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News archives for the week ending 27th February 2009

UK sued for Israeli arms deals

Palestinian human rights activists are suing the UK government for alleged "flagrant" breaches of international law in its dealings with Israel. Al-Haq says the UK government appears to have "positively assisted" Israel in its invasion of Gaza last year by continuing to sell it weapons.

The organisation also says a record amount of UK arms exports to Israel were approved in the first quarter of last year. The Foreign Office said it believed the claims made on behalf of of Al-Haq were "wholly inapt" for resolution in a domestic UK court.

BBC News, 24/2/09

Iraq 'open for business'

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has declared Iraq "open for business" and a good place for UK firms to do business, during a surprise visit to the country. After meeting his Iraqi counterpart, Mr Miliband told a press conference the UK was committed to investing in Iraq.

The UK-based Mesopotamia Petroleum Company has just agreed a £277m ($400m) joint venture to drill for oil in Iraq. Mr Miliband said a number of UK companies were already interested, not just within the oil industry but in sectors such as education. "Britain will be a major investor in Iraq," he added.

Mr Miliband also praised US President Barack Obama's administration for its careful and "wholly appropriate" approach to pulling out troops.

BBC News, 26/2/09

Britain aided Iraq terror renditions

The government admitted today that British troops in Iraq handed over terror suspects to the US, which then secretly rendered them to a prison in Afghanistan.

After a year of allegations and repeated ministerial assurances to the contrary, the admission was made in the Commons by John Hutton, the defence secretary, who apologised to MPs for inaccurate information ministers had previously given them.

He said British soldiers, believed to have been SAS troops, handed over two terrorist suspects to the US in Iraq in February 2004.The men had been captured outside the UK-controlled zone covering south-eastern Iraq. Hutton said the pair, believed to be Pakistanis, were still being held in Afghanistan. He said they were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned organisation that he said was linked to al-Qaida.

The US had assured Britain the two continued to represent "significant security concerns" and it was "neither possible or desirable to transfer them to either their country of detention or country of origin.

Hutton said UK forces were not aware "at the time" that the detainees would be transferred to Afghanistan.

In March 2006, Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier, revealed that Iraqis and Afghans had been captured by British and American special forces and rendered to prisons where they faced torture. The MoD said at the time that it did not comment on the activities of special forces. The government subsequently obtained a gagging order in the courts preventing Griffin from saying any more.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, was forced last year to admit, after earlier government denials, that two CIA aircraft transporting abducted prisoners landed on UK territory in 2002. The planes refuelled on the British dependent territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Guardian 26/2/09

More troops provide more targets

As part of its buildup in Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to deploy billions of dollars in heavily armoured vehicles, spy planes, jamming technology and even experimental ground-penetrating radar to defend troops from increasingly lethal roadside bombs.

More than 175 American and allied troops were killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan last year, more than twice as many as the year before, and American commanders say the 17,000 extra troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama last week will offer additional targets.

In Iraq, there were more than 9,000 I.E.D. attacks last year, but that is far below the number in 2006, when they peaked at 2,500 a month. Today, insurgents in Iraq are planting fewer I.E.D.’s, and only one in nine produces an American casualty.

In Afghanistan, where as many as one in three bombs causes a casualty, American officers say they hope a combination of technology, intelligence, armour and training can help them drive down the casualty rate.

New York Times 25/2/09

US will continue Pakistan attacks...

CIA Director Leon Panetta said yesterday that U.S. aerial attacks against al-Qaeda and other extremist strongholds inside Pakistan would continue, despite concerns about a popular Pakistani backlash.

"Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts," Panetta said in response to questions about CIA missile attacks, launched from unmanned Predator aircraft. Although he refused to discuss details of the attacks -- and the CIA will not confirm publicly that it is behind the strikes -- Panetta said that the efforts begun under President George W. Bush to destabilize al-Qaeda and destroy its leadership "have been successful."

Washington Post, 26/2/09

...despite the fact they are destabilising Pakistan

American missile strikes have reduced Al Qaeda’s global reach but heightened the threat to Pakistan as the group disperses its cells here and fights to maintain its sanctuaries, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The analysis reflected the increasing public pressure on the Pakistani government to oppose the drone attacks, which are deeply unpopular here for the civilian casualties they have inflicted. But it also underscored ominous signs of Al Qaeda’s resilience and pointed to new and unintended dangers for American policy in the region — a rapidly destabilized, nuclear-armed Pakistan, a state with a weak civilian government and a military struggling to fight an expanding insurgency.

New York Times, 24/2/09

Government blocks minutes of Iraq war decision

The government said Tuesday it would block the release of records of cabinet discussions on the legality of invading Iraq, using its power under the Freedom of Information Act.

Justice Minister Jack Straw said keeping the March 2003 cabinet minutes secret was essential to maintaining “effective cabinet government.” But David Howarth, of the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the decision had “more to do with preventing embarrassment than with protecting the system of government.”

New York Times, 24/2/08

Americans more optimistic about Iraq

Americans are more optimistic about the situation in Iraq than they have been since 2003, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds, with 63 percent saying that things are going well for the United States in the country.

Less than two years ago, just 22 percent said things were going well The improved perceptions do not mean Americans want U.S. troops to stay in Iraq, however: Seventy-eight percent believe it is important that troops leave the country within President Obama’s timeline of 16 months, with 46 percent saying it is very important they do so.

CBS News, 24/2/09

Most back Obama's troop increase

Americans by 2-1 approve of President Obama's decision to send 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan despite skepticism over whether they can succeed in stabilizing the security situation there within the next few years.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows a reservoir of support for Obama's first major military decision as president. Two-thirds express approval of his order to expand the U.S. deployment to Afghanistan by 50%; one third disapprove. Half of those surveyed say they'd support a decision to send another 13,000 troops, which would fulfill the request by U.S. commanders to nearly double the U.S. force in Afghanistan even as troops are being withdrawn from Iraq. Even so, there is measurable opposition. One of four Americans says Obama should reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or withdraw them entirely. That opposition is stronger among Obama's fellow Democrats than among Republicans: 29% of Democrats, compared to 17% of Republicans.

USA Today, 24/2/09

Iraq’s war widows struggle

Her twin sisters were killed trying to flee Falluja in 2004. Then her husband was killed by a car bomb in Baghdad just after she had become pregnant. When her own twins were 5 months old, one was killed by an explosive planted in a Baghdad market.

Now, Nacham Jaleel Kadim, 23, lives with her remaining daughter in a trailer park for war widows and their families in one of the poorest parts of Iraq’s capital. That makes her one of the lucky ones. The trailer park, called Al Waffa, or “Park of the Grateful,” is among the few aid programs available for Iraq’s estimated 740,000 widows. It houses 750 people.

As the number of widows has swelled during six years of war, their presence on city streets begging for food or as potential recruits by insurgents has become a vexing symbol of the breakdown of Iraqi self-sufficiency. Women who lost their husbands had once been looked after by an extended support system of family, neighbors and mosques. But as the war has ground on, government and social service organizations say the women’s needs have come to exceed available help, posing a threat to the stability of the country’s tenuous social structures.

Among Iraqi women aged 15 to 80, 1 in 11 are estimated to be widows, though officials admit that figure is hardly more than a guess, given the continuing violence and the displacement of millions of people. A United Nations report estimated that during the height of sectarian violence here in 2006, 90 to 100 women were widowed each day.

New York Times, 23/2/09

Pakistan to arm village militias

Authorities in a Pakistani border province plan to arm villagers with 30,000 rifles and set up an elite police unit to protect a region increasingly besieged by Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Stiffer action in the North West Frontier Province could help offset American concern that a peace deal being negotiated in the Swat valley, a Taliban stronghold in the province, could create a haven for Islamist insurgents only 100 miles from the Pakistani capital.

Village militias backed by the United States have been credited with reducing violence in Iraq. Washington is paying for a similar initiative in Afghanistan.

The United States is already spending millions of dollars to train and equip Pakistani forces in the rugged region near the Afghan border but there was no sign it was involved in the militia plan. A U.S. Embassy spokesman could not be reached for comment.

AFP, 23/2/09

Image Problem in Afghanistan

The additional 17,000 troops the Obama administration is preparing to send to Afghanistan will face both an aggressive, well-armed Taliban insurgency and an unarmed but equally daunting foe: public opinion.

In more than a dozen interviews across the capital this week, Afghans said that instead of helping to defeat the insurgents and quell the violence that has engulfed their country, more foreign troops will exacerbate the problem.

The comments echoed a recent survey by the BBC and ABC News that found that although 90 percent of Afghans oppose the Taliban, less than half view the United States favourably, a sharp drop from a year ago, and a quarter say attacks on U.S. troops can be justified.

In the interviews, most people said they did not like the Taliban and were terrified of the suicide attacks that often occur in public places. Yet they also spoke with anger and suspicion about the U.S.-led coalition forces - questioning their motives and bitterly complaining about civilian casualties, home invasions and other alleged abuses they suffer at the hands of the once-welcomed American and NATO troops.

Most of the Afghans interviewed said they would prefer a negotiated settlement with the insurgents to an intensified military campaign. Several pointed out that the Taliban fighters are fellow Afghans and Muslims, and that the country has traditionally settled conflicts through community and tribal meetings.

Washington Post, 22/2/09

UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.

In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper".

The report will further embarrass the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who has repeatedly said the UK does not condone torture. He has been under fire for refusing to disclose US documents relating to the treatment of Guantánamo detainee and former British resident Binyam Mohamed. The documents are believed to contain evidence about the torture of Mohamed and British complicity in his maltreatment. Mohamed will return to Britain this week. Doctors who examined him in Guantánamo found evidence of prolonged physical and mental mistreatment.

Observer, 22/2/09

Operation Enduring Freedom

As of Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009, at least 581 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.

Of those, the military reports 426 were killed by hostile action. Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 67 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, three were the result of hostile action.

The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen. There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.

AFP, 22/2/09

Alternative supply routes to Afghanistan

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will allow the shipment by land of nonmilitary NATO cargo to Afghanistan, a United States commander said Friday, as the military seeks alternative supply routes for its troops there. The commander said the military planned to send 50 to 200 containers of cargo a week to Afghanistan through the two countries.

New York Times, 20/2/09

Obama Backs Bush on Afghanistan Detainees

The Obama administration says detainees at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention.

The ruling by the U.S. Justice Department upholds the former Bush administration's policy on the issue.

Attorneys representing the detainees expressed disappointment with the decision. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to file such court petitions because the United States has jurisdiction over that facility.

But the Justice Department Friday said the 600 prisoners at the U.S. air base in Afghanistan are different because they are being held in a war zone as part of a continuing military action.

Although President Obama has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, his administration has continued at least one other Bush administration policy. Last week, the Obama legal team backed the state secrets privilege, urging the dismissal of a lawsuit involving allegations that the CIA flew suspects overseas to be tortured.

Voice of America, 21/2/09

More British troops to Afghanistan

Defence chiefs believe the 8,300 troops currently serving in the south of the country need to be bolstered by an extra battle group of between 1,500 and 1,800 men within a year.

The deployment will push the Britain's Armed Forces to the very limit of its fighting capability and will raise fears that the entire operation has now fallen victim to "mission creep".

It is understood that the Army's top generals have given their support for the plan and are now awaiting approval from the Treasury and other areas of government.

The so-called "mini-surge" has been ordered in a direct response to a decision by President Barack Obama to send an extra 17,000 combat troops to counter the growing threat posed by the Taliban.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has now increased troops numbers in Helmand every six months since 2006, when just 3,300 troops were sent to southern Afghanistan to secure the area and to allow reconstruction to begin.

John Hutton, the defence secretary, has persistently called on Britain's allies to do more of the "heavy lifting" in Afghanistan but, apart from France, virtually all have refused to do so. There are around 56,400 Nato troops in Afghanistan and of those 24,900 are from the US. Britain has the second largest contingent with 8,300, followed by Germany which has 3,460, although most of these are based in the relatively peaceful north.

Canada, one of Britain's major allies in southern Afghanistan, has 2,830 troops based in Kandahar province and has lost 108 soldiers in battle. However, the Canadian government confirmed last week that it plans to withdraw all its troops from the country within two years, a move which will create a vacuum that can only really be filled by the US or Britain.

Daily Telegraph, 21/2/09

Obama widens strikes on Pakistan

With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.

The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops.

The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign.

New York Times, 20/2/09

Indonesia a key US ally

With its giant population and moderate brand of Islam, Indonesia is fast emerging as a cornerstone US ally for President Barack Obama's administration, observers say. Obama spent four years of his childhood in Jakarta and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, took a nearly 3,500-mile detour there this week between Tokyo and Seoul on her first official visit abroad. Clinton said the United States was committed to building a "comprehensive partnership" with Indonesia.

"Certainly Indonesia, being the largest Muslim nation in the world, the third-largest democracy, will play a leading role in the promotion of that shared future," Clinton said in Jakarta.

Lieutenant Colonel Desmond Walton, who handles Southeast Asia policy at the Pentagon, said the US relationship with Indonesia was "underdeveloped" considering the archipelago's vast size and economic potential.

But T. Kumar of Amnesty International USA said Indonesia has not yet held military officers to account for past atrocities or put firm civilian control over the army. "How best can the United States encourage democracy in Indonesia to take root? The first rule of thumb is to make sure (the military) is under control of the civilian government," he said.

AFP, 20/2/09

'An international campaign against Islamist-inspired extremism'

Having enjoyed the diplomatic distinction of being the first foreign representative to meet Hillary Clinton, the new US secretary of state, Miliband is well aware that sorting out the chaotic military and political situation in Afghanistan will be one of the Obama administration's top foreign policy objectives, a fact confirmed by the president's decision this week to deploy an extra 17,000 US troops to this benighted country.

By investing so much time and effort in Afghanistan – this was his fourth visit in 18 months – Miliband is clearly hoping to make sure that Britain remains Washington's key ally in prosecuting what was once known as the War on Terror, but which Foreign Office officials now prefer to describe as an international campaign against Islamist-inspired extremism.

Daily Telegraph, 20/2/09

Iraq's Kurds will lose again

It appears increasingly likely that the Kurdish cause will be the latest American casualty in Iraq. Kurdistan, an autonomous region in Iraq's northeast, is governed by the Kurdish Regional Government. Whether Kurdistan remains viable as an autonomous region depends on whether it can incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital.

The Kurds likely constitute a plurality of the city's population, but the Arabs and Turkmen each claim the city as their own. According to Article 140 of the 2005 Constitution, a referendum to decide Kirkuk's status was supposed to be held by December 31, 2007. That deadline and others have passed because the city's Arabs and Turkmen have resisted, afraid that a vote would result in a Kurdish victory.

But despite its earlier support, the U.S. government has made clear that it will not become involved. Back in October, the military commander responsible for Kirkuk and the Kurdish regions, Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, told the New York Times that If the Kurdish and Iraqi government forces fight, the American military will "step aside," rather than "have United States servicemen get killed trying to play peacemaker."

State Department Spokesman Robert Wood struck the same note earlier this week. He said that Iraqi citizens have to rely on the country's democratic system to work out their differences, not the United States. "There are ways for people in Iraq to bring the concerns that they have to the levers of power. It's a democracy, and it's not really up to the United States to reassure anyone."

Every occupying force chooses winners and losers on its way out. And while questions remain as to who the "winners" in Iraq will be, it is becoming clear that the Kurds, the world's largest ethnic group without a state to call their own, will again find themselves among the losers.

Kurdish Aspect, 19/2/09

US military still stretched and strained

For the third consecutive year, a classified Pentagon assessment has concluded there's a significant risk that the U.S. military could not respond quickly and fully to any new crisis.

The latest risk assessment, drawn up by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes despite recent security gains in Iraq and plans for troop cuts there. The assessment finds that the U.S. continues to face persistent terrorist threats, and the military is still stretched and strained from long and repeated tours to the warfront.

One senior military official said that while there have been security gains in Iraq, military units leaving there have been sapped by repeated war tours that have also battered their equipment and vehicles. It will take time to restore the force and repair or replace the equipment. In other cases, equipment has been left in Iraq for use by the steadily growing Iraqi security forces.

Associated Press, 20/2/09