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Pedro Gonçalves

Israelis Cede More Control of West Bank Security - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26mideast.html

Israel Palestine Palestinian Authority West Bank

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Israel has agreed to give the Palestinian security forces more freedom of action in four West Bank cities, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said Thursday, a move that implies a reduction in Israeli military activity in those areas as the Western-backed Palestinian forces assert more control.
  • The Israeli military also recently removed several significant checkpoints inside the West Bank, in line with a policy of easing movement and improving daily life for the Palestinians so long as calm prevails. A Palestinian can now drive from Jenin in the northern West Bank to Hebron in the south without being stopped and checked at any permanent roadblock along the way, the military says.
  • Palestinian officials said that the Israeli measures did not go far enough. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday that they did not meet Palestinian expectations, and that “what is required is a full cessation of military raids in Palestinian Authority areas.”
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  • Israeli military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity under army rules, said that Palestinian forces would now be able to operate 24 hours a day in the cities of Ramallah, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Jericho, and would have to coordinate less with Israeli forces in the area, implying that the forces would reduce their own nighttime raids on those cities.
  • Israeli forces have been carrying out arrest raids almost nightly. On Wednesday night, for example, seven Palestinian suspects were arrested, and on Monday night six were arrested, including three from Qalqilya.
  • Military officials emphasized that the army would continue to operate in all the West Bank, but one said that the army would now enter the four cities only “in case of an urgent security need, and in accordance with security assessments.”
  • Two recent deadly shootouts in Qalqilya between Palestinian forces and armed Palestinian militants of the Islamic group Hamas have been mentioned as evidence of a new determination on the part of the Palestinian security apparatus. Four police officers, four militants and a bystander were killed in the clashes that occurred during attempts to arrest the gunmen.
  • In addition to removing the checkpoints, Israel says it has agreed to issue more V.I.P. cards for Palestinian businessmen, to ease their passage over the crossings into Israel.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - US forces pull out of Iraq's cities - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...200963054650513164.html

Iraq US Nuri al-Maliki

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.
  • US troops began withdrawing from the country's major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces.
  • Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a "turning point" for the country and declared Tuesday the country's National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.
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  • But Al Jazeera's Hoda-Abdel Hamid, reporting from Mosul, said: "[Despite] the impression of a withdrawal and a return to sovereignty... there is a sense of anxiety in the air.
  • Fireworks continued to light up the sky over Baghdad into the early hours on Tuesday, after thousands of Iraqis, an unprecedented number for a public post-war event, attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs.
  • Despite the formal pullback, some US troops will remain in cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. US forces are also ready to return if asked. The US military is to continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border with the permission of the Iraqi government. The US has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 US troops forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.
Argos Media

Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...27taliban.html

Pakistan Afghanistan US

shared by Argos Media on 27 Mar 09 - Cached
  • After agreeing to bury their differences and unite forces, Taliban leaders based in Pakistan have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades to ready a new offensive in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to send 17,000 more troops there this year.
  • A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.
  • The refortified alliance was forged after the reclusive Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, sent emissaries to persuade Pakistani Taliban leaders to join forces and turn their attention to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials and Taliban members said.The overture by Mullah Omar is an indication that with the prospect of an American buildup, the Taliban feel the need to strengthen their own forces in Afghanistan and to redirect their Pakistani allies toward blunting the new American push.
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  • At the same time, American officials told The New York Times this week that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency continued to offer money, supplies and guidance to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan as a proxy to help shape a friendly government there once American forces leave.
  • The new Taliban alliance has raised concern in Afghanistan, where NATO generals warn that the conflict will worsen this year. It has also generated anxiety in Pakistan, where officials fear that a united Taliban will be more dangerous, even if focused on Afghanistan, and draw more attacks inside Pakistan from United States drone aircraft. “This may bring some respite for us from militants’ attacks, but what it may entail in terms of national security could be far more serious,” said one senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to talk to news organizations. “This would mean more attacks inside our tribal areas, something we have been arguing against with the Americans.”
  • The Pakistani Taliban is dominated by three powerful commanders — Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulavi Nazir — based in North and South Waziristan, the hub of insurgent activity in Pakistan’s tribal border regions, who have often clashed among themselves.
  • Mullah Omar dispatched a six-member team to Waziristan in late December and early January, several Taliban fighters said in interviews in Dera Ismail Khan, a town in North-West Frontier Province that is not far from South Waziristan. The Afghan Taliban delegation urged the Pakistani Taliban leaders to settle their internal differences, scale down their activities in Pakistan and help counter the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan, the fighters said. The three Pakistani Taliban leaders agreed. In February, they formed a united council, or shura, called the Council of United Mujahedeen. In a printed statement the leaders vowed to put aside their disputes and focus on fighting American-led forces in Afghanistan.
Argos Media

U.N. report condemns Israel for Gaza operation - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Gabi Ashkenazi Israel Tsahal War Crimes

shared by Argos Media on 24 Mar 09 - Cached
  • sraeli soldiers routinely and intentionally put children in harm's way during their 22-day offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, according to a United Nations report made public Monday.
  • The report said a working group had documented and verified reports of violations "too numerous to list." For example, on January 15, in a town southwest of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces soldiers ordered an 11-year-old boy to open Palestinians' packages, presumably so that the soldiers would not be hurt if they turned out to contain explosives, the 43-page report said. They then forced the boy to walk in front of them in the town, it said. When the soldiers came under fire, "the boy remained in front of the group," the report said.
  • Also cited were "credible reports" that accused Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that runs Gaza, of using human shields and placing civilians at risk. But it singled out the Israelis for more sweeping criticism. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister called the report another example of the "one-sided and unfair" attitude of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which requested it.
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  • The report cited two alleged incidents from January 3. In one, it said, after a tank round struck near a house, a father and his two sons -- both younger than 11 -- emerged to look at the damage. "As they exited their home, IDF soldiers shot and killed them (at the entrance to their house), with the daughter witnessing," the report said. In the second, it said, "Israeli soldiers entered a family house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Standing at the doorstep, they asked the male head of the household to come out and shot him dead, without warning, while he was holding his ID, hands raised up in the air, and then started to fire indiscriminately and without warning into the room where the rest of the family was huddled together. "The eldest son was shouting in vain the word 'Children' in Hebrew to warn the soldiers. The shooting did not stop until everyone was lying on the floor. The mother and four of the brothers, aged 2-12 years, had been wounded, one of them, aged 4, fatally."
  • The alleged instances occurred during Operation Cast Lead, which was launched December 27 to halt rocket attacks into southern Israel from Gaza and ended January 17 with a cease-fire. The U.N. report called the response by Israel disproportionate. Of the 1,453 people estimated killed in the conflict, 1,440 were Palestinian, including 431 children and 114 women, the report said. The 13 Israelis killed included three civilians and six soldiers killed by Hamas, and four soldiers killed by friendly fire, it said.
  • The report said the Israeli operation resulted in "a dramatic deterioration of the living conditions of the civilian population." It cited "targeted and indiscriminate" attacks on hospitals and clinics, water and sewage treatment facilities, government buildings, utilities and farming and said the offensive "intensified the already catastrophic humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people." It said Israeli strikes damaged more than 200 schools and left more than 70,000 people homeless. "There are strong and credible reports of war crimes and other violations of international norms," it said, adding that many observers have said war crimes investigations should be undertaken.
  • Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, called the report "another example of the one-sided and unfair attitude of the rapporteur of the Human Rights Council, a council that has been criticized by current and previous secretaries-general for its unbalanced attitudes toward Israel." He added, "The negative fixation on Israel by the council has done a disservice to the issue of human rights internationally as has been attested to by the leading NGO's [nongovernmental organizations] on human rights."
  • Another report issued Monday also was critical of the IDF. The report from Physicians for Human Rights said the Gaza incursion violated IDF's own code of ethics. The report by the medical group, which shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, cited instances where it said IDF forces did not evacuate injured civilians for days and prevented Palestinian teams from reaching the wounded, and said some of them died as a result. It said 16 Palestinian medical personnel were killed by IDF fire and 25 were wounded during the IDF operation, and accused the IDF of attacking 34 medical centers in violation of the IDF's own "ethical code for fighting terror." In response, the IDF accused Hamas of having used medical vehicles, facilities and uniforms to conceal its members' activity. "Hamas used ambulances to 'rescue' terror activists from the battlefield and used hospitals and medical facilities as hiding places," the Israelis said in a written statement. "Despite this, throughout the fighting, IDF forces were instructed to avoid firing at ambulances, even if they were being used by armed fighters. They were instructed only to shoot if there was fire towards our forces emanating from the direction of the ambulance." Regarding the reported delays in casualty evacuations, "there existed real difficulties in evacuating the injured, due to the roadblocks, booby-trapped roads and dirt mounds placed by the Hamas as well as the considerable damage to the infrastructure," the statement said.
  • he Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers who had finished basic training ordered the shirts, one of which showed a pregnant Arab in the crosshairs of a gun sight with a caption reading "1 Shot 2 Kills." Another showing a small child in a gun's sight was captioned, "The smaller they are, the harder it is." "The examples presented by The Haaretz reporter are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless," the Israeli military said in a written statement. "This type of humor is unbecoming and should be condemned."
  • Israeli soldiers said last week that Palestinian civilians were killed and Palestinian property intentionally destroyed during Israel's military campaign in Gaza, according to Haaretz. The IDF has said it is investigating the claims, but its top general expressed skepticism Monday. "I don't believe that soldiers serving in the IDF hurt civilians in cold blood, but we shall wait for the results of the investigation," Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi, the chief of staff, said in a speech. "I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army." He blamed Hamas for choosing "to fight in heavily populated areas. "It (was) a complex atmosphere that includes civilians and we took every measure possible to reduce harm of the innocent," he said, according to an IDF statement.
Pedro Gonçalves

Breakthrough in Tribunal Investigation: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murd... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,626412,00.html

Lebanon Hariri Hezbollah Daniel Bellemare

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 24 May 09 - Cached
  • The United Nations special tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has reached surprising new conclusions -- and it is keeping them secret. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, investigators now believe Hezbollah was behind the Hariri murder.
  • The Hariri assassination has been the source of wild speculation ever since. Was it the work of terrorist organization al-Qaida, angered by Hariri's close ties to the Saudi royal family? Or of the Israelis, as part of their constant efforts to weaken neighboring Lebanon? Or the Iranians, who hated secularist Hariri?
  • In late 2005, an investigation team approved by the United Nations and headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis found, after seven months of research, that Syrian security forces and high-ranking Lebanese officials were in fact responsible for the Hariri murder. Four suspects were arrested. But the smoking gun, the final piece of evidence, was not found. The pace of the investigation stalled under Mehlis's Belgian successor, Serge Brammertz.
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  • At the time of the attack, it was known that Hariri, a billionaire construction magnate who was responsible for the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital after decades of civil war, wanted to reenter politics. It was also known that he had had a falling out with Syrian President Bashar Assad after demanding the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces from his native Lebanon. As a result, the prime suspects in the murder were the powerful Syrian military and intelligence agency, as well as their Lebanese henchmen. The pressure on Damascus came at an opportune time for the US government. Then-President George W. Bush had placed Syria on his list of rogue states and wanted to isolate the regime internationally.
  • As its first official act, the tribunal ordered the release, in early April, of the four men Mehlis had had arrested. By then, they had already spent more than three years sitting in a Lebanese prison.
  • The establishment of a UN special tribunal was intended to provide certainty. It began its work on March 1, 2009. The tribunal, headquartered in the town of Leidschendam in the Netherlands, has a budget of more than €40 million ($56 million) for the first year alone, with the UN paying 51 percent and Beirut 49 percent of the cost. It has an initial mandate for three years, and the most severe sentence it can impose is life in prison. Canadian Daniel Bellemare, 57, was appointed to head the tribunal. Four of the 11 judges are Lebanese, whose identities have been kept secret, for security reasons.
  • Intensive investigations in Lebanon are all pointing to a new conclusion: that it was not the Syrians, but instead special forces of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah ("Party of God") that planned and executed the diabolical attack. Tribunal chief prosecutor Bellemare and his judges apparently want to hold back this information, of which they been aware for about a month.
  • a secretly operating special unit of the Lebanese security forces, headed by intelligence expert Captain Wissam Eid, filtered out the numbers of mobile phones that could be pinpointed to the area surrounding Hariri on the days leading up to the attack and on the date of the murder itself. The investigators referred to these mobile phones as the "first circle of hell."
  • They were apparently tools of the hit team that carried out the terrorist attack.
  • there was also a "second circle of hell," a network of about 20 mobile phones that were identified as being in proximity to the first eight phones noticeably often. According to the Lebanese security forces, all of the numbers involved apparently belong to the "operational arm" of Hezbollah, which maintains a militia in Lebanon that is more powerful than the regular Lebanese army.
  • The romantic attachment of one of the terrorists led the cyber-detectives directly to one of the main suspects. He committed the unbelievable indiscretion of calling his girlfriend from one of the "hot" phones. It only happened once, but it was enough to identify the man. He is believed to be Abd al-Majid Ghamlush, from the town of Rumin, a Hezbollah member who had completed training course in Iran. Ghamlush was also identified as the buyer of the mobile phones. He has since disappeared, and perhaps is no longer alive.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama Admin: No Grounds To Probe Afghan War Crimes - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...in-no-grounds-to_n_229907.html

US Afghanistan War Crimes Rashid Dostum

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces. The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.
  • U.S. officials said Friday they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country. The Times cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident.
  • Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate. "There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this," Lapan said. "So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD (Department of Defense) perspective to investigate."
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  • The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime's last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.
  • Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.
  • A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told the Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.
  • Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, the Times reported.
Pedro Gonçalves

A Missile System Strains U.S.-Russia Relations | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com - 0 views

www.newsweek.com/...205904

Russia Iran US Israel S300 Military

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jul 09 - Cached
  • The deal to reduce nuclear warheads and work together to limit nuclear proliferation signed in Moscow this week by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev carried all the pomp of a milestone. But the official communiqués ignored an elephant lingering at the summit: Russia has a deal, signed in 2007, with Tehran to supply a state-of-the-art S300 antimissile defense system that could make a possible strike (by the U.S. or Israel) on Iran's nuclear facilities much harder. Even more than a lucrative deal for Moscow, though, this is Russia's diplomatic ace in the hole: the $1 billion system is really a bargaining chip between the powers.
  • Though the Iranians insist that the deal is on track, Russia has held back on delivering key elements of the S300 system. One key reason for the delay is a full-court diplomatic press by Jerusalem and Washington. In the week before Obama's visit to Moscow, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ask that the deal be stopped. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also buttonholed Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, at the Paris Air Show late last month with the same request.
  • Russia has already been rewarded for its cooperation. In April, Russia's deputy defense minister, Vladimir Popovkin, confirmed that Russia had signed a deal to buy $50 million worth of Israeli-made pilotless drones to replace the Russian-made version that performed disastrously during last summer's war with Georgia. Until recently, Israel had supplied pilotless drones, night-vision and antiaircraft equipment, rockets, and various electronic systems to Tbilisi, and the Georgian military received advanced tactical training from retired Israeli generals (including one who commanded Israeli ground forces during the 2006 offensive against Hizbullah). Now, says independent Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, there is "a clear understanding" between Moscow and Jerusalem that the Israeli government will discourage private Israeli contractors from helping Georgia modernize its military.
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  • Iran's Revolutionary Guards stand to be the biggest losers if the S300 system doesn't come through, since there will be little they can do but watch the bombs fall if Western powers attack. Though Russia delivered a smaller Tor-M1 missile defense system to the Iranians last year, it's a localized weapon. The S300 system, according to Jane's Defence Weekly, is "one of the world's most effective all-altitude regional air defense systems, comparable in performance to the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot system." The latest version of the S300PMU2 Favorit has a range of up to 195 kilometers and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at altitudes from 10 meters to 27 kilometers. Though it's hardly clear the S300 will pose a problem for the Israeli or U.S. air forces. The Israelis have trained in avoidance tactics on an S300 system bought by Greece and deployed on the island of Crete; the U.S. Air Force has its own S300 system, which is now deployed for training purposes in the United States. According to one senior Air Combat Command source in Washington, the U.S. Air Force has the S300 "covered."
  • Regardless of the system's effectiveness, delivery of the S300 will be a key bellwether of Russian relations with the West. Moscow has much less influence over Tehran than it likes to pretend when bargaining with the U.S., and the S300 is one of its few remaining chips.
  • For years, Russia used construction of the Bushehr reactor by the Russian nuclear company Atomenergoprom as a key element of leverage, shutting down work on the plant for long periods. But now that Atomenergoprom has completed construction and is training the Iranian staff to run it, that leverage has gone. Though Russian staff will remain on-site at Bushehr, the Iranians can now run it on their own.
  • Russians may have less pull with Teheran than it claims, but it still sees Iran-U.S. enmity as a strategic goal, both because it increases their own diplomatic leverage and because it keeps oil prices high. Furthermore, Russia has been trying to make itself a rallying point for anti-U.S. regimes from Venezuela to Syria and Iran in an effort to restore its status as a world strategic player—a retread of the Cold War model of forging alliances with any Third World dictator who would take Russian money. So while Russia doesn't want Iran to get nukes and historically fears Iranian influence in Central Asia, Moscow has little interest in helping a rapprochement between Iran and the West. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is, cannily or cynically, depending on one's point of view, keeping the S300s on the table, neither committing to scrapping the deal nor delivering the equipment—and reserving the right to continue to tack between Jerusalem and Tehran as self-interest dictates.
Argos Media

Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25iraq.html

Iraq Islamic State of Iraq Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia Abu Omar al-Baghdadi

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A deadly outburst of violence appears to be overwhelming Iraq’s police and military forces as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country to them. On Friday, twin suicide bombings killed at least 60 people outside Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine, pushing the death toll in one 24-hour period to nearly 150.
  • The bombings on Friday ominously echoed attacks like the one at a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed and pushed the country toward civil war.
  • The latest bombings — there have been at least 18 major attacks so far this month — so far have not prompted retaliatory attacks, but they have strained what remains a fragile society deeply divided between Sunnis and Shiites.
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  • Two suicide bombers struck within five minutes of each other on streets leading to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim and his grandson. One of the attacks, and perhaps both, were carried out by women, witnesses said.
  • Nearly half of those killed were Iranians making a pilgrimage to the shrine, a golden-domed landmark in the predominantly Shiite Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad that is devoted to 2 of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam. At least 125 people were wounded, many of them also Iranians.
  • A loose coalition of Sunni militant forces, the Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for carrying out many of the recent attacks.
  • The deadliest of the three bombings on Thursday struck a restaurant filled with Iranian travelers in Muqdadiya, a town in Diyala not far from the border. The toll in that attack rose to 56, with Iranians making up the majority of the dead. Over all, at least 89 people were killed in the bombings on Thursday, and more than 100 were wounded.
  • After the attacks on Friday, angry Iraqis who gathered amid the bloody debris blamed lax security and corruption of the police and government officials for what had happened. Some of their anger had a strongly sectarian cast.“They have been ruling us for 1,400 years,” said a Shiite army soldier who identified himself only as Abu Haidar, referring to the Sunni domination of Shiites in Iraq. “We took it over for four years, and they are slaughtering us.”
  • The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella insurgent group that includes Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, says the recent attacks as part of a campaign called Harvest of the Good, which it announced in March.
  • In a statement distributed on extremist Web sites at the time, the group’s leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, ridiculed President Obama as “Washington’s black man” and called his plan to withdraw American forces by 2011 an “implied avowal of defeat.”
  • On Thursday, Iraq’s military claimed to have arrested Mr. Baghdadi, but what was touted as a major success appeared to be in question. Extremist Web sites denied his arrest, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors claims and other statements by terrorist and extremist groups. The American military command also said in a statement that it could not confirm “the arrest or capture” of the leader, who the American military believes to be a fictitious Iraqi figurehead of a movement that includes many foreign fighters.
  • A senior national police official on Friday bluntly cited the limitations of Iraq’s security forces and their equipment for detecting explosives, typically hand-held wands used at checkpoints that the official described as fakes.
Argos Media

NATO Leaders Debate Afghan Strains - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04nato.html

US NATO Europe Afghanistan ISAF

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • increasing American troops in Afghanistan to some 68,000 by the end of the year, from 38,000 today, is also likely to significantly Americanize an operation that in recent years had been divided equally between American troops and allied forces. By year’s end, American troops will outnumber allied forces by at least two to one.
  • NATO allies are giving the president considerable vocal support for the newly integrated strategy. But they are giving him very few new troops on the ground, underlining the fundamental strains in the alliance.
  • “As a candidate, Obama had expectations that Europe would make a serious increase in troop levels after he became president,” said Charles A. Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “But there is a realization now that Europe’s main contribution will be police trainers, economic assistance and development assistance.”
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  • The allies will offer more funds but no more than several thousand new personnel members, according to alliance military planners. Many of those will not be soldiers, but police trainers to meet a central pillar of the president’s new Afghan strategy, which focuses on an expansion of Afghan security forces. But even for the small numbers of European combat reinforcements, check the fine print: Nearly all will be sent to provide security for Afghanistan’s elections this summer, and will not be permanently deployed.
  • Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his British counterpart, John Hutton, have publicly warned that the performance of some European troops demonstrates that NATO risks slipping toward a two-tiered alliance. In that event, it would be divided between those that can and will fight, like Britain, Canada, France and Poland, and those that cannot or will not because of public opinion at home.
  • In many cases, European capitals have placed severe restrictions on their forces assigned to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F. That has been such a hindrance to the war effort, in the view of some American commanders, that they ruefully say the alliance mission’s initials now stand for “I Saw America Fight.”
Pedro Gonçalves

News From KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK - 0 views

www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

North Korea South Korea Lee Myung-bak Proliferation Security Initiative US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 May 09 - Cached
  • The so-called PSI is a mechanism for a war of aggression built by the U.S. against the DPRK
  • Second, The DPRK will take such a practical counter-action as in the wartime now that the south Korean authorities declared a war in wanton violation of its dignity and sovereignty by fully participating in the PSI.
  • First, The DPRK will deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow, no matter from which place, at any attempt to stop, check and inspect its vessels, regarding it as a violation of its inviolable sovereignty and territory and a grave provocation to it.
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  • Now that the south Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots through their full participation in the PSI, the DPRK is compelled to take a decisive measure
  • It is nothing strange and quite natural for a nuclear weapons state to conduct a nuclear test.
  • The DPRK, therefore, has already seriously warned the south Korean authorities against the above-said moves and repeatedly clarified its stand that it would strongly counter those moves of the Lee group, in particular, regarding them as a declaration of a war as it is pursuant to its American master's policy.
  • The Lee Myung Bak group of south Korea keen on the moves for confrontation and war against the DPRK in league with foreign forces
  • The so-called PSI is a mechanism for a war of aggression built by the U.S. against the DPRK
  • The DPRK, therefore, has already seriously warned the south Korean authorities against the above-said moves and repeatedly clarified its stand that it would strongly counter those moves of the Lee group, in particular, regarding them as a declaration of a war as it is pursuant to its American master's policy.
  • It is nothing strange and quite natural for a nuclear weapons state to conduct a nuclear test.
  • The anti-DPRK racket kicked up by the U.S. and its followers under that pretext is not truly aimed at the nuclear non-proliferation but prompted by their black-hearted intention to stifle the DPRK.
  • The anti-DPRK racket kicked up by the U.S. and its followers under that pretext is not truly aimed at the nuclear non-proliferation but prompted by their black-hearted intention to stifle the DPRK.
  • Now that the south Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots through their full participation in the PSI, the DPRK is compelled to take a decisive measure
  • Second, The DPRK will take such a practical counter-action as in the wartime now that the south Korean authorities declared a war in wanton violation of its dignity and sovereignty by fully participating in the PSI.
  • First, The DPRK will deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow, no matter from which place, at any attempt to stop, check and inspect its vessels, regarding it as a violation of its inviolable sovereignty and territory and a grave provocation to it.
  • he Lee Myung Bak group of traitors' reckless moves to "fully participate" in the U.S.-led PSI is now inching close an extreme phase where a war may break out any moment.
  • The present rulers of the U.S. including Obama egged the south Korean puppets on to participate in the PSI
  • This is a wanton violation and clear negation of not only international law but the Korean Armistice Agreement which bans "any form of blockade" against the other belligerent party.
  • The Lee group has unhesitatingly taken the step of "fully participating" in the PSI, blindly yielding to its master as it is steeped in sycophancy and submission to the marrow of its bones
  • Our revolutionary armed forces, as they have already declared, will regard the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors' "full participation" in the PSI as a declaration of war against the DPRK.
  • they will regard any hostile actions against the DPRK, including checkup and inspection of its peaceful vessels, as an unpardonable encroachment on the DPRK's sovereignty and counter them with prompt and strong military strikes.
  • The Korean People's Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer since the present ruling quarters of the United States, keen on the moves to stifle the DPRK, plugged the south Korean puppets into the PSI at last, denying not only international law but the AA itself and discarding even its responsibility as a signatory to the agreement.
  • In case the AA loses its binding force, the Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions.
  • we will not guarantee the legal status of the five islands under the south side's control (Paekryong, Taechong, Sochong, Yonphyong and U islands) in our side's territorial waters northwest of the extension of the Military Demarcation Line in the West Sea of Korea and safe sailing of warships of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces and the south Korean puppet navy and civilian ships operating in the waters around there.
  • It is illogical for the DPRK to unilaterally meet the requirements of fair international law and the bilateral agreement since the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors have reneged on them. Nothing is graver mistake than to calculate that the American-style Jungle law can work on the DPRK.
  • the DPRK has tremendous military muscle and its own method of strike able to conquer any targets in its vicinity at one stroke or hit the U.S. on the raw, if necessary.
  • Those who provoke the DPRK once will not be able to escape its unimaginable and merciless punishment.
Pedro Gonçalves

When Did the American Empire Start to Decline? | Stephen M. Walt - 0 views

walt.foreignpolicy.com/...erican_empire_start_to_decline

US Iraq Iraq War Iran

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the Clinton administration entered office in 1993 and proceeded to adopt a strategy of "dual containment." Until that moment, the United States had acted as an "offshore balancer" in the Persian Gulf, and we had carefully refrained from deploying large air or ground force units there on a permanent basis. We had backed the Shah of Iran since the 1940s, and then switched sides and tilted toward Iraq during the 1980s. Our goal was to prevent any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, and we cleverly played competing powers off against each other for several decades. With dual containment, however, the United States had committed itself to containing two different countries -- Iran and Iraq -- who hated each other, which in turn forced us to keep lots of airplanes and troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We did this, as both Kenneth Pollack and Trita Parsi have documented, because Israel wanted us to do it, and U.S. officials foolishly believed that doing so would make Israel more compliant during the Oslo peace process. But in addition to costing a lot more money, keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the long term also fueled the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was deeply offended by the presence of "infidel" troops on Saudi territory, and so the foolish strategy of dual containment played no small role in causing our terrorism problem. It also helped derail several attempts to improve relations between the United States and Iran. Dual containment, in short, was a colossal blunder.
  • But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003.
  • wrecking Iraq -- which is what we did -- destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and improved Iran's geopolitical position. The invasion of Iraq also diverted resources away from the war in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to re-emerge as a formidable fighting force. Thus, Bush's decision to topple Saddam in 2003 led directly to two losing wars, not just one. And these wars were enormously expensive to boot. Combined with Bush's tax cuts and other fiscal irresponsibilities, this strategic incompetence caused the federal deficit to balloon to dangerous levels and helped bring about the fiscal impasse that we will be dealing with for years to come.
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  • when future historians search for the moment when the "American Empire" reached its pinnacle and began its descent, the war that began 21 years ago would be a good place to start.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Hamas rejects 'Jewish state' demand - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...2009625181357331518.html

Israel Palestine Hamas Khaled Meshaal Palestinian Authority West Bank Keith Dayton

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The leader of the Palestinian group Hamas's political bureau has refused to recognise Israel as Jewish state. At the same time, Khaled Meshaal has endorsed the idea of a two-state solution, accepting the creation of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
  • He also said there were optimistic signs in relation to negotiations between Hamas and its rival Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Talks with Fatah would continue this coming Sunday in the Egyptian capital Cairo, Meshaal said.
  • In a statement, the Israeli military said Palestinian security forces "will be able to extend their hours of operation" in the towns but emphasised that Israeli forces would continue to operate in the West Bank "in order to thwart terrorist operations". Israel already has turned over limited security control to Palestinians in three other West Bank towns, but the military said that forces in Qalqiliya, Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah would be the first to operate around the clock without Israeli clearance.
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  • He also called on Obama to pull out Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the US security co-ordinator in the region, who is supervising the training of Palestinian forces in the West Bank.
  • "The call by the Israeli leader for a Jewish state is nothing but a racist call, no different from Nazis and other calls denounced by the international community."
  • "Peaceful resistance works for a civil rights struggle, not in front of an occupation armed to the teeth."
  • "We appreciate Obama's new language towards Hamas. And it is the first step in the right direction towards a dialogue without conditions, and we welcome this," he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Hamas, Fatah clash kills six in West Bank - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Palestine West Bank Qalqilya

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 31 May 09 - Cached
  • ix people were killed Sunday when Fatah security forces got into a gun battle with Hamas militants whom they were trying to arrest, an official said. The gun fight took place in the city of Qalqilya in the West Bank when Fatah forces surrounded a house where Hamas militants were holed up.
  • Six people were killed Sunday when Fatah security forces got into a gun battle with Hamas militants whom they were trying to arrest, an official said. The gun fight took place in the city of Qalqilya in the West Bank when Fatah forces surrounded a house where Hamas militants were holed up.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq says US raid violated pact - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8019778.stm

Iraq US SOFA Nuri al-Maliki

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A US raid in the south of Iraq, in which two people died, was a crime and those responsible should be tried, says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. He said the raid in the town of Kut was a breach of the security pact governing US military actions in the country. The US has said the raid was carried out in full agreement with the Iraqis.
  • The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says it is the most serious dispute between the US and Iraq since the agreement came into force at the start of the year. One senior local official said the actions had rendered the pact "meaningless".
  • US forces stormed buildings in Wasit province early on Sunday morning. A policeman and a woman were shot dead and six people detained. The US military said the raid, against a weapons smuggler and "network financier", had been "fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government". They said soldiers had shot and killed "an individual with a weapon" outside the house and that the woman who died had "moved into the line of fire".
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  • In a statement read on state TV, Mr Maliki said he condemned the killings as a "breach of the security pact".
  • He called on the US to "release the detainees and hand over those responsible for this crime to the courts".
  • The chairman of the provincial council, Mahmud Abd al-Rida, said the raid had embodied the "meaning of the occupation". "Their claim of friendship and early withdrawal from our dear land, according to the security agreement signed by the two Iraqi and US parties, is meaningless," he said.
  • The complicated Status of Forces Agreement was signed in November last year and came into force in early 2009. It requires all military operations in Iraq to have the government's approval and allows for US soldiers to face trial if they commit crimes off base.
Argos Media

U.S. Questions Pakistan's Will to Stop Taliban - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...24pstan.html

Pakistan Taliban Swat Valley Buner North West Frontier Province Shangla Swabi Mardan Maulana Fazlur Rahman

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • As the Taliban tightened their hold over newly won territory, Pakistani politicians and American officials on Thursday sharply questioned the government’s willingness to deal with the insurgents and the Pakistani military’s decision to remain on the sidelines.
  • Some 400 to 500 insurgents consolidated control of their new prize, a strategic district called Buner, just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, setting up checkpoints and negotiating a truce similar to the one that allowed the Taliban to impose Islamic law in the neighboring Swat Valley.
  • As they did, Taliban contingents were seen Thursday in at least two other districts and areas still closer to the capital, according to Pakistani government officials and residents.
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  • Yet Pakistani authorities deployed just several hundred poorly paid and equipped constabulary forces to Buner, who were repelled in a clash with the insurgents, leaving one police officer dead
  • The limited response set off fresh scrutiny of Pakistan’s military, a force with 500,000 soldiers and a similar number of reservists. The army receives $1 billion in American military aid each year but has repeatedly declined to confront the Taliban-led insurgency, even as it has bled out of Pakistan’s self-governed tribal areas into Pakistan proper in recent months.
  • The military remains fixated on training and deploying its soldiers to fight the country’s archenemy, India. It remains ill equipped for counterinsurgency, analysts say, and top officers are deeply reluctant to be pressed into action against insurgents who enjoy family, ethnic and religious ties with many Pakistanis.
  • In the limited engagements in which regular army troops have fought the Taliban in the tribal areas and sections of the Swat Valley, they not only failed to dislodge the Taliban, but also convinced many Pakistanis that their own military was as much of a menace as the Islamic radicals it sought to repel, residents and analysts say.
  • In Washington, a Defense Department official who is monitoring Pakistan closely said that the poorly trained constabulary force was sent Thursday because Pakistani Army troops were not available, and Pakistani generals were reluctant to pull reinforcements off the border with India — something American officials have encouraged them to do.
  • Instead, the military, which is stretched thin in the areas along the Afghan border, has favored negotiations, and the civilian government has acquiesced. “The government is too worried about its own political survival to take on the militants,” the Defense Department official said.
  • Where it has engaged the insurgents, the Pakistani Army, untrained in counterinsurgency, has become reviled by the civilian population for its heavy-handed tactics, which have cost many lives while failing to stop the Taliban. At the same time, the police and paramilitary forces have proved too weak to stand up to the militants. In Buner, desperate residents had resorted to forming their own militias, as much to keep out the military as the Taliban. That effort, too, has now failed.
  • On Capitol Hill, legislators preparing to introduce a bill to provide Pakistan with $7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid over five years may face a steep challenge.
  • In a sign of the urgency of the crisis, the special envoy for the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton memos several times a day with his latest reading of the situation in Pakistan, an American official said. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefly visited Pakistan on Wednesday night and Thursday from Afghanistan, to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief of staff. An American official briefed on discussions said the Pakistani leadership was “very concerned.”
  • Buner (pronounced boo-NAIR), home to about one million people, lies in the heart of North-West Frontier Province, bordering seven other districts. Its capture not only advances the Taliban closer to the capital, but also gives the Taliban a vital hub to extend their reach.
  • More than 30 armed militants entered the Shangla district, east of the main Swat Valley and north of Buner, and were seen patrolling an area around Loch Bazaar, the independent channel Geo TV reported Thursday, quoting witnesses.Government officials also confirmed that militants have been seen in Totali, far south in Buner and close to the boundary with the Swabi district, which lies close to the main highways into the capital.
  • Armed militants have also been seen visiting mosques and patrolling in Rustam, a town on the boundary between Buner and the adjoining district of Mardan, said Riaz Khan, a lawyer living in Mardan, the second largest town in North-West Frontier Province. “People are anxious and in a state of fear,” he said.
  • The Taliban were making a concerted push into areas that overlook the capital, lawmakers and government officials in North-West Frontier Province said.
  • A powerful religious party leader, Fazlur Rehman, who is allied with the government, warned that militants had reached into the Mansehra district, close to the Tarbela Dam, a vital source of electricity to the center of the country.
  • “If the Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the door of Islamabad,” he told Parliament on Wednesday, adding that Margalla Hills, north of the capital, seem to be the only hurdle to the Taliban advance.
  • The Pakistani Taliban, who number in the thousands across the tribal areas and the Swat region, have declared their aim of establishing Shariah rule throughout Pakistan. But for now, their expansion may be opportunistic and their strength sufficient only to establish local fiefdoms, or “micro-emirates of Shariah,” said Christine Fair, a senior research associate at the RAND Corporation.“I don’t know what the Taliban’s game plan is, but what seems apparent is the state has no game plan,” she said. “The Pakistani state is not able to stop them and they expand where they can.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Mahmoud Abbas outrages Palestinian refugees by waiving his right to return | World news... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-abbas-palestinian-territories

Palestine Israel Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is facing widespread condemnation and anger in the Palestinian territories and abroad after he publicly waived his right to return to live in the town from which his family was forced to flee in 1948, a repudiation of huge significance for Palestinian refugees
  • After his image was burned in refugee camps in Gaza, Abbas rejected accusations that he had conceded one of the most emotional and visceral issues on the Palestinian agenda, the demand by millions of refugees to return to their former homes in what is now Israel.He insisted that comments made in an interview with an Israeli television channel were selectively quoted and the remarks were his personal stance, rather than a change of policy.Abbas told Channel 2 he accepted he had no right to live in Safed, the town of his birth, from which his family was forced to flee in 1948 when Abbas was 13."I visited Safed before once, he said. "But I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not to live there."
  • The "right of return" is one of the most intractable issues in talks between the Israelis and Palestinians for a resolution to their decades-old conflict. The Palestinians have historically demanded that all those who fled or were expelled from their homes in the period around the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, and their descendants, must be allowed to return to their former homes.
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  • Referring to the internationally-recognised pre-1967 border, he went on: "Palestine now for me is '67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever ... This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah. I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel."
  • About 5 million Palestinians are registered as refugees in the Palestinian territories and abroad.Israel rejects their demand, saying that such a move would spell the end of the Jewish state.
  • Most international diplomats and observers believe that a settlement to the conflict is likely to involve a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees being given the right to return.
  • In the interview, Abbas also said that, while he was president, there would be "no third armed intifada [uprising against Israel]. Never."He said: "We don't want to use terror. We don't want to use force. We don't want to use weapons. We want to use diplomacy. We want to use politics. We want to use negotiations. We want to use peaceful resistance. That's it." He has said that Palestinian negotiators are willing to resume talks with Israel following the submission of a request, expected later this month, to the UN general assembly for recognition as a "non-member state".
Pedro Gonçalves

Exclusive - Secret Turkish nerve centre leads aid to Syria rebels | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...s-centre-idUKBRE86Q0J620120727

Syria Turkey Qatar

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria's rebels from a city near the border
  • "It's the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,"
  • "The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes."
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  • The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said
  • Adana is home to Incirlik, a large Turkish/U.S. air force base which Washington has used in the past for reconnaissance and military logistics operations. It was not clear from the sources whether the anti-Syrian "nerve centre" was located inside Incirlik base or in the city of Adana.
  • Qatar, the tiny gas-rich Gulf state which played a leading part in supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, has a key role in directing operations at the Adana base, the sources said. Qatari military intelligence and state security officials are involved.
  • "All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don't want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores."
  • The presence of the secret Middle East-run "nerve centre" may explain how the Syrian rebels, a rag-tag assortment of ill-armed and poorly organised groups, have pulled off major strikes such as the devastating bomb attack on July 18 which killed at least four key Assad aides including the defence minister.
  • 20 former Syrian generals are now based in Turkey, from where they are helping shape the rebel forces. Israel believes up to 20,000 Syrian troops may now have defected to the opposition.
  • "The Qataris mobilized their special forces team two weeks ago. Their remit is to train and help logistically, not to fight," said a Doha-based source with ties to the FSA.Qatar's military intelligence directorate, Foreign Ministry and State Security Bureau are involved, said the source.
Argos Media

Russia's Medvedev Vows to Press On With Military Overhaul Despite Economic Woes - washi... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009031700871.html

Russia Military Dmitry Medvedev Anatoly Serdyukov

shared by Argos Media on 18 Mar 09 - Cached
  • President Dmitry Medvedev vowed Tuesday to press ahead with an ambitious overhaul of Russia's armed forces despite the nation's economic problems and vocal opposition from within the military. Medvedev promised weapons upgrades but also endorsed organizational changes that will cut the officer corps by more than half, or as many as 200,000 positions.
  • The plan, first disclosed in October, envisions the most dramatic transformation of the Russian military since World War II, abandoning a structure designed to mobilize large numbers of new troops to fight a major war and replacing it with a leaner, standing army that can respond more quickly to local conflicts. Thousands of combat units staffed now only with officers would be eliminated, and the military's four-level command structure would be trimmed to a three-tier hierarchy.
  • The plan has run into stiff resistance from officers worried about cuts as well as retired generals and opposition politicians who say it will leave Russia too weak to prevail in a war against a strong opponent such as NATO or China. Russia's most severe economic crisis in a decade has also exacerbated concerns about the welfare of demobilized officers and the government's ability to equip the smaller military with new weapons as promised.
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  • in a meeting with the Defense Ministry's top staff, Medvedev said Russia needed to push ahead with the changes because "serious potential for conflict remains in many regions." He cited the threat of terrorism and local crises such as the war with Georgia in August, as well as "attempts to expand the military infrastructure of NATO near Russia's borders."
  • government's plan to drastically reduce the number of officers, who now account for nearly one of three Russian soldiers. By eliminating hollow units that are supposed to call up conscripts in the event of war, the government plans to cut the officer corps from about 355,000 to 150,000, shedding more than 200 generals, 15,000 colonels and 70,000 majors. Meanwhile, the number of ground force units would be slashed from nearly 2,000 to less than 200.
  • Dozens of military academies, research institutes and hospitals would also be shut, and the overall size of the military would fall from about 1.13 million to 1 million.
  • Medvedev said the changes would address serious flaws in the military exposed by the Georgian war, the first time Russia has sent its forces to fight abroad since the fall of the Soviet Union. Though Russia easily triumphed in the five-day conflict, analysts say the Kremlin was alarmed by problems with aging weapons, communications and equipment, as well as the command structure.
  • Medvedev said arms procurement would be "almost entirely preserved" this year despite a budget shortfall but added that "large-scale rearming" would have to wait until 2011. Serdyukov said up to 90 percent of the weapons and equipment used by the military are outdated, and he pledged to bring that figure down to 70 percent by 2015.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Turkey's Gul seeks to calm military 'coup plot' fears - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8536216.stm

Turkey Ergenekon

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Turkey's president has said tensions over an alleged military coup plot will be resolved within the law, after meeting the head of the armed forces.President Abdullah Gul made the statement after a summit with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and armed forces chief Gen Ilker Basbug. Tension between the government and the military has risen following a round of arrests over the alleged plot. Twenty military officers were charged this week in connection with the case. They were among more than 40 officers arrested on Monday.
  • Turkey's military has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 - most recently in 1997 - though Gen Basbug has insisted that coups are a thing of the past.
  • The latest men to be charged were arrested over the so-called "sledgehammer" plot, which reportedly dates back to 2003. Reports of the alleged plot first surfaced in the liberal Taraf newspaper, which said it had discovered documents detailing plans to bomb two Istanbul mosques and provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea. The army has said the scenarios were discussed but only as part of a planning exercise at a military seminar. The alleged plot is similar, and possibly linked, to the reported Ergenekon conspiracy, in which military figures and staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - China slows rise in military spending - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8548803.stm

China Military

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 04 Mar 10 - Cached
  • China has said its military spending will increase by 7.5% in 2010, ending a long run of double-digit growth.It will spend 532.1bn yuan ($77.9bn:£51.7bn) over the year, the spokesman of the country's annual parliamentary session announced.
  • According to Chinese figures, this is the first time in more than 20 years that the military budget increase has dipped below 10%.
  • The spending spree began in the late 1980s, when China embarked on an ambitious programme to upgrade its armed forces. Since then it has bought and produced its own high-tech weapons, and reduced the number of personnel in an attempt to have fewer, but better trained, troops. Salaries and other benefits for officers and ordinary soldiers have also been improved.
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  • Previous large spending increases could explain the smaller increase this year. "China has achieved its targets in the past by providing continuous double-digit budget increases," said Andrew Yang, an expert on China's military who is now Taiwan's deputy defence minister.
  • Many experts believe the actual amount spent by China on its armed forces is far higher than the published amount.
  • In a recently published book, called The China Dream, a senior officer in China's People's Liberation Army said the country should aim to build a major military force that could challenge the US this century. Other officers attending the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body that holds a meeting at the same time as the parliamentary session, rejected that idea.
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