Hello, im wolf blitzer reporting from washington. There is a lot to tell you over the next hour. On the deepening crisis in ukraine. At the center of the conflict, the peninsula seen here in red. There you see it in the middle of the screen. Ukraines defense minister says they have warned officials to swear allegiance to the new crimean authorities, surrender, or face an attack. But Russian Media now saying reports of a russian ultimatum are, quote, utter rubbish. What we know right now is about 6,000 Russian Troops are in control of crimea. The European Union demanding an immediate russian withdrawal. The secretary of state, john kerry, hes due to fly out tonight, to go to kiev in ukraine. He spoke moments ago at the state department, and he condemned russians invasion of crimea as an incredible act of aggression. In moscow, russians parliament is considering legislation that could ultimately lead to the annexation of crimea as russian territory. The russian president putin appears to
Connected to the missing plane. Officials also say a Chinese Air Force plane spotted several floating white objects earlier today. Its not clear yet if those are connected to the plane either. And now the task is finding out if any of these new, potential clues are indeed linked to the planes disappearance. We have our teams around the world digging into every angle. Will ripley is live for us in perth, australia, and rene marsh live in washington, d. C. So, will, let me begin with you. Whats the latest on the search efforts, trying to confirm these reported sightings and detections . Well, yeah. 3 00 a. M. Here in perth and we know that search effort, the Aerial Search effort, will be ramping up here at peairs pearc base. We dont know will the planes go to new area, outside the designated search zone when the chinese ship supposedly detected some sort of a ping. Big question, we dont know why they were looking in this particular place. One question were hoemping to get answered from t
Same. We are also seeing a rare cooperation between Kurdish Peshmerga and iraqi forces, two historic adversaries. They are now united against isis, a common enemy. Coordinating attacks and sharing bases. France and the cia are helping arm the kurds but they are still outgunned against isis, which is armed with our heavy weaponry captured from the iraqi army. We start again today inside the kurdish capital of erbil, iraq, with nbcs duncan golestani. Duncan, what is the latest . Reporter hey, abby. Theres 130 u. S. Military advisers. They arrived in erbil. They will be helping with the coordination of the humanitarian efforts of the yezidi people and from that briefing you just showed, we understand they will be looking at options for how to get them down from the mountains around sinjar. There are still around 20,000 to 30,000 yezidis on the mountain. They are up there with no food, no water, in scorching temperatures, exposed to the elements. So what are the options for getting them do
Our hotel, probably only maybe 100 or so feet. But this just gives you a sense right now of just how engaged the fighting is along the entire coast. And really, were in a hotel. The idf, the Israeli Military, knows where were at. Hamas knows where were at. Everybody knows where were at. And we have seen tight, tight closequarter fighting all up and down this area by hotels, in civilian areas, really everywhere along gaza and even here in the International Sort of journalist area. Its no different, really, shepard. Conor, i want to lift the veil a little bit for our viewers and let them see what you were seeing and experiencing in the last three minutes. Look. Get that door open just in case. [ explosions ] get down, mel. Hey, guys, were ducking and covering right now. Jesus mel, get down. Mal, down. By a wall. Hey, were not moving right now, guys. Were not moving right now. We are not moving right now. Better they know were up here. Theyre not shooting at us but by us. In other words,
Officials say they disrupted an imminent attack, that was being plotted against the u. S. And western interests. Were going to have complete coverage of this throughout the morning. Lets get to the pentagon with correspondent Barbara Starr what do we know . The u. S. Picked its targets very carefully. Hitting what mattered to isis the most. Overnight, u. S. And partner nations carried out 14 intense strikes against isis strongholds in raqqa, syria, and other northern cities. The attacks destroying or damaging multiple targets, including training compounds, headquarters, and command and control facilities and briefly knocking out power in the region. U. S. Forces launching tomahawk missiles from land and sea. Bombers, drones and fighter jets continuing the assault by air, including an f22 raptor. A new air force tactical plane that can conduct airtoair and airtoground combat with near impunity. The air strikes targeting key isis positions, including the city of raqqa, where they are ess