Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

16 March 2004

NATO

• The commander of U.S. naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea met Monday with Greece’s chief Olympic security planner as authorities boosted scrutiny at ports and other points following the deadly terrorist attacks in Spain. U.S. Vice Adm. Henry Ulrich, who directs the Navy’s 6th Fleet, held talks with Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis in an unannounced visit just three days after Greece formally requested help from its NATO allies to safeguard the Aug. 13-29 Games. No statements were made after the meeting. (AP 152251 Mar 04)
  
  
• Azerbaijan’s land forces began a four-day NATO-sponsored training exercise on Monday on border control, defense officials said in Baku. Turkey is leading the exercise as part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said the program would familiarize Azerbaijani military commanders with methods to prevent border incursions, steps for fighting the trafficking of drugs, illegal immigrants and weapons and ways to control the flow of refugees and ensure security. The Turkish Embassy in Azerbaijan said it was organizing the program to help this republic to bring its military up to NATO standards. A similar training program was carried out last week in Georgia, and plans are underway to bring the program to other nations. (AP 151042 Mar 04)

TERRORISM

• The EU may appoint a special anti-terrorism tsar in the wake of last week’s Madrid bombings, top EU officials said on Monday in Brussels. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the bloc should consider appointing a security coordinator to boost cooperation between EU bodies and streamline the fight against terrorism. The plans are likely to be debated at an emergency meeting of EU interior and justice ministers on Friday before a summit of European leaders on March 25-26. A Commission report on the EU’s fight against terrorism being prepared for the summit is likely also to highlight that cooperation could be improved and call for greater information-sharing among member states. However, EU spokesmen deflected calls by Austria and Belgium for a European intelligence agency to share data from national security services. (Reuters 152020 GMT Mar 04)
  
  
• Osama bin Laden has escaped capture in Afghanistan several times and may be linked in some way to the Madrid train attacks that killed 200 people, France’s chief of defence staff said on Monday in Paris. “Our men were not very far. On several occasions, I even think he slipped out of a net that was quite well closed,” General Henri Bentegeat told Europe 1 radio. He did not specify a time frame. The general said it was essential that bin Laden be caught. He said the threat of Islamic radicalism was spreading beyond the Middle East. Asked about security in France, Gen. Bentegeat said fighter jets could scramble in less than 2 minutes to confront any intrusion into the country’s air space. (Reuters 151238 GMT Mar 04)
  
  
• Asia and Europe should cooperate to head off “serious threats” from traditional conflicts between nations, terrorists, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, a senior Japanese diplomat said in Tokyo. The remarks by Senior Vice Foreign Minister Masatoshi Abe came at the start of a two-day conference in Tokyo attended by diplomats and security experts from Asia and the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He added that Europe and Asia must combat those threats to prevent future conflicts, suggesting that countries in the two regions consider following the lead of NATO, which in recent years has broadened its alliance to include conflict prevention and crisis management. (AP 151300 Mar 04)

IRAQ

• Spain’s plans to pull troops out of Iraq may galvanise anti-war movements in other countries that have sent soldiers, but their governments look likely to stay engaged. Poland vowed to keep its 2,400 troops in Iraq. “Revising our positions on Iraq after terrorist attacks would be to admit that terrorists are stronger and that they are right,” Prime Minister Leszek Miller said in Warsaw. Poland’s ambassador to NATO said Warsaw was ready to retain its command of a stabilisation force beyond July 1, when Spain was to have taken over. Italy’s government was also steadfast despite growing demands from various opposition groups for a troop withdrawal, particularly if there is no handover of power to Iraqis in June. The Dutch government said it would not be cowed into withdrawing its 1,100 troops from Iraq and that the attacks should not affect deliberations on extending their mandate. (Reuters 152057 GMT Mar 04)

BALKANS

• Bosnia met a key condition for admission to NATO’s Partnership for Peace security forum on Monday by finally appointing its first defence minister. Nikola Radovanovic, an ethnic Serb, was appointed the first head of a unified defence infrastructure that will control Serb, Muslim and Croat ethnic militias. NATO had stipulated the militias must come under state-level civilian control before PfP membership could be considered. (Reuters 151519 GMT Mar 04)

GREATER MIDDLE EAST INITIATIVE

• Arabs should study a controversial U.S. plan for political reform in the Arab world and not reject it out of hand, a senior figure in the maverick Gulf Arab state of Qatar said on Monday. “If it is in the interest of the Arab world, it should be studied positively and we should adopt it,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said in comments carried by official news agency QNA and Qatar-based Al Jazeera television. “If it has faults we should say so and offer an alternative, but rejecting it without examination would be unfair to the Arab citizen,” he said in the comments made at a seminar in Doha about promoting democracy in the Arab world. (Reuters 152107 GMT Mar 04)