Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

7 June 2004

GEN. JONES

• The U.S. has yet to complete plans for any troop withdrawals from Germany, the German government said Friday after talks with a Pentagon official. Foreign Ministry spokesman Walter Lindner told reporters New York Times report "speculation" that Pentagon planners had proposed replacing its two Germany-based Army divisions with a brigade of Stryker light armored vehicles, and possibly relocating a wing of F-16 fighters from their base in Spangdahlem to Italy. "It was clear that there was not yet a final decision and that this decision making and discussion process in the United States is still going on," Lindner said. A spokeswoman for U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme commander in Europe and military head of NATO, said many proposals have been submitted as part of the global review, including by Jones last year. "He has submitted his plan based specifically on military considerations to the defense secretary," said U.S. Army Col. Catherine Abbott in a telephone interview from Belgium. (AP 041408 Jun 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Doubt has been thrown on Afghanistan's readiness for September polls after assailants rained rockets and gunfire on a convoy of Afghan and foreign election workers in the country's southeast. No one was wounded. President Hamid Karzai, who hopes to win a new five-year term, said Thursday that September was still the target for the election and that security was "quite all right." Almeida e Silva said it was too early to say who carried out Sunday's attack and whether elections would have to be delayed. But he said the latest attack showed that security "requires improvement." "What we already know is enough to confirm the concerns we have had," he said, renewing the world body's call for NATO to expand its peacekeeping mission beyond Kabul. (AP 070020 Jun 04)

IRAQ

• The UN Security Council moved closer on Sunday to adopting a resolution on Iraq's future but France proposed that Baghdad should get a virtual veto over major U.S.-led military operations. No date has been set for a vote on the resolution but the U.S. hopes will happen on Tuesday after further changes in the draft and a briefing by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. The resolution would endorse an interim Iraqi government to take office on June 30 and authorize a U.S.-led multinational force to "use all necessary means" to keep the peace. The latest draft also tightened up language making it clear the mandate of the force would expire in January 2006, when a permanent Iraqi government is expected to take office. (Reuters 070011 GMT Jun 04)

BALKANS

• The prime ministers of Albania, Bosnia and Croatia met in Tirana on Saturday to discuss further cooperation in their joint efforts to eventually join the European Union and NATO. "We have reiterated our commitment to a further deepening of regional cooperation as a very important element to bringing our countries closer to our common future goal: EU and NATO membership," the three leaders said in a joint statement. They reiterated their "strong political will to continue and enhance bilateral and regional cooperation in combating terrorism, organized crime, corruption, illicit trafficking and extreme nationalism," saying those issues pose a security threat to the region. (AP 051528 Jun 04)
  
  
• Over 1,000 Serbs marched in the streets of a central Kosovo town on Sunday to protest the slaying of a teenager in a drive-by shooting a day earlier in the tense province. The protesters sharply criticized NATO-led peacekeepers in the U.N.-run province, saying the killing was the result of their decision to remove checkpoints, according to the Belgrade-based Beta news agency. They demanded that roads into Serb-populated areas be closed to prevent further attacks. "The aim of the attacks on children is to expel the Serb people out of Kosovo and make it (Kosovo) ethnically clean," Borivoje Velickovic, a teacher of the slain boy told the gathering. In Belgrade, Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the slaying "showed once again that international policies in Kosovo were wrong and should be changed." He repeated his call for Serb self-rule in parts of the ethnic-Albanian dominated province." (AP 061242 Jun 04)