Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

13 July 2004

GENERAL JONES

• The West’s focus on security threats from the Middle East should not blind it to the “troubling” spread of Islamic militancy in Africa. “For the foreseeable future, we will be focused on the Middle East,” General James Jones told a London think-tank. “It will behove us to pay some attention to the south as well. Africa is going to be an increasing necessity.” The U.S. Marines general, speaking to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said Africa’s poverty and fragile democracies made it vulnerable to radicals. “There is a growing need for attention in Africa to help African nations help themselves,” he said, and hinted NATO troops could get involved on the continent in the future. Military help to achieve stability should be followed “by the things that Africa really needs” including education, border control and ways to combat “radical fundamentalism seeking to establish itself at troubling rates of progress,” General Jones added. On the touchy transatlantic issue of NATO training for Iraqi forces, General Jones said a three-member NATO delegation charged with recommending how the alliance can help train Iraqi security forces had returned to Naples from Baghdad on Sunday. Asked if U.S. troop commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere would mean the end of bases in Germany and other parts of Europe, the NATO boss denied such a policy existed. “I’ve never heard that articulated by any member of the (U.S.) administration whatsoever,” he said. A modernising process was under way, however, to streamline U.S. troop numbers and make them more mobile, using Europe as a base for operations beyond, he added. (Reuters 121734 GMT Jul 04)

IRAQ

• NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he plans to present allies this month with options for a wider alliance role in Iraq, beyond the military training already pledged. Mr. de Hoop Scheffer is due to discuss NATO’s role in Iraq with the country’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who is to visit alliance headquarters in Brussels for the first time on Tuesday. Mr. Zebari has suggested the alliance could help with Iraq’s border security, or with protecting UN operations in the country. (AP 130013 Jul 04)
  
  
• Secretary-General Kofi Annan has selected Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington for the job of UN envoy to Iraq. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who has served in key posts around the world, was chosen from a short-list of three “highly qualified” candidates after extensive consultations. Mr. Annan intends to have Qazi based in Baghdad, but the United Nations must get “the sufficient security guarantees from both the Iraqis and from the forces on the ground ... before he can be deployed,” a UN spokesperson said. (AP 130317 Jul 04)

TERRORISM

• The French and Spanish interior ministers on Monday called on Europeans to be on the alert against possible Islamist terrorist attacks as an al-Qaida three-month deadline to withdraw troops from Muslim countries approached. “We have a common duty to be vigilant,” French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said during a visit to Madrid. “But this logic of ultimatums and blackmail and threats by terrorist groups shouldn’t be given more importance than it deserves.” Mr. de Villepin called on every European “to be on the alert” as the July 15 deadline approached. His Spanish counterpart, Jose Antonio Alonso, ruled out “any concession to blackmail from a terrorist group,” and called on security forces to be on maximum alert. (AP 121749 Jul 04)