Peace Like A River » Cables, dispatches and memoranda

Cables, dispatches and memoranda

October 29, 2009 (12:30 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and Memoranda A brief world news roundup for 29 October 2009.

United States & the Americas

Stars and Stripes – Lawmakers convinced that an Iraq-style “awakening” is needed to turn the tide in Afghanistan have included funds in the fiscal 2010 defense budget to help buy potential insurgents’ loyalty and pay them to police villages.
State Dept – Remarks With Secretary Clinton, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi
Washington Post – A top aide to the director of national intelligence said that each of the country’s intelligence agencies is responsible for keeping Congress informed about its sensitive activities
NY Times – Federal authorities fatally shot a man they described as the leader of a violent Sunni Muslim separatist group in Detroit and took six others into custody during three raids on Wednesday.
DOJ – Headley allegedly reported and attempted to report on his overseas surveillance to other conspirators, according to the affidavits, including: Ilyas Kashmiri, identified as the operational chief of the Azad Kashmir section of Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI), a Pakistani-based terrorist organization with links to al Qaeda
Times of India – Two US-based Pakistanis who were arrested by the FBI earlier this month for allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Denmark
and India are both graduates of a Pakistani military school, it’s been revealed, amid continuing doubts about the country’s bonafides in fighting terrorism
Fars – “Iran and Venezuela are establishing an oil company named Beniroug which allows us to make investments and activities in other countries, including Cuba, Sudan, China and Bolivia,” Venezuelan Embassy’s First Secretary for Energy Affairs Louis Mayta told FNA on Wednesday.
COHA – Bolivia produces no lithium, though it is sometimes called “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” because its still-untapped salares are thought to contain nearly 50 percent of the world’s estimated lithium reserves
ABC – Mexican soldiers have discovered a secret tunnel complete with electricity and an air supply that may have been planned for smuggling migrants or drugs under the U.S. border into San Diego

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

Russia Today – Russia is not supplying its S-300 air defense missile system to Iran, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov has confirmed.
RIA Novosti – Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz will pay some $500 million for natural gas from Russian energy giant Gazprom for October, the ex-Soviet state’s acting finance minister said on Wednesday.
Nicholas Eberstadt and Apoorva Shah, Journal of International Security Affairs – Russia’s Great Leap Downward
George Friedman, Journal of International Security Affairs – The Coming Conflict with Russia
C. W. Blandy, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom – North Caucasus: Negative Trends
Georgian Times – Russian border guards, deployed in breakaway South Ossetia, detained five Georgian citizens at the administrative border, the Georgian and South Ossetian sides reported on Wednesday.
Trend – Turkey will pay at a time all the difference in the cost of the Azerbaijani gas, and in the future the country will purchase fuel at a new price, the Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Taner Yildiz said
Itar Tass – Unidentified assailants shot and killed a police officer in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala on Wednesday evening, the press service of the republic’s Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass.

Middle East

MNF Iraq – With transportation provided by the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade and the IqAF, the combined air assault mission was the first to use pilots and helicopters from American and Iraqi forces
Pentagon – DoD News Briefing with Maj. Gen. Nash and Maj. Gen. Aziz From Iraq
Derek Henry Flood – Between the Hammer and the Anvil: An Exclusive Interview with PJAK’s Agiri Rojhilat
Haaretz – The trial of 26 men accused of plotting attacks against Egypt and spying on behalf of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah resumed on Wednesday, officials in Egypt’s Ministry of Interior said.
NOW Lebanon – The National News Agency reported on Wednesday that Israeli warplanes flew over the Blue Line in southwestern Lebanon at 5:30 p.m., dropped flares and then returned to Israel.
ynet – Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev has filed an official complaint with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council president over the Katyusha rocket fired at Israeli territory on Tuesday from Lebanon.
MEMRI – Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Sudanese Defense Minister Abd Al-Rahim Muhammad Hussein met in Damascus yesterday to discuss tightening cooperation between their two countries’ armies. It should be noted that the U.S. recently warned Sudan against tightening its relations with Syria in a way that would harm U.S. national security
Press TV – The Yemeni government has cut a deal with an al-Qaeda terror cell to help crush the Houthi opposition movement along the Saudi border in the north
Yemen Observer – A group led by some members of the Parliament, the Shora Council, and a Marib sheikh have shut down a gas trucking route in Marib province when authorities exposed an illegal shipment of weapons, said official sources in the Marib Governorate. The weapons were intended to be imported on a Chinese cargo ship using falsified military documentation.
Saba – A military source in north-west area has said that military forces in collaboration with tribes of Waelah have managed to open al-Boq’a-Kitaf-Sa’ada road.
News Yemen – Iranian embassy in Sana’a has asserted that the Iranian ship the Yemeni navy seized off Yemen’s coasts in the Red Sea last Monday was completely empty.

Iran

Michael Ledeen – The Turks, the Supreme Leader, and the Iranian people
Press TV – Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the force is able to gather intelligence on terrorist groups operating from outside the country.
Mehr – Iran launched Imam Reza (AS) online TV channel in a ceremony held Tuesday at the IRIB Organization. Darabi regarded the Imam Reza (AS) online channel as the best means to introduce the Islamic Revolution and Imam Khomeini’s thoughts to the world.
Khamenei – Ayatollah Khamenei then slammed the recent insults against Shii Muslims during Hajj, adding that these moves are in the interests of America and foreign spy services. The IR Leader urged the Saudi government to meet its duties regarding such moves.
Rooz – The Iranian polity and media were shocked by the security service’s raid on a prayer gathering held at the house of the mother-in-law of Shahab Tabatabaei, a detained member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (Jebheye Mosharekat). Security forces raided the house of Shahab Tabatabaei’s mother-in-law, arresting more than 71 individuals and transferring them to an unknown location in a van. The majority of the detainees were family members, relatives or friends of political prisoners

South Asia

AKI – Twin attacks carried out by Taliban militants against a guest house and a luxury hotel in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday has killed at least 12 people, six of them United Nations staffers.
OPFOR – Here are the details of the Firefight at COP KEATING. It began at dawn on Saturday, October 3, 2009, at an isolated outpost in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban had been harassing the troopers at COP Keating for months, attacking them three or four times a week. Most attacks consisted of a few bursts of small arms fire and a lobbed mortar round or a single RPG; nothing like what the soldiers at Keating were about to experience
IslamOnline – A massive bomb blast rocked a market place in Peshawar, the capital of the Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP), on Wednesday, October 28, killing nearly 100 people, mostly women and children, in the fifth attack in two weeks
The News – Security forces on Tuesday claimed of killing 42 more militants, raising the toll to 240 since the launch of the operation Rah-e-Nijat
Geo – Pakistani troops massed outside a key Taliban base and killed 25 militants, fighting back in a major tribal belt offensive after a devastating market bomb attack, the military said Wednesday.
Press TV – Revelations by the brother of Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi indicate that the US has promised the anti-Iran terrorist group a safe haven in Pakistan
Xinhua – India Wednesday ruled out the possibility of any military intervention in war-ravaged Afghanistan by joining the U.S.-led coalition force
Hindustan Times – The New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express, which was seized by armed Maoist-backed tribal activists in West Bengal, arrived in New Delhi Wednesday evening. The train was seized by tribals in West Midnapore district on Tuesday but was freed by security forces after a five-hour hostage drama.
Colombo Page – The Western Province Intelligence Unit has arrested a key member of the LTTE intelligence unit in Elatur, Mannar last night

A Standard Missile - 3 is launched from the Japanese Ship Myoko in a joint missile defense intercept test, with the Missile Defense Agency, in the mid-Pacific. The SM-3 successfully intercepted a medium range target that had been launched minutes earlier from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii.

Far East & Pacific

Reuters – The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force achieved another ballistic missile intercept in space using a Raytheon Company-built Standard Missile-3. During the Oct. 27 test, the SM-3 Block IA missile engaged and destroyed a medium-range ballistic missile target more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean.
Asia Times – Beijing’s apparent disinterest in developing a policy on the convertibility of the yuan has given way since the global financial crisis to a clear determination to increase international use of the Chinese currency, particularly by its Asian neighbors. The launch in January of the China-ASEAN free trade area will help to accelerate this regionalization of the currency
The Australian – Indonesia has set a deadline of tomorrow for Australia to end its standoff with 78 Sri Lankan refugees aboard the Customs ship Oceanic Viking as Kevin Rudd refuses to rule out using force to end the impasse.
Jakarta Post – Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa said here Wednesday that Indonesia wanted to play a more active role in resolving the conflict in Afghanistan.
Xinhua – Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said Wednesday that rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels are holding Irish priest Michael Sinnott who was seized from his house in Pagadian City last Oct. 11

Europe

RUSI – Turkey’s fight against terrorism deserves more encouragement and support from its European partners, according to a new RUSI Occasional paper.
RFERL – Croatia has indicted a former defense minister for corruption, paving the way for the first anti-graft trial of a top government official in the European Union candidate country.
Qatar News Agency – President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus received Tuesday Major General H.E. Hamad Bin Ali Al Attiyah, Chief of Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces, who is currently on an official visit to the country.
Javno – US industrial giant General Electric said Wednesday it will axe 2,700 jobs in Hungary over the next two years after a decision to phase out traditional energy-guzzling light bulbs in Europe

Africa

Garowe - Islamist hardliners in southern Somalia have shut down a local aid group for allegedly ’spying’ to Western governments, Radio Garowe reports.
Shabelle – at least 5 people have been killed and 15 others have been wounded after fresh fighting with heavy shelling broke out in several neighborhoods in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials told Shabelle radio on Wednesday
Al Jazeera – Somalia’s prime minister, in the UK, on Wednesday said al-Qaeda was using Somalia to train, regroup and plan furhter attacks across the region. “Somalia has now clearly become a haven for the pariah that is al-Qaeda,” Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke said in a speech in London.
Al Arabiya – Algeria on Tuesday called for offers to build a Grand Mosque of Algiers, which would be the third largest mosque in the world after those of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia
Magharebia – Security services in Niger earlier this month arrested a high-profile Mauritanian terror suspect, Journal Tahalil quoted security services as saying
Daily Champion – Nigeria has set its sights on making multibillion-dollar oil deals with China amid peace moves with militants.

Gen. Xu Caihou (left), vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Chinese People's Liberation Army, arrives at the Pentagon, Oct. 27, for security talks with Secretary Gates (photo by Robert Ward)

The Global War

Heritage Foundation – Islamist Terrorist Plots in Great Britain: Uncovering the Global Network
Times of India – Al-Qaida leader and one of ISI’s top terrorists against India, Ilyas Kashmiri, who was supposed to have been killed in a US drone attack on September 14, did not die after all. Kashmiri, who is known to be the operational chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), apparently survived the air strike in village Turrikhel, near Mir Ali in North Waziristan. About 10 days ago, he gave an interview to a Pakistani reporter from Asia Times Online to promise further attacks against the west, saying chillingly that the Mumbai attacks would pale in comparison to what they had planned.
NY Times – Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

Sights & Sounds

Africa Today – More fighting and more dead in Mogadishu, ousted president Marc Ravalomanana on what government he wants formed, and how to conduct a broadcast from a suitcase