Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

24 February 2004

GENERAL JONES

• Gen. Jones visited Cameroon last Saturday and was received by Prime Minister Mafany Musongue, reported Cameroon’s Le Quotidien Mutations, Feb. 23. Noting that the meeting took place against the background of the struggle against international terrorism, the report quoted Gen. Jones saying: “I came here to learn and listen…. The United States is interested in the struggle against global terrorism and we are aware that fundamentalist risks exist in some African countries.” The report acknowledged that “certain fundamentalist movements” have recently appeared in Nigeria, close to Cameroon’s borders.

ISAF

• AP reports Lakdar Brahimi, the former UN official to Afghanistan said in Tokyo Tuesday more NATO forces will be needed in Afghanistan to help the government boost security and disarm local warlords and insurgents as the country prepares for presidential elections. Brahimi, currently the top adviser on Iraq to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, reportedly said the warlords and violent Taliban-led extremist groups threaten to undo President Karzai’s efforts to rebuild the country. “That is why we have called repeatedly for the expansion of NATO-led forces,” Brahimi told a conference, adding: “Though this is at last underway, I fear the pace and scale of it may not be enough.” The dispatch notes that while NATO agreed last October to expand ISAF beyond Kabul, member countries have been reluctant to send more troops. It stresses that this has slowed Karzai’s efforts to extend government control beyond Kabul, and raised questions about Afghanistan’s ability to meet a timetable for June presidential elections.

NATO

• According to AFP, a NATO official said Monday the Alliance will welcome seven new members at a ceremony that is expected to be held on April 2 at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels. The date of April 2 is “98 percent” certain, the official, who asked not to be named, reportedly indicated.
  
  
• According to the Defense Ministry, a NATO AWACS plane made a reconnaissance flight near the Russian border Monday evening, reports Moscow’s Interfax. “The NATO AWACS aircraft flew in Latvia’s airspace near the Russian border…. The plane flew from Geilenkirchen in Germany to Rumble in Latvia, to demonstrate the capabilities of the AWACS’ potential,” the Ministry reportedly said. Stressing, however, that the Russian Air Force command is troubled by the flight, the dispatch quotes a spokesman at Air Force headquarters saying: “The flights of an AWACS aircraft in the airspace of Latvia and Lithuania will permit deep air reconnaissance in the northwestern part of Russia and Belarus, which cannot help arousing concern. The flights of NATO reconnaissance planes near the Russian border are practically a daily occurrence. The spy planes patrol the airspace near the Russian border in virtually every direction…. They do not intrude in our airspace, but study everything thoroughly. The Russian Air Force monitors and analyzes such flights.”

IRAQ

• AFP reports the U.S. Ambassador to Berlin, Daniel Coats, told a radio interview Tuesday the United States accepts Berlin’s decision not to send troops to Iraq. “The German government has said it does not want to send Bundeswehr soldiers to Iraq. We accept that. We are happy that the Federal government announced it would not stand in the way of a NATO engagement in Iraq. There is no need for German troops there,” Ambassador Coats reportedly told Bayerischer Rundfunk, in comments translated into German. Ahead of a visit by Chancellor Schroeder to Washington, he stressed that President Bush wanted to put aside its differences with Germany, saying: “We need to move forward and the president’s meeting with the chancellor is a positive step forward.”