Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

5 May 2004

MIDDLE EAST

• The architects of the "road map" to Middle East peace encouraged Israel to fully withdraw from Gaza, which they said would provide "a rare moment of opportunity" to put the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track. When asked for specifics, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who hosted the meeting, said: "We are waiting to see how things evolve, and then adapt our plans or mechanisms accordingly." Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, stressed that the Quartet wants Israel's withdrawal from Gaza "to be total." To help move the peace process, the Quartet called for Palestinian security services to be restructured and a new Palestinian leadership "committed to reform and security performance." Israel was admonished to ease roadblocks, to stop demolishing Palestinians' homes and to "exert maximum efforts to avoid civilian casualties" in repelling terrorist attacks. (AP 050238 May 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai last month called for a holy war, or "jihad", on drugs, after opium output reached a near-record 3,600 tonnes in 2003 -- equivalent to three-quarters of world supply. Though they know it is illegal, a quarter of all Afghan farmers grow the poppies anyway, a UNODC survey showed this year, underlining concerns voiced by some UN officials that Afghanistan risks sliding into a state of narco-terrorists and drug cartels. Karzai, struggling to exert authority on provinces controlled largely by militia commanders who often benefit from the opium trade, says the illicit money helps finance a resurgent Taliban guerrilla force and its Qaeda allies. This view was backed by a UN Security Council panel that said recently the Taliban were charging drug traffickers who pass through the areas they control, then using the money to buy arms. In Afghanistan's increasingly sophisticated drug market, where prices often move on rumours of eradication plans, raw opium can fetch $180 a kg (Reuters 050136 GMT May 04)
  
  
• Taliban guerrillas have killed nine government troops and five policemen as violence intensifies in Afghanistan's troubled south, Taliban officials said on Tuesday. The Islamist fighters killed the nine soldiers in an ambush on a patrol in Kandahar province's remote district of Meya Nishin late on Monday, according to Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi. "We have killed the five that we kidnapped," Taliban commander Mullah Rozi Khan told Reuters. Four government soldiers were killed on Sunday in Zabul in a mine blast. Commanders of NATO forces in Kabul fear a spring offensive by Taliban militia, as the government gears up for landmark parliamentary and presidential elections in September. (Reuters 041607 GMT May 04)

BALKANS

• The UN war crimes tribunal formally complained to the Security Council Tuesday about Serbia-Montenegro, saying the former Yugoslav nation was refusing to cooperate with prosecutors. The complaint is the most serious measure in the court's power and exposes Serbia-Montenegro to potential sanctions. Tribunal President Theodor Meron said Serbia-Montenegro had committed "extremely serious failures" in its obligations to help track down wanted fugitives like former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic. Svetozar Marovic, Serbia-Montenegro's president, said his country's failure to cooperate could damage Belgrade's efforts to join the European Union and NATO. "The state could suffer consequences from not fulfilling its international obligations," Marovic told reporters in the capital, Belgrade. "We will have to meet the international obligations. Otherwise our reputation in the eyes of the international community will suffer." (AP 041851 May 04)

OTHER NEWS

• Three time bombs exploded outside a central Athens police station early on Wednesday in Kalithea, doing heavy damage to the building but causing no serious casualties, a police official said. Kalithea is near hotels to be used by Olympic officials during the August 13-29 Olympic Games. Fears have been running high that the games could be a target of political violence and security forces have been put on high alert. The explosions at the back of the police station caused heavy damage to the building and its garage. "The police are treating this matter very seriously with only three months to go until the games," the official said. "You have three sophisticated time bombs going off outside a police station, that's serious enough for police." (Reuters 050347 GMT May 04)