Israel rushes to capitalize on peace plan as Palestinians express anger - The Washington Post

Andrew Harrer Bloomberg President Trump applauds as Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, waves during a news conference in Washington, D.C., Jan. 28, 2020.

JERUSALEM — Israelis and Palestinians awoke Wednesday with the long-contested ground seeming to shift beneath their feet following the much-awaited reveal of the latest, and most unusual, proposal to resolve their five-decade standoff.

As one side of the dispute rejected a White House plan it condemned as hopelessly biased, the other raced to lock down the territorial prizes the plan offered. This ensured that the proffered deal could have permanent consequences even if, as many analysts predict, it will go nowhere during its self-imposed four-year window.

Even before the parties had finished poring over the map that described a possible Palestinian state on 70 percent of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear he would immediately take steps to annex the other 30 percent, the location of more than 150 Jewish settlements, along with the Jordan Valley.

However, on Wednesday morning, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who accompanied Netanyahu to Washington, told an Israeli radio station that because of formal procedures, this process could be delayed.

The dizzying pace of events left all sides scrambling to assess what was changing and what remained of the dogged status quo.

[Trump announces long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace package amid doubts it will lead to progress]

Parallel to his ongoing impeachment trial, President Trump revealed his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jan. 28.

The Palestinian leadership united in declaring the plan a nonstarter — “a thousand no’s,” shouted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — although some neighboring Arab states seemed to allow for a few “maybes.”

Groups of protesters turned out only in parts of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in nearby Amman, Jordan. There were scenes of isolated rock-throwing and flaming posters of President Trump and Netanyahu, but no reported injuries.

While frustration and anger at the U.S. plan were rampant on Arab-language social media, it was much more energetic online than in the relatively limited street rallies.

A general strike was called for Wednesday in Gaza, and at midday Wednesday several, but not all, shops were closed. A group of boys, free from school, burned a tire at a corner in Gaza City.

Muhammad al-Burai, an idled teacher, watched them, lamenting all that the proposal would take away from his beleaguered people.

“The plan tells us that there is no Jerusalem, no return of refugees, no control of borders, no airport or seaport, the settlements have become legitimate, the martyrs and the detainees have become criminals, and all this for $50 billion” in promised investment funding, he said. “Is there a sane person who accepts this?”

Israeli settlers were also sorting through the deal’s particulars, with mixed responses. They stood to achieve a long-cherished dream of having their hilltop towns and cities become normalized Israeli communities — patrolled by police instead of soldiers — but many balked at the price: a four-year freeze on building and the prospect of a Palestinian state.

“That’s a big no,” said David Haivri, a longtime resident of Kfar Tapuach, an Orthodox Jewish settlement of 1,500 people north of Jerusalem. “We are a thriving community, and we need to grow. To ask us to not be alive, even for a short period and certainly for four years, we cannot accept that.”

Adel Hana

AP

Protesters burn pictures of President Trump to denounce his Middle East peace plan, at the main road market in Jebaliya refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Jan. 28, 2020.

Some settlement movement leaders, many of whom traveled to Washington with Netanyahu, were similarly dismissive. In the hours after plan’s debut, some expressed surprise that the prime minister they considered a key supporter endorsed the concept of their communities existing as islands surrounded by a sovereign Palestine, even one allowed no army or airport.

But others were prepared to weigh the pros and cons of what they recognized as a high-water mark for their movement, which is condemned by much of the international community as illegal.

“If we would have been told 20 years ago that America would come to recognize the settlements, we would have been considered fools” to believe that, said Oded Revivi, an official on the Yesha Council, a settler umbrella group. “The plan poses challenges that are not simple and will require us to think carefully.”

He cited as examples the plan’s recognition of a Palestinian state with sections of East Jerusalem as its capital.

The path to statehood was the most surprising feature of the plan for many of Israel’s most conservative factions, which otherwise delighted in its favorable tilt their way.

Eugene Kontorovich, a legal expert at the Koholet Policy Forum, a leading right-wing think tank in Jerusalem, said many on the right would likely embrace the trade-off as they realized how many safeguards were built into it. The Palestinians could achieve statehood only after meeting a string of prerequisites, from disarming Hamas to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

“Unlike other plans, this one builds in criteria the [Palestinian Authority] would have to meet to show it really wants to be a peaceful neighbor,” Kontorovich said. “And if you fail, statehood is taken off the table.”

But others from the right were adamantly opposed to the idea. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said the right-wing Yamina party he leads, which Netanyahu will need to form a government if he is successful in the March 2 election, will “under no circumstances recognize a Palestinian state in any format.”

Still, Bennet was enthusiastic at the prospect of a quick annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley, a move seemingly greenlighted by the American authors of the plan. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told reporters Tuesday that annexation would still allow for a Palestinian state.

“If Israelis apply Israeli law to the settlements and territory allocated to Israel under the plan, a significant minority of the West Bank, then we will recognize Israeli sovereignty” over the annexed areas, Friedman said. “And from the Palestinian perspective, they are still in the game.”

Speaking at a conference Wednesday, Bennett said that Israel could not afford to miss “this historic opportunity” to apply Israeli sovereignty to all Israeli settlements and any other areas outlined in Trump’s plan. He said he had already called for the establishment of a team made up of the Israeli military, various government offices and the civil administration overseeing the West Bank to explore ways to implement the process of annexation.

For liberal Israelis, any relief that the concept of a two-state solution might endure — with the unexpected endorsement of a future Palestine by both Trump and Netanyahu — was overshadowed by the restrictions the plan would impose.

“The usage of the word ‘state’ in the context of this plan is beyond cynical,” said Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.“This is not a plan for Palestinian rights nor a state, except for the permanent state of apartheid.”

Majdi Mohammed

AP

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks after a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2020.

In the West Bank, anger at the plan only grew among Palestinian leaders after the details became clear. Not only were the terms unfavorable, as officials had predicted for the years they boycotted the White House discussion, but the actual details were nearly identical to demands they had heard from Israelis in the past.

“What I heard President Trump read was verbatim, word-for-word, what I have heard from Netanyahu’s negotiators,” said Saeb Erekat, the longtime chief Palestinian negotiator. “This plan was not written in Washington. It was written in the office of the prime minister of Israel.”

In the West Bank, the deal’s promised torrent of money via a $50 billion investment fund was dismissed as both an empty promise and a lowball offer for limited independence on less land than previous peace deals have offered.

“Fifty billion dollars is an insult to every Palestinian,” said Ibrahim Barham, a software developer from Ramallah who was invited to — and declined to attend — a conference organized in Bahrain by the White House last year to promote West Bank investment as part of the peace plan. “Our land is worth trillions. Jerusalem, to us, is worth all the money on the face of the Earth. This has never been about money.”

Some of the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors in the region, however, were not so quick to reject the Trump plan outright. Jordan and Turkey roundly condemned the proposal, and in Lebanon, the Iranian-allied Hezbollah movement vowed to “topple” what it called the “deal of shame.”

But others were more supportive, notably Egypt and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf that have drifted closer to normalized relations with Israel out of shifting strategic interests and years of peace-process stagnation.

Saudi Arabia’s Foriegn Ministry tweeted a thank you for Trump’s efforts “to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the Palestinian and Israeli sides,” and the United Arab Emirates described it as “a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over the years.”

Oman, Bahrain and the UAE sent representatives to the White House for the plan’s release.

Sufian Taha in Jerusalem and Hazem Balousha in Gaza contributed to this report.

Opinion: What Trump and Netanyahu just unveiled was a PR campaign, not a peace plan

Timeline: Trump’s policies toward the Palestinians

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-01-29 12:04:00Z
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'Utter chaos': Coronavirus exposes China healthcare weaknesses - Al Jazeera English

Chengdu, China - On January 20, Fubin's father started coughing and running a fever. As residents of Wuhan, they knew about a deadly new coronavirus that had originated in the central Chinese city weeks ago, but decided to stay home and hope the symptoms would subside.

Four days later, when his father's body temperature soared to 40 degrees, Fubin rushed him to hospital.

Together they headed to the Wuhan Union Hospital but, at reception, they were turned away. They were told they had to go to one of seven hospitals the government had designated for fever patients.

The two men went to Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, one of the designated facilities, and found the line of people waiting to get checked was so long they would have to wait outside - potentially for hours - in the cold and rain. They decided to try their luck elsewhere.

The second and third hospital were both packed. It took Fubin two days to get his father admitted to Wuhan No 5 Hospital, and he is one of the lucky ones.

Coronavirus: Life under lockdown in Wuhan

As thousands, if not tens of thousands, of fever patients who fear they might have caught the novel coronavirus that has now killed more than 100 people rush to Wuhan's hospitals, the outbreak is testing China's healthcare system on a scale not seen since the country was hit by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, 17 years ago.

"The response from the government has been utter chaos," said a nurse who works in Wuhan and preferred not to disclose her name. "The current healthcare system was completely unready for a situation like this."

The nurse works at one of the designated hospitals, treating victims of a virus that has already infected nearly 10,000 people.

"You would think the government and hospitals had learned something from the SARS outbreak and prepared ourselves for another emergency like this," she said angrily over the phone. "But no - they learned nothing."

Most Chinese go straight to hospital when they are sick, leading to huge queues for treatment [cnsphoto via Reuters]

First line of defence

There have been urgent appeals for medical supplies not only in Wuhan and the province of Hubei, but beyond. The government has blamed the Lunar New Year holiday, when factories traditionally close, for the shortages of masks, goggles and other crucial supplies, saying it is hard to step up manufacturing during the festive season.

Shortly after the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government established and updated several times a medical materials reserve system that was supposed to ensure sufficient supplies in the event of any public health emergency.

However, reports filed with the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention suggest reserves at some hospitals have not been maintained.

In a 2019 article detailing Guiyang province's emergency medical supplies reserve, the provincial CDC said that, of the 11 items needed in the event of a public health emergency, only five items were fully stocked at the local level.

"There are priorities in our expenditure budget and none of us could've expected an emergency like this," an officer from Sichuan's provincial CDC told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. "So I believe sometimes the supplies reserve might not be ideal."

For ordinary patients like Fubin, it is not just the lack of medical supplies.

In China, a lack of properly trained general practitioners means the first line of defence often does not exist. There is a lack of trust in clinics and GPs, who are often difficult to find, and people prefer to go straight to hospital as soon as they need medical care.

In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, that meant a flood of patients in the initial days of the outbreak as people lined up in front of hospitals, hoping to get treatment.

China is building new field hospitals to cope with the surge in patients as a result of the coronavirus. The first 1,000-bed hospital is expected to be completed by 3 February [Yuan Zheng/EPA]

Health inequality

The majority of people rushed to a limited number of well-known hospitals, also known as a Grade III Level A hospitals, the highest category determined by the Ministry of Health.

Grade III Level A hospitals have attracted the most qualified medical staff and modern equipment, and the well-known concentration of resources has put immense pressure on these hospitals.

"Of course, I'd only go to Grade III Level A hospital," Fubin said. "I doubt other hospitals have doctors good enough to treat diseases properly."

Many experts have said that a sudden rush to these medical facilities might have contributed to the widespread cross-infection.

Authorities are now building two more - temporary - hospitals to accommodate the expected thousands of cases.

"We understand that a lot of patients are choosing top hospitals over others," the Municipal Party Secretary of Wuhan said during a news conference. "But we're trying to change the mentality now so more people could get treated."

But that does not address a larger problem: the unequal distribution of medical resources across China.

The level of medical care available in an area almost directly correlates with a province's level of development.

In Hubei province, 44 out of 88 Grade III Level A hospitals are located in Wuhan, home to 11 million of the province's more than 50 million people. In China overall, most of the best hospitals are found in the more developed, and wealthier, eastern coastal cities.

Such inequality also extends to the provision of medical staff in different locations.

In Beijing, the capital and home to approximately 20 million people, there are 100,000 registered doctors, whereas in Sichuan, a western province of more than 80 million people, there are 200,000, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

That means while there are 4.63 doctors per 1,000 people in the capital, there are only 2.46 per 1,000 in Sichuan.

A medic at the Wuhan Union Hospital in Wuhan. China has deployed nearly 6,000 extra health workers to Wuhan to cope with the demand caused by the coronavirus [Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua via AP Photo]

Hubei province has only 150,000 doctors, the majority of whom are stationed in Wuhan.

To relieve the pressure on the limited number of medics currently fighting on the front line, close to 6,000 doctors and nurses from across China have been parachuted into Wuhan and other surrounding cities, in the hope of containing the outbreak.

'Work harder'

But the lack of doctors is not specific to Wuhan: China simply does not have enough of them, especially those who work in intensive care.

The World Health Organization says that China has 17 doctors for every 10,000 people, well behind the world's best 82 per 10,000 people in Cuba. And, while the country has made progress in improving health indicators over the past decade, few see much incentive to become a doctor.

"The hyper tension and mistrust between the patients and doctors, the low salary of most doctors, and unpredictable hours all contribute to the lack of motive to become a doctor in China," said Zhou, a surgeon at Chengdu's Huaxi Hospital who preferred not to share their full name.

"This outbreak has revealed some of the major problems in our healthcare system that should've been addressed before," Zhou added. "I have confidence that these problems will be fixed soon."

In Wuhan, having had three days of treatment, Fubin's father is on the mend.

His son is relieved.

"I would be lying if I said that I wasn't terrified that my father might not be able to get treatment," he said. "I'm glad that he's getting better, but there are still so many people unable to get treatment, and the government should really work harder to address the problem."

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2020-01-29 11:59:00Z
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British Airways suspends flights to China as coronavirus spreads - CNN

"We have suspended all flights to and from mainland China with immediate effect following advice from the Foreign Office against all but essential travel," the company said in a statement Wednesday.

The UK's Foreign Office warned people against traveling to mainland China in all but essential cases on Tuesday.

It's the most drastic action yet by a major airline as the deadly coronavirus continues to spread. The virus has killed 132 people and infected nearly 6,000 people in China so far, with dozens more cases confirmed in places such as the United States, Japan, Germany and France.

British Airways operates direct flights from London Heathrow to Beijing (PKX) and Shanghai (PVG), according to the company's website. Those flights were unavailable to book online through February 29. Passengers can still book BA flights to mainland China via connections in cities such as Hong Kong.

The carrier's move comes a day after United Airlines (UAL) temporarily reduced its schedule between the United States and three cities in China.

The US airline said in a statement Tuesday that "significant decline in demand" had forced it to suspend flights from February 1 though February 8 between its US hubs and Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

In total, 24 round trips are affected. They are between Hong Kong to San Francisco and Newark; Beijing (PEK) to Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Newark; and Shanghai (PVG) to San Francisco, Newark and Chicago O'Hare.

American Airlines (AAL), Delta Air Lines (DAL) and United all extended change fee waivers through the end of February.

Cathay Pacific (CPCAY), Hong Kong's flagship airline, has said it will reduce the capacity of flights to and from mainland China by half or more until the end of March.

Finland's Finnair is canceling three weekly flights between Helsinki and Beijing (PKX) between February 5 and March 29, and two weekly flights between Helsinki and Nanjing (NKG) between February 8 and March 29, because of the suspension of group travel by Chinese authorities. It will continue to operate flights to Beijing (PEK), Shanghai (PVG), Hong Kong (HKG) and Guangzhou (CAN).

— Jordan Valinsky and Stephanie Halasz contributed to this report.

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2020-01-29 10:45:00Z
CAIiEMvnhJ8lgLfXC_OzHU91xsoqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowocv1CjCSptoCMPrTpgU

First Middle East cases of coronavirus confirmed in the UAE - CNBC

Virologist Sandro Halbe observes cell culture dishes in a research laboratory of the Institute of Virology at the Philipps University of Marburg. The novel coronavirus, which has made hundreds of people sick in China, also employs scientists from Hessen.

Arne Dedert | Getty Images

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The first cases of the deadly coronavirus in the Middle East have been confirmed in the United Arab Emirates, the country's Ministry of Health and Community Protection said in a statement Wednesday.

The infected patients are members of a family that had traveled from Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million and the epicenter of the new virus that has killed 132 people and infected more than 6,000. The vast majority of deaths and infections are in mainland China.

In its statement, the health ministry reported the family as being in a stable condition under medical observation. Health authorities in the U.S. say the fatality rate for the respiratory disease is currently between 2% and 3%.

The exact number of cases is unclear and the ministry did not specify where in the UAE the cases had appeared.

The UAE said last week it would screen all passengers arriving at its airports from China. Dubai International Airport (DXB) is a popular transit hub for Asia and is the world's busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic.

Airlines suspending flights to China

U.K. carrier British Airways on Wednesday announced it will halt all flights to and from mainland China, while other airlines including United and Air Canada have canceled select flights. The U.S. has issued a travel advisory warning for China and the Trump administration is considering suspending all China-U.S. flights. The U.S. and other countries have begun evacuating its citizens out of China.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is telling Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China, expanding its travel warning from the city of Wuhan to the entire country as the coronavirus outbreak worsens.

Hong Kong has halted transport links to mainland China and extended school closures after declaring a virus emergency for the city over the weekend.

Chinese authorities have restricted travel for at least 17 cities in its central Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. It is an area encompassing more than 50 million people. The virus is believed to have first appeared in a Wuhan seafood market also selling wildlife including snakes and marmots. Hubei on Sunday shut down inter-city and inter-province buses in an effort to curb the outbreak.

The World Health Organization is sending a delegation of researchers and other health experts to China to help combat the coronavirus outbreak. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier Tuesday.

While the majority of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths are in mainland China, the virus has also been identified in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal, France, Germany, Australia, the UAE and the U.S.

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2020-01-29 08:17:00Z
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Looming Mideast peace deal amounts to Netanyahu-Trump pact, experts say - NBCNews.com

Thank you.

That's what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to President Donald Trump when the leaders met ahead of the unveiling Tuesday of the U.S.'s long-delayed Mideast peace plan.

"Thank you for everything you've done for Israel," Netanyahu told the president at the White House on Monday, according to a statement released by his media adviser.

Netanyahu has good reason to be grateful for the "deal of the century."

Yossi Mekelberg, a professor of international relations at Regent's University in London, said the agreement that Trump has promoted as the "ultimate deal" amounts to a two-way pact between Trump and Netanyahu.

Jan. 27, 202002:14

"The Palestinians were not consulted. It's a dictate of take it or leave it," he said.

"Popes used to give indulgences to forgive sinners until they got to purgatory. Now Trump is absolving Israel for occupation," Mekelberg added, addressing widespread speculation that Washington will give Israel the green light to annex parts of the occupied West Bank that it captured from Jordan in 1967 in the Six-Day War.

More than half a century later, the West Bank is home to almost 3 million Palestinians who hope it will form a significant part of a future state. More than 400,000 Israelis also live there.

Details of the plan are due to be released Tuesday and analysts predicted that it will not bode well for Palestinians, who have refused to meet with the Trump team since the president announced in December 2017 that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital.

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For Mekelberg and other analysts the deal should be understood as two friends lending each other a hand at a sensitive time in their political careers.

Trump is currently embroiled in impeachment proceedings, and in November Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust; both are campaigning in elections that will decide their political fate.

"Trump and Netanyahu care more about electoral politics at home and less about real peace with the Palestinians," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

"It resembles a colonial arrangement of a bygone era," he added, comparing the impending deal to past secret agreements that divided parts of the Middle East among European powers and promised the Jewish community a home in historic Palestine.

"Palestinians are denied agency, representation and rights," he said.

Michael Stephens, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, said Palestinians "can't and won't" accept the plan set to be unveiled in the White House.

Even before the details were released, protests rejecting it were already in full swing in Gaza and Palestinians had called for a "Day of Rage" on Wednesday in the West Bank.

"The deal of the century, which is not based on international legality and law, gives Israel everything it wants at the expense of the national rights of the Palestinian people," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in opening the Palestinian Authority's weekly Cabinet meeting in Ramallah on Sunday.

Palestinians burn a poster showing President Donald Trump as they protest the American peace plan in Bethlehem on Monday. Mahmoud Illean / AP

Palestinian leaders have consistently dismissed the U.S. as biased toward Israel and emphatically rejected the economic half of the Trump administration's plan that was published on June 22.

Opposition to the deal came from another end of the political spectrum, too.

A delegation of the Yesha Council, an umbrella group of Israeli municipal authorities in the occupied West Bank that traveled to Washington for the plan's unveiling, said Tuesday that it was "very disturbed."

"We cannot agree to a plan that would include the establishment of a Palestinian state that would pose a threat to the State of Israel," said David Alhaini, the group's chairman.

Since becoming president, Trump has endorsed Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria, moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and closed the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington.

In November, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reversed decades of U.S. policy when he announced that the United States no longer viewed Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as necessarily a violation of international law.

If the deal includes annexation of large parts of the West Bank, as many suspect, it would "seal the fate of the two-state solution" said Mekelberg, referring to a plan to establish a separate Palestinian state.

"The West Bank would no longer be a viable Palestinian state and at best could become some autonomous region," he added.

Netanyahu's chief political rival, Benny Gantz, also flew to Washington this weekend to meet with Trump and welcomed the peace plan as a "significant and historic milestone."

Saphora Smith

Saphora Smith is a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. 

Paul Goldman

Paul Goldman is a Tel Aviv-based producer and video editor for NBC News.

Lawahez Jabari

Lawahez Jabari is a producer based in Tel Aviv. She has covered the Middle East conflict — on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides — for more than a decade. 

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2020-01-28 13:38:00Z
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Plane crash in Afghanistan remains a mystery but US military reaches crash site to retrieve remains - CBS News

Last Updated Jan 28, 2020 8:26 AM EST

American forces were able to reach the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force jet in Afghanistan overnight to retrieve remains, but it remained unclear what brought the high-tech aircraft down in Taliban territory the previous day.

The Taliban claimed it shot the plane down, and while a U.S. official said Monday that initial information brought "no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire," a U.S. military spokesperson told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin the cause of the crash was still under investigation. The Pentagon has not officially ruled anything out.

U.S. officials told Martin the pilot of the Bombardier E-11A declared an in-flight emergency shortly before the crash. U.S. helicopters were finally able to reach the crash site overnight to recover the bodies of two crewmen.

A spokesman for the police in Ghazni province, where the plane came down, told CBS News on Tuesday that even Afghanistan's domestic forces had been unable to reach the crash site, which was under Taliban control. The spokesman, Ahmad Khan Sirat, told CBS News' Ahmad Mukhtar that Afghan forces clashed with the Taliban overnight, causing no casualties but blocking the security forces' access to the site.

Sirat told CBS News that Afghan forces were planning Tuesday for an operation along with foreign partners to reach the crash site by ground, but he did not provide any further details.

Investigation reveals officials misled the public about war in Afghanistan

The plane came down in a remote area in central Afghanistan that is under the control of the Islamic insurgency. Videos quickly emerged on social media purportedly showing the wreckage of the plane — with U.S. Air Force markings — charred and burning.

Martin says the E-11A is a relatively large plane with a crew of just two people – the rest of the aircraft was crammed with state-of-the-art electronics, and now that the bodies have been recovered the main concern is protecting all the technology that went down with the jet.

The plane is normally used for electronic surveillance and can fly at high altitudes with an extended range. The E-11A is often referred to as "Wi-Fi in the sky," and is used to facilitate battlefield communications for American forces and their allies in a region with difficult terrain. 

U.S. and Taliban officials have been working to broker a ceasefire or at least to reduce hostilities in the country. There are an estimated 13,000 U.S. troops based in Afghanistan.

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2020-01-28 13:26:00Z
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U.S.-backed Afghan forces unable to reach site of U.S. surveillance plane that crashed in Taliban territory - The Washington Post

Saifullah Maftoon AP The wreckage of a U.S. military aircraft that crashed in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, is seen Monday, Jan. 27, 2020.

KABUL — U.S.-backed Afghan forces have been unable to reach the site of an American surveillance plane that went down in an area under Taliban control, Afghan officials said Tuesday. U.S. officials have not said how many people were on board or whether there were survivors.

Afghan officials said bad weather and heavily mined roads have prevented a special forces unit from reaching the site more than 24 hours after the crash was first reported.

“The site of the crash is insecure,” Wahidullah Kaleemzai, Ghazni’s provincial governor, told The Washington Post by phone Tuesday.

“Helicopters and drones flew above the site last night but could not land. We are doing what we can today jointly,” he said, referring to joint U.S. and Afghan military operations.

The U.S. military command confirmed the crash Monday of a U.S. Air Force Bombardier E-11A and said the cause is “under investigation,” according to a statement from Col. Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Twitter accounts linked to the Taliban shared video on Jan. 27 showing the wreckage of an alleged U.S. Air Force E-11A aircraft. The video was shared after reports of a plane crash in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province.

Leggett said that “there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire.” One Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, told The Post that insurgent forces shot down the plane, but other Taliban statements Monday said the plane “crashed.”

Another local lawmaker, Hameedullah Nawroz, a member of the Ghazni provincial council, said roadside bombs placed by the Taliban on routes leading to the crash site have prevented ground forces from moving in. He said an attempted air operation last night had to be called off due to poor weather.

The crash took place in Deh Yak district, an area considered a Taliban stronghold long under the insurgents’ control. Ghazni is one of Afghanistan’s most volatile provinces, with the Taliban contesting several districts. In 2018, the insurgents overran Ghazni’s provincial capital, and that same year a Taliban-claimed roadside bomb killed three American soldiers there.

The U.S. Bombardier E-11A is an electronics surveillance aircraft that helps boost tactical communications on the battlefield. In Afghanistan, it is used to help transmit communications between ground units and commanders, which is often a challenge in the country’s mountainous and rugged terrain.

The crash occurred as peace talks between the Taliban and American negotiators remained stalled. The United States is demanding a reduction in violence before formal talks can resume. Taliban leaders offered a proposal to bring down violence earlier this month.

Sayed Mustafa

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Afghan soldiers were unable Tuesday to reach the scene of a U.S. plane crash near Ghazni, Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Peace talks have brought with them an intensification of the conflict in Afghanistan in recent months, as U.S. and Taliban negotiators have sought to leverage battlefield victories. A peace agreement would include the withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops from the country.

There are about 13,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. military command in Kabul. At the war's height in 2010 and 2011, there were more than 100,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar province left two U.S. service members dead and two wounded. Last year, 20 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan, more than any other year since 2014.

George reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.

Read more

The Afghanistan Papers — A Secret History of War

U.S. military plane crashes in Taliban territory in Afghanistan

Two American service members killed in Taliban-claimed attack

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2020-01-28 11:14:00Z
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