• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

AFGHANISTAN

• Chances are slim - if not nil - for any expansion of the international security force in Afghanistan because no country wants to send more troops, diplomats said on Tuesday. Instead, U.S. and European nations are contemplating a "tool box" of actions, ranging from providing military advisers to Afghan forces, to offering cash and aid to regional leaders to stop feuding and make a deal with the fledgling central government. (…) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has pleaded for an expansion of the peacekeepers, noting that training an Afghan army and police would take about 18 months. (…) Extending the life of the current operation is not in doubt as soon as Turkey officially announces it will assume the command from Britain in mid-April, UN Security Council members said. (Reuters 191729 GMT Mar 02)

• All U.S. and Canadian forces have withdrawn from the eastern Shah-e-Kot Valley, where the biggest U.S.-led ground offensive of the war in Afghanistan took place earlier this month, a U.S. general said Tuesday at Bagram air base. Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, the commander of all coalition troops in Afghanistan, said that while Operation Anaconda was over, al-Qaida and Taliban would be actively pursued throughout Afghanistan. (AP 192009 Mar 02)

• German prosecutors said on Tuesday they had launched an investigation into possible negligence after three Danish and two German soldiers died in an explosion in the Afghan capital of Kabul earlier this month. "Initial investigations suggest that security regulations were not observed," Benedikt Welfens, a spokesman for prosecutors in the town of Potsdam, near Berlin, said. Welfens said one German soldier was being investigated and the prosecutor’s office said further details would be released later this week. (Reuters 191955 GMT Mar 02)

BALKANS

• Bosnian police raided the offices and homes of employees of an Islamic charity on Tuesday in an effort to crack down on terrorist activities, a police statement said. Bosnian police raided the offices of the Benevolentia International Foundation in Sarajevo and in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, seizing documents belonging to the group and interrogating staff members, the statement added. In an ongoing investigation of groups with possible links to terrorists, officials here said last week that funds were missing from Benevolentia and two other Islamic aid organizations. Bosnian officials promised the U.S. government last week to crack down on the groups. (…) Also Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo said it was increasing security "due to unverified threats against this Embassy." The announcement was appended to a worldwide warning to U.S. citizens issued after the March 17 attack in Islamabad. (AP 192234 Mar 02)

• Bosnia-Herzegovina and Yugoslavia have made progress in bridging the ethnic divides caused by years of conflict, but they need to step up the pace, a United Nations expert said in a report released on Tuesday. Jose Cutileiro’s 28-page report to the UN Human Rights Commission said that developments in protection of human rights "have been positive" in Bosnia and that there is "an overall improvement in the situation of human rights" in Yugoslavia. But serious obstacles remain, he added. (…) Cutileiro said that implementation of the property laws was "appalling" in the Republika Srpska and little better in the federation. Countries hosting Bosnian refugees should be wary about returning them to "areas where there is no genuine climate of security for ethnic minorities," he said. (AP 191729 Mar 02)

RUSSIA

• Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, met in Moscow on Tuesday with a top Russian Foreign Ministry official to discuss progress of the anti-terror campaign, the ministry said in a statement. Gen. Franks and First Deputy Foreign Minister V.I. Trubnikov also discussed strengthening U.S.-Russian cooperation in fighting international terrorism, the statement said. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it couldn’t comment on the general’s whereabouts. Gen. Franks is due to meet on Wednesday with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to review the military operation in Afghanistan and anti-terror efforts in other parts of the world. They will also discuss the U.S. troop presence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, the Interfax news agency said. During his visit, Gen. Franks will meet with Russian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin and Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Kormiltsev, before leaving Moscow on Thursday. (AP 192109 Mar 02)

• U.S. and Russian negotiators will meet in Geneva this week to work on a nuclear arms agreement, which the countries’ presidents want to have ready by their May summit, a U.S. spokesman said on Tuesday. (…) The United States and Russia have announced separately that they intend the cut the sizes of their operational nuclear arsenals steeply over the next decade. (…) U.S. spokesman Boucher said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov will meet before a meeting of NATO and Russian ministers in Reykjavik on May 15. A State Department official confirmed an Itar-Tass report that the meeting would probably take place in the second week of April. The Russian agency said the meeting would be in either Madrid or Berlin. (Reuters 191940 GMT Mar 02)

• Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Tuesday there was no evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was storing weapons of mass destruction and that Russia remained opposed to any military action against Iraq. Speaking after a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in London, Ivanov said any planned attack must not bypass the United Nations and international leaders had to ensure "their watches are showing the same time on Iraq." (AP 191853 Mar 02)

• Slovak President Rudolf Schuster met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other top officials in Moscow on Tuesday for talks on boosting trade and how eastward expansion of the European Union and NATO will affect Russia. President Schuster met with President Putin in the Kremlin late on Tuesday evening, and the Russian president praised the development of relations, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. (AP 191959 Mar 02)

OTHER NEWS

• Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Tuesday that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had assured him there were no current plans for military action against Iraq. Speaking after meeting Cheney in Ankara, Ecevit told reporters that the U.S. Vice President "conveyed that a military operation was not on the agenda in the foreseeable future." (…) Prime Minister Ecevit also said talks were continuing with U.S. and British officials on whether Turkey will take over command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. A U.S. official on the trip said no decision came out of the meeting on Turkey’s potential command role. But Washington made a new pledge of US $228 million in aid to sweeten the offer. (Reuters 192219 GMT Mar 02)

 FINAL ITEM