorf opera; Maria Radner, a contralto in Düsseldorf; Greig Friday, a mechanical engineer from Australia; and his mother, Carol Friday, a nurse.Among Germanwings Crash Victims, Opera Singers and Newlyweds. French helicopters passed over Seyne-les-Alpes on Wednesday on their way to the crash site.Challenges Weigh Heavily on Recovery Efforts in Germanwings Crash. Students at a memorial on the steps of Joseph-König-Gymnasium on Wednesday in Haltern am See, Germany. Sixteen students and two teachers died in the Germanwings plane crash.In German Town, Crushing Grief at Losing 16 Students and 2 Teachers in Jet Crash. A few hours after officials recovered one of the black boxes, they called off the search for the evening.Germanwings Crash in French Alps Kills 150; Cockpit Voice Recorder Is Found. Students and teachers from the Joseph-König school in Germany were returning from a language and culture immersion program in Spain when their plane crashed on Tuesday.In German Town, a School-Year Highlight That Ended in Disaster.
“We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out,” said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing. “But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone and does not open the door.”
The data from the voice recorder seems only to deepen the mystery surrounding the crash and provides no indication of the condition or activity of the pilot who remained in the cockpit. The descent from 38,000 feet over about 10 minutes was alarming but still gradual enough to indicate that the twin-engine Airbus A320 had not been damaged catastrophically. At no point during the descent was there any communication from the cockpit to air traffic controllers or any other signal of an emergency.
When the plane plowed into craggy mountains northeast of Nice, it was traveling with enough speed that it was all but pulverized, killing the 144 passengers and crew of six and leaving few clues. The French aviation authorities have made public very little, officially, about the nature of the information that has been recovered from the audio recording, and it was not clear whether it was complete. France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analyses confirmed only that human voices and other cockpit sounds had been detected and would be subjected to detailed analysis.
French officers on Wednesday formed a search line near Seyne, France, looking for clues in the crash of a Germanwings plane that left 150 people dead. Asked about the new evidence revealed in the cockpit recordings, Martine del Bono, a bureau spokeswoman, declined to comment. “Our teams continue to work on analyzing the CVR,” she said, referring to the cockpit voice recorder. “As soon as we have accurate information we intend to hold a press conference.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Marseille, who have been tasked with a separate criminal inquiry into the crash, could not immediately be reached for comment. Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor, was due to meet Thursday morning with the families of the crash victims. At the crash site, a senior official working on the investigation said, workers found the casing of the plane’s other so-called black box, the flight data recorder, but the memory card containing data on the plane’s altitude, speed, location and condition was not inside, apparently having been thrown loose or destroyed by the impact.
The lack of real-time flight information availability is a sadistic spit in the eye from commercial carrier companies to their passengers and the human species. Rémi Jouty, the director of the Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, said at a news conference that the plane took off around 10 a.m. local time from Barcelona and that the last message sent from the pilot to air traffic controllers had been at 10:30 a.m., which indicated that the plane was proceeding on course.
But minutes later, the plane inexplicably began to descend, Mr. Jouty said. At 10:40 and 47 seconds, the plane reported its last radar position, at an altitude of 6,175 feet. “The radar could follow the plane until the point of impact,” he said. The managing director of Germanwings confirmed on Wednesday that two Americans were among the 150 killed when an Airbus crashed in the French Alps. Video by Reuters on Publish Date March 25, 2015. Mr. Jouty said the plane slammed into a mountainside and disintegrated, scattering debris over a wide area, and making it difficult to analyze what had happened.
It often takes months or even years to determine the causes of plane crashes, but a little more than a year after the disappearance of a Malaysian airlines jetliner that has never been found, the loss of the Germanwings flight is shaping up to be particularly perplexing to investigators. One of the main questions is why the pilots did not communicate with air traffic controllers as the plane began its unusual descent, suggesting that the pilots or the plane’s automated systems may have been trying to maintain control of the aircraft as it lost altitude.
The French aviation authorities have recovered an audio file from the cockpit voice recorder, but did not say whether it was partial or complete. Among the theories that have been put forward by air safety analysts not involved in the investigation is the possibility that a pilot could have been incapacitated by a sudden event such as a fire or a drop in cabin pressure.
A senior French official involved in the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the lack of communication from the pilots during the plane’s descent was disturbing, and that the possibility that their silence was deliberate could not be ruled out. “I don’t like it,” said the French official, who cautioned that his initial analysis was based on the very limited information currently available. “To me, it seems very weird: this very long descent at normal speed without any communications, though the weather was absolutely clear.”
Rémi Jouty, director of France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, confirmed that audio of voices had been recovered from the black box in the crash of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps. Video by Reuters on Publish Date March 25, 2015. The "memory card" is not what lay people would think. There is a memory board encased in layers of protective materials inside a hardened container. I like the conversations about technology being behind the times. Is someone or some agency poisoning pilots in a manner that delays the effect of the drug? “So far, we don’t have any evidence that points clearly to a technical explanation,” the official said. “So we have to consider the possibility of deliberate human responsibility.”
Mr. Jouty said it was far too early in the investigation to speculate about possible causes.
“At this moment, I have no beginning of a scenario,” Mr. Jouty said. However, he said there was not yet any evidence available that would support a theory of a depressurization or of a midair explosion. French emergency services resumed work on Wednesday near the crash site of a Germanwings jet. Speaking on the French radio station RTL, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday morning that terrorism was not a likely “hypothesis at the moment,” but that no theories had been excluded. He said the size of the area over which debris was scattered suggested that the aircraft had not exploded in the air but rather had disintegrated on impact.
Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, has characterized the crash as an accident. The airline has not disclosed the identities of the pilots, except to say that the captain was a 10-year veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time in A320s. The French Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, which is leading the technical inquiry into the crash, sent seven investigators to the crash site Tuesday. They have been joined by their counterparts from Germany, as well as by technical advisers from Airbus and CFM International, the manufacturer of the plane’s engines.
Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Jean-Paul Troadec, a former director of the French air accident investigation bureau, said one of the big challenges for investigators would be to protect the debris at the crash site from inadvertent damage. “We need to ensure that all the evidence is well preserved,” Mr. Troadec said, referring to the pieces of the plane littered across the steep slopes as well as to the remains of the victims. The identification of the victims will probably require matching DNA from the remains with samples from relatives.
The recovery effort will be a laborious task, given the state of the wreckage, the difficult terrain and the fact that the crash site is so remote that it could be reached only by helicopter. Cabin depressurization, one of the possibilities speculated about on Wednesday, has occurred before, perhaps most notably in the crash of a Cypriot passenger plane in 2005 that killed all 121 people on board as it approached Athens. In that case, Helios Airways Flight 522, a slow loss of pressure rendered both pilots and all the passengers on the Boeing 737 jet unconscious for more than three-quarters of an hour before the aircraft ran out of fuel and slammed into a wooded gorge near Athens, the Greek capital.
Investigators eventually determined that the primary cause of that crash was a series of human errors, including deficient maintenance checks on the ground and a failure by the pilots to heed emergency warning signals.
Next, Yemen edges towards all-out civil war as rebels advance on city of Aden
Some reports suggest president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has fled country using a boat and there is now a bounty for his capture and maybe even his death.
Regardless, Yemenis run for cover as Houthis fire tear gas at a protest against their presence in Taiz, Yemen. Yemen has edged closer to all-out civil war as Shia Houthi rebels seized a key military base in the southern port city of Aden and reports suggested that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had fled the country.
The panel reports that the rebels have also seized al-Anad airbase, which lies between Taiz – Yemen’s third-largest city, which fell under rebel control last week – and Hadi’s stronghold of Aden, in a renewed push for control of the country’s south. The advance sets the stage for a confrontation between Iran, which backs the rebels also known as Ansar Allah, and regional powers eager to halt the broadening of the the Islamic Republic’s regional influence.
Yemen’s descent into chaos also complicates American efforts to fight al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the jihadist group that has been repeatedly targeted by US drone strikes and which the Houthis also see as an enemy. The rebels, members of the Zaydi offshoot of Shia Islam, seized control of the capital, Sana’a, last year and placed Hadi under house arrest. He fled to Aden this month. Hadi’s whereabouts were the subject of conflicting reports on Wednesday. Yemeni security and port officials told the Associated Press that he had left the country with his aides on a boat from the port of Aden. They would not disclose Hadi’s destination; he is scheduled to attend an Arab summit in Egypt on the weekend.
However, Yemen’s foreign minister and presidential sources told Reuters that the president remained in Aden. Another presidential aide told AFP that he had been rushed to a “secure location”. The US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing: “We were in touch with him earlier today. He is no longer at his residence. I’m not in position to confirm any additional details from here about his location.”
Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman of the Yemeni embassy in Washington, said on Twitter that Arab diplomats stationed in Aden were leaving the country.
Mohammad Abdul Salam, the spokesperson of Ansar Allah, told the Houthi-backed al-Masirah TV station that Hadi was looking for a way to escape Aden by sea or air.
In a message to the “people of the south”, Abdul Salam called for cooperation in the fight against terrorism and pledged that the Houthis would fight for their cause.
As Jonathin Capehart is getting at now, US officials said Saudi Arabia was moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, raising the prospect of military intervention, though Saudi sources said the move was purely defensive. Earlier this week Hadi sent a letter to the UN security council’s president called for intervention. The letter called on the international community to use “all necessary measures” under chapter 7 of the UN charter to defend Yemen’s legitimate authorities against the advance of Houthi militias.
Hadi’s foreign minister, Riad Abdullah, echoed the call on Wednesday, saying he had formally asked the Arab League for a military intervention in Yemen – a request that will be discussed in a meeting on Thursday. “In Yemen we are racing against time for this Arab military intervention to happen as soon as possible,” Abdullah told reporters in Sharm al Sheikh. On Monday the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, warned that Arab countries might take action “to protect interests from Houthi aggression”, according to Reuters.
Similar diplomatic moves led by the Gulf states in the Arab League and the UN security council led to the military intervention in Libya against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Gulf powers also intervened militarily in Bahrain to put an end to an uprising that same year that threatened the Sunni Al Khalifa monarchy, which rules over a Shia majority.
The Gulf states had already expressed their explicit backing of Hadi as the legitimate authority in Yemen. They had negotiated Hadi’s rise to the presidency in a diplomatic initiative following popular protests against the rule of his predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is now backing the rebels. The New York Times also reports about this situation that Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had begun military operations in Yemen, launching airstrikes in coordination with a coalition of 10 nations. The strikes came as Yemen was hurtling closer to civil war after months of turmoil, as fighters and army units allied with the Houthi movement threatened to overrun the southern port of Aden where the besieged president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has gone into hiding.
The rapid advances by the president’s opponents included the seizure of a military air base and an aerial assault on his home. There were unconfirmed reports that the president had fled the country by boat for Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation across the Gulf of Aden. The region’s most impoverished country, Yemen has been a central theater of the American fight against Al Qaeda, and its possible collapse presents complex challenges to the Obama administration as it struggles to deal with instability and radical extremism in the Middle East.
Anti-Houthi demonstrators ran Monday as pro-Houthi police forces fired gunhots into the air to disperse them in Taiz, Yemen.The Crisis in Yemen: Points of Concern. Mona El-Naggar in Sana, the capital of Yemen, in January.A Close-Up of Unfolding Unrest in Yemen. Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, a major American ally, and the Saudis were reported massing forces on the Yemen frontier as President Mansour’s last redoubt in Aden looked increasingly imperiled. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi of Yemen in 2013. Along with Syria, Iraq and Libya, Yemen is now the fourth state to veer toward political disintegration in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts that first erupted four years ago.
By Wednesday morning, Houthi forces had seized Al Anad air base, which until recently had been used by American counterterrorism forces, about 35 miles from Mr. Hadi’s refuge in Aden, the country’s second-largest city. A television network under Houthi control said they had found the base empty and looted, and had captured two senior officers loyal to Mr. Hadi, including his defense minister. A few hours later, Yemeni Air Force planes under Houthi control struck targets near the president’s Aden home and his supporters returned fire with antiaircraft guns. The state television network, also controlled by Houthis, announced a $100,000 bounty for Mr. Hadi’s arrest as rumors about his whereabouts swirled. By nightfall, there were reports that Houthi forces were fighting around the Aden airport, on the outskirts of the city.
A security official of Mr. Hadi’s government confirmed the loss of Al Anad. Mr. Hadi’s foreign minister, meanwhile, reiterated his calls for intervention by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states to stop the Houthis, stoking fears that their advance could trigger a widening regional conflict. The country appeared to be sliding toward a civil war as dangerous as any in the region, with elements of a sectarian feud, a regional proxy conflict, the attempted return of an ousted authoritarian and the expansion of anti-Western extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State eager to capitalize on the chaos.
The Houthis, a minority religious group from northern Yemen, practice a variant of Shiite Islam and receive support from Iran. But they are also collaborating with Yemeni security forces still loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longtime strongman who was pushed from power amid the Arab Spring uprising but now appears to be orchestrating a comeback in alliance with the Houthis. With Mr. Saleh’s help, the Houthis now control most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. That has given them a decisive advantage over Mr. Hadi’s forces, as their seizure of the Al Anad base on Wednesday made clear.
But their ability to control and govern their expanding territory remains far from clear, as doesthe potential pushback from Saudi Arabia and other regional powers. “I would not be surprised if we see Aden falling to the Houthis tomorrow,” said Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center. “But that will just set the stage for a prolonged conflict or civil war, because the Houthis have not been able to maintain order even in the areas they have controlled since last year.”
Mr. Hadi, the president, was installed as a replacement for Mr. Saleh in a transition brokered by Persian Gulf monarchies, and he has the backing of both Saudi Arabia and Washington. But he fled to Aden from the capital, Sana, after the Houthis captured it months ago. His last vestiges of support and protection appeared to be only a small number of military units and some tribal groups based in the predominantly Sunni Muslim south. As Mr. Hadi’s opponents have cornered him, his supporters have escalated calls for Saudi Arabia, the other Persian Gulf states and Egypt to intervene to hold back the Houthis, portraying them as an arm of Iran.
At a news conference this week, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, hinted at a possible intervention, saying Saudi Arabia “will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.” At the Arab League, officials said Wednesday that Yemen would top the agenda at a meeting this week of the Arab foreign ministers in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
But a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry quickly dispelled rumors that Cairo had already agreed to intervention. “We have no idea at all about that,” said the spokesman, Ambassador Badr Abdellatty. Against the backdrop of the escalating conflict, Sunni Muslim extremists pledging allegiance to both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have been escalating their attacks, including sectarian assaults on the Houthis. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, claimed responsibility for two bombings of Shiite mosques in Sana on Friday that killed more than 135 people. Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, already effectively controls pockets of southern Yemen beyond the reach of either Mr. Hadi or the Houthis.
The United States evacuated its military personnel from Al Anad several days ago, as fighters from Al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate moved closer from one side and Houthi fighters pushed closer from the other. About 100 American personnel, including Special Forces commandos, were reportedly stationed there before the evacuation. Houthi leaders have said their drive to the south is a battle to root out the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, portraying both groups as instruments of a broad international conspiracy including Israel, Saudi Arabia as well as Washington.
Also, Syria rebels seize ancient town near Jordanian border. Syrian army and its allied fighters forced to withdraw from Bosra al-Sham after five days of fighting. Rebels have seized an ancient town in southern Syria that was a key government stronghold, pushing Syrian troops and its allied militiamen out of the region after five days of heavy fighting, opposition activists and rebels said. The sources said government troops were forced to withdraw on Wednesday from Bosra al-Sham, located near the Jordanian border and classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its historic citadel, ruins and well-preserved Roman theatre. It was once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia and a stopover on caravan routes to Mecca, according to UNESCO.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government. Bosra al-Sham had been in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's troops throughout the four-year-old conflict, and was considered to be a bastion of pro-government forces in Deraa province. The town's capture is a strategic gain because of its geographical location as well. Bosra al-Sham is perched on highlands 10km from the Jordanian border, overlooking the plains that spread out from the southern outskirts of Damascus. "Today is a happy day, Bosra al-Sham has been completely liberated," said Ahmad Masalma, an opposition activist in Deraa.
Masalma said about 10,000 rebels from various groups took part in the attack on the town, which began on Saturday from three sides and ended at dawn on Wednesday. They included members of al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, al-Nusra Front.
Amateur videos posted online showed rebels wandering through the ancient citadel and standing in the sunlight on the theatre's stone stage. One video showed rebels removing a Hezbollah flag from the site. The Lebanese movement has sent troops to boost Assad's forces in southern Syria and other parts of the country during the war. Other fighters fired their guns in celebration near the columned top of the theatre's imposing, semi-circular seating section. Masalma said no major damage was done to the citadel or theatre.
The fight for control of Bosra al-Sham, however, left heavy damage in other parts of the town.
Medics said government forces also dropped barrel bombs and fired rockets at Maaraba hospital in a nearby town, where injured rebel fighters were being treated. "The hospital has been completely levelled to the ground," Mohammed Ahmed, a doctor at the hospital, told Al Jazeera. "The hospital includes a treatment ward and women's operation room. It provide services to all civilians from all areas regardless of their affiliations." The Bosra al-Sham Hotel, the biggest and best-known hotel in the region, and historic souqs were also destroyed in the fighting. Other archaeological sites have been looted by various armed groups and criminals over the past two years.
The Syrian government has lost large swaths of territory to opposition fighters and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but continues to hang on to major cities across the country. Bosra al-Sham is a predominantly Sunni town with a population of about 30,000 but also has a sizable Shia community. The push on the town coincided with rebel gains in northern Syria on Wednesday near the city of Idlib, where a consortium of rebels launched an offensive a day earlier. The target of the operation is Idlib, a city of 165,000 people and capital of a province with the same name. (Source regarding this segment is from Al Jazeera and agencies).
And, The Islamic State group's affiliate in Libya said it played a role in a string of suicide car bombings that killed 12 people Wednesday in the eastern city of Benghazi. Meanwhile, its militants carried out an attack on a rival militia in the central coastal city of Sirte, leaving five dead. A Libyan security official said the three suicide bombings, which also wounded 25, were targeting forces of Libya's elected government and allied fighters. Two of the bombings were carried by militants affiliated to the umbrella group known as The Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries. The Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the other bombing in a post on an Internet bulletin board known to be used by the group and its sympathizers. The claim included a picture of an alleged Tunisian suicide bomber it said was involved in the attack.
The attacks came in retaliation for the killing of Mohammed al-Aribi, a top commander under the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries who fought alongside Islamic State and al-Qaida-linked militants, the security official said. Al-Aribi, who died Monday, was mourned by the Tripoli-militia backed group and parliament on Tuesday. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists.
In the central city of Sirte on Wednesday, Islamic State fighters killed five in clashes with a militia from the western city of Misrata, a militia commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists. Sirte — the home of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi — became the second city to fall into hands of the extremist group. Misrata, which is close to Sirte, has sent its militias to battle the militants.
Libya has plunged into chaos since the 2011 overthrow and death of Gadhafi, leaving the country with two parliaments and two governments, along with rival militaries and militias. The power struggle and fierce fighting has paved the way for the Islamic State group's expansion. Also Wednesday, a new U.N. report documented violent attacks and abuse including abductions, torture and death threats faced by human rights activists in Libya. Some activists have been forced to work in secret, others are missing and some have fled the country.
"Civilians in Libya, including human rights defenders, have few or no avenues to seek protection or access to remedy for the harm suffered," the report said. It said Libya desperately needs functioning law enforcement and justice systems, and called on the international community to support Libyan activists by issuing emergency visas. Some human rights defenders who have fled Libya have continued to receive death threats on their mobile phones and social media pages, the U.N. report said, mentioning two cases where activists were physically assaulted in Tunisia, apparently by Libyans.
Islamic extremist militias have been targeting Christians, women, journalists, refugees and those considered former loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi, who was toppled and killed in Libya's 2011 civil war.
Wow. What a half an hour span of time today. I almost forgot about the Bowe Bergdahl issue going down yesterday that Fox News and Jim Miklaszewski report that the Obama administration official defends Bergdahl trade despite charges. The Obama administration's incoming communications director said Wednesday the decision to trade Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders last year was the right move, hours after he was charged with desertion. "Was it worth it? Absolutely," Jen Psaki told Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File." "We have a commitment to our men and women serving in the military, defending our national security every day, that we're going to do everything to bring them home if we can, and that's what we did in this case."
Psaki's comments were the first from an administration official since the charges were announced earlier in the day. Bergdahl, who was released from Taliban captivity last May after being a prisoner of war for five years, was charged with misbehavior before the enemy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He was also charged with desertion, which carries a maximum of five years.
The case now goes to an Article 32 hearing to be held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where Bergdahl has been performing administrative duties as he awaits the conclusion of the case. That proceeding is similar to a grand jury. From there, it could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial. US soldier held captive by Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly five years freed. A date for that hearing has not yet been announced. Psaki, who is currently a State Department spokeswoman but who is slated to move to the White House next week, wouldn't comment on the merit of the charges against Bergdahl, saying she "won't prejudge those steps" that the Army will be undertaking.
The charges against Bergdahl, 28, come 10 months after his May 2014 release, which initially was a joyous occasion, with his parents joining President Obama in celebrating the news in the Rose Garden. Bob Bergdahl, who had studied Islam during his son's captivity, appeared with a full beard and read a Muslim prayer, while Bergdahl's mother Jani embraced the president. But that euphoria quickly gave way to controversy in Washington, as Bergdahl was accused of walking away from his post and putting his fellow soldiers in danger. The trade of hardened Taliban fighters for his freedom raised deep concerns on Capitol Hill that the administration struck an unbalanced and possibly illegal deal.
With the newly announced charges, Bergdahl could also face a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and forfeiture of all his pay if convicted. He is not in pretial confinement at Fort Sam Houston, a spokesman for U.S. Army Forces Command said. The announcement of the charges marks a sharp turnaround for the administration's narrative of Bergdahl's service and release. After the swap last year, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction." But as Bergdahl faced criticism from fellow servicemembers for his actions, the administration faced heated complaints from Congress over the Taliban trade itself. "This fundamental shift in U.S. policy signals to terrorists around the world a greater incentive to take U.S. hostages," said former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Wednesday's announcement only fueled those concerns.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the Armed Services Committee, was asked by reporters Wednesday whether the charges raised doubts about the initial trade of Bergdahl for the Taliban members. "I would think that it would raise doubts in the mind of the average American if those doubts weren't raised already," Wicker said. "This proves once again that the president's political motivations for closing Guantanamo Bay are causing him to make reckless decisions and will put more American lives at risk," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Wednesday in a statement.
Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges. A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit. Bergdahl disappeared from his base in the eastern Afghanistan province of Paktika on June 30, 2009. A private first class at the time, he had three days earlier emailed his parents expressing disillusionment with the war. President Obama stands with Bob Bergdahl (R) and Jami Bergdahl (L) as he delivers a statement about the release of their son, prisoner of war U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington May 31, 2014. (Reuters) Bergdahl left a note in his tent that said he was leaving to start a new life and intended to renounce his citizenship, Fox News reported last year.
For the next five years, Bergdahl is believed to have been held by the Taliban and Pakistan's infamous Haqqani network. In one of several hostage videos released during his captivity, he said he was captured when he fell behind a patrol, but fellow soldiers, outraged after the trade was made with the Taliban, accused him of deserting. Some asserted that American service members' lives were put at risk in the hunt for Bergdahl. Bergdahl was freed on May 31, 2014, after the White House agreed to trade five high-value Taliban operatives held at Guantanamo Bay.
The trade was branded as illegal by lawmakers, who said they weren’t advised beforehand, It was also blasted by critics who said it violated America’s longstanding tradition of not negotiating with terrorists. There were also concerns – which would prove well-founded – that the Taliban members would return to the fight against the West. Of the five -- Mohammad Fazl, the former Taliban army chief of staff; Khairullah Khairkhwa, a Taliban intelligence official; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a former Taliban government official; and Norullah Noori and Mohammad Nabi Omari -- at least three have attempted to reconnect with their old comrades, a source told Fox News. Bergdhal was promoted to sergeant while in captivity, and had accrued more than $200,000 in back pay by the time he was freed. Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Josh Earnest is on now (with Andrea Mitchell). Nice computer generated re enactment of the pilot being locked out of the cock pit. That is great stuff. Josh is stuck on what we should be doing in Yeman. Because how can we indeed be in a anti terrorist posture when the President of that country not only had fled it, there us a bounty on his head. It is as if he is saying that we are backing the rebels. Which is what I think Andrea Mitchell just stated or asked about but this is a bit uncomfortable for him. We do NOT seem to have a plan in Yeman. He says that we should try to find a diplomatic solution when again, the President of the country took off yesterday. The rebels are now running Yeman. The next question is whether Iran is backing away from that deal we have talked about a lot over the last few weeks. Mika asked if the GOP involvement has screwed up anything with regard to those talks and Josh answers that it eroded the confidence with our allies. He wont conform that it had any issues with Iran but he states that it has hurt the negotiations when it comes to the allies involved in the talks. Last issue is the Lorretta Lynch confirmation which we know whats up here and why its being held back. Actually, last is Mika asking about the relationship between the POTUS and Netanyahu. He has gotten a grilling today by the panel.
OK. Tom Costello and Michael Goldfarbs seem like the 630 hours logged in by the second pilot is NOT alot. Also, they confirm that the German officials confirm that there was indeed only one pilot in that cockpit. That is 100% conformed now. The NY Times article said at first that the guy was pounding on the door and then the other reports say it was done lightly (taps on the door). This raises many questions about what happened in that cockpit but I still do NOT know if it was the main pilot only in the cockpit or if it was the second or co - pilot in it. That is another think that Mika just asked. Has there been any recovery of any bodies? I assume not. I assume most body parts were mutilated so I bet they find body parts only at this time. I think its Keir Simmons just described the plane as being decimated.
Anthony Roman is describing the cockpits as being bullet poof, strong and even hand grenade proof. I had no clue about that but i am glad. I think he mentions an override situation which i heard last night that there were alternative ways in and out of those cockpits.
Barry Mcaffery is up nest to discuss the beau Bergdahl issue. Tulsi Gabbard is also on the show with Chris Jansing starting off the Q&A with them. Barry (Mcaffery ) says that he heard the transcript of the people talking about his capture and that Bergdahl did abandon his post. From what I have heard today, it seems like most people are more affected by the fact that Susan Rice and the POTUS did that press conference in the Rose Garden with Bergdahl's parents. I think people were not into him being touted a so called hero and whatnot.
The show has just switched over to the French press conference (with Brice Robin) about the pilot situation. We just reported what we just said about it. They do mention that all of these actions were voluntary before there were calls to re enter the cock pit. However, the co pilot did not respond and now we know that it was the co pilot that was in the cock pit alone. They have breathes of air recorded which leads everyone to believe that the co pilot was alive in the cock pit. It also seems like the people on the ground asked for a distress signal and there was none. Which then made monitoring the plane became a priority. They were alerting people how close to the ground the plane was and then when they heard the noise or pounding on the door. The plane then glided into the side of the mountain range. There were zero responses to the ground controls effort to get in touch with the pilots on that lane. But again, it was the co pilot that logged in a mere 643 travel or flight miles that was at the helm of the plan be and that was alone in the cock pit. So the co pilot evidently refused to let the pilot back in. I could have sworn that was the interpreter just said about him and the situation. I sense that he thinks it was a deliberate action that took down that plane. Holy cow. The co pilot is and was from Germany. I can't hear the questions being asked but the interpreter r is saying that the person speaking can't answer the first to questions. He is also asking for a little more time to get the background of this pilot. And, to get the other part of the things need to piece this together. I will reconfirm that the co pilot was breathing heavily but did not say a word during the span of time the plane went down. This guy is making no bones about this co pilot deliberately allowing the plane to go down. This is astonishing. He says that the co pilot was even breathing normally and that he did not utter one word. He thinks that the victims only knew about what was happening a few seconds before impact. He says that you can hear people screaming at the last minute or last few seconds before that impact.
This is astonishing news to hear just before 48 hours of hearing the crash. This speaker is saying that he (co pilot) voluntarily refused to open the door and that he pressed a button to allow the plane to descend. He is stating outright that it was a voluntary action buy this co pilot. We do not know anything about this guy except that he is German. He had no terrorist history. BTW, anyone in the cockpit must allow anyone into it. That is a product of what occurred on 9/11. Even if someone knows the code to get into it, the person in it must approve the entry and as anyone leaves the cock pit, the door gets automatically locked. The speaker (Brice Robin) says that the co pilots breathing pattern was totally normal without any panting or heavy breathing which then leads me to believe it was involuntary but this guys says it was voluntary. What I mean is that with an even keeled breathing pattern, that makes me think he was passed out. because even if you were the bravest person ever, you would think that you would start to breathe heavily as that ground gets closer to your face. But that is me assessing that everyone acts that way when I guess there are people that can stare death and murder in the face. The speaker reiterates that we or he does not know his religion and that is not the direction we should be headed. The fact s he would have done that chant just before the crash or as he was taking the plane down.
My problem is that he hardly had any flight miles logged so that also makes me think that could have been a terrorist or who knows. I am in shock now. But yeah, this co pilot pressed the appropriate buttons to take down the plane and this Brice Robin guy is the Prosecutor.I commend the guy for being so forthcoming with this information. I just assume a cover up but then again, I am from America.
Honestly, I must post this now. I can't wait for the show to end today. This news is too astonishing to hold back on and so when and if there are more things to chime in about over the next hour, I will deal accordingly.
Although, Mika just gave the name of the co-pilot as Andreas Lubitz. We know he did not have enough flight miles to fly the plane himself. That is the other thing here too. There were total violations because there should have been another person in that cock pit so someone dropped that ball. Andreas (Lubitz) was 28 years old.
I have to say that I love this Brice Robin guy. he is apologizing for not being timely when i feel he is not only getting this to us in a timely ways, he seems to be doing it in honest ways. There has never been given this much information in this short of a period of time that we were fed this much information. This guy has no reason to apologize for his work. I get apologizing to the victims families and whatnot, is fine but this guy has been great.
All I know is that this guy killed 150 or so people two days ago. He murdered three Americans, two babies, 14 college students and again, over a 150 men and woman.
Thanks and regardless of it all today, please stay in touch!
The New York Times reported at about 815PM last night that Germanwings Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France. As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed amid a relatively clear sky, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.
If you would have seen my instant Message conversation last night, you would have seen me say that I had shivers down my body. It totally changed the entire complexion of how this incident happened. I also heard that there are alternative ways for people to get in and out of those cock pits. And, my friend said it was against Union rules to be a lone in cockpits. I said that it varied at the private airlines but Anthony Roman is saying its not allowed and very unusual for anyone to be alone in any cock pits. The other thing is that even if her had to go to the bathroom somewhere on the plane, man, why did he not go before they took off from the ground? He had to go pretty quick or within the hour of take off.
I have a question though and why is it that every cockpit does not have cameras with real time footage at some places on the mainland? All drones have that technology and again, why is it that there are not cameras set up in every airline's cockpit for someone to monitor that footage from anywhere down on the ground. Again, in the same ways we watch footage from drones. That seems like east technology to implement., It seems like it would not be that expensive in relevance to the alternative to implement on the ground and in the airlines cockpits. It would give us real time information about anything that happens on a plane and before any potential tragedy and it would create jobs on the ground setting up this system and working it. It honestly is a no brain situation to implement a system like I describe here. And, every unknown Michael Goldfarb just mentioned would be known in real time.
A senior French military official involved in the investigation described a “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter. “The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer.” He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
While the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading to the Germanwings crash on Tuesday morning, it also left many questions unanswered. The French aviation authorities have recovered an audio file from the cockpit voice recorder, but did not say whether it was partial or complete. Clockwise from top left: Oleg Bryjak, a bass baritone at the Düsseldorf opera; Maria Radner, a contralto in Düsseldorf; Greig Friday, a mechanical engineer from Australia; and his mother, Carol Friday, a nurse.Among Germanwings Crash Victims, Opera Singers and Newlyweds. French helicopters passed over Seyne-les-Alpes on Wednesday on their way to the crash site.Challenges Weigh Heavily on Recovery Efforts in Germanwings Crash. Students at a memorial on the steps of Joseph-König-Gymnasium on Wednesday in Haltern am See, Germany. Sixteen students and two teachers died in the Germanwings plane crash.In German Town, Crushing Grief at Losing 16 Students and 2 Teachers in Jet Crash. A few hours after officials recovered one of the black boxes, they called off the search for the evening.Germanwings Crash in French Alps Kills 150; Cockpit Voice Recorder Is Found. Students and teachers from the Joseph-König school in Germany were returning from a language and culture immersion program in Spain when their plane crashed on Tuesday.In German Town, a School-Year Highlight That Ended in Disaster.
“We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out,” said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing. “But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone and does not open the door.”
The data from the voice recorder seems only to deepen the mystery surrounding the crash and provides no indication of the condition or activity of the pilot who remained in the cockpit. The descent from 38,000 feet over about 10 minutes was alarming but still gradual enough to indicate that the twin-engine Airbus A320 had not been damaged catastrophically. At no point during the descent was there any communication from the cockpit to air traffic controllers or any other signal of an emergency.
When the plane plowed into craggy mountains northeast of Nice, it was traveling with enough speed that it was all but pulverized, killing the 144 passengers and crew of six and leaving few clues. The French aviation authorities have made public very little, officially, about the nature of the information that has been recovered from the audio recording, and it was not clear whether it was complete. France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analyses confirmed only that human voices and other cockpit sounds had been detected and would be subjected to detailed analysis.
French officers on Wednesday formed a search line near Seyne, France, looking for clues in the crash of a Germanwings plane that left 150 people dead. Asked about the new evidence revealed in the cockpit recordings, Martine del Bono, a bureau spokeswoman, declined to comment. “Our teams continue to work on analyzing the CVR,” she said, referring to the cockpit voice recorder. “As soon as we have accurate information we intend to hold a press conference.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Marseille, who have been tasked with a separate criminal inquiry into the crash, could not immediately be reached for comment. Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor, was due to meet Thursday morning with the families of the crash victims. At the crash site, a senior official working on the investigation said, workers found the casing of the plane’s other so-called black box, the flight data recorder, but the memory card containing data on the plane’s altitude, speed, location and condition was not inside, apparently having been thrown loose or destroyed by the impact.
The lack of real-time flight information availability is a sadistic spit in the eye from commercial carrier companies to their passengers and the human species. Rémi Jouty, the director of the Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, said at a news conference that the plane took off around 10 a.m. local time from Barcelona and that the last message sent from the pilot to air traffic controllers had been at 10:30 a.m., which indicated that the plane was proceeding on course.
But minutes later, the plane inexplicably began to descend, Mr. Jouty said. At 10:40 and 47 seconds, the plane reported its last radar position, at an altitude of 6,175 feet. “The radar could follow the plane until the point of impact,” he said. The managing director of Germanwings confirmed on Wednesday that two Americans were among the 150 killed when an Airbus crashed in the French Alps. Video by Reuters on Publish Date March 25, 2015. Mr. Jouty said the plane slammed into a mountainside and disintegrated, scattering debris over a wide area, and making it difficult to analyze what had happened.
It often takes months or even years to determine the causes of plane crashes, but a little more than a year after the disappearance of a Malaysian airlines jetliner that has never been found, the loss of the Germanwings flight is shaping up to be particularly perplexing to investigators. One of the main questions is why the pilots did not communicate with air traffic controllers as the plane began its unusual descent, suggesting that the pilots or the plane’s automated systems may have been trying to maintain control of the aircraft as it lost altitude.
The French aviation authorities have recovered an audio file from the cockpit voice recorder, but did not say whether it was partial or complete. Among the theories that have been put forward by air safety analysts not involved in the investigation is the possibility that a pilot could have been incapacitated by a sudden event such as a fire or a drop in cabin pressure.
A senior French official involved in the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the lack of communication from the pilots during the plane’s descent was disturbing, and that the possibility that their silence was deliberate could not be ruled out. “I don’t like it,” said the French official, who cautioned that his initial analysis was based on the very limited information currently available. “To me, it seems very weird: this very long descent at normal speed without any communications, though the weather was absolutely clear.”
Rémi Jouty, director of France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, confirmed that audio of voices had been recovered from the black box in the crash of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps. Video by Reuters on Publish Date March 25, 2015. The "memory card" is not what lay people would think. There is a memory board encased in layers of protective materials inside a hardened container. I like the conversations about technology being behind the times. Is someone or some agency poisoning pilots in a manner that delays the effect of the drug? “So far, we don’t have any evidence that points clearly to a technical explanation,” the official said. “So we have to consider the possibility of deliberate human responsibility.”
Mr. Jouty said it was far too early in the investigation to speculate about possible causes.
“At this moment, I have no beginning of a scenario,” Mr. Jouty said. However, he said there was not yet any evidence available that would support a theory of a depressurization or of a midair explosion. French emergency services resumed work on Wednesday near the crash site of a Germanwings jet. Speaking on the French radio station RTL, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday morning that terrorism was not a likely “hypothesis at the moment,” but that no theories had been excluded. He said the size of the area over which debris was scattered suggested that the aircraft had not exploded in the air but rather had disintegrated on impact.
Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, has characterized the crash as an accident. The airline has not disclosed the identities of the pilots, except to say that the captain was a 10-year veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time in A320s. The French Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, which is leading the technical inquiry into the crash, sent seven investigators to the crash site Tuesday. They have been joined by their counterparts from Germany, as well as by technical advisers from Airbus and CFM International, the manufacturer of the plane’s engines.
Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Jean-Paul Troadec, a former director of the French air accident investigation bureau, said one of the big challenges for investigators would be to protect the debris at the crash site from inadvertent damage. “We need to ensure that all the evidence is well preserved,” Mr. Troadec said, referring to the pieces of the plane littered across the steep slopes as well as to the remains of the victims. The identification of the victims will probably require matching DNA from the remains with samples from relatives.
The recovery effort will be a laborious task, given the state of the wreckage, the difficult terrain and the fact that the crash site is so remote that it could be reached only by helicopter. Cabin depressurization, one of the possibilities speculated about on Wednesday, has occurred before, perhaps most notably in the crash of a Cypriot passenger plane in 2005 that killed all 121 people on board as it approached Athens. In that case, Helios Airways Flight 522, a slow loss of pressure rendered both pilots and all the passengers on the Boeing 737 jet unconscious for more than three-quarters of an hour before the aircraft ran out of fuel and slammed into a wooded gorge near Athens, the Greek capital.
Investigators eventually determined that the primary cause of that crash was a series of human errors, including deficient maintenance checks on the ground and a failure by the pilots to heed emergency warning signals.
Next, Yemen edges towards all-out civil war as rebels advance on city of Aden
Some reports suggest president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has fled country using a boat and there is now a bounty for his capture and maybe even his death.
Regardless, Yemenis run for cover as Houthis fire tear gas at a protest against their presence in Taiz, Yemen. Yemen has edged closer to all-out civil war as Shia Houthi rebels seized a key military base in the southern port city of Aden and reports suggested that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had fled the country.
The panel reports that the rebels have also seized al-Anad airbase, which lies between Taiz – Yemen’s third-largest city, which fell under rebel control last week – and Hadi’s stronghold of Aden, in a renewed push for control of the country’s south. The advance sets the stage for a confrontation between Iran, which backs the rebels also known as Ansar Allah, and regional powers eager to halt the broadening of the the Islamic Republic’s regional influence.
Yemen’s descent into chaos also complicates American efforts to fight al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the jihadist group that has been repeatedly targeted by US drone strikes and which the Houthis also see as an enemy. The rebels, members of the Zaydi offshoot of Shia Islam, seized control of the capital, Sana’a, last year and placed Hadi under house arrest. He fled to Aden this month. Hadi’s whereabouts were the subject of conflicting reports on Wednesday. Yemeni security and port officials told the Associated Press that he had left the country with his aides on a boat from the port of Aden. They would not disclose Hadi’s destination; he is scheduled to attend an Arab summit in Egypt on the weekend.
However, Yemen’s foreign minister and presidential sources told Reuters that the president remained in Aden. Another presidential aide told AFP that he had been rushed to a “secure location”. The US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing: “We were in touch with him earlier today. He is no longer at his residence. I’m not in position to confirm any additional details from here about his location.”
Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman of the Yemeni embassy in Washington, said on Twitter that Arab diplomats stationed in Aden were leaving the country.
Mohammad Abdul Salam, the spokesperson of Ansar Allah, told the Houthi-backed al-Masirah TV station that Hadi was looking for a way to escape Aden by sea or air.
In a message to the “people of the south”, Abdul Salam called for cooperation in the fight against terrorism and pledged that the Houthis would fight for their cause.
As Jonathin Capehart is getting at now, US officials said Saudi Arabia was moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, raising the prospect of military intervention, though Saudi sources said the move was purely defensive. Earlier this week Hadi sent a letter to the UN security council’s president called for intervention. The letter called on the international community to use “all necessary measures” under chapter 7 of the UN charter to defend Yemen’s legitimate authorities against the advance of Houthi militias.
Hadi’s foreign minister, Riad Abdullah, echoed the call on Wednesday, saying he had formally asked the Arab League for a military intervention in Yemen – a request that will be discussed in a meeting on Thursday. “In Yemen we are racing against time for this Arab military intervention to happen as soon as possible,” Abdullah told reporters in Sharm al Sheikh. On Monday the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, warned that Arab countries might take action “to protect interests from Houthi aggression”, according to Reuters.
Similar diplomatic moves led by the Gulf states in the Arab League and the UN security council led to the military intervention in Libya against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Gulf powers also intervened militarily in Bahrain to put an end to an uprising that same year that threatened the Sunni Al Khalifa monarchy, which rules over a Shia majority.
The Gulf states had already expressed their explicit backing of Hadi as the legitimate authority in Yemen. They had negotiated Hadi’s rise to the presidency in a diplomatic initiative following popular protests against the rule of his predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is now backing the rebels. The New York Times also reports about this situation that Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had begun military operations in Yemen, launching airstrikes in coordination with a coalition of 10 nations. The strikes came as Yemen was hurtling closer to civil war after months of turmoil, as fighters and army units allied with the Houthi movement threatened to overrun the southern port of Aden where the besieged president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has gone into hiding.
The rapid advances by the president’s opponents included the seizure of a military air base and an aerial assault on his home. There were unconfirmed reports that the president had fled the country by boat for Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation across the Gulf of Aden. The region’s most impoverished country, Yemen has been a central theater of the American fight against Al Qaeda, and its possible collapse presents complex challenges to the Obama administration as it struggles to deal with instability and radical extremism in the Middle East.
Anti-Houthi demonstrators ran Monday as pro-Houthi police forces fired gunhots into the air to disperse them in Taiz, Yemen.The Crisis in Yemen: Points of Concern. Mona El-Naggar in Sana, the capital of Yemen, in January.A Close-Up of Unfolding Unrest in Yemen. Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, a major American ally, and the Saudis were reported massing forces on the Yemen frontier as President Mansour’s last redoubt in Aden looked increasingly imperiled. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi of Yemen in 2013. Along with Syria, Iraq and Libya, Yemen is now the fourth state to veer toward political disintegration in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts that first erupted four years ago.
By Wednesday morning, Houthi forces had seized Al Anad air base, which until recently had been used by American counterterrorism forces, about 35 miles from Mr. Hadi’s refuge in Aden, the country’s second-largest city. A television network under Houthi control said they had found the base empty and looted, and had captured two senior officers loyal to Mr. Hadi, including his defense minister. A few hours later, Yemeni Air Force planes under Houthi control struck targets near the president’s Aden home and his supporters returned fire with antiaircraft guns. The state television network, also controlled by Houthis, announced a $100,000 bounty for Mr. Hadi’s arrest as rumors about his whereabouts swirled. By nightfall, there were reports that Houthi forces were fighting around the Aden airport, on the outskirts of the city.
A security official of Mr. Hadi’s government confirmed the loss of Al Anad. Mr. Hadi’s foreign minister, meanwhile, reiterated his calls for intervention by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states to stop the Houthis, stoking fears that their advance could trigger a widening regional conflict. The country appeared to be sliding toward a civil war as dangerous as any in the region, with elements of a sectarian feud, a regional proxy conflict, the attempted return of an ousted authoritarian and the expansion of anti-Western extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State eager to capitalize on the chaos.
The Houthis, a minority religious group from northern Yemen, practice a variant of Shiite Islam and receive support from Iran. But they are also collaborating with Yemeni security forces still loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longtime strongman who was pushed from power amid the Arab Spring uprising but now appears to be orchestrating a comeback in alliance with the Houthis. With Mr. Saleh’s help, the Houthis now control most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. That has given them a decisive advantage over Mr. Hadi’s forces, as their seizure of the Al Anad base on Wednesday made clear.
But their ability to control and govern their expanding territory remains far from clear, as doesthe potential pushback from Saudi Arabia and other regional powers. “I would not be surprised if we see Aden falling to the Houthis tomorrow,” said Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center. “But that will just set the stage for a prolonged conflict or civil war, because the Houthis have not been able to maintain order even in the areas they have controlled since last year.”
Mr. Hadi, the president, was installed as a replacement for Mr. Saleh in a transition brokered by Persian Gulf monarchies, and he has the backing of both Saudi Arabia and Washington. But he fled to Aden from the capital, Sana, after the Houthis captured it months ago. His last vestiges of support and protection appeared to be only a small number of military units and some tribal groups based in the predominantly Sunni Muslim south. As Mr. Hadi’s opponents have cornered him, his supporters have escalated calls for Saudi Arabia, the other Persian Gulf states and Egypt to intervene to hold back the Houthis, portraying them as an arm of Iran.
At a news conference this week, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, hinted at a possible intervention, saying Saudi Arabia “will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.” At the Arab League, officials said Wednesday that Yemen would top the agenda at a meeting this week of the Arab foreign ministers in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
But a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry quickly dispelled rumors that Cairo had already agreed to intervention. “We have no idea at all about that,” said the spokesman, Ambassador Badr Abdellatty. Against the backdrop of the escalating conflict, Sunni Muslim extremists pledging allegiance to both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have been escalating their attacks, including sectarian assaults on the Houthis. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, claimed responsibility for two bombings of Shiite mosques in Sana on Friday that killed more than 135 people. Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, already effectively controls pockets of southern Yemen beyond the reach of either Mr. Hadi or the Houthis.
The United States evacuated its military personnel from Al Anad several days ago, as fighters from Al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate moved closer from one side and Houthi fighters pushed closer from the other. About 100 American personnel, including Special Forces commandos, were reportedly stationed there before the evacuation. Houthi leaders have said their drive to the south is a battle to root out the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, portraying both groups as instruments of a broad international conspiracy including Israel, Saudi Arabia as well as Washington.
Also, Syria rebels seize ancient town near Jordanian border. Syrian army and its allied fighters forced to withdraw from Bosra al-Sham after five days of fighting. Rebels have seized an ancient town in southern Syria that was a key government stronghold, pushing Syrian troops and its allied militiamen out of the region after five days of heavy fighting, opposition activists and rebels said. The sources said government troops were forced to withdraw on Wednesday from Bosra al-Sham, located near the Jordanian border and classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its historic citadel, ruins and well-preserved Roman theatre. It was once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia and a stopover on caravan routes to Mecca, according to UNESCO.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government. Bosra al-Sham had been in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's troops throughout the four-year-old conflict, and was considered to be a bastion of pro-government forces in Deraa province. The town's capture is a strategic gain because of its geographical location as well. Bosra al-Sham is perched on highlands 10km from the Jordanian border, overlooking the plains that spread out from the southern outskirts of Damascus. "Today is a happy day, Bosra al-Sham has been completely liberated," said Ahmad Masalma, an opposition activist in Deraa.
Masalma said about 10,000 rebels from various groups took part in the attack on the town, which began on Saturday from three sides and ended at dawn on Wednesday. They included members of al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, al-Nusra Front.
Amateur videos posted online showed rebels wandering through the ancient citadel and standing in the sunlight on the theatre's stone stage. One video showed rebels removing a Hezbollah flag from the site. The Lebanese movement has sent troops to boost Assad's forces in southern Syria and other parts of the country during the war. Other fighters fired their guns in celebration near the columned top of the theatre's imposing, semi-circular seating section. Masalma said no major damage was done to the citadel or theatre.
The fight for control of Bosra al-Sham, however, left heavy damage in other parts of the town.
Medics said government forces also dropped barrel bombs and fired rockets at Maaraba hospital in a nearby town, where injured rebel fighters were being treated. "The hospital has been completely levelled to the ground," Mohammed Ahmed, a doctor at the hospital, told Al Jazeera. "The hospital includes a treatment ward and women's operation room. It provide services to all civilians from all areas regardless of their affiliations." The Bosra al-Sham Hotel, the biggest and best-known hotel in the region, and historic souqs were also destroyed in the fighting. Other archaeological sites have been looted by various armed groups and criminals over the past two years.
The Syrian government has lost large swaths of territory to opposition fighters and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but continues to hang on to major cities across the country. Bosra al-Sham is a predominantly Sunni town with a population of about 30,000 but also has a sizable Shia community. The push on the town coincided with rebel gains in northern Syria on Wednesday near the city of Idlib, where a consortium of rebels launched an offensive a day earlier. The target of the operation is Idlib, a city of 165,000 people and capital of a province with the same name. (Source regarding this segment is from Al Jazeera and agencies).
And, The Islamic State group's affiliate in Libya said it played a role in a string of suicide car bombings that killed 12 people Wednesday in the eastern city of Benghazi. Meanwhile, its militants carried out an attack on a rival militia in the central coastal city of Sirte, leaving five dead. A Libyan security official said the three suicide bombings, which also wounded 25, were targeting forces of Libya's elected government and allied fighters. Two of the bombings were carried by militants affiliated to the umbrella group known as The Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries. The Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the other bombing in a post on an Internet bulletin board known to be used by the group and its sympathizers. The claim included a picture of an alleged Tunisian suicide bomber it said was involved in the attack.
The attacks came in retaliation for the killing of Mohammed al-Aribi, a top commander under the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries who fought alongside Islamic State and al-Qaida-linked militants, the security official said. Al-Aribi, who died Monday, was mourned by the Tripoli-militia backed group and parliament on Tuesday. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists.
In the central city of Sirte on Wednesday, Islamic State fighters killed five in clashes with a militia from the western city of Misrata, a militia commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists. Sirte — the home of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi — became the second city to fall into hands of the extremist group. Misrata, which is close to Sirte, has sent its militias to battle the militants.
Libya has plunged into chaos since the 2011 overthrow and death of Gadhafi, leaving the country with two parliaments and two governments, along with rival militaries and militias. The power struggle and fierce fighting has paved the way for the Islamic State group's expansion. Also Wednesday, a new U.N. report documented violent attacks and abuse including abductions, torture and death threats faced by human rights activists in Libya. Some activists have been forced to work in secret, others are missing and some have fled the country.
"Civilians in Libya, including human rights defenders, have few or no avenues to seek protection or access to remedy for the harm suffered," the report said. It said Libya desperately needs functioning law enforcement and justice systems, and called on the international community to support Libyan activists by issuing emergency visas. Some human rights defenders who have fled Libya have continued to receive death threats on their mobile phones and social media pages, the U.N. report said, mentioning two cases where activists were physically assaulted in Tunisia, apparently by Libyans.
Islamic extremist militias have been targeting Christians, women, journalists, refugees and those considered former loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi, who was toppled and killed in Libya's 2011 civil war.
Wow. What a half an hour span of time today. I almost forgot about the Bowe Bergdahl issue going down yesterday that Fox News and Jim Miklaszewski report that the Obama administration official defends Bergdahl trade despite charges. The Obama administration's incoming communications director said Wednesday the decision to trade Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders last year was the right move, hours after he was charged with desertion. "Was it worth it? Absolutely," Jen Psaki told Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File." "We have a commitment to our men and women serving in the military, defending our national security every day, that we're going to do everything to bring them home if we can, and that's what we did in this case."
Psaki's comments were the first from an administration official since the charges were announced earlier in the day. Bergdahl, who was released from Taliban captivity last May after being a prisoner of war for five years, was charged with misbehavior before the enemy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He was also charged with desertion, which carries a maximum of five years.
The case now goes to an Article 32 hearing to be held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where Bergdahl has been performing administrative duties as he awaits the conclusion of the case. That proceeding is similar to a grand jury. From there, it could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial. US soldier held captive by Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly five years freed. A date for that hearing has not yet been announced. Psaki, who is currently a State Department spokeswoman but who is slated to move to the White House next week, wouldn't comment on the merit of the charges against Bergdahl, saying she "won't prejudge those steps" that the Army will be undertaking.
The charges against Bergdahl, 28, come 10 months after his May 2014 release, which initially was a joyous occasion, with his parents joining President Obama in celebrating the news in the Rose Garden. Bob Bergdahl, who had studied Islam during his son's captivity, appeared with a full beard and read a Muslim prayer, while Bergdahl's mother Jani embraced the president. But that euphoria quickly gave way to controversy in Washington, as Bergdahl was accused of walking away from his post and putting his fellow soldiers in danger. The trade of hardened Taliban fighters for his freedom raised deep concerns on Capitol Hill that the administration struck an unbalanced and possibly illegal deal.
With the newly announced charges, Bergdahl could also face a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and forfeiture of all his pay if convicted. He is not in pretial confinement at Fort Sam Houston, a spokesman for U.S. Army Forces Command said. The announcement of the charges marks a sharp turnaround for the administration's narrative of Bergdahl's service and release. After the swap last year, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction." But as Bergdahl faced criticism from fellow servicemembers for his actions, the administration faced heated complaints from Congress over the Taliban trade itself. "This fundamental shift in U.S. policy signals to terrorists around the world a greater incentive to take U.S. hostages," said former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Wednesday's announcement only fueled those concerns.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the Armed Services Committee, was asked by reporters Wednesday whether the charges raised doubts about the initial trade of Bergdahl for the Taliban members. "I would think that it would raise doubts in the mind of the average American if those doubts weren't raised already," Wicker said. "This proves once again that the president's political motivations for closing Guantanamo Bay are causing him to make reckless decisions and will put more American lives at risk," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Wednesday in a statement.
Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges. A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit. Bergdahl disappeared from his base in the eastern Afghanistan province of Paktika on June 30, 2009. A private first class at the time, he had three days earlier emailed his parents expressing disillusionment with the war. President Obama stands with Bob Bergdahl (R) and Jami Bergdahl (L) as he delivers a statement about the release of their son, prisoner of war U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington May 31, 2014. (Reuters) Bergdahl left a note in his tent that said he was leaving to start a new life and intended to renounce his citizenship, Fox News reported last year.
For the next five years, Bergdahl is believed to have been held by the Taliban and Pakistan's infamous Haqqani network. In one of several hostage videos released during his captivity, he said he was captured when he fell behind a patrol, but fellow soldiers, outraged after the trade was made with the Taliban, accused him of deserting. Some asserted that American service members' lives were put at risk in the hunt for Bergdahl. Bergdahl was freed on May 31, 2014, after the White House agreed to trade five high-value Taliban operatives held at Guantanamo Bay.
The trade was branded as illegal by lawmakers, who said they weren’t advised beforehand, It was also blasted by critics who said it violated America’s longstanding tradition of not negotiating with terrorists. There were also concerns – which would prove well-founded – that the Taliban members would return to the fight against the West. Of the five -- Mohammad Fazl, the former Taliban army chief of staff; Khairullah Khairkhwa, a Taliban intelligence official; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a former Taliban government official; and Norullah Noori and Mohammad Nabi Omari -- at least three have attempted to reconnect with their old comrades, a source told Fox News. Bergdhal was promoted to sergeant while in captivity, and had accrued more than $200,000 in back pay by the time he was freed. Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Josh Earnest is on now (with Andrea Mitchell). Nice computer generated re enactment of the pilot being locked out of the cock pit. That is great stuff. Josh is stuck on what we should be doing in Yeman. Because how can we indeed be in a anti terrorist posture when the President of that country not only had fled it, there us a bounty on his head. It is as if he is saying that we are backing the rebels. Which is what I think Andrea Mitchell just stated or asked about but this is a bit uncomfortable for him. We do NOT seem to have a plan in Yeman. He says that we should try to find a diplomatic solution when again, the President of the country took off yesterday. The rebels are now running Yeman. The next question is whether Iran is backing away from that deal we have talked about a lot over the last few weeks. Mika asked if the GOP involvement has screwed up anything with regard to those talks and Josh answers that it eroded the confidence with our allies. He wont conform that it had any issues with Iran but he states that it has hurt the negotiations when it comes to the allies involved in the talks. Last issue is the Lorretta Lynch confirmation which we know whats up here and why its being held back. Actually, last is Mika asking about the relationship between the POTUS and Netanyahu. He has gotten a grilling today by the panel.
OK. Tom Costello and Michael Goldfarbs seem like the 630 hours logged in by the second pilot is NOT alot. Also, they confirm that the German officials confirm that there was indeed only one pilot in that cockpit. That is 100% conformed now. The NY Times article said at first that the guy was pounding on the door and then the other reports say it was done lightly (taps on the door). This raises many questions about what happened in that cockpit but I still do NOT know if it was the main pilot only in the cockpit or if it was the second or co - pilot in it. That is another think that Mika just asked. Has there been any recovery of any bodies? I assume not. I assume most body parts were mutilated so I bet they find body parts only at this time. I think its Keir Simmons just described the plane as being decimated.
Anthony Roman is describing the cockpits as being bullet poof, strong and even hand grenade proof. I had no clue about that but i am glad. I think he mentions an override situation which i heard last night that there were alternative ways in and out of those cockpits.
Barry Mcaffery is up nest to discuss the beau Bergdahl issue. Tulsi Gabbard is also on the show with Chris Jansing starting off the Q&A with them. Barry (Mcaffery ) says that he heard the transcript of the people talking about his capture and that Bergdahl did abandon his post. From what I have heard today, it seems like most people are more affected by the fact that Susan Rice and the POTUS did that press conference in the Rose Garden with Bergdahl's parents. I think people were not into him being touted a so called hero and whatnot.
The show has just switched over to the French press conference (with Brice Robin) about the pilot situation. We just reported what we just said about it. They do mention that all of these actions were voluntary before there were calls to re enter the cock pit. However, the co pilot did not respond and now we know that it was the co pilot that was in the cock pit alone. They have breathes of air recorded which leads everyone to believe that the co pilot was alive in the cock pit. It also seems like the people on the ground asked for a distress signal and there was none. Which then made monitoring the plane became a priority. They were alerting people how close to the ground the plane was and then when they heard the noise or pounding on the door. The plane then glided into the side of the mountain range. There were zero responses to the ground controls effort to get in touch with the pilots on that lane. But again, it was the co pilot that logged in a mere 643 travel or flight miles that was at the helm of the plan be and that was alone in the cock pit. So the co pilot evidently refused to let the pilot back in. I could have sworn that was the interpreter just said about him and the situation. I sense that he thinks it was a deliberate action that took down that plane. Holy cow. The co pilot is and was from Germany. I can't hear the questions being asked but the interpreter r is saying that the person speaking can't answer the first to questions. He is also asking for a little more time to get the background of this pilot. And, to get the other part of the things need to piece this together. I will reconfirm that the co pilot was breathing heavily but did not say a word during the span of time the plane went down. This guy is making no bones about this co pilot deliberately allowing the plane to go down. This is astonishing. He says that the co pilot was even breathing normally and that he did not utter one word. He thinks that the victims only knew about what was happening a few seconds before impact. He says that you can hear people screaming at the last minute or last few seconds before that impact.
This is astonishing news to hear just before 48 hours of hearing the crash. This speaker is saying that he (co pilot) voluntarily refused to open the door and that he pressed a button to allow the plane to descend. He is stating outright that it was a voluntary action buy this co pilot. We do not know anything about this guy except that he is German. He had no terrorist history. BTW, anyone in the cockpit must allow anyone into it. That is a product of what occurred on 9/11. Even if someone knows the code to get into it, the person in it must approve the entry and as anyone leaves the cock pit, the door gets automatically locked. The speaker (Brice Robin) says that the co pilots breathing pattern was totally normal without any panting or heavy breathing which then leads me to believe it was involuntary but this guys says it was voluntary. What I mean is that with an even keeled breathing pattern, that makes me think he was passed out. because even if you were the bravest person ever, you would think that you would start to breathe heavily as that ground gets closer to your face. But that is me assessing that everyone acts that way when I guess there are people that can stare death and murder in the face. The speaker reiterates that we or he does not know his religion and that is not the direction we should be headed. The fact s he would have done that chant just before the crash or as he was taking the plane down.
My problem is that he hardly had any flight miles logged so that also makes me think that could have been a terrorist or who knows. I am in shock now. But yeah, this co pilot pressed the appropriate buttons to take down the plane and this Brice Robin guy is the Prosecutor.I commend the guy for being so forthcoming with this information. I just assume a cover up but then again, I am from America.
Honestly, I must post this now. I can't wait for the show to end today. This news is too astonishing to hold back on and so when and if there are more things to chime in about over the next hour, I will deal accordingly.
Although, Mika just gave the name of the co-pilot as Andreas Lubitz. We know he did not have enough flight miles to fly the plane himself. That is the other thing here too. There were total violations because there should have been another person in that cock pit so someone dropped that ball. Andreas (Lubitz) was 28 years old.
I have to say that I love this Brice Robin guy. he is apologizing for not being timely when i feel he is not only getting this to us in a timely ways, he seems to be doing it in honest ways. There has never been given this much information in this short of a period of time that we were fed this much information. This guy has no reason to apologize for his work. I get apologizing to the victims families and whatnot, is fine but this guy has been great.
All I know is that this guy killed 150 or so people two days ago. He murdered three Americans, two babies, 14 college students and again, over a 150 men and woman.
Thanks and regardless of it all today, please stay in touch!
