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News archives for the week ending 28th May 2010

Commander says more time needed in southern Afghanistan

The commander in charge of southern Afghanistan acknowledged on Wednesday that “we are not yet where we need to be’’ in the farming zone of Marja, the site of a major offensive in February that sought to flush out the Taliban.

The commander, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, also said that a more complex military operation was on schedule to begin in the city of Kandahar in June. General Carter, the commander of British forces in Marja and of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, was effectively asking for more time to show results in Marja, where clashes between the Taliban and American, British and Afghan forces continue.

In February, General Carter predicted that it would take three more months to determine if government efforts after the end of the fighting had won over residents.

New York Times, 26/5/10

“More open” policy on nuclear weapons

William Hague, the foreign secretary, today announced a review into the circumstances when the government might use nuclear weapons as he disclosed the maximum number of warheads in Britain's arsenal.

Describing what he called a "more open" policy, Hague said Britain's total number of nuclear warheads would not exceed 225, including the maximum 160 already declared as "operationally available".

He also signalled that the coalition government is likely to downgrade the importance of nuclear weapons in military strategy reflecting decisions announced last month by the US.

The British review is expected to conclude that the UK would rule out using nuclear weapons in retaliation against attacks involving biological or chemical, or conventional non-nuclear weapons. However, it is expected to make an exception, as the Obama administration did, for Iran arguing that Tehran is covertly developing nuclear weapons.

A decision has also to be made during this parliament about whether new warheads would be developed at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment. The Obama administration said in its new Nuclear Posture Review last month that the US would not manufacture any new nuclear warheads.

France has said its arsenal will include fewer than 300 nuclear warheads. The US announced earlier this month that it had 5,113 warheads in its stockpile.

Guardian, 26/5/10

US deploys Patriot missiles in Poland

Russia has criticized the United States' deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, saying the move did not help security or trust.

A Patriot surface-to-air missile battery arrived on Monday in Poland and was to be deployed in the north of the country, close to the border with Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad.

"We note with regret that our questions to the Polish and U.S. sides have remained unanswered, as well as our arguments in favour of temporarily moving the deployment region as far as possible from Russian borders." Russia's Foreign Ministry said.

The battery, manned by up to 150 U.S. troops, will be stationed for about one month four times a year in Morag, northern Poland, close to Kaliningrad. Its stated main mission is to train Polish military personnel.

Russia is wary about the deployment of U.S. troops and military hardware near its borders, though its defense ministry in January denied suggestions it might boost its Baltic naval fleet in response to the Patriot deployment in Poland.

Reuters, 26/5/10

Hague seeks new relationship with India

William Hague plans to visit India over the summer as Britain’s new Government tries to turn cultural and trade ties with the emerging superpower into a “genuinely special relationship”.

The new priority given to relations with Delhi was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, which emphasised the need for “an enhanced partnership with India”. The Foreign Secretary’s aides later confirmed that the country was considered vital to forging a “distinctive British foreign policy”.

The Times, 26/5/10

Gunmen kill newly elected MP in Iraq

Gunmen in northern Iraq killed a newly elected lawmaker from a Sunni-backed list that narrowly won Iraq's March elections, officials said, in a slaying certain to rattle the fragile political system.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Sunni lawmaker's allies in the Iraqiya coalition said Monday's shooting was politically motivated. His death, in the former insurgent hotbed of Mosul, was sure to further destabilize Iraqi politics, as the country's leaders continue to haggle over the makeup of a new government nearly three months after a parliamentary election.

Associated Press, 24/5/10

Tension between US and Turkey over Iran

President Obama said last year that the United States and Turkey must "work together to overcome the challenges of our time."

This month, the allies couldn't have been more out of sync. Turkish mediation of an agreement for Iran to ship abroad part of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium has threatened the Obama administration's efforts to win consensus at the U.N. Security Council on a new package of Iran sanctions and thoroughly irritated U.S. officials.

A rougher patch in relations could be on the horizon if Turkey -- a key Muslim NATO ally crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq -- works to forestall a sanctions vote or votes against sanctions on Iran.

Washington Post, 24/5/10

Missile market worth $9.4 billion

The new 'Missiles Market 2010-2020' report available on ASDReports.com, analyses the global market for missiles. The report calculates that in 2010 the global market for missiles will amount to over $9.4bn.

The US by far accounts for the biggest share of the missiles market. With missile development programmes including those for ballistic missile defence such as the Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) and the naval Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) paired with Aegis, along with projects like Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), the US is undertaking programmes to develop new generations of missiles. It will also have to replenish missiles expended in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan and earlier, Iraq.

India is a key market with current programmes such as the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile with Russia and the Barak series of air defence missiles with Israel.

Missile programmes related to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force also make the UK a leading market.

PR.com, 24/5/10

US prisons the training ground for Al Qaida

Iraqi security chiefs are blaming a big rise in violence this year on detainees released from the contentious American prison system who used their time in custody to appoint new leaders and plot mayhem after their release.

Interviews of military and police officials throughout Baghdad and the increasingly restive areas of Anbar and Diyala have painted a picture of a country that is again nearing a tipping point, with security officers and checkpoints under almost daily attack from a revitalised Sunni insurgency that gathered steam behind the walls of the two US prisons in Iraq.

Major General Ahmed Obeidi al-Saedi, who leads the sixth division of the Iraqi army in south and west Baghdad, claims as many as 80% of detainees have either aligned, or realigned with militant groups, mostly to al-Qaida in Iraq, or its affiliates.

"I say to you emphatically that 80% who have been released from Bucca have returned to work with the terrorists and have in fact become stronger," said General Saedi, whose area of command has been increasingly under attack over the past two months.

"We ask them, did they finish their time in prison rehabilitated psychologically and they say 'no, it was the perfect environment to reorganise al-Qaida'."

Guardian, 24/5/10

Afghans accuse Liam Fox of racism

Liam Fox was under attack last night for damaging Britain’s relations with Kabul after he described Afghanistan as a “broken 13th-century country”.

The Defence Secretary’s comments, made in an interview with The Times published on Saturday, provoked fury from the Afghan Government and media with officials calling the claims racist.

According to senior Afghan officials, Dr Fox’s characterisation of the country was raised at a meeting with President Karzai on Saturday. The President expressed his deep displeasure at the remarks, they said.

In his interview Dr Fox said that there must be a distinction between military and humanitarian goals. “We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened.”

The Times, 24/5/10

Itching to fight another Muslim enemy

If you read the major American newspapers or watch the propaganda on cable TV, it’s pretty clear that the US foreign policy establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran.

Just as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.

Anyone who dares suggest that the situation on the ground might not be as black and white as the Washington Post’s editors claim it is must be an “apologist” for the enemy regime. It’s also not very smart for one’s reputation to question the certainty of the reporting in the New York Times, whether about Iraq’s “aluminum tubes” for nuclear centrifuges in 2002 or regarding Iran’s “rigged” election in 2009. It’s much better for one’s career to clamber onto the confrontation bandwagon.

Nobody in the major US media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles regarding some Muslim “enemy.” And, if the posturing leads to war, it will fall mostly to working-class kids to do the fighting and dying while the bills can be passed along to future generations.

Arab News, 23/5/10

Russia and US at odds over heroin eradication

Russia's top drugs official gave a list of Afghan and Central Asian drug barons to U.S. anti-drugs tsar Gil Kerlikowske Sunday, but criticized U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan for failing to stem opium output.

Russia is the world's biggest per capita user of heroin -- all of it flowing from Afghanistan -- and President Dmitry Medvedev has called drug abuse among the country's youth a threat to national security.

However, while praising Moscow's cooperation with Washington in some aspects of the anti-drug fight, Ivanov criticized the U.S.-led coalition of NATO states fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for failing to eradicate opium output there.

He said Afghanistan accounted for 95 percent of the world's heroin output. The country now produces each year twice as much heroin than the entire world produced 10 years ago, he said.

In March, NATO rejected Russian calls for it to eradicate opium poppy fields in Afghanistan and urged Moscow to give more assistance against the insurgency. NATO spokesman James Appathurai said at the time that it was impossible to remove the only source of income for Afghan farmers without being able to provide them with an alternative.

"Where is the logic here? To destroy a plant is much cheaper than ... catching it later on the streets of Berlin, Rome, London, Moscow and so on," Ivanov said.

Reuters, 23/5/10

Coalition ministers visit Afghanistan

Three top officials from Britain's new coalition government flew in to Afghanistan for high-level discussions Saturday with political and military leaders there.

With many Britons back home now openly questioning why its troops are still in the country, a big part of the trip was to clarify the British mission in Afghanistan.

Just weeks into a new administration here in London, a high-powered British delegation spent Saturday discussing the current situation in Afghanistan with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. commander of international forces, General Stanley McChrystal.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called it a stock taking exercise by the incoming government, but as Prime Minister David Cameron stated on the campaign trail, it was his belief that British forces should start coming home within the next five years.

Opinion polls repeatedly show that the British public has grown weary of the nearly nine-year-long deployment.

Voice of America, 22/5/10

Japan agrees bases deal against local opposition

Japan and the United States agreed on Saturday on a plan to relocate a controversial U.S. airbase on Okinawa, broadcaster NHK said, but the deal faces resistance from local residents and the government's coalition allies.

The deal comes one day before Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama travels to the southern Japanese island, host to about half the U.S. forces in the country, to plead for local understanding.

The row over the Marines' Futenma airbase in southern Japan has been a factor behind sliding support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, threatening his party's chances in a mid-year upper house election that it must win to avoid policy deadlock.

Reuters, 22/5/10

US can hold prisoners indefinitely in Bagram

Enemy combatants being held in US custody at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have no constitutional right to challenge the legality of their open-ended military detention, a federal appeals court panel in Washington announced on Friday.

In ruling for the US government, the unanimous three-judge panel said habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of the men must be dismissed because federal judges in the US lack jurisdiction to hear their cases. The court said that because the detention camp at Bagram is located in an active theater of war overseas it would be impractical to allow detainees to file such legal challenges.

The ruling is vindication for a policy first enacted by the Bush administration and later embraced by the Obama administration. The policy seeks to hold suspected enemy combatants in overseas detention camps where they can be held in indefinite detention without charge and subjected to interrogations free from any burdens of judicial oversight.

Christian Science Monitor, 21/5/10

Taliban flexing muscles in Afghanistan

With back-to-back strikes at symbols of U.S. power in Afghanistan, the Taliban movement appears determined to build prestige in advance of an expected confrontation on its home turf of Kandahar province.

Two high-profile attacks within 24 hours — a rare frontal assault Wednesday on sprawling U.S.-run Bagram Air Base, and a suicide strike a day earlier on one of the U.S. military convoys that traverse the capital, Kabul — appeared calculated to demonstrate the insurgents' ability to strike at will beyond their traditional bastions in the country's south and east.

The Taliban also may be seeking to telegraph resiliency in the face of a concerted U.S.-led campaign in recent months to capture and kill mid-level insurgent field commanders.

The rebels also may be hoping to further erode public confidence in beleaguered President Hamid Karzai as he prepares to convene a large-scale jirga, or tribal-consultative meeting, at month's end.

Los Angeles Times, 20/5/10

US investigates Afghanistan civilian deaths

The US military has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that American soldiers were involved in the unlawful deaths of Afghan civilians.

A statement released by the US Army in Afghanistan says that a small number of US soldiers were responsible. It said that "as many as three Afghan civilians" were killed.

A spokesman for the US military in Kabul told the BBC's Mark Dummett that there had been "no other similar cases as serious as this one".

The spokesman said that he could not give more information because he did not want to jeopardise the investigation.

BBC News, 20/5/10

Afghans talk peace in Maldives

Representatives of an Afghan militant group are holding talks in the Maldives, officials said Thursday. Maldives government spokesman Mohamed Zuhair says 15 representatives of the Afghan government and seven Taliban members met Thursday and would meet again over the weekend.

But officials in Kabul said they did not believe any active members of the Taliban were present although some former members of the Islamist movement were.

Instead, the meeting included members of Hizb-i-Islami, a Taliban-allied insurgent group led by former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, which sent a delegation to Kabul in March to discuss peace with President Hamid Karzai's government.

Associated Press, 20/5/10