Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

8 June 2004

NATO

• Bild am Sonntag, June 6, carried an interview with NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer in which he stressed that NATO “will not let (Afghanistan) down.” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer was quoted saying: “First, we are making good progress. Today Kabul is more secure than ever. Our approach of gradually expanding security all over the country, with the help of the so-called (PRTs) is working—and this is not just my opinion, but also that of the Afghan government itself. Second, yes, we have to do more. I imagine that I will be able to promise President Karzai further expansion of NATO’s presence at our summit in Istanbul at the end of June. Furthermore, NATO will actively support the elections to be held by the UN in September. We will not let this country down.” Regarding the forthcoming NATO summit, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer reportedly said: “The summit is to emphasize that NATO’s main task today is also to create stability in distant regions. Terrorism, unstable states, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are threats that would have to be combated were they occur. Afghanistan is the best example of this. If we do not actively create security there, we will be faced with insecurity in our own countries…. In Istanbul we will create new tools to make NATO even more efficient in the future. We will intensify cooperation with our partner countries, especially with those in the Caucasus and Central Asia. We will further improve our military capabilities, such as our Rapid Response Force. We will open up a new chapter in our relations with the regions of the Near and Middle East, because the development in that part of the world is of fundamental importance.”

ISAF

• According to AFP, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said in an interview with state radio RAI Tuesday, Rome is considering sending several hundred more troops to Afghanistan at NATO’s request to help ensure security for the forthcoming elections. “The Italian government may send a battalion to Afghanistan during the elections in that country. We have been asked for our help during the elections in Afghanistan. The NATO secretary general telephoned me to ask if Italy can assume responsibility for a province and guarantee public order,” Berlusconi reportedly said.
  
  
• Within a few months, about 100 Dutch soldiers will head to the Afghan province of Baghlan to maintain stability there, wrote Rotterdam’s NRC Handelsblad, June 7. Claiming that, according to diplomatic sources in Kabul, the Germans, who are leading a PRT in Kunduz, “wanted to deal with things in Baghlan on their own,” the newspaper added: “The Germans would have preferred the Dutch to focus on the … northeastern province of Badkhsha, which has the largest concentration of poppy fields in the world. The Hague rejected this idea, because it was clear that nothing much could be achieved in Badakhshan within the limited scope of a PRT…. Prime Minister Balkenende discussed the issue with Chancellor Schroeder in May.” The article added that the Cabinet is expected to decide whether the Netherlands will lead a PRT in Baghlan before the NATO summit, where Afghanistan is expected to be on the agenda. The Second Chamber will begin to discuss the mission in early July. The first troops could be in Baghlan in early August, according to sources close to the Cabinet.

IRAQ

• AP reports six soldiers from Poland, Latvia and Slovakia were killed in Iraq Tuesday in a massive explosion at an Iraqi munitions dump while defusing munitions. A spokesman for the Polish Army Chief of Staff is quoted saying one Latvian and three Slovakian soldiers were killed in the explosion, the first deaths from either of the two countries in Iraq. Two Polish soldiers were also killed, bringing the total number of Polish military deaths in Iraq to six. The dispatch also quotes a spokesman for the Polish-led multinational force in Iraq saying the explosion occurred as the sappers were working near the city of Suwariyah, southeast of Baghdad. He added that some troops also sustained injuries, but none seemed to be life threatening. An investigation team was underway to try and determine the cause of the explosion, he said.
  
  
• According to the Washington Post, UN weapons inspectors said Monday a number of sites in Iraq known to have contained equipment and material that could have been used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been either cleaned out or destroyed. The inspectors’ report said they did not known whether the items, which had been monitored by the UN, were at the sites during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. “It is possible that some of the materials may have been removed from Iraq by looters of sites and sold as scrap,” the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) reportedly said in its quarterly report the Security Council. UNMOVIC is further quoted saying its experts and a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was responsible for dismantling Iraq’s nuclear program, were jointly investigating items from Iraq that were discovered in a scrap yard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

BALKANS

• AFP quotes a police spokesman announcing in Tirana Tuesday that three Kosovo Albanians accused by international police of terrorism had been arrested in the Albanian capital Monday. The spokesman reportedly added that one of the men, Florim Ejupi, is accused of killing at least 11 Kosovo Serbs and one KFOR soldiers in a bomb attack on a bus carrying a groups of Serbs accompanied by KFOR soldiers in February 2001. Ejupi has been on the run since he escaped from a prison in a U.S. military base in southern Kosovo, the dispatch notes.

ESDP

• Reuters reports Belgian Foreign Minister Michel said in Kinshasa Monday the EU is considering sending troops to eastern Congo after rebels captured a key town last week, threatening the country’s fragile peace process. Michel reportedly said EU member states were mulling an emergency intervention force similar to the 1,100-strong French-led mission that restored calm to the northeastern town of Bunia last year before handing over the United Nations troops.