Peace Like A River

Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 19, 2009 (1:08 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 19 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • NY Times – President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president.
  • UK MoD – Training exercises on the Canadian prairie drew to a spectacular close this year with a full-scale attack on the impressive Afghan-style village of Hettar
  • RIA Novosti - Belarus will be able to extract natural gas at gas fields in Venezuela, the Venezuelan ambassador to the ex-Soviet republic said on Wednesday.
  • Press TV – The Iranian minister of industries and mines says Iran plans to produce 16,000 vehicles at its Venezuelan car plant in the coming year.
  • ISN – The reach of Mexican drug trafficking organizations in South America reveals not only the vast extent of their power, but also the need for focused international cooperation and intelligence sharing, Eliot Brockner comments for ISN Security Watch
  • El Universal – The Brazilian Senate adjourned one more time voting the adhesion protocol of Venezuela to Mercosur, initially scheduled for Wednesday in Brasilia.
  • Miami Herald – Colombia’s police director says the son of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar was directly involved in cartel business, even killings, rejecting the denials of a man whose reappearance is creating a sensation in Colombia 16 years after his father’s death.
  • Prensa Latina – The US government ratified Wednesday that it would keep on with the military agreement with Colombia despite the rejection provoked in the region.
  • Columbia Reports – The FARC proposed that inhabitants along the Colombia-Venezuela border form ‘anti-imperialism committees’ to fight against Colombia’s military pact with the U.S., which they see as an imperialist attack on the region.
  • IRIB – An official of IRI Trade Expansion Organization said Iran’s overall export to Brazil had increased eighteen times in the last six years. Muhammad Reza Izadian said Iran’s total exports to Brazil, estimated at three million dollars in 2002, had raeched to 54 million dollars in 2008.
  • McClatchy – Burgeoning trade between Latin America and China is spurring Chinese banks to step up their focus on the region, a panel of representatives from three Chinese banks said.
  • MercoPress – Israel President Shimon Peres predicted on his last day tour of Argentina and Brazil that the people of Venezuela and Iran will make their leaders disappear before too long.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • RIA Novosti – There is no reason for NATO to be concerned over recent Russian-Belarusian large-scale military drills near Poland, Russia’s envoy to the alliance said on Wednesday. NATO spokesman James Appathurai earlier told reporters that ambassadors from 28 NATO countries had voiced concern over the size and the scenario of the Zapad 2009 exercise, which involved some 13,000 personnel. Polish media reports claimed Russia and Belarus had simulated nuclear strikes on Poland during the war games.
  • RIA Novosti – Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) conducted a total of 11 large-scale exercises and two test launches of strategic missiles in 2009, the SMF said on Wednesday.
  • Xinhua – Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) will put into service a second regiment equipped with mobile Topol-M missile systems by the end of this year, Russian news agencies quoted the SMF commander as saying on Wednesday
  • Civil Georgia – Georgian Senior Officials Meet NATO Chief
  • Itar Tass – NATO will assess in December the progress reached by Ukraine and Georgia on the way towards a membership action plan (MAP).
  • Caucasian Knot – Today in Moscow militiamen have detained Dmitri Steshin, a correspondent of the politics division of the “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, who investigated the murder of advocate Stanislav Markelov and journalists Anastasia Baburova
  • Prague Watchdog – It appears that the new “czar” for the North Caucasus will be primarily a governor-general. The question of who will take up the new post is less important than the fact that it has been created at all.
  • Fariz Ismailzade – The small-volume contracts signed with Iran and Russia are insufficient to solve Azerbaijan’s export route problems. But perhaps, they might send the necessary signal to Ankara that Baku does have other export options. It would sour relations between the two fraternal countries if eventually, as a result of the Turkish-Azeri disagreement, Azeri gas reaches Europe via Russia or more realistically via a Russian-Turkish pipeline, but at a much higher price for Turkey than what Azerbaijan currently offers.
  • Reuters – The United States urged Turkmenistan on Tuesday to allow its companies to invest in onshore Turkmen gas deposits including South Iolotan, a giant field seen as a key future source of Caspian energy.

Middle East

  • Xinhua – Iraq and France have reached several “important” pacts on ordnance and defense personnel exchange, the visiting Iraqi Defense Minister Abdelkader Jassem al-Obeidi announced Wednesday.
  • Voices of Iraq – Iraqi police forces in Diala on Wednesday arrested province two Iranians who entered Iraq illegally. “The arrests took place today in the Nida area of the province, around 155 km southeast of Baaquba,” a police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
  • NOW Lebanon – Government Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged 10 Fatah al-Islam members – three Lebanese nationals and seven Palestinians – with forming an armed gang aimed at plotting and executing terrorist attacks, monitoring UNIFIL’s activity as well as forging money and identification cards.
  • SANA – President Bashar al-Assad inaugurated on Wednesday the South Central Area’s gas plant and the first stage of the Arab Gas Line project in Homs. President al-Assad toured the various sections of the project. The President then held a meeting with head of the Syrian-Russian Higher Committee, Russian Minister of Communication Igor Schegolev and the Director of the Russian Stroy Trans Gas company.
  • Hurriyet -  Another taboo of Turkey’s Republican history is about to be broken with the publication of a book by Hasan Saltuk on the 1938 Dersim Operation. The official historical sources say the 1938 operation in Dersim, now called Tunceli, was implemented to quash a Kurdish tribal rebellion.
  • Jerusalem Post – The deployment of the Saudi army along the Yemeni border has significantly impeded the cross-border smuggling of qat, a plant used widely as a stimulant, causing its price to triple and dealing a significant blow to the local economy. A local smuggler told the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat that the same quantity of qat that was previously sold in Saudi Arabia for 100 rials was now going for 300 rials because of the added danger smugglers were facing.
  • Press TV – The Yemeni army claims to have killed two senior Houthi commanders in a fresh round of clashes between the government forces and the Shia fighters
  • MEMRI – Yahya al-Houthi, one of the leaders of the Houthi rebels in Yemen has posted online a statement welcoming “the honorable Islamic and humanitarian position of the Majlis that has condemned the Saudi aggression against our Yemeni people and our dear homeland, and we thank them for their honorable attitude that has been absent among the Arab relatives.”
  • Mark Katz, MESH – Whither Yemen? There has been much press coverage about how the Saleh regime in Yemen is facing important security challenges.
  • Saba – Subversive elements of the fans of the Southern anti-government Movement have kidnapped a fuel truck on in the district of al-Habilain, Lahj, local sources said to 26 Sep.net. The sources affirmed that the truck, Mercedes, was taken under gun threat in the highway, an attack that comes amid escalation by the movement whose fans continue to attack the people and their properties and impose on the citizens in the district illegal fees

Iran

  • RFERL – Iran’s foreign minister was quoted today as saying that Tehran would not send its enriched uranium abroad for further processing but would consider swapping it for nuclear fuel within its borders.
  • ISNA – Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says Bushehr nuclear power plant will start preliminary stages in a few next months, said an Iranian parliamentarian.
  • Loghman Ahmedi – Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has arrested the Kurdish activist Habibolah Ismaili in the Kurdish city of Mehabad. Ismaili who is originally from the Kurdish city of Sine (Sanandj) was arrested on charges of supporting a Kurdish opposition party
  • Mehr – Majlis Energy Committee Chairman Hamid-Reza Katouzian has said that the case of the missing $1 billion in oil revenues must be investigated more thoroughly
  • Times – The West intends to use Iran’s planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry as part of a new wave of sanctions to punish Tehran and bypass objections at the UN.
  • Fars – A member of the Iranian parliament on Wednesday announced that Turkey is seeking to deliver Iran’s natural gas to the EU via the Nabucco gas pipeline.
  • Payvand – Photos: The Colorful Autumn, Chaharmahal o Bakhtiyari, Iran

South Asia

  • Asia Times – Every day, trucks carry diesel from Turkmenistan to the Afghan capital, Kabul, where some of the fuel is used in electricity power stations. Influential people are making a lot of money from the venture, which is financed by American tax dollars and is part of a fine-tuned system of nepotism and corruption that works a treat. It is not about to change.
  • AFPS – A combined force killed several enemy militants in Khost province, including a Haqqani terrorist involved with attacks in the area. In Helmand province, a combined force killed several enemy militants and detained a group of suspected militants while searching for a Taliban commander responsible for assassinations and other attacks in the area.
  • Pentagon – Sgt. Brandon Islip has been unaccounted for since Nov. 4 in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan, when he went missing while involved in a resupply mission. Sgt. Benjamin  Sherman has been identified as having been killed while participating in the Nov. 4 resupply mission
  • MSNBC – The Afghan minister of mines accepted a roughly $30 million bribe to award the country’s largest development project to a Chinese mining firm, according to a U.S. official who is familiar with military intelligence reports
  • Javno – At least four militants were killed and five others wounded in a US drone missile strike in Pakistan’s tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said Thursday.
  • Mukhtar Khan – The Hunt for Pakistan’s Most Wanted Terrorists (from last week)
  • Geo – Interior minister Rehamn Malik stated that Pakistan challenges Fazalullah’s presence in Afghanistan, Geo News reports Wednesday. The federal minister said, “In case Afghan Government knows where Fazlullah is hiding they should apprehend and hand him over to Pakistan.” Rehman Malik said, “Terrorists travel from Kanter area”, while talking to a gathering at Police lines, Islamabad. He said that investigations are being carried out on Afghan SIM being used in Pakistan
  • The News – Twenty-four militants surrendered to security forces while a huge quantity of weapons was seized during a search operation in Charmang area of Bajaur’s Nawagai Tehsil on Tuesday. The militants, belonging to Shaida Shah, Asghar and Manogi areas in Charmang valley, laid down arms and surrendered to security forces during a Jirga.
  • Dawn – Punjab’s chief minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday said India is involved in disrupting peace in Balochistan and Waziristan and that there is evidence available in this regard.
  • Times of India – The defence ministry has asked the Army to hasten inquiry into a land scam in Darjeeling in which three Lt Generals, including deputy chief of staff-designate Lt Gen P K Rath, are under a cloud of suspicion
  • TamilNet – Norway is up to appease Colombo as the Tamil Tigers are out of the picture and the only way to do this is abetting Colombo’s discrimination of Tamils in the line of Iran, Burma and China, writes Professor Øivind Fuglerud of the University of Oslo adding that a revealing cue comes from Norway insensitively sponsoring a Buddhist organisation to conduct a music festival on 27th November in Galle, timed to humiliate Tamils on the Heroes’ Day. Norway sat silently like a mouse in the final phase of the war. Now its humanitarian aid helps the internment camps of captivity and death
Amphibious assault ship USS Essex arrives at White Beach, Okinawa

Amphibious assault ship USS Essex arrives at White Beach, Okinawa after participating in ANNUALEX 21G, a bilateral annual exercise with the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force. (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Geronimo Aquino)

Far East & Pacific

  • Bangkok Post – Cambodia has a taped conversation of Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ordering the first secretary of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh to get former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s flight plan for the Thai government, Puea Thai MP Jatuporn Promphan said on Wednesday.
  • Radio Free Asia – North Korea built hundreds of bunkers at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating it from South Korea even as the previous Seoul government pursued its policy of opening to the North, according to a well-informed defector. Pyongyang built at least 800 bunkers, including an unknown number of decoys, to prepare for a possible invasion of South Korea while the late South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun was in office, he said.
  • Xinhua – Senior military officials of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) said they would enhance relations between the two armed forces here on Wednesday.
  • news.com.au – The last of the asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking have finally disembarked, taking pressure off the Prime Minister as he continues to face questions about the deal offered to the group. After more than four weeks aboard the Australian Customs vessel, and 30 days anchored off the island of Bintan, the 56 remaining asylum seekers were handed over to Indonesian authorities today.
  • Irrawaddy – About 50 traditional hand-dug oil wells and 10 acres of land were confiscated on Nov. 14 by the Burmese authorities in Kyuakphyu Township in Arakan State in western Burma, according to local sources. One Korean and two Chinese oil companies operate in Arakan State: China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS).
  • CBS – Islamic authorities charged a popular Muslim scholar Wednesday with delivering an illegal lecture in what critics considered an attempt by conservative clerics to silence one of Malaysia’s most progressive preachers.

Europe

  • Russia Today – Russia and the EU – a short history and the current summit
  • Times – The Royal Navy will only be able to “guarantee” continuous deterrent patrols with Trident ballistic-missile submarines if the Government agrees to keep four boats, the head of the Royal Navy sai
  • Military.com – Germany’s cabinet decided today to extend by one year the mandate for its unpopular military mission in Afghanistan, government sources told AFP
  • Radio Sweden – A 40-year old Finnish citizen of North African descent was sent back to Finland last year, on suspicion of terrorist leanings. Prior to being ordered to leave he was held in custody in Sweden for five months. The man has now contacted Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat, saying he is innocent and that he has appealed the Swedish ruling to the European Court of Human Rights
  • euobserver – Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, a leading candidate to win the presidency of the European Council, is strongly opposed to Turkey ever joining the European Union.
  • Prague Monitor – The Czech police detained 48 people in connection with Tuesday’s events staged by (neo-Nazi) extremists, 32 of whom are suspected of the crime of attack on a public official or damaging other’s property, Prague police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova has told CTK.
  • IslamOnline – Amid growing demand from Muslims and non-Muslims alike, halal food is quickly becoming mainstream in Europe with more supermarket chains offering the Shari’ah-complaint food.

Africa

  • CSM – The latest threats to Uganda and Burundi are not the first time Al Shabab has vowed to attack Somalia’s regional neighbors. The group has already declared jihad – or holy war – against Ethiopia and threatened to attack Kenya, though has been unable to do anything in either country. Al Shabab may have more capacity to cause trouble in Burundi or Uganadi, since it has dozens of potential havens within the large Somali communities in both nations.
  • Garowe – At least 4 people are reportedly killed and 5 others including a journalist are injured in heavy clashes between insurgents and Somali government forces backed by African Union troops in the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses said.
  • Shabelle – heavy clash between the Somali pirates has flared up in Harar – dere town, a stronghold of Somali pirates in the Mudug region, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Wednesday.
  • France24 – Forty-seven people were killed in ethnic clashes in south Sudan’s Lakes state region, a military spokesman said on Wednesday. Mundari ethnic gunmen launched an attack on two Dinka Aliab villages in the Bulok area of Awerial county on Monday, said Major General Kuol Deim Kuol, spokesman for southern Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).
  • Al Arabiya – Algeria became the only Arab team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup after a 1-0 win over Egypt in the qualifying play-off match in Sudan, where security was tight as thousands of fans packed the stadium to watch the tense match between the two teams that have a long history of football rivalry.
  • Sudan Tribune – The Egyptian government is dispatching special forces to Sudan to evacuate its soccer claiming to be targeted by Algerians in the capital, the Egyptian ambassador to Sudan said today.
  • BBC – The authorities in the Comoros Islands have arrested prominent opposition leader Said Larifou. The Ridja party leader was detained on Tuesday after he criticised President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi at a rally over the weekend.
interment ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery

Two high-ranking military members salute as the U.S. Army Ceremonial Honor Guard prepares the flags to present to family members of a World War ll B-25 crew during an interment ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Nov. 17, 2009. The B-25 crew was lost on Dec. 5, 1942, near Papua, New Guinea, and the ceremony honored seven of its members. (photo by Petty Officer William Selby)

The Global War

  • Anoushka Kurkjian, Chatham House – Iran, Israel and Hizbollah: Stark Choices
  • US Army – In the future, Soldiers should be able to access the Army’s global network anywhere in the world using capabilities similar to a Blackberry or iPhone, said the Army’s chief information officer.

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Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 18, 2009 (12:49 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 18 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • NY Times – President Obama made a big effort Tuesday at presenting his first visit to China as a step forward in America’s evolving relationship with its fastest rising competitor. But what emerged after six hours of meetings, two dinners, and a stilted 30-minute presentation to the press in which Chinese President Hu Jintao would not allow questions, was a picture of a China more willing to say no to the United States.
  • US Senate Cmte on Foreign Relations – Examining US Counterterrorism Priorities and Strategy Across Africa’s Sahel Region
  • National Post – Counterterrorism officials are investigating a group of youths who allegedly left Canada for East Africa two weeks ago, amid concerns they may have gone to join the Somali militant group Al-Shabab.
  • Press Trust – Aiming to give a major push to their ties, India and Canada today signed an energy pact and decided to ink a civil nuclear agreement and undertake a feasibility study for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
  • El Universal – China’s third-biggest steelmaker Wuhan Iron & Steel Group (Wisco) signed a long-term iron ore contract with Venezuela’s state-run company Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), announced on Tuesday the official Chinese newspaper China Daily.
  • Xinhua – China and Brazil vowed to advance military relations to a new high as senior officials from both countries met here Tuesday.
  • MercoPress – The Brazilian Federal Police announced that beginning December an unmanned “spy” aircraft will over-fly the shanty towns of Rio do Janeiro at a height of 7.000 metres, well out of range from the drug gangs and trades that last week shot down a police helicopter killing three men on board.
  • Prensa Latina – Bolivia, China to Sign Satellite Agreement; An interministerial commission will travel to China next November 23 to discuss technical issues related to the first telecommunication satellite’’s construction in that South American country, which will named Túpac Katari.
  • COHA – A Grey Goldmine: Recent Developments in Lithium Extraction in Bolivia and Alternative Energy Projects
  • Columbia Reports – The commander of a FARC column in the south of Colombia is held responsible for the killings of twelve people in the past three weeks. Authorities say the murders are to avenge the death of the commander’s boyfriend. The killings all occured in the south of the central-west Tolima department that has seen intense fighting for years and is considered a FARC stronghold because of its mountainous south.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • RIA Novosti – Russia is close to finishing the construction of Iran’s first nuclear power plant and is currently making final adjustments, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said on Tuesday.
  • Xinhua – Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi announced Tuesday it would supply the newest Su-35S fighters to the Russian Defense Ministry from next year.
  • Nosint – Russia’s plan to supply Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighter jets will enter its final phase soon, the Beirut-based Al-Markazia news agency reported
  • RFERL – An antifascist campaigner has been shot dead in Moscow, investigators said, in what a fellow activist said may have been revenge for the arrests of ultranationalists earlier this month.
  • UPI -  Construction of the first drilling rig for the Shtokman gas and condensate field in the Barents Sea is slated for the fourth quarter of 2010, Gazprom said.
  • The National – Much, however, remains rotten in the North Caucasus, and in what some see as a tacit admission of the severe shortcomings Mr Putin’s strategy in the region, his successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, has decried the rampant violence and corruption there and pledged a renewed effort to bring tranquillity to the conflict-scarred region. In his annual state-of-the-nation speech last week, Mr Medvedev called the situation in the North Caucasus – home to other restive, primarily Muslim, republics such as Dagestan and Ingushetia – the “most serious domestic political problem” facing Russia today.
  • EurasiaNet – Amid a diplomatic chill, Azerbaijan and Turkey opened a new round of talks November 16 on an energy export price. Recent agreements on gas supplies to Bulgaria, Iran and Russia suggest that Baku is exploring alternative export routes as a means to pressure Ankara into paying significantly more for Azerbaijani natural gas.
  • SRI – Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources approved Canada-based Uranium One’s acquisition of a 50-percent interest in the Karatau uranium venture from Russia’s Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ).
  • Russia Today – Tajikistan and Russia: partnership for stability in Central Asia; Russia’s Central Asian neighbor shares many of Moscow’s same concerns, and this has helped to forge a dynamic partnership between the two countries.

Middle East

  • Al Sumaria – Six people were killed and eight others were wounded in a car bomb explosion in Kirkuk. The explosion caused major damages to stores and buildings nearby while police forces cordoned off the region.
  • ABC – Iraq’s Kurds threatened Tuesday to boycott national elections, days after the country’s Sunni vice president threatened to veto the newly passed election law needed to hold the January vote.
  • Voices of Iraq – An Iraqi judge on Tuesday escaped an attempt on his life when gunmen attacked his car near Mosul, according to a local police chief.
  • Haaretz – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear program posed a threat not just to Israel, but to the entire world, during a visit to a submarine that underscored Israel’s military might. “The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world,” Netanyahu said aboard a missile ship. “Without any doubt, we are the first target, but not the last.”
  • Jerusalem Post – In the face of the growing ballistic missile threat against Israel, the Defense Ministry plans to significantly increase production of Arrow missile interceptors, capable of intercepting incoming Iranian and Syrian Shihab and Scud missiles, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday.
  • Daily Star – Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir said Hizbullah was attempting to implement its own agenda, adding that he refused to  visit Syria in the current period. “Israel objects to all issues in Lebanon as well as elsewhere, but Hizbullah is known to be an armed party with aims and objectives which the party is attempting to implement.”
  • NOW Lebanon – A Hezbollah source denied on Tuesday media reports that Hezbollah elected new members to its Shura Council. The source also said that the party is still preparing to hold the council’s elections, but did not disclose any further information.
  • MEMRI – Alarabiya.net reports, citing Iranian sources, on the tension prevailing recently between Tehran and Hizbullah, due to Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s criticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s shaky relations with Arab countries.
  • ynet – The United Nations atomic watchdog said on Tuesday it was inspecting a nuclear research reactor in Damascus because it had doubts about Syria’s explanation as to how traces of uranium got there.
  • Al Arabiya – Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz confirmed late Monday that all armed infiltrators have been driven of the Saudi territory by the country’s armed forces. He said that all residents who have been evacuated from their villages due to fighting are being taken care of with the government.
  • Asharq Al Awsat – A Saudi military source confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the Huthi infiltrators are following a specific approach in their continuing attacks on the Saudi forces that have been deployed in the border region. The source revealed that the Huthi rebels lay low for the majority of the day before launching surprise attacks on [Saudi] military sites at night.
  • Guardian – Turkey on Tuesday transferred five inmates to the prison island holding Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan so he can end his isolation. The Council of Europe had demanded that Turkey end Ocalan’s solitude, saying his mental state was deteriorating after years as the sole inmate of Imrali island, off Istanbul.
  • Hurriyet – Turkey and Spain, two countries that suffer from terrorism, discussed ways to jointly fight against this fatal threat. According to Turkish diplomats, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu briefed his counterpart, Miguel Angel Moratinos, about his government’s ongoing Kurdish move and its plans to end the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, terrorism.
  • TIME – Archaeologists in Egypt Dig up a Persian Puzzle; Twin Italian archaeologists say they have discovered the remains of an army once thought to have been mythical, deep in the sands of the Sahara

Iran

  • RFERL – A senior Iranian military official has accused Saudi Arabia of killing Shi’ite Muslims in Yemen and denounced it as the onset of “Wahhabi state terrorism,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
  • ISNA – Russians say technical problems have caused the delay in delivery of S300 defense systems to Iran, said Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi
  • Xinhua – Iran’s oil minister said Tuesday that his country will add 14 million liters of gasoline to its daily output, the official IRNA news agency reported. Masoud Mirkazemi said the production of gasoline in Iran’s three petrochemical plants would decrease the amount of imported gasoline by 14 million liters per day, the report said.
  • Fars – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is slated to leave Tehran for Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, Tuesday night.
  • Mehr -  Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said the “door is open” for India to rejoin the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline but indicated that Iran could not wait indefinitely and the structure of the project could change in the future
  • Uskowi on Iran – Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence PSA video
  • Washington Post – Iran’s judiciary is investigating the death of a conscript doctor who served in a now-closed detention facility, where the suspicious deaths of three anti-government protesters are currently under a parliamentary probe, the Khabar newspaper reported Tuesday.
  • Reporters Without Borders – Journalists are continuing to be arrested five months after the start of the demonstrations against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection. Three more have been arrested in the past couple of weeks while those who defend the 34 detained journalists and bloggers are being subjected to increased intimidation
  • Al Jazeera – The trial of a French lecturer who was arrested after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June has resumed after reports that she could be set free at the hearing. Reiss, who is bail and staying at the French embassy in Iran, is accused of taking part in a Western plot to destabilise the Iranian government
village of Kace Satar, Farah Province, Afghanistan

Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, walk with local elders during a patrol of the village of Kace Satar, Farah Province, Afghanistan, Nov. 11. (photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola)

South Asia

  • Asia Times – Taliban counter-moves against United States coalition efforts to forge a supply route from Central Asia to northern Afghanistan have ended the relative calm in that part of Afghanistan and could drag Central Asian states into the conflict. As more foreign fighters from groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan join the ranks of the emerging “northern Taliban”, the issue is rapidly climbing up the coalition’s agenda.
  • CSM – The Taliban had set a trap for the tiny company of Afghan soldiers here, its handful of US mentors and the American helicopters that they expected would rush in to help. Firing mortars to lure the Americans and Afghans out of their mud-straw base, the motorcycle-borne Taliban headed toward a nearby ravine. Dozens of insurgents with light machine guns, a recoilless rifle and four trucks bearing three anti-aircraft guns and a heavy machine gun were set up in a classic ambush from high ground
  • Xinhua – Taliban militants fighting the Afghan government in the latest wave of violence have beheaded two civilians in the western Farah province, a local newspaper reported Tuesday. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the beheading, saying they were punished for spying for foreign troops
  • AFPS – Afghan and international forces worked together to kill or detain numerous enemy fighters and terrorism suspects in operations over the last two days, military officials reported. A combined Afghan and international security force killed several enemy militants, including a sought-after Taliban district commander, and detained several suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Wardak province early today.
  • Daily Mail – British troops fighting in Afghanistan should buy off the Taliban with ‘bags of gold’, according to new Army guidelines. Cash can be ‘a substitute for force’, the new counter-insurgency field manual states.
  • Independent – A Territorial Army soldier was shot dead two weeks after arriving in Afghanistan and telling friends that troops were “still waiting” for promised new body armour and helmets.
  • Dawn – The head of the Taliban in Swat valley, Maulana Fazlullah, has said that he has escaped the army and is now in Afghanistan. Maulana Fazlullah told BBC Urdu that he had reached Afghanistan safely and will soon launch full-fledged punitive raids against the army in Swat.
  • Daily Times – Security forces killed four terrorists in operations in Swat, as the ISPR on Monday said Operation Rah-e-Nijat was progressing well in South Waziristan. An ISPR statement said security forces were consolidating their positions on each of the three main axes in the agency.
  • Geo – Pakistan Army has taken full control of Sararogha amid ongoing operation in Southern Waziristan killing a large number of Uzbek militants there Tuesday
  • The News – Three persons were killed and over 30 others sustained injuries in yet another suicide car bombing, targeting Badaber police station near the city on the Kohat Road.
  • Dawn – Taliban militants blew up a girls’ school in Khyber district on Tuesday, the third such attack in the region so far this month, officials said. An intelligence official in the area said Taliban attacked the government-run school overnight when no one was at the property.
  • The News – Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said on Monday that in the wake of the ongoing war on terror, the defence spending was bound to be revised upward as compared with the envisaged budgetary allocation.
  • UPI – Indian officials said they don’t plan to launch a satellite for Iran, a sensitive issue for Western countries already concerned about Iran’s missile program.
  • The Hindu – Jammu and Kashmir secessionist leaders have held a second round of secret dialogue with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, in an effort to push forward the stalled peace process in the State, highly-placed government sources told The Hindu.
  • BBC – It is six months since the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka but Tamil Tiger rebels and their supporters are yet to recover from the dramatic military defeat by security forces earlier this year. The recent attempts by remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) abroad to revive the movement have not succeeded so far.

Far East & Pacific

  • Reuters – Japan and the United States will hold the first meeting of a working group to tackle a row over a U.S. military base on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry said, days after a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to revitalize ties. The row broke out after Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama promised ahead of his August election win to have the Futenma Marine base moved off the southern island of Okinawa, contradicting an agreement Washington reached with a previous government.
  • Japan Times – Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada admitted it would be difficult to “completely scrap” the 2006 Japan-U.S. accord on reorganizing the American forces in Japan that includes the planned relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa. He made the remarks after meeting strong resistance from local governments over his call to consider merging the Futenma flight operations, now in Ginowan, with the nearby U.S. Kadena air base instead of moving the base farther north to Nago, as per the bilateral accord.
  • Yonhap – North Korea said it sent a military delegation to China on Tuesday, as U.S. President Barack Obama agreed with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing to step up cooperation in persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
  • The Australian – The 56 asylum-seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking are due to end their three-week standoff with the Australian government this morning in a move that will help Kevin Rudd address tensions with Indonesia over the impasse
  • Graeme Dobell – Here’s a question for Australia’s defence community. Hands up anyone who thinks Defence can deliver on the promise it made in the White Paper to find $20 billion in cost savings over 10 years.
  • Bangkok Post – Six suspected insurgents were killed and two policemen wounded in an exchange of fire in Pattani’s Khok Pho district on Tuesday. The 30-minute clash took place after members of Santisuk Task Force, a combined military, police and civilian unit, surrounded three houses at Phru Chut village in tambon Khuan Nori where a number of suspected insurgents were reported to have assembled.

Europe

  • BNET – It is being reported that the Royal Air Force (RAF) is creating a package of cuts and restructuring for the next defense budget in England. The idea is that if the service itself proposes these ahead of the preparation of the budget by the Ministry’s leadership they will get to pick and choose where they occur rather then having them dictated. It is assumed that no matter if their is a new Conservative or Labor government the cost of continuing operations in Afghanistan will eat into the support of existing forces as well as future investments.
  • UK FCO – Building on the PM’s foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, David Miliband delivered a speech at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on our strategy in Afghanistan.
  • RIA Novosti – NATO has been actively discussing the possibility of establishing a joint European army for a long time. The latest discussion was triggered after The Times published an interview with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on November 15, 2009.
  • Spiegel – An explosive trial about to start in Munich involves a spy accused of betraying state secrets to his gay lover. It promises to expose the shadowy world of Germany’s foreign intelligence and may end up damaging the service
  • The Local – Two leading Rwandan Hutu rebels were arrested in Germany on Tuesday on suspicion of crimes against humanity and recent war crimes in Congo, prosecutors in Karlsruhe said.
  • AKI – Violent threats against politicians and journalists from a far-left group has placed the Italian government on high alert. The threats were made in a letter sent by the Nucleus for Territorial Action (NAT) to media outlets this week. “There are worrying signals,” said interior minister, Roberto Maroni, in the northern city of Milan on Tuesday. Maroni said he could not rule out a possible link between the organisation and radical Islamists
  • BBC – A gang suspected of bringing more than 2,000 illegal immigrants into Europe has been targeted by police in a series of raids across Europe
  • Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev will visit Stockholm to take part in the Russia-EU summit on November 17-18, 2009

Africa

  • VOA – The spokesman for Somalia’s militant al-Shabab group in Kismayo says members of the Ethiopia-based rebel group, Ogaden National Liberation Front, are fighting alongside one of the factions of al-Shabab’s former Islamist ally, Hizbul Islam, in the south of the country. The accusation runs counter to Ethiopia’s claim that the ONLF has ties to al-Shabab.
  • Shabelle – Sheik Abdinasir Serar who claimed as the secretary of the Islamic organization of Hizbul Islam for the foreign affairs has Tuesday said that they gained victory over yesterday’s fighting in Lower Jubba region in southern Somalia.
  • Sudan Tribune – A minister in the Government of Southern Sudan narrowly escaped with gunshot wound on Sunday as his convoy was ambushed by unknown gunmen. Four were killed and five others wounded, two in critical condition, as the vehicle carrying minister Dr. Samson Kwaje of Agriculture and Forestry was riddled with more than twenty bullets by assailants.
  • Al Jazeera – A Virgin Islands-owned chemical tanker carrying 28 North Korean crew members has been hijacked by Somali pirates off the Seychelles, the multinational naval force operating in the area has said.
  • ISN – Significant military agreements undertaken by Morocco, Algeria and, belatedly, Libya, have strengthened the perception that the Maghreb is in the midst of a lucrative regional arms race fuelled by buyers and sellers alike.
  • Xinhua – General Ahmed Abdallah, a senior military official of Libya, is on a visit in Mauritania to discuss Nouakchott’s participation in the African Union’s peacekeeping force, security sources said
  • AFRICOM – U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) opened its annual Theater Security Cooperation Conference November 16, 2009, a premier event that builds the foundation for the command’s activities with its African partners over the next three years
Secretary Gates welcomes Prince Khalid bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian assistant minister of defense and aviation

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates welcomes Prince Khalid bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian assistant minister of defense and aviation, for talks on the current conflict in Yemen at the Pentagon, Nov. 17, 2009. (photo by R. D. Ward)

The Global War

  • US Navy – The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) officially departed 5th Fleet and entered 6th Fleet’s Area of Operations when the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) transited the Suez Canal and entered into the Mediterranean Sea recently.
  • MEMRI – On November 17, 2009, Al-Qaeda’s media wing Al-Sahab released an Urdu-language audio interview with Ustadh Ahmad Farooq, described as “Al-Qaeda’s [official] in charge of the Da’wah and Media Department for Pakistan.”
  • Washington Times – The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say. A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up “very worrisome reports” of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America.
  • Transparency International – As the world economy begins to register a tentative recovery and some nations continue to wrestle with ongoing conflict and insecurity, it is clear that no region of the world is immune to the perils of corruption, according to Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a measure of domestic, public sector corruption released today.
  • Charles Taylor trial – After his cross-examination got off to a stumble last week over the use of “new evidence,” Charles Taylor today admitted to prosecutors that he shared information with the spy agency of the same country he has accused of plotting his downfall: the United States. Mr. Taylor also dismissed as “nonsense” prosecution allegations that he has been misusing his phone privileges while in jail to try to influence testimony of his defense witnesses

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Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 17, 2009 (1:33 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 17 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • Times of India – The India-US nuclear deal is expected to crop up during Tuesday’s dialogue in Beijing as US president Barack Obama seeks the support of  Chinese leaders on his stand on Iran and North Korean nuclear issues, informed sources said. He is expected to discuss both security and trade issues during his meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday
  • US DOJ – U.S. Joins False Claims Act Lawsuit Against Kuwait-Based Companies That Supplied Food to U.S. Troops in Middle East
  • Santiago Times – Seven months after Chile’s Defense Minister expressed interest in purchasing a fleet of used (U.S. made) F-16 Fighter Jets from Holland, the U.S. government helped seal the deal by supporting Chile’s bid to buy missiles for the jets.
  • Zee News - A number of pacts, including one in the field of civil nuclear cooperation, are expected to be signed tomorrow between India and Canada, the biggest supplier of the uranium in the world. The two countries are also expected to announce launch of feasibility study for a Free Trade Agreement when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper for the delegation-level talks.
  • Washington Post -  In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into Hasan’s growing discomfort with the U.S. military
  • SouthCom – Dense jungle surrounds the Payamino River, an important water-way in Ecuador. This river, along with countless others in the eastern provinces of Ecuador, is a lifeline for local communities, the Ecuadorian military and illegal armed groups. Recognizing the importance of Riverine operations, the U.S. Military Group in Ecuador, in partnership with the Ecuadorian Army, began training together in October to enhance the capabilities of jungle units to control the rivers in their zones.
  • Columbia Reports – According to Venezuela’s ambassador to Bogota, his country must prepare for war as there is a ‘pre-war situation’ now Colombia allows the United States to use its military bases.
  • Press TV – Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro is expected to arrive in Tehran on Monday. The Venezuelan ambassador to Iran, David N. Velasquez, said that Maduro is making the visit to work on the details of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming visit to Venezuela.
  • El Universal – Paraguay’s Armed Forces confirmed on Monday that the landing of a Venezuelan military plane last week in Asunción was routine, thus denying media reports about the alleged undercover entry of Venezuelan intelligent agents into the country.
  • MercoPress – Brazil launched Sunday military exercises involving the three services and located in three states next to landlocked Paraguay with the “main target” being the recovery of a bi-national hydroelectric dam that has fallen into the hands of an enemy country.
  • Xinhua – China and Brazil here on Monday reached the five-point consensus to strengthen bilateral military exchanges during talks between their senior military officers. Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie held talks with visiting Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim Monday afternoon.
  • Fars – Tehran and Brasilia enjoy the required potentials to develop their cooperation in nuclear energy fields, a Brazilian diplomat said Monday.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • RIA Novosti – Russia plans to increase its naval presence in the world’s oceans, President Dmitry Medvedev said on board a Russian warship during an official visit to Singapore on Monday. Russia announced in 2007 that its Navy had resumed and would build up a constant presence throughout the world’s oceans. Once one the world’s most powerful forces, the Russian Navy now has few ships regularly deployed on the open seas.
  • Interfax – The arrested Kazatomprom ex president Mukhtar Djakishev, who led the national uranium company, Kazatomprom, for nearly a decade and practically turned it into one of the world leading producers, believes that Russia is obstructing the development of the Kazakh nuclear sector.
  • UPI – Azerbaijan awaits further progress from potential suppliers for the Nabucco natural gas pipeline for Europe, the country’s energy minister said.
  • Georgian Times – A company from the II brigade’s 23rd battalion will depart to Afghanistan to join the NATO-led operations on November 16, the Georgian Defense Ministry said.
  • BBC – The first international flight to leave conflict-hit Chechnya in 15 years has taken off from the airport in Grozny. The Boeing 757 left with 200 pilgrims travelling to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

Middle East

  • RFERL – Gunmen wearing military uniforms shot dead 12 men in a predawn attack at a village near Baghdad, villagers and police said. The attack took place in the mainly Sunni village of Zauba, west of Baghdad, which at the height of the fighting in Iraq was viewed as a hotbed of support for Sunni Islamist insurgents
  • Al Sumaria – A source from the fourth region Border Guards Forces Command in Shat Al Arab revealed that large quantities of bombs and recently manufactured missiles coming from Iran were seized after they were hidden along Iraqi borders. The missiles and bombs were hidden temporarily in Naher Jasem border region in eastern Basra, the source speaking on condition of anonymity told Alsumaria News.
  • AFPS – Iraqi security forces, working with U.S. advisors, arrested 21 terrorism suspects in various operations in recent days, military officials reported.
  • Haaretz – Israel, Jordan, and Turkey conducted a joint search and rescue military drill two weeks ago, the Turkish daily Zaman reported on Monday, pointing to an apparent ease in recent tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara. The exercise reportedly took place in the Turkish army’s special forces training ground, in the vicinity of the Turkish capital.
  • Today’s Zaman – A third letter mailed to civilian prosecutors in ?stanbul by a military officer has revealed that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had more plans to destroy the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and give a new shape to society.
  • NOW Lebanon – Al-Hayat’s Monday edition stated that Dahiyeh has recently been the center of attention as a result of worsening security conditions, adding that both the Amal Movement and Hezbollah – which have a stronghold in the area – have sent representatives to meet with Interior Minister Ziad Baroud to solve the situation.
  • Al Jazeera – Yemen has repeated its accusation that Iran is funding Houthi rebel fighters in their war against government forces in the north of the country. General Yahya Salih, Yemen’s counter-terrorism chief, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that it would be impossible for the group to be able to wage its campaign without foreign support.
  • ynet – Saudi clerics have accused Yemeni Houthi rebels of working with Iran to try to spread Shiism in Sunni Islam’s heartland, days before the start of the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage. “Iranian cooperation with Houthi rebels in Yemen is a collusion for sin and aggression,” Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh said in remarks published on Monday.
  • Al Arabiya – Saudi and Yemeni forces pounded Shiite rebel positions along the border between the two countries on Sunday as the rebels claimed they used Katyusha rockets in attacking a Saudi military base in the border Jizan region to avenge the deaths of civilians killed.
  • Yemen Gazette – defense ministry website, 26-September Sunday said military units recaptured territory from the Zaydi Shiite rebels in Sadaa while warplanes struck rebels positions in Harf Sufian amid reports of troops reinforcement moving from Sanaa to combat zone in north Yemen.
  • Kyodo News – Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped a Japanese engineer and a Yemini driver near the capital Sanaa and are seeking the release of jailed relatives, the Japanese Embassy in Yemen and news media said Monday.
  • Saba – Police have captured 234,000 pieces of different weapons and thousands of bullets since the beginning of 2009 till November 10th, according to the latest statistics issued by Security Departments in all governorates

Iran

  • Press TV – After Israel released photos it said proved that a huge shipment of weapons for Hezbollah came from Tehran, Iranian news agencies publish evidence showing that the photos are forged.
  • ISIS – IAEA Report on Iran: Fordow enrichment plant at “advanced stage of construction;” decline in nummber of P1 centrifuges enriching but P1 centrifuge efficiency increases; discovery of previously unknown stock of heavy water
  • Al Jazeera – Iran’s belated revelation of a second uranium enrichment site has raised concerns about possible further secret nuclear sites in the country. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) raised its fears in a report obtained by several news agencies on Monday.
  • Russia Today – Moscow says the nuclear power plant it is building for Iran will not go online this year. The project is now 10 years behind schedule. The facility near the city of Bushehr is part of Iran’s nuclear program
  • Mehr – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki who arrived in New Delhi on Monday morning held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna behind closed doors. An Indian official said talks between Mottaki and Krishna would cover the much-delayed 7.5-billion-dollar gas pipeline project that was first mooted in 1994, AFP reported.
  • Trend – “Iran has launched producing new thermal missiles “air-to-air”. The Defense Ministry manages this large-scale production,” Commander of the Iranian Army Air Force General Hassan Shah Safi was quoted as saying by the Irna news agency.
  • Payvand – Iran has decided to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers from Somali pirates in the volatile waters. A senior commander says Iranian special forces have bee sent to the Gulf of Aden to preserve shipping security and go ahead with a plan to arrest Somali pirates.
  • AP – The portfolio of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard keeps on growing. Its troops watch over nuclear facilities, its rocket scientists enlarge Iran’s missile arsenal and its engineers have taken on a rail line as their latest big-ticket project. Could media mogul be next? Sometime early next year, a new voice is expected to join Iran’s state-sanctioned media blitz: a full-service news agency with video, photos and print
firefight in Waterpur Valley, Kunar province

U.S. Army soldiers rush to firing positions as anti-Afghan forces attack their position, during a three-hour firefight in Waterpur Valley, Kunar province, Afghanistan, Nov. 3, 2009. The soldiers are assigned to the 4th Infantry Division’s Company C, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. (photo by Pfc. Cody Thompson)

South Asia

  • AFPS – Combined Afghan and international forces killed or detained numerous enemy fighters in Afghanistan in recent days, military officials reported.
  • ABC – Insurgents fired two rockets Monday into a crowded market northeast of Kabul where the head of French forces in Afghanistan held a meeting with tribal elders. The attack killed three children and wounded 20 other people, the French military said. Capt. Michel, who can only be identified by his first name according to French military policy, said the attack appeared to have targeted Brig. Gen. Marcel Druart, who met in the marketplace with elders from the Tagab Valley to discuss a major French offensive there.
  • UK MoD – The first RAF Merlin helicopter has arrived in Afghanistan as part of a move to boost air support on the front line.
  • Radio France – At one point Atta declared that he would not accept Karzai’s authority and threatened to organise protests against the result. But he has backed down on those threats. The main foreign players in Afghanistan recognised Karzai, despite their concerns over the poll and his record in office. That has cut the ground from under the opposition’s feet, the leader of the Balkh Provincial Council, Farhad Azimi, told RFI, not without some bitterness.
  • Quqnoos – Afghan government officials in the western Char Borjak district of Nimroz province say that Iran doesn’t want a dam to be built in the district. According to officials construction of the dam would further trigger Iran’s complaints regarding the water availability, as Iran invested huge amounts of money on water in Zabul province in the eastern part of Iran.
  • Dawn – Forced to flee fighting between the army and militants in South Waziristan, members of the Mehsud clan have found a new home in Karachi’s Majeed Colony in Landhi Town. However, they are not content in the city and wish to return as soon as the Operation Rah-i-Nijat is over.
  • Geo – District Coordination Officer (DCO) Peshawar Sahibzada Anis said at least three people were killed and 20 others inured in the blast, Geo News reported Monday. Talking to Geo News, he said the suicide attacker was coming on the road from Khyber Agency, when he was signaled to halt; on this, he ran his explosive-car into the police station
  • NPR – In Pakistan, the army is waging war against Taliban militants along the northwest frontier with Afghanistan. Despite the international attention trained on extremists in Pakistan, many Pakistanis regard India, on the eastern border, as their biggest security threat. But analysts say Pakistan is paying a price for sowing anti-India sentiments.
  • B. Raman – There are two jihadi terrorist organisations by the name the 313 Brigade. The first is Kashmir-centric and is associated with the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Qari Saifullah Akhtar. It has been in existence since at least 1999 and is a member of the United Jihad Council, based in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, which is headed by Syed Salahuddin of the Hizbul Mujahideen. It looks upon India as its main enemy and is not against the Government of Pakistan, its Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
  • Indian Express – A top Border Security Force official of the rank of deputy inspector general was killed, while some other persons of his security squad including the driver were injured in an IED blast triggered by militants on Indo-Pak International Border in Ramgarh sector of Samba border district in Jammu region on Monday morning.

Far East & Pacific

  • Chosun Ilbo - When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visited Pyongyang in October, North Korea and China boasted they had opened a new era of cooperation. The two countries described their talks as “constructive” even though no palpable progress was made in the North’s nuclear issue. But according to a senior source in North Korea, one significant step was a secret agreement to restore intelligence cooperation.
  • Russia Today – The President of Singaporean industrial conglomerate, Keppel Corporation, Chiau Beng Choo, believes Gazprom may become an exclusive supplier of liquefied natural gas to Singapore
  • WSJ – Taiwan and China clinched long-awaited pacts that will help open their financial industries to each other’s companies, marking a significant new step in normalizing economic ties between the rivals.
  • SMH – The 22 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who left the Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking and are being held in Indonesian detention are being kept separate from other detainees out of fear they will be targeted because they are receiving special treatment.
  • Brig Gurmeet Kanwal (retd), Tribune India – India-Myanmar ties: A strategic perspective

Europe

  • Manchester Evening News – A religious leader is among five men arrested on suspicion of terrorism. The Muslim preacher and three others were arrested in raids across Greater Manchester this morning. The man, who has not been named, teaches the Koran at a number of mosques across the region.
  • Expatica – France has asked Switzerland for judicial assistance in an investigation into a nuclear physicist arrested in France over alleged links to Al-Qaeda.
  • euobserver – The tasks of the proposed new EU foreign minister look relatively clear-cut and powerful on paper but analysts and politicians in Brussels suggest the person will need to be superhuman to manage all that is foreseen under the Lisbon Treaty. Formally known as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the beefed-up position puts foreign policy clout and the financial means to implement it into the hands of one person.
  • Guardian – One of the Royal Navy’s new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under government cost-cutting plans, the Guardian has learned. It is understood that India has recently lodged a firm expression of interest to buy one of the two state-of-the-art 65,000 tonne carriers, which are still being built by BAE Systems in the UK.
  • US Army – About 1,500 U.S., Romanian and Bulgarian Soldiers enhanced their combat skills with the Deployable Instrumentation Systems Europe (DISE) at the Babadag Training Area in eastern Romania and the Novo Selo Training Area in Bulgaria from the beginning of August to the end of October as part of Joint Task Force-East’s (JTF-East) 2009 exercise.

Africa

  • Garowe – At least seven people have been killed and 11 others injured in heavy clashes between African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali insurgent fighters in the restive capital Mogadishu, witnesses said. The fighting erupted on Saturday night after heavily armed insurgent fighters carried out surprise attack on Burundian troops based at Jalle Siad Military base north of Mogadishu.
  • Shabelle – More Ethiopian troops with heavily armed vehicles have vacated from the Kala-beyrka intersection in Hiran region, officials and witnesses told Shabelle radio on Monday
  • Sudan Tribune – The Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) dismissed as “lies” reports that it has recently received large supplies of military hardware from Chad.
  • MEMRI – On November 14, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) released a new film in its “In the Shade of the Swords” series titled “The Ziama Mansouria Attack.” The 25-minute video documents an February 22, 2009, AQIM attack on a base used by private security guards employed by Sonelgaz in Jijel province in eastern Algeria
  • BBC – Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi throws a party for 200 girls but then tells them why they should become Muslims
  • LA Times – That’s just one reason Guinea- Bissau has been an easy mark for the world’s drug cartels. The country’s navy has a single aging ship to search for smugglers, and the head of the navy fled the country amid accusations that he was involved in the drug trade. When a Gulfstream jet from Venezuela landed last year at the Bissau international airport, its $250-million cargo of cocaine was whisked away in army trucks before police arrived.
  • Reuters – The United States wants Kenya to hand over a Rwanda genocide suspect it believes the east African nation has been harboring for years, President Barack Obama’s war crimes envoy said on Monday.
in support of a Djiboutian military training exercise

A Kenyan soldier drives a two-and-a-half ton cargo/troop carrier as U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class Steven Archar, naval operations support specialist, guides the vehicle off the loading ramp of the Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab Tor Line transport ship, Nov. 14. This vehicle is one of 37 military vehicles provided by Kenya to support a Djiboutian military training exercise early December 2009 (photo by Master Sgt. Carlotta Holley)

The Global War

  • McClatchy – Work on the F-35 joint strike fighter program is far behind schedule and over budget despite the completion Saturday of a milestone test flight. Reports prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency for Defense Department officials show that Lockheed and other contractors are months late on deliveries of test airplanes and components for future production aircraft.
  • The National – A laser-guided rocket developed by a partnership between a UAE firm and one of the world’s largest defence companies has been successfully tested and could be in service with the Armed Forces by the middle of next year, an executive says
  • Press TV – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdallah receives the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as both countries become more involved in the deadly war in Yemen.

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Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 16, 2009 (1:32 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 16 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • White House – Statements By President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia After Bilateral Meeting
  • LA Times – The CIA has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan’s intelligence service since the Sept. 11 attacks, accounting for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency’s annual budget, current and former U.S. officials say. The Inter-Services Intelligence agency also has collected tens of millions of dollars through a classified CIA program that pays for the capture or killing of wanted militants, a clandestine counterpart to the rewards publicly offered by the State Department, officials said.
  • McClatchy – Over the years, the Pentagon has sworn out military commission charges against 26 detainees at Guantanamo. Here’s how those cases stand after Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that five 9/11 conspirators will be prosecuted in civilian court in New York
  • Al Jazeera – At least 15 people have been killed in a single day of violence in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city bordering the United Sates, the Mexican authorities have said.
  • UPI – Chilean officials have denied allegations a Peruvian air force officer acted as a spy for the Chilean government. “Chile does not spy,” Carolina Toha, a spokeswoman for Chile’s Interior Ministry, said Saturday. “Chile takes international relations as a serious matter.”
  • Xinhua – Venezuelan Ambassador to Iran David Velasquez Caraballo said here Sunday that Iran and Venezuela are determined to broaden mutual and regional cooperation in the face of plots, the official IRNA news agency reported.
  • Miami Herald – The chief of Colombia’s secret police says a mob assaulted three of its agents as they tried to arrest a suspect with alleged guerrilla ties.
  • Columbia Reports – Four soldiers from Venezuela’s National Guard captured in Colombian territory will be repatriated in a bid to ease tensions between the South American neighbors, President Alvaro Uribe’s government said Saturday.
  • SouthCom – Joint Task Force-Bravo helicopters, based at Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras, distributed 61,000 pounds of food, water and clothing to remote villages of El Salvador Nov. 13. The villages of Verapaz, Guadalupe, Santa Maria Ostumas and San Vicente were most affected by the floods completely cutting the towns off by damaging the roads and bridges after the Nov. 8 mudslides

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • Russia Today – The President of Chechnya – Ramzan Kadyrov – says the close associate of warlord Doku Umarov, Islam Uspakhadzhiyev, was killed during a special operation on Friday. Helicopters carried out a rocket strike on Friday in an area of the North Caucasus where the combatants had been spotted. At least twenty of them were killed.
  • Kavkaz Center – A source in a staff of Sunzha Sector of the Caucasus Emirate reported to Kavkaz Center about a successful operation of the Mujahideen, which was carried out early on Sunday morning near the village of Arshty. As the deputy commander of the Sunzha Sector of AF of CE Emir Arbi reported, at at 4 o’clock 30 minutes a unit of Mujahideen attacked a base of Russian infidels located in the area of Arshty village. The base of infidels was struck by rocket-propelled grenades, AGS, machine guns, and submachine guns
  • Steve LeVine – Though Ukraine has paid its latest Gazprom bill in full, one would be a fool to bet against the prospect of a fourth cutoff this winter, as Jerome a Paris notes over at the European Tribune; indeed, Michael Kahn and Anna Mudeva at Reuters report that central Europe is carrying out actual infrastructure changes in case the yearly dustup recurs. Recently, Gazprom has been attempting to spruce up its image with a $250,000-a-month contract with Ketchum, a skilled PR agency with offices in London and Washington
  • Caucasian Knot – The restoration works in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, continue, but the process is hampered by “the long chain of receiving money from Moscow.” This was stated on November 12 by Zurab Kabisov, head of the State Restoration Committee, at his meeting with journalists.
  • RIA Novosti – The former Georgian republic of Abkhazia switched to Russian telephone codes at midnight on Sunday, the republic’s information and communications department said.
  • Civil Georgia – Tamaz Ninua, who for few months served as Georgia’s security minister under late President Gamsakhurdia, and his wife were found dead with gunshot wounds in their home in Tbilisi on November 13, the Georgian media reported.
  • RFERL – Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian says that despite complaints by Iranian officials Yerevan is fully complying with an agreement to import natural gas from Iran, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports
Iraqi Navy Ship Fatah

The Iraqi Navy Ship Fatah leads during the naval review Nov. 12 in Umm Qasar, Iraq (photo by Lt. Ryan Schumacher)

Middle East

  • MNF Iraq – Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. advisors, arrested terrorism suspects and a suspected terrorist cell leader in Iraq in recent days, military officials reported. Iraqi Security Forces arrested eight terrorism suspects, Nov. 13, while conducting three combined security operations in pursuit of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) members operating in northern Iraq.
  • Voices of Iraq – Emergency Police personnel in Khanaqin, Diala province, captured on Saturday nine armed men of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network in the district of Jalawlaa, southwest of Khanaqin, the department chief said. “The forces, acting on intelligence tip-offs, launched a large-scale crackdown on villages of Jalawlaa, (30 km) southwest of Khanaqin, and arrested nine AQI operatives,” Maj. Delir Sayyed Qader told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. Khanaqin, one of the disputed areas between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, lies 155 km northeast of Baaquba.
  • Al Arabiya – Iraq’s Camp Bucca, the U.S.-run jail where around 100,000 prisoners were kept over six years, was a breeding ground for the al-Qaeda terror network, according to police and former inmates
  • Al Sumaria – Member of Iraq’s External Relations Parliamentary committee Sami Al Askari announced that evidence submitted to UN Chief special envoy to Iraq Oscar Fernandez Taranco include confessions of Baathists and terrorists who were arrested and photos of armed groups crossing Iraqi borders from Syria.
  • UPI – Representatives from the Vienna-based consortium for the Nabucco gas pipeline expressed confidence Iraqi gas could be contracted for the project.
  • ynet – Five Hamas operatives and two Iranian Revolutionary Guards trainers were killed in an explosion that took place on a Hamas military base near Damascus, Syria, Kuwaiti daily al-Siyasa reported on Sunday. According to the report, the explosion occurred at the start of November, and five more Hamas operatives were also injured during weapons training.
  • Jerusalem Post – Hamas on Saturday claimed IDF reports that the group had test-fired long-range rockets were an Israeli attempt to justify a new military operation in the Gaza Strip, DPA reported. “These claims are part of the Israeli lies to justify a new aggression on the Gaza Strip,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum was quoted as saying.
  • Al Manar – In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy got the impression that as far as Israel is concerned, the military option against Iran’s nuclear plans is very much alive, and he was sure to pass this message on to Syrian President Bashar Assad, “knowledgeable” French sources told al-Hayat newspaper.
  • Hurriyet – Turkey has proposed a new formula to the Iranians on behalf of the international community in an attempt to make headway in dealing with Tehran’s nuclear plans, according to the foreign minister.
  • Press TV – Yemeni and Saudi forces have intensified attacks against the Houthi fighters in Yemen’s mountainous north, after sending more reinforcements to the beleaguered region.
  • Saba – Saudi sources announced that Border Guard Forces have managed to captured a Houthi leader, the state-run 26sep.net reported on Sunday.
  • Yemen Gazette – (Oct 30)  The Chinese vessel laden with weapons that was imported by tribal chieftain and arms dealer, Sheik Hadi Mothana has left the port of Hodeida back to China without off loading its cargo, the independent website, Marib Press said on Friday, adding “the Chinese ship arrived in Sudan where it off loaded oil drilling equipment it was carrying and has started sailing back to China.”

Iran

  • Press TV – With the delivery of an advanced air defense system to Iran long overdue by Russia, Tehran says it is capable of mass-producing replicas of the controversial Russian-made missile in the near future.
  • Fars – Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei stressed on Sunday that the western world should waive sanctions against the Islamic Republic to receive Iran’s positive response to its proposal for the exchange of nuclear fuel with Tehran.
  • UPI – Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has amassed unprecedented power in defending the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since his disputed re-election in June triggered widespread unrest
  • Payvand – Following the surfacing of Mohsen Hashemi’s speech, in which he strongly criticizes Ahmadinejad for his accusations against Hashemi’s family during his election debates, Ahmadinejad is attempting to take the control of the subway system from Tehran’s City Hall. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that not only his administration will take over Tehran’s subway system; it will also appoint its president
  • BBC – Iranian police have set up a special unit to monitor political websites and fight internet crime. The head of the unit, Col Mehrdad Omidi, said it would target political “insults and the spreading of lies”.
  • Loghman Ahmedi – Iran has increased its military presence in the Kurdish city of Sine (Sanandaj) since the execution of the Kurdish actvist Ehsan Fatahian.
  • Intellibriefs – Iran and Jundullah: IRAN TODAY Report  (video)
  • Press TV – Iran plans to reduce the monthly quota of subsidized gasoline for private motorists by 20 percent in the coming winter, a senior official says.

South Asia

  • Denver Post – Photographer Collection: David Guttenfelder in Afghanistan
  • CSM – The insurgents’ tactics are familiar. Night letters warn village elders to cooperate or face death. Religious “taxes” must be paid, and fiery sermons in mosques attack the Karzai government and international forces. The locale is startling, however: Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, which in the years after the fall of the Taliban emerged as one of the most stable – and in its urban hub of Mazar-i-Sharif – most prosperous places in Afghanistan.
  • Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung – German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s helicopter convoy was fired at during a surprise trip to Afghanistan (in German)
  • Independent – Tucked into a private home down a dusty dead-end alley, women are indulging in playing at dressing-up in the province in which the fight against the Taliban rages and where more than 90 British troops have lost their lives since the start of the Afghan war in 2001
  • ABC – Hundreds of French and Afghan troops on Sunday pushed into a hostile valley in eastern Afghanistan where militants launch quick attacks, then disappear into hillside villages. The mission: secure the area for a planned bypass road around the Afghan capital to move supplies from neighboring Pakistan.
  • Times – The capture of Musa Qala was declared a model for how this war might be won. The Taliban were bribed to switch sides, the Afghan army was portrayed as the victor and a reconstruction plan prepared. “The eyes of the world will be on Musa Qala,” said Bill Wood, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan. Now, we were back with B Company to hold a front line that, after two years of heavy fighting, has moved barely two miles north and south of the “liberated” town centre. We watched as the Taliban were pounded with bullets, grenades, shells, missiles and airstrikes — and still they came back for more.
  • Washington Post – By the end of the month, the U.S. military plans to begin moving the first of its approximately 700 detainees at Bagram Airfield to a new $60 million holding complex
  • Dawn – The military on Sunday claimed killing at least 17 militants during various clashes in South Waziristan and Swat. Search operations to flush out militants from the restive areas were ongoing. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said security forces also recovered caches of arms and ammunition during operations in South Waziristan.
  • Dawn – At least 12 militants were killed and a big ammunition depot was destroyed when jetfighters pounded hideouts of Taliban in lower Orakzai Agency on Saturday. A huge quantity of ammunition and food and seven camps of Taliban were destroyed in the air strikes in Sultanzai, Feroze Khel, Bezote and Sam areas of Orakzai Agency.
  • Geo – Peshawar is still in the grip of sombre atmosphere one day after the Pashta Khara suicide car bomb explosion, whereas security measures have further been stepped up in the metropolis. Twelve people including innocent children lost their lives in the attack, while 27 other injured are under treatment at various hospitals in the city
  • The News – Intelligence agencies have captured a top leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from a major city of the Punjab after trailing him for a week. The leader who can only be identified by his initials N.A.Z owing to sensitive ongoing interrogations is said to rank amongst the top leaders of the category -3 classification done by the law enforcing agencies. Category-1 includes Osama Bin Laden, Mulla Omar and Aymen al-Zawahiri. Category-2 includes Hakeemullah Mehsud, Maulvi Fazlullah etc, while Category-3 top leaders comprise the cadre that is directly responsible for specific territories, which in this terrorist leader’s case was the entire Punjab and the federal capital. He was described by an investigating official as an “information treasure trove”.
  • Fars – Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani stressed the necessity for the launch of operation by a multi-billion-dollar pipeline which is due to take Iran’s rich gas reserves to his energy hungry nation.
  • Times of India – An alleged Pakistani spy has been arrested from the Indira Gandhi International airport here by security agencies. Official sources said that security agencies have seized some documents and photographs from him.

Far East & Pacific

  • Macleans – North Korea briefly activated radar for its surface-to-ship missiles Sunday, forcing South Korean naval vessels to move away from a disputed western sea border where the two countries’ navies clashed last week, news reports said
  • Xinhua – Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met in Singapore on Saturday with his U.S. counterpart Hillary Clinton, and the two exchanged views on bilateral ties, President Barack Obama’s planned visit to China and the regional and international issues of common concern.
  • FEER – The Looming Crisis in U.S.-Japan Relations
  • Bangkok Post – The People’s Alliance for Democracy delivered a six-point statement attacking convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at a major gathering in Bangkok. Participants at the gathering, which drew about 15,000, were asked to pledge their loyalty to His Majesty the King, religion and the nation.
  • news.com.au – Communist rebels in the Philippines today freed unharmed a soldier they seized two weeks ago amid deadly clashes that have left almost two dozen guerrillas and security force members dead
  • Jakarta Post – Indonesian officials say they have detained a group of 41 Afghan asylum seekers suspected of trying to reach Australia.

Europe

  • Russia Today – On Saturday Russia signed a final agreement with Slovenia paving the way for the South Stream gas pipeline project. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says all European partners involved are now fully on board.
  • Quilliam Foundation – A new report by Quilliam on prison radicalisation, Unlocking Al-Qaeda: Islamist extremism in British prisons, reveals that government measures to stop Islamist radicalisation in prison are failing to halt the spread of jihadist ideology in British prisons. Quilliam warns that failure to tackle prison radicalisation risks creating a fresh wave of hardened extremists, both inside and outside prisons, who are willing and capable of conducting terrorist violence.
  • MSNBC – Authorities have identified a 27-year-old German convert to Islam as an al-Qaida associate suspected of traveling to Afghanistan and planning to attack German targets. The report could fuel concerns about European converts being recruited by Islamist terrorist groups for attacks.
  • Magharebia – Spanish police in Pamplona arrested an Algerian terror suspect allegedly linked to a larger European terror cell dismantled last week, Algerian and international press reported on Saturday (November 14th). The suspect is accused of making false identity papers that generated some one million euros
  • APA – Azerbaijan intends to supply compressed natural gas to Bulgaria, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Industry and Energy Natig Aliyev told a press conference after the trip to Bulgaria.

Africa

  • Garowe – At least seven people have been killed and 11 others injured in heavy clashes between African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali insurgent fighters in the restive capital Mogadishu, witnesses said on Sunday.
  • Shabelle – the transitional Federal Government troops in Bakol region have started military movement in Dolow district in Gedo region, just as the Islamist officials in the region responded the soldiers’ movement there in southern Somalia, officials told Shabelle radio on Sunday.
  • BBC – Ethnic-Somali rebels in the south-east of Ethiopia say they have launched an offensive against government forces and captured several towns. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said it began attacking on several fronts on Tuesday.
  • Xinhua – The Somali Islamist rebel group of Al-Shabaab on Sunday accused the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) of being “an obstacle” to the war ravaged country’s agricultural production. Spokesman for the militant group, Ali Mohamoud Raage, said the UN food agency “deliberately” imports food aid during harvest seasons in Somalia to discourage farmers from growing food grains.
  • Sudan Tribune – Ugandan rebels have killed at least 4 civilians in their latest devastating attack in the far southwest of Southern Sudan Nzara County, the County Commissioner Col Sentina Ndefu confirmed on Saturday
  • Reuters – Cattle raiders killed at least 10 people in arid northern Kenya Sunday and stole more than 200 livestock, police and residents said.
  • Al Ahram – According to Wen Jiabao, China-Africa trade exceeded $100 billion in 2008 with a 33.5 per cent increase compared to previous years, while the number of African countries trading with China has grown to 53. The volume of Chinese direct investment into the continent has exceeded $7.8 billion, which stands for almost 10 per cent of total Chinese investment overseas. Despite the repercussions of the economic crisis, the first quarter of 2009 has seen a 77.5 per cent increase in Chinese investment in Africa.
Annual Exercise, a yearly bilateral exercise with the U.S. Navy and the Japan MSDF

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force guided-missile destroyer JDS Kongo (DDG 173) is underway with the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). George Washington, the Navy's only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, is participating in Annual Exercise, a yearly bilateral exercise with the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (photo by Seaman Apprentice Anthony Martinez)

The Global War

  • Haaretz – A former Iranian defense official who disappeared in 2006 was kidnapped by forces collaborating with the Mossad and is currently being held in an Israeli prison, an investigative news website in Iran claimed on Sunday in a report picked up by Army Radio.
  • RIA Novosti – Russia will soon sign a new deal with India on additional funds to finish a refit of the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said on Sunday
  • The National – Top US and European aerospace executives have highlighted the importance of the Middle East for growth in defence spending, although there was little new business signed on the opening day of the Dubai Airshow yesterday.
  • Sudan Tribune – An Iranian businessman denied a UN report accusing his company supplying sophisticated military equipment to the Sudanese government. A UN panel of experts established to monitor compliance with UN Security Council resolutions relating to the Darfur region has found that that unmanned aerial vehicles used in Darfur were equipped with video surveillance technology ordered by a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). After investigating the source of video recorders it turned out to be sold by Millennium Product Company LLC, with a sales manager the report named as Mojtaba Sadegbi and managing director Saeid Mousaei, both Iranian nationals.

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Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 13, 2009 (12:57 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 13 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • Elisabeth Bumiller – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is normally a mild-mannered man, at least in public, but he unleashed a torrent on his plane on Thursday morning about leaks during the investigation of the Foot Hood shootings and President Obama’s deliberations on sending more American troops to Afghanistan.
  • Bloomberg – The Alavi Foundation, part owner of a 36-story New York office tower, is a front for the government of Iran, the U.S. government alleged in a lawsuit seeking to seize the building. The U.S. filed a new complaint in the 2008 lawsuit. The original case, which sought to seize the interest in the building held by ASSA Co., a company based in the U.K.’s Channel Islands, claimed the Iranian government’s Bank Melli co-owned the building through ASSA. The new complaint seeks to seize the Alavi Foundation’s interest in 650 Fifth Avenue as well, along with accounts and property the Alavi Foundation owns in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Texas and California.
  • Asia Foundation – This week Barack Obama will make his first trip to Asia as President of the United States. In addition to paying state visits to China, Japan, and South Korea, President Obama will meet with 20 national leaders in Singapore to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum
  • HS Today – Counterterror officials believe there’s no doubt that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s alleged attack on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood was an act of Islamist jihadi terrorism. The officials, who were interviewed by HSToday.us on background because of the sensitivity of their positions, said the evidence that they have reviewed clearly shows that Hasan was carrying out the jihad against infidels that extremist Islamists believe is their religious duty, and that he sought out and received inspiration and guidance from Islamist jihadist websites operated by elements of Al Qaeda.
  • USASOC – The smell of incense, the aroma of tea, and the sound of Arabic music all add an element of cultural realism to special operations training qualification. The chickens and goats wandering freely further create the image of a small, remote village. Further complicating the scene, the Psychological Operations trainees encounter role players speaking Arabic demanding conversation in their native language requiring certain proficiency or a translator to speak with the foreign villager
  • National Post – So many young Canadians want to become trigger pullers in Afghanistan that the army is not accepting any new infantry recruits at the moment, according to the army’s top general.
  • canada.com – Windsor police chief Gary Smith has apologized to members of Windsor’s Islamic community for offending their beliefs after officers arresting two FBI suspects at gunpoint patted down one of their wives.
  • Miamia Herald – Venezuelan authorities have destroyed more than 30,000 illegal firearms as part of an effort to combat soaring crime.
  • El Universal – Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez Frías announced on Wednesday the creation of the Venezuelan Shipping Company (Venezolana de Navegación) to strengthen trade and regional integration.
  • Columbia Reports – A Colombian army radio signal is blocking Venezuela’s national radio station, according to an announcement by the socialist country Thursday.
  • SouthCom – The Army component of U.S. Southern Command marked a new chapter in its storied history as the former special assistant to the commanding general; U.S. Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, N.C. took command of U.S. Army South during a ceremony at the Fort Sam Houston Club Nov. 9

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • Kremlin – Medvedev Presidential Address; In the section of the Address devoted to the Armed Forces immediate development goals were laid out, including new types of weapons, modern automatic command centres and information complexes, as well as personnel training and social support for servicemen.
  • RIA Novosti – Russia’s Armed Forces are to receive 30 new ground and sea-launched ballistic missiles, three nuclear submarines, and an assortment of other weapons, the Russian president said on Thursday.
  • RIA Novosti – Two Russian Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers that carried out a routine patrol flight over the Pacific Ocean were shadowed by ‘regular’ NATO fighters, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
  • Caucasian Knot – Mother of Vadim Chugunov, a Russian trooper, who perished in the battle near Ulus-Kert in 2000, believes that the failure of the Russian party to pay her the due compensation for the death of her son in Chechnya is a violation of the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights.
  • Itar Tass – A trunk gas pipeline was blown up in Dagestan on Wednesday. “At about 21:00 Moscow time, security service officers found an explosive device during a routine check… FSB sappers were called in. But the explosive device was activated before they arrived,” the same source said.
  • IWPR – The Uzbek government has made plain its hostility to plans for a new Russian military base on its doorstep, and is hoping Moscow will take the message as seriously as it intends, NBCentralAsia analysts say.
  • RIA Novosti – Kazakhstan’s uranium output increased 61%, year-on-year, in January-September 2009 to 9,535 metric tons, the national nuclear power company Kazatomprom said on Wednesday.
  • ISN – Should Central Asia Fear Taliban Spillover? Upsurge in militant activity in Central Asia will be contained, although security should be stepped up in border areas
  • abc.az – Yesterday in Baku the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Iranian National Gas Export Company (NIGEC) signed the Protocol of Intentions. SOCAR reported that its gas would be exported to Iran in 2010 in compliance with the Memorandum. This autumn SOCAR signed an agreement with Russia’s Gazprom on supplies of at least 500 million cu m of gas a year to Russia since 1st January 2010. SOCAR also has gas export agreements with Georgia and Turkey
  • UPI – A natural gas pipeline from the Dauletabad gas field in Turkmenistan is set for a December launch to bring 700 billion cubic feet of gas to Iran each year.
  • Turkmenistan.ru – The construction of industrial facilities at Samandepe field, from which the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline originates, is entering the home stretch. This was reported by the State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH) in connection with a working visit of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Lebap province on 10 November.
  • Chatham House – Turkey, Russia and the Caucasus: Common and Diverging Interests

Middle East

  • Voices of Iraq – Unidentified gunmen shot dead a secondary school headmistress in eastern Baghdad on Thursday without apparent reasons, police said.
  • UPI – Iraqi air force pilots struck ground targets from an AC-208 Caravan utility aircraft using a Hellfire missile for the first time since the force was reformed.
  • Al Manar – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah declared on Wednesday that the battle with Israel next time would start from “beyond and beyong Haifa” instead of “Haifa and beyond Haifa,” emphasizing that the Resistance doesn’t seek war but is ready for any form of confrontation with the enemy. Sayyed Nasrallah was speaking through a large TV screen commemorating the annual Martyr’s Day in the framework of a ceremony held by Hezbollah at the southern suburb of Beirut.
  • NOW Lebanon – Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Thursday that Lebanon has no ability to face challenges without a national-unity cabinet,  adding that Hezbollah, in collaboration with the other parties, will be the greatest contributor in empowering the government.
  • Jeffrey White – Iran and Hizballah: Significance of the Francop Interception
  • Hurriyet – Another group of Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, members has surrendered to Turkish authorities in the country’s Southeast, where the Turkish military has been fighting the outlawed group for 25 years, the Reuters news agency reported.
  • Press TV – Houthi fighters say Saudi Arabia fired scores of missiles on Yemeni villages during over a dozen overnight airstrikes.
  • Daily Star – Saudi Arabia is trying to create a buffer zone inside Yemen after its week-long offensive along the border against Yemeni Shiite insurgents, a rebel spokesman said on Wednesday.Mohammad Abdel-Salam said Saudi warplanes and artillery had been shelling deep into border areas to create the zone and drive the rebels away
  • Al Arabiya – As Saudi forces continue to pound the positions of the Yemeni rebels who infiltrated into its borders, Houthi leader Yehia al-Houthi called for a ceasefire and expressed his group’s willingness to engage in dialogue in an interview with Al Arabiya late on Wednesday.

Iran

  • NCRI – IRGC takes over regime’s intelligence and security apparatus; Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance unveiled the mullahs’ behind the scenes decisions on the creation of a centralized organization for repression and terror, and efforts to accelerate the production of a nuclear bomb in a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. Text of her remarks at the conference provided to members of media follows
  • RFERL – Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards force has replaced its commander for the greater Tehran area, its website said. The “Sepah News” website did not give a reason for the appointment of Hossein Hamedani as new Revolutionary Guards commander in Tehran, replacing Abdullah Araghi.
  • Trend – The controlling stake (51 percent) of the Iranian Telecommunications Company was sold to a cooperative this week. There are no restrictions on buying such companies for any organizations, Iranian Competition Council Chairman Jamshid Pazhuyan said. “The roughly 51 percent of the Iranian Telecommunications Company have not been sold to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They have been sold to a cooperative related to the organization,” he said. [me: some reports say IRGC does control the ITC. Aoun, friendly with Hizballah, got Telecommunications Ministry in Lebanon. Hmmm.]
  • Paul Brannan, Institute for Science and International Security – Satellite Imagery Narrows Qom Enrichment Facility Construction Start Date
  • Fars – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the West has retreated in its nuclear dispute with Tehran, as it is no longer talking of suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.
  • Chris Zambelis – Is Iran Supporting the Insurgency in Afghanistan?
  • MEMRI – The Iranian news agency Fars reports that Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi has set up, in Pakistan, a school for training suicide bombers for operations in Iran.
  • Press TV – Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television network has resumed broadcasting on a new satellite after it had been taken off the air by Arab satellite operators based in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, without explanation.
  • Fars – Tehran and Baku have signed a memorandum of mutual understanding on Azerbaijani gas supplies to Iran beginning from 2010.
  • Payvand – Photos: Women Rowing Team Practicing in Zayandeh Rud, Isfahan
Nangalam District of eastern Afghanistans Kunar province

A Pech Valley citizen awards a cricket bat to the winning cricket team captain at a community gathering of Pech Vally citizens, and Afghan National Army Soldiers from the 2nd and 3rd Kandaks, at the Belda Gathering Grounds in the Nangalam District of eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, Nov. 5 (photo by Pfc. Elizabeth Raney)

South Asia

  • Asia Times – Every day, scores of refugees return to Afghanistan from Iran through a small, poorly supervised border town in Herat province. Most of them have been kicked out by Tehran, which, say helpless border police, is also sending across both Afghan and foreign fighters to join the Taliban-led insurgency.
  • IslamOnline – The resurgent and emboldened Taliban group in Afghanistan have refused to lend support to local Taliban fighters engaged in fierce fighting with security forces in neighboring Pakistan
  • AFPS – Afghan and international forces in Afghanistan today captured a sought-after Taliban commander following a firefight in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, and also captured a Haqqani terrorist group leader in another area, military officials reported.
  • Hindustan Times – Seven people were killed and 35 others wounded when a bomb exploded outside the offices of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency in the city of Peshawar on Friday, officials said.
  • Daily Times – Stiff Taliban resistance killed at least 17 soldiers in South Waziristan on Thursday, said security officials, as troops killed 22 Taliban in various clashes.
  • Pakistan Observer – 22 miscreants were gunned down during shoot outs with the forces mainly in Langar Khel area, the security forces also suffered losses as five men in uniform embraced Shahadat and eight others sustained serious wounds. The security forces, have gunned down more than 300 militants loyal to TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud since October 17 when the grand surgery was initiated.
  • The News – The operational commander of Swat, Maj Gen Asfaque Nadeem, said on Wednesday that 100 per cent area of Swat was under the control of security forces and all entry and exit points had been closed so that militants could not escape from the picturesque valley.
  • Geo – The unknown gunmen shot dead Director Public Relations of Iranian consulate in Peshawar. Police sources said unknown attackers opened fire on Abul Hasan Jaffery, Director Public Relations near his residence in Gulberg
  • Times of India – India today declared as ‘invalid’ the standalone Chinese paper visas given to Indians from J&K and Arunachal Pradesh, and asked those going to China to ensure that their visas are pasted on their passports
  • VOA – Government officials in Colombo confirm the chief of Sri Lanka’s armed forces has quit his post, but are not commenting on speculation he is poised to challenge the island nation’s president in an upcoming election. The war hero would give popular incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa a serious challenge
  • Colombo Page – The Head of State of Myanmar, Senior General Than Shwe arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake by a special Myanmarian flight this afternoon on a four-day official visit to Sri Lanka
  • Irrawaddy – Burma’s military dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe may well seek tactical advice pertaining to the defeat and eradication of ethnic rebels during his state visit to Sri Lanka, observers say.

Far East & Pacific

  • Bangkok Post – Relations between Thailand and Cambodia have plunged even further after the two countries expelled senior diplomatic staff. The orders came yesterday on the day Thailand decided to review a 1.4 billion baht soft loan to fund a road project linking Surin to Siem Reap.
  • Chosun Ilbo – Arms experts and military officers say it was technological superiority that allowed South Korea to send a North Korean patrol boat scuttling back trailing a cloud of smoke across the Northern Limit Line after an incursion Monday.
  • Yonhap – South Korea’s Navy used nearly 100 times more firepower than its North Korean counterpart when they engaged briefly off the west coast of the divided Korean Peninsula earlier this week, a defense official here said Thursday
  • Japan Times – Base relocation remains thorn in side of Japan-U.S. ties
  • Xinhua – “This road will link the economy from the country’s northeastern area to central area,” said Hun Sen, adding that “In 2010, we will have 11 road construction projects, of them seven are supported by China.” “China has played key role in building infrastructure in Cambodia,” he said. On the occasion, Hun Sen expressed profound thanks to the Chinese government and people for their cooperation and financing, saying it not only helps Cambodia’s socio-economic development, but also strengthens the Kingdom’s political independence.

Europe

  • Expatica – A Somali man wanted for terrorism in the United States has been arrested at a Dutch asylum-seeker centre, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
  • Jakarta Post – Three men of Pakistani origin denied any wrongdoing Thursday as they went on trial over an alleged plot to stage suicide attacks in Barcelona on orders from the Pakistan Taliban.
  • AKI – Police authorities in various European countries on Thursday arrested 17 Algerian criminal and terrorism suspects, six of them in the northern Italian city of Milan.
  • The Local – A new programme is helping 17 Turkish imams learn German in a bid for improved integration, a North Rhine-Westphalian cultural organisation said on Thursday.
  • Zawya – The Sarasin Group, a leading Swiss private bank with a broad international footprint, today announced the launch of a comprehensive new Islamic wealth management offering that comprises the full spectrum of Sharia-compliant private banking products and services.

Africa

  • Al Jazeera – A judge who jailed pirates and members of Somalia’s anti-government group, al-Shabab, has been shot dead in Bossaso, a port in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, police say
  • Shabelle – EU foreign ministers are on Tuesday (17 November) to endorse a plan to train several thousand Somali security forces in Uganda. It will become an EU mission, running in parallel to the EU’s anti-piracy mission operating off the coast of Somalia.
  • Mareeg – the officials of the Ogaden Liberation Front ( ONLF) have Thursday said they took over the control of more Ethiopian military basses with fighting that continued in the Somali region under the Ethiopian control recently.
  • Sudan Tribune – Two Western Equatoria young girls abducted by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, have returned home, revealing details of their harrowing experiences and dangerous escapes. The abductees are two teenage ladies, one of whom gave birth in the bush, fled the LRA during recent battles between the rebels and the Ugandan army in the jungles of Central African Republic.
  • BBC – Nigerian oil militant leaders say government rehabilitation camps being set up to receive thousands of disarmed fighters are not ready to process them. They had been due to report on Wednesday, as part of an amnesty deal under which they gave up their weapons in return for education and employment.
  • SW Radio Africa – There is rising tension in the Zimbabwe National Army after a number of senior officers allegedly died from torture whilst in military detention. The Herald reported on Wednesday that Major Maxwell Samudzi, a 48 year-old deputy officer commanding One Engineers Support Regiment at Pomona barracks was found dead in his detention cell. The paper said Major Samudzi committed suicide, but army insiders contend he was tortured to death
  • France24 – Guinea’s ruling junta submitted a proposal on Wednesday for the creation of a transitional government that would keep junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara in power, leaving little scope for compromise with the country’s opposition
replenishment as sea with the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz

An MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter assigned to the "Wildcards" of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23, transfers supplies from the military sealift command fast combat support ship USNS Bridge (T-AOE-10) during a replenishment as sea with the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68), while the guided missile destroyer USS Sampson (DDG 102) maneuvers into position for a replenishment at sea (photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class John Philip Wagner)

The Global War

  • Asharq Al Awsat – Russia should honor a contract to sell a missile defense system to Iran and not bend to outside pressure, the Islamic Republic’s defense minister said in remarks published on Thursday
  • NY Times – With Israel having rebuffed American calls to freeze settlement-building, and with the prospects for substantive peace talks fading, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are increasingly viewed in the region as diminished actors whose influence is on the wane, political experts say. They have been challenged by Iran, opposed by much smaller Arab neighbors, mocked by Syria and defied by influential nonstate groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
  • GAO – Strategic Airlift Gap Has Been Addressed, but Tactical Airlift Plans Are Evolving as Key Issues Have Not Been Resolved
  • Stars and Stripes – The number of combat-wounded troops from Afghanistan treated at the hospital has spiked during the past three months. Doctors from Landstuhl — the first stop for the wounded from the war zone — saw 163 troops with battle injuries during August, 152 in September and 109 in October

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Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 12, 2009 (12:33 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and MemorandaA brief world news roundup for 12 November 2009.

United States & the Americas

  • NY Times – Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
  • LA Times – Two high-profile anti-terrorism task forces did not inform the Defense Department about contacts between a radical Islamic cleric and the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in last week’s rampage at Ft. Hood, a senior Defense official said.
  • Thomas Joscelyn – The NEFA Foundation has uncovered another message from Anwar al Awlaki’s now defunct web site in which he calls upon Muslims to fight any army that serves the “interests of the enemies.” This includes America’s military, and any army of any state (Muslim or otherwise) that does not serve Awlaki’s cause.
  • US DOJ – Sergei Tsurikov, 25, of Tallinn, Estonia; Viktor Pleshchuk, 28, of St. Petersburg, Russia; Oleg Covelin, 28, of Chisinau, Moldova; and a person known only as “Hacker 3;” have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, Ga., on charges of hacking into a computer network operated by the Atlanta-based credit card processing company RBS WorldPay, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
  • ACLU – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of a New Jersey man who was illegally detained and mistreated by U.S. officials in Kenya and Ethiopia. After fleeing hostilities in Somalia in 2006, Amir Meshal was arrested, secretly imprisoned in inhumane conditions and subjected to harsh interrogations by U.S. officials over 30 times in three different countries before ultimately being released four months later without charge
  • Haaretz – Israel Aerospace Industries on Wednesday signed a $350 million contract to supply drones to Brazil police – marking the largest such deal between Israel and Brazil.
  • ynet – During Brazil visit, President Peres warns local defense minister of Iran, Shiite terror group trading drugs, diamonds, weapons in Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay triangle to finance terror cells planning attacks against Jewish targets
  • ABC – Brazil’s president fended off criticism of his nation’s shaky power grid Wednesday as officials investigated a blackout that plunged as many as 60 million people into darkness, prompting concerns about the country’s preparedness to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

  • Russia Today – Moscow’s military and technical cooperation with Iran has become part of the political bargaining relationship with the West, analysts think. Russia’s failure to deliver contracted S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran may harm the bilateral relations, head of Iran’s national security parliamentary committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi said.
  • RFERL – Russia will cut natural-gas deliveries to Europe if Ukraine siphons off supplies crossing its territory, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said, in a warning that raises the specter of another gas dispute. Putin’s tough rhetoric followed assurances by his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, that Kyiv would be able to meet its obligations to pay for Russian gas and deliver it to Europe after Moscow agreed to waive fines for reduced purchases.
  • Kremlin – MEDVEDEV: There is no conflict between Russia and Ukraine. These are two brotherly countries, very close to each other that have many-sided economic relations. Despite the crisis our bilateral trade is measured in billions of dollars
  • Civil Georgia – Georgia is actively receiving armament from abroad, Russian Chief of the General Staff of Army, Gen. Nikolai Makarov said on November 10. “Its military potential is much higher today than last August,” Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted Makarov as saying
  • Phnom Penh Post – The Russian Federation has refused to wipe out over a billion dollars of Cold War-era debt, despite National Assembly President Heng Samrin’s appeals to senior Russian officials during his recent six-day visit to the country
  • Caucasian Knot – As reported by the United Army Grouping in Northern Caucasus, in October this year, in the course of the special operations conducted in the territory of the Chechen Republic, 35 members of the armed underground were liquidated, and 42 militants and their helper were detained. However, human rights activists are sure that power agents put also people who have nothing to do with the armed underground into the lists of their “trophies”.
  • RIA Novosti – Five suspected militants have been killed and an Arab mercenary injured in a police operation in Chechnya, the North Caucasus republic’s presidential press service said on Wednesday.
  • SRI – The N Block, an offshore exploration project in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea, may hold 1.5 billion to 3 billion barrels of crude oil, Mubadala Development Co., one of the companies developing the project, said on Tuesday.
  • APA – Azerbaijan and Iran have signed a memorandum on supply of natural gas. Following the signing ceremony, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said that the agreement establishes a legal framework for SOCAR to sell natural gas to National Iranian Gas Company

Middle East

  • IDF – On Tuesday morning (Nov. 10), the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, informed the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hezbollah has dozens of thousands of missiles in its possession, a small percentage of them able to reach a range of 300 km
  • Jerusalem Post – Senior Hizbullah official Mahmoud Kamati on Wednesday mocked IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and said all of Israel was within his group’s fire range. “Ashkenazi’s threats are baseless and are an attempt to draw attention away from the enemy’s defeat in Gaza and in Lebanon,” Kamati said in an interview with Al-Jazeera. He went on to boast that “all the cities and all Israeli military and industrial centers are within Hizbullah’s fire range.”
  • Haaretz – The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday released documents and photos that it says proves Iran was behind the massive shipment of weapons intercepted last week in Mediterranean waters. On Wednesday, the military released what it said was a manifest stating that the ship originated in Isfahan, Iran. Another document showed contents that were allegedly handled by Islamic Republic of Iran’s Shipping Lines
  • NOW Lebanon – NOW’s correspondent in South Lebanon reported on Wednesday that Israeli warplanes flew at a low altitude over al-Arqoub area at 10:20 a.m., after which they also flew over Marjayoun, Hasbaya and Nabatiyeh
  • IRIB – Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement enjoys a weapon better than missile arsenals and that is the will to sacrifice, a high-ranking official of the movement said on Tuesday. Al-Minar TV network quoted Sheikh Nabil Kawooq as saying that Hezbollah enjoys martyrdom-seeking weapon which no one would be able to confront with.
  • Ya Libnan – Although it accepted defeat in its effort to win control of the government at the ballot box, Hezbollah has since maneuvered behind the scenes to rig the composition of the Cabinet in its favor.
  • Al Arabiya – Yemen hit out on Wednesday at what it called Iranian “interference” in its affairs after Tehran’s foreign minister said his country could help Sanaa restore security as it attempts to crush the Shiite Houthi rebels.
  • Saba – Army forces continued their forward steps to destroy the strongholds of the Houthi rebels in Saada as well as Harf Sufian and caused them huge losses in souls and equipment, a military source has said
  • CSM – Iran offered on Wednesday to take part in a “collective approach” to resolving an escalating Shiite rebellion in Yemen that has pulled Saudi Arabia into the fighting. But analysts cautioned that hostilities did not yet add up to a proxy regional conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran

  • CBS – The demonstrations have moved beyond narrow attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June. They are now drifting toward a blanket challenge of the Islamic leadership’s right to rule.
  • Bloomberg – A U.S. arms-control official said there is “strong evidence” Iran sought to develop the means to put a nuclear weapon on a missile prior to 2003 and perhaps afterward
  • Press TV – In a bid to preserve shipping security in the pirate-ridden Gulf of Aden, the Iranian navy sends a new armada of warships to fight Somali buccaneers. A senior naval commander, Fariborz Qaderpanah, said Wednesday that the navy has decided to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers from Somali pirates in the volatile waters.
  • Uskowi on Iran – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has appointed Iran’s interior minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjara to the dual post of deputy commander the Islamic Republic of Iran Police Force (IRIPF).
  • Iran MFA – Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in a joint press conference with his Senegalese counterpart said there is still a long way to establishing ties with the USA. Senegalese minister appreciated assistance given by Iranian government to Senegal. “With Iran’s help, a large number of projects are being executed in Senegal now,” he said
  • Payvand – Iran’s gas exports to Armenia was temporarily interrupted Wednesday due to an explosion which took place in the Armenian section of the conveyance pipeline.
  • RFERL – Iran has executed a 28-year-old Kurdish political activist, Ehsan Fattahian, who had been convicted of acting against Iran’s national security by taking up arms against the Islamic establishment.
HQ ISAF compound, Kabul, Afghanistan

Commemorative service in front of the United Kingdom National Support Element on the HQ ISAF compound, Kabul, Afghanistan. Members of several nations attended.Address by Lt. Gen. Jim Dutton (UK), deputy commander, HQ International Security Assistance Force.

South Asia

  • Al Jazeera – Taliban fighters are expanding their control of Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, an area they claim to have recaptured from US troops. A video obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera purports to show Taliban fighters in the Kamdesh district.
  • Independent – A sniper ended a Taliban attack in an Afghan village with a single shot, it was revealed today. The soldier, who can only be known as Corporal Danny for security reasons, shot at the feet of an unarmed man who was apparently directing gunfire at his unit, an Army spokesman said.
  • Army Times – The number of airstrikes in Afghanistan was up in October, according to Air Forces Central Command. Coalition warplanes dropped 647 bombs during 2,359 close-air support sorties, AFCent figures show. The bomb total is the highest since July 2008, when 752 bombs were released
  • Dan Green, AFJ – The Taliban’s political program
  • Dawn – A landmine attack and ambush killed 10 Pakistani troops near the Afghan border Wednesday, in a sign that violence is spreading away from the frontlines of a major anti-Taliban offensive. The incident was separate to a Taliban ambush that left two paramilitary personnel dead and eight others missing after militants attacked a another convoy nearby at Ghanam Shah on Wednesday
  • Geo – Seven terrorists have been killed while 2 soldiers embraced Shahadat and as many were injured including an officer in the ongoing operation Reh-e-Nijat in South Waziristan in the last 24 hours. According to ISPR, security forces are consolidating their gains and area domination is being carried out in parts of Jandola – Sararogha Axis
  • Daily Times – Security forces have killed nine more Taliban in South Waziristan, the military said as troops destroyed a number of caves, towers and observation posts and unearthed a private Taliban jail. According to a statement by the ISPR, security forces secured Tsappara and adjoining ridges on the “Jandola-Sararogha axis”.
  • DPN – It is reported that the Indian Government is planning on signing a deal with Israel to provide Barak naval Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMS). The reported contract is worth over $1 billion. Israel has long made efforts to export its indigenous arms in order to facilitate their development and lower the cost to the domestic military. India has turned to non-traditional arms suppliers in an effort to upgrade the technology levels of their equipment

Far East & Pacific

  • Times of India – China has sent out an interesting signal ahead of US president Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Beijing by offering a set of advanced fighter jets to Pakistan. It has agreed to sell $1.4 billion worth of jets to Islamabad days ahead of the planned visit of the US president Barack Obama to Shanghai and Beijing on November 15-18.
  • Chosun Ilbo – North Korea has apparently instructed naval troops in the West Sea to stockpile more than twice the normal amount of ammunition and artillery shells and staged an unprecedented surprise landing exercise
  • VOA – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has arrived in India on a mission to enhance bilateral ties and to soothe diplomatic tensions following recent attacks on Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne.
  • Asia Times – Cambodia’s welcome to exiled former Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has added a volatile regional dimension to Thailand’s political impasse. Thai military planners now believe Cambodia’s leader could be working with Thaksin to bring down the government in Bangkok. However, given his surge in domestic opinion polls over his stance, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva may see no political point in easing tensions

Europe

  • euobserver – The Swedish presidency has called an EU summit on 19 November to decide on the bloc’s new top appointments, with a Polish proposal to hold candidate hearings gaining limited acceptance. The summit will be in the format of an EU leaders’ dinner in Brussels and comes after two weeks of consultations between Stockholm and the other EU capitals.
  • Russia Today – German prosecutors have dropped all charges of illegally trafficking nuclear materials against Dmitry Kovtun. Kovtun was one of those questioned in connection with the murder of former Russian Security officer Aleksander Litvinenko in London in 2006
  • Hurriyet – Britain renewed an offer to the United Nations to cede nearly half of its sovereign territory on Cyprus, which accounts for 3 percent of the island, in an attempt to revive the war-divided island’s peace talks.
  • Trend – By joining the Nabucco gas pipeline, French GDF Suez would become the seventh shareholder and significantly increase the chances of implementing the project. France’s desire to join the shareholders was stated recently by GDF Suez President Gerard Mestrallet
  • Andrew Stuttaford – Too Small To Fail; The brutal realities of Latvia’s response to the economic meltdown.

Africa

  • Shabelle – the tranistional govrernment police officials in Mogadishu have said on Wednesday that they arrested more soldiers charging for committing insecurity actions against the people in the areas under the control of the TFG in the Somali capiatal capital Mogadishu
  • Sudan Tribune – The Chinese government defended its decision not to block a UN Security Council resolution in 2005 referring the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Beijing, despite being a strong ally of Khartoum, abstained from voting on the resolution outraging Sudanese officials who accused China of failing to “protect its friends”.
  • Long War Journal – An al Qaeda leader wanted by the US for a string of deadly attacks has been named the new leader of terror group’s network in East Africa. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of several al Qaeda leaders charged with carrying out the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was appointed the leader of al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa
  • Ennahar – The Moroccan “B. Yacine” denied the day before yesterday the fact that he concluded an agreement with the security of his country which consists of spying on Islamists in the mosques of Marrakech.
  • Reuters – Libya has begun repatriating hundreds of Nigerien Tuareg rebel fighters, state television in Niger reported on Wednesday, the latest sign of progress in pacifying Niger’s north after two years of revolt.
  • BBC – In pictures: Behind Congo’s rebel lines
  • Xinhua – The 4th Ministerial Conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC) wrapped up in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday. The meeting, capped by two final documents, augured a promising future of comprehensive China-Africa cooperation in the coming years
  • UPI – China’s weekend pledge of $10 billion in low-interest loans to African nations, on top of its recent cancellation of some African debt, takes Beijing another step toward its long-term strategic goal of pulling the continent, with its vast mineral wealth, into its orbit.
burial at sea ceremony in Fort Pierce

Retired Navy Capt. Robert Bedingfield leads a prayer during a burial at sea ceremony in Fort Pierce, Fla. The museum is on the original training grounds of the World War II Scouts and Raiders. This unique ceremony is steeped in tradition and honors all members of Underwater Demolition Team and SEAL special operations forces who have passed. (photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Clark)

The Global War

  • Washington Post – As violence rises in Afghanistan, the power balance between insurgent groups has shifted, with a weakened al-Qaeda relying increasingly on the emboldened Taliban for protection and the manpower to carry out deadly attacks, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.
  • Frederick Kagan – A network of militant Islamist groups stretches from India to the Iranian border, from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean. These groups include Pashtuns and Punjabis, Arabs and Uzbeks and more. They have no common leader, vision, hierarchy, or goal. But they do agree on a few key points: Any government not based on their interpretation of Islam is illegitimate and apostate; anyone who participates in or obeys such a government is not a Muslim and is therefore liable to be killed; Muslims must be “liberated” from oppressive regimes such as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan; and the United States and its allies are the principal sources of support for these unjust and apostate regimes and must be defeated or destroyed.
  • B. Raman – Given below are extracts from the affidavit filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US in the district court of the Northern district of Illinois on October 11,2009, justifying its decision to arrest David Coleman Headley, originally known as Dawood Gilani till 2006. These extracts relate to the three Pakistan-based ring leaders of the conspiracy to carry out terrorist strikes in Denmark and India.
  • Joshua Kucera – In Hohhot, the capital of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, there is a brand new Genghis Khan Square with a huge equestrian statue of the conqueror, and next to it runs Genghis Khan Boulevard. That China would so honor Genghis Khan, whose Mongol armies overwhelmed China in the 13th century and ruled it for more than a century, would seem unlikely. But Beijing, in an attempt to keep a close hold on its present-day Mongol minority, now reasons that since Genghis conquered China, he can be treated as a Chinese hero

Sights & Sounds

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