Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

13 February 2003

WAR ON TERRORISM

• A judge in Naples ordered the release on Wednesday of 28 Pakistanis arrested in a highly publicized anti-terror raid in which authorities said they found explosives, maps of a NATO base and a newspaper photograph of Britain’s military chief. RAI state TV said that prosecutors themselves had asked the judge to release 17 of the suspects. One of the defense attorneys said that the Pakistanis are still charged and the investigation was continuing. (AP 121735 Feb 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• Spain denied reports Wednesday that it was considering a German request for it to be the next nation to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan. “Spain completely denies the report,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press. The ministry was reacting to a report in the German paper the Financial Times Deutschland which cited Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio. The foreign minister official, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, said: “The minister never said this. Spain is not considering this at all.”(AP 122206 Feb 03)
  
  
• Canada said on Wednesday it would send up to 2,000 troops to Afghanistan later this year to bolster a UN peacekeeping mission, a move that could limit Canadian participation in a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq. The announcement would seem to help avert a major problem for Ottawa, which is keen to stay on the right side of its most important ally, the United States, while watching opinion polls that show most Canadians oppose the idea of a war on Iraq. (Reuters 122154 GMT Feb 03)
  

IRAQ

• Senior officials spoke dismissively of European calls for more and better weapons inspections to disarm Iraq at the same time the Pentagon took new steps toward war. “More inspectors aren’t the issue. ... The issue is lack of Iraqi compliance,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress on Wednesday. At the Pentagon, officials said the military dumped another half million leaflets over southern Iraq during the day as part of a psychological warfare campaign. Additionally, officials said the Pentagon had activated 38,600 National Guardsmen and reservists in the past week. (AP 130253 Feb 03)
  
  
• France assured Turkey on Wednesday that it would help defend it if there was a war in Iraq, even though Paris vetoed NATO defence planning proposals this week. French President Jacques Chirac telephoned Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to pledge support and protection in the event of war, his spokeswoman said. Also French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in an interview with the magazine Paris Match released on Wednesday, said “...we are defending a good cause. It’s a matter of considering war as a final decision which can only be taken when all other forms of pressure have been tried.” (Reuters 122054 GMT Feb 03)
  

BALKANS

• There is no evidence that ethnic Albanian militants are crossing into Serbia or operating in Kosovo, international officials said Wednesday in a response to allegations from a Serbian official. “We have no intelligence or information on any terrorist organization operating within Kosovo at all,” a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers in the province said adding that no Kosovo militants were entering Serbia. UN police also found no evidence of militants operating in Kosovo or entering Serbia. (AP 121525 Feb 03)
  
  
• A former guerrilla chief warned on Wednesday of renewed violence in tense southern Serbia after police at the weekend detained 12 local ethnic Albanians suspected of illegal arms possession. “We don’t know why they were arrested. This is a clear provocation by the Serbian side,” said Shefket Musliu. (Reuters 121715 GMT Feb 03)
  

OTHER NEWS

• Space is the new military “high ground,” and the United States must work hard to develop a space-based radar system, reusable spacecraft and offensive space weapons to protect national security, the head of the Pentagon’s National Reconnaissance Office said on Wednesday in Washington. “Our space assets now are probably more important to war-fighters and more important to our ability to win this global war on terrorism than they ever have been historically,” said Air Force Undersecretary and NRO Director Peter Teets. (Reuters 130209 GMT Feb 03)