Defense & Security Archive

MOSCOW — On Dec. 14, President Vladimir Putin flew by helicopter to personally inspect Russia’s first Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) unit equipped with the new mobile Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Three mobile Topol-Ms entered into operational deployment with the SMF division based in the town of Teikovo, about 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on Dec. 10. Russia’s political and military leaders have long awaited the coming of the road-mobile Topol-M. The Votkinsk Machine-Building Plant manufactures both silo-based and road-mobile versions of the missile. Russia began deploying silo-based versions of the Topol-Ms in 1997 and now has about 45 of […]

BRADFORD, England — Fogbound airports, a Christmas shopping frenzy and sordid headlines about a serial prostitute strangler conspired to blur the disclosure in Britain that a Somali man wanted over the murder of a police officer escaped the country disguised as a veiled Muslim woman. To the comfort of the London government and immigration authorities, national preoccupation with seasonal festivities has failed to trigger the level of controversy that ensued when a Muslim woman recently lost her job for refusing to remove her veil while working in a junior school. And yet the improbable masked escape of the wanted man […]

Iraqi Shiite politicians and religious leaders are meeting in Najaf this weekend in the hope of overcoming factional differences and reaching agreement on at least a temporary halt in violence by their militias. The key figure in the negotiations is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the influential Shiite spiritual leader who lives in Najaf and who was recently reported to be furious with the record levels of attacks by Shiite Muslim militia and Sunni insurgents. Sistani, who hardly ever makes public pronouncements, was recently reported as calling for a joint effort by Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds to halt Iraq’s sectarian strife. […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Three years after the African Union began planning to establish a robust African Standby Force for peacekeeping missions, progress continues despite funding challenges and the reality check of a difficult AU peacekeeping mission in Sudan. The AU peacekeeping mission deployed in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region has failed to prevent violence against civilians, and that conflict has now spread into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. The dilemma facing Gen. Luke Afrazi, the Nigerian commander of African peacekeepers in Darfur, highlights the resource demands placed on peacekeeping missions. Afrazi has watched from the sidelines as Sudanese militias, […]

Angarsk, a city of about 270,000 in southeastern Siberia, is the home of the Angarsk Electrolyzing and Chemical Combine, a plant created to enrich uranium for the Soviet nuclear program. Throughout its history, the plant has been a restricted area — closed to all foreign visitors. On Nov. 28, 2006, however, the state-funded Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian government has decided to remove the Angarsk plant from its list of restricted areas. Soon, according to the report, Angarsk will become the site of the world’s first “international uranium enrichment center” (IUEC). Enriched uranium fuel is required by […]

Kenyans heaved a collective sigh of relief this month following President Mwai Kibaki’s rejection of a huge pay raise given to him by the country’s sleaze-ridden parliament. Kibaki, the country’s third president, caved in to public pressure Dec. 13 and declined a hefty salary increase that would have netted him more than $44,000 a month. But Kenyans remain suspicious of their corrupt politicians, always scheming to rob the public purse. The country has reportedly lost over $1 billion — nearly a fifth of its state budget — to corruption since Kibaki took office in 2002. Elected on an anti-corruption ticket […]

On Dec. 18, President George Bush signed into law the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act (H.R. 5682). On Dec. 13, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang had resolved months of ambiguity by indicating Beijing’s acceptance of the proposed U.S.-Indian nuclear deal. In response to a question about the proposed legislation, Qin Gang said: “We consider the cooperation between countries to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will be beneficial to maintain the principles and effectiveness of international nuclear nonproliferation.” U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Singh announced in July 2005 they would pursue a bilateral […]

DAMACUS, Syria — The Iraq Study Group report said what Damascus wanted to hear about the urgency for a change of U.S. policy in Iraq and the need to engage both Damascus and Tehran in Iraqi affairs to minimize, if not end, the rising sectarian violence. Speaking to Al-Jazeera television recently, Buthaina Shaaban, Syria’s minister of expatriate affairs, said that the report was a “very important step because it means ending this era of American meddling in the region and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.” Damascus has long objected to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, and it has […]

WASHINGTON — Developments in Baghdad are not waiting for President Bush to end his elaborate round of consultations on what to do next in Iraq. The White House now says it will reveal its revised Iraq strategy in the new year. But on Saturday, the Iraqis are scheduled to hold an all-party reconciliation conference in an attempt to unravel the skein of crisis and violence that has brought the country to a state of virtual civil war. Sources in Iraq said the much-postponed conference, now brought forward from its tentative date in early January, is not likely to be put […]

EASTERN SHAN STATE, Myanmar — The divide and conquer tactics employed by Myanmar’s ruling military junta to reign in ethnic insurgent militias on the Sino-Myanmar border have further agitated delicate ceasefire agreements with the formerly China-backed rebel groups. Escalating tensions with the junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), have prompted the largest of these players, the 20,000 strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), to re-supply its forces and bolster defenses in an apparent bid to deter a Myanmar Armed Forces attack on their largely autonomous enclave in Myanmar’s Eastern Shan State, dubbed Special Region 2. Since […]

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski has a dirty little secret. He was a Soviet military intelligence agent beginning in 1946. History buffs recall that Jaruzelski enjoyed a stellar career in Soviet-occupied Poland. He was once the youngest Communist general in Poland; the Minister of Defense; the Commander in Chief of Poland’s Communist armed forces; the Prime Minister; and the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Jaruzelski occupied most of those posts simultaneously. One usually remembers him simply as the military strongman who, to crush “Solidarity,” imposed martial law in December 1981 and, thus, ended Poland’s bid for freedom. He was greatly vilified […]

Last week’s confirmation hearing for soon-to-be Secretary of Defense Bob Gates was as much political theater as a serious inquiry. Predictably, many of the questions that came Gates’ way involved the war in Iraq. Democrats and Republicans alike expect that he will bring a fresh outlook to the nation’s problems there. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) cut to the root of the issue by asking Gates if he “was going to be an independent” voice of counsel to the President — an obvious reference to the close relationship between President Bush and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Without hesitation Gates responded that […]

ON THE BOUAKE-YAMOUSSOUKRO ROAD, Ivory Coast — For the passengers on this bus, the trip started encroaching upon its fifth hour. Most had abandoned rebel-held Bouake, headquarters of the New Forces, for the bright lights of Abidjan, where they had families and business. But their bus had been stopped before Yamoussoukro, the Ivorian capital. Armed government customs agents ordered the driver and his crew to unload all the baggage from the bus, where it could be opened and inspected for possible infractions. Few, if any, were found. The bus driver, his shirt stained with sweat, somewhat shrugged off the delay. […]

Things just got worse for Halima, a displaced woman I found nursing burns from a militia attack in Darfur six months ago. Security is at a premium for war-scarred Halima and tens of thousands of other refugees hunkering down in squalid camps studded across war-torn Darfur in western Sudan. Just days after the African Union extended its limp mandate in the blood-soaked region unil mid-2007, its poorly equipped troops — deployed to protect Halima and others — are now running scared. They could be attacked anytime by Khartoum-sponsored Arab militias, the “Janjaweed,” or bands of quicksilver rebels, the other side […]

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast — Officially, Ibrahim Ouattara, 32, is a nonentity in his country of birth. He has neither a passport nor an identification card to prove his citizenship. Should the resident of this central rebel-held city wish to change his status, Ouattara said he faces a Kafkaesque struggle because no one can apply for their identity papers outside of their town of residence. That requires all the paperwork to be sent to Abidjan, more than 300 kilometers away. There, he said, the bureaucracy inevitably leaves one item behind before sending it on for processing to another town where the […]

The German government recently completed its first major defense review in twelve years. The “White Paper 2006 on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr” stresses the German government’s commitment to work with the United States, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other “networked security structures” to promote international peace and stability. In particular, the document highlights Germany’s role in helping solve a “broad” (i.e., predominately non-military) range of security challenges outside the North Atlantic area.<<ad>>Despite its bold vision and comprehensive assessment, the White Paper fails to resolve three major problems that constrain Germany’s […]

Pierre Heumann of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche spoke with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh in Doha. This revealing interview appears here in English for the first time. -o- Mr. Sheikh, as the Editor in Chief of Al-Jazeera, you are one of the most important opinion-makers in the Arab world. What do you call suicide bombers? For what is happening in Palestine, we never use the expression “suicide bombing.” What do you call it then? In English, I would describe it as “bombings.” And in Arabic? Literally translated, we would speak of “commando attacks.” In our culture, it is precisely not […]