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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel OKs suspension of aerial activity

2006-07-30

Israel has agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity in south Lebanon while it investigates an attack on a Lebanese village that killed a number of children, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Sunday. The airstrike killed at least 56 Lebanese, mostly women and children, when it leveled a building where they had taken shelter. The deadliest attack in nearly three weeks of warfare forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cut short a Mideast mission and increased world pressure on the United States to back an end to the fighting. The stunning bloodshed pushed American peace efforts to a crucial juncture, as fury at the United States flared in Lebanon, which said it no longer would negotiate a U.S. peace package without an unconditional cease-fire. U.N. chief Kofi Annan sharply criticized world leaders - implicitly Washington - for ignoring his previous calls to stop the violence.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Rice to return to Mideast to work on cease-fire

2006-07-29

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will return to the Middle East this weekend to work with others on trying to bring an end to the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting. President Bush, holding a news conference in Washington Friday with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced Rice's return to the region she visited just a week ago amid escalating violence. Earlier, Rice's spokesman, Adam Ereli, took strong issue with an assertion by Israel's Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who said the failure of world leaders to call for an immediate cease-fire at a summit in Rome gave Israel a green light to carry on with its campaign to crush Hezbollah. “Any such statement is outrageous,” Ereli said. “The United States is sparing no effort to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict.” Rice also said: “I think everybody in Rome agreed that we can't return to the circumstances that led us to this in the first place.” The United States, adopting a diplomatic stance that has not been embraced by allies, has been insisting that any cease-fire to the violence over the last three weeks must come with conditions to address long-standing regional disputes. That, she has said, will ensure a durable solution. Nearly every U.S. ally has called for a quick truce to end the bloodshed and efforts to smooth needed humanitarian supplies to the Lebanese. They believe the difficult work solving of old grievances between Hezbollah and Israel can come later.

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Iraq

U.S. puts $5 million bounty on Al-Masri

2006-07-02

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday approved up to $5 million in exchange for information on Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the new face of al-Qaida in Iraq. Al-Masri is presumed to be the successor of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by an American bomb in early June. Al-Masri is an Egyptian explosives expert who trained in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan and was an associate of al-Zarqawi. Al-Masri has been fighting in Iraq since at least 2003 and was engaged in the battle of Fallujah in 2004. Rice's agency is offering the money to encourage people with information about al-Masri's location to come forward, said spokesman Adam Ereli.

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Europe

U.S., NATO Condemn Detention of Belarus Opposition Leader

2006-04-30

The U.S. State Department has condemned the detention of Belarus main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich. State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli called the detention of Milinkevich and other opposition leaders “outrageous and reprehensible.” He said “unfortunately, these are only the latest in an ongoing series of acts which —- against the citizens (of Belarus) who are only attempting to exercise their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.” “We condemn these actions and we call on the authorities to immediately release those detained and drop the charges against them,” Ereli said. Milinkevich, opposition candidate at the presidential election in Belarus, was sentenced to 15 days in jail a day after he led a protest rally in the capital of Minsk that attracted around 10,000 people, one of the largest turnouts in six weeks of demonstrations against the President Alexander Lukashenko. Other opposition leaders, Vintsuk Vyachorka, Alexander Bukhvostov, and Sergei Kalyakin, were also detained. “I would note that both we and the European Union have already announced measures to hold accountable officials responsible for these abuses. And we will continue working with our European partners to, I think, maintain a united front in the face of this gross assault on values that we all share,” Ereli said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also condemned Milinkevich’s detention and called for his release. Speaking during a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Sofia, Scheffer quoted by Sofia News agency said “this is another demonstration of anti-democratic behavior on behalf of the regime of Minks. I call on the regime in Minsk to release Milinkevich immediately and to refrain from this kind of actions in the future.” “The Euro-Atlantic community cannot accept this to happen in the heart of Europe,” he said. Rice said that the United States “sincerely hopes that the Belarusian government will accept the will of the international community that it acts in accordance with accepted international principles when it comes to the treatment of opposition.”

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India-Pakistan

U.S. Orders Some Workers Out of Nepal

2006-04-25

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States on Monday ordered all nonemergency embassy workers and their families to leave Nepal and urged American citizens to postpone travel to the Himalayan kingdom wracked by weeks of pro-democracy protests. The State Department made the announcement shortly before embattled King Gyanendra, hoping to avoid a bloody showdown between his security forces and demonstrators, reinstated the lower house of Parliament and offered solace for those killed in the demonstrations. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters at a daily briefing that nonemergency workers and their families would begin leaving the country whenever possible. The U.S. ambassador determines which workers are considered "nonemergency." Ereli said the embassy would continue to "handle the business that needs to be taken care of, whether that involves servicing American citizens or working with the local authorities to deal with a crisis that they confront themselves." He said Americans are not targets of the unrest. But, he said, the large, sometimes violent demonstrations made it "important to advise Americans of the situation and to give them the kind of information that they need to take precautions for their safety." Ereli estimated that there are hundreds of Americans in the Nepal.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.S. blames Damascus, Tehran for Beirut's woes

2006-04-21

State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Thursday that Syria and Iran pose a big problem to Lebanon and are not averse to interfering in the country's affairs. Speaking during an interview with LBC Thursday, Ereli said: "Syria poses a big problem to Lebanon," adding that "Iran and Syria both have a common interest in interfering with Lebanon's affairs." "Syria is trying to determine what happens in Lebanon and intimidating Lebanese politicians," he said. He added that the "Shebaa Farms are being used to keep the situation in Lebanon unsettled." Commenting on Hizbullah's weapons, he said: "You cannot have democracy and a mafia; that is why you need to disarm all mafias." Ereli's statements came as Premier Fouad Siniora said he was in the U.S. seeking support to strengthen Lebanon's sovereignty and independence, and to liberate its remaining occupied territories as well as to enhance its defense strategies and build-up its economy.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Palestinian PM Whines About U.S. Diplomacy

2006-04-03

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Prime Minister They Call Me Ismail Haniyeh criticized the United States on Sunday for restricting diplomatic ties with the Hamas government, saying his people were being punished for electing the militant Islamic group. That's the point, and you got it on the first try! Seeking to end chaos in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siyam pledged the new government would pacify the area but appealed for patience. ``Let them bear with us as long as it takes to kill all the Jooooos for a year,'' he said. Four people were killed and 36 wounded in unrest over the weekend. The United States said Friday that American diplomats have been forbidden to make contact with officials in any Palestinian government agency controlled by Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. The Islamic group's new Cabinet controls every ministry. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said diplomats would maintain contact with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and lawmakers from his Fatah movement, which favors peace talks. Haniyeh accused the United States of violating its own principles of democracy by ostracizing his Hamas-led government. ``This government was elected in a free and honest election, and according to the democratic principles the American administration is calling for,'' Haniyeh told supporters who had come to his office to wish his new government well. ``We believe this is a punishment of the Palestinian people because of its democratic choice, and at the same time, it increases the people's suffering,'' he said. Your people made a choice. Now we're making a choice. Your people chose to put a group of gun-toting terrs in charge. We've chosen not to deal with the thugs. Perhaps your people will choose better next time. Then again, they're Paleos. The Palestinian Authority has received about $1 billion a year in foreign aid, much of which is now in jeopardy. The government is already having trouble making its payroll for March. That's a shame. Darn. Shoot. Drat. Fudge.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

US cuts all contact with Hamas-led PA

2006-04-01

The United States has suspended all contact with the Palestinian government led by Hamas, the US State Department announced. However, the administration will maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority's representative in Washington, Afief Safieh, because "he does not report to the foreign ministry", Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman, told reporters on Friday. Mahmud Zahar, the new Palestinian minister of foreign affairs, is a Hamas member. "We've advised our mission in Jerusalem, as well as other missions around the world that ... there should be no contact between US government officials and PA (Palestinian Authority) officials who are under the authority of the prime minister or any other minister in the Hamas-led government. This includes working-level officials in those ministries," said Ereli. "If they're working in a Hamas-led ministry, no matter what their affiliation is, we're not going to have contact with them," he said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran test-fires stealth IRBM

2006-03-31

Iran successfully test-fired a missile that can avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously using multiple warheads, the military said Friday. Gen. Hossein Salami, the air force chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards, did not specify the missile's range, saying it depends on the weight of its warheads. But state-run television described the weapon as "ballistic" — suggesting it's of comparable range to Iran's existing ballistic rocket, which can travel 1,250 miles and reach arch-foe Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East. "Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defense forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," Salami said on state-run television. It showed a clip of the launch of what it called the Fajr-3, with "fajr" meaning "victory" in Farsi. "It can avoid anti-missile missiles and strike the target," Salami said. [Sigh]. Stealth is not an on/off switch (in spite of a certain really bad movie). I'm willing to believe that they have lowered the radar observability of the booster and maybe the warheads. But, it's not going to be invisible. It just means that the detection range for a given emitter power has gone down. And true low-observable capability requires first-class precision manufacturing. On the Have Blue prototype, one screw being 1/8" above the panel resulted in several orders of magnitude increased cross-section. Think Iran can do better than Lockheed? Plus, any IR-based missile will find the massive head signature one this thing. The Pentagon has spent tens of millions of dollars on working out countermeasures to low-observable missile and aircraft. Does any rational (i.e. not on DU) think that they don't have anything to show for it. This isn't My speciality, but I am a rocket scientists and do work on similar items. He said the missile would carry a multiple warhead, and each warhead would be capable of hitting its target precisely as a Scud. In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the development demonstrates Iran's "very active and aggressive military program" that is worrisome to the world. "I think Iran's military posture, military development effort, is of concern to the international community," Ereli said. "And that concern is shared by many countries in the international community, about Iran's aggressive nuclear weapons program and her parallel efforts to develop delivery systems, both in the field of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "The combination of extremist jihadist ideology, together with nuclear weapons and delivery systems, is a combination that no one in the international community can be complacent about," he said. Yossi Alpher, an Israeli consultant on the peace process, said the news "escalates the arms race between Iran and all those who are concerned about Iran's aggressive intentions and nuclear potential. Clearly it's escalation, and also an attempt by Iran to flex its muscles as it goes into a new phase of the diplomatic struggle with the U.N. Security Council," Alpher said. Andy Oppenheimer, a weapons expert at Jane's Information Group, said the missile test could be an indication that Iran has MIRV capability. MIRV refers to multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, which are intercontinental ballistic missiles with several warheads, each of which could be directed to a different target. "From the description, it could be a MIRV. If you are saying that from a single missile, separate warheads can be independently targeted then yes, this is significant," he said. "But we don't know how accurate the Iranians are able to make their missiles yet, and this is a crucial point," Oppenheimer said. MIRV = Multiple Inaccurate Reentry Vehicle "If the missile is adaptable for nuclear warheads, then they are well on the way," he added. "But they have not made a nuclear warhead yet. The current estimates are it could take five years." And the CIA said it would take until the mid-50s for the USSR to develop The Bomb. The existing rocket is the Shahab-3, which means "shooting star," and also is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Israel and the United States have jointly developed the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system in response to the Shahab-3. Last year, former Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said Tehran had successfully tested a solid fuel motor for the Shahab-3, a technological breakthrough in Iran's military. About where we were 45 years ago. Salami said Friday the Iranian-made missile was test-fired as large military maneuvers began in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The maneuvers are scheduled to last a week and will involve 17,000 Revolutionary Guards as well as boats, fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

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Africa Horn

UN Darfur force resolution adopted

2006-03-25

The UN Security Council has called for faster preparations for the African Union to hand over its peacekeeping mission in Sudan's western Darfur region to the United Nations. The 15-member body unanimously adopted a resolution on Friday that also decided to extend for at least six months the mandate of the UN mission in south Sudan (UNMIS). The text directed Kofi Annan, the UN chief, working with the AU and in consultations with the council "to expedite the necessary preparatory planning for transition" from the AU force known as AMIS to a UN operation. This would include options for how UNMIS can provide transitional assistance - such as in logistics, mobility and communications. Adam Ereli, US State Department deputy spokesman, said in Washington: "The unacceptable violence in western Darfur and on the Chad border has influenced the discussions in New York about the renewal of the UNMIS mandate in a way that we are looking to help facilitate the transition to a rehatted UN force by putting in language and procedures to strengthen that now and not have to wait for six months."

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'Disenfranchised' Wolfensohn threatens to quit

2006-03-16

James Wolfensohn, special envoy of the international diplomatic "Quartet," complained Wednesday of being "disenfranchised" in his efforts to advance the Mideast peace process, and threatened to quit the high-profile post. "I think the Quartet itself must continue ... but the role of a disenfranchised leader of that Quartet doesn't seem to me to be a particularly attractive thing to spend your life doing," the former World Bank head said Wednesday at a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He suggested that he still hopes to make a constructive contribution to helping achieve Middle East peace, but not necessarily in his current post. "I am considering, but have not decided... whether the best place for me to do it is leaving the Quartet, or in other ways," Wolfensohn said at the Senate hearing examining challenges in the Middle East following January's Palestinian Authority elections. "If you were in a job where it's unclear what the purpose of that job was, and what the backing that you have was... and you're as old as I am, you would probably wonder whether for the few remaining years that you've got, [if] that's the thing you want to do," the 72-year old Wolfensohn told the panel. Wolfensohn, who retired as president of the World Bank last year, was appointed in April 2005 by the Middle East Quartet to be its special envoy for Israel's disengagement project in the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza. But his job has been complicated by Washington's insistence on withholding aid from a Palestinian government expected to be formed by Hamas, which the Americans brand a terrorist organisation. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli tried Wednesday to play down any differences between the quartet and Wolfensohn and said Washington hoped the envoy would stay on the job at least through April. "We certainly retain full confidence in special envoy Wolfensohn. We think he's doing a great job," Ereli told reporters.

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Iraq

Khalizhad sez initial crisis is over, Baghdad relatively calm

2006-02-28

Sunni Arabs are ready to end their boycott of talks to form a new Iraqi government if rival Shi'ites return mosques seized in last week's sectarian attacks and meet other unspecified demands, a top Sunni figure said yesterday. That prompted the State Department to praise the Sunni leadership for "looking to get back into the game, full strength." "That's to be welcomed," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. Iraqi security forces yesterday announced the capture of a senior al Qaeda in Iraq figure, identified as Abou al-Farouq, a Syrian who financed and coordinated groups working for Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab Zarqawi. Members of the Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade captured al-Farouq with five other followers of Zarqawi near Bakr, about 100 miles west of Baghdad, said an Interior Ministry officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Sunnis boycotted the talks Thursday after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra sparked attacks against Sunni mosques in Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere. The walkout and Sunni-Shi'ite clashes threatened U.S. plans to establish a unity government capable of luring Sunnis away from the insurgency and raised doubts about U.S. plans to begin withdrawing some of its 138,000 troops this year. Adnan al-Dulaimi, whose Iraqi Accordance Front spearheaded the Sunni boycott, said the Sunnis have not decided to return to the talks but are "intent on participating" in a new government. "The situation is tense, and within the next two days we expect the situation to improve, and then we will have talks," he said. "We haven't ended our suspension completely, but we are on the way to end it." Meanwhile, Iraq's interior minister told ABC News that he thinks American journalist Jill Carroll is alive and will be released, even though the Sunday deadline set by her kidnappers had passed. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr also said he thought the 28-year-old journalist was "still alive." Miss Carroll, a freelancer working for the Christian Science Monitor, was abducted Jan. 7 in Baghdad and was last seen on a videotape broadcast Feb. 10 by a Kuwaiti television station, Al-Rai. The station said the kidnappers threatened to kill Miss Carroll unless the United States met unspecified demands by Sunday. Baghdad was generally peaceful yesterday, the first day without extended curfews or a ban on private vehicles since the crisis erupted. Violence across Iraq killed 36 persons yesterday, but sectarian clashes declined sharply since the bloodletting after the destruction of the revered shrine, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. "That crisis is over," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said. Saddam Hussein has ended a hunger strike he began earlier this month to protest the conduct of his trial, his chief attorney said yesterday. The ousted Iraqi leader is due back in court today.

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