A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
An explosion targeting international troops on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killed three members of the U.S.-led coalition Thursday. The coalition did not release any details about the attack, including the troops’ nationalities or the location of the blast. American forces make up the vast majority of the coalition, which includes special forces units and soldiers who train Afghan army and police forces.
The 40-nation NATO-led force operates under a separate command. Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency. The last three months have been the deadliest for international troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. led invasion. (Source: AP)
A 40-year-old Briton was among three women aid workers killed yesterday in an ambush by Taleban gunmen in one of the worst attacks on foreign civilians in Afghanistan in recent years. The body of Jacqueline Kirk and the two other women, as well as their Afghan driver, were found riddled with bullets in the province of Logar, about 50kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, Kabul. The women were travelling from the eastern city of Gardez to Kabul in two vehicles when they were attacked by five gunmen on a road near the town of Pul-i-Alam. A second driver was critically wounded but survived. Agencies say that there has been a sharp rise in attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan; 84 incidents have been reported already this year. Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taleban spokesman, admitted responsibility for yesterday’s attack but claimed that the vehicle was carrying military personnel, “most of them female”. (Source: The Times-UK)
A homemade bomb hurt a would-be attacker in the Philippines on Thursday while another device was defused at a southern bus terminal in what the military suggested was retaliation from Muslim rebels for a recent government offensive. The mayor of M’lang town said an explosive device, concealed in a milk carton, went off prematurely at a public market, slightly wounding the man carrying it. The man was arrested and allegedly admitted to being a member of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front who wanted to “sow terror.” (Source: AP)
Iraq
Iraqi police say at least 15 people have been killed and 40 wounded when a female suicide bomber blew herself up among Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad. Police spokesman Captain Muthanna Khalid says the woman detonated her explosives belt in Iskandariyah. The city is a former Sunni insurgent stronghold that has seen a sharp decline in violence after local tribal leaders joined forces with the Americans against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Shiite pilgrims have faced a series of attacks Thursday as they headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. Two roadside bombs went off Thursday in separate Baghdad locations, killing a Shiite pilgrim and a policeman and wounding 16 people, most of them Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. The first bomb, in the southeastern district of Zafaraniyah, killed the policeman and wounded nine others, six pilgrims and three policemen. The second, in the central Alwiya district, killed one pilgrim and wounded seven, all males in their late teens and early 20s. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Shabaniyah festival, which climaxes over the weekend, marks the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th Shiite imam, who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony. Shiite religious festivals have often been targeted by militants from Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country’s deadliest Sunni terror group. In other incidents Thursday, three policemen were killed and six others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near Buhriz, a town about 35 miles north of Baghdad in the turbulent Diyala province, according to the provincial joint operations center. Farther north, in the city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead an off-duty policeman and army soldier in separate incidents. (Source: AP)
United States
The Polish prime minister says that Poland and the U.S. have reached an agreement that will see a battery of American missiles established inside Poland, a plan that has infuriated Russia and raised the specter of an escalation of tension with the country. Donald Tusk, speaking in a televised interview from the capital, said Thursday that the U.S. agreed to Polish proposals that it help augment its defenses in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors. The deal has been reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations between the two countries. Its conclusion carries an especially symbolic weight in the aftermath of Russia’s incursion into Georgia in recent days. (Source: AP)
Libya and the U.S. settled all outstanding lawsuits by American victims of terrorism on Thursday, clearing the way for the full restoration of diplomatic relations. There were 26 pending lawsuits filed by American citizens against Libya for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and other attacks, said a senior Libyan government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the deal had not been publicly announced. He said there were also three outstanding lawsuits filed by Libyan citizens for U.S. airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 that Libyans say killed 41 people, including leader Moammar Gadhafi’s adopted daughter.
(Source: AP)
Africa
Officials briefly confiscated the passports of Zimbabwe’s top opposition leader and two aides as they tried to fly to South Africa Thursday to attend a regional summit. The seizure kept the three from flying Thursday, but opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, his secretary general Tendai Biti and a third Movement for Democratic Change official still have time to get to the weekend summit of the Southern African Development Community. “They have confiscated my passport,” Tsvangirai told The Associated Press as he left the airport. Shortly afterward, party official Nqobizitha Mlilo said the passports had been returned. Attempts to reach Zimbabwean government officials for comment were not immediately successful. In South Africa, presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said South African officials appealed to Zimbabwean officials to allow the opposition team attend the summit. (Source: AP)
Americas
The switch by Taliban insurgents to spectacular attacks, including the daylight murders of international aid workers that left two Canadians among the dead, has shattered Afghans’ confidence in the international community and the Afghan government’s ability to provide basic security, says a top Canadian adviser to President Hamid Karzai. Retired colonel Mike Capstick returned 10 days ago from Kabul, where he worked on a British-led counter-narcotics project with Karzai’s government. In an interview, Capstick gave a grim assessment of the latest developments in Afghanistan, saying there is a sense of growing insecurity in the country. (Source: The Star)
Omar Khadr’s defence team pushed the U.S. military commission here yesterday to allow expert testimony that could throw into doubt confessions made by juvenile defendants. The lawyers also want to use the request as a wedge to allow independent psychologists to interview Khadr, who so far has been assessed only by government psychologists who, the defence contends, wanted to manipulate Khadr in order to extract information from him. The tactic will probe the extent to which the military commission is prepared to grant certain requests to Khadr’s legal team based on his age, 15, at the time he was captured. Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler, Khadr’s U.S. military defence lawyer, asked the court to allow the defence to introduce testimony from an expert on false confessions made by juveniles, a request the government doesn’t appear to oppose. (Source: Globe and Mail)
Asia
A wave of battles across the front lines in Sri Lanka’s 25-year-old civil war killed 14 ethnic Tamil rebels and two government soldiers, the military said Thursday. Government jets hit a series of Tamil Tiger targets in the Mullaittivu region early Thursday in support of troops fighting on the ground, the military said in a statement.
Fighting has escalated in recent weeks, with the military capturing a series of rebel bases and large chunks of territory, and government officials reiterating their pledge to crush the rebel group by the end of the year. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that tens of thousands of people were displaced by recent fighting, most of them heading deeper into rebel-held territory. Some were forced to abandon their homes repeatedly in recent months. (Source: AP)
Europe
A fire that killed two sailors aboard a nuclear-powered submarine as it patrolled beneath the Arctic ice was caused by a catalogue of errors that could have been avoided, the Ministry of Defence admitted yesterday. Paul McCann, 32, and Anthony Huntrod, 20, died when a unit used to provide extra oxygen exploded aboard HMS Tireless in March last year. Yesterday, a board of inquiry report detailed failures in the “acquisition, manufacture, transport, storage, stowage and logistics management” of the units. The armed forces minister, Bob Ainsworth, apologized “unreservedly” to the men’s families. (Source: Globe and Mail)
Rapid advances in neuroscience could have a dramatic impact on national security and the way in which future wars are fought, U.S. intelligence officials have been told. In a report commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, leading scientists were asked to examine how a greater understanding of the brain over the next 20 years is likely to drive the development of new medicines and technologies. They found several areas in which progress could have a profound impact, including behaviour-altering drugs, scanners that can interpret a person’s state of mind and devices capable of boosting senses such as hearing and vision. On the battlefield, bullets may be replaced with “pharmacological land mines” that release drugs to incapacitate soldiers on contact, while scanners and other electronic devices could be developed to identify suspects from their brain activity and even disrupt their ability to tell lies when questioned. (Source: Guardian)
Russia has thrown down a gauntlet to the United States, challenging President George W Bush to “choose” between Washington’s relationship with Georgia and its future ties with Moscow. In what appeared to be calculated defiance of the U.S. and the European Union, which mediated a ceasefire deal struck less than 24 hours earlier, Moscow earlier sent its forces to occupy the Georgian town of Gori, just 50 miles from the capital Tbilisi. Commanders say they will remain there until Saturday. After an E.U. foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: “Russian incursions into Georgia from South Ossetia or from Abkhazia are contrary to international law. But following Bush’s offer of humanitarian aid, he claimed that Georgia’s ports and airports would be placed under US military protection, a suggestion quickly denied by the Pentagon. Russian forces on Wednesday entered the main port at Poti and detonated explosives on three Georgian patrol vessels. In and around Gori, several reports suggested Russian forces backed by South Ossetian militias were engaged in looting and violence, but Moscow denied the claims. As Russia extended its grip in the north of the country, about 70 military vehicles left Gori, heading towards Tbilisi, but the column later halted its advance. Russia’s foreign ministry said its forces were securing weapons and army bases abandoned by the US-equipped and trained Georgian army. The ceasefire brokered by the EU on Tuesday called for Russian and Georgian forces to return to positions they occupied before hostilities began, obliging Russian troops to withdraw to from Georgian territory beyond the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But though President Dmitri Medvedev officially signed up to the deal in Moscow, Russian forces on the ground appeared bent on crippling Georgia’s military capabilities for years to come. Apart from taking control of Georgian bases and securing weapons around Gori, Russian forces also struck at Georgian navy vessels, surveillance drones and radar stations. Georgian forces also appeared to have been routed from Abkhazia, the country’s other breakaway zone, which lies on the Black Sea coast. There, separatist forces took full control as Georgian forces pulled out of the strategic Kodori Gorge, their last remaining foothold in the region. They reportedly hoisted their colours within Georgian territory beyond Abkhazia, taunting Tblisi by saying that retreating Georgian soldiers had received “American training in running away”. Lightly armed Georgian forces have apparently drawn a new front line about 40 miles north of Tbilisi, promising to defend the capital from any further southwards Russian advance. But Medvedev insisted that Russian offensive operations were over, with Lavrov and his Georgian counterpart Eka Tkeshelashvili working on “the practical implementation” of the ceasefire. (The Telegraph-UK)
Middle East
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Gaza last week showed off what they said was a new rocket, called the Nasser-4, which can travel 25 km. (16 miles) double the range of the existing Nasser-3. If true, larger Israeli cities like Ashkelon and Ashdod would be under threat of attack. Israel says the rockets would represent a violation of the six-month Egyptian-brokered truce reached in June. “If the cease-fire is just a front for extremists in Gaza to rearm and regroup, of course we have the right to act,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN. “Any arms buildup is a direct violation of the calm that was achieved.” CNN was the only Western news organization to take part in the tour of the PRC rocket factory. Inside the “factory” a tiny room with rockets lining the walls, masked men tried to light a fire from a gas canister in order to heat the explosives to liquefy them so that they could be poured into the shells. But first, the lighter didn’t work. Then, a leak in a canister filled the room with suffocating gas. Explosions, euphemistically called “workplace accidents,” occur in Gaza from time to time. (Source: CNN)
Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on Wednesday detained a Palestinian at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus in the West Bank, after he was found to be carrying two pipe bombs. The bombs were detonated by military sappers. Over the past few years the IDF has thwarted numerous attempts to smuggle explosives and weapons through the Hawara checkpoint. (Source: Ynet News)
Lebanon’s fragile status quo suffered a new blow yesterday when a bomb killed 18 people in the northern city of Tripoli, the scene of recent sectarian clashes. The blast came just before President Michel Suleiman left for a landmark visit to Syria, where the two neighbors finally agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations, and a day after Beirut’s new national unity government won a parliamentary vote of confidence after weeks of stormy debates. Ten of the dead were soldiers and 30 other people were wounded by the remote-controlled bomb at a bus stop in a busy shopping street. A baby and an eight-year-old shoeshine boy were among the dead. No claim of responsibility was made, but suspicion fell on Fatah al-Islam, an extremist Sunni group with links to al-Qaida that fought the Lebanese army for three months last year they had vowed revenge against the army’s then commander, who is now the president. Suleiman condemned the “terrorist crime” before leaving for Damascus, where his talks with President Bashar al-Assad were billed as the start of a new era, following the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005 after nearly three decades of military domination of its “sister” nation. That withdrawal was triggered by outrage over the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, in a Beirut bomb blast in which Syria has consistently denied charges of involvement. Yesterday’s Tripoli attack was a bloody beginning for the new 30-member cabinet, led by the prime minister, Fuad Siniora, which was formed last month with the participation of the Iranian-backed Shia movement Hizbullah, after a long crisis that descended into street violence that killed 65 people in May. (The Guardian-UK)
IDF forces shot and wounded an armed man who crossed from Syria into the Golan Heights on Wednesday. The infiltrator was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment. (Source: Ynet News)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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