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News archives for the week ending 22nd January 2010

NATO chief courts Russia's help

NATO's military chief said Wednesday he would like to explore the possibility of expanding the alliance's military cooperation with Russia, especially regarding the war in Afghanistan.

Adm. James Stavridis said this could include Russian help in maintaining the large fleet of Soviet-built helicopters being used by the alliance and Afghan security forces, and other logistical assistance.

Russia has no forces in Afghanistan, but it has kept open a land and air route through its territory and through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan - an alternate to NATO's principal supply route through Pakistan, which often has been attacked.

Russia also has trained hundreds of Afghan government anti-narcotics officers.

Washington Post, 20/1/10

Blair knew war would increase terrorist attacks

Former prime minister Tony Blair knew that invading Iraq in 2003 could increase the threat from Islamic extremism but pressed ahead nonetheless, a former top civil servant said Wednesday.

Speaking at a public inquiry into Britain's role in the controversial war, David Omand added that a claim Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes aimed to add "local colour" to a 2002 dossier.

A key intelligence committee warned in reports in 2002 and 2003 that taking military action in Iraq would increase the risk of Al-Qaeda attacks on Western targets and fuel radicalisation, Omand said.

Blair, though, was still keen to press ahead with the invasion which saw Britain standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, he added.

"We knew it was going to be an additional risk but that didn't outweigh the policy objective in his mind," he said.

AFP, 20/1/10

Taliban sceptical of peace initiative

A former top diplomat for the Taliban said a new government plan to persuade insurgents to lay down their arms in exchange for jobs or money was corrupt and would only hinder efforts to reach a peace deal.

Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as ambassador to Pakistan when the Taliban governed Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the movement was also suspicious about foreign countries' and the Afghan government's motives in proposing peace talks at a time when they are beefing up military strength.

Afghanistan's government will soon announce details of the plan for getting Taliban fighters to lay down their arms. It will be a focus of a London conference on the country, where President Hamid Karzai is expected to seek funding for it.

"I think the reintegration plan in itself is a blockade (to peace talks). Buying some of them with money itself is a corruption," Zaeef told Reuters.

Reuters, 20/1/10

Oil fuels dispute over Falklands

A fresh diplomatic row has erupted between Britain and Argentina over the disputed Falkland Islands which is claimed as an overseas territory by both London and Buenos Aires.

Last month, Argentina enacted a law laying claim over the Malvinas Islands, which are called the Falklands by Britain. The law defines the islands as Argentina's southern-most province.

In November 2008, Britain and Falkland Islands approved a new constitution for the government of the South Atlantic archipelago after four decades, a move that angered Argentine.

While the law formally allowed Falkland Islands to self-govern, it was the British-appointed governor who had final say in many crucial matters including foreign policy, policing and the administration of justice.

The territorial dispute sparked a 73-day war between the two countries in 1982. Following the bitter war, the United Kingdom seized the Malvinas, which were occupied by British forces in 1833, as its own.

Argentina has waged a diplomatic row for control over the disputed area ever since. Last year, the two sides were on the verge of another battle after they both lodged claims to a vast oil and gas-rich swathe of seabed around the islands.

Press TV, Iran, 19/1/10

US increases pressure on Yemen

In addition to flooding Yemen with intelligence resources, the United States has stepped up military strikes from the air against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and pressed the Yemeni government, which has offered to negotiate with the group, to toughen its approach.

A senior administration official expressed frustration at a recent offer by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to negotiate with AQAP leaders who agree to lay down their arms.

"Al-Qaeda is an organization to be destroyed, not to be negotiated with in any manner," he said. The administration would "continue to press the Yemenis to defeat al-Qaeda, not to talk with them."

Officials are "mindful" to avoid inflaming the domestic situation with a heavy U.S. footprint, he said, "but there are certain near-term and immediate imperatives that we need to pursue."

Washington Post, 20/1/10

With God on our side

A Michigan weapons company is under fire for branding thousands of rifle scopes used by U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan with passages from the Bible.

U.S. military rules prohibit any service member from proselytizing while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, which are primarily Muslim nations.

Trijicon, a sighting manufacturer based in Wixom, Mich., has several multimillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon to make sights.

New York Daily News, 19/1/10

Taliban attack centre of Kabul

As their target, they selected the hub of Afghan governance, a part of downtown Kabul that includes the presidential palace, the Justice Ministry, the central bank and other heavily guarded buildings.

Then, on Monday morning, as the heart of the capital bustled with shoppers and Afghans on their way to work, seven Taliban militants with AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and suicide vests hidden under their shawls unleashed their attack. The militants left five people dead and laid bare Kabul's vulnerability even as the U.S. ratchets up the war to rout the militancy.

The daring raid illustrated the Taliban's skill at carrying out reconnaissance that can set the stage for such an attack, and exposed glaring weaknesses in the U.S.-backed Afghan government's ability to adequately secure the heart of the country.

Somehow, the insurgents were able to get explosives, firearms and a massive amount of ammunition past the gantlet of checkpoints that ring downtown Kabul. For five hours, they plunged the city's center into a state of war.

Los Angeles Times, 18/1/10

US ready to hijack Pakistan's nuclear weapons

The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one. The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.

“What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit.

Sunday Times, 17/1/10

Karzai fails on second cabinet vote

Afghanistan’s parliament prolonged a paralysis of the country’s executive branch by rejecting 10 of President Hamid Karzai’s nominees for cabinet posts, nearly two months after Karzai began his second term.

Members of the lower house, the Wolesi Jirga, approved seven of 17 nominees, the same number they ratified in a vote on Jan. 2. Ten posts remain vacant in the 24-member cabinet after the vote.

Karzai failed to get approval for nominees who were seen as favorites of the regional power-brokers that had backed Karzai in his re-election last year, said Haroun Mir, director of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies.

“All those people who were nominated by Karzai’s political allies were defeated,” Mir said in an interview.

Bloomberg, 16/1/10

Politicians and military at odds on US Afghan strategy

When President Obama announced a new strategy for Afghanistan last month, his decision was supposed to end the contentious debate within his administration on how to conduct the war. It didn't.

Obama settled the question of how many additional troops the United States would commit to the war this year -- 30,000. But on almost everything else, the debate between White House civilians and Pentagon strategists has continued without pause.

Obama says he'll start bringing troops home in July 2011; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the drawdown will be modest and could be postponed. Obama says we won't be doing nation-building; Army Gen. David H. Petraeus says nation-building is inescapable. Vice President Joe Biden says the strategy is not counterinsurgency; the generals insist that's exactly what they're doing.

Los Angeles Times, 17/1/10

'Disappointing' energy results in Afghanistan

The U.S. has spent $732 million since 2002 to more than double Afghanistan's energy capacity, but 85 percent of urban households remain without electricity, a watchdog said in a report released Saturday.

Retired Marine Gen. Arnold Fields, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in the report that results have been "disappointing" and that current projects face delays and rising costs because of deteriorating security and poor oversight by U.S. agencies.

The report also said the Afghan government lacks a clear plan for how to continue developing its energy sector, and that it is unable to collect enough utility fees from users to maintain the infrastructure that has been built so far.

Washington Post, 16/1/10

Political turmoil follows election ban in Iraq

The decision to disqualify nearly 500 candidates, many of them Sunni Muslim, plunged Iraqi politics into turmoil on Friday. Leading candidates vowed a boycott of the vote, perhaps the most important since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Protests were threatened, and anger rippled through Iraq’s Sunni communities. But beyond the din of recriminations, the decision posed an even greater challenge to Iraq’s nascent body politic, lawmakers, officials and residents say. A hard-won legitimacy of Iraq’s political process that had finally turned elections into an arena of contest for virtually all factions here looked dangerously tattered on Friday, they said.

“The credibility of the state and the credibility of our elections is at stake,” said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker. “Time is running out.”

The disqualifications, ratified Thursday, were the latest turn in a mercurial process that even rivals of the barred candidates acknowledge has been shrouded in secrecy and characterized by unpredictability. It took United States and United Nations officials by surprise and has left Iraqi leaders scrambling for some kind of compromise weeks before the campaign for the March 7 parliamentary elections was supposed to officially start.

New York Times, 15/1/10

US war harming Pakistan's economy

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has told a visiting American envoy the U.S. war against militancy in the region has almost "paralyzed" Pakistan's economy. Mr. Zardari says the war has cost his country about $35 billion over the past eight years. He commented Friday in Lahore during a meeting with Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Zardari also repeated a call for the U.S. to provide Pakistan with drone (pilotless aircraft) technology, saying U.S. drone attacks against militants in Pakistan have undermined his country's "national consensus" on the war against terror.

Voice of America, 15/1/10