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News archives for the week ending 1st August 2008

Afghanistan worse than at any time in last seven years

Violence in Afghanistan has reached record highs, with unprecedented numbers of civilian casualties and terror attacks spreading into areas once thought safe, a coalition of charities warns.

In a damning indictment of the international community's effort to stabilise Afghanistan, more than 100 aid agencies claimed security is worse now than at any time in the past seven years.

"There has been a surge in the number of civilian casualties caused by all sides, a spread of insecurity to previously stable areas, and increasing attacks on aid agencies and their staff," the statement from their umbrella organisation Acbar said.

The group represents 64 international aid groups with projects inside the warring country, including Oxfam, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, as well as 36 Afghan charities.

Idependent, 1/8/08

Special session on Iraq election law

Iraq's parliament speaker on Wednesday called a special session to try to resolve a bitter row over a provincial elections law that has triggered several days of street protests by Kurds.

Parliament passed the law last week but Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the session. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, then rejected the law as unconstitutional and sent it back.

The row is over voting in Kirkuk, a northern city that is disputed between Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turkmen. The law would have delayed voting in Kirkuk, assigned fixed seat allocations to each ethnic group and replaced Kurdish Peshmerga security forces in the city with troops from other parts of Iraq, all measures Kurdish parliamentarians rejected.

Kurds regard the city -- which lies just outside the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan -- as their ancient capital and are keen for a vote. Arabs and ethnic Turkmen want it to stay under central government authority. They believe Kurds have intentionally stacked Kirkuk with Kurds in an attempt to tip the demographic balance in their favor in any ballot.

Reuters, 30/7/08

Recruitment rates in UK dropping

Britain's armed forces are operating at an unprecedented pace and lack the resources needed to carry out the commitments demanded of them, a cross-party committee of senior backbench MPs warn in a report published today.

The number of trained military personnel joining the frontline is falling while the number leaving the armed forces early is increasing, it says. Service personnel spend increasingly long periods away from their families and gaps between operational deployments are narrowing.

Recruitment, especially to the army, is falling and the wastage rate - the number who do not complete their first training course - is as high as 38%.

Guardian, 30/7/08

Iraq violence reaching 'normal' level

Overall violence in Iraq is declining to almost "normal" levels, according to US General David Petraeus. The commander of US forces in Iraq warned however that the trend could be reversed by "sensational attacks" like those in Baghdad and Kirkuk that killed 56 Iraqis.

"If you could reduce these sensational attacks further, I think you are almost approaching a level of normal or latent violence," he told USA Today in an interview published yesterday, following a string of attacks.

Daily attacks have averaged 25 to 30 over the past two months, compared with 160 to 170 a little more than a year ago, he claimed.

Gulf Daily News, Bahrain, 30/7/08

Bombs and curfews in Kirkuk and Baghdad

Three women wrapped in explosives killed dozens in Iraq on Monday, shaking the country as chaos and ethnic violence erupted in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk, where tensions had already run high between majority Kurds and ethnic Turkmens.

All told, at least 61 people were killed and 238 wounded, nearly all of them Kurdish political protesters in Kirkuk and Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad. It was one of the bloodiest days in a year in which violence has dropped strikingly.

The violence in Kirkuk, with its delicate ethnic and sectarian makeup perched atop great oil reserves, deeply unnerved government and security officials, who instituted curfews there and in Baghdad. Leaders of the Turkmen ethnic group, in competition for land and political power with the Kurds, called for protection by United Nations security forces.

New York Times, 29/7/08

Israel says US-Iran talks are a ploy

Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, Israeli defense officials speculated on Sunday as Defense Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for talks with senior administration officials.

Barak's talks in the US come a little over a week after the Bush administration sent its number three diplomat to Geneva to participate in European Union talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The move led to reports that the US was changing its isolation tactic vis-à-vis Iran but Israeli defense officials speculated Sunday that the move was really a ploy to buy international support in the event that Bush decides to attack Iran in his last months in office.

"This way they will be able to say they tried everything," one official speculated. "This increases America's chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action."

Jerusalem Post, 28/7/08

British trained Kenyan torturers

A human rights group called on Monday for suspension of international military cooperation with Kenya, saying Britain helped train Kenyan troops who are accused of torture and murder. Human Rights Watch says such aid should be halted until there is an independent investigation and action is taken against those responsible for atrocities.

Britain and the U.S. provide assistance and training to security forces in Kenya, which is considered a regional hub for controlling extremist Islamist groups in the Horn of Africa. "The British people should be concerned that their money is being spent on training forces implicated in torture, murder and disappearances," said researcher Ben Rawlence, who wrote Monday's report.

Human Rights Watch and other local human rights groups documented hundreds of cases of torture and dozens of disappearances during a Kenyan military operation against a brutal militia in the country's western Mount Elgon district.

Britain helped train one of several army units deployed to the area in counterinsurgency techniques. Several victims identified their torturers as members of the 20 Paratrooper unit by their insignia of green berets with a white paratrooper ensign on the front.

Associated Press, 28/7/08

US admits killing innocent civilians

The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.

The attack on June 25 killed three people, a man and two women, as they drove to work at a bank at Baghdad's airport. In a statement issued late Sunday, the American military said that "a thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq." It added that the soldiers were not at fault for the killings because they had fired warning shots and exercised proper "escalation of force" measures before they opened fire on the people in the car.

But the findings called into question the way the military handled the aftermath of the shootings. For example, a key assertion of the news release issued by the military on the day of the killings was that "a weapon was recovered from the wreckage." But the military said Sunday that no one claimed to have found a weapon in the car or had seen a weapon taken from it.

In its initial news release about the killings, the military said that the car then crashed and "exploded." But that, too, was false, said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the Fourth Infantry Division.

"We don't believe there was any cover-up," Colonel Stover said.

New York Times, 28/7/08

MPs cast doubt on Iraq torture denials

Ministers and senior military officers are today challenged over discrepancies in evidence they gave to a parliamentary committee on the use of torture techniques by British troops in Iraq.

Evidence given to MPs by the former armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, and Lieutenant General Robin Brims, former commander of UK forces in Iraq, failed to address concerns over whether the Ministry of Defence gave soldiers permission to abuse detainees in Iraq.

The MoD is also accused in today's report by the joint select committee on human rights of blocking their inquiries by refusing to explain why such senior figures appeared unaware that the use of torture techniques by British soldiers may have been officially sanctioned. Both Ingram and Brims assured the committee that interrogation techniques such as hooding and sleep deprivation, banned under the Geneva convention, would never be used and that troops received training to that effect.

Yet MPs said their claims contradicted evidence that British soldiers in Iraq routinely used such methods based on legal advice received from Brigade headquarters. The report adds that even at the start of 2008 an official army investigation had found that the prohibition on their use was still not 'clearly being articulated' to ordinary soldiers.

Observer, 27/7/08

US says suicide bombers want revenge

In the war-ravaged streets of Iraq, US-led forces say insurgents are recruiting women driven by despair or revenge to act as suicide bombers in the latest tactic against coalition troops. Motivated by poverty, desperation or vengeance against the US-led military they blame for the deaths of family members, vulnerable women are easy prey for insurgents promising them a place in a paradise afterlife.

"One of the reasons for women to kill like this is a desire for vengeance," said Captain Kevin Ryan, commander of a US base in Baquba. "Often, they have lost parents, brothers or children in the fighting."

Iraqi army Colonel Ali Al-Karkhi, who is responsible for security in the Khan Bani Saad district (19 miles) outside Baquba said. "Some want vengeance for the fact their families have disappeared," he told AFP, adding, "and it is easy for them to target those people they believe are responsible."

"Last year in the Magdadiya district, a woman who had five sons killed by the Iraqi police, blew herself up close to a group of police recruits looking to join up. She killed 30 civilians and 15 police officers," he said.

AFP, 26/7/08

Iraq now as costly as Vietnam

The total cost of the Iraq war is approaching the Vietnam War's expense, a congressional report estimates, while spending for military operations after 9/11 has exceeded it.

The new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion on Iraq war operations, putting it in range with the $686 billion, in 2008 dollars, spent on the Vietnam War, the second most expensive war behind World War II.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has doled out almost $860 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world. All estimates, adjusted for inflation, are based on the costs of military operations and don't include expenses for veterans benefits, interest on war-related debts or assistance to war allies, according to the nonpartisan CRS.

Associated Press, 26/7/08

Trade unionists forcibly transferred from Basra

Eight Iraqi trade union leaders have been forcibly transferred from Basra to Baghdad, where their lives are said to be at risk for opposing a planned law in which control over oil exploration and production would be placed in foreign hands.

The men, members of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, IFOU, have been moved to the capital apparently on the personal orders of Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, under anti-union legislation left over from Saddam Hussein's rule.

British officials in Baghdad and Basra have investigated the affair, said Kim Howells, the foreign minister. In a letter, he said Britain wanted to repeal Saddam's "restrictive" union laws and said Anne Clywd, the prime minister's special envoy on human rights, had recently "emphasised the fundamental need for free and fair trade unions in Iraq".

However, he added: "It appears that the government of Iraq is tackling illegal trade union activities with the South Oil Company."

John Hilary, executive director of War on Want, said: "The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions has been leading the opposition to the sell-off of Iraq's oil and these members are clearly being targeted for their political actions. We believe the British government should work for the safety of Iraqi trade unionists, not be complicit in their persecution."

Guardian, 25/7/08

Britain to spend £3 billion on new warheads

The UK is to replace its stockpile of nuclear warheads at an estimated cost of more than £3bn, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Ministers have repeatedly denied there are any plans to replace the warheads as part of the upgrade of the Trident nuclear system, insisting no decision will be taken until the next parliament, probably sometime after 2010. However, previously unpublished papers released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal one of the MoD's senior officials told a private gathering of arms manufacturers that the decision had already been taken.

"This afternoon we are going to outline our plan to maintain the UK's nuclear deterrent," David Gould, then the chief operating officer at the Defence Equipment and Support Organisation, told a future deterrent industry day event. "The intention is to replace the entire Vanguard class submarine system. Including the warhead and missile."

Opponents say replacing the warheads would commit the UK to a nuclear weapons system up to 2055, as opposed to the lifespan of the current system, which is expected to become obsolete around 2025. They also claim that pressing ahead with a new generation of warheads before the non-proliferation treaty review conference in 2010 would be seen as inflammatory and could breach international agreements.

Guardian, 25/7/08