Military

WAR ON TERRORISM

¨         The al-Qaida terrorist network has learned how to adapt to global military and financial pressure and remains capable of carrying out attacks in the United States, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference. He said al-Qaida is constantly regrouping and adjusting. (AP 222112 Oct 02)

¨         The U.S. State Department will announce on Wednesday that it is designating the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiah as a "foreign terrorist organization," a U.S. official said on Tuesday in Washington. The Jemaah Islamiah is already on the State Department's secondary list of 28 "other terrorist groups." (Reuters 230141 GMT Oct 02)

¨         A top U.S. Treasury Department official, touring European banking centers with a list of "senior financiers of terror," urged the European Union on Tuesday not to delay freezing accounts once Washington acts. Undersecretary Jimmy Gurule praised the cooperation between the EU and Washington but he complained that the EU procedure for taking coordinated action was often "very slow, not agile and doesn't respond as quickly." (AP 222059 Oct 02)

¨         Against the backdrop of worldwide terrorism, the United States has offered Greece all the experts and training it requests to ensure security at the 2004 Olympics, the Greek minister for public order said Tuesday in Athens. Advisers in dealing with chemical and biological weapons will be included, minister Chrysohoidis said. (AP 222109 Oct 02)

AFGHANISTAN

¨         Dutch Defence Minister Benk Korthals is due in Afghanistan on Wednesday ahead of his country's assumption of the joint leadership of the international peacekeeping operation in Kabul. The interim government of Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for the expansion of the role of the 21-nation ISAF outside Kabul. An Afghan official said Karzai would reiterate his appeal to Minister Korthals. (Reuters 221138 GMT Oct 02)

IRAQ

¨         A major Yugoslav weapons dealer has exported military equipment to Iraq, and Serb experts are helping Saddam Hussein defend Iraq's air space against U.S. attacks, a top Yugoslav military official said on Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a recent NATO inspection of a Bosnian Serb military factory in Bijeljina several documents were discovered linking the company (Orao) and the arms dealer, Yugoimport, with weapons exports to Iraq. A spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia refused to comment in detail on the reports, but conceded that the Western military alliance "did find something very significant." He said a preliminary inspection of the Orao (Eagle) factory uncovered the existence of a contract linking the factory to an "unreported export of weapons systems." The Yugoslav Defense Ministry said in a statement that it had not approved the export of arms to Iraq and that it would investigate the alleged breach of the UN arms embargo and "undertake measures against possible culprits." After an emergency session of Yugoslav leaders late on Tuesday to discuss the report and its consequences, the government fired the head manager of the Yugoimport company, Army Gen. Jovan Cekovic, Serbian state television reported. The government also ordered an investigation into Yugoimport's trade deals and demanded the company close its Baghdad office. The documents uncovered by NATO also allegedly indicate that in the case of a UN inspection, Yugoslav experts currently in Iraq would dismantle the equipment within 10 days, and that the Iraqis would be expected to hide it until the inspectors are gone, the Belgrade-based Blic daily reported. (AP 221901 Oct 02)

NATO

¨         The head of NATO said on Tuesday that the United States must release more military technologies to its European allies to "remove the alibis" for the trans-Atlantic gap in military capabilities. Secretary-General George Robertson, in a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the United States should be less worried about proliferation and competition than about incompatibility between U.S. and European forces. Lord Robertson said, "If the United States wants Europeans to share the responsibilities and risks of dealing with today's threats, it must be prepared to transfer the technology needed to modernize European armed forces." "We can deal with concerns about onward proliferation and industrial competition. We cannot deal with soldiers unable to communicate with each other, aircraft unable to use precision weapons, commanders unable to see the battlefield." "In Europe, the message is modernization or marginalia. Here in Washington the message is: 'Remove the alibis'," he added. He also made a plea for military and diplomatic multilateralism by the United States, often criticized in Europe for its tendency to act alone. (Reuters 222013 GMT Oct 02)

EU

¨         Turkey's National Security Council (MGK), an influential advisory body of generals and civilians, urged the European Union on Tuesday to give Turkey a date for membership talks at a December summit in Copenhagen. "The (EU) members should meet the expectations of the Turkish people with regard to moving things forward in a way that will include setting a date for Turkey's membership talks at the summit in Copenhagen," said a written statement released after the MGK's regular meeting. (Reuters 221648 GMT Oct 02)

BALKANS

¨         A dangerous new breed of nationalists with ties to organized crime is whipping up old ethnic rivalries across the volatile Balkans, a U.S. think tank says in a new report that warns of trouble brewing across southeastern Europe. In "Looking Ahead: Security in the Balkans," released this week with the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, the New York-based EastWest Institute said bringing the troubled peninsula closer to membership in NATO and the European Union would help defuse deep-rooted hatreds between rival ethnic groups. Only the continued presence of American and European peacekeepers in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia (sic) has tamped down ethnic tensions and prevented fresh conflict from erupting, UN special envoy Carl Bildt said in a foreward to the report. (AP 230020 Oct 02)

¨         Kosovo's Serb leaders said Tuesday that their ethnic community would participate - but only partially - in upcoming municipal elections that international officials hope will bridge divisions in this ethnically tense province. The decision followed an overnight meeting in Belgrade between Yugoslav President Kostunica and leaders of Kosovo's Serb community. (AP 221940 Oct 02)