Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

10 March 2004

WAR ON TERRORISM

• NATO’s maritime security operation in the Mediterranean could be extended to take on criminals and terrorists operating in the Black Sea, the military alliance’s top commander said in Brussels. “A subsequent extension of this maritime interdiction operation to the Black Sea cannot be ruled out,” U.S. General James Jones said in testimony to a Belgian Senate committee. Under its operation, Active Endeavour, NATO keep tabs on maritime movement in the Mediterranean, boards suspects vessels and escorts non-military ships through the Strait of Gibraltar, which is seen as a potential site of terrorist attacks. Gen. Jones, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said the operation had proved extremely effective in thwarting criminals and terrorists trying to use the Mediterranean as a channel of communication. (Reuters 091826 GMT Mar 04)
  
  
• A major Olympic security drill led by Greek and U.S. forces will include “catastrophic scenarios” such as radiation from a so-called “dirty bomb,” a law enforcement official said Tuesday in Athens. The exercises, set to begin on Wednesday and run until March 23, will be the most comprehensive test of the network to safeguard the games and the ability to respond to crises such as hijackings or mass casualties. A spokesman for the Greek police told The Associated Press that the seriousness of the terrorist threats will steadily increase during the drills. The exercise, code-named “Shield of Hercules 2004,” will include about 1,500 Greek personnel and a foreign force of 400 U.S. commandos and 100 others. He did not give details of the non-U.S. participants. But state radio reported that Russians will take part. (AP 091504 Mar 04)
  
  
• An extremist group known for deadly bombings and a brutal campaign to create an Islamic state in Algeria is moving to establish stronger ties to al-Qaeda, raising fears the militants may launch terrorist attacks beyond their North African territory. The new leader of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, Nabil Sahraoui, declared allegiance to bin Laden’s network in the fall. At the time, it received little attention, but now authorities are worried that the Salafists could become a dangerous affiliate of al-Qaeda. Signs of the Salafists’ expansionist designs have emerged in the past year with dozens of alleged operatives arrested in Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and France, where the group is considered the top terrorist threat, French intelligence officials said. (AP 100056 Mar 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• The U.S.-led war on diehard Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan is almost over and three quarters of the country is now stable and secure, U.S. General James Jones said on Tuesday. He also said that there were still serious problems of feuding warlords and drug-trafficking, and the government was struggling to impose its control beyond Kabul. Gen. Jones said last month after briefings, at the headquarters of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, that the number of hard-core Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas had dropped below 1,000 and their strength appeared to be waning. (Reuters 091819 GMT Mar 04)

IRAQ

• A senior member of a militant Islamist group accused of links to al-Qaeda and involvement in suicide bombings in Iraq has been captured in the northern part of the country, Iraqi Kurdish sources said. A senior official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said Ayyub Afghani, a top member of the militant Ansar al-Islam group, was arrested Kirkuk on Tuesday and was being held by U.S. forces. He gave no details on the arrest. (Reuters 092307 GMT Mar 04)

BALKANS

• Macedonian (sic) police on Tuesday arrested a former ethnic Albanian rebel commander who had failed to turn himself in to serve a two-year sentence for possession of firearms. Izair Sami, who led a rebel group during a 2001 insurgency in this Balkan country, was taken into custody after police stormed an apartment in Skopje where he had been hiding. (AP 091742 Mar 04)
  
  
• Serbia began the prosecution of six Serbs for the notorious 1991 Vukovar massacre in a special trial seen as a litmus test of its ability to dispense justice for war crimes during Yugoslavia’s break-up. The six men have been charged with killing at least 192 prisoners of war in Vukovar. (Reuters 091433 GMT Mar 04)

IRAN

• An exile who has previously released key nuclear information about Iran said on Tuesday that Iranian leaders decided at a recent meeting to seek an atom bomb “at all costs” and begin enriching uranium at secret plants. Alireza Jafarzadeh, who disclosed in August 2002 that Iran had a hidden uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water plant at Arak, said that his new information came from the same “well-informed sources inside Iran.” He said the Iranian leaders also agreed at their secret meeting to adopt a generally “aggressive and confrontational approach” with the IAEA before “muscling their way to the finish line to get the bomb.” (Reuters 092353 GMT Mar 04)

OTHER NEWS

• A regional security group including China, Russia and four Central Asian countries that aims to counter growing U.S. influence in the region won’t transform into an anti-Western military alliance, the organization’s top official said Tuesday. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization “will never become an anti-Western political military alliance. We are not aiming to become a military bloc,” the group’s executive secretary, Zhang Deguang, told reporters during a visit to the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. “Our organization does not aim to confront NATO or anybody else.” The alliance, headquartered in Beijing, also has approved the creation of an anti-terrorism office located in Tashkent. (AP 091552 Mar 04)