July is deadliest for US-led forces in Afghanistan

By ROBERT H. REID, AP, Google News, July 15, 2009

KABUL (AP) — July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and the NATO command. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008.

The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq war.

The latest reported deaths occurred Tuesday. They include an American soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan and two Turks, including a colonel, who died in a traffic accident in the north of the country.

In addition, six Ukrainian civilians and a 6-year-old Afghan were killed Tuesday when an Mi-6 transport helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan. The helicopter's owners in the former Soviet republic of Modova said the helicopter was shot down, and the Taliban claimed responsibility.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell acknowledged that the U.S. has lost troops "at an alarming rate this month."

He told reporters that July has been "an extraordinarily difficult month for all of us who are so heavily invested in trying to better the situation in Afghanistan."

U.S. commanders have been expecting higher casualties since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year to curb a resurgent Taliban that threatens not only the U.S.-backed Kabul government but also Afghanistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan.

There are about 57,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, and the number is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009.

Obama's decision has effectively shifted the focus on the global war against Islamic extremism from Iraq, where the United States still maintains about 130,000 troops. Only two U.S. service members have died in Iraq this month — both from non-hostile causes, according to the Pentagon.

With the increase in troops heading for Afghanistan, the U.S. has stepped up the tempo of combat operations. About 4,000 U.S. Marines this month launched their biggest offensive since 2001 to break the Taliban stranglehold on the southern province of Helmand, the center of the country's opium poppy cultivation and a major insurgent smuggling route from Pakistan.

British forces, meanwhile, have been locked in fierce combat with Taliban fighters in another part of Helmand. Britain's 9,000-strong military force has lost 15 soldiers this month — including eight in a 24-hour period. Those deaths have prompted national debate in Britain over whether the Afghan conflict is winnable.

For their part, the Taliban have increased their attacks, including deadly roadside or suicide bombings that rose by 25 percent in the first four months of 2009 over the same period last year. The U.S. command expects bombings to rise 50 percent this year to 5,700 — up from 3,800 last year.

Other deaths this month among international forces include four Canadian soldiers and one Italian paratrooper.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week that international troops in Afghanistan face a difficult summer of intense fighting. He has long called on other NATO allies, and European nations, to play a larger role in combat operations in Afghanistan and insisted that the Afghan army should provide larger numbers of soldiers.

The Afghan government provided only about 650 soldiers and police to join the ongoing Marine offensive in Helmand.

During a visit to Helmand on Wednesday, the outgoing chief of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt, said the international mission needs more soldiers to control territory won from the Taliban to give Afghans more confidence in security and wean them away from the Taliban.

"I have said before, we can have effect where we have boots on the ground. I don't mind whether the feet in those boots are British, American or Afghan. But we need more, to have the persistent effect to give the people confidence in us," Dannatt told BBC radio from the British base in the Helmand town of Sangin. "That is the top line and the bottom line."

The U.S. is sending thousands more soldiers to train Afghanistan's police and army.

Obama said Tuesday that he hopes military operations in Afghanistan can move to a different phase after the Afghan presidential election set for Aug. 20. Obama said he is looking for an exit strategy in which the Afghan army, police, courts and government take more responsibility for the country's security.

During last year's election campaign, Obama accused President George W. Bush of diverting U.S. resources from the war in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida's leadership planned the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, to what he termed an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Protesters held ahead of G8 meeting

Al Jazeera, July 7, 2009

At least 36 people have been arrested after protesters and police clashed in Rome a day ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Demonstrators hurled bottles at riot police and set fire to tyres on the streets of the Italian capital on Tuesday, news agencies reported.

The clashes came as leaders from some of the world's richest nations gathered in the city ahead of the summit, which begins on Wednesday, aimed at tackling the global economic crisis, climate change and events in Iran.

Italian police were on high alert on the eve of the summit, with 15,000 officers deployed in an effort to prevent a recurrence of the violence seen during the country's last G8 meeting in 2001.

Police and soldiers are guarding a converted police barracks where the leaders will meet in L'Aquila, where more than 150 people died when an earthquake struck the town in April.

Evacuation plans

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, announced in April that the meeting would be moved from Sardinia in an effort to save funds that could be used to help reconstruct the devastated area.

Officials have drawn up plans to evacuate the leaders and cancel the summit if any tremour measuring more than four points on the Richter scale strikes the region.

The bulk of the summit is likely to focus on efforts to shore-up the global economy since leaders committed $1trn at the G20 summit in London to help struggling economies and revive global trade.

The talks will also focus on emerging political crises in China's Xinjiang region, Iran and Honduras.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said she would speak to Hu Jintao, China's president, about the worsening ethnic violence in his country, in which at least 156 people have been killed.

"We will have the opportunity to address these questions with the Chinese president in L'Aquila," she said on Tuesday. "I will use this opportunity".

Source: Agencies

Honduras rejects OAS appeal to restore president

By WILL WEISSERT and MARCOS ALEMAN, AP, Yahoo! News, July 4, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras rebuffed a personal appeal from the Americas' top international diplomat Friday, refusing to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya and setting the stage for a dramatic showdown if the ousted leader returns to reclaim power this weekend.

Jose Miguel Insulza, who heads the Organization of American States, said the hemispheric body would decide Saturday whether to suspend Honduras, a move that could lead to further sanctions against one of the Latin Americas' poorest countries and encourage other organizations and countries to halt aid and loans.

The OAS chief had flown to Honduras Friday to demand that the interim government restore Zelaya before a Saturday morning deadline. Zelaya was ousted in a military-backed coup Sunday and flown into exile, but the world community has rallied around him to demand his return to office.

"We wanted to ask that this situation be reversed," Insulza told a news conference in the Honduran capital after meeting with Supreme Court President Jorge Rivas, the attorney general and other political leaders. "Unfortunately, one must say that there appears to be no willingness to do this."

Insulza said Honduran officials gave him documents showing that charges are pending or have been brought against Zelaya, charges they say justified the coup. The military-backed ouster came after Zelaya pushed for a referendum on constitutional reform that the Supreme Court, the attorney general and Congress had all said was illegal.

Earlier Friday, Honduras' Supreme Court, which authorized Sunday's coup, said it wouldn't agree to restore the toppled leftist leader despite Insulza's demands.

"Insulza asked Honduras to reinstate Zelaya, but the president of the court categorically answered that there is an arrest warrant for him," said court spokesman Danilo Izaguirre.

"Now the OAS has to decide what it will do," Izaguirre said.

Insulza had conceded before traveling to Honduras that his mission was unlikely to succeed, saying: "It will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days."

During the trip, the diplomat also met with the two main candidates in Honduras' Nov. 29 elections, as well with the leftist Popular Block, an umbrella group of farm, labor and student groups that largely supports Zelaya.

But he said he would not see Roberto Micheletti, whom Congress named president after Zelaya's ouster, in order to avoid legitimizing the government.

Micheletti's foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, said that Insulza "can negotiate all he wants, except for Zelaya's situation."

"That is not negotiable because he cannot return to Honduras, and if he does he will be arrested and tried," Ortez said.

Zelaya, who was traveling in Central America, planned to return to Honduras on Sunday, according to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Zelaya has said he would be traveling with Insulza and the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador.

Honduras' interim government has said it will arrest Zelaya if he returns, setting up a potentially volatile showdown.

Contrary to assertions by the Micheletti government, Interpol on Friday released a statement saying it had not received any request to issue an arrest warrant for Zelaya.

Micheletti led a raucous chant of "Democracy!" before a giant crowd waving blue-and-white Honduran flags in front of the palace that Micheletti has occupied since Zelaya was seized by soldiers. He pledged to stand firm in the face of the international pressure.

"I am the president of all Hondurans," he proclaimed.

A rival rally by thousands of Zelaya backers marched to the offices of the OAS. Marchers carried a banner with a picture of Zelaya and the words: "Mel our friend, the people are with you!"

Despite feared violence, the two groups did not clash. Police helicopters circled overhead and dozens of soldiers and police guarded the palace.

Micheletti's supporters say the army was justified in ousting Zelaya — on orders of Congress and the Supreme Court — because he had called a referendum which they claim he intended to use to extend his rule. Zelaya denies that and has said he will no longer press for constitutional changes.

Nations around the world have promised to shun Micheletti and the nation already is suffering economic reprisals.

Neighboring countries have imposed trade blockades, major lenders have cut aid, the Obama administration has halted joint military operations and all European Union ambassadors have abandoned the Honduran capital.

If the OAS does suspend Honduras, Insulza said a government led by a new Honduran president after elections in November would not be automatically reinstated into the organization.

"It is not by any means automatic," Insulza said. "To eliminate a suspension, it should be unanimous decision, and it is not so obvious that it would be."

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Honduras issued a statement expressing "deep concern over restrictions imposed on certain fundamental rights" by Micheletti's government, including a curfew in force since Sunday, and "reports of intimidation and censorship against certain individuals and media outlets."

Micheletti's government is so eager to find a friend that it announced it had been recognized by Israel and Italy — surprising the governments of those countries. Italy withdrew its ambassador to protest the coup, and Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "All rumors about Israeli recognition of the new president are wholly unfounded."

Micheletti asked Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu to help mediate the conflict, and she arrived in Tegucigalpa on Friday.

"I come to try to talk with anyone who wants to listen to search for peace for this country," she said.
___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa; Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana; Filadelfo Aleman in Managua, Nicaragua; Angela Charlton in Paris and Mark Lavie in Jerusalem.

Bush to face huge anti-war demonstration in Italy

DEB RIECHMANN, AP, The Guardian, June 12, 2008

ROME (AP) - President Bush can look forward to a hearty welcome from his old friend, the charismatic Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, and Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Rome. That's not what he should expect in the streets, however, where anti-Bush sentiment over the war in Iraq still lingers.

Anti-war activists and thousands of other demonstrators planned to march through the streets of the Italian capital to protest Bush's visit, which was to include meetings with Berlusconi and the pope on Thursday. Commercial flights have been banned over Rome during Bush's two-day stay. Dozens of buses and trams have been rerouted. Thousands of policemen have been deployed as part of a tight security plan to monitor the protests that have waning energy.

Slovenia and Germany, the first two stops on Bush's trip, were devoid of demonstrators. That was evidence that trans-Atlantic relations, fractured over the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq, are on the mend, that European leaders have moved beyond their anger over the war. The Rome protests are evidence that the Italian public still opposes the Bush administration.

Unlike other European leaders, such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, Berlusconi supported Bush on Iraq from the start. The 71-year-old media mogul defied domestic opposition and dispatched about 3,000 troops to Iraq after the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Those troops came home, and Berlusconi, recently elected to his third stint in power since 1994, has pledged not to send any back.

More than 2,000 Italian troops, however, are deployed as part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

Italy, along with Germany, France and Spain, have restricted their troops to less dangerous areas in northern Afghanistan. That has caused a rift because other NATO members are deployed in the more violent regions of the nation. The Italian government is reviewing the restrictions and Berlusconi's office said the premier would talk to Bush about that when they meet.

Berlusconi and Bush also were expected to discuss Italy's interest in joining with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany that are making a diplomatic push to get Iran to give up what the West believes is an effort to develop nuclear weapons. That might seem unusual for Italy, which recently surpassed Germany as Iran's largest trading partner.

But to show Italy's strong opposition to Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions, Berlusconi and his government refused to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Rome for a U.N.-sponsored food summit.

Bush will meet with the pope on Friday before departing to Paris to continue his farewell European tour. It will be Bush's third meeting with Benedict. The two last met in April at the White House in Washington.

---

Associated Press writer Alessandra Rizzo in Rome contributed to this report.

Rioting in Belgrade; Grenades thrown in Kosovo

China 'concerned', Australia backs Kosovo split
AFP, Feb. 17, 2008

PARIS (AFP) - Australia on Monday became the lastest nation to welcome Kosovo's declaration of independence, joining the United States and several European powers, despite fierce objections from Serbia and Russia.

But China was among countries unhappy with Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia, declaring it was "deeply concerned" about the future of peace in the region.

"The unilateral approach by Kosovo may cause a series of consequences and lead to severe negative influences on the peace and stability of the Balkan region," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement.

"China expresses deep concern about this."

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said diplomatic recognition of the new state would be offered soon.

"We've already indicated to our diplomatic representatives around the world that this (independence) would be an appropriate course of action," Rudd told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Russia angrily condemned Kosovo's announcement, and called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council late Sunday to discuss the issue.

But it failed to get backing for its call to declare "null and void" the decision by Kosovo's Albanian majority on Sunday to break away.

Russia has been Serbia's strongest backer in opposing Kosovo's independence, which President Vladimir Putin said last week would be "idiotic and illegal."

The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have all indicated that their formal recognition will come on Monday.

Those countries around the world with separatist problems however -- from Spain to Sri Lanka -- have expressed concern at Kosovo's split.

The United States and most European nations gave a cautious initial reaction to the independence declaration ahead of a crucial EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday.

But even as the international community called for calm, rioting broke out on the streets of Belgrade, and grenades were thrown at EU and UN buildings in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica late Sunday.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "calls on all parties to exert utmost restraint and to refrain from any provocative act."

A significant minority in the 27-nation EU -- Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain -- oppose recognising Kosovo. Others like Malta and Portugal would prefer Kosovo's future be decided at the UN Security Council.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus warned that Kosovo's independence could unleash a domino affect in Europe.

"Some parties in other states could realise that they do not feel completely at ease within a big state in which they are now," he said in a television interview.

As if on cue, the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia immediately seized on Kosovo's break, saying they would ask Russia and the UN to recognise their independence, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

"In the near future Abkhazia will appeal to the Russian parliament and the UN Security Council with a request to recognise its independence," self-declared Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh was quoted as saying by Interfax.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity made a similar appeal.

Some states see Kosovo as setting a dangerous precedent for other separatist movements. Cyprus is already split, with a Turkey-recognised statelet in the north. Spain has long struggled with radical Basque nationalists.

And the Sri Lankan government, which is battling separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, warned Kosovo's declaration could set an "unmanageable precedent" and was a violation of the United Nations charter.

The foreign ministry said it "could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations, the established global order of sovereign states and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security."

Others are reluctant to recognise Kosovo because of their close ties to Serbia.

Slovakia said Sunday it would not recognise independence for the time being. Romania, which is traditionally close to Serbia, said its opposition was unchanged.

There is also anxiety on Kosovo's borders. Macedonia, which has a significant ethnic Albanian minority, said it was closely watching events.

Government spokesman Ivica Bocevski told AFP: "Whatever decision we are going to take, we will take care of the interests of our citizens, as well as the state and national interests of Macedonia."

Ethnic Albanians account for around 25 percent of Macedonia's two-million population. In 2001, the government and ethnic Albanian rebels waged a brief fight mostly in the northern and western parts of the country.

burs/jj/tha

US-led troops kill Afghan civilians

Aljazeera.net, Nov. 12, 2007

A woman and two children were among 18 people killed by US-led troops in an operation in the south of Afghanistan, the US military has said.

The raid in the Garmser district of Helmand province on Sunday also led to the deaths of 15 anti-government fighters.

The US military said in a statement on Monday that its soldiers had thrown a grenade that destroyed a house.

The woman and children were found dead in the rubble of the building which collapsed during the assault.
Fatal assault

The troops were raiding compounds suspected of housing bomb makers in Garmser when fighters attacked them with heavy fire, according to the statement.

The soldiers responded with small-arms fire, killing several fighters, it said.

"During one of the engagements, several militants barricaded themselves in a building on the compound and engaged coalition forces with a high volume of gunfire. Coalition forces used a single grenade which killed the attacking militants," the statement said.

"The building the militants were fighting from collapsed."

After the clash, troops recovered the bodies of a woman and two children from the collapsed building, along with several fighters and their weapons, it said.

It was not possible to verify the multinational-force claims.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said that only three fighters were killed during the battle and 15 other victims were civilians.

Rising toll

Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint in the central Afghan province of Ghazni, killing the officers and wounding two others.

Two Nato soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed in a roadside bomb blast on Monday, close to the Pakistani border, that brought to 11 the number of international soldiers slain in Afghanistan in the past week.

"Two ISAF soldiers were killed in an IED (improvised explosive device) attack. One soldier was wounded," Major Christine Nelson-Chung, International Security Assistance Force spokeswoman, said.

She refused to give further details, including the nationality of the casualties or the location of the blast.

But Farooq Sangari, the deputy provincial police chief of the province of Paktika, said the blast struck a Nato vehicle in Bermal district and that an Afghan interpreter was also killed.

The attack came three days after six Nato troops and two Afghan soldiers were slain in an ambush in northeastern Afghanistan.

Elsewhere in the country, four police officers were killed in an ambush on Sunday.

Rice: U.S., France Seek Iran Sanctions

By DESMOND BUTLER, AP, Washington Post, Sept. 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The United States and France agree on how to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

At a joint news conference Rice gave with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, both officials spoke of the need for new sanctions against Iran.

"I think that there's, essentially, no difference in the way that we see the situation in Iran and what the international community must do," Rice said.

Warm words between the two foreign policy counterparts marked a narrowing of differences since the days that Kouchner's predecessor, Dominique de Villepin, helped block a United Nations resolution sought by the United States on Iraq.

Since taking power in May, Kouchner's boss President Nicolas Sarkozy has set a very different tone of cooperation with the United States than Villepin and former President Jacques Chirac. But Kouchner's visit and France's recent moves on Iran seemed to illustrate that the change was more than tone.

The two countries were preparing the groundwork for a new U.N. Security Council resolution at a meeting in Washington on Friday of political directors from six major nations that have been trying to negotiate with Iran _ Russia, China, Britain and Germany, as well as France and the United States.

Afterward, speaking for the group, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said their discussions were serious and constructive. They will reconvene next Friday in New York, Burns said.

On Friday, Italy also called for sanctions.

"There is still room for a strong initiative that can on one end put pressure through sanctions, even more severe sanctions, and on the other end really offer the possibility for negotiations and agreement," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview on Italian state TV.

The French government's tougher line has brought it closer to the Bush administration, which has made a renewed U.S. push to tighten sanctions.

Rice said that she had also discussed Middle East peace efforts, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Standing next to Rice, Kouchner read a joint statement condemning the murder of Lebanese lawmaker Antoine Ghanem, killed in a powerful bomb blast two days ago. Ghanem, of the right-wing Phalange Party, was the fifth Christian to be killed in a wave of assassinations targeting anti-Syrian personalities.

"What is at stake, today, is the will of the murderers to disrupt the constitutional life of Lebanon, to deprive the Lebanese people and communities of their political rights in the framework of a united, sovereign and democratic Lebanon," Kouchner said.

During his two-day Washington visit, Kouchner has expanded on an earlier recommendation made by his boss, President Sarkozy, for tightening international sanctions against Iran.

Asked what kind of sanctions the United States would like to see through approved by the U.N. Security Council, Rice was vague.

"We have explored and have used various freezes on assets of individuals. We have used visa bans," she said. "I think that there are any number of ways that we can expand those efforts."

Kouchner also addressed his country's recent call for European Union sanctions against Iran. He said that European countries are discussing sanctions that would be targeted against banking and industrial interests in Iran.

In a speech Thursday, Kouchner said that France sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to global security.

"To those who say that we should handle Iran with kid gloves, since it could destabilize the region, I say this: look at its adventurism today and imagine what it would be like if Tehran thought itself one day protected by a nuclear umbrella," he said.

The tougher position has been welcomed in Washington, where Kouchner also met lawmakers, as well as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

In the joint news conference, Rice noted improved relations.

"It's an excellent relationship," she said. "I think there are many, many things that France and the United States are going to be able to do together."

Kouchner agreed, but said differences remain.

"Having good relations doesn't mean that we are in complete agreement every day, everywhere," he said. "But we have excellent relations."