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Homeland Security Focus Areas International Issues NYTimes.com Militants Torch Pakistani Resort Hotel, Police SayBy REUTERS Filed at 2:20 a.m. ET MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Islamist militants burned down a hotel at Pakistan's only ski resort on Thursday as security in a northwestern tourist valley deteriorated despite a month-old peace pact, police said. The Swat valley, several hours drive on mountain roads from the capital, Islamabad, was until last year a prime tourist destination with ancient Buddhist ruins, a golf course, trout streams and the ski resort. "Half of the hotel has been burned down," said Swat's police chief, Waqif Khan, referring to the only hotel at the Malam Jabba ski resort. The hotel is owned by the state tourism authority. Khan said authorities had not been able to get to the resort to tackle the blaze or inspect the damage. "The area is not under our control, it's under the militants' control and no one can go there," he said. Militants infiltrated the valley from the Afghan border last year to support a radical cleric based there. The army began battling the militants in November after the militants resorted to violence in their campaign to impose Taliban-style rule. The hotel shut down last August as tension in the valley increased. It later dismissed its staff as visitors stopped coming. The militants and the government of North West Frontier Province signed a peace pact last month but hopes stability would return have been dashed with a surge of violence this week. Militants have attacked security posts, and police and army patrols and they blew up several girls' schools. Fifteen people have been killed in recent days. But a militant spokesman denied setting the hotel on fire. "Our target is the security forces, we have nothing to do with the hotel," said the spokesman, Muslim Khan. Khan said villagers in the area had appealed to his men to help them stop businessmen he referred to as "timber mafia" cutting trees on the mountain slopes. "There's a third element which does not want the peace accord to succeed, they don't want peace in the area," he said, apparently referring to the log poachers. (Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel)
In Afghan police training, US aims to curb corruptionBy David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times | June 23, 2008 FARAH, Afghanistan - There were two good reasons why Captain Dave Panian made a perilous journey across the desert to this dusty provincial capital. He wanted to check on his close friend, a district police chief whose family had been threatened by the Taliban. He also wanted to pry loose salaries for the chief's police officers, who were owed two months' pay. Panian, a lanky officer from San Diego, heads a small US Army team training local police near the village of Bala Buluk, 40 miles northeast of Farah in southwest Afghanistan, where his friend Haji Khudaydad is the chief. Training is the easy part. The hard part is cutting through threats, bureaucracy, cronyism, and corruption. The effectiveness of police and other local officials is taking on growing importance as the Taliban move to regain territory in southern Afghanistan this summer. Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops battled the Taliban last week for control of villages around the city of Kandahar, about 220 miles east of Farah. Throughout the country, police often have been little more than hired guns who raise money for local warlords through illegal taxes, shakedowns, and corruption. Many police and district officials sell weapons and opium. Some collude with the Taliban. Since 2003, trainers such as Panian from the US military and its foreign partners have been working to reform the police. Some units have fought effectively alongside US forces, but others remain mired in cronyism and Mafia-like criminal enterprises. With fighting picking up in southern Afghanistan, the role of police chiefs such as Khudaydad and the loyalty of their officers are crucial. So Panian got into a shouting match with provincial officials who refused to release last month's pay for the police. He ended up storming over to the local bank and coming out with a plastic bag stuffed with the equivalent of $14,000 in afghanis, the local currency. But first he warned the officials that there would be "hell to pay" if they didn't cough up this month's pay the next day. Then Panian found out that even though the Taliban had placed a $30,000 bounty on Khudaydad, officials had refused to help him move his wives and children outside the provincial capital, to where relatives and fellow tribesmen could protect them. After a harrowing seven-hour drive across the desert at night in a convoy of police, US soldiers, and Marines, Khudaydad was delivered back to his Bala Buluk compound. He was relieved to be out of Farah. "I don't trust those people," Khudaydad said of certain provincial officials. In Bala Buluk, Panian's 14 trainers live in a spartan compound next to district police headquarters. They have run about 100 police officers through an eight-week police academy in Herat, about 140 miles to the north, and mentored Khudaydad's officers daily for six months. "I won't deny there's still corruption, but it's at a much lower level," Panian said. Panian and his trainers forced out two previous chiefs. One extorted cash from local shopkeepers and imposed taxes on passing vehicles. The other ran drugs and guns, according to US team members. The trainers maneuvered Khudaydad into the chief's job, even though he is a sergeant major, not an officer. They consider him tough, fair, and honest. "He's not blameless, but he's as good as they come based on what we've seen here," Panian said. Khudaydad, who appears to be in his mid-40s, has a long face, a wispy, black beard, and expressive brown eyes. He seems to command respect from his men, who listen closely when he speaks. He fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and in 2001 turned against the Taliban, which he said has killed 38 of his family members and fellow tribesmen, including four nephews and two sons. Twelve of Khudaydad's officers have died since he took over as chief April 2. Some were killed in a vehicle accident, but others died in fighting against the Taliban in late May, in which a US trainer also was killed. The Taliban control much of the countryside in Farah Province, where their fighters plant roadside bombs and mount occasional ambushes. A roadside bomb killed four Marines earlier this month. "I waited a long time for the Americans to come," Khudaydad said, referring to training, weapons, and equipment US forces have provided.
Venezuela rebuffs US on Hezbollah aidBy RACHEL JONES Associated Press Writer 10:35 PM CDT, June 19, 2008 CARACAS, Venezuela Venezuela's foreign minister on Thursday rejected U.S. government accusations that a Venezuelan diplomat helped finance Hezbollah in Lebanon.
NYTimes.com June 16, 2008 Karzai Threatens to Send Soldiers Into PakistanISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan threatened on Sunday to send soldiers into Pakistan to fight militant groups operating in the border areas to attack Afghanistan. His comments, made at a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, are likely to worsen tensions between the countries, just days after American forces in Afghanistan killed 11 Pakistani soldiers on the border while pursuing militants. “If these people in Pakistan give themselves the right to come and fight in Afghanistan, as was continuing for the last 30 years, so Afghanistan has the right to cross the border and destroy terrorist nests, spying, extremism and killing, in order to defend itself, its schools, its peoples and its life,” Mr. Karzai said. “When they cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same,” he said. Mr. Karzai repeated that he regarded the Pakistani government as a friendly government, but he urged it to join Afghanistan and allied nations to fight those who wanted to destabilize both countries, and to “cut the hand” that is feeding the militants. The prime minister of Pakistan, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said the border was too long to prevent people from crossing, “even if Pakistan puts its entire army along the border.” “Neither do we interfere in anyone else’s matters, nor will we allow anyone to interfere in our territorial limits and our affairs,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Gilani as having said. Mr. Karzai named several militant leaders, including Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani who has sent scores of fighters and suicide bombers to Afghanistan, and Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand militant leader from the Swat Valley. Both men have recently negotiated peace deals with the Pakistani government, but vowed to continue waging jihad in Afghanistan. “Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house,” Mr. Karzai said. The president also taunted the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar, calling him a Pakistani, since he has been based in this country since fleeing Afghanistan in 2001. “And the other fellow, Pakistani Mullah Omar, should know the same,” Mr. Karzai said. “This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way-road journey. We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years.” “Today’s Afghanistan is not yesterday’s silent Afghanistan,” he warned. “We have a voice, tools and bravery as well.” Mr. Karzai’s comments came two days after Taliban fighters assaulted the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blowing up the mud walls, killing 15 guards and freeing about 1,200 inmates. It is not known if the fighters received assistance from outside Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai has adopted a tougher stance in recent months toward Pakistan and even toward foreign allies like the United States and Britain, a shift that analysts say is driven by political concerns at home, with presidential elections due next year. He says Pakistan has been giving sanctuary to militants for several years and his frustration has grown as the threat has grown. He has often accused the premier Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, of training and assisting militant groups, to undermine his government and maintain a friendly proxy force for the day that United States and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan. His relations with the president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, have deteriorated over the years, amid mutual recriminations that the other side was not doing enough to curb terrorism. Mr. Musharraf always denied that the Taliban was operating from Pakistani territory and accused Mr. Karzai of failing to put his own country in order. Mr. Karzai has welcomed the electoral victories of the secular, democratic parties in Pakistan, since he had longstanding good relations with the late Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan Peoples Party, and in particular with another coalition partner, the Awami National Party. In a recent interview, Mr. Karzai expressed optimism that relations between the countries would improve under the new government, in particular because of its opposition to militant Islamism. Yet Afghanistan has watched Pakistan’s peace deals with militant groups with concern and has protested that cross-border infiltration has already increased. In southern Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said, British commanders reported that 70 percent of the Taliban fighters killed in recent fighting in the Garmser district were from Pakistan, and 60 percent were Pakistanis. Mr. Karzai complained that the Pashtuns, the ethnic group that lives on both sides of the border, have been used by the Inter-Services Intelligence and have suffered the most at the hands of the militants. Mr. Karzai is an ethnic Pashtun and spoke out for his fellow tribesmen in Pakistan as well as in his own country. The militants “have been trained against the Pashtuns of Pakistan and against the people of Afghanistan, and their jobs are to burn Pashtun schools in Pakistan, not to allow their girls to get educated, and kill the Pashtun tribal chiefs,” Mr. Karzai said. “This is the duty of Afghanistan to rescue the Pashtuns in Pakistan from this cruelty and terror,” he said. “This is the duty of Afghanistan to defend itself and defend their brothers, sisters and sons on the other side.” Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
NYTimes.com June 13, 2008 Pakistan Angry as Strike by U.S. Kills 11 SoldiersBy CARLOTTA GALL and ERIC SCHMITT ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American air and artillery strikes killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers during a clash with insurgents on the Afghan border on Tuesday night, a development that raised concerns about the already strained American relationship with Pakistan. The strikes underscored the often faulty communications involving American, Pakistani and Afghan forces along the border, and the ability of Taliban fighters and other insurgents to use havens in Pakistan to carry out attacks into neighboring Afghanistan. The attack comes at a time of rising tension between the United States and the new government in Pakistan, which has granted wide latitude to militants in its border areas under a new series of peace deals, drawing criticism from the United States. NATO and American commanders say cross-border attacks in Afghanistan by insurgents have risen sharply since talks for those peace deals began in March. Although Pakistani government officials softened their response through the day on Wednesday, the Pakistani military released an early statement calling the airstrikes “unprovoked and cowardly.” Shaken by the initial Pakistani reaction, administration officials braced for at least a short-term rough patch in relations with Islamabad. “It won’t be good,” said a Pentagon official who followed developments closely throughout the day. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The precise circumstances surrounding the reported deaths remained unclear, and American officials said an American-Pakistani investigation was expected to begin immediately. But according to accounts from American officials, the incident started when Taliban fighters from Pakistan crossed about 200 yards into Kunar Province, on the Afghan side of the border, and attacked American-led forces with small-caliber weapons and rocket-propelled grenade fire. After coalition forces returned fire, driving the insurgents back into Pakistan, two United States Air Force F-15E fighter-bombers and one B-1 bomber dropped about a dozen bombs — mostly 500-pound munitions — on the attackers. An Air Force statement said the militants were struck “in the open and in buildings in the vicinity of Asadabad.” On Thursday, the United States released video footage purporting to show the airstrike, according to the BBC and news agencies. The film footage, carried by the BBC on its Web site, shows fighters on a ridge exchanging fire with coalition troops, and coalition forces later responding with a series of precision bombs. A spokesman for the Taliban said their forces had attacked an American and Afghan position near the border, and said eight of their fighters had been killed and nine wounded in the fighting. Before the airstrike, a Pentagon official said, American forces alerted a Pakistani military liaison officer, trying to ensure that friendly troops were out of harm’s way. But the Pakistani officer was either unaware that Pakistani paramilitary forces had moved into the area near the insurgents, or the Pakistani forces never got the word to get out of the way, American officials said. “They got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the Pentagon official said. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan denounced the attack in Parliament and said he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to make a formal protest to the American ambassador, Anne Patterson. But the Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters in Washington that “every indication we have at this stage is that it was a legitimate strike in self-defense.” American rules of engagement bar American forces from crossing or firing into Pakistan except to protect themselves. By Wednesday afternoon, Pakistan’s new ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, had softened his government’s reaction, telling Reuters, “We do look upon it as not an act that should cause us to reconsider our partnership but rather to find ways of improving that partnership.” Seth Jones, an analyst with the RAND Corporation who was conducting research in Kunar Province last week, said: “It’s almost surprising more of this hasn’t happened given the vast amount of traffic across the border. This creates a real serious impetus for the U.S. to coordinate more closely with Pakistan forces.” American officials in Pakistan and in Washington, while expressing regret for the Pakistani deaths, said the episode underscored the need to improve the equipping of and coordination with Pakistani security forces operating near the border, including the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from ethnic groups on the border. American and Pakistani officials say the Frontier Corps, which is drawn from Pashtun tribesmen who know the language and culture of the tribal areas, is the most suitable force to combat an insurgency over the long term in the border region, where the regular Pakistani military often is not welcomed. It was unclear whether the Pakistan liaison officer involved in the airstrike on Tuesday was from the Pakistani Army or the Frontier Corps, an important distinction because the two security forces have not always worked together smoothly, American officials said. Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman in Washington, said, “This is a reminder that better cross-border communications between forces is vital.” The Pentagon has spent about $25 million so far to equip the Frontier Corps with new body armor, vehicles, radios and surveillance equipment, and plans to spend $75 million more in the next year. Over all, administration officials have said the United States could spend more than $400 million in the next several years to enhance the Frontier Corps, including building a training base near Peshawar. Until recently, the Frontier Corps had not received American military financing because the corps technically falls under the Pakistani Interior Ministry, a nonmilitary agency that the Pentagon ordinarily does not deal with. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the new NATO commander in Afghanistan, said last week that one of his first trips as commander would be to meet with the Pakistani Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to try to resurrect a commission created by NATO and the Afghan and Pakistani militaries to address border issues. In recent months, Pakistan has not taken part in the commission. The United States, which has about 34,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, part of an international presence totaling about 60,000, is also in the midst of building six border coordination posts that will be operated by Pakistani, American and other allied forces. At the Pentagon, Mr. Morrell said, “It is incumbent upon both of us not to let an incident like this or any other interfere with that fundamental shared goal of making sure the F.A.T.A. is not a refuge for terrorists.” He was referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the contested border area. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to discuss the event with her Pakistani counterpart on Thursday at the Afghan donors conference in Paris, American officials said. There have been several American strikes recently on insurgents inside Pakistani territory. In March, three bombs, apparently dropped by an American aircraft, killed nine people and wounded nine others in the tribal area of South Waziristan that officials say provides sanctuary to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In late January, one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by two Hellfire missiles launched from a Predator surveillance aircraft. The clash on Tuesday occurred at a border post called Chopara on the frontier with the Afghan province of Kunar, where American and Afghan forces have battled insurgents for several years. The insurgents have been using Mohmand and the adjacent area of Bajaur as a base for attacks into Afghanistan. Fighting has been reported on the Afghan side of the border between insurgents and Afghan and American forces. According to one news report, one militant was killed and three wounded in a firefight on Monday. The dead on the Pakistani side included a major and were all from the Mohmand Rifles, a paramilitary detachment of the Frontier Corps, the force deployed in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a security official said, speaking in return for customary anonymity. Officers in the Frontier Corps are generally assigned from the Pakistani Army. The bodies of the dead were being flown to Peshawar on Wednesday morning, the government official said. Among five wounded were three civilians, he said. Local tribesmen with rocket launchers and Kalashnikov rifles gathered Wednesday near the checkpoint to show their outrage after the attack, Agence France-Presse reported. Earlier this month, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said that Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan were fleeing to the Pakistani border after being routed in recent operations by the United States Marines. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who stepped down last week as NATO commander in Afghanistan, seemed to warn Pakistan to contain the threat emanating from its land, and said the Taliban and drug traffickers had long used refugee camps across the border as a sanctuary from American firepower. He said that if the Taliban and foreign insurgents continued to enjoy free sanctuary outside Afghanistan, their numbers would continue to grow. The new Pakistani government sought peace deals with the militants after many Pakistanis saw a drastic increase in suicide bombings in Pakistan as being in retaliation for American strikes. Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan, and Graham Bowley from New York.
NYTimes.com June 7, 2008 Olmert Warns of a Major Military Thrust in GazaBy ISABEL KERSHNER JERUSALEM — The prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, warned on Friday that Israel could soon opt for a major military operation in Gaza to try to stop rocket and mortar fire from that area, which has killed three Israelis in recent weeks. Landing in Israel after a brief visit to Washington, Mr. Olmert told reporters that he was still considering the alternative option: an Egyptian-brokered temporary cease-fire with Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, and other militant organizations there. But “based on the data as I see it now,” he said, “the pendulum is closer to a decision for a serious operation.” The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, hinted late on Thursday of an imminent army operation, saying that it was “closer than ever.” He suggested that one was necessary before any cease-fire. There have been plans for broad military action for months. In the winter, military officials said they were waiting for weather conditions to improve. In the meantime, Egypt has been trying to broker understandings to establish calm. Israel demanded that any cease-fire arrangement put a stop to the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza. Hamas wants a halt to all Israeli strikes and incursions in the area and an easing of the Israeli-imposed economic blockade. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated near the Rafah crossing on the border between Gaza and Egypt on Friday afternoon to protest its closure by Egypt. Israel worries that Hamas will exploit a period of calm to build up its strength, and most of the cabinet seems to be leaning toward the military option. But military officials have warned that large-scale action could cost many lives on both sides and prove indecisive. In Gaza, a spokesman for Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said that “Olmert’s threats are proof” that the United States has given “a green light to launch a new round in the war against Gaza.” Referring to a new corruption investigation against the Israeli prime minister, Mr. Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters that a large military operation would lead to Mr. Olmert’s downfall “not because of the scandals but because of the graves of his soldiers that will have to be dug.” In more tough talk in Israel on Friday, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister and minister of transportation, told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot that, “If Iran continues its program to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it.” Mr. Mofaz, a former defense minister and army chief, said that sanctions were not effective. He was the first senior member of the Israeli government to threaten Iran overtly. Earlier this week, the foreign minister and vice prime minister, Tzipi Livni, said it was important to keep a military option against Iran on the table. But she added that the clearer the point was made to Tehran, the smaller chance that force would have to be used. In Washington, the Bush administration’s spokeswoman, Dana Perino, when asked about Mr. Mofaz’s statement, said that while Israel’s security concerns were understandable, the United States was “trying to solve this diplomatically,” Reuters reported. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. An Israeli attack on Iran would be risky and difficult, according to experts here, because of the long distances involved, the need to hit multiple targets and the threat of retaliation, which some fear could include non-conventional terrorism. Mr. Mofaz is a candidate to replace Mr. Olmert at the helm of the ruling Kadima Party in the event the prime minister has to leave office. Earlier this week Mr. Mofaz took a hard line on the indirect talks now under way between Israel and Syria, rejecting the idea of returning the Golan Heights, a strategic territory Israel seized in the 1967 war, in return for a peace deal.
Australia's Rudd Defends Redeployment of Troops
By Ernesto Londoño BAGHDAD, June 2 -- On a day when a suicide bomber killed at least three Iraqi policemen, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defended Monday his decision to end his country's combat role in Iraq and accused his predecessor of misusing weak intelligence to join the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003. "Of most concern to this government was the manner in which the decision to go to war was made: the abuse of intelligence information, a failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of that intelligence," Rudd told the Australian Parliament, according to the Associated Press. Australia, one of the key members of the so-called coalition of the willing that took part in the invasion, on Sunday began redeploying its roughly 500 troops who remain in southern Iraq. A few hundred of the soldiers will stay in Iraq serving in noncombat roles, while others support the mission from other places in the Persian Gulf region. Rudd was elected in November on a promise to voters that he would order the withdrawal of combat troops by mid-2008. "We must learn from Australia's experience in the lead-up to going to war with Iraq and not repeat the same mistakes in the future," Rudd said. "This government does not believe that our alliance with the United States mandates automatic compliance with every element of the United States' foreign policy." White House press secretary Dana Perino, while noting she had not read Rudd's comments, said the invasion was based on intelligence that the entire world had, the Associated Press reported. "We acted based on a threat that was presented to us," Perino said at the White House. "Since then, we have learned that there was not WMD in Iraq," she said, referring to weapons of mass destruction. Former prime minister John Howard has consistently defended his decision to join in the invasion. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that he was "baffled" by Rudd's decision to withdraw the combat troops, saying he would have moved them instead into training roles. Howard sent elite Special Air Service troops, airplanes and warships to the region as part of the pre-invasion buildup in early 2003. The SAS forces were part of the first wave of troops that swept into Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and are said to have engaged in the very first firefight with Iraqi troops. Australian forces captured al-Asad Air Base west of Baghdad, securing more than 50 Iraqi aircraft hidden in camouflaged shelters. Coalition C-130 Hercules aircraft quickly began landing at the base. Australian forces have remained in Iraq ever since and have not suffered a single hostile-fire fatality under Australian command (one Australian died when a British transport plane was shot down), according to the Australian newspaper the Age. In world forums, Howard remained a strong ally and supporter of President Bush to the end of his term. In remarks aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in September, during a visit by Bush, Howard emphasized "that our commitment to Iraq remains, that the commitment, the level and the basis on which they stay there in cooperation with other members of the coalition will not change under a government that I lead." Also Monday, a suicide bomber killed at least three Iraqi policemen and wounded scores of civilians near Mosul, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The bomber targeted the policemen at approximately 7:15 p.m. in the Dawasa area, an Iraqi police official in Mosul said. The official said concrete barriers prevented the bomber from getting closer to a police station. A U.S. military spokesman said at least 35 Iraqi civilians were wounded by the explosion. The police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to speak to reporters, said at least two roadside bombs detonated in the city Monday. One killed a 44-year-old woman and the other injured two civilians. Special correspondents Dlovan Brwari in Mosul and Dalya Hassan and Zaid Sabah in Baghdad contributed to this report.
U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations By Karen DeYoung The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America's image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military's role in economic development in the region. AFRICOM, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them. Nonmilitary jobs, created within AFRICOM to highlight new cooperation between the Pentagon and the State Department, have been hard to fill and will initially total fewer than 50 of 1,300 headquarters personnel. Plans to broaden the military's more traditional overseas training and liaison responsibilities to include development and relief tasks were curbed after U.S.-funded aid groups sharply objected to working alongside troops. "I think in some respects we probably didn't do as good a job as we should have when we rolled out AFRICOM," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said recently, adding that "I wasn't there" when the command was conceived by his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and approved by President Bush. "I don't think we should push African governments to a place they don't really want to go in terms of relationships," Gates said. Planning for AFRICOM began in early 2006, when the Bush administration designated Africa an area of "strategic concern" and policymakers cited a number of "pre-conflict" situations there. Based on lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is deeply involved in civil affairs and economic development efforts, Africom was fashioned as a template for a new interagency structure that would coordinate "hard" and "soft" U.S. power. U.S. Agency for International Development personnel were assigned to AFRICOM, and a senior State Department diplomat was named one of two command deputies under Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward. Not only would AFRICOM help make Africa secure, Bush said when he unveiled it in February 2007, it would help promote "development, health, education, democracy and economic growth." Africa has always been an orphan in the U.S. defense establishment, divvied up among the Pentagon's four regional "Unified Combatant Commands" -- European, Central, Southern and Pacific -- that manage U.S. military relationships and operations overseas. Of the four, only EUCOM, established in post-World War II Germany, is based overseas. PACOM handles Asia from its headquarters in Hawaii; SOUTHCOM, responsible for Latin America, and CENTCOM, in charge of operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, are both in Florida. Under AFRICOM, one command will consolidate military responsibility for all of Africa, excluding Egypt. Although it encompasses the volatile Horn of Africa and the U.S. Navy's forward operating base in Djibouti and will take over training tasks on the continent, it has no other dedicated troop components. "There are very few scenarios which would create a U.S. military intervention" in Africa, said one AFRICOM officer who was not authorized to speak on the record. "Arguably, there are no scenarios." With its headquarters on the continent, liaison groups of 20 to 30 military personnel established in key countries and U.S. units brought in to help with development and relief tasks, the command was envisioned as an example to Africans of how their own armed forces and civilians could work together for the good of their nations. The trouble was, no one consulted the Africans. "Very little was really known by the majority of people or countries in Africa who were supposed to know before such a move was made," said retired Kenyan army Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande. Worry swept the continent that the United States planned major new military installations in Africa. "If you know the politics of Africa," said Opande, who has headed U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and Liberia, "you know there are certain very powerful countries who said, no, we are not interested in having a headquarters here." South Africa and Nigeria were among them, and their resistance helped persuade others. Over the past seven years, the administration has more than tripled U.S. assistance to Africa, to about $9 billion annually, nearly half of which is spent on prevention and treatment for HIV-AIDS. U.S. military training for African forces has steadily expanded, and U.S. troops have undertaken humanitarian missions in several countries -- digging wells, building schools and providing medical care. Africom's budget request for 2009 is about $400 million. But despite the promise of new development and security partnerships, many Africans concluded that AFRICOM was primarily an extension of U.S. counterterrorism policy, intended to keep an eye on Africa's large Muslim population. "I think everyone thought it would be widely greeted as something positive," the AFRICOM officer said. "But you suddenly have wide publics that have no idea what we're talking about. . . . It was seen as a massive infusion of military might onto a continent that was quite proud of having removed foreign powers from its soil." The United States "equates terrorism with Islam," senior Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat said, and few African governments wanted to be seen as inviting U.S. surveillance on their own people. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations African affairs subcommittee, thought AFRICOM was "something that would show real respect for Africa." But there was no question, Feingold said, that the concept had "a neocolonialist feel to it." The subject was at the top of African leaders' agendas when Bush visited in February. "The purpose of this is not to add military bases," he told reporters after meeting with Ghanian President John Kufuor. By Bush's own account, Kufuor confronted him, saying, "You're not going to build any bases in Ghana." Bush told reporters that the very idea of establishing such bases was "baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that's bull." At home, major U.S. nongovernmental aid organizations protested that what might work in the Iraq war zone -- where government civilian-military "provincial reconstruction teams" operate together under heavy security to build local governing capacity and infrastructure -- was ill-suited for non-conflict zones. Not only would a military presence draw unwanted attention and increased risk for development workers, they argued, the military had neither the training nor the staying power for effective development. "Is the face of America in Africa a baseball cap or a helmet?" asked Samuel A. Worthington, president of Interaction, the Washington-based umbrella for many development and relief organizations. "We told the military -- do what you're good at. Stay in your lane." Since last year's announcement, senior U.S. officials have been trying to make up for what they acknowledge was a bad beginning. There has been a "retooling" of the mission, the Africom officer said, away from development and toward "peacekeeper training, military education, a counterterrorism element -- programs that have been going on for some time." "I'll be candid with you: There was a misunderstanding of sorts," said Ward, AFRICOM's commander. African governments he has visited since his confirmation last fall, he said, wanted to know "were we going to be establishing large bases, bringing in large formations of troops, naval bases and air squadrons? My answer was no." To USAID and other U.S. government development partners, worried that the military's vast human and financial resources would overshadow them, Ward said he has explained that "we absolutely have no intention of being the leader in doing development on the continent of Africa. It is not our job, not our lane. We have no intention of taking over."
Cleric orders protest of pact with the U.S. Security deal to set terms for continued American presence Wednesday, May 28, 2008 4:18 AM
By Sudarsan Raghavan THE WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD -- Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged his followers yesterday to stage weekly protests to denounce a long-term security pact being negotiated between the United States and the Iraqi government. The agreement is designed to set the conditions for an extended American presence in Iraq after the withdrawal of the major portion of U.S. forces. Al-Sadr has long opposed the presence of any U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, and his Mahdi Army militia members have battled U.S. forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq. In a statement, al-Sadr ordered his followers to "demonstrate after every Friday prayer all over the country and until further notice or until this treaty is canceled." The statement followed last week's peaceful entry of thousands of Iraqi troops into the cleric's Baghdad stronghold, the Sadr City district. Al-Sadr's loyalists negotiated the entry, receiving assurances that U.S. forces would largely stay out of the sprawling Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad. Al-Sadr's statement also calls for any pact reached with the Americans to be put to a popular referendum in order to "collect millions of signatures rejecting the agreement." In the northern city of Mosul, a hub of Sunni insurgent activity, gunmen killed a police officer walking in a crowded market area, and a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in another neighborhood injured six civilians, police said. Near the town of Beiji, U.S. and Iraqi forces staged a raid yesterday on suspected Sunni insurgent hideouts, searching for two doctors kidnapped two weeks ago. Clashes erupted, leaving seven insurgents dead, said Maj. Mohammed al-Kaissi of the Beiji police. The police found some of the doctors' possessions, he added. Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded near a popular market in Tal Afar, in northern Iraq, killing four civilians and wounding 46 others, said the city's mayor, Maj. Gen. Najim Abdullah. The blast came hours after an al-Qaida in Iraq front group warned that insurgents would retaliate against U.S. and Iraqi forces, which began a crackdown nearly two weeks ago in Mosul. Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
Marines move into tough turf in AfghanistanFirefight welcomes platoon to Taliban country in the southBy Jason Straziuso The Associated Press 2:52 AM CDT, May 3, 2008 GARMSER, Afghanistan — Gunfire zings in near Sgt. Dan Linas' patrol, pinning his squad down against a dirt berm. The Marines peer across the field to their left, at three mud huts and a grove of trees | |||||||||
