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Africa North

France says Sahara hostages are still alive

2010-09-26

[Al Arabiya] There is "every reason" to believe that five French hostages being held in the Sahara by al-Qaeda are alive, French Defense Minister Herve Morin said on Saturday. Five French, a Togolese and a Madagascan were kidnapped on September 16 from their homes in Arlit, a uranium mining town in the north of Niger, and taken to a remote location in Mali. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the local wing of Osama bin Laden's global jihadist network, claimed the kidnapping and has warned Paris not to launch a military intervention. "We have every reason to think that they are alive," Morin told Europe 1 radio, although he acknowledged that there was "no proof of life, as such." "The claim of responsibility by al-Qaeda indicating that in a few days we are going to have some precise demands, it is all this that leads us to think that, in effect, our compatriots are alive," he said. On the anticipated demands, he said, "that is what we are waiting for." Paris has deployed an 80-strong military intelligence unit and spotter planes to the Sahara to try to track the gang down, but officials have thus far played down the likelihood of a military rescue mission. The head of France's armed forces said on Friday, that immediate military action to secure the release of the hostages has been ruled out. Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Edouard Guillaud said military intervention was possible if the situation escalated, but Paris had no reason to think the lives of the hostages were immediately in danger. "The military option is possible, but at this moment in time the hostages' lives are not under direct threat and we are waiting for a line of communication," Guillaud said. In July French and Mauritanian commandos launched an assault on an al-Qaeda base in northern Mali, killing seven bully boyz but failing to find a previous French hostage, 78-year-old Michel Germaneau, who was later reported killed by AQIM. French forces are mapping what is described as an area of rocky desert and sand mountains six times the size of France, with camps that could belong to Tuaregs, caravans, smugglers or Al-Qaeda. Despite repeated denials, France has earned a reputation over the years for paying off kidnappers -- with cash and by prisoner exchanges -- to protect its economic interests and the lives of its citizens. After Germaneau's death, however, Sarkozy signaled a new tougher stance. "It can't be our only strategy to pay ransoms and to agree to free prisoners in exchange for unlucky innocent victims. That can't be a strategy," he complained, after Madrid ransomed two Spanish hostages.

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Science & Technology

Airbus A400M Needs States’ Help to Continue

2009-12-16

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS’s A400M military transport, which performed its maiden flight today in Seville (see photo right), isn’t viable without a “significant contribution” from government customers, the planemaker’s chief executive said. Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders said his company’s first military plane and thousands of jobs connected with depend on the governments’ willingness to step up funding. The A400M, which is being assembled in Seville, Spain, is already suffering 2.3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in cost overruns. “We certainly hope that with thousands and thousands of employees all over Europe that we can continue this program, but we need to do that on a financially sound basis,” Enders said in an interview today with Bloomberg Television. Airbus and government representatives sought to use the maiden flight as a way to overcome a deadlock on negotiations that has put in doubt the future of the 20 billion-euro project. Construction of the A400M is sapping engineers and money from Airbus, while the governments who ordered the plane have few alternatives they can tap for military or humanitarian missions. Airbus parent European Aeronautics, Defence & Space Co. has requested about 5 billion euros in additional funding toward the plane, German Deputy Defense Minister Christian Schmidt said earlier this week. “I am not confirming numbers,” Enders said. “What I can say is in order to continue the program we need a significant contribution from government customers.” Representatives of Germany, France, the U.K. and the four other countries that first placed orders for 180 of the transporters watched the plane take off about 10 a.m. local time and then moved to a site near the airplane hangar to continue negotiations on pricing. The plane landed just after 2 p.m. The governments that ordered the A400M harmonized their demands at a meeting in Seville today, German Deputy Defense Minister Ruediger Wolf said in an interview. They have until the end of January to study EADS’s response to a letter detailing the client’s demands. Germany’s plan to order 60 of the transport planes is unchanged, he said. French Defense Minister Herve Morin, also on site in Seville to see the plane, reiterated that France is eager to find a solution that will enable the A400M to go forward. “We’re looking for a solution that will allow us to soak someone else share the costs and move forward,” he said. The original 2003 contract was no longer valid after April when Airbus missed a deadline for the first test flight. Since then governments have been negotiating with Airbus toward an amended contract. Airbus says it needs governments to shoulder more of the costs, while the countries that ordered the A400M are at odds over how much more they’re willing to contribute.

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Africa Horn

France frees yacht off Somalia, hostage killed

2009-04-12

Follow-up. PARIS (Rooters) - A French hostage was killed and four others were freed on Friday when French forces attacked pirates who had seized their yacht off Somalia, officials said. Two pirates were shot dead during the military assault and three were captured. A much more civilized approach than negotiation ... Pirates seized the sailing boat Tanit, carrying two couples and a 3-year-old boy at the time, far from the coast of the east African country on April 4. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said the father of the child, Florent Lemacon, died during Friday's rescue mission, which lasted a few minutes. And he now sez that it might have been "friendly" fire, there will be an investigation. A military official said elite forces shot dead two pirates who were on deck when they stormed the boat. Lemacon had been in the cabin at the time and it was not clear if he was killed in the crossfire or deliberately shot by one of his captives. The four French survivors were unharmed and put on a navy vessel bound for Djibouti. France has taken a leading role in international efforts to halt rampant hijackings off Somalia and its forces have captured at least 60 pirates since April 2008, bringing several of them to Paris for eventual trial. "France will never give into pirates' blackmail or to terrorism," Morin told a news conference. The French navy made contact with the pirates on Thursday and decided to launch the rescue bid after the gang refused to accept an offer of a ransom and tried instead to sail toward the coast. "We proposed everything we were able to offer, enabling them reach to land. We even offered them a ransom," Morin said, declining to say how much money was put forward. It was the third time in a year that the French military had intervened after a French-registered yacht was captured, and the first time a hostage has died. Chloe and Florent Lemacon left France with their son Colin last July aboard the Tanit, writing about their adventures in a blog. They picked up another couple along the way and were heading toward the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The French Foreign Ministry said earlier this week the French navy had urged the Lemacons not to sail through the Gulf of Aden but that the warning had gone unheeded. Morin said French sailors should avoid the area. "I repeat in the clearest manner and with the most forthright warning to any of our citizens who are thinking about venturing into this area of the Indian Ocean, I ask them to forget it," he said. The Lemacons mentioned the risk posed by pirates in their blog, but shrugged off the threat. "The danger exists but the ocean remains huge. The pirates must not destroy our dream," they said in a post from January.

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Afghanistan

Obama Call for More NATO Troops May Go Unheeded

2009-02-02

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama has made clear he is counting on America’s NATO allies for greater military contributions in Afghanistan. He may be in for a disappointment. No kidding. The Euros wouldn't pony up for Bush and they're sure not going to pony up for President Featherweight ... Most European leaders have either ruled out sending more troops to buttress the fight against a resurgent Taliban, or talked about increases that number only in the hundreds. In encountering such reluctance, the U.S. is paying a price for its past errors, says Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We asked NATO to join us in a peacemaking, post-conflict reconstruction effort when we hadn’t won the war, and let the insurgency grow to where it threatened to take over the country,” Cordesman says. “Now we’re dissatisfied because these countries that signed up for something different aren’t willing to bail us out of our own mistakes.” CSIS is full of the usual progressive clap-trap. If everything was going well in Afghanistan the Euros still wouldn't help. We needed them to help in the south and east and, except for the British, Dutch and Danes, the Euros haven't and won't help. And, mostly, can't ... With the U.S. preparing to deploy as many as 30,000 additional troops, the result is likely to be a growing Americanization of a military effort that was supposed to mark the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first significant out- of-area operation. The issue will be an early test of Obama’s international leadership. The new president highlighted the war in a Jan. 22 letter to alliance members, in which he said NATO “has much to be proud of, but also much work to do,” including “helping the people of Afghanistan build a better future.” NATO’s contributions to the Afghan effort will be spotlighted in a series of international meetings, starting later this week at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy. Munich -- always a great place to ask Euros to show a spine ... The U.S. delegation in Germany will include Vice President Joe Biden; White House National Security Adviser James Jones; the new envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke; and Army General David Petraeus, the commander of all American forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, is the former NATO supreme commander in Europe. The discussion of Afghan strategy will continue at meetings of NATO defense ministers in Krakow, Poland, later this month and alliance foreign ministers in Brussels early next month. It will culminate in April at a summit of NATO heads of government in Strasbourg, France, marking the 60th anniversary of the alliance. U.S. officials say they are hopeful that Obama’s international popularity will spring loose new troop contributions that European leaders were unwilling -- or politically unable -- to make during George W. Bush’s presidency. “My sense is, from some of the information and diplomatic comments and public comments that some leaders have made in Europe, that they are prepared to be asked and that they are prepared to do something,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 27. “In fact, there’s some indication that a few of our allies have been sitting on a capability so that they could give the new president something when he asks,” Gates said. But recent statements by European leaders don’t support such expectations. Of course not. The Euros care nothing for Bambi's popularity -- something that's going to disappear anyway over the coming months. The larder is mostly empty. The Euros have their hands full with their own economies. And they simply don't believe in using their military, be it for 'peacekeeping' or anything else. German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled on Jan. 20 -- the day Obama was inaugurated -- that her government would resist a new troop commitment. “Nothing will change in the short term for Germany because we’ve really embraced our responsibilities in the past,” she said in an ARD television interview. French Defense Minister Herve Morin -- whose country has the fourth largest contingent in Afghanistan behind the U.S., U.K. and Germany -- also ruled out more troops in a Jan. 21 interview with Europe1 Radio. A British Defence Ministry spokesman said Jan. 30 that while the U.K. may bolster its Afghan force when its mission in Iraq ends later this year, it won’t be a one-for-one swap. That means the increase in Afghanistan will be less than the 4,000 to be pulled out of Iraq. The U.K. has 8,910 troops in Afghanistan, Germany 3,405 and France 2,890, according to NATO. Italy, which has 2,350 troops in the country, according to NATO, agreed last month to add 300 and isn’t planning any additional increases. Poland is considering increasing its presence to 2,000 from its current 1,600. A substantial NATO troop contributor outside Europe is Canada, which has more than 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan. Christine Fair, an analyst at the RAND Corp. policy- research organization in Arlington, Virginia, said there is “debate among German military officials that they could do more -- and they could. But they don’t call those shots. I don’t see in European capitals any desire to increase their exposure in Afghanistan.” Correct: no desire, no money, no manpower, and no logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. has 23,220 in the NATO force, according to the alliance, and about 36,000 troops in Afghanistan altogether, according to the Pentagon. While the new administration is in the midst of a strategy review and hasn’t made any final decisions about Afghanistan, Admiral Michael Mullen said in a Jan. 29 interview that close to 30,000 additional U.S. forces will likely go to Afghanistan over the course of 2009. Mullen is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Obama’s most senior uniformed military adviser. If that level of reinforcements comes to pass, the current ratio of U.S.-to-European forces in Afghanistan, about 1 to 1, will grow to 2 to 1. And because some NATO members, such as Germany, won’t allow their troops to be deployed in areas where combat is most intense, the U.S. will carry the military burden to an even greater degree than the numbers indicate. The upshot may be a slow-motion reversal of the decision during the Bush administration to let NATO take over responsibility for security in Afghanistan as the U.S. became increasingly preoccupied with Iraq. Still, as Gates indicated in his Senate testimony, there are ways apart from adding combat troops for NATO members to contribute. One, he said, would be for countries to lift restrictions on how their forces can be deployed. Another would be to send civilian specialists in economic development, governance and drug control. Yet another would be to help meet the estimated $17 billion cost of expanding Afghan security forces. For example, Merkel may be willing to send police trainers to Afghanistan, even if she isn’t prepared to deploy more troops in an election year, says Karl-Heinz Kamp, director of research at the NATO Defense College in Rome. German national elections are scheduled for September. Such initiatives may provide an opportunity for crafting a face-saving compromise, says Shada Islam, an analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “Nobody wants the NATO summit in Strasbourg in April to turn into a shouting match,” Islam says. “So these are the kinds of things that are being considered and may be announced there.”

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Afghanistan

NATO, US forces say 17 militants dead in Afghanistan

2009-01-01

International military forces helping Afghanistan to fight Islamic extremists said Wednesday they had killed 17 militants in separate operations. The US military said troops under its command had killed 11 militants Tuesday in an operation against the radical Hizb-e-Islami faction led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, about 60 kilometers from the capital, Kabul. The battle was fought in the Sarobi district, where militants killed 10 French soldiers in August in the deadliest ground battle for international soldiers since the invasion of Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001. The US attack in Sarobi targeted a Hizb-e-Islami leader wanted for trafficking weapons and fighters and for carrying out attacks, the US military said in a statement. The militants had opened fire on approaching troops, it said. "Coalition forces returned fire and killed two of the militants. Still receiving fire, coalition forces engaged the militants with close-air precision munitions and killed the remaining nine militants," it said, referring to air strikes. Weapons, ammunition and other military equipment found at the scene were destroyed, the statement said. Meanwhile, the separate NATO-led force said that its aircraft on a combat-escort mission had spotted "eight insurgents with weapons moving into fighting positions" in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday. "The aircraft engaged the insurgents, killing six," it said. There were allegations that some civilians were hurt in the strikes, the International Security Assistance Force said, adding that it was investigating, but it had clear evidence the aircraft fired at "enemy insurgents." Also Wednesday, French Defense Minister Herve Morin arrived in Kabul for a New Year visit with French soldiers in the NATO-led force. Morin was also due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and to visit a French-funded mother-and-children's hospital in the capital. He will also take part in a military outreach operation with Afghan civilians and join French troops at one of their forward operating bases for the New Year's Eve celebration. On Thursday Morin is scheduled to fly to a large military base outside the southern city of Kandahar, where France has stationed six Mirage 2000 fighter jets to support US and NATO-led troops on the ground.

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Afghanistan

30 militants die in Afghan battle near ambush site

2008-08-21

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition said Thursday it had killed more than 30 insurgents in a battle in eastern Afghanistan, fighters an Afghan governor said were responsible for an attack that killed 10 French troops this week. Lutfullah Mashal, the governor of Laghman province, said coalition bombs targeted fighters on the border of Laghman and Kabul provinces. He said the insurgents were fleeing the valley where Monday's attack on the French took place. Mashal said Wednesday night's airstrike was not directly in retaliation for the French ambush because the targeted militants also had been involved in "repeated attacks" in the area. Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, the top spokeswoman for the U.S.-led coalition, said the coalition was not "completely certain" that the militants were directly involved in the attack on the French. "They were certainly at a minimum complicit," she said. "It doesn't matter if they were or weren't involved in an attack today, yesterday or on Sept. 11, 2001. We seek out terrorists and we will give them the option to be captured or killed or possibly flee." Coalition troops and Afghan commandos were conducting a search operation in Laghman when militants engaged the troops in a battle Wednesday, the coalition said in a statement. A coalition airstrike destroyed an "enemy fighting position" in the area, it said. More than 30 militants were killed and one militant was wounded and taken for treatment after the clash, the coalition said. It said 200 civilians fled the area before the airstrike. Afghan officials said about 20 civilians were wounded in the fighting. Mashal said it was not clear if the coalition bombs wounded the Afghans or if Taliban fighters had. Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the provincial Health Ministry, said 21 civilians were wounded, including five children. Laghman deputy police chief Najibullah Hotak said one civilian died in the fighting and 20 were wounded. French President Nicolas Sarkozy rushed to the country Wednesday to reassure French troops and the world of its commitment to the cause a day after a massive Taliban assault an hour east of Kabul killed 10 of his country's troops and wounded 21 others. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner reiterated that France was committed to staying the course in Afghanistan."I remind you that terrorism is winning," he told reporters after a government meeting earlier Thursday. "Everyone knows that terrorism is particularly fed by what is happening in Afghanistan." French Defense Minister Herve Morin said Thursday there were no signs that French forces were hit by friendly fire in the ensuing fighting, dismissing a report in Le Monde newspaper. The paper, quoting survivors of the ambush, said it took hours for backup to arrive and that French troops were hit by friendly fire from NATO planes. "We have no information allowing us to consider that French soldiers were killed under fire of NATO planes," Morin said on RTL radio. Three Polish soldiers were killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded in the central province of Ghazni, Polish Defense Ministry spokesman Jacek Poplawski said Thursday. A fourth soldier was wounded. NATO and Afghan officials blame the violence in part on the ease with which militants can cross from safe havens in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas. On Wednesday evening, missiles destroyed a compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region that Pakistani intelligence officials said was frequented by foreign militants. Between five and 10 people were believed killed, though their identities were not immediately known, the officials said. It was also unclear who carried out the attack, though similar attacks in the past by U.S. drone aircraft have killed senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.

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Europe

France to reduce external military deployment capabilities

2008-05-16

France's new defense policy will see the capacity of deployment of French soldiers in external operation theaters decreased significantly, French Defense Minister Herve Morin has said. "Who can believe that in the next 15 or 20 years, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact and the enlargement of the European Union, we might be called upon to deploy 50,000 men in a theater," Morin said Wednesday while closing the 15th "Peace and Defense" parliamentary meetings. Under the "operational policy" fixed by the current 2003-2008 military program, the armed forces must be able to engage, inter alia, a land force of 50,000 men, a naval task force, the aircraft carrier and its escort, and an air force of 100 combat aircraft supported by refueling tankers, according to military sources. Without specifying the new figures, the defense minister said that President Nicolas Sarkozy had already declared a "part" of his position over the issue. "To be still capable of projecting 30,000 or 40,000 men in a Mediterranean theater, in the broader sense, does not mean that France is a second category military power," said Morin, rejecting the idea that the French armed forces were slowly "shrinking."

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Africa Horn

France calls for international action vs piracy off Somalia

2008-04-17

France has called on the international community for a unified action against piracy, after French military secured the release of 30 hostages from a luxury yacht off the lawless Somali coast. "The international community must mobilize for a determined fight against acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia," French Foreign and European Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement released by the French embassy in Manila Wednesday. Kouchner stressed the significance of ensuring security in the Arabian Sea, saying humanitarian ships pass through the area. He said France has initiated Operation Alycon to escort ships from the World Food Program. France “considers it necessary to go further, especially at the United Nations,” he said. “Discussions have started in New York with our partners to move forward on this." The 30 crew of French-registered Le Ponant -- six Filipinos, 22 French, a Cameroonian and a Ukrainian -- were freed Friday following negotiations that ended the standoff peacefully. Somali pirates seized them on April 4. Six of the 12 Somali pirates were captured by French commandos following the release of the hostages. Sources close to the negotiations said the boat owner, Compagnie des Iles du Ponant, paid some $2 million to free the 30, and that a portion of the money was recovered when the six pirates were detained. French Defense Minister Herve Morin on Saturday said Paris would no longer tolerate extortion attempts. Kouchner also expressed "great joy" that the Le Ponant crewmembers have been released and are safe. "I am delighted at this happy outcome. My first thoughts go to the families and loved ones of our compatriots, and the other crewmembers who will soon be with theirs,” he said. “I also want to extend my warm thanks to all those who helped resolve this crisis." The freed crewmembers were flown to Paris Tuesday and the six Filipinos, including a female cabin steward, arrived in Manila on Wednesday. Somalia has been without an effective government since the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

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Europe

Pre-Dawn Corsica Bombings Injure 2

2007-12-24

AJACCIO, Corsica (AP) -- Assailants set off two bombs nearly simultaneously in Corsica early Sunday, one of which injured two people, police officials said. The first explosion ripped into a government treasury office in the resort town of Ajaccio at about 5:30 a.m. The second blast targeted a military barracks, blowing out windows at homes nearby and injuring an elderly woman and a 5-year-old child. The French Mediterranean island regularly faces small-scale bombings, often set off by separatists targeting government buildings and vacation homes. Most attacks target empty buildings at night. "We have the impression that there is ... an escalation of the violence," Christian Leyrit, the national government's administrator in Corsica, told LCI television. "Before, property was targeted. Today, we feel like people are being targeted, and that there is a real threat to people's lives," he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and an investigation was under way. In a statement, French Defense Minister Herve Morin expressed his "indignation in the face of the cowardice of these acts" and called them "inadmissible terrorist actions."

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Arabia

Qatar to host French military academy branch of Saint Cyr

2007-09-10

The State of Qatar signed on Sunday an agreement with France to open a branch of the French military academy Saint Cyr. Qatar News Agency (QNA) said the agreement which was signed by Military Academy Commander of Ahmed Bin Mohammad College Brigadier Hamad Bin Ahmed Al-Nuaimi and French Director of Saint Cyr project at the French Defense ministry. The agreement provides for establishment of a branch of Saint Cyr Military academy in Doha to be named-the Saint Cyr-Qatar Military Academy. The agreement was signed on sidelines of the visit of French Defense Minister Herve Morin.

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