Guantanamo detainee freed after 7 years of prison

By PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writer



LONDON – A Guantanamo prisoner who claims he was tortured at a covert CIA site in Morocco returned to Britain a free man Monday after nearly seven years in U.S. captivity — the first inmate from the U.S. prison camp freed since President Barack Obama took office.

Binyam Mohamed flew into a British military base and was expected to be out of custody within hours.

Mohamed's claims of torture, abuse and extraordinary rendition are at the heart of several lawsuits. Lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic are suing for secret documents they say prove the United States sent Mohamed to Morocco and that Britain knew of the mistreatment — a violation under the 1994 U.N. Convention Against Torture.

"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares," Mohamed said in a statement released by his attorneys.

"Before this ordeal, "torture" was an abstract word to me ... It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways all orchestrated by the United States government."

He said he wasn't yet "physically nor mentally capable of facing the media."

British authorities said he would undergo interviews Monday with the police, border control agents and immigration officials, who would help him apply for temporary residency.

His lawyers said they would provide money for his accommodations and living expenses.

Mohamed's case could have far-reaching legal implications for the Obama administration and Britain, America's closest partner during its war on terror.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected at the Guantanamo detention center Monday as the Obama administration weighs what is needed to shut the facility down.

"The friendship and assistance of the international community is vitally important as we work to close Guantanamo, and we greatly appreciate the efforts of the British government to work with us on the transfer of Binyam Mohammed," Holder said in a statement.

Britain's Attorney General has opened an investigation into whether there was criminal wrongdoing on the part of Britain or a British security agent from MI5 who interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan, where he was arrested in 2002.

Two senior British judges, meanwhile, have reopened a case into whether 42 secret U.S. intelligence documents shared with Britain should be made public.

Several other lawsuits are under way in the United States against a Boeing subsidiary that allegedly supplied planes for rendition flights to Morocco and for the disclosure of Bush-era legal memos on renditions and interrogation tactics.

The United States has refused to account for the 18 months Mohamed says he was in Morocco.

"I am so glad and so happy, more than words can express," Mohamed's sister, Zuhra Mohamed, said Monday.

The 30-year-old Ethiopian refugee has few remaining links to Britain. His brother and sister live in the United States. His parents are said to be back in Ethiopia. And his British residency that he obtained when he was teenager has since expired.

Any revelations from the lawsuits could be particularly damaging for the British government, which unlike the Obama administration, doesn't have its predecessors to blame.

"I assure you that we have done everything by the law," Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters last week when faced with questions over Mohamed's case.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain has been asking for the return of former UK residents since 2007.

"We very much welcome President Obama's commitment to close Guantanamo Bay and I see today's return of Binyam Mohamed as the first step toward that shared goal," Miliband said.

Mohamed's family came to London from Ethiopia in 1994. They applied for asylum following the ouster of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam's ouster but they were only given temporary residency.

Schooled in West London, Mohamed worked as a janitor and later became a student of electrical engineering before converting to Islam in 2001.

Shortly afterward, he said he went to Pakistan and Afghanistan to escape a bad circle of London friends and experience an Islamic society. But he was detained in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2002 for using a false passport to return to Britain.

For three months, he says he was tortured by Pakistani agents, who hung him for a week by a leather strap around his wrists. He says at least one MI5 officer questioned him there.

He claims he was handed over to U.S. authorities in July 2002, and then sent to Morocco where he was tortured for 18 months. According to his account, one of his foreign interrogators slashed his penis with a scalpel.

Many of the estimated 750 detainees who have passed through Guantanamo prison camp since it opened in January 2002 have reported mental and physical abuse, but few have detailed such sustained physical and mental abuse at an alleged CIA covert site.

Mohamed claims he eventually confessed to an array of charges to stop his abuse — a confession that laid the groundwork for his transfer to another CIA site in Afghanistan, where he said he was starved and beaten before being sent to Guantanamo in 2004.

In May of 2008, Mohamed was charged with conspiring with al-Qaida members to murder and commit terrorism. He was also accused in a "dirty bomb" plot to fill U.S. apartments with natural gas and blow them up.

But then in October all charges were dropped — only months after his lawyers filed a lawsuit in Britain for the disclosure of the 42 secret documents.

Two other former British residents remain in Guantanamo: Saudi-born Shaker Aamer, 37, and Algerian Ahmed Belbacha, 39.

Black Sea: Pentagon's Gateway to Three Continents and the Middle East

Black Sea: Pentagon's Gateway to Three Continents and the Middle East

By Rick Rozoff

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12400

Global Research, February 22, 2009
Stop NATO

The Black Sea region connects Europe with Asia and the Eurasian land mass to the Middle East through Turkey on its southern rim, which borders Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The northern Balkans lie on its western shores and the Caucasus on its eastern end, the latter a land bridge to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia.

Ukraine, Russia and the strategic Sea of Azov are on its northern perimeter.

Given its central location, the Black Sea has been coveted for millennia by major powers: The Persian and Roman empires, Greeks and Hittites, Byzantines and Huns, Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia, even by Napoleon's France and Hitler's Germany in their wars to unite Europe to Asia and the Middle East.

The famed Trojan War was fought for control of Troy/Dardania/Ilium, the entrance to the Sea of Marmara which connects the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The strait connecting the two is still called the Dardanelles after ancient Dardania.

Going back to Antiquity a third continent has also been involved, Africa; the Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Black Sea city of Colchis, now in modern Georgia, was founded by Egyptians and in Virgil's if not Homer's account of the siege of Troy Memnon, king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), is slain by Achilles fighting in defense of Troy.

A Romanian news source recently reiterated the importance of the region for the modern era:

"Through the Black Sea, the European area strategically meets Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East, hydrocarbon production and transit areas." (Nine O'Clock News, May 14, 2008)

Allusions to the Black Sea's importance for not only energy and transit but for world military purposes will occur frequently in citations to follow.

Prior to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in 1989 and the Soviet Union two years later the Black Sea was mainly off limits to the West in general and to the Pentagon and NATO in particular. Until 1991 only four states bordered the sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Soviet Union.

Turkey as a key NATO member state was the West's sole beachhead in the region with Bulgaria and Romania, the second more nominally than in fact, members of the Eastern bloc and the Warsaw Pact.

In the intervening eighteen years the situation in this region, like so many others, has been transformed and a new battle for control of it has emerged.

There have arisen two new littoral states, Georgia and Ukraine, with Abkhazia added last August, and every past Warsaw Pact nation outside the former Soviet Union is currently a full member of both NATO and the European Union - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the former German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - with three former Soviet republics on the Baltic Sea - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - also dual members.

As an Indian commentator, Premen Addy, described it last summer:

"NATO's noose is drawn ever tighter round the Russian neck. American military and missile bases are already ensconced in Romania and Bulgaria - two states once in harness with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and the invading Nazi legions into the USSR - in a bid to strangle the possible emergence of a rival centre of power in the Black Sea...." (Daily Pioneer, August 16, 2008)

A year earlier the online intelligence site The Power and Interest News Report in an analysis called "Bulgaria, U.S. Bases and Black Sea Geopolitics" summarized the situation regarding one key Black Sea state in the following words:

"Geographically speaking, Bulgaria provides the U.S. (and N.A.T.O.) a greater presence in the Black Sea, through which there are plans to build oil and gas pipelines. "Also, it is close to the former Yugoslavia, a place of constant tensions, particularly in the last decade. "The [new Pentagon] bases allow the U.S. to keep increased control of the country and the Greater Middle East region, as Washington now has a military presence in the south (America's 5th fleet is based in Bahrain) and will have a presence in the north through nearby Bulgaria." (August 29, 2007)

Georgia

Since 1991 but especially since the December 2003 "Rose Revolution" the United States has transformed Georgia on the Black Sea's eastern border into a private military preserve, first dispatching Green Berets, then Marines to train, equip and transform the nation's armed forces for wars abroad and at home.

The revamped Georgian army was first tried out in Iraq, where with a 2,000-troop contingent it had the third largest foreign force in Iraq until last August when the US military, whose creation it was, flew the soldiers home for the war with Russia.

Before the echoes of last August's gunfire and artillery rounds had died down the US sent its warship the USS McFaul to the Georgian port city of Batumi and the flagship of its Sixth Fleet, the USS Mount Whitney, to Poti whose mission was announced to the chronically credulous as delivering "juice, powdered milk and hygiene products."

Batumi is the capital of Ajaria, a former autonomous region subjugated by the then newborn 'Rose' regime in April of 2004 after its US-trained army staged Georgia's largest-ever military exercises in nearby Poti and threatened invasion, lies just south of the Abkhazian capital of Sukhumi, where Russian ships were then stationed. Warships of the world's two major nuclear powers faced off against each other off the Black Sea coast just 75 kilometers apart.

At the same time NATO deployed a naval strike group to the Black Sea consisting of three US warships, a Polish frigate, a German frigate and a Spanish guided missile frigate as well as four Turkish vessels with eight more warships planning to join the flotilla.

The NATO warships were only 150 kilometers from Russian counterparts then docked in Abkhazia.

Ukraine

On the north end of the Black Sea the US has led annual Sea Breeze NATO exercises in Ukraine's Crimea, evoking mass outrage and spirited protests from the Crimeans themselves whose parliament three days ago voted against a proposed US representative office being set up, one which no doubt would oversee both the suppression of increased autonomy demands and anti-NATO actions in Crimea and prepare the groundwork for the eviction of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol.

Regarding the second point, a Russian news site offered these insights:

"Analysts speak about Ukrainian plans to kick out Russia and turn over the Crimean bases to NATO and the United States, as both salivate for a military presence in the Black Sea Basin." (Voice of Russia, May 28, 2008)

"One of the conditions for NATO membership is absence of foreign bases on the countryâ s territory....[Ukraine's 'orange' authorities] do what they can to drive away the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea. In such a way Kiev signals to Brussels that it is preparing a base for NATO naval ships in the Black Sea." (Voice of Russia, May 22, 2008

Georgia's and Ukraine's next, complete, phase of integration as Pentagon's military outposts was announced last December and January, respectively, when Washington signed Strategic Partnership Charters with first Kiev and then Tbilisi. Months before that and only days after Georgia launched its attack on South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers there, triggering last August's war, all 26 NATO members sent representatives as part of a delegation to the Georgian capital to establish a new NATO-Georgia Commission.

At the same time the regime of Ukraine's Viktor Yushschenko, who rode to power on the US-financed and -directed 'orange revolution' of December 2004, and whose wife Kathy is a Chicago-born and -raised former official in the Reagan State Department and the George H. W. Bush Treasury Department and was once described by a fawning admirer as "a Reaganite's Reaganite," used the deployment of Russian ships to the Black Sea during the war with Georgia to apply pressure on the Black Sea Fleet, at one point implying the ships might not be permitted to return to Sevastopol.

Several weeks after the Caucasus war ended, Washington sent an intelligence gathering ship, U.S. Pathfinder, to Sevastopol harbor.

The Yushchenko junta renewed its accusations against the Russian fleet late last month on another score, slightly over a month after the Charter on Strategic Cooperation was signed with Washington.

The Black Sea connects with the Sea of Azov, surrounded almost entirely by Russia, at the Kerch Strait, the scene of a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in 2003.

A Russian newspaper at the time explained what was at stake in the dispute:

"The Kerch Strait at the center of Russia's dispute with Ukraine controls access to the Azov Sea, which is reputed to have largely untapped hydrocarbon reserves. "Ownership rights to potential oil and gas resources have not been decided between the two countries, despite years of negotiations to delimit the seabed. "Although unlikely to be a second Caspian, geologists believe the Azov Sea is likely part of the same seam of hydrocarbon deposits that stretches from southern Ukraine and Russia through the Black Sea to the Caspian and beyond." (Moscow Times, October 24, 2003)

The US's Stratfor augmented the above with this brief analysis:

"The Kerch Strait is a 25-mile-long channel that is no wider than 9 miles, linking the critically important Black Sea to the Sea of Azov off of Russia's Northern Caucasus border. It has served as a key location for some strategic battles in the past from the Crimean wars to a Nazi-Soviet naval clash. To Russia, the Kerch Strait is a continuation of the Northern Caucasus into Ukraineâ's Crimea regions, which is one of the country's most pro-Russian regions and home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet located at Sevastopol." (November 10, 2008)

More concisely and even more to the point, a few weeks ago this quote appeared in a Ukrainian press wire report:

"Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations require that it solves all its problems, including border disputes. They need a border [in the Kerch Strait] for just one reason: to be able to join NATO as soon as possible." (Interfax-Ukraine, January 31, 2009)

Bulgaria and Romania

The US has signed Strategic Partnership Charters with both Georgia and Ukraine over the past two months and the two nations are the centerpieces for Washington's takeover of the Black Sea and indeed the former Soviet Union as a whole.

They are the main fulcra for the US-created GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) bloc originally set up in 1997 as the main transit route for 21st century Eurasian energy wars and for undermining and undoing the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. They are also the foundation stones of the European Union's Eastern Partnership.

But to date the main emphasis of the Pentagon's campaign to conquer the Black Sea region, and arguably the major focal point for its international shift to the east and the south, is with Bulgaria and Romania.

Both nations were formally brought into NATO at the 2004 Istanbul summit of the Alliance and since became the last - perhaps in both senses of the word, most recent and final - members of the European Union.

Earlier, Bulgaria and Romania both denied Russia use of their airspace to transport supplies to troops they had moved into Kosovo in June of 1999.

Russia was acting within its rights under the terms of UN Resolution 1244 to protect ethnic minority communities in the Serbian province, but clearly Bulgaria and Romania were following US and NATO orders in blocking the flights.

Whether, if Russia had persisted in its intent, the two nations would have grounded the Russian aircraft or even shot them down is a matter of conjecture, though perhaps not much.

Later Romania allowed the US to use its Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base in 2002 for the buildup to the following March's invasion of Iraq.

In December of 2005 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the Romanian capital to sign an accord to use - take control of - four military bases, the aforementioned Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base and training and firing grounds in Babadag, Cincu and Smardan.

The US's explanation at the time was that it was to employ the four bases for training, including joint and multilateral exercises, provision of supplies and transit for the downrange wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And Romanian territory has served those purposes ever since.

In April of the following year, 2006, the US signed a comparable agreement with neighboring Bulgaria for the use of three of its major military bases - the Bezmer air base, the Novo Selo army training range and the Graf Ignatievo airfield.

Both pacts were signed for an initial ten year duration.

The US was allowed to station troops - estimates vary from 5,000-10,000 - on a rotating or permanent basis in both countries.

In the case of Bulgaria it will be the first time foreign troops have been stationed on its soil since Nazi Wehrmacht forces were driven out in 1944 and with Romania since Soviet troops withdrew in 1958.

The seven sites in both countries will be the first US military bases in former Warsaw Pact territory.

The Bezmer air base in Bulgaria is a major facility, similar in scope to Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu, and its scale and purpose for current and futures campaigns in the east and south are indicated by this Bulgarian description:

"[T]he airbase...according to the US-Bulgarian agreement...will acquire the status of a strategic military facility in two years, like the Incirlik airbase in Turkey and Aviano in Italy." (Standart News, June 10, 2007)

The same newspaper added that, "The Bezmer military airport near the town of Yambol (southeastern Bulgaria) will be transformed into one of the six new strategic airbases outside US borders." (Standart News, June 6, 2007)

Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly in late 2006 informed its readers of the strategic sweep of the Pentagon's move into the Black Sea:

"[T]he new land, sea and airbases along the Black Sea will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. "Perhaps just as significantly, the new land, sea and airbases along the Black Sea will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia." (Sofia Echo, November 17, 2006)

From the other end of the planet Lin Zhiyuan, deputy office director of the World Military Affairs Research Department of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, saw the developments through the same lens but with trepidation:

"[N]ew military bases, airports and training bases will be built in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and other nations to ensure 'gangways' to some areas in the Middle East, African and Asia in possible military actions in the years ahead." (People's Daily, December 5, 2006)

Both preceding analyses were confirmed by the US military itself the following year when Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the U.S. Army Europe operations chief and deputy chief of staff, spoke of Romania to an armed forces publication:

"It's in a critical location with emerging partners, at a location which is really a place that has been a historical transit route for bad guys."

The interview added "The bases would house rotating U.S. troops that would train under the command of Joint Task Force East, headquartered at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. "The U.S. signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement with Romania in December 2005 to allow U.S. forces to use the former communist nation for training, pre-positioning of equipment and, if necessary, staging and deploying troops into war zones." (Stars and Stripes, May 4, 2007)

Two months after the US-Bulgarian agreement the US led joint military training exercises in Bulgaria in which the head of local troops involved effused, "We want to be certified as part of NATO forces. We want to conduct expeditionary exercises as part of NATO." (Stars and Stripes, July 22, 2006)

The war games, named Immediate Response 2006, were designated to break in the new bases in Bulgaria and Romania and to implement the Rumsfeld era Pentagon's plans for military 'lily pads' from which to spring into action to points east and south.

In reporting on the exercise the main newspaper of the US armed forces provided this background perspective:

"According to the agreements, the U.S. would be able to use the Romanian and Bulgarian bases for pre-positioning of equipment, and to send U.S. troops and equipment into war if necessary. The "forward operating sites," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them, would be in Romania at the Smardan Training Range, Babadag Training Area and Rail Head, Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, and Cincu Training Range." (Stars and Stripes, July 5, 2006)

A Bulgarian civilian cited by the same source said, "Every day we can see them (U.S. troops) in the cities and villages." (Stars and Stripes, July 24, 2006)

By September of the same year, "Sofia and Washington are to sign about 13 additional agreements to regulate the joint usage of several military bases in Bulgaria. "Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov has announced that next week US European Command (EUCOM) experts will arrive in Bulgaria to draw a draft document." (Sofia News Agency, September 21, 2006)

The pacts with Bulgaria and Romania are, as usual in such instances, to be jointly used by NATO as all three signatories are members of the bloc.

In a US armed forces dispatch titled "England-based airmen head to NATO exercise in Bulgaria" it was reported that a British "squadron plans to test-fire laser-guided and general-purpose weapons at a Bulgarian range, as well as conduct air-to-air training with the Bulgarian MiG-29 and -21 aircraft" in war games coded Exercise Immediate Response. (Stars and Stripes, July 13, 2006)

Later NATO continued its leapfrogging over the Pentagon into Bulgaria as detailed in an article called "NATO bases may be set up near Bulgaria's Sungulare" which included this report:

"NATO asked if the former buildings of a tank brigade in the town of Aitos could be turned into a reserve storage base. "NATO planned to store here the equipment for one or two battalions, which would be based in the military bases of Novo Selo and Bezmer." (Sofia Echo, January 3, 2008)

In fact what NATO achieved was securing a base of its own.

"NATO will pay 150 million US dollars to the Municipality of Sungurlare (central Bulgaria) in exchange for a plot of municipal land for the construction of a military base." (Standart News, December 2, 2007)

The comparison between the Bulgarian Bezmer air base and the US's and NATO's main strategic air (bombing) bases in Aviano, Italy and Incirlik, Turkey was established earlier and this report later confirmed the analogy's accuracy, though immediately in reference to another air base.

"NATO will move aircraft from the US air base in Aviano, northeastern Italy, to Bulgaria's Graf Ignatievo air base near Plovdiv." (Sofia News Agency, October 6, 2007)

The above news item described the transfer as temporary, but it may have been a portent of what is planned for the future.

Aviano was the main base used by the US and NATO in their joint Operation Deliberate Force bombing of the Bosnian Serb Republic in 1995 and in the 78-day terror bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999.

To leave no further doubt as to under whose auspices the Pentagon was able to secure its seven new bases for attacks to the east and south, in the autumn of 2007, "A top general from the NATO's Southern Command in Naples will inspect the two-week military exercises of army units from Bulgaria, the USA and Romania which will be held near the town of Sliven, in southern Bulgaria." (Standart News, September 3, 2007)

And to dispel any misconceptions as to who the main target of the US- and NATO-acquired bases was, in June of that year Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing the emerging and unmistakable pattern of "a new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, radar in the Czech Republic," rhetorically queried "What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this." (New Europe [Belgium], Week of June 2, 2007)

The severity and urgency of the threat perceived by Russia was such that General Vladimir Shamanov, adviser to Russia's Defense Minister, was quoted as saying "We will point our missiles at the US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania." (Standart News, June 6, 2007)

This concern was echoed by the Russian foreign ministry:

"Russia once again voiced her concern with the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania. "'We are deeply concerned, because such a move entails an expansion of the US forces in countries, which not long ago were allies of Russia,' Anatoly Antonov, Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Security and Disarmament Department, said at an extraordinary conference on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (DOVSE,) held in Vienna." (Standart News, June 13, 2007)

The Russian military, most directly alert to and aware of the repercussions of the deployments, voiced its alarm in the person of Maj. Gen. Vladimir Nikishin, a representative of the Defense Ministry's Main International Military Cooperation Department, who said, "The location of NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania actually means that the Alliance is creating bases for building up it forces in Eastern Europe, which is at variance with the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty." (Interfax-Military, September 19, 2007)

Two months afterward Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would add, "Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions of the NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania." (Standart News, December 7, 2007)

Lastly, the then chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, Yuri Baluevsky, voiced concern that "Plans are...afoot to set up new US military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, and unlike Russia, no NATO country has so far raised a finger to ratify the modified CFE treaty." (Voice of Russia, December 17, 2007)

The above apprehensions could not have been assuaged by comments that year from Solomon Passy, former Bulgarian foreign minister, advocating that US infantry, air and naval forces be followed by missile deployments.

"Following the NATO treaty and the agreement for joint military bases in Bulgaria I think this will be the next strategic step that would enhance the security of the country, the region and the whole of Europe....This shield should be [placed] above all member states of NATO and the EU.â (Focus News Agency, June 10, 2007)

Nor could Russian fears be alleviated by the announcement the same month that "NATO defence ministers agreed at their Friday meeting in Brussels to initiate procedures for adding a short-range missile defence system in Eastern Europe to the on the US proposes that would also include Bulgaria." (Sofia News Agency, June 15, 2007)

Slightly over a year after the US-Bulgarian bases accord had been inked it was announced that US troops were heading there and Romania and "The bases are part of an ambitious plan to shift EUCOM's [the Pentagon's European Command's] fighting brigades from western Europe - mostly Germany - to forward bases closer to the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa, for a quicker strike capability." (United Press International, May 18, 2007)

The same report added:

"'When this rebasing process is complete, two-thirds of USAREUR's [United States Army Europe and Seventh Army's] maneuver forces will be positioned in southern and eastern Europe,' [EUCOM and NATO's top commander John] Craddock told the U.S. Senate in written testimony. "USEUCOM has requested $73.6 million to build out Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, and to establish a forward operating station in Bulgaria." (Ibid)

The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base received the first US troops deployed to Romania in 2007 and has hosted the US European Command's newly formed Joint Task Force East, formerly the Eastern Europe Task Force.

The title of that unit alone reveals volumes.

As soon as the Bulgarian and Romanian "full spectrum" air, land and sea bases were acquired, the Pentagon moved to expand and integrate them with its other Black Sea military partners, Georgia and Ukraine.

Referring specifically to the Romanian bases, it was reported that "It is also possible that troops from others nations would go to the sites to train, and that U.S. forces based there would, as part of their six-month tour, travel to nearby nations such as Georgia and Ukraine for shorter training missions." (Stars and Stripes, July 8, 2007)

In May of 2007 the commander of US Air Forces in Europe, Gen. Tom Hobbins, "visited with defense and air force leaders in Bulgaria and Georgia May 14-16 to discuss air force capabilities, modernization and future goals." (U.S. Air Forces in Europe, May 18, 2007)

The same commander the following month, described as looking "eastward to the Black Sea and southward into Africa," said: â Both Bulgaria and Romania have over a dozen projects where runways are being enhanced, facilities [and] buildings are being built. So we're actually taking advantage of the fact that there's a lot of NATO money being spent...." (Air Force Magazine, June 2007)

To make maximal use of the runways Hobbins mentioned, in February of 2007 Reuters reported that the US was selling Romania 48 new fighter jets and recalled that "The Romanian facilities and bases in Bulgaria will be the first U.S. military installations in the former Soviet bloc." (Reuters, February 22, 2007)

In August the US launched war games in Romania to inaugurate its new forward sites and break in its new Joint Task Force East, a process accompanied by no little fanfare:

"About 1,000 mostly Europe-based military personnel and civilians will have a ceremony today to commence the United States' first deployment to Joint Task Force East." (MakFax [Macedonia], August 17, 2007)

The significance of the exercise, named Proof of Principle, was highlighted as being a watershed, that "The U.S. military's new era in Eastern Europe has begun."

The same news source elaborated:

"American and Romanian military forces marked the start of a historic, two-month exercise on Friday that will serve as a trial run for thousands of U.S. troops expected to rotate in and out of Romania and Bulgaria for years to come." (Stars and Stripes, August 18, 2007)

Two months afterward the US held the Rodopi Javelin 2007 air warfare exercise in Bulgaria at the Graf Ignatevio air base where US F-16s were able to practice against Russian-made Bulgarian MiG-29s for future purposes.

Earlier in the year a US destroyer, the San Jacinto, had docked in the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna.

In April of last year the US reprised the earlier joint air exercise, also at the Graf Ignatevio air base. Similar aerial combat drills have been conducted in Romania and in both countries US warplanes are provided the opportunity of test their abilities against Russian-made aircraft.

A month afterward the US embassy announced that "a deal to re-fit a Bulgarian military base, one of four due to be used...in autumn 2008. "The Novo Selo camp in eastern Bulgaria will undergo a $6.5 million refurbishment by the German-based company Field Camp Services (FCS). "The Pentagon has also set aside some $60 million for the construction of a permanent base at Novo Selo." (Agence France-Presse, May 14, 2008)

In June a Bulgarian news source, in an article titled "US Army Town to be Built near Novo Selo," wrote:

"Five hundred soldiers and officers will settle in Bulgaria permanently, the other 2,500 will live in the bases of Bezmer, Novo Selo, Graf Ignatievo and Aitos on a rotation principle. "It means that up to 5,000 troops may be using the bases when need arises....The first US servicemen will arrive in Bulgaria this August. "Over 1,200 soldiers will take part in a three-month exercise called 'The Bulgarian Panther.'" (Standart News, June 23, 2008)

The following day another Bulgarian report appeared on the expansion of US military sites in the nation:

"{T]he US military base to be built near Novo Selo...is expected to be of the size of an average Bulgarian town....500 US rangers and their entire families would arrive at the base then to live permanently there while deployed to Bulgaria. "Another 2,500 US soldiers would use on rotation bases the military facilities in Bezmer, Graf Ignatievo and Aitos....[T]he military airport in Bezmer...is slated to become one of the 6 strategic military airport bases outside the US...." (Sofia News Agency, June 24, 2008)

Events proceeded similarly in Romania.

"Construction of a permanent U.S. base in Romania to house 1,700 personnel is well under way, with work on a similar facility for up to 2,500 personnel due to start in Bulgaria this winter, according to a U.S. official." (Stars and Stripes, July 27, 2008)

In August of 2008 the Deputy of the Office for Defense Cooperation with the US embassy in the Bulgarian capital Jake Daystar held an interview with a Bulgarian news agency in which he said of one of the new US bases in the nation, "The main purpose of the base is to improve abilities through training â “ both of NATO troops and divisions of the US Army....The imperatives are hidden in the location of the state “with its geographic location Bulgaria has always been a strategically important country, as it stands on the crossroad between Asia and Europe." (Focus News Agency, August 14, 2008)

If Daystar was quoted accurately, his comments contain an amazing admission. US army divisions range in size from 10,000 to 30,000 troops. Though perhaps he intended divisions as in various units rather than in the formal designation.

By September of last year Russian concerns over the escalating US military buildup in the Black Sea had not abated and in citing the Pentagon's new bases in Bulgaria and Romania as well as its missile shield plans and ongoing NATO expansion to its borders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "Parity as the basis of the strategic balance in the world has been violated."(Itar-Tass, September 29, 2008)

Nothing loath, within days of Lavrov's dire warning it was reported that "U.S. warships will call at the Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas, and drills involving the U.S. and Bulgarian air forces are also scheduled for next month...." (Sofia News Agency, October 15, 2008)

While that dispatch was being filed US and Bulgarian troops were engaged in a joint military drill at the Novo Selo Training Area and "Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe Gen. Carter Ham...watched the drill....".

The news story added, "More than 62 million dollars will be spent on the training area's permanent facilities and equipment in the next two years, and construction is expected to be completed by then conflict zones in the Middle East and beyond." (Ibid)

Bulgaria and Romania, now full NATO members for almost five years, have deployed military contingents to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq and have lost troops in the last two nations.

While neither hosted Soviet forces or Warsaw Pact bases during the Cold War, both are on the front line of future wars in the Black Sea region like that of last August between Georgia and Russia, one which might easily have drawn in Ukraine and in alleged defense of Ukraine NATO and the US directly.

As Romanian President Traian Basescu was quoted in a feature of last August titled "Romania is responsible for EU, NATO borders protection," "The Romanian navy is responsible in the name of the EU and allied countries." (Focus News Agency, August 15, 2008)

Romania and Bulgaria will both be held to that pledge. That is one of the crucial reasons they were absorbed into the Alliance.

Both will be ordered to intervene in former Yugoslavia - Kosovo and Bosnia - if their masters in Washington and Brussels will it.

They are both involved in the transit of troops and materiel for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq.

For two years now it has been repeatedly mentioned that Bulgarian, now joint Bulgarian-US, air bases may be used for attacks against Iran, most recently by Russian envoy Dmitry Rogozin last September.

The US and allied NATO military expansion into the Black Sea is aimed at all four compass points.

A proponent of this dangerous strategy, Vakhtang Maisaia, Chairman of the Foreign Policy Association of Georgia, offered this terse yet comprehensive summary of what is involved in the Georgian Times of April 2, 2008:

"The Black Sea is a vital geo-strategic area for the Alliance in conjunction with the Alliance's ISAF mission in Afghanistan, logistic operations in Darfur, the NATO training mission in Iraq, and peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. "Currently, some clear signs of the new interest of NATO in the Black Sea region comprised of the South Caucasus and the South-East Europe sub-regions and Black Sea area itself, can be seen by looking at the geo-economics (including the Caspian energy reserves)....

"[W]ith the inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria into the Alliance, the Black Sea has been incorporated into NATO's Article 5 (collective defense) operational zone where activation of the Combined Joint Task Force (a deployable, multinational, multi-service force with a land component and comparable air and naval components) is possible.

"'In the event of crises which jeopardize Euro-Atlantic stability and could affect the security of Alliance members, the Alliance's military forces may be called upon to conduct crises response operations.' (1999 NATO Washington Summit)."

Source: Global Research.
Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12400.

Israel replaces envoy to Egypt talks, Hamas irate

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will replace Israel's lead envoy to Egyptian-brokered truce talks with Hamas after he publicly criticized the government's negotiating strategy, officials said on Monday.

Amos Gilad, an adviser to defense minister Ehud Barak, has shuttled to Cairo to try to consolidate the Jan. 18 ceasefire that ended a three-week Israeli assault in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Progress has been stymied by renewed violence and a demand by Olmert that an easing of a blockade on the Palestinian territory, as sought by Hamas, be preceded by an agreement from Hamas to free a captive Israeli soldier.

In a critique quoted by an Israeli newspaper last week, Gilad said the Olmert government had an inconsistent approach to the talks that risked "insulting" the Egyptians.

"It was totally unprofessional and unseemly for a civil servant to publicly attack his boss," an official in Olmert's office said, announcing that Gilad would be replaced as envoy to the negotiations.

A Barak aide hit back, saying Olmert was hurting Israel's interests by deciding "not to avail himself of Amos Gilad's abilities and experience".

The fracas showed political and personal faultlines within the caretaker coalition government, where Barak's centre-left Labour party is junior partner to Olmert's centrist Kadima.

Both parties appear to be heading into the opposition following Israel's Feb. 10 parliamentary election and the decision last Friday by President Shimon Peres to ask right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government.

Hamas accused Israel of poor faith and urged Egypt to respond to the reshuffle by opening its own border with Gaza.

"This shows that the Zionist occupation government has no intention of reaching an agreement on the calm or of concluding a prisoner swap," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman.

In his remarks to Maariv daily, Gilad deplored Olmert's attempt to wed the talks on an expanded Gaza truce to efforts to cobble together a deal in which Gilad Shalit, a soldier abducted by Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen to Gaza in 2006, would go free.

Hamas wants Israel to release 1,400 jailed Palestinians, including senior leaders, in exchange for Shalit. The Olmert government has baulked at some of the names on the roster.

"Until now, the prime minister hasn't involved himself at all," Maariv quoted Gilad as saying in the Feb. 18 article.

"Suddenly, the order of things has been changed. Suddenly, first we have to get Gilad. I don't understand that. Where does that lead, to insult the Egyptians? To make them want to drop the whole thing? What do we stand to gain from that?"

Another Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said on Sunday that Olmert believed Gilad had failed to keep Egypt, which also borders the Gaza Strip and plays a key role in efforts to stem Palestinian arms smuggling, to its truce commitments.

Olmert's office declined comment on that report.

Spain to get new justice minister after Bermejo resigns

Madrid - Senior constitutional affairs official Francisco Caamano will be appointed Spain's new justice minister, government sources said Monday after Justice Minister Mariano Fernandez Bermejo announced that he will step down. Bermejo, 61, who was appointed minister in 2007, had come under increasing criticism from the conservative opposition and even from Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialists.

The conservatives focused their campaign for Sunday's regional elections in Galicia and the Basque region partly on calls on Bermejo to resign.

The minister had gone on a hunting trip with people including high-profile judge Baltasar Garzon, who is investigating a corruption scandal among the conservatives and who is seen as being close to the socialists.

It also turned out that Bermejo faced a fine of up to 4,000 euros (6,700 dollars) for not having a licence to hunt in the southern Andalusia region, where the expedition occurred.

Tension had mounted between Bermejo and judges complaining over a lack of resources, who staged their first ever strike on Wednesday.

Zapatero had been expected to replace Bermejo in the first reshuffle of his second cabinet towards the end of the year.

Bermejo said he could not tolerate the "use" the opposition was making of the hunting trip, and that it was best for the government if he resigned.

Taliban free abducted Pak official in exchange for militants

Agencies
Islamabad, Feb 23:
The Taliban who had kidnapped a top civil official in the restive Swat valley in Pakistan’s NWFP on Sunday, have released the official in exchange for two militants, raising question marks over a peace deal struck between the hardline religious group and the Pakistan government.

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the official, Kushal Khan, and his guards had been released in exchange for two militants who were arrested in Peshawar last week.
Though a peace pact is in force between Taliban backed hardline religious groups and the provincial government banning hostilities the Taliban insisted on a swap for the official’s release.

Kushal Khan, who was recently appointed to the District Coordination Office, and his six guards were abducted on Sunday on the outskirts of Mingora, the main city in Swat.

"The government has released our two men and they will soon release another," the Taliban spokesperson told reporters in Swat.

"The government violated the agreement by arresting our men in Peshawar and killing one in Dir. Therefore, we had to do this," Khan said, referring to the official's abduction.

However, the Swat peace pact covers only the Malakand division in the NWFP, official reports had said. It is not clear how an arrest of a Taliban cadre in provincial capital of Peshawar was construed by the group as a violation of the deal.

Earlier, the Taliban had denied reports about the official's abduction, saying he was their "guest" and had been picked up for "discussing important matters".

Despite a ceasefire called by the Taliban and local authorities, militants wearing masks are patrolling roads in Swat and manning check posts. The kidnapping of the official comes just days after the North West Frontier Province government reached an agreement with religious hardliners to enforce Islamic laws in Swat in a bid to counter the Taliban insurgency.

Following the agreement, leaders of the banned Tehrik- e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Mohammadi began peace parleys with the Taliban.

The Taliban called a 10-day ceasefire on February 15 to facilitate the talks. The government has announced a separate truce.

However, a journalist was killed by unidentified gunmen shortly after the Taliban ceasefire was announced last week, raising questions about the future of the peace process.

Swat has been a hotbed of militancy over the past two years, with fierce fighting between the Taliban and security forces claiming the lives of hundreds of people, a majority of them civilians.

Hundreds of thousands of people have also fled the area due to the fighting. Key issues such as disarming the Taliban and dismantling their parallel administration in parts of Swat are yet to be addressed by the authorities.

Africa border opens for Gaza aid

The border between Morocco and Algeria, closed for almost 15 years, has been temporarily reopened for an aid convoy heading towards the Gaza Strip.

The convoy of 99 vehicles, which left from the UK loaded with medicine, food, clothes and toys, crossed into Algeria near the Moroccan town of Oujda.

The frontier was shut in 1994 after Morocco accused Algeria of involvement in an attack on a hotel in Marrakech.

The convoy is due to cross from Egypt to Gaza in early March.

It left London last week, led by British member of parliament George Galloway. Its 5,000-mile route also includes France, Spain, Tunisia, and Libya.

The Gaza Strip is facing a humanitarian crisis following Israel's recent three-week offensive.

Though the Morocco-Algeria crossing was opened for the convoy, there is little sign ordinary people will be able to travel overland between Morocco and Algeria any time soon, the BBC's James Copnall reports from the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries have long been poor, and disagreements are currently focused on the disputed territory of the Western Sahara.

Morocco considers the region its own, while Algeria supports the Polisario Front independence movement.

The border closure also has economic consequences, our correspondent says.

According to some estimates, the Maghreb has the lowest rate of internal trade of any region in the world.

Morocco recently asked for the border to be reopened, but Algeria has yet to agree.

Turnout low as schools reopen in Pakistan's Swat

MINGORA, Pakistan (AFP) – Schools reopened in Pakistan's Swat valley on Monday but attendance was extremely low despite a fledgling truce between the government and insurgents, officials said.

"Our schools reopened today. The attendance was very poor. Only up to 10 percent attended," Swat education ministry official Sher Afzal told AFP.

Thousands of Islamist hardliners have spent nearly two years waging a terrifying campaign to enforce sharia law in Swat, beheading opponents, bombing girls' schools, outlawing entertainment and fighting government forces.

Last Monday, the government signed an agreement with a pro-Taliban cleric agreeing to enforce sharia in the valley in the hope of ending the insurgency.

Schools reopened a week earlier than scheduled after the winter holidays, but Afzal said many parents were unaware of the new term start date.

Syed Mohammad Javed, the top local government official, appealed for students to return to school, promising to accord them full security.

The government reopened all boys' schools on Monday but only the primary section up to the fourth grade in girls' schools, local officials said.

A spokesman said attendance at private schools -- all of which reopened -- was only 40 percent because of security fears.

"This is because of the recent (unstable) situation. Another reason is that many families are still frightened and thousands more left the valley because of the fighting," said private schools association spokesman Ziauddin Yusufzai.

Residents said girls attended classes veiled after militant leader Maulana Fazlullah announced on his illegal radio station that girls could take examinations, but only after covering themselves according to sharia.

Of the total 350,000 pupils registered in Swat, 250,000 are enrolled at government schools and 100,000 at private schools, said Afzal.

Militants have destroyed 191 schools in the valley, including 122 girls' schools, leaving 62,000 pupils without schools to go to, said Afzal.

There has been no co-education in Swat for several years and schools have created totally separate sections for boys and girls.

Militant spokesman Muslim Khan said girls could go to school provided they observe "purdah" -- the practice of total separation from men and boys.

"We have sent proposals to the government to rebuild the schools, which will cost around 800 million rupees (10 million dollars)," Afzal said.

Kidnappers say U.S. hostage in Pakistan still alive

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – John Solecki, an American kidnapped in Pakistan while working for a U.N. refugee agency, was still alive, a spokesman for the separatist group holding him said on Monday after media reports that he had been killed.

Pakistani television channels had run a headline saying the Press Club in the southwestern city of Quetta had received an anonymous telephone call saying Solecki had been killed and his body would be left in a couple of hours.

A spokesman for the previously unheard of Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) later telephoned a Pakistani news agency office in Quetta to deny any call had been made from the group, and to confirm that Solecki was alive.

"He is alive," a spokesman, Shahak Baluch, said in a call to Online news agency. "We have not made any call."

"He is sick and suffering from heart and kidney problems. We are giving him medical treatment," the spokesman said.

Solecki had complained of failing health in a videotape released earlier by his captors.

Solecki, head of the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees in Baluchistan province, was abducted on February 2 by gunmen who ambushed his car and shot dead his driver in the provincial capital, Quetta.

The BLUF has threatened to kill Solecki unless the United Nations acts on its demands.

The group wants the United Nations to secure the release of 141 women it says have been detained in Pakistan, provide information about more than 6,000 missing persons, and resolve the issue of Baluch independence under the Geneva Convention.

Baluchistan, the largest but poorest of Pakistan's four provinces, lies on the border with Afghanistan. Separatist militants have fought a low-scale insurgency there for decades.

The spokesman said the separatist group was considering a U.N. request to open communications through an intermediary.

The UNHCR issued an audiotape on Saturday of an appeal by Solecki's 83-year-old mother for her son's release.

"We want to be with John again," Rose Solecki said. "We cannot bear the shock of losing John."

Pakistan to arm village militias to fight terror

By ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Authorities in a Pakistani border province plan to arm villagers with 30,000 rifles and set up an elite police unit to protect a region increasingly besieged by Taliban and al-Qaida militants, an official said Sunday.

Stiffer action in the North West Frontier Province could help offset American concern that a peace deal being negotiated in the Swat valley, a Taliban stronghold in the province, could create a haven for Islamist insurgents only 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Pakistani capital.

Village militias backed by the United States have been credited with reducing violence in Iraq. Washington is paying for a similar initiative in Afghanistan.

The United States is already spending millions of dollars to train and equip Pakistani forces in the rugged region near the Afghan border but there was no sign it was involved in the militia plan. A U.S. Embassy spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Saturday he will try to "remove the apprehensions of the world community" about the Swat deal when he meets U.S. officials in Washington next week, state-run media reported.

But it was unclear if Sunday's announcement had the backing of national leaders or the powerful army — or if handing out more guns in an already heavily armed society was wise.

Mahmood Shah, a former head of security for Pakistan's tribal regions, said arming civilians could trigger civil war in the northwest, where tribal and political tension is at fever pitch.

Shah said authorities should focus on bolstering existing security forces.

"This is Pakistan, not Iraq or Afghanistan. There is complete anarchy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that is not the case here," he said. "It is not going to help."

Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of the provincial government, said authorities would distribute the guns only among "peaceful groups and individuals" so they could help police to guard their villages.

Officials would consult with local police chiefs before handing out the arms and would take them back if they were not used against "terrorists and troublemakers," Hoti's office said in a written statement.

Hoti said the guns were on hand, having been seized from "terrorists and anti-state elements." He said the province would meet the $40 million bill for the elite provincial police unit of 2,500 officers.

"The purpose of setting up this force is to combat terrorism and extremism effectively," he said.

The militia plan raises doubts about the coherence of Pakistani efforts to counter Taliban groups who have seized growing pockets of the northwest, forged links with al-Qaida and carried out a blur of suicide bombings.

Pakistani officials have encouraged residents to establish militias in the semiautonomous tribal areas sandwiched between North West Frontier Province and the Afghan border.

The pro-Western central government says it will come down hard on groups who refuse to renounce violence and stop supporting cross-border terrorism in return for reconciliation.

Federal officials insisted they have not handed out any weapons in the tribal areas, and appeared to be caught off guard by Sunday's announcement.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said it had not been consulted about giving weapons to village militias. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, supposedly in charge of national law and order issues, also was unaware of the plan.

The provincial government did not say when the weapons would be handed out, or if villagers would be armed in the Swat valley, where security forces and Taliban militants are observing a week-old cease-fire while seeking a peace accord.

Earlier Sunday, Taliban gunmen abducted a senior government official and six of his security guards in Swat, demonstrating their unbroken hold in the valley, where they have defied an army offensive, beheaded political opponents and torched some 200 girls' schools.

A Taliban spokesman said the official, Khushal Khan, would be freed "soon," but that his abduction was a warning to the provincial authorities, who he alleged had arrested two Taliban members in violation of the cease-fire.

"We wanted to show the government that we can also taken action against it," spokesman Muslim Khan said.

He declined to comment on the village militia plan.

The provincial government has sent a hard-line cleric to try to persuade the Swat Taliban to renounce violence in return for the introduction of elements of Islamic law.

Officials say the legal concessions meet long-standing demands for speedy justice in Swat and fall far short of the harsh version of Islamic law favored by Taliban militants.

Najjar: Hizbullah not responsible for rocket attacks

By Nicholas Kimbrell and Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT/AL-MANSOURI: Lebanon's Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said Sunday that Hizbullah was not responsible for the two rockets fired at Israel from South Lebanon early Saturday morning, blaming instead poorly armed militants or a new armed group. Najjar, a Lebanese Forces politician in the majority government and a political rival of Hizbullah, said the Shiite movement, which heads the March 8 opposition, would not engage in such provocative measures in advance of parliamentary polls slated for June 7.

The primitive nature of the attack, Najjar told the Voice of Lebanon radio, "indicates those who did this either belong to a militant group with no modern arms or are a new group that has emerged for a specific agenda ... Hizbullah and its allies have no interest in launching rockets, especially when we are approaching the elections."

Early Saturday morning, two Katyusha rockets were fired from the area south of Tyre toward northern Israel by an unknown party. One of the rockets crossed the border, hitting the Israeli settlement of Maalot, while the other failed to leave Lebanon landing between the border towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Chaab.

Israeli medical officials said that three people were lightly wounded in the attack and two were being treated for shock.

Israel fired two artillery salvos, in response, less than an hour after the rocket attack. The eight shells landed between the towns of Al-Mansouri and Al-Qlayleh, causing no casualties.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman condemned the Israeli strike as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended that hostilities of the month long 2006 summer war between Israel and Hizbullah. Sleiman also denounced the firing of rockets from Lebanese soil, calling the attacks a "challenge to the Lebanese will."

"South Lebanon should not be base for launching rockets," the president said.

Similarly, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called the Israeli shelling "an unacceptable and unjustified violation of Lebanon's sovereignty." He also condemned the group that fired the rockets from Lebanon. The assault, he said, threatened national security and constituted a breach Resolution 1701.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also condemned the cross-border violence.

Following the artillery shelling, fears in South Lebanon that the Israeli counterstrike would expand were high. Some residents in the area around Tyre fled their villages and others stayed indoors. The streets in the Al-Mansouri/Al-Qlayleh area were mostly empty following the strikes.

A young girl told The Daily Star that school had been cancelled in the middle of mid-term examinations because of the shelling.

In a statement released Saturday, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) confirmed that two rockets had been fired from Lebanon, prompting the Israeli response. It said that two wooden launchers had been found in the fields of a banana plantation, and added that the LAF, in cooperation with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), had intensified patrols, searched the area and begun an investigation.

UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane also said that searches and patrols had been intensified and that investigations were still ongoing. She added that the UNIFIL command was in touch with force commanders in the LAF and the Israeli army. "It is incumbent of these parties to maintain the cessation of hostilities," she told The Daily Star.

Bouziane added that despite Saturday's reciprocal cross border attacks, collaboration between UNIFIL and the LAF was "actually quite positive," noting the success of joint patrols in finding weapons caches and rockets that were or could be used to target Israel.

"The confrontation has not escalated and that's a positive development," she said.

But even though violence has not expanded beyond tit-for-tat attacks, recent cross border strikes have fueled an intense war of rhetoric between Israel and Hizbullah.

During a campaign trip to northern Israel in early February, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned of devastating reprisals if Hizbullah were to attack Israel. "I want to say here on the border, that I don't recommend that Hizbullah test us because the consequences would be more painful than one could imagine," he said.

In January, during Israel's three week bombardment of the Gaza strip, rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel on two separate occasions, causing no casualties. In each case Israel responded, firing artillery shells across the border.

Hizbullah denied responsibility for both rocket attacks in January, and the group's spokesman told The Daily Star Sunday that Hizbullah had played no part in Saturday's strike. "We have nothing to do with what happened yesterday," Ibrahim Moussawi said.

In addition, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a Syrian backed group that operates in the Eastern Bekaa, denied an responsibility for Saturday's attack. The PFLP-GC had refused to confirm or deny responsibility for the attacks in January.

For its part, Israel placed the blame for the attack squarely on the Lebanese government. "The Israeli army considers this a serious incident and believes it is the responsibility of the Lebanese government and the army to prevent this rocket fire," an Israeli army spokesman said Saturday.

Israeli officials have regularly warned that they will hold the Lebanese government responsible for all attacks originating from Lebanon, in particular, any aggressive actions taken by Hizbullah, which belongs to Lebanon's unity government.

Late last week, the hawkish leader of the Israel's rightwing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, was charged with forming a government after his party saw big gains in Israeli parliamentary elections. On Friday, in a clear reference to Hizbullah, Netanyahu said that "the terrorist forces of Iran threaten us from the north."

Hizbullah could take control of the Lebanese government if their opposition coalition wins the parliamentary elections this June, leading to a potential showdown with a far-right Israeli government.

In his radio interview Sunday, Minister Najjar warned that if US overtures in the region, particularly toward Iran and Syria, backfire "Netanyahu can convince the Americans to resort to a military solution, and this is what we fear."

Anti-terror code 'would alienate most Muslims'

• Draft strategy brands thousands as extremists
• Ministers ponder plan to be unveiled next month

The Guardian, Tuesday 17 February 2009

The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists, the Guardian has learned. The proposals are in a counterterrorism strategy which ministers and security officials are drawing up that is due to be unveiled next month.

Some say the plans would see views held by most Muslims in Britain being classed by the government as extreme.

According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

• They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.

• They promote Sharia law.

• They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.

• They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.

• They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Contest 2 would widen the definition of extremists to those who hold views that clash with what the government defines as shared British values. Those who advocate the wider definition say hardline Islamist interpretation of the Qur'an leads to views that are the root cause of the terrorism threat Britain faces. But opponents say the strategy would brand the vast majority of British Muslims as extremists and alienate them even further.

The Guardian has also learned of a separate secret Whitehall counterterrorism report advocating widening the definition of who is considered extremist. Not all in Whitehall agree with the proposals and one official source said plans to widen the definition were "incendiary" and could alienate Muslims, whose support in the counterterrorism effort is needed. There were also fears it could aid the far right.

Contest 2 is still being finalized by officials and ministers. Those considered extreme would not be targeted by the criminal law, but would be sidelined and denied public funds. Ed Husain, of the Quilliam Foundation thinktank, said the root causes of terrorism were extremist views, even if those advocating the views did not call for violence.

Husain, once an extremist himself, said: "Violent extremism is produced by Islamist extremism and it's only right to get into the root causes."

Inayat Bunglawala, a former spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said such plans would affect many British Muslims. Bunglawala, who now runs Engage, which tries to get Muslims to participate in politics and civic society, said: "That would alienate the majority of the British Muslim public. It would be counterproductive and class most Muslims as extremists."

In a speech in December, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said the government's counterterrorism strategy had to include challenging nonviolent extremist groups that "skirt the fringes of the law ... to promote hate-filled ideologies".

The Contest strategy was put in place in 2003 as the UK beefed up its response to the threat of al-Qaida inspired terrorism.

But the security service's assessment shows no drop in those they consider dangerous and the UK's terror threat level remains at severe general.

The Home Office said: "We don't comment on leaked documents."

French teen on school trip killed in Cairo blast

By OMAR SINAN, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO – A homemade bomb killed a French teenager and sent panicked visitors and worshipers fleeing from a popular bazaar and a nearby mosque in the first attack on tourists in Egypt in three years.

The 17-year-old girl was on a school trip with 41 other students, said Patrick Balkany, the mayor of Levallois-Perret, the Paris suburb where she lived. Sunday's blast also wounded at least 21 other people, most of them foreigners.

Tourism is one of Egypt's major sources of foreign income and has been a target in past attempts to harm the government, which is trying to negotiate a long-term cease-fire in the Gaza Strip between Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israel.

The explosion hit the bustling main plaza at the Khan el-Khalili, a bazaar popular with tourists next to one of Cairo's most revered shrines, the Hussein mosque. Police found a second bomb and detonated it safely. Security officials said three people were in custody.

The students were near the end of their trip when the attack occurred, Balkany said on France's RTL radio Monday. He said some of the students suffered psychological shock.

Blood stained the stones in front of the mosque, where worshippers had been conducting evening prayers.

"I was praying and there was a big boom and people started panicking and rushing out of the mosque, then police came and sealed the main door, evacuating us out of the back," said Mohammed Abdel Azim, 56.

Montasser el-Zayat, a lawyer who has represented Islamic extremists, told the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera the attack may be linked to anger over the Israeli offensive in Gaza. A fragile cease-fire has been in place in Gaza since the offensive left about 1,300 Palestinians dead.

"The nature of the explosion looks like an act carried out by young, inexperienced amateurs whose emotions were inflamed by the events of Gaza," said el-Zayat, who once had links with extremist groups himself.

Initial reports on Sunday's attack said a pair of grenades were thrown, but a government statement said the attack involved a homemade bomb placed under a bench in the main plaza.

"We were serving our customers as usual, and all of a sudden there was a large sound," said Magdy Ragab, 42, a waiter at a nearby cafe. "We saw heavy gray smoke and there were people running everywhere ... Some people were injured by the stampede, not the shrapnel."

A medic at the scene said the French woman died in the intensive care unit of the nearby Hussein hospital.

The wounded included three Saudis, 13 French, a German and four Egyptians, including a child, the government statement said. The health minister announced that the injuries were comparatively minor and most of the wounded would be released from the hospital by Monday.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement expressing his condolences to the victim's family and stating his confidence that Egyptian authorities would "shed light on the circumstances of this tragedy."

Egypt fought a long war with Islamist militants in the 1990s, culminating in a massacre of more than 50 tourists in Luxor in 1997. The rebels were largely defeated, and there have been few attacks since then in the Nile valley.

But from 2004 to 2006, a string of bombings against resorts in the Sinai Peninsula killed 120 people, including in the Sinai's main resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

Cairo's Khan el-Khalili has been targeted before as well. In April 2005, a suicide bomber killed two French citizens and an American.

One of Egypt's highest religious officials, Sheik of Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, called Sunday's attack "cowardly and criminal."

"Those who carried out this criminal act are traitors to their religion and country and are distorting the image of Islam, which rejects terrorism and prohibits the killing of innocents," he said.

Govt offers Indonesia assistance for Rohingya refugees

The Federal Government says it is willing to help Indonesia deal with the recent arrival of Rohingya asylum seekers.

Four hundred Rohingya migrants were set adrift from Thailand, and are now being cared for in Aceh.

The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, says he discussed the issue with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees during meetings in Canberra today.

"Indonesia is currently dealing with them, and the UNHCR has obviously got a role there and we're offering whatever co-operation we can to assist in meeting their needs as Indonesia looks to take care of those people," he said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, says the situation is a major concern for his agency.

"Thailand has been a very generous host country for refugees also, let's not lose perspective of things," he said.

"But indeed the recent events with... the Rohingya boat people were very, very worrying for us, and we hope they will not be repeated."

Congo, Somalia conflicts make 350,000 new refugees

By Frank Nyakairu

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Enduring conflicts in east and central Africa have produced some 350,000 new refugees since October, worsening an already dire humanitarian situation, aid agencies say.

The region already hosts the continent's biggest number of refugees, but conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia are forcing many more from their homes.

"Multiple conflicts in the region have worsened the refugee situation in the region," said Hassan Yusuf, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in Kenya.

"We have seen the worst in recent months, seeing thousands of new refugees both internally and externally," he said.

Somalia, the Horn of African country plagued by war since 1991 has the highest numbers of internal and external displacements, uprooted since Islamist insurgents started fighting the Western-backed government more than two years ago.

The crisis considered most acute and edging toward a humanitarian catastrophe is the displacement hundreds of thousands of Congolese by Ugandan rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and Congolese Tutsi rebels.

Since December at least 150,000 Congolese refugees have been uprooted by insurgency in the volatile northeast and forced to seek refugee in neighboring Southern Sudan and Uganda.

"The latest group of refugees and most affected is in Orientale Province of Congo, where over 150,000 people have been forced to flee LRA attacks and for the first time 15,000 of those fleeing to southern Sudan," said Hassan.

A joint military offensive by Uganda, Congolese and Sudanese forces in December was followed by indiscriminate attacks on civilians by highly mobile remnants of the LRA in the region.

The LRA, whose leadership is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, has fought for more than two decades to replace Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's government with one based on the Ten Biblical commandments.

In Congo's South and North Kivu regions, a conflict between government forces and Congolese Tutsi rebels has forced thousands to flee into neighboring Uganda.

"In Uganda, the recent influx of 47,000 Congolese refugees is seen as more sustained than previous influxes. This is considered an acute humanitarian situation," said Kristen Knutson, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Uganda.

A recent offensive in Congo against Hutu rebels responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide, has also forced 6,000 refugees into enter Uganda.

Somalia, however, has the highest number of internal refugees. Aid workers put the number at 1.3 million, with 160,000 new internal refugees in the past four months.

"This is the highest it has ever been and it has been worsened by strict border controls on the Ethiopian and the Kenyan sides because refugees cannot leave the country," said UNHCR's Hassan.

But despite controls, remote, porous borders mean Kenya has seen an influx of up to 6,300 Somali refugees in January alone.

In Ethiopia, up to 150 refugees daily have been crossing from the troubled country since January. In total, 100,000 Somalis have sought refugee outside their country since January, according to the UNHCR.

US, Iraqi forces launch anti-al-Qaida offensive

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – U.S. and Iraqi forces have begun a new military offensive in northern Iraq aimed at rooting out al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents, American and Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The offensive — dubbed Operation New Hope — has netted 84 suspects in the provincial capital of Mosul and surrounding towns, said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jubouri. Most of the arrests occurred in Tal Abta, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Mosul.

Claims by Sunni Arabs and Kurds over disputed territory in the northern Ninevah province have fueled significant violence in the area around Mosul, which U.S. officials have called Iraq's last major urban battleground in the war against insurgents.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have staged many operations in Mosul and other areas north of Baghdad where levels of violence remain high even as they have significantly dropped elsewhere in the country.

The offensive comes more than a year after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised a "decisive" battle in Mosul against al-Qaida in Iraq.

But Iraq's third-largest city has continued to face violence, particularly against Iraqi security forces.

A roadside bomb struck an Iraq army patrol Sunday in Mosul, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant, and wounding three others, said a police official at the Nineveh military command center. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

Five other soldiers were killed and five were wounded when they stormed a booby-trapped house in the city late Saturday, al-Jubouri said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the aim of the joint operation was to allow the government to restore essential services in Mosul.

"The ultimate goal of this operation is to eradicate al-Qaida and other extremist groups," it said.

Al-Jubouri said American troops were only providing support, if needed. He said the operation was being led by Iraqi security forces, and that all police and army units in the province were participating in the operation.

Egypt briefly opens Gaza border for 1,000 to cross

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Hundreds of travelers left blockaded Gaza for Egypt on Sunday, in one of the sporadic openings that enable students, patients and others with Egyptian visas to cross the border.

About 1,000 university students and holders of foreign residency permits were eligible to cross, and by mid-afternoon Sunday, about 600 people had made the trip, border officials said.

Also Sunday, the bodies of four people were found in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border, a day after another body was discovered in the area. Medics said all five suffocated.

The 20-month closure of Gaza by Israel and Egypt has boosted smuggling of arms and consumer goods through hundreds of border tunnels. Israel destroyed dozens of tunnels during its three-week offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers last month, but smuggling continues.

The fate of Gaza's borders is key in two sets of Egyptian-brokered talks — on a truce deal between Israel and Hamas, and on a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and its rivals from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Hamas ousted Abbas' forces in a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

Power-sharing talks between Hamas and Fatah are to begin Wednesday in Cairo, said Azzam al-Ahmed, a Fatah official in the West Bank. Hamas officials reiterated Sunday that Fatah must first release hundreds of Hamas prisoners, but it's not clear if Hamas would walk away from the talks if its demands were not met.

Efforts to form a unity government have failed in the past. However, after Israel's Gaza offensive, both sides have stronger motives to try to make it work.

Hamas needs a unity deal to end the blockade of Gaza and be considered a partner by the international community in rebuilding the territory. International donor countries are meeting in Egypt on March 2 for a pledging conference, to raise money for Gaza's reconstruction. Hamas will remain sidelined, including in reconstruction efforts, unless it moderates and allows Abbas a foothold in Gaza.

Abbas, meanwhile, has overstayed his term as president and needs a partnership with Hamas to shore up his dwindling political legitimacy. Abbas was elected to a four-year term which expired in January 2009, and pollsters say most Palestinians don't accept his claim that he could extend by a year.

In other developments Sunday, the Israeli military confirmed that an army dog bit an elderly Palestinian during an arrest raid in the West Bank village of Tamoun. The army said in a statement that soldiers, along with the dog, searched the house. The statement did not explain the circumstances of the attack.

Salem Bani Odeh, 99, has said he was in his bed when he was bitten repeatedly during the pre-dawn raid Friday. He remained hospitalized Sunday with a gash in his left ear.

Israeli troops regularly use dogs to detect explosives and search for militants.

Also Sunday, an Arab League delegation arrived in Gaza to document alleged Israeli war crimes committed during its three-week offensive in the territory last month. The delegation of international legal and forensic experts will present its findings to the Arab League's chief, Amr Moussa. The Arab League, and its 22 member states, could then try to pursue war crimes charges in countries that allow such lawsuits.

Critics accuse Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians during its offensive, which was meant to halt years of Gaza militant rocket fire toward southern Israel.

Representatives of Gaza's ruling Hamas movement welcomed the delegation at the Rafah border crossing.

Netanyahu, Livni hold first post-election talks

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's political rivals Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni agreed to hold further talks about a future government at their first meeting on Sunday since an inconclusive February 10 election.

Netanyahu, head of the hawkish Likud party, whom President Shimon Peres asked on Friday to form a new ruling coalition, vowed to press on with efforts to persuade centrist leader Livni, Israel's foreign minister, to join him in a government.

He called it "the challenge of the hour and the will of the Israeli people" for Israel's two largest political forces to rule jointly to confront what they see as Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and its militia allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Livni, head of the centrist Kadima party, said she and Netanyahu, "didn't reach any agreement, there are substantial differences," but added "it is important to investigate whether there is a common path."

She agreed at Netanyahu's urging to meet again, telling reporters at the Jerusalem hotel where they had met behind closed doors that "there is no reason not to."

Kadima won 28 seats to 27 for Likud in the election for Israel's 120-member parliament.

In choosing Netanyahu, Peres did not follow the tradition of asking the leader of the party with the most legislators to form a government within 42 days. He opted for Netanyahu because a majority of lawmakers pledged their support for him.

But a narrow government comprised of hawkish factions could put Netanyahu on a collision course with U.S. President Barack Obama and his promise to move quickly to a Palestinian statehood deal.

PLEDGE TO COOPERATE WITH OBAMA

Netanyahu, 59, pledged on Sunday "to cooperate with the Obama administration and to try to advance the common goals of peace, security and prosperity for us and our neighbors."

He has sought to pursue that goal by enlisting Livni's party, which favors trading large parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank for peace, into a national unity government.

"Unity is reachable, through dialogue ... that is what we are going to do today, beginning with Kadima and tomorrow with Labor," Netanyahu said earlier on Sunday.

But after Livni's remarks Netanyahu wasn't as optimistic, Israeli media reported, and quoted him telling advisers "nothing may come of this."

Netanyahu has plans on Monday to meet Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the left-wing Labor Party, which came in fourth in the election behind Yisrael Beiteinu, a far-right party.

The U.S.-educated Netanyahu has said he wants to shift the focus of stalled, Washington-sponsored peace talks with Palestinians away from tough territorial issues to shoring up their economy, an approach their leaders have rejected.

As prime minister from 1996 to 1999, Netanyahu clashed with the Clinton administration but bowed to U.S. pressure and handed over parts of the West Bank city of Hebron to Palestinian rule.

While not ruling out a Palestinian state, he has said it must have limited powers ensuring it is demilitarized.

Livni, 50, told party loyalists before meeting with Netanyahu that seeking an alliance with his hawkish backers risked "betraying the confidence of voters" and that she would object to joining any cabinet "whose path isn't ours."

In a statement, Kadima lawmakers said acceptance of the party's centrist policies on peace and domestic issues was "a condition for (the party) joining any unity government."

Both Kadima and Likud advocate expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, in defiance of the United States, which brought little pressure on Israel during George W. Bush's presidency.