Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

11 August 2004

OLYMPICS

• NATO has started patrolling the skies above Greece with a fleet of radar planes that can give early warning of low-flying intruders during this month’s Olympic Games. For at least 18 hours a day during the Games, the flying sentinels will monitor Greece’s airspace from on-board computer screens and pass information to ground authorities. “With the beginning of operational flights by AWACS aircraft, NATO completed today the preparations for the assistance to security during the Olympics and Paralympics,” NATO said in a statement. As well as deploying the AWACS, NATO will also screen international waters off Greece with eight ships and one submarine. Its new special forces battalion, trained to defend against weapons of mass destruction, has already settled in the town of Halkida. (Reuters 101427 GMT Aug 04)

BALKANS

• Two Serbian generals accused of war crimes in Kosovo indicated they may surrender to the United Nations tribunal in The Hague, Serbia and Montenegro Defence Minister Prvoslav Davinic was quoted as saying. Former chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic and ex-third army commander Vladimir Lazarevic both say they are seriously ill and have expressed concern they may have to wait a long time in detention before their trials start, he said. But, he told the Montenegrin daily Dan newspaper after meeting the two men separately, “they hinted that they might, conditionally, be ready to go to The Hague ...” The newspaper Dan also quoted the brother of Radovan Karadzic, Luka, as denying Bosnian newspaper reports that the former Bosnian Serb leader had suffered a stroke. (Reuters 101130 GMT Aug 04)

TERRORISM

• The UN Security Council has failed to safeguard human rights in its efforts to help quash terrorism, which could cause counter-terrorism efforts to backfire, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The council’s counter-terrorism committee may indirectly be encouraging abuses by pushing governments to show results without explicitly raising human rights concerns, they said in a new report. Javier Ruperez, executive director of the United Nations’ Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate declined to comment on the specific abuses cited in the report. But he said the committee had not ignored human rights. (Reuters 101857 GMT Aug 04)
  
  
• A high-profile political assassination, triggered by a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda attack, The Washington Times reported in Wednesday editions, citing U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the assassination plan was among new details of al Qaeda plots and would target a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad, according to the newspaper. “The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election,” the official told the newspaper. The Washington Times reported that the plot was among detailed al Qaeda plans found on a laptop computer belonging to a captured suspect. (Reuters 110349 GMT Aug 04)
  
  
• Eager to expand its reach in the war on terror, the United States wants new global rules to make all ships within 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of a country’s shores identify themselves and give their location. “We’re working with the International Maritime Organization to have a long-range tracking requirement for all commercial vessels, so up to 2,000 miles from the coast they’d have to be broadcasting (their identification information),” said Adm. Thomas Collins, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. He gave no details on a possible timeframe. (Reuters 101949 GMT Aug 04)

SUDAN

• The Netherlands will begin to fly 154 Rwandan troops to Sudan’s Darfur region on Saturday, the first deployment of foreign troops to the site of what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia, Rob Bermaas, said the troops will serve as a protection force for African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors. The Netherlands announced last week it would fund a mission to fly Rwandan and Nigerian AU troops to Darfur. (Reuters 101952 GMT Aug 04)