Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

13 August 2003

TERRORISM

• Several key al Qaeda members, including the security chief and Osama bin Laden’s son, are in Iran, which has not responded to a request by Saudi Arabia to hand over any of its citizens among them, a senior Saudi official said on condition of anonymity. He said those in Iran included: Saad bin Laden, an older son of the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader; Egyptian Saif al-Adel, believed to be the network’s security chief; Kuwait-born Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, al Qaeda’s spokesman; and Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has suspected al Qaeda ties and is accused of plotting the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Amman last year. (Reuters 122058 GMT Aug 03)
  
  
• The FBI has arrested a British man as part of an international sting operation involving an alleged plot to smuggle into the United States a shoulder-fired missile capable of taking down a commercial airliner, federal officials said. The man was arrested in New Jersey after agreeing to sell a sophisticated Russian SA-18 Igla missile to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Muslim extremist. The arrest was part of a broader investigation by the FBI, British and Russian authorities, the federal official said. Justice Department officials and the British Foreign Office in London had no immediate comment on the case. (AP 122321 Aug 03)

BALKANS

• The Serbian government on Tuesday adopted a draft declaration describing the southern province of Kosovo as part of Serbia, a move likely to anger Kosovo Albanians who want outright independence. The draft says Serbian state sovereignty also refers to Kosovo, despite the transitional international administration running the province since June 1999 in line with UN resolution 1244, Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said. He added that in Serbia’s new constitution now being drafted, Kosovo would have the same status as its northern Vojvodina province, even though Serbia’s jurisdiction is currently suspended because of the UN forces now in charge. But Bajram Rexhepi, the province’s prime minister, has said that including Kosovo in Serbia’s constitution would make any talks impossible. He was quoted as saying he hoped that would not happen. (Reuters 121639 GMT Aug 03)
  
  
• Fifteen gunmen opened fire on Tuesday against an army patrol in a tense area separating the UN-run Kosovo province and Serbia, Serbia’s state television reported. Nobody was injured in an ensuing exchange of fire, but one attacker, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, was arrested, Defense Minister Boris Tadic, was quoted as saying. (AP 122039 Aug 03)

IRAQ

• The five major powers on the UN Security Council neared agreement on Tuesday on a U.S.-drafted resolution to welcome Baghdad’s new Governing Council and formally authorize the United Nations assistance mission in Iraq, diplomats said. Security Council members are wary of endorsing the Governing Council with language that would appear to give it the status of a full-fledged permanent government. So the resolution is likely to welcome the council’s creation only as an initial step toward a definitive government, diplomats added. (Reuters 130007 GMT Aug 03)
  
  
• Turkey’s top political and military leaders met Tuesday to discuss the possible deployment of Turkish peacekeepers to Iraq. A final decision on sending Turkish soldiers to Iraq is likely to be made next week at a meeting of the National Security Council. (AP 121419 Aug 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• Germany’s defense minister said Tuesday he plans to send a new fact-finding mission to Afghanistan to investigate whether German peacekeepers should be deployed in the country’s northern Kunduz province. During a visit to troops in eastern Germany that followed a trip to Afghanistan, Peter Struck said he would propose to the Cabinet that a fact-finding mission be sent to the area to assess the possibility of German peacekeepers helping local authorities maintain order and aid civilian relief organizations, according to the Defense Ministry. (AP 121415 Aug 03)