until next time, i hope you're learning to be more of a healthy you. new details emerging about the dairy attempt made to rescue an american hostage from al qaeda in yemen. hello everyone. i'm patti ann browne. luke somers was shot by his captors during a u.s. special forces mission to save him. he later died on board an american ship. peter deucy joins us live from washington. >> there is a feeling of urgency driving the mission to rescue luke somers because al qaeda hostage takers threatened thursday to kill him today if their demands were not met.

president obama signed off on the order and by 5:00 p.m. eastern last night a team of 40 special operators arrived in yemen via osprey aircraft landing a little more than six miles from the compound where somers and another hostage were being held. the american commanders walked most of the six miles completely undetected but were spotted about a football field away from the compound and that is when, officials believe, the hostages were shot. the u.s. team engaged the al qaeda kidnappers, killing more than five of them, then retrieved the wounded hostages and air lifted them to the "uss macon island" with surgeons treating gunshot wounds while en route. the associated press reports that the american somers survived the flight and died on the navy ship, but the south african died in flight. none of the american rescuers were injured and the vice president got emotional this

morning talking about their brave attempt last night and the previous attempt when the plan was foiled because somers had been moved. >> special forces who were engaged in these two rescue missions did an incredible job, and inflicted serious damage on the captors, but this time, this time they were unable to save luke. >> the yemeni government had a heads up about this raid but didn't participate at all, and we heard this morning from luke somers' sister who says her family was informed of luke's murder at around midnight eastern. patti ann? >> peter doocy, thank you. outgoing defense secretary chuck hagual rifg in afghanistan today. he met with president ashra

ashraf ghani. he's also making a major announcement about the future of u.s. troops in afghanistan. john is live with more. john? >> patti ann, back in may, president obama announced that the number of troops in afghanistan would be reduced. now we know those plans have changed. the u.s. military had planned to pull 1,000 troops out of afghanistan starting in the beginning of 2015, basically starting the new year, but that's been put on hold. secretary hagel says 10,800 troops will remain in the country. he made the announcement during a press conference today, as mentioned, with afghan president ashraf ghani in kabul. secretary hagel says there's been delays and this is really the reason for keeping the troops there. he says there's been delays with u.s. allies signing security pacts to send troops, more than 2,000, actually, to join nato forces already helping train and

assist afghan security forces, so secretary hagel says the contingent of u.s. troops could remain in afghanistan for the first few months next year but added u.s. commanders have really been given flexibility with the dates. hagel also talked about the surge of taliban attacks in kabul over the last two weeks saying "we will take appropriate measures against taliban members who directly threaten u.s. and coalition forces in afghanistan." now that said, u.s. military officials still say that the plan remains that the number of troops will be scaled back to 5,500 in afghanistan in 2016, and then the plan again is to pull all the troops out in 2017. patti ann? back to you. >> john huddy live in our mideast bureau thank you. later this half hour, lieutenant colonel bill cowan will talk more about the impact of the extra 1,000 troops remaining behind in afghanistan.

pakistan's military now claims to have killed a top al qaeda operative. this man served as head of external operations, the same role once held by khalid sheikh mohammed, the mastermind of the september 11th attacks. back in 2000le the 39-year-old saudi national was indicted for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the new york city subway system. in the big easy and across louisiana it is election day, it's the final face-off between these two candidates, democratic incumbent senator mary landrieu and her republican challenger bill cassidy. both failed to win 50% of the vote in november, forcing this special election. john roberts right now is live in baton rouge, louisiana, with the latest. hi, john. >> reporter: good afternoon to you. mary landrieu hoping this will not be her last stand but she goes into today's runoff election at a definite disadvantage. she's done just about everything she can, working hard until the

last minute to turn her fortunes around. she voted in her home precinct this morning and immediately hit the streets going and knocking on doors around her neighborhood and others trying to get as many other people out to the polls as possible. landrieu is said to do a lot of the work herself in this election because the democratic senatorial campaign committee withdrew $2 inle in advertising after the so-called jungle primary on november 4th, a sign the committee saw her candidacy as a lost cause here and while the poll-out was a blow land drew told us she didn't let it affect her spirit. >> i don't run her. i don't run hurt. i run happy, fearless, courageous because the people i represent are the most amazing people on this planet, so my heart is not hurt. we just fight hard 'til the end and it looks like we're going to win. >> reporter: polls show she goes into today's election with a bit of a deficit, so if she hopes to win she's got a lot of ground to

make up. her strategy in the past week was to attack bill cassidy mercilessly on two fronts his part-time work forks lsu medical school with little evidence she said bordered on illegal and accused cassidy of being disrespectful to the president. we asked cassidy about that and when we did he seemed surprised. >> just because you disagree with the president doesn't mean you're disrespectful. it's not about the president. it's about our country. if people want a better country, and we feel the president's taken us in the wrong direction, we can disagree without being disrespectful. >> while cassidy, at least landrieu was on the campaign trail all day today, cassidy took the day off. why, you ask? because he still works at lsu medical center part-time as a professor, and he was taking the day to learn the new electronic medical coding system. by the way, should mary landrieu lose today, it will be historic. it will be really sweeping away

the last vestages of the old democratic south because there won't be a u.s. senator, a governor or a legislature that's not controlled by the republicans. patti ann? >> that's big. john roberts live in baton rouge, louisiana, thanks. police in new york city and across the country patrolling more protests over the eric garner grand jury decision. the nypd says 20 more people were arrested overnight after staging a die-in at the macy's flagship store and for blocking traffic and today a memorial service for another unarmed man killed by police in new york city, friends and family remembering 28-year-old akai gurley, shot in a dimly lit stairwell by a rookie officer last month. >> no parent should ever have to bury a child. no daughter should have to bury her father, especially under these circumstances. if there is one single certai y certainty, one shred of indisputable fact, she, like so

many others did not deserve it. >> the nypd says the shooting was an accident. that case will also be going to a grand jury. typhoon hagupit barrels into the eastern coast of the philippines. right now it's the equivalent to what we would call a category 3 hurricane here in the u.s. forecasters are expecting heavy flooding, some places possibly seeing more than two feet of rain. the storm is currently packing maximum sustained winds of around 125 miles per hour. so far, nearly 700,000 people have abandoned their homes for safer ground. demonstrations over the police shooting of an unarmed teenager turning violent. but while some see echoes of the ferguson riots, this isn't in the u.s. and a top republican warning defense secretary nominee ashton carter to watch his back with

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time for a quick check of the headlines. president obama is back in the white house now after seeking medical care for a sore throat. the president's official doctor releasing a statement on the commander in chief's trip to walter reed medical center just moments ago saying he is suffering from acid reflux. the medical exam comes after the president had been complaining of a sore throat for weeks. his doctor said 'll be treated accordingly. ashton carter the president's nominee for secretary of defense is expected to breeze through the nomination process next year. carter is widely known as a national security expert and for pursuing goals quickly and efficiently. but republican senator john mccain is warning carter with this white house, can he forget

that. susan faricchio congressional correspondent for "the washington examiner" thanks for joining us. >> thanks, patti ann. >> carter has to go through confirmation hearings, expected to be confirmed but you say the hearings give critics of the administration a chance to air those criticisms. >> that's right. i think you'll hear republicans talking about the white house micromanagement of the pentagon. we've heard a lot of that over the past year from predecessors like robert gates and leon panetta. others say it's hard for us to do our jobs at the pentagon and hard for secretaries of defense to run the pentagon because the white house has been micromanaging and doing it in a way that has been indecisive or vague on what the policies should be. so it's a real combination of problems in dealing with the white house. what mccain was getting at when he made the statement to ashton carter, look, we don't have a lot of faith even though we think you're pretty qualified that your arrival is going to

make any big changes because it's a bigger issue. it's how the administration deals with the defense secretary. and that's a big deal, so i think these hearings will really focus on the white house perhaps more even than the nominee himself. >> yes, back to that statement that you mentioned, senator john mccain saying that carter should expect micromanagement. in his statement he says "i hope that dr. carter fully understands that, as previous secretaries of defense have strongly attested, he will likely have limited influence over the tight circle around the president, who apparently controls the entire strategic decision-making process." do you agree, to that extent? >> i've read so many stories now from really good defense reporters from across the media spectrum, so it's not just one side or the other here. i've really seen a lot of reporting here that delves into the way the white house is dealt with the defense department and it sounds like what they're doing is grabbing hold of all the big issues, and thinking

them through long and hard and maybe not getting them thought through fast enough or decisively enough. it's interesting, patti ann, if you look at the way the public views the president on foreign policy, on national security, time and again,seen them say they feel he's been indecisive on things so that's interesting, how that really is carrying through with what we're hearing from the defense department and i think ashton carter will be dealing with the same thing. he knows this, he's been undersecretary already. he's familiar with the problem. the question is what can he do, if anything, to change it. >> as you point out it's not just chuck hagel, you say before hagel bill gates and leon panetta also complained of micromanagement? >> that's right, secretary gates and panetta both wrote books that talked about the difficulties in dealing with the white house on doing their jobs at the pentagon. it differs from president to president and of course the pentagon would like full autonomy to do whatever they want, everybody knows that, but in this case it's really serious, and it's a problem. for example, obama had several

other folks he was considering and would like to have tapped for defense secretary. they pulled their names out of the running, the reason being they feared they wouldn't be able to carry out the job. so there's two years left to the administration and ashton carter will be filling that role for a couple years. i don't think there are real high expectations that much is going to change. i think they thought secretary hagel would work more with the administration, and kind of do what they said, but even he became frustrated, thus his very quick ouster. >> it's not clear whether or not carter is going to work with the administration fully, in fact, even the "new york times" is saying that carter is going to push for a stronger use of american power overseas, which would be in some people's view a conflict already brewing with the white house' current approach. >> you bet. you'll see congress play into this as well in terms of a war authorization issue, with how to

deal with the growing threat of the islamic state. that's what you'll see him push for. i'm fascinated to see how this will play out, if they're listening, watching what is playing oyou the in the press and if you see the white house back off a little bit due to these criticisms or if this is just more of the same until obama leaves office, we don't know. >> susan ferecchio, "washing wash examiner," thanks. >> you bet. the u.s. leaving more troops behind in afghanistan than originally planned. coming up, the reasons behind the new decision and how it will affect the u.s. military effort in that region. so,as my personal financial psychic,

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protesters throwing gasoline bombs and setting fires in the center of athens. the violence mark six years since the death of a 15-year-old who was killed during a confrontation with police back in 2008. his death leading to some of the most violent rioting greece had seen in decades. today's violence come at a time when there are nightly protests in support of a jailed anarchist and a convicted bank robber. the u.s. military is now planning to leave nearly 11,000 troops in afghanistan after its scheduled drawdown in 2015. that's 1,000 more than it had originally intended to leave behind. secretary of defense chuck hagel explained the decision, saying that -- he said it during a surprise visit to afghanistan earlier today. >> are there gaps? are there continued challenges and threats? absolutely. is it as always is the case in any country during any war going to be ultimately up to the

people of afghanistan? sure. >> joining us, retired marine lieutenant colonel bill cowan, and fox news military analyst. thank you for joining us. >> thanks. nice to be with you. >> hagel says the extra troops are needed because there will be a temporary shortfall in allied forces due to a delay in signing military contracts. you think there might be other reasons? >> there may be other reasons. the dynamics are over the last couple weeks, two things i think that have really made a difference here. one is that the taliban have shown their effectiveness. they've had 12 attacks in the last two weeks inside kabul and much of that dedicated against foreign presence there. so they've shown maybe more strength than we had anticipated them having besides all the other things they're doing around the country. and the other is that the president just authorized inconjunction with the new afghan president, a nighttime raids, which are a big thing going after taliban leaders and

also levity -- leeway on air strikes. so we see these two things happening. 1,000 more people being allowed to stay there may have something to do with those, not so much the ability to train and assist the afghans. >> you say the white house doesn't want a repeat of the iraq isis problem. >> absolutely. what an embarrassment for this administration. they don't want to be seen by any means as not being tough right now inside afghanistan because they certainly were not tough when it came to walking out of iraq and again, i think this goes back to the taliban's resilience. the taliban being more effective, a little bit more capable than we thought. we don't want to have the taliban really have a strong resurgence because we failed to have a presence there. >> all right. switching gears now, a different topic. last night our special operations forces made a second attempt to rescue an american who al-qaeda had stated they were going to kill imminently as in today. tragically, the militants appear to have spotted our forces at

the last second and they murdered 33-year-old luke somers. what is your take on that? >> patti ann, i give a lot of credit to the white house for having the guts to go ahead and make a decision like that. our special ops forces, this was probably delta force, i'm just guessing. either them or seal team six, the best of the best. they're operating on real short time intelligence. they still put a very effective operation together. they marched a long way in the middle of the night, carrying a lot of gear. one little thing at the very end by all accounts, a dog barking maybe, just 100 meters away from the target really throws all their plans and efforts into disarray. it's a tragedy, no question about it. thankfully we got all of our people back. unfortunately, we didn't get the hostages back. but again, it should send shivers up and down al-qaeda and taliban's spines that we have very effective capable special operations people and when we go to put them against you, we'll do it in a very dedicated, devoted and precise fashion.

>> yeah. last week rescuers got to the compound, the american had been moved, they saved other people. yemen was notified this time about the raid, but did not participate. is somebody tipping off these people, do you think? >> that's a great question. i'm sure that's something that our military had to look at carefully after the failed attempt last week where our hostages had been moved. but at the same time, while there may be somebody giving out some information, i think al-qaeda has to be very, very worried that they've got somebody inside talking. >> we'll have to leave it there. thank you as always. that does it for us. go join us for more news one hour from now.i "stossel" is upth next. asian debt that recognizes the shift in the global economy. you know, the kind that capitalizes on diversity across the credit spectrum and gets exposure to frontier and emerging markets. if you convert 4-quarter p/e of the s&p 500,

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