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News archives for the week ending 29th May 2009

MoD admits use of controversial 'enhanced blast' weapons in Afghanistan

British pilots in Afghanistan are firing an increasing number of "enhanced blast" thermobaric weapons, designed to kill everyone in buildings they strike, the Ministry of Defence has revealed.

Since the start of this year more than 20 of the US-designed missiles, which have what is officially described as a "blast fragmentation warhead", have been fired by pilots of British Apache attack helicopters. A total of 20 were also fired last year after they were bought by the MoD from the Americans last May.

The Pentagon describes the effects of the missile as "formidable". Unlike conventional warheads, it produces a sustained pressure wave. US forces have deployed the missiles in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

A UK defence official told the Guardian that the Hellfire missiles that British Apaches had been initially equipped with were lighter anti-tank weapons. They would simply make a "small hole" in a building and the enemy would run away unscathed, the official said. The new US-designed weapon was "particularly designed to take down structures and kill everyone in the buildings".

The official said British pilots' rules of engagement were strict and everything a pilot sees from the cockpit is recorded.

Guardian 29/5/09

Violence escalates in Pakistan

Two bombs exploded in a market in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, killing six people, and gunmen on rooftops ambushed police as they arrived at the scene.

Militant violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an important U.S. ally, has surged since mid-2007, with attacks on the security forces, as well as on government and Western targets, and the Taliban threatened more on Thursday.

Pakistan is vital for U.S. plans to defeat al Qaeda and cut support for the Afghan Taliban and the United States has been heartened by a military offensive against the Taliban in their Swat bastion, northwest of Islamabad.

But there have been eight militant attacks since the army began battling militants in the region in April and there is a danger the violence could erode public support for the campaign.

The attacks came hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car-bomb and gun attack in the city of Lahore on Wednesday that killed 24 people, saying it was revenge for the Swat offensive.

Taliban aggression and a perception the government was being distracted by political squabbling and failing to act to stop the militants had alarmed the United States and other Western allies. While the army's resolve has encouraged the United States and investors, the government has warned of militant reprisals.

Guardian 28/5/09

Kurdistan goes glug glug

On June 1st a man in a hard hat in the blazing sun will ritually turn a switch to let oil flow through a pipeline. Hundreds of leading Kurds will cheer as they watch pictures of oil being offloaded from tankers.

The reason for the excitement is that the crude is being extracted from the first newly developed oilfield to have come on stream since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003 - indeed, the first to have come on stream anywhere in Iraq for 30-odd years.

It is also the first instance of exploration leading to extraction and export by private companies in Iraq since oil was nationalised in 1972. Iraq’s Kurds, who have signed a string of controversial production-sharing agreements (PSAs) with private companies, are proud that the oil is flowing anew from fields that they control.

The oil ready for export comes from two fields. One is at Tawke, developed by DNO International, a small Norwegian firm. The other is at Taq-Taq, where Addax Petroleum, listed in London and Toronto, runs a joint venture with Turkey’s Genel Enerji, which also has a stake in the Tawke show. Relations between Turkey’s government and the Iraqi Kurdish regional one are plainly improving.

The operations at Taq-Taq and Tawke are run under PSAs whereby private companies get 10-20% of the profit. The rest goes to the federal government in Baghdad. But Iraq’s oil ministry and its trade unions dislike PSAs. A long row between the Kurds and the authorities in Baghdad over rules for the north has yet to be resolved. Baghdad wants to approve all oil deals.

The Kurds say the federal constitution lets them run - and profit from - their own oil industry, though they accept that revenue should somehow be shared. The Kurds’ parliament passed a hydrocarbons law in 2007. But a new national oil law has been stalled in the federal parliament in Baghdad for at least three years.

The global recession may be helping the Kurds. The fall in the oil price has played havoc with the central budget. Iraq needs cash quickly. That, presumably, is why the federal government was forced to let the Kurds export oil off their own bat.

Economist, 28/5/09

Iraq to arrest 1,000 'corrupt' officials

Iraq's anti-corruption watchdog says arrest warrants have been issued for some 1,000 allegedly corrupt officials.

Few details were disclosed, but the Commission on Public Integrity said at least 50 were senior figures. The commission has previously said the most serious complaints concern the trade ministry, where officials allegedly took bribes for contracts.

This week Prime Minister Nouri Maliki accepted the resignation of his trade minister over corruption accusations. The former minister - Abdul Falah Sudani, one of whose brothers has been detained for corruption and who has another brother on the run - offered his resignation on 14 May and parliament has been scrutinising his case.

The anti-corruption committee statement said there were as many as 997 arrest warrants against officials under suspicion and 53 were at director-general level or above. The statement added that 51 officials had been arrested in April and 69 were arrested in May, including 33 last Sunday.

BBC News 27/5/09

UN wants 'flood of drugs' in Afghanistan

UN officials in Afghanistan are attempting to create a "flood of drugs" in the country intended to destroy the value of opium and force poppy farmers to switch to legal crops such as wheat.

After the failure to destroy fields of the scarlet flowers in Afghanistan's volatile south, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says the answer is to stop the drugs from leaving the country in the first place.

Officials admit that the plan is a second-best solution to intensive eradication campaigns. Last year the Afghan government succeeded in destroying only 3.5% of Afghanistan's 157,000 hectares of poppy because eradication teams were either attacked or bought off by local drug lords.

But the attempt to use brute economics to tackle the country's $4bn (£2.5bn) narcotics industry instead is fraught with problems – not least Afghanistan's thousands of miles of porous borders. While the Iranians, fed up with the problems created by the country's 1 million heroin addicts, have taken steps to build ditches and walls along the frontier, the Afghans lack even a fraction of those resources.

Even without attempts to disrupt the flow of drugs out of the country, Afghanistan is doing a good job of destroying the value of its main export. Huge overproduction, which by some estimates twice outstrips world demand, has led to a steady fall in the value of opium. A kilogram is now worth less than one fifth of what it was in 2001. The slump in opium values, combined with last year's soaring worldwide price of wheat, fuelled hopes that farmers would switch crops. However, wheat has fallen by 30% since October and humanitarian handouts of imported wheat last winter also helped to keep prices in Afghanistan low.

The UNODC country chief, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, also warned that the strategy of capitalising on falling opium prices could be torpedoed by Chinese drug dealers looking to Afghanistan to supply China's growing army of heroin addicts. "I think we have a two-year window before the Chinese pick up on the Afghan market. Currently the Chinese dealers source their heroin from the Golden Triangle. The networks have not yet been established."

Guardian, 26/5/09

Iraq seeks seven-billion-dollar IMF loan

Iraq wants a seven-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cover its budget deficit, Finance Minister Baqer Jabr Solagh said.

Solagh said Iraq was also seeking to encourage creditor countries to forgive some of its debts in exchange for "a more open door" approach to investments in his oil-rich country.

In March, the Iraqi parliament passed a 58.9 billion-dollar budget for 2009, after billions were wiped off spending plans because of a sharp fall in oil prices. Oil and gas production accounts for 90 percent of the war-ravaged country's revenues.

Restoring basic services such as water, electricity and sewage disposal is crucial to ensuring that the bloodshed that peaked in 2006 and 2007 is not triggered again by civilian unrest.

A projected 20.3-billion-dollar deficit this year was initially expected to be financed by unspent allocations from the 2008 budget.

AFP, 25/5/09

Iraq aims to allow foreign investors to own land

Iraq's investment commission is pushing for foreign firms to be allowed to own land, a move seen as key to attracting the developers required to build houses and repair and expand the country's creaking infrastructure.

National Investment Commission Chairman Sami al-Araji told Reuters on Monday the proposal was one of several amendments to an investment law that was meant to herald a flood of foreign capital, but has been neutered by bureaucracy and red tape.

Violence in Iraq has fallen since last year, but that has yet to be accompanied by major investment. The cash-strapped and oil-reliant country is keen to stimulate its private sector after oil prices tumbled from last year's record highs.

Businessmen have long bemoaned the difficulty in securing land in Iraq. Some is protected by agricultural laws, and other laws only grant foreigners land ownership for a limited time, after which it and any buildings on it revert to the state.

Other proposed amendments include the exemption of foreign investors from having to bid for plots of land or stakes in public-private partnerships. Instead, the commission will be able to allocate land or stakes at its discretion if it feels the investment will benefit Iraq.

The commission aims to attract about $500 billion of foreign investment by 2015, including for the development of millions of new homes, and hotels to cater for millions of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims who visit holy sites in Iraq each year.

Araji said there was great interest in investing in Iraq, which has the world's third largest proven oil reserves, but that plans had been hit by the global financial crisis.

Guardian, 25/5/09

2.4 million displaced in Pakistan

Military operations supported by the US in northwestern Pakistan have displaced nearly 2.4 million people, the UN and government officials has said.

Heavy strikes on the region by Pakistan's military and also air strikes by the US drones have taken a heavy toll, killing many civilians in the region.

"In the new influx, 2.38 million people have been registered," Ariane Rummery, spokeswoman for the UNHCR (The UN High Commissioner for Refugees) said Pakistan's Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira has also acknowledged that 2.3 million people have been displaced, noting that the numbers could further increase

Rights groups have warned that it is Pakistan's biggest movement of people since its separation from India in 1947.

Pakistan claims more than 1000 militants and 50 soldiers have been killed in a three-week conflict against militants in the country. However, there are also reports suggesting that civilians are the main victims of the army-militant conflict.

Press TV, 25/5/09

One million displaced in Somalia

Somalia's president has condemned the presence of foreign fighters in his country and called for help to tackle armed opposition groups seeking to topple his government. "Somalia is being invaded by foreign fighters, whose main purpose is to turn the country into an Afghanistan or an Iraq," Sharif Ahmed said on Monday.

His comments came a day after after the al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide attack in the Somali capital. Authorities suspect the bomber, a teenage boy, was one of hundreds foreigners, from countries including Pakistan, Yemen and the United States, that the UN believes have joined Somali groups.

Al-Shabab, in alliance with the Hizbul Islam group, has vowed to overthrow Ahmed, accusing him of being a traitor after he signed a peace deal with the interim government last year. Ahmed was previously a leader of the Islamic Courts Union, which effectively controlled much of southern and central Somalia in late 2006, and counted al-Shabab and other groups fighting the government as its allies.

The United States says that al-Shabab is linked to al-Qaeda, while Hizbul Islam is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, another former Islamic courts leader, that Washington says has connections to al-Qaeda. Al-Shabab has warned that there will be more suicide attacks against government forces in the coming days after a surge in violence this month killed almost 200 people in the capital, Mogadishu.

The UN says that about 60,000 residents fled their homes in the capital in recent days, joining more than one million people who had already been displaced by the fighting.

Al Jazeera, 26/5/09

Iraq bomb targets US convoy

A bomb struck a convoy of U.S. officials and civilian contractors on a visit to a construction site in western Iraq, killing three people and wounding two others, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

A statement said the attack, which occurred near the city of Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, killed one "coalition force" soldier - in Falluja all foreign troops are American - and two civilians.

Violence in mostly Sunni Arab western Iraq has fallen since it was the hub of a raging insurgency in 2005 through 2007, but militant cells still operate in the vast desert region.

U.S. military officials say some insurgent groups in Iraq, mindful of the loss of public support al Qaeda suffered because of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, are trying to reinvent themselves as fighters who only kill foreign forces, not Iraqis, using more carefully targeted bombs and sniper attacks.

Reuters 26/5/09

North Korea nuclear test condemned

North Korea's latest nuclear test has sent shockwaves around the world and triggered criticism.

The US president led a barrage of criticism condemning the test, saying the "threat to international peace" warranted a global response. Obama accused North Korea of "directly and recklessly challenging the international community", blaming it for increasing tensions and undermining stability in northeast Asia.

The Chinese government said it was "resolutely opposed" to North Korea's nuclear test.

North Korea said Monday's underground test, more powerful than its atomic bomb test in 2006, was part of moves to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.

The US, Japan, Russia and South Korea, along with China, have been involved in six-party talks with North Korea since 2003 which are aimed at putting an end to its nuclear programme.

Al Jazeera, 25/5/09

Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan work together

Iran hosted its first three-way summit meeting on Sunday with Pakistan and Afghanistan to discuss cooperation on regional issues, the latest sign of Iran’s emergence as the regional power.

With Pakistan and Afghanistan fighting to hold back the rising tide of radical, Islamic insurgencies led by the Taliban, the meeting in Tehran seemed intended by Iran to assure its neighbours that working together the three could solve their problems without having to rely on the West.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran suggested that the United States was the main problem when he described “others who are alien to the nations and culture of our nations.” It was a not-too-subtle swipe, but still one that Washington’s allies from Pakistan and Afghanistan did not rebut. That served as another sign that Iran was increasingly seen as less of a threat to the West, and the region, than the prospect of the Taliban’s controlling Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan signed an agreement -called the Tehran Statement - in which they committed to work together to fight Islamic extremism and stop drug smuggling across their borders. Though the declaration did not outline specific action, it served as a sort of bookend to changes in regional dynamics that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and of Iraq in March 2003.

The summit meeting also served as proof that Western efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear energy program, through unilateral and United Nations Security Council sanctions, have given way to more pragmatic regional concerns.

New York Times, 25/5/09

Iran reaches gas deal with Pakistan

Iran has completed a major gas pipeline deal with Pakistan that could be extended in the future to take Iranian gas to India.

The project, known as the Pipeline of Peace, was initially expected to include India, but the country has stayed out of the deal because of concerns about the pipeline's security. India also objected to the transit fees that Pakistan asked for.

The 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) line will deliver 60 million cubic meters of gas a day to Pakistan.

Los Angeles Times, 25/5/09

US probes divisions within Taliban

US intelligence agencies have launched an intensive effort to examine the various tribes linked to the Taliban to determine whether some can be broken off through diplomatic and economic initiatives, mirroring the successful strategy employed by General David H. Petraeus in Iraq, according to Defense Department officials.

Top military and intelligence officials say they know far too little about the disparate groups they are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan and believe many fighters have been incorrectly labeled as the Taliban, lumping those who pose the greatest threat with others who may be willing to share power with the Afghan and Pakistani governments.

The initiative, which involves hundreds of intelligence operatives and analysts in the United States and overseas, is expected to culminate later this year in a detailed, highly classified analysis of the different factions of the Taliban and other groups.

The overall effort is considered crucial to the long-term success of President Obama's goal of crushing the remnants of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and bringing stability to large swaths of the two countries that have become incubators for anti-US violence.

One senior military official involved in the effort said intelligence analysts have been instructed by top officials in the Pentagon, the State Department, and the National Security Council to return to the basics, including dissecting "Who is the Taliban and who are the real bad guys?"

Specialists said untangling these different groups could be the key to achieving American aims.

Boston Globe, 24/5/09

60 dead, 92 tonnes opium siezed

International and Afghan troops have killed 60 militants and made a record drugs haul in an operation in southern Afghanistan, the US military has said.

Its statement said the four-day attack targeted the town of Marja in Helmand province - a Taliban stronghold. The troops seized 92 tonnes of opium poppy seeds and other drugs, "severely disrupting" a key narcotics centre and command hub of the insurgency./p>

The US denied reports that civilians were killed during the operation. However, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry told the BBC that it was investigating the reports. Taliban militants have so far not commented on the US statement.

BBC News 23/5/09

Moves to investigate corruption in Iraq

Iraq’s prime minister and Parliament appear to be on the verge of carrying out an extensive housecleaning of senior cabinet officials, with lawmakers naming as many as a dozen ministers they intend to question or investigate about allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

With elections less than nine months away, Iraqi political leaders have been trying to find a way to aggressively address, or at least be perceived as addressing, the endemic corruption in the government.

The urgency comes in part from a corruption investigation into the Trade Ministry. Nine officials, including two of the trade minister’s brothers, have been charged, and the minister, Falah al-Sudani, is being investigated.

But the Trade Ministry is apparently only the beginning. The next target, several members of Parliament said, was Hussain al-Shahristani, the oil minister, who has come under intense criticism over the financial management of his ministry, the sluggishness of development in Iraq’s oil sector and the decline in oil exports.

New York Times, 23/5/09

British aid to Afghanistan spent on projects likely to fail

An outside audit commissioned by the Department for International Development (DFID) criticised the quality of staff employed in Afghanistan, a lack of coordination with Whitehall and poor risk management.

It found in 2006 to 2007, except for a large reconstruction donation to the World Bank, more than half DFID's large projects were considered likely to fail. Only a quarter of projects in 2006 were judged a success, with less than five per cent considered value for money.

The report looked at DFID's work from 2002 to 2007 when it was involved in 58 projects that were budgeted at £500 million. Until 2006, the DFID programme was overseen by only six non-Afghan staff in Kabul, which the report described as "wholly unrealistic".

Among the failed projects criticised in the Country Programme Evaluation was the Afghanistan Stabilisation Fund, which ended after three years with "little evidence of tangible benefit."

A project to dig 300 wells in a drought-prone region of Helmand province was done without a geological survey and several wells have now run dry.

The report also found DFID had ignored the problems of corruption and lawlessness in the region and been slow to adapt to the rising Taliban-led insurgency.

DFID said many of the lessons revealed by the audit had already been addressed and its conclusions did not "reflect the significant progress and developments made since that time". "The reality is that delivering aid in a conflict-affected state like Afghanistan is extremely difficult."

Telegraph 22/5/09

Iraq war and liberal interventionism

David Miliband last night offered the most senior Government denouncement so far of the Iraq war. In a strikingly self-critical speech, the Foreign Secretary admitted the invasion had damaged Britain's standing by leaving a legacy of 'bitterness, distrust and resentment' across the Muslim world.

Although he did not apologise for supporting the invasion of Iraq, he said that for centuries relations between Europe and the Islamic world had been characterised by 'conquest, conflict, and colonialism'.

Speaking to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, he said: ……..'More recently, the invasion of Iraq, and its aftermath, aroused a sense of bitterness, distrust and resentment. When people hear about Britain, too often they think of these things.'

Mr Miliband stressed the importance of the UK seeking out common ground with Islamic countries, and called for 'more political activism and more diplomatic engagement' to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While acknowledging the 'terrible human misery' that had been caused by conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims - from Bosnia to Iraq - Mr Miliband said that it was important not to abandon the doctrine of 'liberal interventionism'.

'That suffering poisons international relations. I think it is a great shame that the doctrine of liberal interventionism came to be defined not by action in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, where humanitarian interests were at stake, but by the conflict in Iraq,' he said. 'It came to be defined, narrowly and inaccurately, by military action rather than diplomatic engagement. 'We need to recover the original idea which was, and is, a noble idea, very much an expression of our values.'

Mr Miliband's comments are along similar lines to those of Barack Obama. The U.S. President has pledged to repair ties between the West and Muslim countries and forge a new relationship based on 'mutual interest and mutual respect'.

Daily Mail, 21/5/09