Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

19 April 2004

IRAQ

• Spain said it would withdraw its 1,400 troops in Iraq as soon as possible, dealing a major blow to the U.S.-led coalition as 10 U.S. soldiers were killed in fierce fighting against guerrillas. Condoleezza Rice, U.S. National Security Advisor, said on Sunday the United States expected other countries with troops in Iraq to reassess their position after Spain's decision. "We know that there are others who are going to have to assess how they see the risk," Rice told ABC television. Spain's new Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Sunday he issued the pullout order because he did not expect a UN resolution to be adopted "that conforms with the conditions we have set for our presence in Iraq." "This morning...I gave (the defence minister) the order to do what was necessary for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq to come home in the shortest possible time and in the greatest possible safety," Zapatero said on Spanish television. (Reuters 182327 GMT Apr 04)
  
  
• France backed calls on Sunday for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution to guarantee a genuine transfer of power to the Iraqi people when the U.S.-led occupation ends on June 30. The EU wants the resolution adopted before then. "We want to find in it (the resolution) the conditions under which a new Iraqi government will take over on July 1," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Europe 1 radio in an interview. "A government is needed which is respected and is representative of all Iraqi political forces. We think that as this resolution is worked out, care must be taken to ensure the conditions for a genuine transfer of sovereignty and not an artificial one...are contained in this resolution." He said he had supported a proposal by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi for a national "conference" gathering Iraq's political forces before June 30 to consolidate the transfer of power. (Reuters 182116 GMT Apr 04)

TERRORISM

• A 2,000-strong local militia has launched a sweep through their tribal homeland near the Afghan border to hunt down al-Qaida supporters, hoping to hand them over to the government before a Tuesday deadline and head off an Pakistani army offensive. The government has threatened more tough military action if five tribesmen accused of harboring foreign terrorists don't surrender by Tuesday. The offensive angered locals, as well as Islamic hard-liners and the political opposition. The region is suspected to be a hideout for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri. Inhabitants said the tribal force did not face any resistance Sunday, and there were no reported arrests. (AP 190033 Apr 04)

BALKANS

• Bosnian Serb police launched a hunt for war crimes fugitives on Sunday around the eastern town of Visegrad, a spokesman said. Spokesman Radovan Pejic declined to say if the action targeted Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic. The fact that the NATO-led peacekeeping force SFOR was not involved in the action suggested that he was not the target. Pejic said the operation also aimed to break up an international network of organised crime and stop illegal border crossings with neighbouring Montenegro. Karadzic, at large for more than seven years, is believed to be hiding in eastern Bosnia and his native Montenegro. Pejic said the operation was conducted solely by the Interior Ministry of the Serb Republic, one of Bosnia's two autonomous regions. It was the second such operation in a month by the Bosnian Serb police, under increased pressure from the West to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. (Reuters 180915 GMT Apr 04)
  
  
• A former army commander and indicted war criminal said in a report published Sunday that the government "would sign its own death sentence" if it extradited him or three other top generals to the UN court that has charged them with atrocities in the Kosovo war. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, who led the army during the government's 1998-1999 crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, told the Publika daily that handing over the suspects to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, would be a grave mistake. "If they extradite the three officers I'm not even counting myself because I simply would not let it happen the authorities would sign its own death sentence," Pavkovic was quoted as saying. Pavkovic told the paper, published in Montenegro, the tiny republic loosely allied with Serbia, that Milosevic planned to call him as a defense witnesses in his trial. However, he ruled out appearing, as he would be immediately arrested there as a suspect. "I could give a testimony here, though," Pavkovic was quoted as saying, adding he would use the "personal archive" he acquired during his years of active service in an effort to clear Milosevic and himself from the charges. (AP 181249 Apr 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• The UN high commissioner for refugees said Sunday he hoped to see 1 million Afghan refugees return home this year, but acknowledged that security was still a major problem in the country, forcing him to scale back plans to visit two provinces outside the capital on this trip. Some 3 million Afghan refugees have returned, But 3.5 million remain abroad, many in squalid refugees camps just across the border. "We think it is possible this year to see substantial numbers returning again ... even up to let's say a million from both countries, Iran and Pakistan," Ruud Lubbers told a news conference before leaving for Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Lubbers called for an expansion of the 6,100-strong ISAF, that currently patrols the capital, saying the peacekeepers should be sent to other provinces to bring stability to the country. "One needs ISAF ... not only in Kabul, but with the capacity to support security in the country as a whole," Lubbers said. Security is becoming an increasingly important issue as Afghanistan gears up for presidential and parliamentary elections in September. (AP 180856 Apr 04)
  
  
• A spring offensive by Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas in Afghanistan's restive south is the weakest in two years, U.S. officials say, but Taliban militants vowed on Sunday to keep up their attacks. "Our attacks will further intensify," Hamid Agha, a Taliban spokesman, told Reuters by satellite telephone from his hideout in southern Afghanistan. "We have done a lot of preparations and planning during the winter. Enemy losses are increasing, while ours are minimal." But U.S. officials say operations by U.S. special forces and the fledgling Afghan National Army in the area have reduced the Taliban to hit-and-run attacks rather than their military-style offensives of the past, and this was inflicting less damage. "There is certainly less evidence of any offensive operations on the part of the enemy than we have seen historically during these times of year over the last two years," said the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General David Barno. But some analysts and provincial officials dispute the U.S. assessment and say the Taliban are better disciplined after a meeting last year of its secretive 10-man leadership council, including supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. "I think the Taliban are more organised," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist in western Pakistani who follows Taliban issues closely. "The Taliban now have a clear command and leadership structure. They know who is in charge." (Reuters 180716 GMT Apr 04)

MIDDLE EAST

• Israel assassinated top Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, drawing a threat of 100 revenge attacks from the militant Palestinian group rocked by another major blow before a planned U.S.-backed pullout from Gaza. The helicopter missile strike on Rantissi's car in Gaza City on Saturday stoked Palestinian anger already high over U.S. President George W. Bush's statement this week that Israel could retain land Palestinians want for a state in any peace deal. "As long as the Palestinian Authority does not lift a finger and fight terrorism, Israel will continue to have to do so itself," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the killing, saying it could lead to more violence in the Middle East. "(Annan) reiterates that extrajudicial killings are violations of international law and calls on the government of Israel to immediately end this practice," a spokesman said. (Reuters 180248 GMT Apr 04)