Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

27 January 2004

AFGHANISTAN

• At least one Canadian soldier with the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was killed and three soldiers wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up near their car in Kabul on Tuesday, an Afghan official said. Senior interior ministry official Mohammad Harun Asifi told Reuters the attack happened near the Canadian base on the southern outskirts of the city. Police said at least nine Afghan civilians were also wounded in the attack. (Reuters 270541 GMT Jan 04)

IRAQ

• NATO's new secretary-general said Monday he was hopeful France and Germany would join an eventual alliance military operation in Iraq if such a deployment was requested by a legitimate Iraqi government. "If there would be ... an appeal by the legitimate Iraqi government, I would certainly hope that as many allies as possible would participate," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who took over the alliance's top job at the start of the year. "The decisive factor is what an Iraqi government will ask," he added during a lunch with journalists at NATO headquarters. De Hoop Scheffer said he was hopeful that France and Germany may not only authorize a NATO role, but even contribute troops to an alliance mission after the U.S. hands over power to an Iraqi government - a move scheduled for July 1. "I'm very much in favor of a NATO role. I think NATO is the one and only security organization which could embark on such an ... operation," he said. "I would certainly hope that France and Germany would play a role." The NATO chief said he hoped Arab nations also would join efforts to stabilize Iraq, adding that such a development would be facilitated by a new U.N. resolution. Despite the talk on Iraq, De Hoop Scheffer stressed the alliance's "first priority" was Afghanistan, where he is pressing governments to provide more troops to expand a NATO peacekeeping mission beyond the capital, Kabul. "We have to succeed in Afghanistan," he insisted. "If we fail ... the political price will be very high, so we simply cannot afford that." De Hoop Scheffer said it was too early to say how many troops would be needed for the expanded mission. "It would be a shot in the dark if I were to answer your question, 'Now we need 15,000, we need 25,000, we need 7,000.' ... I'm not going to fire that shot," he said. Even if NATO expands its operation to also take in the separate U.S.-led combat mission against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan _ as suggested by Washington _ De Hoop Scheffer said a sizable U.S. military presence would still be needed to provide back up to the allied peacekeepers. "For protection in extremis ... the Americans will be very necessary, American protection, American close air support," he said. "We will continue to need to draw on U.S. resources." (AP 261619 Jan 04)
  
  
• U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to announce Tuesday whether the world body will send a team to Iraq to determine whether elections should be held. "I expect to make a decision between now and Tuesday about our action," Annan told reporters Monday in Stockholm following a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson. The United Nations said Friday that a two-person team had arrived in Baghdad for talks with the coalition on various security matters. It was the first time foreign U.N. staff had returned to Baghdad since Annan withdrew personnel in October. A U.N. spokesman stressed that a separate field security assessment would be needed should the secretary-general decide to send in an electoral team. The head of the world body is in Paris for the opening of the Global Compact conference and will meet later in the day with French President Jacques Chirac. (AP 270537 Jan 04)

WAR ON TERRORISM

• Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says U.S. and Libyan intelligence agencies may have worked together in the fight against terrorism, according to an Italian newspaper interview published Monday. Asked about anti-terrorism efforts and cooperation with the United States, Gadhafi told Rome's La Repubblica daily: "There are groups that are working against all of us. ... It could be that there has been cooperation between secret services, in particular regarding Libyan citizens who fought in Afghanistan." Gadhafi also argued that "terrorism" includes acts carried out by states - a definition often used to characterize Israeli actions in the occupied territories as terrorism. "If someone destroys an inhabited building with a missile from a plane, you can't say he was not a terrorist," he was quoted as saying. "There's not much difference between a missile and a homemade bomb, such as the dynamite belts used by the Palestinians. They are similar things. But the missile is more dangerous." (AP 261711 Jan 04)