A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
As U.S. military casualties mount in Afghanistan, a retired four-star Army general, who just returned from reviewing the six-plus-year war effort, said the country “is in misery” and describes the war as “a 25-year campaign.”
In a memo written for the Social Sciences Department at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 30, Barry McCaffrey, a division commander during the 1991 Gulf War and drug czar under President Bill Clinton, writes that there is “no unity of command,” either among U.S. and foreign coalition troops, or even among U.S. troops. Political and economic contributions to nation-building efforts are an additional source of disunity. Unity of command, in which all forces report to a single commander, is a basic principle of military strategy, without which military campaigns are rarely successful. McCaffrey writes that U.S. forces have two regional commands: European Command, which is also the NATO military command, and Central Command, which directs U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia. (Source: Washington Independent)
The Pentagon will send a one-star general to Afghanistan this fall as part of a politically parlous but determined effort by the US to assume greater control in the country’s troubled southern sector. It’s a small change to the complex command structure blamed for an ineffective counterinsurgency strategy that allowed the Taliban to stage a comeback. But the deployment of the commander may pave the way for the US to slowly begin taking over the southern sector’s military efforts as NATO’s role there diminishes over time. (Source: CSM)
A suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO convoy in Kabul on Monday, killing three civilians and wounding at least a dozen people. (Source: AP)
Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 25 Taliban insurgents and eight civilians after an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday. The issue of civilian casualties has led to a rift between Afghanistan and its Western allies with President Hamid Karzai saying Sunday that foreign airstrikes had only succeeded in killing ordinary Afghans and would not defeat the insurgency. The Taliban launched multiple ambushes on a patrol in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province Sunday, the U.S. military said in a statement. The militants “then fled into a neighboring compound where they held 11 non-combatants hostage, including several children and an infant,” it said. The insurgents then fired on the coalition forces from the compound and the troops called in an airstrike, but the statement said they did not know there were civilians in the building. (Source: Washington Post)
An infantryman described as a “Friendly Giant” was killed by Taliban artillery Monday at a remote outpost surrounded by grape fields in the hard-scrabble countryside west of Kandahar city. Master Corporal Erin Doyle, a member of the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton, perished at dawn in the type of assault that occurs daily in small, isolated combat stations. (Source: Globe and Mail)
Thirteen people were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb attack on an air force bus in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday. There was no claim of responsibility, but Islamist militants based on the Afghan border have been blamed for a series of attacks on security forces over the past year. The attack followed days of fighting, including air strikes, between militants and security forces in the Bajaur region, a militant hot spot north of Peshawar. About 150 militants, including a senior Al Qaeda member, have been killed. Tuesday’s blast took place on the outskirts of Peshawar, the provincial capital, when the bus drove over a bridge on its way to the city. (Source: IHT)
Muslim rebels said they were pulling back from a dozen of occupied southern Philippine villages Tuesday after government forces began retaking them amid fierce fighting that has forced nearly 160,000 civilians from their homes. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas for refusing to leave about 15 villages in the predominantly Christian province of North Cotabato and forcing residents to abandon their farms at harvest time. TV footage showed residents leaving with their precious water buffalos, used for plowing. They refugees described hurriedly leaving their homes at the sound of gunfire, with little time to pack their belongings. Most headed to about 40 government-run evacuation centers, while many others took refuge with relatives. Government figures showed 83 homes were burned, most in Aleosan town. (Source: AP)
Knife-wielding assailants attacked a road checkpoint in China’s troubled far west on Tuesday, killing three guards and raising the death toll to 31 from a surge in violence coinciding with the Beijing Olympics. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said an unknown number of attackers jumped from a vehicle at the checkpoint in Yamanya town in Muslim-dominated Xinjiang territory and stabbed four guards, three of whom died.
It was the third attack on government-linked guards this month in Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and where an Islamic militant separatist group operates. An officer at Yamanya town’s police post confirmed the three deaths.
(Source: AP)
Two Yemeni security officers and five suspected Al Qaeda militants died in a gunbattle Monday in a southern Yemeni town. Authorities also captured two suspected militants during the shootout, which took place in Tarim in Hadramawt province, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to journalists. The provincial governor, Ahmed al-Khanbashi, said earlier that troops surrounded a house and exchanged gunfire with men inside who were believed to be members of an Al Qaeda branch. He put the death toll at two militants and gave no further details. Residents of the town said shooting raged for about two hours and some armed men managed to escape. Last week, two grenades were thrown at a police convoy in the province’s capital, al-Mukalla, but caused no casualties. Earlier, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed a policeman in the Interior Ministry’s regional headquarters in Hadramawt. Al-Qaeda has an active presence in Yemen, which is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden. (Source: Washington Post)
Some of the 50 Islamic extremists from Germany who trained at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be plotting attacks in Germany, Joerg Ziercke, head of the country’s FBI equivalent, told the daily Tagesspiegel in an interview released Sunday. “In light of statements from al-Qaeda and (the Islamic Jihad Union) we are certain that a decision has been made to conduct attacks in Germany,” Ziercke said. Ziercke said a small number of the newly trained militants had already returned to Germany and are among some 100 suspected extremists under investigation by the federal crime office.
(Source: AP/MSNBC)
Iraq
Kenneth B. Gibson, who grew up in southwest Virginia, was remembered last night by someone who knew him as a child as sweet and outgoing. Gibson went on to become a sergeant in an Army infantry division, and Sunday he died in Tarmiyah, Iraq, the Pentagon said yesterday. Gibson, 25, died of wounds suffered when a makeshift bomb detonated near his position during dismounted operations. (Source: Washington Post)
A female suicide bomber struck an Iraqi army convoy carrying senior officials Tuesday in Baqouba, killing at least two people, the U.S. military said. It was the second suicide attack by a woman in Diyala’s provincial capital in as many days. The bombing also came a day after the Iraqi government announced a weeklong suspension of its military operations in the area north of Baghdad to give suspected insurgents time to surrender.
The woman was targeting the convoy as it carried an Iraqi commander and the provincial governor in the city center, but she was forced to detonate her explosives prematurely and missed the officials after guards noticed her suspicious behavior. Iraqi police initially said the bomber was a man. But the U.S. military in northern Iraq said American soldiers at the site had confirmed the attacker was a woman. The attack came a day after another female suicide bomber struck a market checkpoint in Baqouba, killing at least one policeman and wounding 14 other people, including nine officers. Elsewhere, U.S. soldiers captured nine suspected militants linked to what the military called an Iranian-backed group known as the Hezbollah Brigades in northern Baghdad on Monday and Tuesday. Tips indicated that one of those captured was believed to control at least one militant cell in the southern city of Basra and was involved in smuggling weapons and fighters across the Iranian border into Iraq. The military said the Hezbollah Brigades allegedly receives funding, logistics support and weapons from Iran along with “guidance or direction” from Iran’s elite Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guard. Tehran has denied U.S. allegations that it is support violent groups in Iraq. (Source: AP)
United States
North Korea missed its first chance yesterday to be removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist states, U.S. officials said, because it has not provided a way for international inspectors to verify claims about its nuclear program. President Bush said in June that the United States would begin the process of taking North Korea off its terrorism blacklist, and yesterday was the earliest that Pyongyang could have been removed. But U.S. officials said that North Korea has not followed through on allowing outside verification of its nuclear program, which the Bush administration has set as a condition for action. (Source: Washington Post)
Africa
A helicopter used by the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur was hit by gunfire Monday and forced to return to its airfield. U.N. spokesman Noureddine Mezni said it was not immediately clear who fired, damaging the rear of the aircraft and its radio. There were no casualties. Peacekeepers have frequently been attacked by armed gunmen. An ambush in July killed seven soldiers. The force took over peacekeeping duties in January from a beleaguered African Union-only force, but is operating with only about a third of its authorized 26,000 soldiers. It lacks any combat and rescue helicopters, possessing only 27 commercially-leased transport models. Fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million displaced. Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing janjaweed militias in a reign of terror against Darfur civilians. The government in Khartoum denies the allegation. (Source: Washington Post)
Mauritania’s ousted prime minister defiantly refused to recognize the African country’s ruling military junta Monday, after he was freed from house arrest under international pressure. Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef told a rally of several thousand people that the country would not accept last week’s bloodless coup that forced President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi from power. Abdallahi remains under arrest. Speaking just hours after his release, Waqef said the president was in good health and encouraged them to keep pushing to restore the government to power. “The president thanks you for your untiring fight, your strong fight to restore constitutional order,” he said. The rally was a significant show of support for the president, who rose to power last year as Mauritania’s first freely elected president in more than two decades. Soon after last Wednesday’s coup, only around 100 Abdallahi supporters gathered and were quickly dispersed by police firing tear gas. That same day, several thousand coup supporters marched with the coup leader, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. (Source: Washington Post)
Asia
Sri Lankan troops have killed 115 Tamil Tiger rebels in fighting since Friday, the military says. Seven soldiers also died, according to a spokesman, as government forces continued to advance into territory held by the rebels in the north. There is no word from the rebels on the claims, which cannot be independently verified as media access is barred. The United Nations says as many as 70,000 people have fled their homes in the area since the start of June. Thousands are sleeping rough in the open.
(Source: BBC)
Europe
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk dismissed the official leading talks with Washington on placing part of a U.S. missile defense system in the country, saying Monday his performance was not satisfactory. Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski had been the chief negotiator in talks with the U.S. over placing a missile interceptor base in northern Poland ever since they officially started early last year under a previous government. Waszczykowski, 51, who is on vacation outside Poland, refused to comment when contacted by phone about Tusk’s comments, saying he did not hear them and was not officially informed of his dismissal from his ministry position. Tusk said he dismissed Waszczykowski because “we were not satisfied with the way he led the negotiations, especially in the final stage.” Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski will assume the post, starting with talks this week in Warsaw. (Source: Washington Post)
Russia escalated its war in Georgia again Monday, sending troops and tanks out of friendly separatist enclaves to stage the first major invasion of undisputed Georgian territory. One armored column seized a town and major military base in the west of Georgia, while another menaced the central city of Gori. The Georgian government abandoned Gori and ordered its troops to fall back to defend against a possible drive on Tbilisi, the capital, 40 miles away. In scenes of chaos, retreating Georgian army trucks shared the highway to the capital with cars and pickups loaded with frightened civilians. Other vehicles, victims of Russian attacks, burned by the roadside. Georgian and Russian officials confirmed that Russian soldiers took over the western city of Senaki and its base, about 25 miles from Abkhazia, a disputed separatist zone where Russia has been massing troops in recent days. The seizure effectively opened a second front. There was confusion Monday night over the status of Gori, with some reports saying it was already in Russian hands. The country’s main east-west highway, which passes through the city, was cut, Georgian officials said, and rumors swirled among residents of the capital that Russian soldiers would soon be on their streets. In Washington, President Bush toughened his rhetoric. “Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century,” Bush said. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used sharp language as well, accusing the West of supporting Georgian leaders who he contends committed genocide when their troops swept into the separatist zone of South Ossetia last week. The soldiers wiped out 10 villages, Putin said. “The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing,” he declared. Putin also condemned the United States for airlifting Georgian troops home from Iraq on an emergency basis. Still dressed in desert fatigues, the Georgian soldiers stepped off a U.S. Air Force transport at a Georgian airport Monday. Moscow’s intentions remained a mystery. Russian soldiers, riding tanks and armored personnel carriers, were on the move even as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seemed to suggest that the military operation was nearing its end, and a Russian general said there was no plan to take territory outside Georgia’s two pro-Russian separatist zones. Senior European officials flew into the Georgian capital to try to mediate a cease-fire plan that so far the Russians have ignored. Over the weekend, Georgian leaders declared a unilateral cease-fire. But with Russian troops operating outside the country’s two separatist zones on soil the central government has always controlled, at least some Georgian forces were again in combat mode. Reporters witnessed Georgian troops and six helicopter gunships opening fire near the border of South Ossetia, one of the zones. Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s and have formed close relations with Russia. Last week, Georgian forces launched a major offensive that captured the South Ossetian capital in an effort to reestablish central government control; Russian forces drove them out two days later. The Russian claims of atrocities have not been independently verified. Some of them appear to echo hearsay accounts provided on Russian television by South Ossetians who fled a Georgian military assault on the capital, Tskhinvali. Some of the few reporters who have visited Tskhinvali described a devastated city with large numbers of dead. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said in a CNN interview Monday that 2,000 people had died in South Ossetia during the recent Georgian offensive. (Source: Washington Post)
Middle East
Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghsain said Monday that Egypt was responsible for the deaths of eight Palestinians when it used water, gas and explosives to seal a network of tunnels under its border with Gaza. Three Palestinians were crushed to death on Monday when their tunnel collapsed; five others suffocated on August 1. (Source: Reuters)
In a statement issued Sunday, Hamas renewed its categorical rejection of the entry of foreign or Arab forces into the West Bank or Gaza, after statements to this effect were made “by the American man [PA Prime Minister] Salam Fayad.” (Source: Hamas-Gaza)
Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket on Monday afternoon that landed near a kindergarten in the Israeli town of Sderot. The “Color Red” rocket alert sirens sounded throughout the town and neighboring communities moments before the impact. Despite a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, intermittent rocket and mortar fire has been recorded every few days. (Source: Ynet News)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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