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Nov 12, 2008 Uncategorized
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NY Times: US Conducts Secret Operations Against Al-Qaida
Nov 12, 2008 Industry News, World Events
10 November 2008 |
An American newspaper says the U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret raids against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004.
The New York Times cites anonymous U.S. senior officials in its report Monday saying the raids were authorized by a classified order given by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and approved by President George Bush.
The Times says the order gave the military new authority to attack al-Qaida any place in the world, and to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.
The paper says the order identifies 15 to 20 countries where al-Qaida militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary. Those countries include Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states.
The report says no raids had been carried out in Iran under the order. But it says officials suggested the U.S. had done reconnaissance in Iran under other classified directives.
“The New York Times” says some of the military raids have been conducted in close cooperation with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The paper says in one operation, Navy special forces, Navy Seals, raided a suspected militants’ compound in Pakistan’s Bajaur region, along the Afghan border. It says U.S. officials watched the video-taped mission in real time at CIA headquarters, just outside Washington in the state of Virginia.
Baghdad Reopens Major Bridge
Nov 12, 2008 Iraq, Middle East, World Events
| Baghdad Reopens Major Bridge | |
11 November 2008 |
A bridge linking Sunni and Shi’ite neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital has reopened, three years after nearly a thousand Shi’ite pilgrims died in a stampede on the span.
Hundreds of people crossed al-Aaimmah bridge Tuesday, calling it a symbol of solidarity, and of Baghdad’s improved security.
The deadly stampede that closed the bridge was sparked by rumors of a suicide bomber.
Despite security improvements, violence continues to plague Baghdad.
Security sources say two roadside bombings killed at least three people and injured many others in the eastern part of the capital Tuesday. The attacks happened on busy Palestine street where people were waiting for work.
A fourth person died in a separate attack in northern Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul, officials say a car bomb attack wounded at least 15 people.
Also in the north, a politician promoting constitutional rights for ethnic and religious minorities was wounded when a roadside bomb struck his car. Ashur Benjamin Yelda and three others were wounded in the attack.
Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, traveled to Syria Tuesday for talks likely to focus on a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact, which Damascus has criticized.
It is Zebari’s first visit to Syria since U.S. forces in Iraq carried out a cross-border raid on a Syrian village last month.
Washington said the raid targeted insurgents, but Syria said eight civilians were killed.
Also Tuesday, the Iraqi Cabinet approved a $67 billion budget for next year after cutting spending plans because of falling oil prices.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
Experts Say Afghanistan Needs Regional Solution
Nov 12, 2008 Afghanistan, Asia, World Events
Washington 12 November 2008 |
Some South Asia experts say Washington should take a “regional approach” to Afghanistan, pulling India, Iran, and Moscow into talks on ways to stabilize the country. On Tuesday, the U.S. newspaper the Washington Post reported that President-elect Barack Obama wants to explore a regional strategy for Afghanistan. VOA’s Ravi Khanna reports on what the experts have to say.
The continuing violence by Islamic insurgents on the Pakistan-Afghan border as well as Pakistan’s opposition to U.S. missile strikes on suspected terrorist hideouts in the country continue to complicate the conflict.
Associated Press video shows militants inside Pakistan Monday. They hijacked a NATO convoy on its way to resupply forces in Afghanistan.
Some experts say India, Iran and Russia should get involved in a regional solution.
Major General Peter Gilchrist is Defense Attaché at the British High Commission in Washington. He says Washington should coordinate the effort.
“If there is a collapse in Afghanistan,” he said, “I am pretty certain that you will find a similar activity happening in Pakistan as well. That will not be in the interest of the world.”
Central Asia expert at the National Defense University, Ali Jalali, says Afghanistan needs a regional solution because it has been affected by other conflicts in the region.
“It is India-Pakistan conflict,” Jalali noted. “It is Iran’s opposition to the United States, it is Russian conflict with NATO and of course there are conflicts inside Afghanistan.”
A senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Lisa Curtis, says Pakistan is suspicious because India has been increasing the number of its consulates in Afghanistan.
“It seems that the Indo-Pakistan historical rivalry is now playing itself out in Afghanistan, unfortunately,” she said. “There is a great deal of suspicion among Pakistanis on India’s increased footprint in Afghanistan.”
At the 2001 Bonn Conference, Curtis says Iran helped establish a government in Afghanistan. But now Curtis claims Iran is attempting to supply arms to the Taliban.
Iran has been pushing to build a gas pipeline through Pakistan to India. Some experts say Iran fears if Afghanistan is stabilized, a U.S.-backed pipeline from Turkmenistan to India would be built instead.
As for Russia, Curtis says Moscow wants to settle scores with NATO by depriving it of success in Afghanistan.
“They see Afghanistan as a way to sort of needle the US if they want to because of the larger issue of NATO and missile defense,” she explained.
NATO forces in Afghanistan, meanwhile, continue their assaults on Taliban positions.
Experts say they hope the Obama administration will appoint a special envoy to deal with the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Tags: Afghanistan
US aid worker assassinated in Pakistan
Nov 12, 2008 Asia, World Events
Source: Guardian Online
Pakistani policemen inspect the site where a US aid worker was killed in Peshawar. Photograph: Tariq Mahmood/AFP/Getty Images
A US aid worker was gunned down in Peshawar today, in what is believed to be the first targeted killing of a westerner in the campaign of violence unleashed by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in summer last year.
Stephen Vance, a contractor to the US government development agency USAid, was shot dead along with his Pakistani driver, just after he left home this morning. He was living in Peshawar with his wife and five children. He was not in an armoured car, a precaution which saved a US diplomat in Peshawar in August when her vehicle was similarly ambushed by suspected Islamic militants touting automatic weapons.
According to reports, seven spent shells were found at the site of Vance’s assassination, in one of the upmarket parts of the city known as University Town. US diplomats and USAid staff travel in bulletproof vehicles in Peshawar, with bodyguards. They are not allowed to have their families in Pakistan. But, as a contractor, Vance lived a less well-protected life.
“People are really just in shock,” said an aid official who worked alongside him. “It’s very scary. We’ve become used to bombs but this is something different.
“What’s particularly frightening is that he was just coming out of his house, to drive to work, as he must every morning.”
The 52-year-old worked for CHF International, a non-governmental organisation. He is thought to have moved to Peshawar earlier this year. He worked on the $750m (£495m) US government aid programme for the militancy-plagued tribal area, which runs alongside the Afghanistan border. His “livelihoods” project sought to create job opportunities for people in the tribal belt, especially in Waziristan, a dirt-poor region where many have joined the Taliban and other extremist groups simply for the money.
A former colleague said: “This hurts bad. Stephen Vance was one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and deeply committed to delivering services to the poorest of the poor. And these are the thugs we’re going to negotiate with?”
Peshawar, the provincial capital of the North West Frontier province, has seen law and order deteriorate sharply, with the kidnappings-for-ransom of locals on the rise in particular. The violence has spread across Pakistan.
The city is on the edge of the tribal area, making it vulnerable. “Unfortunately, the government is not taking any solid steps to improve security. The situation is that the area around Peshawar is not safe,” said Mehmood Shah, a former senior bureaucrat turned analyst.
The army and paramilitary forces are engaged in two operations around Peshawar, in the tribal areas of Khyber and Bajaur, plus sporadic action in other nearby areas. Earlier this year, there were fears that extremists had massed around Peshawar and that the city itself could be overrun. The presence of militants on the outskirts of the city means they can easily slip in and out to the lawless tribal area.
The military activity around Peshawar may have to be stepped up, with the possibility that another major operation will soon be launched in another tribal area close to the city, Mohmand. “We may need to move into Mohmand, because it affects the security of Peshawar,” said Major General Athar Abbas, the chief spokesman for the Pakistan army. “We are trying other means, but if that doesn’t work, we may be left with no choice.”
This week, a convoy of trucks carrying US military equipment and food was ambushed and ransacked as it passed through the Khyber area on its way to take supplies to troops in Afghanistan. A suicide bomb attack at a sports stadium in Peshawar yesterday killed at least two, while another suicide attack today at a military camp at Shabqadar also in the north-west, killed two soldiers.
The diplomatic community in Islamabad has been badly shaken by a series of bombings in the capital. Many missions, including the British High Commission, have sent families home - that also applies to British employees at the Department for International Development. But, diplomats say, if kidnappings and targeted killings spread to the capital, there is likely to be a panicked mass exodus of remaining diplomats.
Tags: Aid Worker, Pakistan
UN appeals for DR Congo back-up
Nov 12, 2008 Africa, World Events
The head of UN peacekeeping has asked the UN Security Council for more than 3,000 extra troops to protect civilians in the eastern DR Congo.
Alain Le Roy said current peacekeeper numbers were not enough to protect civilians from violence perpetrated by rebel groups and the Congolese army.
There are 9,000 UN peacekeepers in the region, out of 17,000 nationwide.
The latest crisis began in August when rebels advanced towards Goma, which is now ringed with refugee camps.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a ceasefire to allow aid workers to reach 100,000 refugees cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma.
Rebel administration
The UN’s peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, called Monuc, is its largest in the world, but Mr Le Roy said there were only 10 UN soldiers for every 10,000 inhabitants in eastern DR Congo.
“We consider it’s not enough,” he said.
Recent fighting between government and rebel troops has displaced 250,000 people in the strife-torn region around Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.
Earlier, the rebel Congolese leader, General Laurent Nkunda, said he had formed an alternative administration in the area of eastern Congo that he controls.
In what observers say is his latest direct challenge to the central government, 12 ministers will take responsibility for a range of functions including police and security.
But the BBC’s Mark Doyle in eastern DR Congo says the move appears to be pure propaganda.
Our correspondent says it may annoy the government but is likely to be insignificant unless the rebels follow it up with further military action.
‘Looting and raping’
Meanwhile, government troops have faced fresh accusations that they have been ransacking villages and raping civilians.
UN spokesman Lt-Col Jean Paul Dietrich said looting began around Kanyabayonga, 100km (60 miles) north of Goma, on Monday afternoon and continued through the night.
He also said that a rare night-time gun battle had erupted for an hour on Tuesday night between rebels and the army near Kibati, 10km (six miles) north of Goma.
The area is home to 75,000 people who have been repeatedly forced to flee fighting.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Angola said it was mobilising troops to send to Congo, the Associated Press news agency reported, although it was not clear how many or what their mission would be.
Correspondents say there have been a number of recent unconfirmed reports of Angolan troops arriving in DR Congo to assist Congolese troops.
The presence of Angolans in the volatile region could be seen as a provocation by neighbouring Rwanda, raising fears that the fighting could spread.
No negotiations
Rebel leader Gen Nkunda claims to be fighting to protect his Tutsi community from attacks by Rwandan Hutu rebels, who fled to DR Congo after Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
The Congolese government has often promised to stop the Hutu forces from using its territory, but has not done so.
On Monday, Gen Nkunda threatened to take over the whole country if President Joseph Kabila’s government continued in its refusal to negotiate with him. But a Congolese official said the government was still unwilling to talk to the rebel leader and accused him of war crimes.
The UN has accused both sides of war crimes during the latest violence.
Mr Kabila was elected president in 2006 in polls that were backed by the UN, and which international observers generally declared to be fair.
Source: BBC
African Union May Intervene in Congo; Analysts See Wider War
Nov 12, 2008 Africa, World Events
By Franz Wild and Heba Aly
Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) — African nations will intervene in the conflict in Congo unless warring parties agree to a cease- fire, a Tanzanian official said, as analysts warned of a growing risk the violence may erupt into a regional war.
“Africa must intervene and it will,” Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said in a speech today in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. If hostilities aren’t halted, “it will prompt military action” by the African Union, he said.
Membe, in Sudan to take part in an initiative aimed at ending the conflict in Darfur, said he was speaking on behalf of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, chairman of the AU. His comments come after Congo’s allies in the 15-nation Southern African Development Community on Nov. 9 offered military assistance to Congo’s government, which is trying to thwart advances by the rebel army led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda.
Angola, a SADC member, will send troops to Congo to support the government army, the Associated Press reported today, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Georges Chicoty. Nkunda’s spokesman has said Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda may join the fighting if they feel their borders are threatened by foreign forces.
“We’re seeing moves toward a regional war,” said Rebecca Feeley, a researcher on Congo for The Enough Project, a Washington-based project of the Center for American Progress that seeks solutions to conflicts around the world. “It’s more possible than it’s been since 2003.”
Africa’s World War
Some of the states that may be drawn into the conflict also fought in the central African nation’s civil war that started in 1998 and became known as Africa’s World War. Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi then backed various rebels groups, while Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Chad and Sudan supported the government of President Laurent Kabila and, after his assassination in 2001, his son, the current leader Joseph Kabila.
The conflict, which ended in 2003, was the deadliest since the Second World War, killing at least 4 million people, mainly from disease and starvation.
Congo now accuses neighboring Rwanda of supporting Nkunda’s rebellion, which on Oct. 29 advanced to within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. Rwanda denies the allegation. Nkunda says he’s fighting to protect Congo’s Tutsi minority from ethnic Hutu militias that took refuge in eastern Congo after participating in the genocide in neighboring Rwanda in 1994.
“There are no Rwandese troops in the Congo,” President Paul Kagame told Bloomberg Television yesterday in an interview in Frankfurt. “Rwanda is very much interested in peace in the Congo. We now have peace in our country and we are aware that peace in our country cannot last for long, unless neighbors are at peace.”
Rwandan Support
Rwandan forces supported a rebellion in Congo in 1996 that overthrew dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and a second one two years later after Kabila turned his back on his former allies. Angolan forces, which supported Congo’s government in the last war, may return to support the army, which has failed to defeat Nkunda, Feeley said yesterday in an interview in Goma.
Rwanda shares Nkunda’s animosity for the mainly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which allegedly took part in the Rwandan genocide. Congo denies UN allegations it is cooperating with the FDLR, which Rwanda cites as a threat to its security.
More than two months of fighting between the two parties forced at least 250,000 civilians to flee.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday said 100,000 people driven from their homes by the recent fighting are “cut off” from humanitarian aid, a situation he called “serious and dire.”
Addition UN Troops
The UN Security Council said it is ready to send an additional 3,000 peacekeepers to Congo to help it fulfill its mandate of protecting the civilian population caught up in the fighting. Mission head Alan Doss says his 16,500 troops are overstretched in a country a quarter the size of the U.S.
UN officials said last week that Angolan troops arrived in Congo on Nov. 3 to help Kabila’s forces, Associated Press reported on Nov. 7. UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet said there was no evidence of their arrival.
Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda may again attack Congo if the SADC countries decide to intervene, Bertrand Bisimwa, a spokesman for Nkunda’s CNDP, said in an interview yesterday.
“If the guys from SADC join the dance, those who were fighting against them will then also come back in,” Bisimwa said. “They will want to secure their borders.”
`Important Role’
Rwanda has not done enough to ensure the CNDP doesn’t use its soil for activities which support the movement, Jendayi Frazer, the U.S.’s top diplomat to Africa, said on Oct. 30. The emphasis on a meeting between Kabila and Kagame in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Nov. 7 implies Western leaders think Rwanda has an important role to play in Congo’s conflict, Feeley said.
“I don’t think we’re being told the truth about Rwanda’s involvement here,” she said.
Congo’s government has refused to negotiate with Nkunda directly, a stance it should alter to prevent the conflict from escalating, said Onesphore Sematumba of the Goma-based research group, Pole Institute.
“We can’t even sustain a war,” Sematumba said in an interview today. “It doesn’t matter who started the war. Do we have the right to take the population hostage?”
Last Updated: November 12, 2008 09:11 EST
