FP’s Situation Report: The Pentagon has a Bergdahl problem; American contractors killed in Kabul; Congress’s make-or-break surveillance moment; and much more from around the word.

By David Francis with Sabine Muscat

The Pentagon has a Bowe Bergdahl problem. The Army is deciding whether to charge the former prisoner of war with desertion. Whatever the outcome, critics will slam the White House and revive the controversy over whether President Barack Obama should have traded five detainees for a soldier many believe abandoned his post. FP’s Kate Brannen: “Already, there are unfounded charges that the White House is slow-rolling the Army’s decision or somehow meddling in it, a charge the Pentagon flatly denies.”

Three American contractors gunned down in Kabul. The majority of American troops might have left Afghanistan, but tens of thousands of contractors remain there as targets. Three were killed and a fourth injured at Kabul’s military airport Thursday in an apparent Taliban attack. The Washington Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan and Missy Ryan: “The shooting was the first suspected insider attack since U.S. and NATO forces formally terminated their combat mission in Afghanistan.”

More on Afghanistan below.

Congress’s make-or-break surveillance moment. Lawmakers — who have avoided surveillance issues for more than a year — have until July 1 to decide whether to renew, change, or scrap post-9/11 surveillance methods like the bulk collection and storage of phone and other data. FP’s Gopal Ratnam reports on the evolving debate over whether privacy concerns outweigh the need for the United States to collect intelligence.

More on surveillance below.

PRESS PACK: The fate of the Islamic State Jordanian and Japanese hostages is unknown.

The New York Times’ Rod Nordland and Ranya Kadri: “Jordan refused to release an imprisoned female militant on Thursday to meet a deadline set by the Islamic State, demanding that it first needed proof that a captured Jordanian pilot was still alive.”

FP’s Elias Groll on the Islamic State going quiet: “The Islamic State remained officially silent on the issue, with Twitter accounts affiliated with the group posting contradictory information about the status of the exchange.”

The Washington Post’s Taylor Luck and William Booth: “The hostage drama also involves a Japanese journalist held by the Islamic State. An audio recording attributed to the journalist, Kenji Goto, contained a threat to kill the Jordanian pilot if Rishawi wasn’t presented at the Turkish border on Thursday.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Suha Ma’ayeh and Asa Fitch: “Publicly aired negotiations between Islamic State and U.S. ally Jordan, punctuated by ultimatums and sudden changes of demands, have presented an unusual spectacle after months in which intense airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition have targeted the radical group.”

The Daily Beast’s Shane Harris and Nancy A. Youssef on the lack of progress on U.S. hostage rescue strategy: “Five months after the White House began a top-to-bottom review of its policy for rescuing hostages overseas, the congressman who spurred it and some of the families of hostages who were promised a voice in the process said they’re being left in the dark.”

Welcome to Friday’s edition of the Situation Report, where we like Seattle to edge New England 23–20 in Sunday’s Super Bowl. Send along a prediction, and I’ll give some love to the closest one Monday. Enjoy the game!

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ONLY IN SITREP: Challenges to classified Afghan information in the works.

An exclusive report by FP’s David Francis: Two U.S. officials told Foreign Policy that a push to overturn an American military commander’s order to classify even the most basic information about Afghan security forces is likely to be launched soon.

It’s not yet clear how or exactly when the challenge might be issued. But it would reflect frustration and confusion among critics in Washington over Army Gen. John Campbell’s decision to conceal information that has been publicly available for the last six years. The United States has invested $65 billion in the Afghan army and watchdogs say the success — or failure — of taxpayers’ investment can only be assessed with transparency.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said the classification turnabout appears to be unprecedented. He said the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — the watchdog who announced and then criticized the change — has legal standing to challenge the decision.

Campbell cited Executive Order 13526 to justify the about-face. Section 1.8 of that order gives SIGAR the right to “challenge the classification of information that they believe is improperly classified or unclassified.”

Check The Cable later today for more on these developing efforts.

FP’s Seán D. Naylor on a spider at the CIA: “A legendary CIA operative known only as Greg V, or ‘Spider,’ reportedly will be the next head of the agency’s National Clandestine Service, previously known as the Directorate of Operations. A former Marine, Spider currently heads the Agency’s Special Activities Division, and is a rare example of a SAD veteran rising to the agency’s very highest ranks.

A trained case officer, he accompanied Hamid Karzai into Afghanistan on the future Afghan president’s second attempt to foment rebellion against the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks, served two tours as the Agency’s Kabul chief of station, and also served as a liaison to Joint Special Operations Command when now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal was the JSOC commander.”

WHO’S WHERE WHEN TODAY

8:35 a.m. Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs speaks at the Atlantic Council. 12:15 p.m. The Woodrow Wilson Center hosts a panel on “Yemen Adrift: The Houthi Takeover and its Consequences for the Middle East.” 2:00 p.m. Gianni Pittella, chairman of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament speaks on “EU – U.S.: From Disappointment to Hope” at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS. 6:30 p.m. Secretary of State John Kerry hosts Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and Mexican Foreign Secretary José Antonio Meade in Boston on Friday and Saturday.

WHAT’S MOVING MARKETS

FP’s Keith Johnson on the Keystone Pipeline to nowhere: “While the Senate was voting on a measure to expedite the approval of a pipeline that would increase imports of Canadian crude oil, energy developments in the United States were moving in the exact opposite direction.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Stacy Meichtry on German proclivities: “France’s economy minister said that Germany risked sliding into ‘balanced-budget fetishism’ if Berlin doesn’t take steps to boost public investment in Europe’s languishing economy.”

SURVEILLANCE: There’s widespread surveillance of who goes where by car in the United States.

The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland and Rory Carroll: “Federal agencies tried to use vehicle license-plate readers to track the travel patterns of Americans on a much wider scale than previously thought, with new documents showing the technology was proposed for use to monitor public meetings.”

ISLAMIC STATE: Islamic State strikes in Egypt; a massacre in eastern Iraq.

The Associated Press’s Ashraf Sweilam on an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt: “Militants struck more than a dozen army and police targets in the restive Sinai Peninsula with simultaneous attacks involving a car bomb and mortar rounds on Thursday, killing at least 26 security officers.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Stacy Meichtry, Noémie Bisserbe, and Benoît Faucon on the Islamic State’s underground railroad: “Islamic State’s ability to provide safe harbor to friends and family removes potential obstacles for would-be attackers in the West.”

The New York Times’ Kareem Fahim: “At least 72 people from a majority Sunni village in eastern Iraq were methodically singled out for slaughter this week, according to witnesses and local Sunni leaders.”

MIDDLE EAST AND ISRAEL: Hezbollah vows no new violence as Israeli forces search for their tunnels.

Reuters’s Ari Rabinovich on Hezbollah’s pledge to abstain from violence after deadly clashes along the border between Israel and Lebanon: “Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel had received a message from a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon that Hezbollah was not interested in further escalation.”

The Christian Science Monitor’s Christa Case Bryant: “With tensions rising along the Lebanese border over the past week and a half, the army began digging Wednesday for suspected Hezbollah tunnels.”

IRAN: The American president’s legacy is at stake in Iran while Republicans continue to push for more sanctions.

FP’s David Rothkopf: “It is quite possible that, by the time Obama leaves office, no other country on Earth will have gained quite so much as Iran.”

Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin: “Congress is going to move forward with Iran sanctions legislation sooner rather than later, and there’s nothing the Barack Obama administration can do to stop it.”

UKRAINE CONFLICT: Chances for peace diminish as the European Union keeps the pressure on Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal’s Patryk Wasilewski: “The chances of a peaceful solution to the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine are waning and poses the biggest security threat to Europe since the end of the Cold War, Poland’s defense minister said Thursday.”

Reuters’s Robin Emmott and Pavel Polityuk: “European Union foreign ministers extended existing sanctions against Russia on Thursday, holding off on tighter economic measures for now but winning the support of the new left-leaning government of Greece, whose position had been in doubt.”

The Financial Times’ Sam Jones, Mark Odell, and Elizabeth Rigby: “Russia’s ambassador to the UK was summoned to the Foreign Office on Thursday after two Russian bombers disrupted civilian air traffic over the English Channel.”

CHARLIE HEBDO AFTERMATH: Paris tries to combat extremists’ multimedia while the suspect pool gets younger.

FP’s Siobhán O’Grady and Elias Groll: “That campaign, centered around the website stop-djihadisme.gouv.fr, opens with a video that seeks to dispel what the French government sees as the myths sold by Islamist terror groups.”

The New York Times’ Maia De La Baume And Dan Bilefsky: “Police officials in the southern French city of Nice questioned an 8-year-old boy who is believed to have made comments in school defending the gunmen.”

YEMEN: The Houthis try to consolidate power.

The New York Times’ Mona El-Naggar: “[T]he Houthis see themselves now as having evolved into a broad-based voice against government oppression, corruption and incompetence.”

EBOLA: Health workers appear to be winning.

The Wall Street Journal’s John Revill: “The Ebola outbreak that has ravaged parts of West Africa is on the decline, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.”

CUBA: The beginning of the end of travel restrictions.

Reuters’s Patricia Zengerle: “Eight Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Thursday to repeal all restrictions on U.S. citizens’ travel to Cuba.”

AND FINALLY, FP’s David Francis on Sen. John McCain shouting down “low-life scum.”