Saakashvili says ‘no surrender’: Georgian troops had downed 19 Russian warplanes, killed hundreds of Russian troops August 11, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Army, Georgia, Military, Russia, South Ossetia, War.1 comment so far
Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, has spoken of the “cold-blooded, pre-meditated, murder” of his country and said that there would be “no surrender” to Russian aggression.
Appealing to the international community to step in to resolve fighting over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, he said: “The world has a moral duty to stop the madness.”
Saakashvili made the comments at a news conference in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, on Monday.
His remarks came as Russia’s Interfax news agency said Georgian forces were continuing to shell Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, early on Monday, killing three Russian peacekeepers and wounding 18 others.
Saakashvili said that the manner in which Russian troops mobilised in South Ossetia over recent days clearly indicated that it was a pre-meditated operation.
He said: “It is obvious… the Russian invasion had been planned for months and months and months. The timing of this intervention has been chosen deliberately [with regards] to the Olympics.”
“It is so clear what has happened. We are in the process of invasion, occupation and annihilation of a democratic, independent country.
“Please wake up everybody and make your position and speak with a united voice… We are seeing the cold-blooded, pre-meditated, murder of a small country.”
Saakashvili later accused Russia of ethnic cleansing — a charge the Russians have repeatedly leveled at Georgia, and which both sides deny.
He said Georgian troops had downed “18 or 19″ Russian warplanes, killed hundreds of Russian troops and repelled a Russian assault on the Georgian city of Gori, in Georgia near South Ossetia.
Saakashvili claimed Russia had 500 tanks and 25,000 troops inside Georgia. A Russian defense ministry said only four planes had been lost.
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Russian Ground Forces Assault Vital Georgian City August 10, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Army, Georgia, Invasion, Military, Russia, South Ossetia, War.1 comment so far
Russian tanks and troops moved through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advanced on the city of Gori in central Georgia on Sunday night, for the first time directly assaulting a Georgian city with ground forces after three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.
Georgian tanks were dug into positions outside Gori and planning to defend the city, said Shota Utiashvili, an official in Georgia’s interior ministry. He said the city of Gori was coming under artillery and tank fire. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. “They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point” to retake the separatist regions, he said.
The Bush administration said Sunday that it would seek a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russian military actions in Georgia. And in a heated exchange with his Russian counterpart at the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, accused the Kremlin of seeking to oust Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
A column of Russian forces was also seeking Sunday night to enter Georgian territory from Abkhazia, another separatist enclave to the west, and Abkhaz fighters were massed at the boundary line, an Abkhaz official said in an interview.
The advance appeared to answer the question on which the conflict had been pivoting: Would Russia simply occupy the two separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or would it push into Georgia, raising the possibility of a full-scale invasion?
Gori, about a 45-minute drive south from the capital of South Ossetia, Tskinvali, sits in a valley that is the main route connecting the east and west halves of Georgia.
Mr. Utiashvili said the Russians were “trying to cut the country in half.” He said that if they tried to occupy Georgia, “there will probably be guerilla warfare all over the country.”
In Washington, American officials reacted with deepening alarm to Russia’s military activities on Sunday. Georgian troops had tried to disengage, but the Russians had not allowed them.
“The Georgians told them, ‘We’re done. Let us withdraw,” one American military official said. “But the Russians are not letting them withdraw. They are pursuing them, and people are seeing this.”
The official said that it appeared that the Kremlin’s objectives, at a minimum, had extended beyond securing the enclaves and now included the destruction of the Georgian armed forces, with an aim of intensifying the domestic pressure on Saakashvili.
“The Russians have gained all of their military objectives,” the American official said. “This is not about military objectives. This is about a political objective — removing a thorn in their side.”
Russia had also doubled the number of its troops in Abkhazia to about 6,000, and Russian warships from the Black Sea fleet were off the territory’s coast. A column of Russian tanks was negotiating with Georgian officials to enter the Georgian city of Zugdidi, just south of Abkhazia, the Abkhaz official said.
Russia also bombed the Tblisi international airport shortly before Bernard Kouchner was due to arrive to mediate on behalf of the European Union. Only light damage was reported.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked through the night Saturday with other Bush administration officials on a Security Council resolution. American diplomats said that they did not want an actual Security Council vote on the resolution until Tuesday or so, the better to draw out the debate and publicly shame the Russian government. While the resolution will carry no punitive weight, and is almost sure to be vetoed by Russia, a permanent Council member, the hope is that it could create more pressure for a cease-fire, officials said.
Meanwhile, Georgian and Western diplomatic officials said that Georgia had offered a cease-fire proposal to Russia, though Russian officials did not acknowledge receiving such an offer.
A senior American official said that the United States had conveyed the details of a cease-fire proposal by President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to Russia’s acting ambassador in Washington late Saturday night, and that there briefly were indications that the Kremlin wanted to talk directly with the Georgian president.
“At midnight last night we got from the Russians that they would welcome a call from Saakashvili,” the official said.
But the day passed, and through Sunday night in Georgia, the Kremlin had not taken Mr. Saakashvili’s call and negotiations had not proceeded, an advisor to Georgia’s president said.
“He has asked to talk with Putin, and he has asked to talk to Medvedev,” he said, of Saakashvili. “But they have refused.”
The American official also said that Georgia had managed on Sunday to provide its cease-fire proposals to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, but there was no reply.
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Georgia crisis spreads to Abkhazia August 10, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Abkhazia, Army, Georgia, Military, Russia, South Ossetia, War.2 comments
The leader of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has decreed a “state of war” in areas close to Georgian-controlled territory, Russia’s Interfax news agency said.
The move, announced on Sunday, comes after Russian forces took control of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, Georgia’s other breakaway region.
“By a decree of Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh, a state of war has been introduced in part of the republic’s territory,” Interfax said, quoting the decree.
The statement affects several territories close to Abkhazia’s de facto border with Georgia, and was to go into effect for 10 days starting at midnight from Sunday to Monday.
Russia’s armed forces on Sunday denied plans to expand their conflict with Georgia into the Abkhazia region.
“We do not plan to escalate the conflict in this region,” Anatoly Nogovitsyn, an army spokesman, said in televised remarks, referring to Abkhazia.
Escalating conflict
But Georgian officials have accused Russia of escalating the conflict by involving Abkhazia, saying Russia has sent troops and artillery into the region and had begun an operation to storm the Georgian-controlled Kodori gorge in Abkhazia.
“They [the Russian army] have started the operation to storm Kodori gorge,” said Shota Utiashvili, an interior ministry spokesman.
Georgia has police stationed in the gorge, protecting a parallel pro-Tbilisi Abkhazian government.
The UN, which has international monitors in the area, has warned of a possible second front opening in the Georgia-Russia conflict.
Separatist authorities in Abkhazia said that they had sent 1,000 troops to the gorge, which Georgian forces control as a strategic foothold in the breakaway Black Sea territory.
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US Russia’s actions in Georgia could harm US ties August 10, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Army, Georgia, Military, Russia, USA, War.3 comments
The White House warned Russia on Sunday that military escalation in the Georgia conflict could have a “significant, long-term impact” on relations between Washington and Moscow.
U.S. President George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser, James Jeffrey, said it will be key to see the Russian reaction to the withdrawal of Georgian forces from the South Ossetia breakaway region.
“We’ve made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant, long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations,” Jeffrey said.
Georgia’s interior ministry said earlier its forces had withdrawn from South Ossetia where they had been fighting Russian troops for control. The Russian military confirmed that Georgian forces were moving out of the capital of the region.
“We deplore the dangerous and disproportionate actions by Russian forces and we would be particularly troubled if these attacks are continuing now as the Georgians are pulling back,” he said.
The United States would also be “very, very concerned if in fact there is ground action inside of Georgia proper that is outside of these areas of Abkhazia and Ossetia,” he said.
The Georgian pull-out followed three days of fighting in a Georgian push to take control of the pro-Moscow enclave from separatists, which prompted Russia to pour troops into South Ossetia and launch air strikes inside Georgia.
Russia bombed a military airfield outside the Georgian capital early Sunday and Tbilisi said the Russians were also massing troops in Abkhazia on the Black Sea, another rebel region that broke with Tbilisi in the early 1990s after a war.
Bush has spoken to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin twice and President Dmitry Medvedev, the White House said. He also spoke with ally French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating European Union presidency.
“Both presidents have the same position and agree across the board but specifically on these three points, that there needs to be a ceasefire, there needs to be disengagement and there needs to be respect for Georgian territorial integrity,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Russian warships arrived at Georgia’s Black Sea coast earlier Sunday, RIA news agency quoted a Russian navy source as saying. The source said the aim was to stop weapons arriving by sea.
Jeffrey renewed the U.S. call for a ceasefire and said the two sides should return to their positions of Aug. 6 before the latest fighting broke out.
“We are urging both the South Ossetians and Georgians to sit down and meet and we’re urging the Russians to cease their attacks,” he said.
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Russia declares War to Georgia: Russian tanks ‘rolling into Georgian breakaway August 8, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Georgia, Military, Russia, War.1 comment so far
Russian television Friday showed a convoy of Russian tanks and said they were heading into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia as escalating tensions over the region threatened to boil into full blown conflict.
The move came after Russia denounced as “aggressive” a Georgian troops military offensive to regain control over the province, vowing to respond.
Russian authorities earlier said several of its peacekeepers died in a Georgian attack in South Ossetia, which borders Russia and has strong ties to its vast northern neighbor, and they vowed not to leave Russian citizens in the territory unprotected.
“The Georgian leadership has launched a dirty adventure,” a statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday. “We will not leave our peacekeepers and Russian citizens unprotected.”
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Georgia started the fighting and warned that Russia would respond to their actions.
“Heavy weapons and artillery have been sent there, and tanks have been added. Deaths and injuries have been reported, including among Russian peacekeepers,” Putin said in comments carried Friday by Russia’s Interfax news agency.
“It’s all very sad and alarming. And, of course, there will be a response.”
Earlier Friday, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said in a televised statement that Russian aircraft bombed several Georgian villages and other civilian facilities.
He added that there were injuries and damage to buildings. “A full-scale aggression has been launched against Georgia,” he said.
A Georgian official reported that seven people were hurt in the attack, the Associated Press said.
Saakashvili urged Russia to immediately stop bombing Georgian territory. “Georgia will not yield its territory or renounce its freedom,” he said.
He also called for the full-scale mobilization of Georgian reserve forces as fighting continued to rage in South Ossetia’s capital.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer issued a statement Friday saying he was seriously concerned about the recent events in the region, and called on “all sides to end armed clashes and begin direct talks.”
The United States also urged all sides to bring an immediate end to the violence. “The U.S. has been in discussions for many months with all parties to find a peaceful resolution,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
“We urge all sides to refrain from violence and to begin direct talks.”
Russian peacekeepers are in South Ossetia under a 1992 agreement by Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian authorities to maintain what has been a fragile peace. The mixed peacekeeping force also includes Georgian and South Ossetian troops.
The latest events came just hours after the U.N. Security Council finished an emergency session to discuss a dramatic escalation of violence in Georgia and South Ossetia. The session ended Friday morning without a statement about the fighting.
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Military coup in Mauritania as president and prime minister are arrested August 6, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Coup, Mauritania, Military.add a comment
The sacked commander of the Mauritanian presidential guards has taken control of the presidential palace, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Nouakchott, the capital.
Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the president, was seized on Wednesday along with Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, Mauritania’s prime minister, and the interior minister.
“The security agents of the BASEP [the presidential security battalion] came to our home around 9.20 (09:20 GMT) and took away my father,” Abdallahi’s daughter was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.
A French foreign ministry spokesman was reported by the AFP news agency as saying: “We are in contact with our embassy [in Mauritania] to obtain confirmation of the events that appear to be taking place in Nouakchott.
“Based on initial information, it seems that a group of generals are holding the prime minister.”
Army units were reported to have surrounded a key state building in the capital.
Both Mauritanian television and radio went off air, with army units said to have surrounded Mauritanian television’s main building.
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Deadly attack hits China’s Xinjiang: Attack on a police station has left 16 policemen dead August 4, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in China, Olympics, Resistance.add a comment
An attack on a border police station in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region has left 16 policemen dead, state media says.
Reports of the attacks carried on state media have raised security fears just days before the Beijing Olympics.
Two armed men drove a lorry into the station in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, throwing two grenades which killed 16 people and injured 16 others, the Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.
Xinhua, citing police, said two attackers were arrested after Monday morning’s attack, but did not identify them.
Officials were checking to see if there was any link between the attack and the Olympics, a spokesman for the games organisers said.
Crackdown
China has warned repeatedly of a major “terrorist” threat emanating from Xinjiang, saying that militants there were planning to attack the Olympics.
The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, said in an editorial last month that “the Beijing Olympics is facing a terrorist threat unsurpassed in Olympic history”.
Rights groups and members of the ethnic Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang have, however, accused the government of exaggerating the threat as a pretext to crack down on all forms of dissent.
Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia, has about 8.3 million Uighurs, and many are unhappy with what they say has been six decades of repressive Chinese rule.
A senior official said last week that one of the main Olympic threats was from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim) in Xinjiang which has been waging a separatist rebellion against Chinese rule.
Neil Fergus, who was the director of security intelligence at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, said he was not surprised by the attack but it did not necessarily pose a direct threat to the games.
He said if Etim were involved, it was a small group without infrastructure across mainland China and with only a modest support base in Xinjiang with some of the Uighur people.
“There has been a tightening of the security apparatus around Beijing in recent weeks and in fact recent months and the overlay which the Chinese authorities and Chinese government has prepared for these games is second to none.
“At this stage there’s no reason to think that the Beijing Olympic games are any less secure than previous games and in fact they may be the most secure games we’ve ever seen,” he said.
Chinese officials have said other alleged threats to the games are from separatist forces seeking Tibetan independence, the banned Falungong spiritual group and overseas pro-democracy forces.
China has deployed more than 100,000 security personnel to provide security for the games, which begin on Friday and end on August 24.
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India on alert as death toll from bombs rises July 27, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in India, Pakistan.2 comments
Metropolitan areas of India were on high alert Sunday after a wave of synchronized bombs that hit the western Indian city of Ahmedabad killed at least 49 people and wounded more than 114, police reported.
The streets of Ahmedabad were calm, with anxious residents staying indoors and the Indian Army marching through parts of the city to instill a sense of security among residents.
“There hasn’t been any outbreak of violence,” said Ahmedabad police Cpl.-in-charge M.N. Raghela. “The army, police and paramilitary forces are patrolling the city, and residents are being very supportive.”
Seventeen low intensity blasts went off within a span of 70 minutes Saturday night, all within a 6-mile (10-km) radius.
By 4:15 p.m. Sunday (6:45 a.m. ET), the death toll had climbed to 49. The official number of wounded is 114, according to Ahmedabad police, but Raghela said the number of injuries surpassed 200.
The serial blasts occurred barely 24 hours after nine similar explosions rocked Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India. Two people were killed and six injured in those explosions.
In both cities, bicycles, bags and lunch boxes were repositories for the bombs, authorities said.
“It is a conspiracy to unsettle the country,” Union Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal told CNN-IBN Saturday.
Across India, security has been stepped up at airports, railways stations, markets and hospitals, The Associated Press reported.
Police recovered two unexploded bombs around Ahmedabad Sunday. One was found in a garbage receptacle; the second by the side of the road, police said.
One of Saturday’s explosions hit a bus stop, while others detonated at a railway station and on a bus. Several also went off at, or close to, hospitals where the injured were being taken.
Authorities raided an apartment rented by an American in Mumbai, 338 miles (545 km) away after tracing an e-mail that claimed responsibility for the blasts, CNN’s sister network CNN-IBN reported Sunday.
The apartment resident claimed that his Internet account had been hacked a few days ago, the television station said.
Authorities are also investigating another email sent to Muslim actors who are part of the Mumbai-based Indian film industry. The email reportedly asked them to stop working, the television station said.
No arrests have been made, although police reportedly rounded up 30 individuals in connection with the blasts, CNN-IBN added.
The network was among several media outlets to receive an e-mail, purportedly from the Muslim militant group Indian Mujahedeen, warning about an attack. The message was also sent to the country’s Intelligence Bureau.
But afterward, the Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJi) — or the Movement of the Islamic Holy War — claimed responsibility for the bombings, CNN-IBN said.
Analysts say that cross-pollination between terror groups can make it difficult to distinguish between them.
India ranks among the countries where terrorism is most common, according to the U.S. State Department.
Authorities do not know the motive for the Ahmedabad blasts but have blamed past attacks on Islamic militants, alleging they were fomenting unrest between the country’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat state, was the scene of deadly Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 that left about 1,000 people dead.
The violence was sparked after 60 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire. While the cause of the blaze was not clear, some Hindus blamed Muslims for the blaze and retaliated.
The two groups claiming responsibility for Saturday’s blasts have a history of similar acts.
HuJi is blamed for several attacks inside India, including one at the American Centre in Calcutta that killed five policemen in 2002.
It is also banned in neighboring Bangladesh where the group is accused of carrying out several attacks, including a foiled plot to kill the country’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in 2002.
The United States considers Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJi) a terrorist organization.
The second group, Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility in May for near-simultaneous bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the northwest Indian city of Jaipur. In that attack, the group declared “open war” against India in retaliation for what it said were 60 years of Muslim persecution and the country’s support of United States policies.
The group also claimed responsibility for a series of similar attacks outside courts in three north Indian cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh in November 2007. More than a dozen people were killed and 80 injured.
In May, security analysts described Indian Mujahedeen as a relatively unknown group. It may be a new home-grown terror network, an alias for an existing group or a foreign militant organization.
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U.S. Set to Establish Diplomatic Presence in Iran July 17, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Iran, USA.1 comment so far
The United States is set to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran, the Iranian capital, for the first time in 30 years, a British newspaper reported Thursday.
The Guardian said Washington would open a U.S. interests section next month, the first step in establishing an embassy.
“The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a U.S. interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy,” the unsourced report said.
“The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country,” it said.
Senior U.S. diplomat William Burns told Congress last week the U.S. was examining the possibility of opening an interests section in Iran but had not yet made a commitment to do so.
The Guardian said the development was “a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.”
The U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Iran when a mob of students led by Muslim extremists took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days.
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9 US troops killed in Afghanistan July 13, 2008
Posted by محمد الحسن in Afghanistan, NATO, Resistance, USA.add a comment
A Western official says that nine occupation U.S. soldiers have been killed in a multi-pronged insurgent attack on a remote American base in eastern Afghanistan.
The attack appears to be the deadliest against U.S. forces in Afghanistan in years.
NATO’s International Security Assistance force says that militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in Kunar province, a mountainous region that borders Pakistan.
The Western official says that nine U.S. occupation soldiers have been killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the deaths had not yet been officially announced.
A soldier with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force died in a roadside blast in Helmand province Sunday, a statement said. The soldier’s nationality was not released and it wasn’t clear if the death was connected to the two-day battle.
In eastern Kunar province, fighting erupted when militants attacked a NATO occupation security force outpost, the military alliance said in a statement.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry, confirmed the fighting and said four Afghan soldiers were wounded.
In the country’s north, a soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion Saturday, the military alliance said in a statement.
The statement did not give any further details of the explosion. The soldier’s nationality was not been disclosed.
There are nearly 53,000 troops from 40 nations serving the ISAF occupation in Afghanistan.
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