Updates on Libyan war/Stop NATO news: July 29, 2011
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NATO’s Air Assault On Libya: Almost 17,000 Sorties, 6,387 Strike Sorties
NATO Knocks At ASEAN’s Door
U.S. Plans Interceptor Missile Radar System In NATO States
Russian Envoy Visits Turkey Over NATO Interceptor Missile System
Japan To Allow Interceptor Missile Transfers To NATO Nations
U.S. Missile Shield To Spark Nuclear Arms Race: North Korea
U.S., Israel To Hold Massive Interceptor Missile Drills
Kosovo-Serbia: NATO Declares Crossings “Restricted Military Areas,” Threatens Lethal Force
Kosovo Serbs Defy NATO, Maintain Two Barricades
Poland Loses 25th Soldier To NATO’s Afghan War
After Libya And Syria, U.S. Targets Lebanese Government
U.S. Senate Backs Georgia Against Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Russia
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NATO’s Air Assault On Libya: Almost 17,000 Sorties, 6,387 Strike Sorties
http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_07/20110729_110729-oup-update.pdf
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
July 29, 2011
NATO and Libya
Allied Joint Force Command NAPLES, SHAPE, NATO HQ
Over the past 24 hours, NATO has conducted the following activities associated with Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR:
Air Operations
Since the beginning of the NATO operation (31 March 2011, 06.00GMT) a total of 16,951 sorties, including 6,387 strike sorties, have been conducted.
Sorties conducted 27 JULY: 129
Strike sorties conducted 27 JULY: 48
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NATO Knocks At ASEAN’s Door
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=105831
Pakistan Observer
July 29, 2011
NATO knocks the door of ASEAN
Dr. Jassim Taqui
Islamabad: Having failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has decided to change direction towards Southeast Asia. In this regard, NATO shows a keen interest to establish a partnership with the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). ASEAN is a geo-political and economic organization of ten countries located in Southeast Asia. It was formed on 8th August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Since then membership has expanded to include Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Its aims include the acceleration of economic growth, social progress, and cultural development among its members. The focus of ASEAN is the protection of peace and stability in the region, and to provide opportunities for member countries to discuss differences peacefully.
In 1990, Malaysia proposed the creation of East Asia Economic Caucus compromising the ten members of ASEAN as well as China, Japan, and South Korea to counterbalance the growing influence of the United States in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and in the Asian region as a whole. The proposal failed but member states created ASEAN Plus Three in 1997.
However, the United States continues to influence ASEAN since 1997. This time, Washington is combining with India to influence the region in a bid to neutralize the rising cooperation between ASEAN and China. During her visit to India, the US Secretary of State Ms Hillary Clinton urged India to expand its traditional sphere of influence from South Asia to Central Asia and Southeast Asia to contain China’s increasing assertiveness. Ostensibly, Clinton’s slip of the tongue suggests a strategy that aims to encircle China in its backyard in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim on one hand and to boost engagement in Central Asia, on China’s western flank, on the other.
Clinton’s tone is confrontational. It justifies the containment of China by Washington and New Delhi on the ground of “common values and interests.” Clinton also announced that the Obama administration would soon launch a three-way dialogue with India and Japan to counter China.
Suddenly, India has become the darling of Clinton. Now, Clinton is openly courting India as an Asia-Pacific power. This clearly shows that one major reason that made the United States dump Pakistan was Islamabad’s rejection of US scheming against China.
Indications suggest that US-led NATO would fail in its attempt to forge an alliance with ASEAN against China. For, China belongs to the region and ASEAN-China cooperation is institutionalized. The China-ASEAN relations are pillars for east Asia’s regional stability and economic prosperity. China’s rapid development is a model for ASEAN. Further, the volume of trade between the two sides has jumped from $7.9 billion to $292.8 billion last year, soaring by more than 30 times. China is implementing the second China-ASEAN Five-Year Action Plan to bring the volume of bilateral trade to $500 billion.
As for Pak-China ties, they are eternal. There is no way Pakistan can follow the US game of containing or destabilizing China. For, destabilizing China means destabilization of Pakistan.
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U.S. Plans Interceptor Missile Radar System In NATO States
http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20110729/165442215.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 29, 2011
U.S. in talks with NATO states on deployment of radar system in Europe
WASHINGTON: The United States is in talks with a number of NATO states on the deployment of a radar system as part of its mooted missile shield in Europe, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said.
“We’re talking to a number of countries within NATO about this radar system and when it might be deployed but I don’t want to get into the substance of those discussions,” Mark Toner told a daily press briefing adding that Turkey is among the possible countries.
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Russia has retained staunch opposition to the deployment of missile-defense systems near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat…
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Russian Envoy Visits Turkey Over NATO Interceptor Missile System
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/29/c_131016374.htm
Xinhua News Agency
July 29, 2011
Russian envoy visits Turkey to discuss NATO missile defense system
-Russia was against “militarization of Black Sea region,” Rogozin said. “We don’t want players to play on this ground if they are not a part of this region,” he noted.
-”Deploying a missile defense against a threat which does not exist, not only fail to defuse the situation in fact, but would lead to making it more serious,” he said.
The diplomat said that deploying interceptors in Poland “will significantly affect Russian strategic forces.”
ANKARA: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s special envoy visited Turkey on Thursday to discuss Russia’s concerns on the U.S. led anti-missile network in Europe.
“Having missile defense elements in someone’s territory makes a country a target. That’s why you have to think very well before you make the decision,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, told reporters on Thursday prior to his meetings with Turkish leaders.
The Russian diplomat arrived in Turkey following his visit to the U.S. to get a briefing on the planned anti-missile project. “We still had the same number of questions” on the missile defense project after the visit to military base Colorado Springs where the U.S. century missile defense center is located, he said.
He said that was the reason why he would like to hear opinions of the Turkish leadership. “Turkey will have a direct influence on the decision to deploy U.S. radar here, which then will become a part of the overall U.S. system. Since Turkey has access to Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, it will have a direct influence on the decision to deploy the U.S. missile defense ships, cruises in these seas,” he said.
Russia was against “militarization of Black Sea region,” Rogozin said. “We don’t want players to play on this ground if they are not a part of this region,” he noted.
“Our U.S. colleagues try to put a basis for missile defense plans by demonizing Iranian missile program. But we differ from the U.S., concerning on real intentions of the Iranian leadership and their intentions in creating missiles and capabilities of this missiles,” he said.
“Deploying a missile defense against a threat which does not exist, not only fail to defuse the situation in fact, but would lead to making it more serious,” he said.
The diplomat said that deploying interceptors in Poland “will significantly affect Russian strategic forces.”
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Japan To Allow Interceptor Missile Transfers To NATO Nations
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110728006799.htm
Yomiuri Shimbun
July 29, 2011
Govt sets terms for missile interceptor transfer
Japan would allow the United States to transfer a missile interceptor under joint development by the two nations to third parties, on the condition that the third parties can effectively control its re-export, according to draft guidelines compiled by the government.
The draft guidelines set criteria for making judgment on permitting the export of the next-generation Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor, which is to be positioned on a sea-based destroyer as part of the Japan-U.S. missile defense system, sources said Thursday.
The draft stipulates that Japan would allow the transfer on two conditions:
– Third-party nations have domestic systems for export control and information integrity, and are members of international frameworks on these matters.
– The transfer contributes to Japan’s security given the threat of ballistic missiles from North Korea and other nations.
The first condition is meant to prevent further transfer of the interceptor by a third-party nation. Nations that are party to the Missile Technology Control Regime, and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan, would possibly meet the criteria, according to the sources.
The MTCR has 34 member nations including Japan, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, South Korea, Turkey and the United States; NATO has 28 member nations including Britain, the Czech Republic, France and Poland. Targeted third-party nations are likely to be allies of the United States, the sources said.
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The SM-3 Block IIA missile is to be an updated version of the existing SM-3 Block IA that intercepts ballistic missiles from outer space. The updated version has improved destructive, target discerning and tracking capabilities. The Japanese and U.S. governments have been jointly developing it since fiscal 2006 under a nine-year project.
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U.S. Missile Shield To Spark Nuclear Arms Race: North Korea
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-korea-north-un-idUSTRE76Q63M20110727
Reuters
July 28, 2011
Missile shield will spark nuclear arms race: North Korea
-Last month the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security bloc that includes Russia, China and four former Soviet Central Asian states, signed a declaration condemning any unilateral build-up of missile defenses.
UNITED NATIONS: If U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield to protect Europe against a possible attack by Iran are realized, it will spark a new nuclear arms race, North Korea’s U.N. ambassador said Wednesday.
The U.S. plan, which is being developed in consultation with NATO, calls for the gradual deployment of interceptor missiles, based on land and sea, by 2020.
“The MDS (missile defense system) being pushed under the pretext of responding to so-called ballistic missile developments by what they call ‘rogue states’ is far from carrying logic,” North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Sin Son-ho told a U.N. General Assembly meeting on disarmament.
Sin said that the real purpose of the missile shield is “none other than the gaining of absolute superiority and global hegemony over the other nuclear power rivals.”
“This dangerous move will eventually spark a new nuclear arms race,” he said.
Sin’s remarks come as North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan arrived in New York, where he is expected to meet Washington’s envoy for Korean peninsula affairs, Stephen Bosworth.
North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global anti-nuclear weapons pact, in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009. This prompted the U.N. Security Council to impose two rounds of sanctions on Pyongyang to pressure it to end its missile and nuclear programs.
Last month the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security bloc that includes Russia, China and four former Soviet Central Asian states, signed a declaration condemning any unilateral build-up of missile defenses.
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(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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U.S., Israel To Hold Massive Interceptor Missile Drills
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=230974
Jerusalem Post
July 26, 2011
Israel, US to hold massive missile defense drill next year
Yaakov Katz
-The purpose of the exercise is to create the necessary infrastructure that would enable interoperability between Israeli and American missile defense systems in case the US government decided to deploy these systems here in the event of a conflict with Iran, like it did ahead of the Gulf War in Iraq in 1991.
-Frank Rose, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, said the US planned to deploy another Aegis missile defense ship in the Mediterranean Sea alongside the USS Monterey, which is already deployed in the region.
He also said the US was looking to deploy an advanced X-Band radar – similar to the one the US gave Israel in 2008 – in southern Europe.
…Israel and the United States will hold a large-scale missile defense exercise in the beginning of next year aimed at improving operational coordination between both countries’ defense systems.
Called Juniper Cobra, the exercise will be held in early 2012 and will include the Arrow 2 and Iron Dome as well as America’s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and the ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. The exercise will likely include the actual launching of interceptors from these systems.
The Israeli Air Force’s Air Defense Division, the United States Missile Defense Agency and the US Military’s European Command (EUCOM) have held the Juniper Cobra exercise for the past five years. The upcoming exercise though is planned to be one of the most complex and extensive yet.
Last week, Air Force commander in the EUCOM Gen. Mark Welsh visited Israel for talks with Israel Air Force commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, which focused also on the upcoming missile defense exercise. The last Juniper Cobra exercise was held in October 2009.
The purpose of the exercise is to create the necessary infrastructure that would enable interoperability between Israeli and American missile defense systems in case the US government decided to deploy these systems here in the event of a conflict with Iran, like it did ahead of the Gulf War in Iraq in 1991.
“Juniper Cobra shows us how to defend not only with Israeli assets but also with American assets,” Arieh Herzog, head of the Defense Ministry’s Homa Missile Defense Agency, said on Monday at the 2nd Annual Israel Multinational Missile Defense Conference near Tel Aviv.
Herzog, who will step down in January and be replaced by Yair Ramati, corporate vice president of marketing at Israel Aerospace Industries, said that Israel was facing a “growing ballistic missile threat.”
Frank Rose, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, said the US planned to deploy another Aegis missile defense ship in the Mediterranean Sea alongside the USS Monterey, which is already deployed in the region.
He also said the US was looking to deploy an advanced X-Band radar – similar to the one the US gave Israel in 2008 – in southern Europe.
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Ramati said at the conference that Israel is speeding up the development of the Arrow-3, which is supposed to serve as the upper tier missile defense system against Iranian long-range ballistic missiles.
The Arrow-3 is not expected to become operational until 2015 and the Defense Ministry will hold a first flight test of the new missile by the end of the year.
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Kosovo-Serbia: NATO Declares Crossings “Restricted Military Areas,” Threatens Lethal Force
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=07&dd=28&nav_id=75667
Tanjug News Agency
July 28, 2011
NATO declares crossings “restricted military areas”
PRIŠTINA: KFOR commander Erhard Buehler says NATO had declared two crossings on the administrative line between Kosovo and Serbia a restricted military area.
He threatened the use of lethal force in the case of attack on Jarinje and Brnjak.
“I cannot exclude another attempt. Both gates are declared military restricted areas and the rules of engagement are very clear,” Buehler told Reuters in an interview.
According to Buehler, the soldiers can employ lethal force, they can employ their weapons to defend themselves, to defend…the military restricted area.
“Nobody who is not authorized to work in the gates or to cross the gates should be near the gates,” Buehler added.
KFOR is a NATO-led force deployed in the province with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that ended the 1999 war.
Serbian officials today accused KFOR of “enforcing decisions of the (Kosovo Albanian) Priština government” and stepping outside the UN resolution.
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians unilaterally declared independence more than three years ago, which Serbia rejected.
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Kosovo Serbs Defy NATO, Maintain Two Barricades
http://en.trend.az/regions/world/europe/1911915.html
Trend News Agency
July 29, 2011
Kosovo Serbs defy NATO, leave road barricades
Serbs in restive northern Kosovo on Friday maintained their barricades of two key roads in defiance of an order to call off their protest against NATO’s Kosovo peace-keeping mission KFOR and European Union law enforcement agency EULEX.
The Serbs, who are accusing the two missions of siding with the Albanian majority and government in Kosovo, have parked tractors, trucks, logs and tyres in the middle of the roads.
The barricades were set up after violence erupted in the area earlier this week, claiming the life of a policeman, in an escalation of a trade war between Serbia and its former province.
The Kosovo government moved to take over the border checkpoints in the mostly Serb north in order to enforce a trade embargo on Serbian goods. Serbs reacted by torching one of the crossings.
On Thursday KFOR took control of border crossings and declared the area a restricted military zone. KFOR ordered Serbs to dismantle the barricades, with KFOR commander Erhard Buehler warning that violence in the zone would be met with deadly force.
Talks aimed at defusing the situation have failed. Buehler is due to meet Serbian officials on Friday.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 without the approval of Serbia. The Kosovar government has failed to assert its control in the north, where Serbs are in the majority.
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Poland Loses 25th Soldier To NATO’s Afghan War
http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/52502,Polish-soldier-dies-in-Afghanistan
Polish Radio
July 28, 2011
Polish soldier dies in Afghanistan
A Polish soldier has been killed in Ghazni, south east Afghanistan, after a roadside bomb exploded under his armoured vehicle.
PFC Pawel Poswiat sustained serious injuries when a blast damaged the Rosomak APC he was driving on a routine patrol mission.
The soldier was rushed in critical state to a Polish field hospital by a MEDEVAC helicopter but despite quick medical assistance the soldier died of heavy wounds.
PFC Pawel Powsiat served in the 17th Mechanized Brigade and was stationed with the Polish contingent in Ghazni province of Afghanistan.
He was 29 years old and single.
Pawel Powsiat is the 25th Polish soldier to die in action in Afghanistan, where Poland has around 2,500 troops stationed.
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After Libya And Syria, U.S. Targets Lebanese Government
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/29/c_131016420.htm
Xinhua News Agency
July 29, 2011
U.S. says new Lebanese government reflects foreign will
BEIRUT: The ambassador of the United States to Lebanon, Maura Connelly, said the government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati reflected external will.
In a statement circulated by the embassy in Beirut Thursday, Connelly said the current Lebanese government “appears to reflect less the will of the people and more the will of external interests.”
The Hezbollah-led government, headed by Mikati, came into power in June after nearly five months of political vacuum, following the collapse of the government of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri following a dispute over a UN backed court probing the assassination of his father Rafik Hariri.
In its first round of indictments, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is believed to have pointed the finger at four Hezbollah members into the 2005 killing. Hezbollah denies involvement and slammed the court a U.S. project to deal a blow to the party’s struggle against Israel.
Many fear that since Hezbollah now dominates the new government it will attempt to cut ties with the Netherlands-based court.
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U.S. Senate Backs Georgia Against Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Russia
http://en.trend.az/news/politics/1911747.html
Trend News Agency
July 29, 2011
U.S. Senate introduces a resolution in Georgia’s support
N. Kirtskhalia
Tbilisi: The U.S. Senate has introduced a resolution in support of Georgia, Irakli Alasania, the leader of Free Democrats and a former Georgian ambassador to the UN, told reporters in Washington after a meeting with senators.
Alasania thanked the U.S. for its support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia.
Alasania stressed the importance of continuing the policy of not recognizing the “independence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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The Free Democrats leader had meetings with Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain in Washington.
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