Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

18 March 2004

BALKANS

Media center on the outbreak of ethnic violence in Kosovo, describing the clashes as the worst since the 1999 war. Focus is on the announcement that NATO is sending reinforcements to the province. Media echo the message of NATO officials that the Alliance can cope with the situation.

• Quoting officials in Brussels, AP reports NATO decided to send reinforcements to Kosovo Thursday following the outbreak that has killed 22 people. The dispatch quotes a spokesman at NATO headquarters stressing that “NATO believes that KFOR has sufficient troops and capabilities in theater to help restore stability” and that the extra troops were being sent in “as a demonstration of our commitment and our capability.” The spokesman is further quoted saying: “KFOR is active and has been active from the beginning in helping to try to restore order. It is absolutely essential that we avoid a situation where this becomes a bigger problem.” A related AFP dispatch quotes a NATO spokeswoman stressing that “we can cope with the situation” and saying the decision on reinforcement was taken by the commander on the ground. AFP further reports that the NAC, meeting in special session, expressed confidence that the extra troops added to 17,000-strong KFOR peacekeeping force could cope with the crisis. In a statement, adds the dispatch, NATO noted that “the allies expressed their full confidence in KFOR’s ability to help restore order in Kosovo.” AFP quotes COMKFOR, Lt. Gen. Kammerhoff, saying in a statement he had given his troops the green light to use force to quash the inter-ethnic violence. “I have given to the commanders the authority to use proportional force necessary to ensure the safety of our soldiers, to protect the innocent people of Kosovo and re-establish freedom of movement of all of Kosovo,” Gen. Kammerhoff reportedly said. The dispatch adds that in Brussels, officials played down the sense of crisis. “It’s perfectly normal. It’s a routine thing. We don’t go anywhere without having the plans in our pockets,” the dispatch quotes a NATO spokeswoman saying. “NATO officials insist that the Alliance and the UN are committed to quelling tensions in Kosovo,” reported BBC News. The dispatch carried NATO spokesman Jamie Shea saying: “I don’t believe there is a possibility of a war. We will do what is necessary to restore and uphold law and order.” The network’s defense correspondent suggested however, that the latest violence shows it will not be possible to reduce the number of peacekeepers in Kosovo in the immediate future.

Among other developments:

• AFP reports KFOR Thursday closed the international airport in Pristina to outbound flights.
  
  
• AFP quotes a Defense Ministry spokesman saying Britain is rushing 750 extra troops to Kosovo and adding that the infantry troops should, in principle, be on the ground in Kosovo within four days.
  
  
• According to AFP, Russia Thursday called for the UN Security Council to discuss in an emergency session the latest wave of violence in Kosovo. “Russia supports the initiative by Serbia and Montenegro to convene an emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss Kosovo,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman reportedly said. He stressed that Russia, one of five permanent members of the Security Council, was “ready to actively participate in the search for a solution to the Kosovo problem.”

AFGHANISTAN

• According to the Washington Post, President Karzai said in Kabul Wednesday long-sought direct elections in Afghanistan could be delayed until August. The newspaper adds that in a joint conference with visiting Secretary of State Powell, Karzai said difficulties in registering millions of eligible voters in rural areas had made a delay increasingly likely.

TERRORISM

• Brussels is to rush forward a number of anti-terrorist measures this week, including a “solidarity clause” obliging EU member states to pool their military and policy resources in the face of attacks, reports the Daily Telegraph. EU ambassadors will thrash out the action plan at an emergency meeting today, discussing ideas of a security “tsar” and new powers for the EU’s intelligence arm, the newspaper adds.
  
  
• AFP reports FBI Director Robert Mueller told members of a House of Representatives’ committee Wednesday the FBI is considering creating an international unit, patterned after NATO, to enhance the sharing of terrorism intelligence between the United States and its European partners. “We have had, upon occasion, agents from other countries full-time in the FBI building, but there are issues related to security and clearances … that a NATO-like joint intelligence center might solve,” Mueller reportedly said and added: “The NATO concept, where there is a classification procedure and a background procedure, where you already have established that level of security … may be the mechanism for sharing intelligence information that is meaningful.”

“On terror, we are all on the same side,” says a commentary in the Financial Times, calling on the U.S. and Europe to agree on their common enemy.
Noting that the fight against the growing threat symbolized by Osama bin Laden and the globalized network of his followers is perceived very differently on both sides of the Atlantic, the article says: To most Europeans, Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein were irrelevant to and likely to prejudice the struggle against Al Qaeda. Very few buy the Bush administration’s insistence on grouping all manner of unresolved problems in the Arab and Islamic world under the heading of the “war against terrorism.” The recent events in Spain should provide the opportunity for these differences to be properly examined. The strength and will to combat Al Qaeda is there. It just needs to be regrouped. “Bin Laden and his ilk must be crushed. It will be a difficult struggle, and no country can assume it will be spared. It must, however, be prosecuted with a much greater consensus on who the enemy is, and how he can be denied political sustenance.