Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

24 April 2003

IRAQ

• U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he has no current plans for another war and played down Shi’ite demands for an Islamic state in Iraq, according to excerpts of an interview. “I have no specific operation in mind at this point in time,” the president said, adding: : “I can’t think of a specific moment or a specific incident that would require military action as we speak.” According to Newsweek, President Bush showed little concern about recent Shi’ite demands for an Islamic state in Iraq and for a speedy U.S. departure from the country. (Reuters 230029 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• A senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric, traveling from exile in Iran to a major pilgrimage in Iraq, was detained by unidentified troops on Monday, a Kuwait-based Shi’ite cleric said on Tuesday. Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mudaressi, leader of an Iran-based Iraqi exiled opposition group, the Islamic Action Organisation, crossed the border in a convoy of four vehicles when soldiers detained him and his companions, Mohammad Baqer al-Mohri told the Reuters news agency in Kuwait. He said the troops, that he was unable to identify, let the other three vehicles in the convoy continue their journey but held the minibus carrying Mudaressi and others. “We consider the (U.S.-led) allied forces responsible for the safety of Mudaressi and his companions,” he said. A separate Shi’ite source in Kuwait said the People’s Mujahideen, an armed group of Iranian dissidents that had been backed by Saddam Hussein, was operating in the area in which Mudaressi was detained. A Mujahideen spokesman in Paris denied the group was involved in Mudaressi’s detention. (Reuters 222003 GMT Apr 03)

NATO

• The Russian and Polish defense ministers on Tuesday pledged to boost bilateral military cooperation, particularly in the area of supplies of Russian spares for Poland’s Soviet-era weapons, news reports said in Moscow. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski signed an agreement on military-technical cooperation, the ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies reported. Ivanov and Szmajdzinski were also expected to discuss Poland’s cooperation with NATO. (AP 221142 Apr 03)

EU

• Polish leaders on Tuesday shrugged off as surprising and hasty criticism by the European Union president for Warsaw’s US $3.5 billion order for F-16 fighter jets from U.S.-based Lockheed Martin, rather than from European bidders. EU President Roman Prodi criticized the signing of the deal for 48 fighter jets last Friday, just after Poland and nine other countries were accepted for EU membership in 2004, as deepening Warsaw’s ties with the United States at a time when it should be integrating with Europe. “Let it be clear that if one enters the Union, they enter a family,” Prodi told the Italian La Repubblica daily on Saturday. “One cannot entrust his purse to Europe and his security to America.” Polish leaders shrugged off criticism, stressing that the deal strengthens the security not only of Poland, but of Europe and NATO. “It’s in the interest of the EU that Poland has bigger defense and economic potential which could enhance European security,” said Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski. “I treat Prodi’s statement as a very hasty one.” (AP 221405 Apr 03)

BALKANS

• NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have arrested a former commander of an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force (UCPMB) wanted by Serbian police, Beta news agency reported late on Tuesday. Sefket Musliu was arrested in Kosovo on Tuesday on an international warrant, the agency quoted Serbian authorities as saying. It did not specify the charges against him. Musliu is the former military chief of the now-disbanded Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac. (Reuters 230011 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• Bosnia’s top international official on Tuesday called for all former Yugoslav states to crack down on organized crime, warning that criminals implicated in the killing of Serbia’s prime minister could flee to other parts of the Balkans. “This is the moment, now, to strike a decisive blow against organized crime and criminality in the Balkans,” Paddy Ashdown said during a one-day visit to Zagreb. (AP 221522 Apr 03)
  
  
• Serbia on Tuesday lifted the state of emergency imposed after the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic last month giving police sweeping powers to arrest suspects. “Serbia is no longer under the state of emergency,” Natasa Micic, Serbia’s acting president and the parliament speaker, said. The government proposed the move earlier on Tuesday. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, welcomed the move. (Reuters 221728 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• Three pro-independence candidates will run for the presidency of Montenegro in elections on May 11, the state electoral commission announced Tuesday in Podgorica. The front-runner for the ballot is the speaker of parliament, Filip Vujanovic, who won most of the votes in two earlier, failed elections. Filip Vujanovic will be challenged by Miodrag Zivkovic, from the radically pro-independence Liberal Alliance, and Dragan Hajdukovic, a little-known independent candidate, who also favors a break with Serbia. (AP 221408 Apr 03)
  
  
• Justice and home affairs ministers from around the Balkans gathered Tuesday in Thessaloniki to better coordinate efforts to fight organized crime. The closed-door meeting, organized by Greece, was aimed at drafting a preliminary plan that will be presented at an EU summit to be held here in June. Ministers from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Macedonia (sic), Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey attended the meeting. (AP 221438 Apr 03)

OTHER NEWS

• U.S.-French relations were not damaged beyond repair by the dispute over Iraq, but Paris has yet to prove its willingness to revitalize ties with Washington, an American official said Tuesday in Paris. “We have obviously come through a very difficult period in US-French relations,” said Robert A. Bradtke, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. He said there were things France could do to improve relations, such as helping in the Middle East peace process. Bradtke said Washington was also disappointed by President Chirac’s decision to meet with the leaders of Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg on April 29 to discuss forging a common European defense outside NATO. “We just think it is a diversion from the very good work that has been done to build up relations between NATO and the European Union,” he said. “It’s not helpful.” However, Bradtke cited French backing for a recent NATO decision to take over command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan as a step in the right direction. (AP 221417 Apr 03)