Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

29 March 2004

WAR ON TERRORISM

• America’s European allies must recognize and help fight a growing threat from the spread of al Qaeda and allied Islamic guerrilla groups into northern Africa, NATO’s top general said on Friday. U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, commander of all alliance forces in Europe, said Washington was seeking military access to small bases from Morocco to Mali in the vast Sahara Desert and its fringes. Allies should join the effort, he added. “I think we need to raise the level of awareness. ... We need to get the jump on this right now,” Gen. Jones told a group of reporters, stressing that al-Qaeda members apparently were being driven into Africa from Afghanistan and the Middle East. He stressed that U.S. access to bases in Africa would not create a “ponderous footprint” such as the Cold War U.S. military presence in Europe. “It’s not ‘fortress America’ being built. But it is an engagement strategy that can be ... short-term. Very effective. Very powerful,” Gen. Jones added. (Reuters 261809 GMT Mar 04)
  
  
• An Algerian band of Islamic extremists possibly linked to the al-Qaeda terror network suffered a “very significant military defeat” when attacked two weeks ago by Chad’s army, the general responsible for U.S. military interests in North Africa said Friday. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, commander of U.S. European Command, said the fight targeted the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. Although U.S. troops were not involved in the battle, Gen. Jones said American forces have been cooperating with Chad and other Saharan countries in ways that have made their militaries more effective. (AP 261834 Mar 04)

KOSOVO

• Serbian lawmakers on Friday passed a declaration which calls Kosovo an “inseparable” part of Serbia and warns against changing any borders when deciding the UN-run province’s final status. The declaration, also urged the UN to “rethink and revise” its policies in Kosovo following last week’s ethnic violence. (AP 261642 Mar 04)
  
  
• Building closer ties with NATO is Serbia’s only chance of protecting the dwindling Serb community in Kosovo, the deputy prime minister said Sunday in Belgrade. “Cooperation with NATO - it has to be said openly – is the only guarantee for protection of Serbs in Kosovo,” Miroljub Labus told a convention of his pro-Western G17 Plus party. If Serbia joins NATO’s Partnership for Peace program - a step toward possible full membership - it would help protect Serbia’s interest in Kosovo, he said. “The time of illusions is gone. We have to rid ourselves from the illusion that a military solution is possible. The international community has to rid itself from the illusion that there is no terrorism in Kosovo,” Labus added. Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians also need to “give up the illusion of an independent Kosovo,” he said, reiterating that Belgrade would accept broad autonomy for Kosovo but not its secession. (AP 281425 Mar 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• President Hamid Karzai has postponed Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban national elections until September, urging by the United Nations to use the extra time to disarm warlords it called a leading threat to a free and fair vote. The UN special representative to Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, welcomed the decision, saying it also would allow time for NATO to expand its peacekeeping operations beyond Kabul. (AP 290009 Mar 04)
  
  
• Afghanistan is to launch an ambitious drive to improve security for elections by demobilising nearly 40,000 soldiers loyal to regional powerbrokers by June, the government said on Friday in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai will soon sign a decree formalising a National Security Council decision to demobilise the men who represent about 40 percent of such forces, Deputy Defence Minster Abdul Rahim Wardak said on state television. Lieutenant-General Rick Hillier, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, said it was fully behind the government’s disarmament plans. “Clearly the international community would support with military forces to perhaps help the process occur smoothly, an important factor of actually making it happen,” he added. The government official said military units would have to hand over all their heavy weapons to the Defence Ministry. Subsequent phases would aim to demobilise all armed forces outside the new army by June 2005. (Reuters 261727 GMT Mar 04)

OTHER NEWS

• Russian and Italian ships are scheduled to conduct joint naval exercises in the Tyrrhenian Sea off Italy’s coast in September, Russian media reports said Saturday. Ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet will take part in the three-day exercises , which are scheduled to start Sept. 4, the Interfax news agency and state-run Rossiya television reported. The televised report said the exercises will use scenarios developed by NATO. After the exercises, the Russian ships will visit Malta. (AP 271231 Mar 04)
  
  
• Several hundred Soviet-built missiles (SA-2s) are unaccounted for in Ukraine’s military arsenals, according to what Defense Minister Marchuk said in a newspaper interview that could raise international concern about weapons leaks from the country. “We are looking for several hundred missiles,” Yevhen Marchuk was quoted as saying in an interview published Thursday in the Den newspaper. “They have already been decommissioned, but we cannot find them,” he said. He stopped short of saying that the missiles had been sold and appeared to suggest that they had been dismantled without proper accounting. (AP 261559 Mar 04)