Messages In This Digest (15 Messages)
- 1.
- Pentagon's New Global Military Partner: Sweden From: Rick Rozoff
- 2.
- Afghanistan: NATO Fatalities Continue To Mount From: Rick Rozoff
- 3.
- Protesters Storm NATO Base In Northern Afghanistan From: Rick Rozoff
- 4.
- Pakistan: Five More NATO Tankers Blown Up From: Rick Rozoff
- 5.
- U.S. Troops Fire On Thousands Of Protesters Outside Bagram Base From: Rick Rozoff
- 6.
- Romania Could Seize Moldova, Pull It Into NATO, EU From: Rick Rozoff
- 7.
- Two Spanish Soldiers, Afghan Police Trainee Killed In Shoot-Out From: Rick Rozoff
- 8.
- U.S. Air Force Holds Joint Training In Poland From: Rick Rozoff
- 9.
- Canadian PM "Rallies Troops" For Arctic Drills With NATO Allies From: Rick Rozoff
- 10.
- Polish Troops Wounded By Afghan Shelling From: Rick Rozoff
- 11.
- US: AFRICOM Prepared To Train Somali Army From: Rick Rozoff
- 12.
- Sarkozy: France In Afghanistan "As Long As Necessary" From: Rick Rozoff
- 13.
- $9 Billion F-35 Bidl: Canadian Fighters Drive Off Russian Planes From: Rick Rozoff
- 14.
- Australian Troops To Stay In Afghanistan Past 2014 From: Rick Rozoff
- 15.
- Kosovo Separatists Allot $6 Million To 'Integrate' Serbian North From: Rick Rozoff
Messages
- 1.
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Pentagon's New Global Military Partner: Sweden
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:45 pm (PDT)
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/2380
Stop NATO
August 25, 2010
Pentagon's New Global Military Partner: Sweden
Rick Rozoff
The longest war in U.S. history and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's first armed conflict outside Europe, as well as its first ground war, is nearing the beginning of its tenth year.
Over 120,000 troops are serving under NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in addition to 30,000 under American command, and the Western military bloc recently confirmed that Malaysia has become the 47th official Troop Contributing Nation (TCN) for the war effort.
Never before have forces from so many nations served under a common command in one country, one war theater or one war.
All 28 full NATO member states have supplied soldiers for the campaign, as have over 20 Alliance partners in Europe, the South Caucasus, the South Pacific, Asia, Africa and South America. With the inclusion of contingents deployed and pledged by nations such as Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Colombia and Tonga as well as the 47 official troop contributors, there are military personnel from every populated continent assigned to the West's war in Afghanistan.
European nations that have maintained neutrality since the end of World War Two and in some cases decades and centuries longer have provided NATO with troops for its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Austria, Ireland and Switzerland have sent nominal contingents under Partnership for Peace (PfP) obligations. PfP member Finland has approximately 150 troops attached to NATO's Afghan command and Sweden has 500. The Swedish consignment was until lately the second-largest of all non-NATO member states, only surpassed by Australia until over 750 more U.S. Marine Corps-trained Georgian troops arrived in the South Asian nation in April. (Last month Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili said that the 1,000 total troops he deployed were matriculated in the "school of Afghan warfare" for use in future conflicts like those of the five-day Georgian-Russian war of two years ago.)
The main function of the Partnership for Peace program - whose name is counterintuitive, Orwellian and blasphemous given the fact it has graduated 12 Eastern European nations into full membership in the world's only military bloc and prepared them for deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq - is to integrate nations in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia for NATO operations abroad. The major beneficiary of that process is the Pentagon.
Over twenty nations currently in that category are having their armed forces, military doctrines, weapons arsenals and foreign policy orientation transformed for interoperability with the Western alliance and in particular its leading member, the United States.
The PfP is training the armies of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Austria, Bosnia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Macedonia, Montenegro and Sweden for the war in Afghanistan and, complementarily, is employing the war there to provide the militaries of those states combat experience and to build a globally deployable force for future NATO operations, including ones nearer the respective nations' borders. [1] Other components of the strategy include conducting ever more frequent and large-scale war games and other combat training in partnership nations with Afghanistan the immediate battlefield destination but with general applicability for other locations, and expanding the arsenals of PfP states with - NATO interoperable - unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters, advanced warplanes and other engines of war.
Al Burke and his dedicated colleagues with the Stop the Furtive Accession to NATO initiative in Sweden are conducting a tireless campaign to sound the alarm over the surreptitious and accelerating drive to integrate the nation into NATO's - and the Pentagon's - global military sphere. [2]
For over a year Swedish troops in charge of ISAF operations in four northern Afghan provinces have been engaged in regular firefights, the first combat operations the nation has conducted in almost two hundred years. Two Swedish officers were killed in February, the first troops killed in an exchange of fire with Afghan rebels.
On July 1 the Swedish government ended 109 years of conscription and made the country's armed force entirely voluntary; that is, Stockholm - to use the approved term - professionalized the military according to NATO standards and demands.
As a result, "All Swedish soldiers will in future be liable to be sent abroad on missions against their will. Any soldiers who refuse could lose their jobs...." [3]
The four unions representing the nation's military personnel are all opposed to the compulsory overseas deployment provision.
As a press agency reported on the day of the announcement, "At the same time, it was decided to loosen the country's traditionally strict neutrality to allow participation in more international military operations, like the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan." [4]
Last year Sweden hosted the ten-day Loyal Arrow 2009 NATO military exercise in its north. The war games consisted in part of "the biggest air force drill ever in the Finnish-Swedish Bothnia Bay" [5] and included the participation of 2,000 troops from ten nations, 50 warplanes and a British aircraft carrier. An account of it stated, "The exercise is based upon a fictitious scenario. Within this scenario, elements of the NATO Response Force (NRF)...will be deployed to a theatre of operations." [6] The allegedly fictitious situation in question was one which could well be applied in the Baltic nations of Estonia and Latvia, the South Caucasus, Transdniester and other locations where NATO forces and war machinery could come into direct contact with their Russian opposite numbers.
Late this May NATO's top military commander made a tour of inspection to Sweden, commending its government for deploying and maintaining 500 troops in Afghanistan. American Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, visited the country on the invitation of the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, Sverker Goranson. He also consulted with the State Secretary to the Prime Minister, Gustav Lind, and the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Frank Belfrage. [7]
A few days later several special representatives from "NATO Partner Nations Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland," among them Veronika Wand-Danielsson, ambassador of Sweden to NATO, met with French Air Force General Stephane Abrial, commander of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) at the latter's headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia.
The European envoys "were also briefed by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice of U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) on that command's mission and on the achievements and future of the ACT-USJFCOM cooperation." [8]
NATO is and has always been designed to recruit nations into a military bloc so the Pentagon can integrate them into its own network as well. Where NATO advances, U.S. troops and bases follow, as with Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland where Washington has acquired air, training, interceptor missile and strategic airlift bases over the past five years.
In June Swedish troops were among 3,000 from 12 countries participating in the annual U.S.-led Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) NATO Partnership for Peace maneuvers, "the largest multinational naval exercise in the Baltic
Sea," [9] which included 500 U.S. Marines, 130 of whom stormed a beach in Estonia, the U.S. Marine Corps' "first amphibious landing exercise in a territory that was once part of the Soviet Union," [10] 90 miles from the Russian border.
At the same time United States Air Forces in Europe launched this year's Unified Engagement "wargame designed to explore future joint warfare concepts and capabilities" [11] in Estonia. Last year's version was conducted in Sweden.
The American delegation was led by the commander of United States Air Forces in Europe, General Roger Brady, and worked with "counterparts from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden to strengthen relationships, and improve interoperability and future cooperation." [12]
The United States Air Forces in Europe website described the event as a "transformation war game to explore future combined warfighting concepts and capabilities."
According to Brady, "Because of training seminars like Unified Engagement, the U.S. Air Force and our partners worldwide are better prepared for future operational challenges." [13]
In mid-June it was announced that "Swedish armed forces operating in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will be equipped with their first tactical UAV capability since deploying into theatre...."
Shadow 200 unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) systems, "Already operated by the US Army and Marine Corps in Afghanistan and Iraq," will be deployed by the Swedish air force within months. [14]
During the same week the Finnish government announced it was presenting a proposal to the nation's parliament to join the NATO Response Force, following up on a decision of three years ago to do so "as part of a joint decision and simultaneous membership with Sweden." [15]
The U.S. led the annual NATO Partnership for Peace Sea Breeze multinational military exercises in Ukraine in the first half of July - in the Crimea, near the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol - with Alliance members and partners Sweden, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine.
In late July and early August the U.S. 555th Fighter Squadron with 250 airmen spent two weeks in Sweden conducting air-to-air and air-to-ground exercises with the host country's air force during which "the U.S. Air Force worked side-by-side with their Swedish allies both in the skies and on the ground conducting more than 180 flying missions that tested their air combat capabilities as well as their precision weapons scoring...."
The deputy commander of the participating Swedish unit, Övlt (Lieutenant Colonel) Harri Larsson, stated on the occasion: "We really appreciate working with the U.S. Air Force because it gives us dimension...training with someone else, other equipment, other tactics, working in the English language, which is not our native language....I believe it gives us a lot of good experience which we can use in the future."
He added that the air combat exercises were important for integrating the warfighting capabilities of his nation's Gripen pilots with U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon counterparts. "They can improve their training and we become more interoperable."
Larsson also revealed the purpose behind the joint maneuvers: "Our government wants us to become more flexible and be able to, on a short notice, go abroad. (Therefore), we need to work with other countries, especially the U.S. (as) the U.S. is the biggest contributor to NATO and the UN. [F]rom our point of view it's necessary to work with the U.S."
As the American squadron returned to the Aviano Air Base in Italy, Övlt Larsson said "the F 21 Wing hopes to host its American allies again in the near future." [16] The F 21 Wing, also known as the Norrbotten Air Force Wing, hosted the fifty NATO warplanes used in last year's Loyal Arrow war games.
Last week the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead arrived in Sweden to inspect some of the country's warships and a submarine and meet with his counterpart Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad to "discuss present and future operations between the two navies in the region and around the globe." [17]
Sweden's top military commander, General Sverker Goranson, was at the Pentagon on August 5 to meet with Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Goranson had earlier studied at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and served as military attache in the United States.
With eleven years of NATO expansion and the Alliance's transformation into the world's first internationally-oriented military bloc, no nation in Europe is permitted to be neutral and none can avoid involvement in military missions, including wars, abroad. Sweden is no exception, having joined scores of other previously non-aligned nations around the world in being pulled into the Pentagon's orbit in the post-Cold War period.
To illustrate how widely the network has expanded, on July 16 military officers from 63 nations enrolled at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College - Swedish military chief Goranson's alma mater - visited state officials in Topeka, Kansas.
The officers were from Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia, Botswana, Britain, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda and Ukraine. [18]
Related articles:
End of Scandinavian Neutrality: NATO's Militarization Of Europe
Stop NATO, April 10, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/end-of-scandinavian-neutrality-natos-militarization-of-europe
Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO's War Plans For The High North
June 14, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north
Afghan War: NATO Trains Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia
July 26, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-trains-finland-sweden-for-conflict-with-russia
1) Afghan War: NATO Builds History's First Global Army
Stop NATO, August 9, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-builds-historys-first-global-army
2) Stop the Furtive Accession to NATO
http://www.stoppanato.se/english/proposal.htm
http://www.stoppanato.se/english/guides.htm
3) The Local (Sweden), July 13, 2010
4) Agence France-Presse, July 1, 2010
5) Barents Observer, June 8, 2009
6) Allied Air Component Command HQ Ramstein, April 9, 2009
7) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
May 12, 2010
8) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Transformation
May 21, 2010
9) U.S. European Command, June 7, 2010
10) Associated Press, June 15, 2010
11) Russian Information Agency Novosti, June 7, 2010
12) United States Air Forces in Europe, June 8, 2010
13) Ibid
14) Shephard Group, June 16, 2010
15) Defense News, June 16, 2010
16) United States Air Forces in Europe, August 13, 2010
17) Navy NewsStand, August 24, 2010
18) The Capital-Journal, July 16, 2010
===========================
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- 2.
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Afghanistan: NATO Fatalities Continue To Mount
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:48 pm (PDT)
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1401924&SM=1
RTT News
August 25, 2010
Australian Soldier Killed In Afghanistan
An Australian soldier, serving as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), was shot dead by Taliban militants in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
A statement from the family of Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney, issued by Defense, said he died in a firefight while on patrol....
Australia's armed forces chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said MacKinney was on a joint foot patrol with Afghan troops through the green zone in a city in the southern province of Uruzgan when militants attacked them.
His death raises the number of Australian military casualties in Afghanistan to 21 and take ISAF casualties this year to 457, and in August to 45, indicating that 2010 is going to be the deadliest year for foreign forces since they began anti-Taliban operations in 2001.
Australia is the largest contributor - among non-NATO members -to the ISAF, with 1,550 troops currently deployed in Uruzgan.
June has been one of the worst periods for international troops in the nearly nine-year-old war with 57 casualties including 35 Americans.
===========================
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- 3.
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Protesters Storm NATO Base In Northern Afghanistan
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:48 pm (PDT)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3943585,00.html
Reuters
August 25, 2010
Protesters try to storm NATO base in Afghan north
Thousands of Afghans tried to storm a NATO-led base in northwestern Afghanistan on Wednesday after allegations a member of the foreign force had shot and killed an Afghan soldier, residents said.
Few details about the initial shooting were available but residents said protesters had set fire to one part of the base run by Spanish troops in Qalay-e Naw, the provincial capital of Badghis province near the border with Turkmenistan.
===========================
Stop NATO
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- 4.
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Pakistan: Five More NATO Tankers Blown Up
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:48 pm (PDT)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C08%5C25%5Cstory_25-8-2010_pg7_9
Daily Times
August 25, 2010
5 more NATO tankers blown up at Torkham
LANDIKOTAL: Five NATO oil-supply tankers were blown up at the Torkham border on Tuesday.
On the second consecutive day, in a parking lot at the Torkham border, five oil tankers carrying fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan were blown up by a bomb fixed to one of them.
The rest of the tankers caught fire and were burnt totally. No casualties were reported until the filing of this report.
More than 150 Afghanistan-bound oil tankers had been parked near the Torkham border for customs clearance on Tuesday when a powerful bomb went off in one of the tankers, turning four more into ashes, a Khasadar Force official said.
===========================
Stop NATO
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- 5.
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U.S. Troops Fire On Thousands Of Protesters Outside Bagram Base
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:48 pm (PDT)
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/94442
Morning Star (Britain)
August 24, 2010
US fires on civilian Bagram protest
Tom Mellen Printable
US troops fired on thousands of Afghan civilians as they protested outside the massive US military base at Bagram on Monday.
A provincial police official said that at least one civilian was killed in the incident, but Nato asserted that no civilians had been killed or injured.
The Western military alliance claimed that soldiers had only fired "warning shots" to disperse residents after they surrounded a military patrol and attacked vehicles outside the sprawling facility with rocks and iron bars.
But Parwan province deputy police chief General Faqir Ahmad was adamant that one civilian had been killed - although he said he could not be sure who fired the fatal bullet.
Gen Ahmad said that the Nato shooting had served to enrage the crowd, which he put at about 2,000 people.
He said that some responded by using rocks and sticks to attack police and the head of the district government, Kabir Ahmad, who had tried to calm the situation.
He reported that Mr Ahmad and a police officer had sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries.
Gen Ahmad went on to say that the rally had been triggered by the arrest of a religious teacher suspected of taking part in a rocket attack on occupation forces.
Also on Monday, officials and residents of Baghlan province in the north of the country accused Nato troops of killing eight civilians during a pre-dawn raid.
Mohammed Ismail, the governor of the Talah wa Barfak District, said that foreign troops broke into a district house at 2am and killed eight civilians, injured 12 and took nine prisoners.
The province's governor Munchi Abdul Majid confirmed the attack but could not provide details.
Nato spokesman Major Michael Johnson said that he was unaware of any such attack.
Meanwhile the Taliban has reportedly attacked and torched a Nato convoy carrying fuel and materiel to US troops in the south.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack on the lorries destined for Helmand and alleged that the assault prompted US forces to evacuate their military base in Sangin.
Nato denied the Taliban's claims and boasted that US-led troops had killed 40 militants in offensives this week in eastern Afghanistan.
Monday's clash between locals and occupation forces outside the Bagram base is the second such incident in 10 days.
On August 15 hundreds of residents participated in a militant demonstration in protest at the construction of military facilities on land owned by villagers.
Protesters threw "baseball-size rocks" at troops as they escorted a mercenary to the base, according to Nato.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato
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- 6.
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Romania Could Seize Moldova, Pull It Into NATO, EU
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:48 pm (PDT)
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=185053
Interfax
August 25, 2010
Merger of Moldova and Romania impossible - historians
CHISINAU: The idea of merging Moldova and Romania is hardly realistic, Russian and Moldovan historians have said.
Such a merger is impossible because Romania is a member of the European Union, Alexander Dyukov, director of the Historic Memory foundation, said during a Chisinau-Moscow TV link-up on Wednesday.
"It [Romania] has certain borders established by international treaties. So does Moldova. Even the Romanian side has not been speaking about Moldova's merger with Romania. What they have mentioned is the prospects for Moldova's admission to the EU and NATO," Dyukov said.
"No one on both banks of the Prut River" will allow this unification to happen, Roman Tomberg, an expert of the Strategic Culture Foundation, said.
"I would not describe it as a merger. Rather, it would be a takeover of Moldova by Romania. This will not happen thanks to the sensible norms and restrictions of the EU," Tomberg said.
The expert, however, said he fears that the Moldovan authorities could strengthen their anti-Russian policy.
"I doubt that it will benefit the Moldovan people. The wine embargo has already delivered a serious blow to production. People have not been receiving wages. If this situation continues, Moldovan goods will quit the Russian market forever, which will affect mainly the population. We hope that cooperation between Russia and Moldova will remain de facto as it is today," he said.
"Attempts to use history to deceive people and manipulate society in order to impose decisions on them capable of making the socioeconomic situation even worse" are outrageous, said Yury Nikiforov, a senior researcher at the History of Wars and Conflicts Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Sergiu Nazaria, chairman of the ProMoldova Association of Historians and Political Scientists, said that 96% of Moldovan citizens who took part in a consultative referendum in 1995 wanted Moldova to remain an independent state.
===========================
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- 7.
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Two Spanish Soldiers, Afghan Police Trainee Killed In Shoot-Out
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:53 pm (PDT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
New York Times
August 25, 2010
Afghan Police Trainee Kills Two Spanish Soldiers
By ROD NORDLAND
KABUL, Afghanistan: An argument at a police training camp on Wednesday ended in gunfire, with an Afghan trainee apparently shooting two Spanish soldiers to death before he was shot and killed himself, according to Afghan and NATO authorities.
The incident set off an angry demonstration by several hundred villagers who tried to storm the Spanish-run Provincial Reconstruction Team training center in Badghis Province, Afghan police officials said.
It was the latest in a series of such attacks by Afghan security forces on their NATO allies. On July 13, an Afghan soldier killed three British soldiers and wounded six others during a joint patrol in the Nad Ali District of Helmand Province.
The Spanish interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said in a radio interview Wednesday that an Afghan policeman shot his instructors during a class, killing two Guardia Civil officers and an Afghan interpreter who held Spanish citizenship. Spanish police officers then returned fire, killing the assailant, he said.
However, Sharafuddin Majidi, a spokesman for the governor of Badghis Province, said an argument began when an Afghan policeman tried to gain entry to the base and was blocked by Spanish sentries because he refused to turn in his weapon. Instead, the policeman opened fire, killing two Spaniards and their interpreter, Mr. Majidi said. The Afghan policeman was shot to death by other Spanish personnel at the scene, he said.
NATO's international force in Kabul said in a statement that two of its personnel members and a civilian were killed along with the Afghan policeman. The international force said the incident took place during "a mentoring session," but that "at this point the cause of the shooting is unclear."
Mr. Majidi said that Afghan authorities brought the ensuing demonstration under control and prevented the crowd from entering the Provincial Reconstruction Team's base. There are reconstruction teams in every Afghan province, and in relatively peaceful areas of the country such as Badghis Province, they are staffed by European coalition partners.
Mr. Pérez Rubalcaba, the Spanish interior minister, condemned the latest killings, which bring to 92 the number of Spanish casualties in Afghanistan.
....
Last November, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers in Helmand Province, in an apparently unprovoked attack while they were resting. And a month before that, another Afghan policeman ambushed and killed two American soldiers in Wardak Province.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Raphael Minder from Madrid.
===========================
Stop NATO
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- 8.
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U.S. Air Force Holds Joint Training In Poland
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:29 pm (PDT)
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123219122
U.S. Air Force
August 25, 2010
Ramstein Airmen train with sister wing in Poland
by Staff Sgt. Jocelyn Rich
86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
POWIDZ, Poland: Airmen from the 86th Airlift Wing and 435th Contingency Response Group at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, traveled to the 33rd Air Base here Aug. 13 through 19 for combined training with Polish military forces.
Operation Screaming Eagle, the weeklong off-site training, aimed at sharing knowledge, strengthening bonds and building partnerships between the two units.
This was the first off-site training since members of the Polish air force's 3rd Airlift Wing and Airmen from the 86th AW and 435th Air Ground Operations Wing formalized their sister-wing relationship earlier this year.
....
The training included various jump training scenarios and accomplished semi-annual flying requirements for the 37th AS Airmen. Some of the scenarios included high altitude low opening jumps; freefall paratrooper support for the Polish Operational Mobile Reaction Group and training Polish riggers how to properly assemble container delivery systems.
More than 180 HALO drops were completed successfully as well as completion of important night flying requirements for aircrew -- a training scenario that's difficult to accomplish at Ramstein AB due to the quiet hour rules.
The training also allowed a chance for members of the Polish air force to receive incentive flights on a C-130J Super Hercules.
....
Polish airmen received the first of five refurbished C-130E Hercules military transport planes in early 2009....
===========================
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- 9.
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Canadian PM "Rallies Troops" For Arctic Drills With NATO Allies
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:29 pm (PDT)
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/harper-rallies-troops-participating-in-northern-military-exercise-101483319.html
Canadian Press
August 25, 2010
Harper rallies troops participating in northern military exercise
By: Stephanie Levitz
-About 1,500 personnel, mostly from Canada but also from Denmark and the United States, are engaged in land, sea and air exercises for most of the month of August.
RESOLUTE, Nunavut - For navy diver Leading Seaman Dierdre Doiron, water is water.
It doesn't make much difference to the Prince Edward Island native whether she's going under outside Halifax or in the waters of Allen Bay in Resolute.
But everything else about participating in the military's annual northern exercise is different, and that's why it matters, she said.
....
As climate change opens up more space in the North, the troops are moving father up. This year's Operation Nanook is the farthest north they have trained.
About 1,500 personnel, mostly from Canada but also from Denmark and the United States, are engaged in land, sea and air exercises for most of the month of August.
"To operate in the North is tougher than operating in Afghanistan from a logistics standpoint, because you are so far away from all the services," said Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk, who was also on the ground for the prime minister's visit.
While the soldiers from all three countries are working alongside one another, their governments are engaged in a different kind of work around boardroom tables — negotiating who owns what in the increasingly in-demand Arctic waters.
....
The Harper government has pledged to significantly boost that capacity, adding new patrol boats and an icebreaker to assist northern operations.
"We live in a time of renewed foreign interest in Canada's Arctic," Harper told a few hundred people assembled in an aircraft hangar.
"With foreign aircraft probing the skies, vessels plying northern waters and the eyes of the world gazing our way, we must remain vigilant."
His speech came a day after Russian military aircraft flew within 30 nautical miles of Canada's northern border, a routine occurrence.
On Wednesday, Harper also reaffirmed the government's budget commitment of last March to the next generation of satellites, known as the Radarsat Constellation Mission.
Close to $500 million is being spent on the program, which allows the monitoring of land and navigation routes in the North.
....
===========================
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- 10.
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Polish Troops Wounded By Afghan Shelling
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:29 pm (PDT)
http://www.thenews.pl/international/artykul138385_polish-soldiers-wounded-in-afghan-insurgent-attack.html
Polish Radio
August 25, 2010
Polish soldiers wounded in Afghan insurgent attack
Two Polish soldiers serving in the ISAF mission were wounded in Afghanistan this morning when their convoy was shelled by insurgents.
The attack occurred at 07.25 CET (09.55 local Afghani time) as a logistics convoy was heading to the Four Corners base in Ghazni province, south east Afghanistan. Polish troops responded with return fire.
A rapid reaction force was immediately sent to the area along with two medical helicopters and troops from the Afghan army, a Polish armed forces spokesman told the PAP news agency.
The wounded soldiers were transported to a military hospital where there condition is being monitored by medical staff.
Poland has approximately 2,500 troops currently stationed in Afghanistan.
===========================
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- 11.
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US: AFRICOM Prepared To Train Somali Army
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:35 pm (PDT)
http://www.stripes.com/news/africom-prepared-to-train-somali-troops-if-called-upon-general-says-1.115944
Stars and Stripes
August 25, 2010
AFRICOM prepared to train Somali troops if called upon, general says
By John Vandiver
STUTTGART, Germany: As Islamic militants stepped up their assault on the U.S.-backed government in Somalia this week, U.S. Africa Command's top officer said he is prepared, if called upon, to lend more support to the embattled Somali military.
....
The surge in violence, denounced Tuesday by White House officials, comes at a time when the U.S. is looking for ways to beef up aid to Somalia's fragile Transitional Federal Government and curb the growing influence of Islamic militants.
AFRICOM provides training to some African Union forces who deploy to Somalia as part of a peacekeeping force that defends Somalia's weak government from being toppled. However, Gen. William "Kip" Ward said AFRICOM also is prepared to provide that training directly to Somali troops.
"To the degree that the Transitional Federal Government and its military structure requires and asks for that same thing, we are prepared to do that," Ward said during an interview Monday at his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. That decision would have to be made by the White House, not AFRICOM, he said.
The U.S. has stopped short of directly training Somali forces, opting instead to work with Ugandan and Burundian troops. AFRICOM could lend support to Somali troops....
"We are prepared to do all of that given it's aligned with our overall policy and strategy," said Ward, who added that the U.S. policy on Somalia is under review in Washington.
....
Despite the deployment of about 6,000 African Union troops to Somalia, al-Shabab continues to occupy more and more territory within the country, which has not had a functioning government for two decades.
....
===========================
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- 12.
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Sarkozy: France In Afghanistan "As Long As Necessary"
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:09 pm (PDT)
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4756854&c=EUR&s=TOP
Agence France-Presse
August 25, 2010
France in Afghanistan 'As Long As Necessary'
PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy declared on Aug. 25 that French forces will remain in Afghanistan for as long as they are needed there and enjoy the support of the Afghan people.
Two French soldiers were killed this week and Sarkozy faces mounting calls for France's 3,750 troops to begin withdrawing from a conflict that has cost 47 of them their lives and shows no sign of coming to an end.
"France will remain engaged in Afghanistan, with its allies, for as long as necessary and for as long as the Afghan people wish," he said, in his annual foreign policy address to France's ambassadors around the world.
"Our actions in the cause of peace can not be subject to artificial calendars and the mood of the media," he insisted.
France's contingent is part of the US-led NATO coalition army battling the Taliban and other rebel groups and training Afghan security forces to eventually take the lead.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said U.S. troop numbers will begin to come down from next year, but his commanders on the ground have cautioned that withdrawal will be slow and subject to conditions on the battlefield.
===========================
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- 13.
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$9 Billion F-35 Bidl: Canadian Fighters Drive Off Russian Planes
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:30 pm (PDT)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/25/c_13461875.htm
Xinhua News Agency
August 25, 2010
Canadian CF-18 fighters drive off 2 Russian TU-95 aircraft
-Soudas also reaffirmed the Canadian government's commitment to replacing the CF-18 fleet after its retirement with new, highly capable and technologically-advanced F-35.
CHURCHILL, Canada: A senior Canadian official said on Wednesday that two CF-18 Hornet fighters of Canada had driven off two Russian Tu-95 Bear aircraft 30 nautical miles away from Canadian soil.
Dimitri Soudas, press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the two CF-18 Hornet fighters visually identified the two Russian aircraft approximately 120 nautical miles north of Inuvik in Northwest Territories on Tuesday.
"At their closest point, the Russian aircraft were 30 nautical miles from Canadian soil," he said in a news release. "The CF-18s shadowed the Bear aircraft until they turned around. The two CF-18s came from 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta."
Soudas said the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) carefully monitors all air activities and considers all options to protect the air sovereignty of Canada and the United States.
Soudas also reaffirmed the Canadian government's commitment to replacing the CF-18 fleet after its retirement with new, highly capable and technologically-advanced F-35.
===========================
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- 14.
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Australian Troops To Stay In Afghanistan Past 2014
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:30 pm (PDT)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/26/c_13463071.htm
Xinhua News Agency
August 26, 2010
Australian troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014
CANBERRA: Australian troops are likely to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, defense force head Angus Houston said on Thursday.
While the mission to train Afghan army and police in the Uruzgan province will take two to four years, Australian soldiers will remain there past that time, he said.
"We will still be there supporting them beyond the two to four years, for a period of time," Air Chief Marshal Houston told ABC Radio on Thursday.
Senator Houston is aware of polls showing a large number of people are concerned about Australia's involvement in Afghanistan.
....
Since 2001, 21 Australian troops have been killed in action in Afghanistan, with 149 wounded.
==========================
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- 15.
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Kosovo Separatists Allot $6 Million To 'Integrate' Serbian North
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff
Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:37 pm (PDT)
http://en.rian.ru/world/20100826/160343488.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
August 26, 2010
Kosovo allocates $6 mln to "integrate" Serb-populated north
Sarajevo: The government of Kosovo, Serbia's ethnic-Albanian-dominated province which unilaterally declared its independence in 2008, said it would allocate five million euros ($6.3 million) for the "integration" of Serb-populated north.
Kosovo's three northernmost municipalities, Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok, plus a relatively small portion of Kosovska Mitrovica constitute Northern Kosovo, an area populated mainly by ethnic Serbs, which functions autonomously from Pristina. The regions' administrative bodies are elected according to Serbian law and financed by Belgrade.
"The money will be used to integrate the north and implement state projects in this part of the country," Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was quoted as saying by the public service broadcaster RTK.
The premier announced on August 15 his plans to build 200 new houses in Kosovska Mitrovica to make it "a fully united and integrated town."
Kosovska Mitrovica has been one of Kosovo's most troubled areas, with numerous ethnic clashes and riots reported in the past years.
Belgrade has repeatedly condemned Kosovo's plans to get Serb-populated areas under its control.
Leaders of Kosovo Serbs have not yet commented on the move.
A total of 69 out of 192 UN member states have recognized Kosovo, which unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in February 2008. Serbia, Russia, China, India and some other countries have not recognized it, saying international law was violated.
===========================
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