Well, I had intended to get my blogging done tonight, but life intervened again. I ended up having to do something for work all night. Argh. Sorry about that. Be back tomorrow, the fates willing…

Update: and the same tonight… sigh…

A brief world news roundup for 15 March 2010.

United States & the Americas

• Pentagon – Press Availability with Secretary Gates from Forward Operating Base Cafferata, Afghanistan
• MSNBC – At Afghan outpost, troops battle Taliban with an autonomy that riles many higher up in chain of command but may offer model for future missions.
• Khaleej Times – An American al-Qaida suspect detained in Yemen fooled his hospital guards into unshackling him by asking to join them for prayers, security officials said Saturday. He then killed a guard who laid down his weapon as he went ahead at prayer time. The new details of Sharif Mobley’s failed escape attempt, obtained by The Associated Press, indicate the 26-year-old American of Somali descent has a level of training and cunning characteristic of the terror network.
• IC3 – 2009 Annual Report on Internet Crime (PDF)
• CNN – Three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were killed in a drive-by shooting in the violent border city, a senior White House official told CNN Sunday.
• Telegraph – The Mexican tourist resort of Acapulco has been hit by running battles between drugs cartels leaving 13 dead. The dead included five police officers who were attacked on a night-time patrol. Bodies of eight other men were also found around the popular holiday destination. They were riddled with bullets and four of them had been beheaded.
• RSF – Radio journalist David Meza Montesinos last night became the second Honduran journalist to be murdered since the start of the year, following the fatal shooting of TV journalist Joseph Ochoa of Canal 51 on 1 March. Meza was shot by unidentified gunmen in an ambush near his home in the Atlantic coast city of La Ceiba, where he worked for local radio station El Patio as well as for Radio América, a national station, and Abriendo Brecha, a TV station. An often controversial journalist, he reported getting threats three weeks ago after a report about drug trafficking.
• LAHT – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez formally took delivery on Saturday of the first four K-8W airplanes out of 18 purchased in China for military training purposes, which, however, came armed with machine guns, air-to-ground missiles, bombs and rockets.
• Miami Herald – A Venezuelan police official says security forces have seized two tons of cocaine that was intended to be smuggled to the Netherlands. Federal Police Chief Wilmer Flores Trosel says the drugs were hidden in two bulldozers at a port in the central state of Carabobo.
• Columbia Reports – Colombian authorities on Friday seized over 300 kilos of explosives from a house in the central city of Neiva, allegedly belonging to guerrilla group FARC and intended for the sabotage of Sunday’s congressional elections, reported Colombian media.
• Press TV – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil is planning to pay an official visit to Tehran in May, an Iranian official said Sunday. Mir Qassem Momeni, the head of Iran-Brazil Friendship Association, said economy will top President Lula’s agenda during his visit to Iran, slated for May 15.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev and Abdullah II of Jordan discussed prospects of cooperation in trade, economic and humanitarian spheres, and the Middle East.
• Joshua Foust – Book Review: The KGB’s Fascination With Potions
• Prague Watchdog – As a human rights worker of some years’ experience I must admit to being sceptical about the recent decision to set up a special unit in Chechnya which will make its priority the search for missing people. Not much is known of the status and structure of the new body. The main questions are whether it will be removed from the stranglehold of the state investigators, whether it will be allowed to work in accordance with Russian criminal law, and, of course, whether it will be given the chance to initiate criminal proceedings in cases relating to offences committed by Russian military personnel.
• RIA Novosti – Two policemen were killed in a in a shootout with militants in Chechnya, in Russia’s North Caucasus, a spokesman for local law enforcers said. He said law enforcers were carrying out a special operation in a mountainous district of the republic near the border of Ingushetia to detect a group of suspected militants.
• Russia Today – On Saturday, the Federal Security Service held an anti-terrorist operation in the southern republic of Dagestan. 4 militants have been killed, 3 of them identified.
• France24 – In a related incident one policeman was killed and another wounded in Moscow Saturday when they came under fire from attackers suspected to be natives of Dagestan, officials said
• Mail Online – A fake news report claiming that Georgia had been invaded by Russian tanks and its president killed has caused widespread panic in the country. The mock half-hour report on pro-government television station Imedi TV brought back memories of a 2008 invasion when Russian troops and tanks invaded the former Soviet Republic.
• APA – Armenian armed forces started military exercises in the occupied territories of Aghdam region of Azerbaijan – Shahbulag Mountain and Uzundere.
• EurasiaNet – Azerbaijan: Living in Oil; Upon arrival at Baku’s Heydar Aliyev international airport most foreign visitors make their way to the city center along the modern Heydar Aliyev highway, a thoroughfare lined with newly constructed walls and finely manicured parks. The center of Baku itself now features glitzy buildings and stunning apartments surrounding the UNESCO-listed site of Baku’s walled old city.
• Sebastien Peyrouse – Military Cooperation between China and Central Asia: Breakthrough, Limits, and Prospects

Soldiers from Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment emplace an Unattended Ground Sensor during a nighttime operation Feb. 25. The sensors allow the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement to track potential smugglers and their routes, making sure their illegal cargo does not enter Iraq. (photo by Cody Harding)

Middle East

• AKI – A bombing on Friday killed at least three people and injured two in the holy Shia city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, the Voices of Iraq news agency reported. The blast struck after Friday prayers led by the Shia imam Abdel-Mahdi al-Karbala, Voices of Iraq said.
• LA Times – Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s alliance is ahead in Baghdad and four southern provinces, with a small portion of the vote counted. Official results of the parliamentary elections may take a month.
• Voices of Iraq – Policemen seized an Iran-bound trailer loaded with 50 tons of copper and arrested the driver in al-Saadiya district, a security source in Diala province said on Sunday
• Haaretz – Israel Defense Forces soldiers late Saturday arrested a top Hamas official in Ramallah, suspected of leading military cells responsible for the murder of more than 70 Israelis over the course of the second Intifada.
• Al Bawaba – Hamas issued a statement in the West Bank on Sunday charging that the arrest of senior military commander Sheikh Maher Ode after a long and complicated pursuit was only possible with the collusion of Fatah militias. It said that the success of the Israeli occupation forces’ detention of Ode reflected “cowardice and treachery.”
• AFP – Twenty-four people were injured in clashes between Christians and Muslims in northern Egypt, a security official said on Saturday. Fighting broke out in the northwestern province of Mersa Matrouh when Muslim residents began to hurl stones at Christian construction workers they thought were building a church.
• Daily Star – Western powers have given up on getting Lebanon, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, to support further sanctions against Iran in an upcoming resolution because of Iranian-backed Hizbullah’s sway in the government, a European diplomat at the UN told The Daily Star on Friday.
• Naharnet – Lebanon’s ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam issued rare criticism to Syria after a Security Council session on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report on the implementation of resolution 1701
• NOW Lebanon – Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported on Sunday that Hezbollah and Syria have quietly agreed with Israel to calm tensions in the region, according to an unidentified Israeli military source. Officials in Tel Aviv discovered military operations happening in Syria on the Lebanese-Syrian borders, according to the source. Israel believes the Syrians are removing some missile batteries away from populated regions, he added.
• RIA Novosti – The Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said one of its leaders who was responsible for collecting money to fund the group’s military operations has been killed by Yemeni security forces, Xinhua has reported, quoting AQAP’s media outlet.
• Yemen Gazette – The independent website, Marib Press Friday cited “former al-Qaeda operatives,” as saying “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen has been making arrangements for months to move its headquarters to the district of Arhab, 15 kilometers north of the capital, Sanaa.”  Talking to Marib Press editor, a number of al-Qaeda members, most of them from Arhab, who were released from prison a few days ago said al-Qaeda military commander in Yemen Qasim al-Rimi and AQAP chief in the country, Naser al-Wahishi “and others were telling us during meetings with them of movements to transfer the command center to Arhab,” adding “compared with remote regions such as Shabwa or Marib, it is less risky to enter Sanaa from Arhab especially suicide cars and explosive belts.”
• Press TV – An adviser to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has rejected accusations that Iran is involved in the secessionist unrest which is escalating in the country’s southern provinces.

Iran

• Radio Zamaneh – Tehran Revolutionary Court has issued a statement announcing the arrest of 30 people suspected of being members of “an organized US-linked cyber network” in Iran. The statement maintains that these individuals were identified and arrested through a series of “complex security measures” in the field of “information technology and communications.”
• Fars – The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Sunday announced that its cyber teams have hacked 29 websites affiliated with the US espionage network. According to a statement released by the Persian-language website, Gerdab, affiliated to the IRGC’s Center for Combating Organized Crimes, the hacked websites acted against Iran’s national security under the cover of human rights activities.
• Mehr – The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution has appointed Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour as the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps ground force.
• Press TV – Iran is taking steps to investigate how Jundallah terror chief Abdulmalek Rigi obtained forged passports prior to his arrest nearly two weeks ago. Speaking in a televised address on Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to help indentify and arrest the culprits that provided Rigi with forged documents.
• Mehr – Iran has boosted its gasoline inventories by around 944 million liters in the current calendar year (to end March 21) compared to the preceding year. The amount shows a 58 percent increase year on year, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported without giving an exact figure for Iran’s current gasoline storage capacity.
• Fars – Iran’s Law Enforcement Police discovered and seized a large cargo of opium from a notorious gang of drug-traffickers in the northwestern province of East Azarbaijan. The provincial police forces have discovered and seized “the largest drug cargo (in the province) containing 1,670 kg of smuggled opium,” Commander of Bonab’s Law Enforcement Police Eissa Hattefi told reporters on Sunday.

South Asia

• RFERL – The beleaguered southern Afghan city of Kandahar is in mourning after a series of bombings that killed at least 30 and wounded 50 more. Among the dead in the March 13 blasts were 10 women and children who were attending a wedding celebration in a hall next to a targeted police station.
• Kavkaz Center – Mujahideen carried out at about eight o’clock yesterday evening, a successful operation on government buildings and military sites important in the heart of Kandahar city, which resulted in inflicting heavy casualties among the soldiers Mahtliyn and customers. Said the Mujahideen of the area for the emirate, saying: operations last night, which was the main goal of the unequivocal answer to the threats the U.S. commander / MAC Crystal articles, carried out on specific goals according to a premeditated plan, which passed the Mujahideen all the points and security barriers with the courage and bravery and entered the city at eight in the evening (13-3-2010).
• ISAF – Afghan national security forces with International Security Assistance Force partners conducted an operation east of Gavragay, Lashkar Gar District, Helmand province, Friday afternoon. Muhammad Yah, a senior Taliban commander in the Lashkar Gar area, was killed during this operation
• Quqnoos – A roadside bomb exploded in central Afghanistan on Saturday, killing six civilians, the Afghan Interior Ministry said. The bomb went off in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of the volatile southern Uruzgan province on Saturday, killing six people travelling in a civilian vehicle, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
• UN – The experienced international diplomat Staffan de Mistura arrived on Saturday in Kabul to take up his post as the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, saying he was starting work at a “very critical period in Afghan history.”
• Dawn – Fighter planes bombed Taliban positions in the northwest on Sunday, killing 18 militants and destroying three hideouts, a government official said. Khaista Akbar, a government official, told Reuters the fighter jets carried out the strikes in the Ghund Mela village of Orakzai, an ethnic Pashtun tribal region.
• Geo – Two more injured of Swat suicide blast died in Saidu Sharif Hospital on Sunday, increasing the death toll to 15.
• Daily Times – Unidentified assailants on Saturday killed the commander of a local lashkar (tribal militia) of Mohmand Agency and his two bodyguards in Peshawar, police sources said. Police officials said Haji Lal Badshah was on his way home in Peshawar when unidentified men on a motorcycle fired at him in the new Garhi Bukhsh Pul area and later fled the scene.
• Andrew McGregor – Will Xinjiang’s Turkistani Islamic Party Survive the Drone Missile Death of its Leader?
• Times of India –  In a development that has raised concerns in the Indian security establishment, recent intelligence reports from Pakistan point to the Lashkar-e-Taiba now targeting Taliban militants as recruits. Officials tracking developments in Pakistan said LeT has been training 130 Taliban militants who have surrendered to the Pakistan establishment. The training programme, being held at an “institute” in Lahore, has been going on for the past three months and is even now under way.
• Ashley Tellis, Outlook India – LeT represents a specific state-supported and state-protected instrument of terrorism that operates from the territory of a particular country—Pakistan—and exemplifies the subterranean war that Islamabad, or more specifically Rawalpindi, has been waging against India since at least the early 1980s.
• Arab News –  A delegation of Kashmiri leaders will visit the Kingdom within a month and hold talks with Saudi officials, said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, leader of All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization of pro-independence groups in Jammu and Kashmir. He said the Hurriyat was currently deliberating on how to seek Saudi help but a concrete plan had not been prepared.
• Daily Star – Bangladesh Rifles and the Indian Border Security Force traded gunfire for around three hours yesterday after BSF crossed the Jaintapur border in Sylhet and shot locals. At least 15 villagers were injured in the BSF firing, reports our staff correspondent from Sylhet.

Far East & Pacific

• news.com.au – Red-clad protesters loyal to deposed Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra have vowed to march on military barracks housing the government as they step up their campaign amid tight security.
• Asian Tribune – China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that capable of running at over 200mph within the next ten years. A trip from London to Beijing could take just two days. The network would eventually carry passengers from London to Beijing and then to Singapore.
• The National – China has gained direct access to the Sea of Japan for the first time in 100 years through a North Korean port, leaving the other two regional players, Japan and South Korea, deeply concerned about the communist state’s ambitions.
• Khaleej Times – A Filipino militant wanted by Washington has become leader of a key faction of Abu Sayyaf, the al-Qaida-linked extremist group in the southern Philippines for which he has previously acquired foreign funding, the Philippine military says.
• The Australian – Diplomatic tensions between Australia and Japan are spreading beyond the emotional issue of whale hunting in the Antarctic, as Japanese resentment grows at Kevin Rudd’s decision not to attend a nuclear disarmament meeting in Washington next month. Tokyo’s anger over the Rudd government’s renewed threat to take it to the International Court of Justice over whaling has fuelled disappointment at the Prime Minister’s shifting emphasis on nuclear non-proliferation.
• TIME – After a tense decade, Indonesia’s president made a historic visit to Canberra this week. Will the goodwill last?
• Jakarta Post – Two thousand supporters of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) in South Sulawesi staged Sunday an anti-US President Barrack Obama rally in Makassar, rejecting his plan to visit Indonesia.
• Irrawaddy – Burma’s ruling junta has finished construction work on three nuclear reactors in the country’s north and will soon be ready to put them into operation, according to military sources at the elite Defense Services Academy (DSA) in Maymyo, Mandalay Division.
• Irrawaddy – Begum is one of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Burma—only to find themselves languishing in filthy slums or open-air camps where food and water are scarce and medical care, nonexistent.
• Physicians for Human Rights – Tens of thousands of Burmese refugees are in danger of dying from starvation and disease in Bangladesh. PHR investigators conducted an emergency health assessment last month in the makeshift Kutupalong camp in southeastern Bangladesh, just across the border from Burma. What they witnessed was shocking. PHR investigators found camp conditions among the worst they had ever seen, with 30,000 Rohingya refugees housed in ramshackle huts made of twigs and ripped plastic, denied food aid, and living beside open sewers.

Europe

• Bill Park – Turkey and Ergenekon: from farce to tragedy; An epic military, political, and security scandal continues to absorb Turkey. The affair’s latest bizarre sub-plots make the tensions between the country’s “deep state” and its constitutional order even more acute
• EurActiv – A diplomatic row has erupted after Sweden’s parliament voted yesterday (11 March) to officially declare the Turkish mass killing of Armenians in World War I as “genocide”. The vote, passed narrowly by just one vote in the Swedish Riksdag, led to immediate and furious reaction in Ankara, with Turkey recalling its ambassador to Stockholm and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelling a planned visit to Sweden
• BBC – A suspected member of the Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police. Garikoitz Ibarlucea Murua was held in Soho, central London, by officers acting on behalf of Spain’s government.
• NYT – The shadowy underworld of Basque exiles in this city is coming under sharp scrutiny after recent arrests in Europe and an indictment this month from one of Spain’s top judges asserting that Venezuelan intelligence officials were involved in training Basque separatists and Colombian guerrillas in Venezuela.
• RFERL – European Union police in Kosovo were fired upon early today in a northern area of the country near the border with Serbia. Attackers fired shots at a vehicle and fired an explosive device at an EU police vehicle, damaging the car but causing no casualties among the policemen.
• SANA – Chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security Committee at the Czech Senate Jiri Dienstbier has stressed importance of Syria’s role in ensuring stability and security in the region. In a statement to SANA correspondent in Prague prior to his visit to Damascus on Sunday, Dienstbier pointed out that Czech identical stance with those of EU, UN and the international community that no peace in the region can be realized unless Israel fully withdraws from the occupied Syrian Golan.
• UPI – Gazprom executives discussed in Moscow plans with Dutch energy company Gasunie to construct the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline to Germany.
• Nosint – Greece announced March 13 that it had reached an agreement with German defense group ThyssenKrupp in a long-running dispute over the supply of four submarines. The row began when Athens rejected the first submarine supplied by ThyssenKrupp, the Papanikolis, on the grounds that it was defective.
• Guardian – For four years, Officer A lived a secret life among anti-racist activists as they fought brutal battles with the police and the BNP. Here he tells of the terrifying life he led, the psychological burden it placed on him – and his growing fears that the work of his unit could threaten legitimate protest

Africa

• Shabelle – Clashes between the Islamist forces of  Hisbul Islam and armed militias exchanged gunfire in out of Beled-weyn town of Hiran region, official told Shabelle on Sunday.
• Garowe – Latest fighting between government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia have displaced more than 100 000 people across Somalia since the start of the year, says UNHCR.
• AFRICOM – The United States has “no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia” and “does not plan, does not direct, and does not coordinate the military operations” of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, U.S. envoy to Africa, told reporters March 12, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
• Al Arabiya – Despite international assistance the Somali government’s military forces are ineffective and corrupt, and it remains dependent on foreign troops for survival, a U.N. group concluded in a report. “Despite infusions of foreign training and assistance, government security forces remain ineffective, disorganized and corrupt,” the U.N.’s Monitoring Group on Somalia said in a report to be presented to the Security Council this week.
• New Times – The Congolese army (FARDC) has accused advocacy groups of intentionally being fed with false and dangerous information by FDLR rebel elements, to ‘cook up treacherous reports’ and continue instilling chaos in the country’s ‘now recuperating east.’
• Press TV – The government of the Central African Republic says it has foiled a coup plan to unseat President Francois Bozize. The country’s National Security Minister Jules Bernard Ouande said Saturday that unnamed soldiers and politicians with links to former President Ange Felix Patasse have been planning to launch a coup d’etat on March 15, AFP reported.

Sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall man the rails as the ship arrives in Sekondi, Ghana, for the first African port visit of Africa Partnership Station West 2010. Gunston Hall is on a scheduled deployment in West Africa supporting Africa Partnership Station West, an international initiative developed by U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa to improve maritime safety and security in West and Central Africa (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Martine Cuaron)

The Global War

• US Army – Snow covered U.S. military bases across South Korea March 10, delivering a frigid blast of winter to troops participating in Key Resolve/Foal Eagle 2010.
• Xinhua – India and Russia Friday inked 19 deals, including a 2.34 billion U.S. dollar agreement on the purchase of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and a 1.5 billion U. S. dollar deal on the supplies of 29 more MiG29K carrier-based fighter jets to the Indian Navy.
• Spiegel – Militant jihadists in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are becoming increasingly afraid of US drones. Despites their boasts of having shot down dozens of aircraft, they have yet to come up with effective countermeasures.
• AP – China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday. Wang gave no details of where China’s railway builders might seek contracts, but systems are planned in California, Florida and Illinois. He said state-owned Chinese companies already are building high-speed lines in Turkey and Venezuela.

Sights & Sounds

Read more of Cables, dispatches and memoranda »

A brief world news roundup for 12 March 2010.

United States & the Americas

• State Dept – 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
• US Senate Armed Service Cmte – EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES – To receive testimony on U.S. Government efforts to counter violent extremism
• FBI – Kevin L. Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration at a hearing entitled “New Border War: Corruption of U.S. Officials by Drug Cartels.”
• CNN – Federal authorities are investigating a New Jersey man suspected of being an al Qaeda member and going on a deadly rampage at a hospital in Yemen.
• Petroleum News – State-run Korea Gas Corp. or Kogas, the world’s largest importer of liquid natural gas, has given added impetus to Canada’s hopes of exporting gas outside of North America by committing to spend US$1.1 billion over the next five years to explore and produce British Columbia shale gas.
• Venezuela MFA – Meeting on Belarus-Venezuela cooperation in Caracas, in such areas as energy, housing, food production and technology transfer.
• MercoPress – The lack of rain is rapidly drying up Venezuelan hydroelectric plants, the country’s main source of electricity, and the national grid could collapse by May/June is the situation remains unchanged, according to the country’s energy advisors.
• SouthCom – The following are the prepared opening remarks of Gen. Douglas Fraser, Commander of U.S. Southern Command submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Gen Fraser testified before the committee, alongside the Commander of U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Victor Renuart, Jr., on March 11, 2010.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – India and Russia have agreed in general on shared responsibility for the joint development of the fifth-generation fighter, the chairman of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) said.
• RIA Novosti – Russia intends to take part in a tender to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt within the framework of developing cooperation in the country’s nuclear power sector, the Russian industry and trade minister said. Egypt is set to construct four nuclear power reactors by 2025, with the first of them to be put into operation in 2019.
• RIA Novosti – Four militants were killed in a special police operation in the mountainous south of Chechnya, in Russia’s North Caucasus, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said on Thursday. “The operation was conducted near the village of Nokhtch-Keloi in the Shatoi district of Chechnya.
• Itar Tass – A total of fourteen coaches of an empty freight train were set off the track and the drive engine received insignificant damage when a bomb planted in the railway’s groundwork went off in Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasian region of Dagestan, a source at the transport police department of the North Caucasus branch or Russian Railways said
• Georgia MFA – Comment of the Press and Information Department on D. Medvedev’s order to conclude an agreement on the setting up of a joint military base with so-called South Ossetia
• BNE – The planned construction of a new power line connecting Kazakhstan to Tajikistan will allow Central Asia’s common energy system to be reactivated. But plans to attract investment into new hydroelectric power plants are being held back by their political sensitivity.
• Hurriyet – Azerbaijan has more than doubled its natural-gas exports to Russia, shipping up to 3 million cubic meters of gas per day to its northern neighbor as of March 5, the Russian energy giant Gazprom announced March 9

Middle East

• Al Sumaria – Iraqi-Syrian Borders Forces Command announced that it reopened all borders passages between Iraq and Syria. Vehicles, passengers and goods are allowed back to circulate on the borders with the end of the state of alert which was imposed on borders on Parliamentary Elections day.
• IslamOnline – The Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the ruling party in the Gaza Strip, is expected to sign a long-delayed, Egypt-sponsored reconciliation deal with rival Fatah before the Arab summit in Libya.
• Thomas Hegghammer, CTC – The Failure of Jihad in Saudi Arabia
• JCPA – Facing Iran: Lessons Learned Since Iraq’s 1991 Missile Attack on Israel
• NOW Lebanon – The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) issued a statement that an Israeli warplane violated Lebanese airspace at 9:40 a.m. on Thursday, flying over the southern town of Naqoura and Beirut. The jet headed back toward Israel at approximately 5:35 p.m., said the statement.
• Al Arabiya – Dubai’s Police Chief ordered foreign spies operating in the Gulf emirate to leave within a week or risk being hunted down by security forces, according to press reports on Thursday.
• Khaleej Times – Yemeni forces launched an attack on Thursday to recapture a government building occupied by rebels in the south of the country, setting off a gun battle in which a passer-by was killed, a local official said

Iran

• Jerusalem Post – The Palestinians and the nations of the Middle East will be rid of a “bad omen” once Israel is annihilated, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, in a speech communicated by Press TV. Israel, a foreign presence and a “Western prodigy” in the region, had “reached the end of its road,” Ahmadinejad told supporters in southern Iran.
• MEMRI – Ahmadinejad: Pakistan, Afghanistan Helped In Jundallah Leader’s Arrest
• RFERL – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that the Guardians Council’s authority in terms of supervising elections and vetting candidates should not change.
• Press TV – Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has rejected a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) statement over its three Persian Gulf islands.
• Payvand – Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast stated on Wednesday that the five Caspian Sea states have reached a consensus on over 70 percent of the Caspian Sea legal regime.

South Asia

• AFPS – In Kandahar’s Zharay district last night, a combined force captured a Taliban commander responsible for killing people he believed to be spies, controlling roadside-bomb defenses and leading attacks against coalition forces. Another insurgent also was detained for questioning. In Nimroz yesterday, a combined force in the Khash Rud district detained three individuals, one of whom identified himself as the Taliban subcommander who was the target of the operation.
• Pentagon – The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died March 9 in Khowst province, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered when insurgents attacked their unit using small-arms, indirect and rocket-propelled grenade fires. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.
• Chatham House – Understanding the Helmand Campaign: British Military Operations in Afghanistan
• UK MoD – In order to make best use of force numbers, ISAF commanders have ordered a reconfiguration that will see British troops hand control of the town of Musa Qal’ah to other ISAF forces over the coming weeks.
• Dawn – A suicide bomber who stumbled and blew up his vest of explosives prematurely on the outskirts of Pakistan’s city of Peshawar killed three civilians, police said. “Three people were killed and nine wounded. All are civilians. The dead include a small child and two men,” police official Fazal Maula.
• Geo – Prominent religious clerics and the head of Aalami Khatm-e-Naboowat organization Molana Saeed Jalalpuri were among four people gunned down while another two sustained wounds on Thursday when some unknown assailants opened fire on them
• Diplomatic Courier – The political, economic, social, and religious instability that extends from Iraq and Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan has produced an arc of terror that now is threatening the largest democracy in the world—India. Muslim militants from the Afghan and Pakistani theaters are instigating and conducting missions aimed at tearing Indian society apart along religious and ethnic lines just as they have done in their own nations.
• Times of India – India and Russia will on Friday tighten their strategic and economic ties by signing a slew of agreements, including an umbrella civil nuclear pact and another accord fixing the cost of the refurbished aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov at $2.35 billion.

Far East & Pacific

• Chosun Ilbo – A U.S. unit specializing in the removal of weapons of mass destruction from North Korea in the event of a war is taking part in this year’s South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises known as “Key Resolve,” according to U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp.
• Jakarta Post – Police in Central Java have arrested another man believed to be linked to slain terror suspect Dulmatin, as the police watchdog called on the force to capture the terror suspects alive. The unidentified man was seized in Solo, Central Java, on Wednesday night.
• Bangkok Post – Claims that Chinese dams are causing severe drought along the Mekong River are groundless and inappropriate, Chinese government officials say.
• China Daily – Army deputies said on Thursday that the door to military exchanges with the United States remains open, but urged the Pentagon to take the initiative to fix the stagnant Sino-US military relations. The Pentagon needs to make “real gestures” to bring back normal relations between the two militaries, they said.
• BBC – Thailand has mobilised about 40,000 security personnel ahead of mass rallies by “red shirt” opposition protesters over the coming days. The demonstrators plan to meet around the country before converging on the capital, Bangkok, on Sunday.

The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Florida arrives for a routine port visit to the island of Crete. Florida is homeported in Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Ga. (photo by Paul Farley)

Europe

• Asia Times – Agreement by the Turkish parliament to taxation and transit terms for gas coming into the country from Azerbaijan mark a significant step forward in plans for the Nabucco pipeline serving Europe. Suggestions that Iranian gas will be a necessary part of the project are also being shown as smoke and mirrors.
• Russia Today – South Stream and Nabucco, the two major southern European pipeline projects, linking the Caspian region with Europe, should join forces according to Paolo Scaroni, head of Italian energy company, Eni.
• The Local – Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has hit out at Sweden for providing a home for Chechen “bandits”.
• The Local – The Swedish parliament voted on Thursday in favour of a motion to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Africa

• Press TV – Two days of clashes between government forces and rebel fighters have left more than 40 civilians dead in Somali’s strife-torn capital of Mogadishu. At least 20 civilians were killed in Thursday’s fighting, as Somali government forces backed by the African Union peacekeepers fought with the fighters over control of several Mogadishu districts.
• Shabelle – Sheik Ali Mohamud Raghe (Sheik Ali Dere), the spokesman of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen has Thursday held press conference in Mogadishu claiming victory over bitter fighting that left 35, injuring more than 80 in north Mogadishu.
• UPI – The reported takeover of Somalia’s al-Shebab Islamists by al-Qaida veteran Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 1988 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, could rally the divided jihadists as they brace for a U.S.-backed government offensive.
• Sudan Tribune – President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Thursday inaugurated a rehabilitated railway line in Western Bahr El-Ghazal state and promised to extend the transportation network farther. The two visiting politicians today, Bashir and Kiir, did not appear to agree about why the line had been disabled. Kiir recalled that the railway had been delivering military hardware to empower government army forces in South Sudan. By contrast, Bashir recalled that during the war period the railway was used for delivering services to people in South Sudan as well as agricultural and construction materials.
• Enough Project – Field Dispatch: The Arrow Boys of Southern Sudan – An Army of the Willing
• UPI – Iranian diplomats are reported to have quit the capital of the rickety West African state of Niger following a military coup that toppled President Mamadou Tandja. Tandja had been courted by Tehran, which sought his country’s large uranium deposits for its controversial nuclear program, says Intelligence Online, a French Web site that covers intelligence matters.
• The Namibian – Russian gas giant Gazprom and Namcor have partnered up to muscle out Tullow Oil as the main shareholder in the Kudu gas field, securing 54 per cent of the interest in the multibillion-dollar offshore energy project.
• Mmegi – In response to delays in the Mmamabula Energy Project (MEP), Chinese energy and mining titan Golden Concord Holdings Limited has snapped up a controlling equity in the 300-megawatt power station being developed by CIC Energy.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates speaks with Chief of Staff of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Armed Forces Gen. Muyaya upon his arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 10, 2010 (photo by Cherie Cullen)

The Global War

• Navy Times – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday announced that President Obama nominated Rear Adm. Mark Fox for assignment as commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, and Commander, 5th Fleet, in Bahrain; and Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk for assignment as commander, 7th Fleet, Yokosuka, Japan.
• AFJ – Denmark, Norway, the U.S., Russia and Canada are all in the process of rebuilding combat-capable air and maritime forces and, along with Finland and Sweden, have begun or increased military operations and exercises in the Arctic region. All five states also have been releasing much more assertive foreign and defense policy stances since 2007. So, despite public pronouncements of their desire to cooperate in the region, all of the Arctic states have begun the process of strengthening their armed forces’ abilities to operate in the region. It is therefore correct to ask the question whether we are headed into an Arctic arms race.
• Parameters – Winter 2009-2010 issue

Sights & Sounds

Read more of Cables, dispatches and memoranda »

A brief world news roundup for 11 March 2010.

United States & the Americas

• Press TV – US lawmakers are stepping up efforts to tighten sanctions on Iran after a report revealed that Washington had awarded 107 billion dollars in payments to American and international companies doing business with the country. “We need to send a strong, clear signal to Iran that until it halts its nuclear ambitions, the dangerous state will be denied the benefits of access to the global economy,” Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Monday.
• Al Arabiya – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into Riyadh on Wednesday for talks expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program and Washington’s push for tough sanctions against Tehran.
• FBI – David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Michael L. Levy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, together with Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI in Philadelphia, announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Colleen R. LaRose, aka “Fatima LaRose,” aka “JihadJane,” with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official, and attempted identity theft.
• Irish Times – An American woman dubbed “Jihad Jane” at the centre of an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist “sponsored” a number of Muslims in Ireland on extremist websites before travelling here to meet them. Gardaí believe Colleen Renee LaRose, who has been under arrest in connection with the alleged murder plot in the US since last October, first befriended a number of foreign nationals living in Ireland on websites.
• canada.com – One minister, not three, should oversee the billions of dollars worth of future equipment purchases for the Canadian Forces, a new report to the Harper government recommends. The study on ways to improve defence procurement describes an inefficient and secretive system that will ultimately be responsible for overseeing up to $240 billion worth of future equipment purchases.
• COHA – China Eyes Venezuelan and Brazilian Oil
• Germany MFA – Germany and Argentina have agreed to intensify their cooperation. Following political talks in Buenos Aires, Federal Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle commented that Germany’s relations with Argentina were “in the strategic national interest”. The aim was not only to open up new opportunities for German business but also to expand scientific exchanges.
• Columbia Reports – The Colombian army announced Wednesday that it will fire three high-ranking officials caught on tape celebrating at the wedding of a suspected drug trafficker more than five years ago.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Hindustan Times – Defence and nuclear energy cooperation are likely to dominate the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Putin will be here on a two-day visit. The two sides are likely to conclude the agreement on aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov.
• RFERL – Ten men captured by Russian security forces in a raid that killed a militant leader last week have been arrested as suspects in a deadly November train bombing, Russian news agencies reported.
• RIA Novosti – As a consequence of Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov’s military reform, the Russian officer corps is arguably enduring the most fundamental changes and challenges that it has faced in the past two centuries. Not only has it been subject to downsizing, the system of military education reformed, fitness tests introduced, and the burden of training duties increased, but other innovations demonstrate the serious drive by the defense ministry to foster a new breed of officer.
• SRI – U.S. General David Petraeus arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday, a day after the United States said it would build an anti-terrorism training center for the former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
• Xinhua – Three factions in Ukraine’s Parliament, the Regions Party, the Communist Party and the Lytvyn’ s blok, decided to create a new ruling coalition along with some individual lawmakers, said a leader of the Regions Party on Wednesday
• Caucasian Knot – The Russian delegation labelled as politicized the report of Walter Kelin, Special Representative of Secretary General of the United Nations on Internally Displaced Persons’ Rights, which summed up his visit to South Ossetia. The report was presented on March 8 at the 13th Session of the United Nations on Human Rights (HRS) held in Switzerland. In the opinion of Mikhail Lebedev, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation at the UN Branch and other international organizations in Geneva, the report is lopsided, biased and contains factual mistakes
• Kavkaz Center – Kavkaz Center’s source reported that the Mujahideen attacked a military convoy consisted of Russian invaders from the FSB gang and minions in the area of settlements of Makhkety and Selmentauzen of Vedeno District of Nokhchicho (Chechnya) Province of the Caucasus Emirate on Tuesday afternoon. The convoy fist was struck by IED and fired by rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. Details of battle are not available
• RIA Novosti – Tajikistan’s top court on Wednesday sentenced 56 followers of Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), a radical Muslim group, for extremist activities in the Central Asian state.
• EurasiaNet – As Mongolia struggles to overcome a devastatingly harsh winter, international development organizations, including United Nations agencies and the World Bank, are urging Ulaanbaatar to take a hard look at reforming the country’s nomadic agricultural practices

Middle East

• Washington Post – After initially playing down the scope of the violence during Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Iraq, the U.S. military has concluded in an internal assessment that at least 37 people were killed in 136 attacks.
• IDF – In his speech, Lt. Gen Gabi Ashkenazi emphasized that “Iran was the main threat to world peace, and gradually attempting to harvest regional instability through its proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Therefore the international community must stop the Iranian nuclear program for its own sake.
• Robert Rabil – Hizbollah vs Israel: the coming clash
• NOW Lebanon – The Lebanese army issued a statement on Wednesday that Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace at 12:15 p.m. over the southern village of Kfar Fila, after which they proceeded to fly over the South before exiting the country at 1:50 p.m. over the southern village of Rmeish.
• CSM – The most powerful politicians in Lebanon resumed discussions on national defense, with questions of how to rein in Shiite political party Hezbollah’s powerful military wing on the table.
• Arab News – Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, a prominent voice of the Islamic world and head of Al-Azhar, the highest religious authority in Egypt, died here on Wednesday at the age of 81 following a heart attack. Sheikh Tantawi had arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday to participate in the award-giving ceremony of the King Faisal International Prize
• Murad Batal Al-shishani, Jamestown – An Assessment of the Anatomy of al-Qaeda in Yemen: Ideological and Social Factors

Iran

• Iran MFA – Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mihman-Parast said on Wednesday that there are numerous evidence and documents which show that terrorist ringleader Abdulmalek Rigi was supported by the US and Britain. Referring to the crimes committed by Rigi in the country, he said they never assumed that the Iranian intelligence service and security apparatus would easily arrest Rigi one day. Upon his arrest, Rigi provided us with classified and important information, he said.
• Fars – Iran’s first home-made destroyer, ‘Jamaran’, successfully test-fired a powerful and intelligent missile named ‘Nour’ (light), commander of the Iranian Navy announced on Wednesday.
• Payvand – Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has used a visit to Afghanistan to lambast Kabul’s Western allies, particularly the United States, saying Washington — not Tehran — was playing a “double game” in the country. Ahmadinejad accused the United States of fighting terrorists that it helped to create.
• Persia House – In the past several weeks, in many official occasions in which high-ranking officials were present, posters of the Iranian flag were shown with illegal colors! At some official meetings, the green part of the flag was blue! Of course, officials from the Presidential Office claimed it was due to the reflection of the light. They even stated that they have the banner to prove it. So, where did the black color covering the green part of the flag come from? Is it again the reflection of the light that changed the green to black?

Afghan national police and U.S. Army Soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company D, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, withdraw from an area near Sundray village in Afghanistan's Kunar province, using smoke for cover. Officials searched the area following a Feb. 18, attack against an International Security Assistance Force convoy using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. ISAF destroyed about five fighting positions and a weapons cache in the using artillery, mortar fire and air-to-ground rockets (photo by Staff Sgt. Gary Witte)

South Asia

• UK FCO – The war in Afghanistan: How to end it; Speech by Rt Hon David Miliband MP Foreign Secretary on Afghanistan delivered as part of the eminent Compton lecture series
• AFPS – Afghan and international forces captured numerous suspected insurgents in four Afghanistan provinces during combined operations over the last two days, military officials reported. Bagram-based Special Forces and international forces captured two suspects connected to insurgents in Helmand’s Nawzad district. In a separate operation in the Garmsir district, a combined force captured several insurgents.
• World Vision – World Vision today is mourning the brutal and senseless deaths of six members of its staff in the Mansehra District of Pakistan after an unprovoked attack by gunmen. The international humanitarian organisation confirms reports that gunmen entered its compound, threw grenades, opened fire on staff inside the office, and left the compound after exploding a homemade bomb. The compound is located 65 kilometres north of Mansehra town.
• Press TV – Two US drone attacks on Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region have killed at least 14 people and injured a number of others. Eight people were killed when a drone fired five missiles at a vehicle in Mizar Madakhel village, Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed on Wednesday.
• The Hindu – Interview with Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani
• The News – Twenty-nine brigadiers, including Zahid Latif Mirza — currently posted at Tampa-based US Central Command — and President’s Military Secretary Brig Mian M Hilal Hussain, were promoted to the rank of 2-star generals in the Pakistan Army on Wednesday.
• RSIS – Darul Uloom Deoband:Stemming the Tide of Radical Islam in India
• Colombo Page – China, through its Export-Import (Exim) Bank has provided Sri Lanka with a Concessional Loan of US$ 190 million to construct the country’s second airport in Mattala and another US$ 100 million to expand the capacity of the Sri Lankan Railway, Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
• Colombo Page – The Government of Sri Lanka and Export-Import Bank of India today signed a US$ 67.4 million Line of Credit Agreement to upgrade the Southern coastal railway line from Colombo to Matara
• ISN – Now that a tenuous peace has returned to Bangladesh’s tribal Chittagong Hill Tracts region following clashes between tribes and settlers in violence that some say was encouraged by the military, all eyes are now on how Dhaka will respond, Animesh Roul reports for ISN Security Watch.

Far East & Pacific

• Bhaskar Roy – China’s Military Budget 2010-The Hidden Contents
• SWP – Military Trends in China; Modernising and Internationalising the People’s Liberation Army
• China MFA – China is firmly opposed to the US arms sales to Taiwan. This position is unequivocal and consistent. We urge the US side to abide by the principles enshrined in the three joint communiqués and the China-US Joint Statement, take China’s position seriously and respect China’s core interests and major concerns. The US need to properly handle sensitive issues including arms sales to Taiwan and stop the promotion of arms sales to Taiwan so as to maintain the healthy and stable development of China-US relations
• Bloomberg – China’s exports rose more than forecast in February and property prices jumped the most in almost two years, adding pressure on policy makers to pare stimulus measures adopted during the global recession. Shipments abroad gained 46 percent in February from a year before after a 21 percent advance in January, the customs bureau reported on its Web site.
• The Australian – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has confirmed that Jemaah Islamiah leader Dulmatin was one of three men killed in a raid in Jakarta. Dulmatin was a key player in the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
• Japan Times – Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Wednesday he does not think the United States will rearm its attack subs with nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. There are deep exchanges between the Japanese and U.S. governments. . . . But I don’t think that Tomahawks will be reloaded,” Okada told a Diet committee, a day after a Foreign Ministry panel acknowledged the existence of a “tacit agreement” under which Japan effectively allowed U.S. nuclear-armed ships to enter the nation’s ports without prior consultation, in violation of official policy.

Europe

• Russia Today – The US may advance its partnership with Russia by using one of its radars as part of its anti-ballistic shield in Europe, says James Stravridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe
• Irish Times – GARDAÍ have arrested seven people as part of an international investigation into an alleged plot to kill a Swedish artist who produced a series of sketches depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
• Reuters – Angry public and private sector unions are expected to bring Greece to a standstill on Thursday in a second nationwide strike in as many weeks against tough government austerity plans. The 24-hour walk-out will ground flights and shut schools, hospitals and tourist sites such as the Acropolis but it is unlikely to halt Prime Minister George Papandreou’s plans to slash spending and hike taxes to rein in a yawning deficit and restore confidence in the ailing Greek economy.
• euobserver – EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday (10 March) sought to draw a line under her stormy first 100 days in office by giving a wide-ranging speech to MEPs outlining her vision for future European foreign policy.

Africa

• Garowe – A Hizbul Islam official called Bare Ali Bare was on Tuesday gunned down by unknown assailants in Mogadishu ’s Bakara Market, a stronghold for Somali rebel fighters.
• Asharq Al Awsat – The Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Company [NOC] informed Asharq Al-Awsat that Tripoli is seeking to give precedence to Russia and China – at the expense of US oil companies – with regards to the Libyan oil industry because of its dissatisfaction of the Obama administrations support for Switzerland in its current crisis with Libya. At the same time, the Libyan Charges d’Affaires to the UK, Omar R Jelban, revealed that Switzerland has issued a blacklist of 188 Libyans banned from traveling to the country, and that the names of the three Libyan officials charged with negotiating an end to this diplomatic crisis were included on this list. Jelban said that this indicates that Switzerland is not interested in resolving the crisis with Tripoli.
• UPI – East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia.
• Asia Times – China’s US$9 billion barter deal to develop infrastructure in return for concessions on copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo was seen as a win- win for Chinese companies and the African nation. But the project has fallen foul to the impoverished but resource-rich nation’s Western creditors, setting China on a roller-coaster ride that could yet derail the “deal of the century”.
• BBC – Former rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo who now serve in the army are running mafia-style extortion rackets in the mines, campaigners say. Ex-rebels of the CNDP group are said to have gained far greater control of the mines than they did as insurgents.
• ISNA – Iran’s parliament Speaker Ali Larijani met and conferred his Senegalese counterpart on developing interrelations. Meeting Senegal’s National Assembly President Mamadou Seck, Larijani expressed satisfaction on expanding procedure of fraternal interrelations in different fields and added, Iran’s strategy has always been based on cooperation with African countries especially Senegal.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Defense Minister of Afghanistan Abdul Rahim Wardak walk out to board a UH-60 Blackhawk at the airport in Kabul, March 10, 2010. (photo by Cherie Cullen)

The Global War

• Dr Idean Salehyan, SSI – Transnational Insurgencies and the Escalation of Regional Conflict: Lessons for Iraq and Afghanistan
• Andrew Krepinevich, CSBA – This state of affairs is almost certainly ending, with significant consequences for US security. With the spread of advanced military technologies and their exploitation by other militaries, especially China’s People’s Liberation Army and to a far lesser extent Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the US military’s ability to preserve military access to two key areas of vital interest, the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf, is being increasingly challenged.
• US Navy – Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 11 held a change of command ceremony on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) March 6. Rear Adm. Robert P. Girrier relieved Rear Adm. John W. Miller as commander, CSG 11.

Sights & Sounds

Read more of Cables, dispatches and memoranda »

A brief world news roundup for 9 March 2010.

United States & the Americas

• canada.com – Just days after the Conservative government’s throne speech pledged to resolve several outstanding Arctic territorial disputes, polar experts have revealed an unexpected twist in the long-running disagreement over the Canada-U.S. border in the southern Beaufort Sea.
• White House – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Major General Robert A. Harding, U.S. Army (Retired), as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration). Robert A. Harding, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration) Major General (Retired) Robert A. Harding has spent over 35 years working in the Intelligence Community, as a leader in both the military and the private sectors. General Harding served as CEO of Harding Security Associates (HSA), a company he founded in 2003 and sold in July 2009
• Brazil Sun – Brazil said Monday it would raise tariffs on 591 million dollars worth of US products in the latest twist in its showdown over US cotton subsidies it has blasted as unfair.
• IRNA – Iranian and Brazilian scientists will launch extensive cooperation in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and science and technology policymaking under a working group formed based on an agreement signed by the two countries.
• El Universal – Exports of oil products to US fall by 67.6 percent in 10 years
• Columbia Reports – A Colombian intelligence report alleges that the FARC are collaborating with Peruvian insurgent group “Shining Path,” in an effort to revitalize the failing Maoist organisation.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev will meet with Prime Minister of Sweden Fredrik Reinfeldt on March 9 to discuss economic ties and international issues. Agreements on space, energy, healthcare and other spheres of cooperation have been drafted for Reinfeldt’s visit.
• MEMRI – In an interview with the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour, Russian Ambassador to Jordan Alexander Kalugin said that Moscow was opposed to Iran, with whom it shares its southern border, obtaining nuclear weapons.
• Kavkaz Center – Statement of the Ingush Mujahideen Command regarding events in Ekazhevo
• Itar Tass – Active member of illegal armed groups Valery Etezov who is on the international wanted list has been liquidated in Nalchik. Offering resistance during the detention he wounded two policemen and a passer-by, an official of the Kabardino-Balkaria investigation department of the Russian Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee (SKP) told Itar-Tass on Monday.
• Caucasian Knot – Georgia and the European Union have signed the agreement on united air space. The document assumes to build, within 2 years after signing, the united Georgian-EU aviation space. According to the new agreement, Georgia will harmonize its legislation with EU standards on aviation safety, protection of environment, consumers’ rights, air traffic control and economic regulation.
• Russia Today – People in the South Ossetian town of Leningor say that since Georgia’s devastating attack in 2008, it has blocked vital gas supplies. Georgia claims the pipes are damaged, but people in Leningor say it’s a cruel pretext to deprive them of fuel.
• AP – Election officials in Tajikistan have declared the governing party the overwhelming winner of parliamentary elections that international observers say were marred by widespread fraud

Middle East

• Al Sumaria – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki is the front-runner in Iraq’s nine southern provinces, AFP quoted local official as saying. Al Iraqiya List led by Iyad Allawi came first in Anbar, Salahuddin, Diyala and Nineveh, estimates reported. In Kirkuk, Kurdistan Alliance topped the chart followed by Al Iraqiya then the State of Law Coalition, estimates added
• Michael Rubin – Yesterday’s elections in Iraq should be applauded. So too should be the role Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has played over the last four-plus years. Talabani has been a voice of moderation and has helped bring back different sectarian and ethnic groups from the brink on several occasions. He works well with Americans, Iranians, Turks, and Syrians, a useful skill for any Iraqi statesman. But it’s time for Talabani to go. Preliminary reports suggest Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) came in second in Sulaymani, Talabani’s stronghold, although the PUK appears to have eked out a victory in hotly contested Kirkuk.
• Jerusalem Post – For this reason, Israel carefully scrutinized every public statement made by Nasrallah, Assad and Ahmadinejad two weeks ago during their meeting in Damascus, on the sidelines of which Syria and Iran signed a number of new defense pacts. While the agreements do not bind Syria to defend Iran if it is attacked by Israel or the United States, the continued alliance between the countries is of major concern for the Israeli defense establishment, primarily considering that at the same time that Assad sat down for dinner with Ahmadinejad, the Obama administration announced that it had decided to return its ambassador to Damascus.
• Interpol – Interpol is to join a Dubai-based international task force investigating the murder of Palestinian national and Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on 19 January 2010. At the request of UAE/Dubai authorities, the world police body has also issued a further 16 Red Notices to assist in the arrest of additional suspects now linked to the murder of Al-Mabhouh, bringing the total to 27.
• NOW Lebanon – NOW’s correspondent reported on Monday that the Internal Security Forces (ISF) arrested in Marjayoun a citizen—identified only by his initials of M.P.M.—for allegedly spying for Israel.
• SANA – The March 8th Revolution in 1963 marked a major and important turning point in Syria’s history, the strength and endurance of which were inspired by the spirit of popular struggle. The Revolution boosted Syria Syria’s position as a country with political and economic power with independent political and economic decision-making.
• UPI – Yemeni forces Monday arrested more than 25 people allegedly involved in a secessionist uprising gripping the southern provinces of the embattled country

Iran

• Asharq Al Awsat – Baluchi Kamal Narui, spokesman for the armed Sunni Jundallah Organization, which opposes the current Iranian regime, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the organization — which has been engaged in confrontations to restore the rights of the Sunnis and Baluchi minority for years now — will soon publish confessions made by an Afghan agent who works for the Mossad who was involved in the arrest of Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi. Speaking to Asharq al-Awsat by phone, Narui stressed that Rigi was arrested at a friend’s house in the Afghan City of Kandahar. He dismissed the Iranian version of events, which claims that Rigi was arrested after the plane on which he was traveling to Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, to meet with American officials, was forced to land at the airport of Bandar-Abbas City.
• Payvand – Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Monday the ringleader of PJAK terrorist group must be handed over to Iran to stand trial. Larijani’s remarks came after it was reported that PJAK terrorist group leader has been arrested in Germany
• ynet – Three of the world’s largest oil suppliers have clandestinely cut their ties with Iran, the Financial Times reported Monday. The move, which saw Holland-based Vitol and Switzerland’s Glencore and Trafigura cease all trading with Iran, stresses the United States’ success in pressuring global companies to cut commercial ties with the Islamic Republic.
• Fars – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday underlined Tehran’s readiness to improve all-out ties with the south African state of Zimbabwe.
• Press TV – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has postponed a trip to Afghanistan devoted to providing “solutions for settling the problems” in Iran’s eastern neighbor. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the source added, has, however, arrived in Afghanistan on Monday morning on an unannounced visit.

A U.S. Army Soldier walks past damage from a suicide bombing at Combat Outpost Dand Patan, Afghanistan, Feb. 17, 2010. COP Dand Patan is home to B Company, 2-121, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Georgia Army National Guard. (photo by Senior Chief Petty Officer Kevin Elliott)

South Asia

• RFERL – A roadside bomb attack has blown up a civilian vehicle in the southwestern Afghan province of Badghis, killing 10 passengers. Officials said the explosion took place in Muqur district on March 7. Another civilian and one police officer were reported killed in separate bomb blasts in the same region. Badghis has seen increasing militant activity as Taliban fighters spread their influence from traditional strongholds in the south and east of the country.
• TIME – A fierce battle last weekend in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province between fighters of the Taliban and their erstwhile allies Hezb-i-Islami killed more than 50 combatants and 19 civilians — and may prove to be a major boon to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
• AFPS – Afghan troops, assisted by coalition forces, cordoned and searched an insurgent supply route used to transport and harbor roadside bombs in Afghanistan’s Helmand province late last week.
• Pentagon – The Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Spc. Alan N. Dikcis, 21, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., died March 5 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 630th Engineer Company (Clearance), 7th Engineer Battalion (Combat Effects), 20th Engineer Brigade (Combat) (Airborne), Fort Drum, N.Y
• Dawn – According to official sources suspected US drone has fired five missiles in Maley Khan Sirai area located near Miranshah bazaar killing at least five people and wounded three. A security official in Peshawar confirmed the strike saying the missiles hit militants gathered in a compound in Miranshah.
• The News – In a surprising move in the militancy-stricken North Waziristan Agency, unknown assailants shot dead a senior Taliban commander, Maulvi Noor Mohammad, near Miramshah. Official sources told The News by phone from Miramshah on Sunday that Maulvi Noor Mohammad was travelling in a car near Gora Qabrestan when he came under attack.
• Geo – A suicide car bomber has struck a building where police interrogate high-profile suspects in Pakistan’’s eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 13 people and wounding 61 others, including women taking children to school, officials said. The attack shattered what had been a relative lull in major violence in Pakistan. The attack also showed that rebels retain the ability to strike the country’’s heartland, far from the Afghan border regions where al Qaida and the Taliban have long thrived, despite army offensives aimed at wiping them out. The authorities have found the head of the suicide bomber. No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups.
• Times of India – The government on Monday sounded a terror alert for three cities — Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore — after interrogation of Indian Mujahideen suspect Salman Ahmed.
• Nosint – The Indian Army is gearing up to test fire the indigenously-built Nag anti-tank missile from Rajasthan in May
• Colombo Page – The Summary of Evidence prepared in compliance with military proceedings against Sri Lanka’s former Army Chief, Retired General Sarath Fonseka has been completed and handed over to the Army Commander Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya. Legal officers in the Army Directorate of Legal Services are in the process of reviewing the contents and maintain that there is a prima facie case against General Fonseka on more than five charges under the Army Act.

Far East & Pacific

• Yonhap – South Korea is keeping a close watch over North Korea’s efforts to draw greater foreign investment to one of its ports, as the move might indicate Pyongyang is opening up to the outside world and signal its return to stalled international nuclear talks, officials said Tuesday. The North has agreed to give a 50-year lease on its Rajin port to Russia, and the country is also in talks with a Chinese company on extending its 10-year lease by another decade, according to an official from China’s Jilian Province, currently in Beijing for the National People’s Congress.
• Chosun Ilbo – The construction of a new bridge linking China and North Korea across the Apnok (or Yalu) River is expected to begin in October, a year after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agreed to the project during his visit to the North
• Macleans – North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking U.S. forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said Tuesday.
• Jakarta Post – Dozens of students from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic Institute, grouped under Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, rallied outside their campus Tuesday to protest against the visit of US President Barack Obama next week.

Europe

• The Local – A 62-year-old Uighur living in Sweden as a political refugee since 1997 has been found guilty of spying for China on Uighur expatriates and sentenced to a year and four months in jail. The man, identified in court documents as Swedish citizen Babur Maihesuti, was found guilty of “aggravated illegal espionage activity”, the Stockholm district court said in a statement.
• Expatica – Nine alleged members of an Al Qaeda terror cell, suspected of having recruited jihadists and prepared attacks, go on trial in Brussels Monday.
• euobserver – Following Saturday’s referendum in Iceland in which 93.5 percent of voters voted No to plans to reimburse the Netherlands and the UK for monies lost following the collapse of online bank Icesave, there has been a mixed reaction on the part of the two EU governments. London has said it is open to fresh talks on the matter while the Hague has warned explicitly that the vote threatens the north Atlantic nation’s EU hopes.

Africa

• Garowe – Somalia’s hardline insurgents Al-Shabaab controlling the southern Somali town of Afmadow have banned English and Science studies in schools after the education centers reportedly ignored their call for fighters, residents and teachers reports
• Sudan Tribune – The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) headed by Abdel-Wahid Al-Nur described as “false” the claims by the Sudanese army that they have control of the strategic Jebel Marra plateau in Darfur. Today the Sudanese army spokesperson Al-Sawarmi Khaled said that their forces have overran the area after fighting with SLM-AW troops.
• The East African – The recently reported seizure of a North Korean arms shipment supposedly intended for Congo-Brazzaville highlights the continuing flow of weapons into African conflict zones from multiple sources. Last week, South Africa reported to the United Nations that it had intercepted concealed North Korean military cargo in November. The shipment, it said, violated a UN arms embargo and may have been made in collusion with China. But larger-scale military transfers to unstable African states by other suppliers, including the United States, are regularly carried out without notice by the world press.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, center left, meets with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, center right, in Kabul, March 8, 2010. (photo by Cherie Cullen)

The Global War

• Asia Times – As China continues to consider joining the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, with or without India, the United States needs to understand that Beijing’s eventual decision will have repercussions across Asia
• Kevin Stringer, Military Review – Interagency Command and Control at the Operational Level: A Challenge in Stability Operations

Sights & Sounds

Read more of Cables, dispatches and memoranda »

A brief world news roundup for 8 March 2010.

United States & the Americas

• Globe and Mail – Officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have played a crucial and long-standing role as interrogators of a vast swath of captured Taliban fighters, The Canadian Press has learned.
• Press TV – Iran deplores Canada’s move to vote against a UN-backed resolution extending the deadline for a full and credible probe into Israeli war crimes during its last year assault on Gaza. “During the tenure of [Canadian Prime Minister Stephen] Harper, Canada followed the policy of turning a blind eye to realities and has always given priority to dual and contradictory behaviors,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Sunday.
• Press TV – Amid US efforts to unite Latin American nations against Iran, the newly sworn-in Uruguayan president expresses willingness to expand ties with the Islamic Republic
• Miami Herald – Police in northern Mexico protested Saturday hours after three of their colleagues were shot to death in an ambush and a fourth was wounded.
• Expatica – Members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA trained around 100 guerillas from Colombia’s rebel FARC group in camps in Venezuela, the Spanish daily El Pais reported Sunday.
• LAHT – The personal nurse who spent four years looking after “Mono Jojoy,” the military chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, turned herself in Saturday, the authorities said in a communique.
• Columbia Reports – 54 members of neo-paramilitary drug gangs were arrested and six were killed in an armed forces operation in northern Colombia, the Government Secretary of the Antioquia department told Caracol radio on Sunday
• ISNA – Bullying powers of the world are angry with the expansion of ties among independent countries, said Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Meeting with Ecuador’s First Vice President Lenin Moreno in Tehran on Saturday, he said Iran and Ecuador both consider the current global arrangement unjust and have common views towards global issues.
• Prensa Latina – Iran’s Vice President Mohamad Reza Rahimi said Sunday that his country will support Ecuador to seek the necessary funds to preserve the Yasuni Amazonian Park, through the international community joint responsibility. That strategy responds to Ecuador’s policy of preserving about 846 million of heavy oil barrels in the national Yasuni Amazonian Park’s subsoil, in return for an international joint responsibility formula.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – The construction of the Russia-China oil pipeline will be finished by the end of this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Sunday. The project is part of the East Siberia – Pacific oil pipeline, which was launched into operation in December 2009 and is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels (220,000 tons) of crude per day from Siberia to Russia’s Far East and then on to China and the Asia-Pacific region.
• Caucasian Knot – Local residents are afraid that after the special operation conducted by Russian power agencies on March 3 in Ekazhevo village the republic will face new terror acts. During the operation militants suffered losses and in the near future, most likely, they will strike back. If the fact of liquidation of the ideologist of extremism Said Buryatskiy (Alexander Tikhomirov) is confirmed, their response may be even tougher
• RFERL – Five years ago, on March 8, 2005, the Russian authorities announced the death in a shootout of Chechen President and resistance commander Aslan Maskhadov. His death was a milestone in Russia’s struggle to preserve control over the North Caucasus.
• RIA Novosti – Said Buryatsky, a notorious gang leader in Russia’s North Caucasus, killed in a special operation on Tuesday, was involved in the derailment of a Moscow-St. Petersburg train in November 2009, the head of the Federal Security Service said on Saturday.
• Kavkaz Center – The command of the Mujahideen of Ghalghaycho (AKA Ingushetia) Province of the Caucasus Emirate has officially confirmed the information on Martyrdom (inshaAllah) of Sheikh Sayeed al Buryati (AKA Sayeed Buryatsky/Sayeed Abu Saad). The report states that Sayeed Abu Saad was killed during the long-lasted fierce battle in the village of Ekazhevo 17 Rabi al-Awwal 1431 (3 March 2010)
• Itar Tass – A gunman from an illegal armed group, who participated in a recent attack against policemen, was killed in a special operation in Derbent on Saturday.

Middle East

• Al Jazeera – Iraqis have begun voting in their second full parliamentary elections since the 2003 US-led invasion against a backdrop of deadly attacks. But even as polls opened on Sunday, attacks across the country left at least 24 people dead and 50 more wounded.
• Al Sumaria – Elections in northern Iraq are as competitive as polls in Baghdad. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by President Jalal Talabani has allied with Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by Kurdistan leader Massoud Barazani in face of Change Movement led by Neshervan Barazani.
• Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert J. Bebber, book review – The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
• Haaretz – In a letter to Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal, the group’s senior military commander has admitted losing control in Gaza, the Arabic-language newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat reported on Saturday.
• Jerusalem Post – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday continued his verbal assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites.” Erdogan was referring to Israel’s recent inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb on its national heritage list, but it was unclear why he mentioned the Aksa Mosque, since that site was not included.
• Asharq Al Awsat – The issue of Palestinian arms in Lebanon, both inside and outside of the Palestinian refugee camps is an issue that has returned to the fore following a statement from the Secretary-General of the Fatah al-Intifada group Colonel Abu Moussa. Abu Moussa announced that Fatah al-Intifada is ready to relocate its military bases that are currently inside the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to other locations outside of these camps to be determined by the Lebanese army.
• Daily Star – Hizbullah’s Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish said Sunday that his party’s weapons would not be “a subject for discussion,” during upcoming National Dialogue sessions on a defense strategy.
• SMH – An al-Qaeda militant has killed a police guard and seriously wounded another as he tried to escape from custody in a Yemeni hospital, the defence ministry says. “Guards at Sanaa’s Republican Hospital foiled a bid by an al-Qaeda member involved in several terrorist attacks who was hospitalised for several days,” the ministry’s 26sep.net website said a statement on Sunday.
• UPI – The United Arab Emirates aims to build a network of oil and gas pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway controlled in part by Iran.

Iran

• Payvand – The Defense Ministry inaugurated on Sunday the production line of a short-range cruise missile dubbed Nasr 1 (Victory 1). The Nasr 1 missile is capable of destroying 3000-ton boats, Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told reporters during the inauguration ceremony (with photos)
• Defense Update – Massive Construction Visible at Iran’s Missile & Space Center at Semnan; Extensive infrastructure developments are evident in the following satellite imagery, obtained by the Israeli Eros-B satellite. The images are superimposed on an earlier image, available through Google Earth, taken around 2007.
• Russia Today – Iran is expelling Russian pilots who work for its civilian airlines in a move that may be connected with Moscow’s willingness to support international sanctions against Tehran
• CNN – Two days before his official trip to Afghanistan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a “big lie” intended to pave the way for the invasion of a war-torn nation, according to Iranian state media.
• MEMRI – Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi said that his country has signed bilateral mutual defense agreements with Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, which stipulate that the territory of each country will not be used to harm the other. Kuwaiti sources denied this statement, but said that Kuwait has signed non-aggression pacts with friendly countries in the past, and is committed to this principle.
• Mehr – Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani announced on Sunday that the judicial system has arrested members of a major ring of corrupt employees working for a state organization. In a meeting with senior Judiciary officials in Tehran, he said the members of the ring embezzled millions of dollars by forging government documents.
• Uskowi on Iran – These reports over the ID found on Rigi at the time of his arrest tend to dispel conspiracy theories of Pakistan directly turning him over to Iranian authorities

South Asia

• Press TV – Afghan police say up to 60 militants and 19 civilians may have been killed in bloody clashes between rival militant groups in the north of the country. The fighting reportedly erupted in Baghlan province between the Taliban and militants loyal to Hezb-e-Islami, Press TV correspondent reported.
• CentCom – General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), has issued a new Tactical Directive providing guidance and intent for the conduct of night raids by all Coalition Forces operating in Afghanistan. A “night raid” is any offensive operation involving entry into a compound, residence, building or structure that occurs in the period between nautical twilight and nautical dawn.
• VOA – International troops under the banner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are continuing to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. But, NATO field commanders are hindered by certain restrictions placed on troops by European governments.
• UK MoD – It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of Rifleman Liam Maughan of 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Rifleman Liam Maughan died from wounds received as a result of small arms fire which occurred near Sangin, in Helmand Province.
• Terrence Smith and Teresita Schaffer, CSIS – Pakistan: In the Cauldron
• Dawn – Pakistani security forces along with help of US intelligence arrested Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al- Adam (Adam Gadahn), who is a close associate of Osama Bin Laden. Abu Yahya was arrested on Sunday from an area surrounding the super highway, on the outskirts of Karachi. [this report may be false]
• AP – Al-Qaida’s American-born spokesman on Sunday called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood. In a 25-minute video posted on militant Web sites, Adam Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.
• The News – Military officials on Friday said there were strong indications that senior Taliban commanders, including Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, Maulvi Abdul Wali, Qari Ziaur Rahman and Omar Rahman alias Fateh, were killed or injured in heavy bombing by the military gunship helicopters in Mohmand Agency’s Pindyali Yehsil.
• Dawn – Twelve people, two children and four women among them, were killed and 30 others wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of civilians, escorted by paramilitary soldiers, in Thall town in Hangu district on Friday
• Daily Times – Unidentified motorcyclists gunned down Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Sardar Aziz Umrani and one of his guards in Khuzdar on Saturday
• Times of India – Even as BJP and other political parties came down on the government for its alleged assurance to World Bank that it will not seek finance for projects in Arunachal Pradesh, because of pressure from China, foreign minister S M Krishna and the finance ministry categorically denied that there had been any shift in India’s stated position that the state was an integral part of India.
• Times of India – At a time when India is still in the planning stage for bringing in High Speed Rail (HSR) network in the country, neighbouring China has embarked upon an ambitious plan to take its HSR length to 28,000 km, two- fold of the total global network, in the next four years.
• Colombo Page – Sri Lanka military denied reports that a former head of Sri Lanka Army Intelligence Unit is to be quizzed on the assassination of the Sunday Leader Editor, Lasantha Wickramathunga

A tug boat guides the U.S. 7th Fleet command ship USS Blue Ridge as it arrives in Busan, Republic of Korea. Blue Ridge and U.S. 7th Fleet staff arrived in Busan for Exercise Key Resolve/Foal Eagle 2010. (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Bobbie Attaway)

Far East & Pacific

• Deutsche Welle – A current pipeline project in Myanmar will bring 12 million tonnes of crude oil from Africa and the Middle East through one pipeline and 12 billion cubic meters of Burmese gas through another pipeline each year into China. The nearly 1,000 kilometer long pipelines are said to be the longest in Asia. They will run through Myanmar (also known as Burma) to the south of China.
• Manila Times – Seven Islamist militants were killed by Philippine Marines early Sunday in a raid on their remote southern island hideout, the military said. The raid had targeted the group of a man who goes by the alias Abu Benhur, whom he described as a member of the Abu Sayyaf group with active ties to Jemaah Islamiah.
• NYT – Eleven soldiers were killed and several others were wounded Saturday in a firefight with Communist guerrillas in a province south of Manila, Philippine Army officials said.
• Jakarta Post – Survivors of a counterterrorism police squad ambushed by militants last week pressed on with their village-by-village search Sunday for members of a suspected new terrorist cell in the western Indonesian province of Aceh.
• Bangkok Post – The government is investigating whether the theft of war weapons and ammunition from an arms depot in the South is politically motivated amid reports the weapons are already on their way to Bangkok. Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd yesterday confirmed the theft but would not comment on the number of stolen weapons.

Europe

• Deutsche Welle – A few months down the line the Export Import Bank of China (China Eximbank) has granted Belgrade a billion euro ($1.3 billion) loan to upgrade two power plants and build a much-needed bridge over the beautiful blue Danube. The bridge project, which is due to get underway in the spring, is critical both as a means of easing the traffic situation in Belgrade, and as a test of how well China can work with its south-eastern European partner.
• Balkan Insight – The energy ministers of Serbia and Bulgaria signed an agreement on Friday in Brussels that will enable the construction of a gas interconnection between the gas grids of the two countries.
• Intellibriefs – Germen security forces arrested the ringleader and two senior members of an Iraq-based armed opposition of the Islamic Republic called Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) – an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
• Spiegel – With Germany lacking schools of Islamic theology, Muslim congregations have long imported religious leaders. As Germany considers steps to create more homegrown imams, countries like Turkey — which sends state-employed imams to Europe to serve large segments of the Turkish diaspora — are filling the gap.
• Iceland News – Official confirmation of huge Iceland ‘no’ vote in Icesave referendum; With final numbers now released in all voting districts, the resounding ‘no’ vote is official. Nationwide, 144,231 people voted of the roughly 230,000 registered voters. 2,599 (1.8 percent) of them voted to accept December’s Icesave repayment plan and 134,397 (93.2 percent) voted to reject it.
• Radio Netherlands – The French navy has dealt pirates in Somalia a heavy blow, rounding up 35 in two days. A French frigate captured four mother ships and six skiffs. The French were aided by Spanish colleagues who used an airplane and two helicopters to track down the pirates.

Africa

• NYT – The Somali government is preparing a major offensive to take back this capital block by crumbling block, and it takes just a listen to the low growl of a small surveillance plane circling in the night sky overhead to know who is surreptitiously backing that effort. That American assistance could be crucial to the effort by Somalia’s government to finally reassert its control over the capital and bring a semblance of order to a country that has been steeped in anarchy for two decades.
• Fars – Vice-Speaker of Somalia’s Parliament Mohamed Omar Dalha asked for the expansion of relations and cooperation with Iran in all the various fields.
• Garowe – The leader of Somalia’s Hizbul Islam group, Sheikh Hassan  Dahir Aweys has reiterated that Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed Islam ‘Madobe’ is still part of his group. Sheikh Aweys who was addressing congregation at Bakara Market, directly responded to a claim by one of the group’s top official in Gedo region, who accused Madobe of executing agendas backed by Ethiopia and Kenya.
• Shabelle – the Islamic adminstration of Hizbul Islam have said that they formed new adminstration for the district of Banadir region which are the areas under the control of the trnsitional government of Somalia, officials told Shabelle radio on sunday.
• UN – Two peacekeepers who were missing after an attack on an African Union-United Nations patrol in Darfur have made a safe return with the assistance of the local population, the joint mission reported today. The two were part of a patrol, which included UNAMID police and military observers, that was ambushed on Friday by unidentified armed men while on its way to Jebel Marra, the scene of recent clashes.
• Magharebia – Algerian soldiers killed six terrorists Saturday (March 6th) in an attack on a rebel hideout in Kedara, Boumerdes province, Tout sur l’Algerie reported. The security operation targeted the El Arkam brigade of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
• Scott Gration, State Dept – Recent Two-Week Trip to Chad, Sudan, Qatar and Rwanda
• Vanguard – Over 200 people, mostly women and children, were killed in three villages near Shen in Du District of Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State by suspected Fulani herdsmen, on reprisal attacks. At least 45 children, including toddlers, were among those hacked to death, gunned down or roasted in their abodes by the marauders at about 2.30 a.m.

An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 9 flies alongside the Virginia-class attack submarine USS New Mexico with the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the distance. HSC-9 is assigned to the George H.W. Bush Strike Group and is underway in the Atlantic Ocean in support of fleet training operations (photo by Seaman Nicholas Hall)

The Global War

• RIA Novosti – China and Pakistan will hold joint antiterrorist exercises entitled Friendship-2010 in China in summer, the Renmin Ribao newspaper said on its website on Sunday citing the Chinese National Defense Ministry
• US Army – Eighth (Field) Army Soldiers are participating from March 8 – 18 in Key Resolve/Foal Eagle 2010, the first of two annual peninsula-wide exercises in South Korea.
• US Navy – USS Dewey (DDG105) was formally commissioned in a ceremony on Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, marking the first time a warship has been commissioned in the Orange County city. Dewey is the 55th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
• Times Online – Even Captain Bligh might have blushed. The first woman captain of a US navy guided-missile destroyer was relieved of her command for using language so foul that it amounted to “cruelty and maltreatment”, it emerged yesterday

Sights & Sounds

Read more of Cables, dispatches and memoranda »