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News archives for the week ending 9th July 2010

Kenya: Iraq, Afghan, Pakistan fighters in Somalia

Veteran insurgents from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have relocated to the chaotic country of Somalia in large enough numbers to spark worry inside the international community, Kenya's foreign minister said Thursday.

Calling the situation in Somalia "very, very dire," Moses M. Wetangula said the militants have relocated to Kenya's northern neighbor because of the safehaven offered by a country with no functioning government.

A U.S. official said he couldn't immediately comment on Wetangula's views but that the State Department would soon release a statement. Since 2007, the U.S. has spent $2 million to pay Somali soldiers and purchase supplies and equipment, according to the State Department. Another $12 million went toward transport, uniforms and equipment.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation into chaos.

Associated Press, 8/7/10

Makeshift bombs at all-time high in Afghanistan

Use of the Taliban's deadliest weapon, crude homemade bombs, has reached an all-time high in Afghanistan, where in the last week of June more than 300 of the devices either exploded or were found before they could detonate.

The number of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in the country has risen relentlessly in recent years, up from about 50 a week during summer 2007. The bombs -- made using vast supplies of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, much of it brought in from Pakistan -- account for about two-thirds of NATO's troop fatalities in the nearly nine-year war. That figure also hit a per-month peak in June, with 102 dead.

Washington Post, 8/7/10

Corruption fuels support for Taliban

A new survey finds that corruption in Afghanistan has doubled since 2007, with Afghans paying nearly $1 billion in bribes last year.

In a study released Thursday, Kabul-based Integrity Watch Afghanistan found that nearly one in seven Afghans regularly pay bribes, with poor rural households being hit hardest by corruption.

The 6,500 survey respondents from 32 (of 34) Afghan provinces ranked the country's interior ministry, justice ministry and intelligence agency as the most corrupt.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan co-director Lorenzo Delesgues says the study finds a clear link between increased corruption and the increased power of the Taliban, as more Afghans become disillusioned by government officials.

Voice of America, 8/7/10

British leave Sangin

British troops in the Sangin area of Afghanistan's Helmand province are to be replaced by US forces, the UK's Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said. The UK has suffered its heaviest losses in the area, with 99 deaths since 2001.

About 1,000 Royal Marines are expected to leave and be redeployed to central Helmand by the end of 2010.

The military insists the move is a redeployment, now there are more US troops on the ground, but the Taliban are certain to portray it as a defeat.

BBC News, 7/7/10

Blair 'exaggerated Iranian role'

Tony Blair "very much exaggerated" Iran's role in supporting al Qaida insurgents in their attacks on British and American forces in Iraq, a former ambassador to Tehran has said.

And Sir Richard Dalton said that the UK and US misread the intentions of the Iranian regime, believing it would inevitably be hostile to their mission in Iraq when in fact Tehran wanted them to succeed in installing a stable government in Baghdad.

Giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, Sir Richard - Britain's ambassador in Tehran from 2003-06 - said Mr Blair made "a series of very bad decisions" about the legality of the 2003 invasion.

As international pressure continues to ratchet up over Tehran's alleged efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Sir Richard warned that military action against Iran would be illegal unless there was evidence it posed an "imminent and real" threat to another country.

Press Association, 7/7/10

UAE ambassador backs strike on Iran's nuclear sites

Iran and the United Arab Emirates are embroiled in a furious new row after the latter's ambassador to Washington publicly expressed support for a US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Yousef al-Otaiba commented bluntly that the benefits would outweigh the short-term costs of military action. "We cannot live with a nuclear Iran," the envoy said at a conference in Aspen, Colorado. "I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE."

Tehran hit back swiftly with a warning from a leading MP of a "teeth-breaking" response to these "harsh and crude" remarks and a possible ban on Iranian travel to the Gulf state, which does billions of dollars of trade annually with Iran.

The UAE foreign ministry called the reported comments "inaccurate and taken out of context", but they were recorded by the Atlantic Magazine, which organised the conference.The ministry insisted that the UAE wanted a peaceful solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.

The spat follows Iran's decision to scale back economic relations with the UAE after Abu Dhabi implemented the latest UN sanctions punishing Tehran for ignoring demands over that programme.

The row also underlines wider nervousness in the Gulf about Iran, though the UAE is the most hawkish of its neighbours and has been in dispute with it over three islands since 1971

Guardian, 7/7/10

Netanyahu comes away smiling from White House visit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brief visit to Washington seems to have left him with everything he could have wanted from US President Barack Obama, and then some.

In 80 minutes of one-on-one talks in the White House on Tuesday, Netanyahu won praise for his recent easing of Israel's embargo on the Gaza Strip and reaffirmation of the strong ties between his country and the United States.

Netanyahu got a US pledge to try to deflect motions against Israel at a September session of the International Atomic Energy Agency and an assurance that a proposed 2012 conference on establishing a Middle East free of nuclear weapons would not be allowed to single out Israel.

There was one area where it had been thought that Obama might try to pressure his visitor; the approaching end of a 10-month Israeli freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Successive US administrations have described settlements as an obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Obama would have loved to see the moratorium extended beyond its September end.

But it seems that the president accepted that Netanyahu, who heads a coalition government dependent on hawks, would be unable to deliver an extension.

AsiaOne News, 7/7/10

US withdrawal from Iraq 'a matter of semantics'

Like other towns across Iraq's restive northern provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh, Jalawla defies the U.S. narrative of an end to combat operations next month under a plan to pull out of Iraq completely by the end of 2011.

"I would say we're pretty far from rolling up the insurgency in Jalawla," said Charlie Troop commander Captain Mark Adams of the 1st Squadron, 14th U.S. Cavalry. "I don't feel we've made a whole lot of progress there."

For the ethnically and religiously-mixed arc running from Jalawla near Iraq's eastern border with Iran to the western frontier with Syria, the transition on August 31 is less a milestone than a matter of semantics.

Operations that to outsiders will look pretty much like combat will continue in areas where a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency remains entrenched, despite a sharp fall in overall violence since the height of the sectarian slaughter in 2006/07.

They will, however, be called "stability operations," loosely defined as advising, assisting, training and equipping Iraqi forces -- a role U.S. forces have had for some time.

U.S. troops will "continue to conduct partnered counter terrorism operations to maintain pressure on extremist terrorist networks," said chief spokesman Major General Stephen Lanza.

Reuters, 5/7/10

Official: Al-Qaida weaker and threat to US stronger

U.S. officials boast that al-Qaida has never been weaker, its upper ranks decimated because of the stepped-up drone attacks in Pakistan and special operations raids in Afghanistan. At the same time, they warn, in seeming contradiction: An even greater number of well-trained terrorists are setting their sights on the United States.

Across the remote tribal lands between Afghanistan and Pakistan where terror groups hide, U.S. officials say they've seen a fusion of al-Qaida and others targeted by U.S. forces, including the Haqqani group and the Pakistani Taliban, who formerly focused only on their local areas.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the groups have become a "synergy of terrorist groups" with "an expanding desire to kill Americans." He was speaking last week at the Aspen Institute security forum in Colorado.

At the same forum, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter warned that the "troubling alignment" extends all the way to Yemen and Africa. The dispersed network is making terror plots harder to spot and prevent, he said.

Associated Press, 5/7/10

50,000 US troops will stay in Iraq after 'withdrawal'

Vice President Joe Biden's surprise trip to Baghdad this week was designed in part to brace the Iraqis for the end of the U.S. combat mission in their country, currently set for Aug. 31. Biden also reminded the Iraqis that the U.S. will continue to provide assistance for the foreseeable future.

On "August 31st, we will change our military mission by drawing closer to all of you, not further apart," Biden said at an Independence Day reception with Iraqi guests. "Our commitment to you will not disappear on August 31st; it will grow stronger. As you continue to stand up and build your democracy, we'll be there with you economically, politically, socially, science, education."

Even with the end of combat operations, some 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq to train and advise the Iraqi military, and assist with counter-terrorism operations.

USA Today, 5/7/10

US failing to complete Iraq construction projects

After two devastating battles between American forces and Sunni insurgents in 2004, Falluja needed almost everything — new roads, clean water, electricity, health care.

The American reconstruction authorities decided, however, that the first big rebuilding project to win hearts and minds would be a citywide sewage treatment system.

Now, after more than six years of work, $104 million spent, and without having connected a single house, American reconstruction officials have decided to leave the troubled system only partly finished, infuriating many city residents.

The plant is just one of many projects that the United States has decided to scale back on — or in some cases abandon — as American troops who provide security for reconstruction sites prepare to leave in large numbers.

Even some of the projects that will be completed are being finished with such haste, Iraqi officials say, that engineering standards have deteriorated precipitously, putting workers in danger and leaving some of the work at risk of collapse.

New York Times, 3/7/10

China builds role in Afghanistan

As the U.S. and its NATO allies fight to stabilize Afghanistan, China has expanded its economic footprint with several high-profile investments and reconstruction projects. In 2007, it became the country's largest foreign investor when it won a $3.5 billion contract to develop copper mines at Aynak, southeast of Kabul.

The U.S. is in favor of the Chinese investment. "It can be a good thing. As a matter of fact, we encourage all of the international community to take an interest in the economic development of Afghanistan," said U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.

For China, the reward is not only expanded trade and access to natural resources, it's also security for its western flank, the vast Xinjiang region that is home to a separatist movement of minority Uighurs, said Liu Xuecheng of the China Institute of International Studies, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's think tank.

"Our interest is clear. We need a peaceful neighbor because we have our own problems in Xinjiang," Liu said. "If we have a friendly country in Afghanistan, they can help us to manage issues on the separatists, security and territorial integrity. We want Afghanistan to be successful."

Associated Press, 3/7/10

Clinton warns Ukraine

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton kicked off a tour of former Soviet-bloc countries Friday by quietly warning Ukraine's new president not to backtrack on the democratic reforms ushered in by the 2004 Orange Revolution.

In presidential elections in February, Viktor Yanukovych defeated the pro-Western leaders who led the massive democracy demonstrations six years ago. Since then, Yanukovych has alarmed Ukraine's opposition and raised concerns in Washington by moving swiftly to improve his country's frigid relations with Russia. The Ukrainian parliament recently scrapped the country's bid to join NATO.

Promoting democracy is a major theme of Clinton's trip, which will also take her to Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

Washington Post, 3/7/10

Counterinsurgency strategy blurs lines between civilian and military

The suicide bombers who blasted their way Friday into the northern Afghanistan compound of a US Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor used a method perfected by insurgents in the Iraq war: blow up a car or truck bomb at a walled compound’s gate, and in the ensuing confusion, send armed fighters streaming inside.

The Taliban claimed the attack, part of an upswing in offensives against both military and civilian footprints of the Western presence in Afghanistan. The attacks appear to be part of the Taliban’s response to the uptick in US and other Western activities – both military and civilian in nature – since President Obama announced his new counterinsurgency strategy in the Afghanistan war last fall.

Indeed, Friday’s attack on the compound of a civilian, nongovernmental organization was another example of the fading distinction for insurgent groups between military and civilian targets, as the military has taken on more humanitarian duties.

“This attack highlights one of the inherent problems with a counterinsurgency strategy, which is the blurring of the lines between the civilian and military aspects of the war,” says Malou Innocent, a foreign-policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington who focuses on the Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“When you have the military digging wells and performing other civilian humanitarian tasks, one result is that the NGO community is gradually deemed to be part of the war effort.”

Christian Science Monitor, 2/7/10

Arms industry welcomes coalition defence strategy

A|D|S, the UK’s AeroSpace, Defence and Security trade organisation today welcomed the speech given by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, setting out the Government’s foreign policy intentions.

Rees Ward, Chief Executive of A|D|S, said:

“The Foreign Secretary’s speech is most welcome as a clear signal of the aims of the Government. It is especially encouraging to hear that the Government will create coherent policies across departments to boost our economy, our national security and our global trading links. The UK defence industry can be a strategic partner in delivering these objectives and we welcome the emphasis on overseas trade promotion in particular.”

“As well as contributing to the Strategic Defence and Security Review our sector can also play a major role in defence diplomacy with allied nations around the world. Countries that the Foreign Secretary mentioned in his speech as targets for enhanced trade included Brazil, India and strategic regions such as Asia and the Middle East. These are key priority markets for the sectors that A|D|S represents, as reflected in the overseas offices that we have recently opened in India and the Middle East.”

“Mr Hague is right to hail the achievements of the UK, especially our position as the sixth largest trading nation in the world, despite only having one per cent of the global population. In aerospace and defence terms we are Europe’s leader and second in the world behind only the US.”

Defence Professionals, 2/7/10