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News archives for the week ending 17th July 2009

Protest at largest US detention facility

The prisoners at the largest U.S. detention facility in Afghanistan have refused to leave their cells to shower or exercise for the past two weeks to protest their indefinite imprisonment.

The prisonwide protest, which has been going on since at least July 1, offers a rare glimpse inside a facility that is even more closed off to the public than the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Unlike Guantánamo Bay, where detainees have access to attorneys, the 620 prisoners at Bagram are not permitted to visit with their lawyers. Afghan government representatives are generally not allowed to visit or inspect the Bagram facility.

In recent years, Bagram became the destination for many terrorism suspects as Guantánamo Bay came under more legal scrutiny. The Bagram prison population, meanwhile, has ballooned. U.S. officials are building a bigger facility there that will hold nearly 1,000. The Bagram facility includes prisoners from Afghanistan, as well as those arrested by U.S. authorities in other countries as part of counterterrorism operations.

The indefinite detention of Afghan prisoners has been a source of anger among Afghan citizens, human-rights advocates say.

Seattle Times, 16/7/09

Kurdish leaders warn of strains with Maliki

Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and the Iraqi government are closer to war than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Kurdish prime minister said Thursday, in a bleak measure of the tension that has risen along what U.S. officials consider the country's most combustible fault line.

The conflict is one of many that still beset Iraq, even as violence subsides and the U.S. military begins a year-long withdrawal of most combat troops from the country. There remains an active sectarian conflict, exacerbated by insurgent groups that seem bent on reigniting Sunni-Shiite carnage.

There is also a contest underway in Baghdad to determine the political coalition that will rule the country after next year's elections. But for months, U.S. officials have warned that the ethnic conflict pitting Kurds against Arabs, or more precisely the Kurdish regional government against Maliki's federal government in Baghdad, poses the greatest threat to Iraq's stability and could persist for years.

Washington Post, 17/7/09

US to increase army by 30,000

The Pentagon is considering a plan to add 30,000 soldiers to the Army to bolster a force depleted by a growing number of wounded, stressed and other soldiers who can't be deployed with their units. Struggling to wage wars on two fronts, the Army says it needs a temporary increase in order to fill vacancies in units heading to the battlefront.

The 547,000 member active duty force was beefed up by 65,000 in recent years, but military leaders say it hasn't been enough to make up for the roughly 30,000 soldiers who — at any one time — are injured, pregnant, suffering from post-traumatic stress or health problems, or have been assigned to other jobs.

Associated Press, 16/7/09

July will be deadliest month for US in Afghanistan

July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and the NATO command. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008.

The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq war.

Associated Press, 16/7/09

US anxious about British opposition to Afghan war

A senior US official told the Financial Times that there was “some level of anxiety” within Barack Obama’s administration about the UK debate.

“It’s hard to see our most capable partner struggling in this debate,” the official said. “When it happens in a country like Germany, you think, ‘well, that’s Germany and they have special difficulties in light of the upcoming [German] elections’, but when it happens in London it hits hard.”

The official added: “If we are going to have to backfill European countries that decide to leave, could we sustain that with US public opinion? That’s an open question.”

Bruce Riedel, an analyst at the Brookings Institution who pulled together the Obama administration’s policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan this year, said: “The British are crucial to the Nato mission in Afghanistan.

Financial Times, 15/7/09

US trains Georgians in show of support against Russia

U.S. Navy sailors and Georgian coast guard crews held training drills aboard an American warship visiting the former Soviet republic Wednesday in a show of support as tensions with neighboring Russia persist following last year's war.

"The U.S. is our strategic ally, and the Georgian sailors can feel that," Georgian coast guard chief Beso Shengelia told The Associated Press. The training and expertise visiting U.S. crews have provided is "invaluable help," he said.

Russian officials sharply criticized the United States for sending warships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia after the conflict, suggesting they might surreptitiously be supplying weapons. Russian sent ships to shadow American vessels across the Black Sea.

Associated Press, 15/7/09

Israeli soldiers speak out on Gaza war crimes

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement. The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers. The report says testimonies show "the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians" was a result of Israeli military policy, articulated by the rules of engagement, and encouraged by a belief "the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to ask questions".

One soldier is quoted saying: "The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were the most important, and that there was no way our soldiers would get killed for the sake of leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt."

Another says: "People were not instructed to shoot at everyone they see, but they were told that from a certain distance when they approach a house, no matter who it is - even an old woman - take them down."

BBC News, 15/7/09

Majority in UK would scrap nuclear weapons

Voters want Britain to scrap nuclear weapons altogether rather than replace Trident, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll today. The result marks a sharp turnaround in public opinion amid growing debate about the cost of a new generation of nuclear weapons and the impact of conventional defence cutbacks on the war in Afghanistan.

For decades nuclear disarmament has been seen as a minority issue, with most voters assumed to favour continued investment in an independent British nuclear weapons system. But today's poll shows that 54% of all voters would prefer to abandon nuclear weapons rather than put money into a new generation of Trident warheads, as the government plans.

In 2006 Gordon Brown reaffirmed Britain's commitment to Trident, and the government won Commons backing, thanks to Tory support.

Guardian, 14/7/09

More British troops to Afghanistan

Britain will send 140 more troops to Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, as the bodies of eight soldiers killed in recent fighting with Taliban forces were flown back to England. The additional soldiers will be transferred from a British base in Cyprus to join more than 9,000 British troops already fighting in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.

With other European nations unwilling to send more troops -- and Afghan forces not ready to take up overall security -- Britain's support has been crucial to the international coalition battling Taliban insurgents seeking to regain power.

The Ministry of Defense said the soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment were battle-ready.

There are about 57,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and the number is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of this year. A total of 657 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the war was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to U.S. figures.

Wall Street Journal, 14/7/09

Britain cancels 5 of 182 arms exports to Israel

Britain has cancelled the planned sale of some military components to Israel following an export review prompted by the December-January war in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official said on Monday.

London cancelled five out of 182 licensed British arms exports to Israel, the official said, all involving equipment for the Saar 4.5 class Corvette, a naval vessel that took part in the offensive which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

The cancelled sales were first reported in Israel's Haaretz newspaper, which described the move as a "partial arms embargo". But in a preliminary response, the British embassy in Tel Aviv said there had been no change in policy.

"We do not believe that the current situation in the Middle East would be improved by imposing an arms embargo on Israel," the embassy said in a statement.

Israel has weathered international censure over the civilian toll of the Gaza war, arguing that Hamas provoked the violence by firing rockets at civilian communities across the border. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the 22 days of fighting.

Reuters, 13/7/09

US seeks to reassure Gulf States on dollar

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will seek to reassure Gulf Arab states this week that U.S. dollar assets they hold in large quantities remain a strong investment.

A recent decline in Saudi foreign assets shows the purchase of U.S. treasuries by Washington's Gulf allies, five having currencies pegged to the dollar, at levels seen in the past decades should no longer be taken for granted.

Riyadh-based analyst John Sfakianakis added the trip was "an important customer visit to one of the biggest holders of U.S. government paper and a seminal dollar supporter."

China and Russia have expressed concerns about the weakened U.S. currency staying as the only dominant reserve currency. But Beijing, which itself holds large quantities of U.S. assets, suggests any change would be a long-term affair.

Reuters, 13/7/09

Iraqi unions fight oil sell off

Unions are lobbying against Iraq's new oil contract with BP and China's CNPC, but the weakened labor movement may have a hard time thwarting deals desperately needed to revive a struggling oil sector.

The Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have condemned the Oil Ministry's decision to award a foreign consortium the contract to develop Rumaila, the country's largest producing oilfield.

Ali Abbas Khafif, head of the Worker Councils and Unions' branch in Basra, Iraq's southern oil hub, said the Rumaila deal would violate Iraqi law because it was brokered in the absence of new national energy legislation, whose passage has been held up for years by a bitter feud between Arabs and minority Kurds.

He also complained about the terms of the fixed-fee contract, which he said would overcompensate companies, and said such deals might lead to greater unemployment in the oil sector.

The union strategy centers around efforts to scare off firms thinking about coming to Iraq, where sectarian bloodshed has ebbed but violence still poses a major threat, Khafif said.

"We have the ability to halt their work entirely. We can mobilize people against them. We will use sit-ins and strikes."

Reuters, 13/7/09

Criticism of Afghan war increases...

Just as President Barack Obama's plan to nearly double U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan gets into high gear, Britain's involvement in the war has come under the fiercest criticism yet at home as a result of a steep increase in British casualties, including the deaths of 15 soldiers in the past 10 days.

The latest losses are the heaviest British forces have suffered in any comparable period since the 1982 Falklands War. Britain's casualties are far lower than those suffered by U.S. forces. But with Britain's far smaller population and troop deployments, the latest deaths — from a force of 9,000 — have been as much of a shock here as the heavy U.S. troop losses in Iraq at the height of that conflict were in the United States.

Gordon Brown, has argued that Britain has to fight on in Afghanistan as a way of preventing terrorist attacks at home. The main opposition party, the Conservatives, have so far agreed.

But Brown is facing an outcry from those who say the government must answer for the growing number of soldiers killed because of what they describe as an underfinanced defense budget, $55 billion this year.

New York Times, 11/7/09

...and majority want troops to leave

Public opinion is almost evenly divided over the UK mission in Afghanistan but support has grown since 2006, a poll for the BBC and the Guardian suggests.

The poll of 1,000 adults, conducted as news of the casualties emerged, found 46% backed the British operation in Afghanistan while 47% opposed. It also found that 42% of people wanted troops to pull out of Afghanistan now while 36% backed them to stay as long as needed.

BBC News, 13/7/09

More British troops to Afghanistan

Thousands more troops could be sent to Afghanistan within months under an emergency review of the UK mission being carried out by the Ministry of Defence.

The news of a possible troop surge comes after eight British soldiers were killed within 24 hours, leading to fresh calls from senior military and political figures for urgent reinforcements - and an end to Treasury constraints on spending on the Afghan war.

Observer, 12/7/09

Iranian dispute is not a 'colour revolution'

The troubles that have followed the Iranian presidential elections were not a frustrated East European-style “color revolution”; nor was presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi’s movement an uprising of liberal Westernized sympathizers against the principles of the Iranian Revolution — albeit there were surely some who are hostile to the Revolution among his supporters.

Rather, what we have been witnessing is a power struggle between factions of the “Old Guard” clergy who all initially assumed power in 1979. The essential dispute centers around prominent clerics, mainly former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who have sought to weaken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ability to pursue his populist attack on their privileged position. They also have sought to diminish the political weight of the Revolutionary Guard, which they see as increasingly at odds with their interests.

This faction of the elite is deeply threatened by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s assault on their personal wealth and by his claims that it was these senior clerics’ pursuit of their own narrow self-interest, at the expense of ordinary people, that is the root cause of Iran’s economic woes.

New York Times, 10/7/09

Afghanistan worse than Iraq for UK troops...

With thousands of British troops moving out of their bases in a major operation to confront the Taliban in northern Helmand, they are becoming increasingly vulnerable to a determined, though unconventional, enemy.

Fifteen British soldiers have been killed over the past 10 days, the highest losses to enemy action since UK troops were first sent to Afghanistan in 2001; 184 have now lost their lives there, more than the total killed in Iraq.

Guardian, 11/7/09

...and Brown says more will die

British troops face a "very hard summer" in Afghanistan in the run up to presidential elections, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday, suggesting Britain should brace itself for more losses.

Brown said there was no question of pulling soldiers out of Afghanistan until the international community had finished its mission there and quelled the threat from the Taliban.

"This is a very hard summer -- it's not over," Brown told reporters at the G8 summit in Italy. "But it's vital that the international community sees through its commitments."

More heavy losses in Afghanistan may damage public support for the deployment and further hurt the Labour government's already poor opinion poll ratings ahead of a British parliamentary election due by mid-2010.

Reuters, 10/7/09

More than 50 killed in Iraq bombings...

More than 50 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in Iraq in the worst day of violence since US forces withdrew from urban areas on 30 June.

The most lethal attack was in Talafar, near Mosul, where at least 34 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a double suicide bombing.

In Baghdad, two attacks at markets left at least 16 dead. Several other people were killed in smaller attacks in the capital and in southern Kirkuk.

BBC News, 9/7/09

...as two dozen die in Afghanistan

An explosion from a bomb hidden in a truck loaded with firewood killed at least two dozen people early Thursday, including 12 schoolchildren, in a village south of the Afghan capital, local and federal officials said.

The truck crashed Wednesday night in a stream right by two schools in Logar province, and it exploded when police came to investigate the next morning. Logar is the site of increasing activity by Taliban insurgents and the American forces fighting them. There are several new U.S. military bases in Logar, with daily operations aimed at crushing the Islamist rebels.

Several Afghan officials said the Logar explosion, which occurred near the main highway less than 30 miles from Kabul, could have been part of an aborted or misfired plan to attack the capital. There have been repeated warnings that the Taliban intend to sabotage the presidential election scheduled for Aug. 20.

Washington Post, 10/7/09