JBLM Stryker brigade shapes training with an eye on Afghanistan

Post by Adam Ashton / The News Tribune on Nov. 29, 2011 at 10:46 am with

November 29, 2011 10:46 am

Col. Barry F. Huggins, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Divisionaddresses mock Afghan civil leaders at an exercise earlier this month. / Photo by Sgt. Austan OwenJoint Base Lewis-McChord’s 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division spent the past month training in the California desert with an eye on a possible deployment to Afghanistan, according to Army reports from its exercises.

Brigade commander Col. Barry Huggins went so far as to act out a ceremony marking the completion of a civil affairs project that would benefit Afghans. An Afghan flag fluttered above the exercise as Huggins depicted the pomp that would follow a bridge opening, an Army writer wrote.

TIMELINE-The rise of Morocco’s PJD party

Image by Magharebia via Flickr

Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:13pm GMT

Nov 29 (Reuters) – Morocco’s King Mohammed on Tuesday appointed Abdelilah Benkirane as the new prime minister after his moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) won the most seats in a parliamentary election last week.

Following are key events that have led to its resounding success in the elction:

 

* The party‘s founder is the late Abdelkarim al-Khatib, a prominent figure in the nationalist movement for independence from the French protectorate, who was also the physician of King Mohammed V, grandfather of the current king.

* After independence in 1956, Khatib joined pro-palace figures to create the Popular Movement party to counter the nationalist Istiqlal Party (Independence Party) in the aftermath of unrest and assassinations of prominent figures in the resistance movement.

Al-Shabaab bans aid agencies in Somalia and raids offices

Islamic group permanently revokes permission for organisations including Unicef and WHO to work in country amid famine crisis

Monday 28 November 2011 12.21 GMT

A Somali girl joins women queuing for a hot meal at a camp. Al-Shabaab has banned several aid agencies. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

Efforts to feed 160,000 severely malnourished children in Somalia have been jeopardised after Islamist rebels banned several UN and international aid agencies, storming their offices in a string of co-ordinated raids.

Al-Shabaab militants, who have imposed a harsh form of sharia law in south and central Somalia, announced on Monday they were banning 16 aid agencies from operating in the anarchic country where tens of thousands of people have died from famine since April.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said its office in the southern city of Baidoa had been occupied, but that all staff were safe.

Indian Mujahideen penetrates Chennai college

November 28, 2011

• By V.P. Raghu

In an early morning operation in a sleepy rain-hit city suburb, security agencies picked up four college students and a man from Delhi, suspected to be members of a sleeper cell of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM), from a house at Vijayaraghavan Nagar in Selaiyur on Sunday.

At least three other students and another man, however, escaped the dragnet. “All the students are from Bihar. Based on an input from intelligence agencies, the people staying in the house were picked up early on Sunday morning. Five of them were detained for further questioning while the others, including two software professionals, were let off after initial enquiry,” official sources said here.

“Detection of suspected terror modules gains significance particularly in the background of a pipe bomb being found on BJP leader L.K. Advani’s yatra route a month ago in Madurai. The anniversary of the Babri masjid demolition is also around the corner,” a senior police official said.

Of the four students picked up, one is doing MBA while the other three are students of engineering in private colleges, two of which are attached to Anna University. The 52-year-old man from Delhi who was also detained is said to be the uncle of one of the students.

“Another elderly man had also come to visit the students. He and three other students are now missing. The missing students are studying engineering,” said a police official.

Those in Indian intelligence circles believe that IM had branched off from Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) after the government banned the latter.

Taliban, artillery, and lies in Mohmand Agency

By Matt DupeeNovember 27, 2011

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

According to Pakistani officials. The heated diplomatic row between Pakistan and NATO over the incident has escalated, with Pakistan ordering the US to vacate a key airbase in Baluchistan and closing NATO’s supply lines through Jamrud in Khyber and Chaman in Baluchistan.

Senior Western and Afghan officials told reporters on Sunday that a small group of US and Afghan forces on patrol in Kunar province were fired on first from positions inside Pakistani territory, prompting calls for close air support which wiped out the two Pakistani mountain posts. However, the Pakistani military remains adamant that the attack should have been avoided. Major General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan military, told the Guardian that he did not believe ISAF or Afghan forces had received fire from the Pakistani side. “I cannot rule out the possibility that this was a deliberate attack by ISAF,” Abbas said. Afghan officials maintain that US and Afghan forces retaliated with airstrikes after coming under fire from the direction where the two military forts are located.

Pakistan’s unprecedented response to the attack in Mohmand is curious, especially given the countless reports over the past six months of Pakistani military forts shelling Afghan territory from positions in Mohmand, Dir, and Chitral. One such incident took place on June 18, prompting a similar US gunship raid against a Pakistani military post one mile inside Pakistani territory, also in Mohmand. The June attack came after a number of artillery shells fired from Pakistani territory struck homes in the Shunkrai area of the Sarkani (Sarkanay) district in eastern Kunar province. At the time, Kunar’s governor, Syed Fazlullah Wahidi, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the areas of Dangam, Shigal, and Sarkani were fired upon by Pakistani military positions for the better part of a week, with one strike killing four children in the Shigal district.

The Salala security posts are located in the Taliban-controlled Baizai area of Mohmand, a well-known hotbed of militant activity that has significantly impacted security on both sides of the border. Since March, numerous Taliban swarm attacks have ravaged Pakistani outposts in the region, prompting violent reactions from Pakistani forces who frequently shell suspected militant positions located in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces. Pakistani forces reportedly killed 65 Taliban fighters in the Baizai area in June alone. On Sept. 1, however, the Pakistani military claimed that a massive security operation had secured 80-85 percent of Mohmand and that 72 soldiers, including three officers, had been killed in the offensive against militants in the tribal agency.

Security on coastline must be tightened: Narendra Modi – India

Published: Sunday, Nov 27, 2011, 17:36 IST
By DNA Correspondent| Place: Gandhidham| Agency: DNA

Image via Wikipedia

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi emphasised on the need to evolve a strategic consensus and agreement among different nations for a common legal and judicial framework to combat the growing menace of terrorism and piracy through sea routes.

Modi was inaugurating the two-day international conference on ‘Global Maritime Security & Anti-Piracy’ at Gandhinagar.

He stressed on the need to ensure that no terrorist attack takes place along the sea coast in a country like India which has a long coastline. Gujarat has a 1600km long coastline.

Modi said that the 26/11 attack on Mumbai cannot be forgotten and to avoid such incidents, coastal security has to be increased.

Justice Dancan Gaswagha, Seychelles Supreme Court, Ambassador for Denmark in India Freddy Swane, Ambassador for Somalia Coast, Ebyan Mahamed Salah and others were also present at the conference.

Afghan Parliament Approves Central Bank Governor, Spy Chief

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Saturday, 26 November 2011 16:48 Last Updated on Saturday, 26 November 2011 18:44 Written by TOLOnews.com

Afghanistan‘s House of Representatives on Saturday approved President Hamid Karzai‘s candidates for the posts of the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the governor of the Central Bank and a member of the High Office of Oversight.

At total of 228 MPs attended the session and each of the candidates needed 115 “yes” votes to secure his position.
The new NDS director, Rahmatullah Nabil, got 208 votes in his favour; the new head of the Central Bank, Noorullah Delawari, got 173 vote of approval; and Mohammad Munir got 155 votes endorsing his membership of the High Office of Oversight.
At the session, the three officials outlined their future plans and strategies, and responded to the questions of the representatives.
Mr Nabil has serviced as the acting director of the NDS for the past year and President Hamid Karzai put him forward to continue in the role after MPs praised the security measures put in place during the four-day Loya Jirga earlier this month.
Mr Delawari worked as head of the Central Bank from 2004 to 2007.

Kirkuk ‘may prove a fertile ground’ for Al Qaeda

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Sunday27/11/2011November, 2011, 12:18 AM Doha AFP/Kirkuk

Iraq’s disputed oil-rich Kirkuk province may turn into fertile ground for militant groups including Al Qaeda after the US withdrawal, officials from the province warn.
Ethnically divided Kirkuk lies at the centre of a tract of territory which Kurdish leaders want to incorporate in their autonomous region in the north despite the opposition of many of the province’s Arab and Turkmen residents, and of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
“The US withdrawal and lack of readiness of the Iraqi security forces will be used by forces opposed to the political process, and in particular Al Qaeda,” Kirkuk provincial council member Sherzad Adel said.
Al Qaeda “want to have a foothold in Kirkuk,” he said, noting that “the conflict between the centre (Baghdad) and the region (Kurdistan), and the failure to resolve problems in Kirkuk are two factors that form fertile ground for terrorism.”
US forces have played the role of mediators in Kirkuk, and were involved in setting up the “Golden Lions” unit made up of Arab and Kurdish forces.
But all US soldiers except for a small contingent under US embassy authority are to depart Iraq by the end of 2011 leaving a dangerous security vacuum, officials say.
“We have indications that Al Qaeda is reorganising and coordinating with the other remaining armed groups to launch operations,” said Major General Turhan Abdul Rahman, the deputy director general of the Kirkuk police and commander of its anti-terrorism force.
There are signs that operations are in preparation including kidnappings and bomb attacks, Abdul Rahman said.
He expects Al Qaeda and other militant groups to focus their activities on Kirkuk and other north Iraq cities “because they are trying to stir up nationalist strife.”

France and Nigeria joins forces to fight terrorism

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan welcomed to Elysee Palace by President Sarkozy.

AFP/Fred Dufour   By RFI

France and Nigeria are to step up their joint fight against Islamic terrorists in West Africa. The announcement by Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan came at the end of his three-day visit to the French capital which also saw a deal for a 75,450 million euro loan to build a bus network in the capital Lagos.

 

Jonathan said security experts from the two countries will work together to stop terrorism from spreading throughout the region.

“When Africa is undergoing a crisis, Europe feels the effects,” he explained.

CIA ordered to halt drone operations by Pakistan

Click to play videoTHE Pakistani government has responded to NATO air strikes that killed at least 25 soldiers by ordering the CIA to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base in northern Pakistan and closing the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said that NATO aircraft hit two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan. The country’s supreme army commander called the attacks unprovoked acts of aggression.

The CIA was given just 15 days to stop its drone operations. Among the two NATO supply routes into Afghanistan shut by the government was the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive about 40 per cent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass. Pakistani officials gave no estimate as to how long the routes would be shut down.

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Cargo trucks, including those carrying supplies to NATO forces, are halted at the Pakistan-Torkham border as Pakistanis protest against the air strikes that killed 25 soldiers. Photo: Reuters

In Washington, US officials were scrambling to assess what had happened amid preliminary reports that allied forces in Afghanistan engaged in a firefight along the border with insurgents and called in airstrikes. Senior Obama administration officials were also weighing the implications on a relationship that took a sharp turn for the worse after a Navy SEAL commando raid killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad in May, and that has deteriorated since then.