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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/25/2015 9:49:00 AM
	Iraqi Forces Map Plan Against ISIS, With Strategic Use of Militias By ANNE BARNARD and KAREEM FAHIMMARCH 24, 2015 Shiite and Sunni fighters joined Iraqi forces against ISIS outside former President Saddam Hussein’s palace near Tikrit. CreditThaier Al-Sudani/Reuters BAGHDAD — As a small force of Islamic State militants holds out in parts of Tikrit for a fourth week, Iraqi forces have been compelled to shift tactics, officials say: Rather than storming in to clear the city at any cost, the security forces are trying to seal off the area and begin preparing for even more challenging battles to the west and north. The Iraqi forces’ progress has put them closer to the doorstep of Nineveh Province, where the city of Mosul looms as the most important battleagainst the Islamic State. But the hard lessons of the Tikrit offensive, with a heavy cost in casualties for the Shiite militiamen and soldiers involved, have Iraqi officials thinking more cautiously about their next steps. To that end, officials say, their next goal will be securing the western province of Anbar, in part to keep Islamic State fighters there from ambushing and harassing the main Iraqi force to the east. “We will secure Anbar first, and then move on to Nineveh,” Iraq’s defense minister, Khaled al-Obeidi, told reporters recently. He added that new army troops were still training for Mosul, where Islamic State militants were constructing berms and trenches, preparing to “destroy the city to defend it.” Even just reaching this point has been a much-needed success for the Iraqi forces, which were badly routed by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) last June. Now, the main offensive’s progress puts it astride a vital cluster of road networks, potentially linking scattershot battles across the northeast, mostly fought by Kurdish forces, and in the west, where Iraqi troops and a small local Sunni force are surrounded by militants in some places. But the government’s effort faces many challenges — not least that the battle for Tikrit itself is far from over. The pro-government force of more than 30,000 is struggling to clear a midsize city in a province never believed to have had more than 1,000 Islamic State fighters. And holding the area could be even harder, given the Islamic State’s grip on nearby areas. The Operation to Recapture Tikrit Pro-government forces in the operation were largely composed of Shiite militias, who coordinated with soldiers, the police and Sunni tribal fighters. Tikrit lies along the strategic Mosul-Baghdad highway. Sources: Michael Izady, Columbia University’s Gulf 2000 project (ethnic and religious groups); Institute for the Study of War (ISIS area of influence); International Crisis Group. By The New York Times On March 13, for example, ISIS fighters crossed the plains from Anbar and attacked pro-government forces behind their front line, inflicting casualties. And on March 11, officials said, ISIS fighters tunneled under a house used as an army post in Anbar and blew it up, killing at least 13 soldiers in an explosion so large that Iraqi officials initially accused American warplanes of bombing it by mistake. Officials and military analysts agree that a sprawling battle to drive the Islamic State out of Anbar and its stronghold in Mosul will take a much bigger force than is gathered around Tikrit. The progress in Tikrit raises the possibility of increased cooperation among the militias, the army and Kurdish pesh merga forces, including those battling ISIS nearby around the northeastern oil hub of Kirkuk. But it will not be as simple as just having those two sets of forces link up and march onward. In particular, there are mounting concerns about sectarian tension. Most of the forces around Tikrit are made up of Shiite militiamen, who are being guided by Iranian military advisers. Their advance into heavily Sunni areas has worried some American officials, and the United States-led coalition has not yet conducted airstrikes centered directly on the Tikrit mission. Given those concerns, as well as political and ethnic tensions and differing terrain and battle dynamics, a lineup of forces that works on one front may not work on another, analysts and officials say. Yet it is hard to see how a large enough force to take Mosul — with hundreds of thousands of residents and thousands of ISIS fighters — could be built without drawing on all the available forces, regardless of the difficulties. Iraqi officials insist that their urgent efforts to build up the regular army, with the help of American trainers, will deliver at least two or three more divisions — thousands of troops, theoretically — to help with the Mosul offensive. But recruiting and retraining efforts for the Iraqi Army have not produced as many fighters as the parallel efforts by Shiite militias. At times, Shiite forces and pesh merga have cooperated against the Islamic State, and Iraqi officials say both groups operate under the central military chain of command. But they have been at best only loosely subsumed. And neither is well suited to Anbar, a province dominated by Sunni Arab tribes and a longtime cradle of Iraqi insurgencies. ISIS leaders first came together battling the United States occupation there. Iraqi officials say more local Sunni fighters are needed in Anbar, along with regular forces. But the leaders of the so-called Sunni Awakening militias, which turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq with American backing starting in 2007, have been discredited or displaced, and new allies must be found, cajoled or bought. GRAPHIC Multiple Fronts in the Fight Against ISIS A visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria. GRAPHIC At the same time, the Islamic State is believed by Iraqi and American officials to be pulling back fighters from other fronts to defend Mosul. The group continues to draw new recruits and move freely across the uncontrolled border with Syria. ISIS recently released a new video of fighters training, purportedly part of a new force formed to defend the city. Rafid Jaboori, the spokesman for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said recently that the government envisions the battle for Mosul being led by new army forces, Sunni residents in and around Mosul, and Kurdish pesh merga, all supported by airstrikes from the United States-led military coalition. Yet some of the Shiite militiamen fighting to take Tikrit have vowed to participate in an advance on Mosul as well, saying they had earned the honor. “We haven’t fought anywhere and lost,” said Sayed Qasemi, a leader in Kirkuk of the popular mobilization units, the umbrella name for the many Shiite militias. At the same time, Kurdish political and military leaders played down any talk of spearheading a Mosul offensive, wary of being seen as occupiers in the Sunni Arab-majority city. They are focused on securing what they consider Kurdish territory. Still, the militias and Kurds have cooperated at times. As the battle raged for Tikrit, pesh merga cleared more than 40 square miles of territory south and west of Kirkuk, the oil hub city that is central to Kurdish independence aspirations. That progress, which included help from Shiite militiamen, has effectively sandwiched some ISIS units between the main Kurdish and Shiite forces. The Islamic State fighters around Kirkuk were demoralized, according to Gen. Rasoul Omar, a Kurdish commander. He said the militants lacked “spirit in their attack and even defense” and withdrew “wildly,” failing to leave behind their trademark lethal booby-traps. That is a distinct turnaround from January, when hundreds of ISIS fighters briefly pushed into the city of Kirkuk itself, killing two seasoned pesh merga commanders in the process. Kurds and Shiites worked together to repel the attack, but afterward, arguments broke out over the presence of hundreds of Shiite militia fighters. The Kurds saw them as a threat to their dominance of the ethnically mixed city. Kirkuk’s governor, Najmiddin Karim, who proudly displays photo albums of dead ISIS fighters, warned that without visionary leadership, Iraq risked falling apart under the strains of a prolonged war. “If it’s amicable and everyone agrees, that’s fine,” he said. “But I think it’s going to be very dirty.” Anne Barnard reported from Baghdad, and Kareem Fahim from Kirkuk, Iraq, and Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt from Washington; Falih Hassan, Omar Al-Jawoshy and Ahmad Salah from Baghdad; Kamil Kakol from Sulaimaniya, Iraq; and an employee of The New York Times from Mosul, Iraq. A version of this article appears in print on March 25, 2015, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Iraqi Forces Map Plan Against ISIS, With Strategic Use of Militias. Order Reprints\| Today's Paper\|Subscribe
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/25/2015 10:13:17 AM
	No Netanyahu veto on Iran deal, top senator says Olivier KnoxChief Washington CorrespondentMarch 24, 2015 Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, answers questions at a press conference following the weekly policy luncheon of the Republican caucus at the U.S. Capitol, March 3, 2015, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images) Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Tuesday flatly denied that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s influence in Congress means that he could kill a nuclear agreement with Iran. Corker, speaking in an interview with Yahoo News, also played down a Wall Street Journal report from late Monday that Israel had spied on the talks with Tehran, saying he regularly learns more about the negotiations from other countries’ foreign ministers than from the Obama administration. Asked whether the Israeli leader enjoyed a de facto veto over a potential deal, Corker emphatically replied, “No!” He continued, “I don’t get that sense at all. I just don’t think he’s influenced” Senate responses to the ongoing negotiations. “If you look at what happened, he was actually pressing for Kirk-Menendez to be voted on prior to the deal happening. It didn’t happen, did it?” Corker said. He was referring to legislation crafted by Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez that would impose new sanctions on Iran in the event that ongoing talks fail to yield a comprehensive deal by June 30. Negotiators from Iran and the so-called P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — hope to seal a political framework agreement by the end of March, to be followed by a more technical accord before July. Israel opposes the emerging deal, which would ease sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy in return for a series of restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Netanyahu recently denounced the prospective agreement in a speech to a joint meeting of Congress, and he and other Israeli officials have been privately lobbying against it. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Israeli intelligence obtained sensitive information about the negotiations and used it to try to win over lawmakers. Corker shrugged off the revelations, saying that he learned more from other countries’ diplomats than from what he characterized as an overly secretive Obama White House. The senator, who has met with Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, told Yahoo News, “I have never found them actually to be sharing anything different than was in public sources. “As I met with Netanyahu the last time, he said, ‘You know, all this is Google-able — Yahoo-able!’” he said. “For what it’s worth, I get more information about what’s happening from foreign ministers than I do from anyone. Not from Israel; foreign ministers that are part of the negotiating teams.” Corker said he learned from German diplomats recently that the Obama administration planned to ask the U.N. Security Council to ease international sanctions if a deal is reached. Corker said that the White House was “upset that foreign governments may be giving information to senators because they [the administration] are not.” White House officials have insisted for months that they regularly keep lawmakers up-to-date on important national security and foreign policy developments. But Corker said that even briefings in a secure, classified room in the Senate are stingy with details. “I never learn anything that I haven’t read about on Yahoo or the New York Times or some other place,” he said. “The fact is, we do get most of our information, the real information, or a lot of it, from other sources,” Corker said. The full Yahoo News interview with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman will run Wednesday. The interview was conducted by Olivier Knox and Meredith Shiner. This piece was written by Knox. No Netanyahu veto on Iran deal, top senator says GOP Sen. Bob Corker denies that the Israeli leader's influence in Congress could kill a nuclear agreement. Spying claims
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/25/2015 10:33:46 AM
	Sectarian tensions simmer in Iraq shrine city targeted by IS By VIVIAN SALAMA and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA4 hours ago In this Sunday, March 22, 2015 photo, Iraqi security forces descend along the al-Malwiya minaret at the Al-Mutawakkil Mosque in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. The rapidly mobilized Shiite militias halted their advance and have successfully defended the city, which is also home to a famed 9th century A.D. spiral minaret and is considered a UNESCO world heritage site. The structure is still standing, but today it is covered in black and red graffiti hailing the various militias. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) View Gallery SAMARRA, Iraq (AP) — The al-Askari shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra is surrounded by thousands of Shiite militiamen in mismatched uniforms, many of them awaiting transport to the nearby front lines of the war against the Islamic State group. For months, they have fended off attacks by the extremists and now they are on the offensive in Tikrit to the north, but their presence has alarmed Samarra's mainly Sunni residents, who fear both sides of the increasingly sectarian conflict. The golden-domed shrine is among the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, and pilgrims from neighboring Iran continue to flock there despite the fighting. In 2006, Sunni extremists bombed the site, sparking a wave of sectarian bloodletting across the country that killed tens of thousands of people. As the Islamic State group swept across Iraq last summer, Shiite militiamen heeding a call from the country's top cleric flooded into Samarra to defend the shrine and halted the militants' advance 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Baghdad. Today, the area around the shrine is festooned with militia banners and portraits of Iraqi and Iranian Shiite clerics. But just across the city there is a conspicuous lack of security forces, and while traffic flows and shops are open during the day, residents say they are walking on eggshells. "We're concerned about the presence of the militias, with regard to kidnappings and killings," said Ghani Younis Hassan, the owner of a children's clothing shop, who said he doesn't let his wife and children walk the streets for fear of harassment. View gallery In this Sunday, March 22, 2015 photo, Sheik Jaber al-Lami, a militia fighter from Baghdad, now based … "They feel that the shrine justifies their presence here," he added. "It's the militias who have the power, not the military, so we feel a lot of concern and unease." The United States spent billions of dollars training and equipping Iraq's army during its eight-year occupation, only to see security forces crumble last summer when the Islamic State group rampaged across the north, capturing the country's second-largest city Mosul as well as Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The rapidly mobilized Shiite militias halted the Islamic State advance and have successfully defended Samarra, which is home to a famed ninth century A.D. spiral minaret and is considered a UNESCO world heritage site. The structure is still standing, but today it is covered in black and red graffiti hailing the various militias. Human rights groups say Shiite militiamen in other parts of Iraq have carried out revenge attacks against Sunni civilians. The reported kidnappings and killings pale in comparison to the well-publicized atrocities committed by the Islamic State group, but have complicated efforts to mend the war-ravaged country's sectarian divide. Iraqi officials believe Samarra — the last major city between Baghdad and the Islamic State's self-styled caliphate — is still vulnerable, despite the heavy security presence. Even more Shiite militiamen have streamed in since the launch of the Tikrit offensive earlier this month, with many setting up bases in the city. View gallery In this Sunday, March 22, 2015 photo, Iraqi security forces descend along the al-Malwiya minaret at … The city is also hosting Sunnis who fled the Islamic State group or were displaced by the fighting. At a half-built school now housing residents from the nearby village of Kashiefa, one displaced Sunni man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the militias visit the camp on occasion, confiscating what few belongings the displaced have, including government food aid. Majda Hamoudi, a displaced woman, said neighbors had called to tell her that Shiite militiamen destroyed her home. "We were afraid of Daesh and now we are afraid of the militias. It doesn't end for us," she said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. The Shiite militiamen deny such accusations, and say they distrust the Sunni residents of the city they are defending. "Daesh consists of 10 percent foreigners and 90 percent residents of the area," said Sheikh Jaber al-Lami, a militia fighter from Baghdad. "We're the ones who are defending this city — it's (the Sunnis) who let them come into this area in the first place." ___ Follow Vivian Salama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/vmsalama .
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 3/25/2015 3:57:11 PM
	Yemen's president flees his house in Aden as rebels advance By AHMED AL-HAJ1 hour ago FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012 file photo, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, President of Yemen, sits after addressing the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Yemen's embattled president fled his palace in Aden for an undisclosed location Wednesday as Shiite rebels offered cash bounty for his capture and arrested his defense minister. Hadi left just hours after the rebels' own television station said they seized an air base where U.S. troops and Europeans advised the country in its fight against al-Qaida militants. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File) View Gallery SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen's embattled president fled his palace in the southern port city of Aden for an undisclosed location on Wednesday as Shiite rebels offered a bounty for his capture and arrested his defense minister. Hours later, the rebels launched airstrikes targeting presidential forces guarding the palace. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi left just hours after the rebels' own television station said they seized an air base where U.S. troops and Europeans advised the country in its fight against al-Qaida militants. That air base is only 60 kilometers (35 miles) away from Aden, where Hadi had established a temporary capital. The advance of the Shiite rebels, empowered by the backing of the ousted Yemeni autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh and his loyalists, threatens to plunge the Arab world's poorest country into a civil war that could draw in its Gulf neighbors. Already, Hadi has asked the United Nations to authorize a foreign military intervention in the country. The takeover of Aden, the country's economic hub, would mark the collapse of what is left of Hadi's grip on power. It would also open a new chapter in the Houthi-Saleh alliance and possibly pave the way for more infighting. Aden was tense Wednesday, with schools, government offices, shops and restaurants largely closed. Inside the few remaining opened cafes, men watched the news on television. Since the morning, there were conflicting reports on Hadi's whereabouts. Witnesses said they saw a convoy of presidential vehicles leaving Hadi's palace on top of a hill overlooking the Arabian Sea. A second convoy was seen heading to the Aden airport, where flights have been halted amid the Houthi advance. View gallery Houthi Shiite fighters wearing an army uniform chant slogans during the funeral procession of victim … Military officials said militias and military units loyal to Hadi had "fragmented," speeding the rebel advance. They said the rebels were fighting Hadi's troops on five different fronts Wednesday. Presidential officials said Hadi was in an operations room overseeing his forces' response. They declined to say where that facility was located. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Yemen's state TV, now controlled by the Houthis, made an offer of nearly $100,000 for Hadi's capture. Also Wednesday, Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi and his top aide were arrested in the southern city of Lahj, where fighting with Houthi forces was ongoing, and were subsequently transferred to Sanaa. Later, the rebels and Saleh's loyalists carried out three airstrikes targeting the Aden palace presidential compound and Hadi's forces positioned there, officials said. No casualties were reported in the strikes, similar to ones carried out last week. View gallery FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 file photo,Yemen's Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi … Yemen's Foreign Minister Riad Yassin told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV satellite news network that he officially made a request to the Arab League on Wednesday to send a military force to intervene against the Houthis. Yassin is attending the Arab Summit due to take place in Egypt at the end of the week. The airstrikes were an attempt to "assassinate" Hadi, Yassin said in another interview with the Doha-based Al-Jazeera TV network. Depicting the Houthis as a proxy of Shiite Iran, a rival to Sunni Gulf countries, Yassin warned of an Iranian "takeover" of Yemen. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran. Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, said their forces were not aiming to "occupy" the south. "They will be in Aden in few hours," Abdel-Salam told the rebels' satellite Al-Masirah news channel. Earlier, Al-Masirah reported that the Houthis and allied fighters had "secured" the al-Annad air base, the country's largest. It claimed the base had been looted by both al-Qaida fighters and troops loyal to Hadi. View gallery Houthi Shiite fighters, background, patrol as their comrades attend the funeral procession of victim … The reported Houthi takeover of the base came after hours-long clashes between rival forces around the base. The U.S. recently evacuated some 100 soldiers, including Special Forces commandos, from the base after al-Qaida briefly seized a nearby city. Britain also evacuated soldiers. The base was crucial in the U.S. drone campaign against Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington considers to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror group. And American and European military advisers there also assisted Hadi's government in its fight against al-Qaida's branch, which holds territory in eastern Yemen and has claimed the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. U.S. operations against the militants have been scaled back dramatically amid Yemen's chaos. U.S. officials have said CIA drone strikes will continue in the country, though there will be fewer of them. The agency's ability to collect intelligence on the ground in Yemen, while not completely gone, is also much diminished. The Houthis, in the aftermath of massive suicide bombings in Sanaa last week that killed at least 137 people, ordered a general mobilization and their leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, vowed to send his forces to the south to fight al-Qaida and militant groups. The Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in September and have since been advancing south alongside forces loyal to Saleh. View gallery Houthi Shiite mourners attend the funeral procession of victims who were killed last week from tripl … On Tuesday, Houthis and their allies fired bullets and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters in the city of Taiz, known as the gateway to southern Yemen. Six demonstrators were killed and scores more were wounded, officials said. The Houthis also battled militias loyal to Hadi in the city of al-Dhalea adjacent to Taiz. Al-Dhalea, Yemen's third-largest city, is also the birthplace of its 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising that forced Saleh to hand over power to Hadi in a deal brokered by the U.N. and Gulf countries. Hadi on Tuesday asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize a military intervention "to protect Yemen and to deter the Houthi aggression" in Aden and the rest of the south. In his letter, Hadi said he also has asked members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League for immediate help. Saudi Arabia warned that "if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region." Hadi's allies among the Gulf Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, have evacuated their diplomatic staff from Aden over the past few days, officials said. They had earlier evacuated from Sanaa and relocated to Aden to support Hadi. ___ Associated Press writer Maggie Michael in Cairo contributed to this report. Yemen's president flees as fighting surges Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi takes refuge in an undisclosed location after Shiite rebels offer a bounty on him. Defense minister arrested
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Luis Miguel

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

3/25/2015 5:21:14 PM

Hollande, Merkel, Rajoy arrive in Alps for crash tribute

By Jean-Francois Rosnoblet2 hours ago

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A rescue helicopter from the French Gendarmerie flies over the snow covered French Alps during a search and rescue operation near to the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March 25, 2015. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

By Jean-Francois Rosnoblet

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived together by helicopter on Wednesday in the remote Alpine region where an Airbus plane smashed into a mountain, ahead of an international tribute to the 150 victims.

The two leaders were flown over the nearby ravine where the Germanwings airliner came down on Tuesday, Hollande's office said. Spain's Mariano Rajoy later joined them in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, headquarters of search operations.

Germanwings said 72 Germans were killed in Tuesday's crash, the first major air passenger disaster on French soil since the 2000 Concorde accident just outside Paris. Spanish officials said 49 Spaniards were among the victims.

Hollande, Rajoy and a visibly moved Merkel thanked search teams and were due to meet families of victims of the still-unexplained crash, which followed a sharp descent of the Airbus A320. A simple tribute was planned later in the day.

The ceremony will take place on a site with a view in the distance of the mountain against which the Airbus crashed. French officials arranged it to give the families a mental image of the area in which their loved ones died.

Earlier Lufthansa said it could not explain why the Airbus run by its low-cost Germanwings unit crashed. Investigators said the remoteness of the crash site meant it could be days before a clear picture of the tragedy emerged.

However they said the fact that debris was restricted to a small area showed the A320 was not likely to have exploded in mid-air, suggesting a terrorist attack was not to blame.

"It is inexplicable this could happen to a plane free of technical problems and with an experienced, Lufthansa-trained pilot," Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told reporters in Frankfurt.

Lufthansa said the 24-year-old plane had on Monday had repairs to the hatch through which the nose wheel descends for landing. A spokeswoman said that was not a safety issue but that repairs had been done to reduce noise.

Police and forensic teams on foot and in helicopters investigated the site about 100 km (65 miles) north of Nice where the airliner came down en route to Duesseldorf from Barcelona.

"When we go to a crash site we expect to find part of the fuselage. But here we see nothing at all," said pilot Xavier Roy, coordinating air operations.

Roy said teams of investigators had been dropped by helicopter onto the site and were working roped together at altitudes of around 2,000 meters (6,000 feet).

It would take at least a week to recover all the remains of the victims, he said.

No distress call was received before the crash, but French authorities said one of the two "black box" flight recorders, the cockpit voice recorder, had been recovered, albeit in need of repair.

"The black box has been damaged. We will have to put it back together in the next few hours to be able to get to the bottom of this tragedy," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio.

Beyond Germans and Spaniards, victims included an American, a Moroccan and citizens of Britain, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Mexico and the Netherlands, French officials said. However DNA checks to identify them could take weeks, the French government said.

FLIGHTS CANCELED

Germanwings said it canceled one flight on Wednesday and was using 11 planes from other carriers for about 40 flights after some of its crew members had refused to fly.

Employees laid candles and flowers by Germanwings headquarters at Cologne/Bonn airport, while Lufthansa and Germanwings staff worldwide held a moment of silence at 10:53 a.m. local (0953 GMT) – the moment the plane went missing.

Among the victims were 16 teenagers and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in the town of Haltern am See in northwest Germany. They were on their way home after a Spanish exchange visit near Barcelona.

The school held a day of mourning on Wednesday. A hand-painted sign said simply: "Yesterday we were many, today we are alone."

"On Tuesday last week we sent off 16 happy young people, with two happy young colleagues, on a journey and what was meant to be a happy trip ... has ended in tragedy," headmaster Ulrich Wessel told reporters.

Barcelona's Liceu opera house said two singers, Kazakhstan-born Oleg Bryjak and German Maria Radner, died while returning to Duesseldorf after performing in Wagner's Siegfried.

Germanwings said on Tuesday the plane started descending a minute after reaching cruising height and lost altitude for eight minutes. Experts said that while the Airbus had descended rapidly, it did not seem to have simply fallen out of the sky.

The A320 is one of the world’s most used passenger jets and has a good safety record.

At 24 years old, the plane was older than many other planes at Lufthansa, where the average age of its fleet is 11.5 years. The plane was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991 and had clocked up around 58,000 flight hours over the course of over 46,000 flights, Airbus said.

(Additional reporting by bureaus in Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt and Madrid; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Mark John and Giles Elgood)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Iraqi Forces Map Plan Against ISIS, With Strategic Use of Militias

The Operation to Recapture Tikrit

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Multiple Fronts in the Fight Against ISIS

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No Netanyahu veto on Iran deal, top senator says

Sectarian tensions simmer in Iraq shrine city targeted by IS

Yemen's president flees his house in Aden as rebels advance

Hollande, Merkel, Rajoy arrive in Alps for crash tribute

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