ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

US soliders on patrol in Afghanistan. (File, AFP) Kabul - The US operation to remove military hardware and vehicles from Afghanistan as troops withdraw after 12 years of war, will cost $5- to $6bn, officials said on Sunday. Among statistics released by the military about the process known as a "retrograde" was that 25 000 vehicles have been shipped out of Afghanistan in the last year and another 25 000 remain in the country. About 100 000 containers are also still in Afghanistan, and will be used to remove mountains of equipment ranging from fighting gear to fitness machines, furniture and computers. "The retrograde from Afghanistan is one of the most challenging military transportation operations in history in terms of scale and complexity," Brigadier General Steven Shapiro said in an email. "Our number of vehicles in Afghanistan has dropped by nearly half in the past year." Shapiro said decisions were being made on what equi...

Baghdad - Iraqi officials said seven people were killed in attacks in the capital and in the western city of Fallujah on Sunday, including a mosque preacher who was gunned down outside a sweets shop. A police officer said assailants shot dead the preacher, Sheik Talib Zuwayid of the al-Baraa mosque in Fallujah, along with his nephew and another man. A health official confirmed the deaths and said another man was injured. Residents said Zuwayid was one of the organisers of weekly Sunni demonstrations against the Shi'ite-led government that have been taking place for the past three months. The police officer however said it was unclear if the killings were related to the protests. Immediately after he was killed, residents hung up posters announcing the man's death on Fallujah's main road. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release information. In the Iraqi capital, two separate explosions killed four people and woun...

Al Arabiya - Syrian rebels, who defeated President Bashar al-Assad’s regime forces in the northern city of Raqqa early March, vowed not to “mistreat” captured Assad loyalists. Al Arabiya’s correspondent Jomaa Akkash met with the prisoners, who were once loyal to Assad forces. The prisoners said they were not “ill-treated” by opposition fighters. “We were policemen at [Raqqa] governor’s palace, we were armed but we didn’t fight. When they [opposition fighters] asked us to surrender we did, and we gave up our arms as well. The fighters allowed us to contact our families and we didn’t face any ill-treatment,” said a prisoner, former policeman. The prison has 50 detainees and is separated into three different cells. Some of the captives were part of the Raqqa Police force while others received orders from the ruling Al-Baath party to carry out specific assignments. While opposition fighters say the prisoners will appear in front of a religious court, negotiations are still underway with th...

By Jay Janson March 31, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - While staring at the New York Times front page photo of the bat-winged nuclear-capable B-2 Stealth Bombers up in the blue sky on their first non-stop long-range mission from the US on their way to a practice sortie to end in a mock bombing drop of inert munitions on a range off South Korea’s coast, I ponder. The thought that ‘enough is enough’ will apparently never arise in the mind-set of those commanding the first planet-encompassing space-age military, blown up now to an uncontrollable magnitude and fueled by an uninterrupted flow of trillions of dollars by ledger line pre-occupied elite of the speculative investment banking community; a community possibly still being led by multi-war promoting confidants of ninety-eight year old David Rockefeller.1 Former president of Korea, Lee Myung-bak dutifully bought loads of new US weapons of mass destruction. Does he ever remember watching his two tiny siblings begin to sl...

WASHINGTON – North Korea's massive but poorly trained and equipped military could cause significant damage in the early stages of an attack on its southern neighbor. But any attack would ultimately be repulsed by superior U.S. and South Korean forces, military analysts say. It's unclear how serious North Korea is on following through on its threats, but North Korea has increased its bellicose rhetoric recently, renewing worries that its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Un, could take actions that might trigger a wider conflict. The North Korean leader said his rockets were ready "to settle accounts with the U.S." The United States has responded to the heated rhetoric by announcing it flew two B-2 bombers on a training mission over South Korea. It was part of an annual joint-training operation that continues until the end of April. Analysts say the recent rhetoric is particularly worrisome when coupled with recent provocative actions taken by the North. In 2010, the Nort...

North Korea has called the U.S. nuclear arsenal a threat to its existence since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula still technically at war. Pyongyang justifies its own nuclear pursuit in large part on that perceived U.S. threat. STORY HIGHLIGHTS North Korea's 'nuclear armed forces' represent 'nation's life,' statement says Kim Jong Un presided over meeting that called for stronger nuclear arsenal North Korea issued a warning Saturday that Korean Peninsula was in 'state of war' SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A top North Korean decision-making body issued a pointed warning Sunday, saying that nuclear weapons are "the nation's life" and will not be traded even for "billions of dollars." The comments came in a statement released after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party. The meeting, which set a ...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A top North Korean decision-making body issued a pointed warning Sunday, saying that nuclear weaponsare "the nation's life" and will not be traded even for "billions of dollars." The comments came in a statement released after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party. The meeting, which set a "new strategic line" calling for building both a stronger economy and nuclear arsenal, comes amid a series of near-daily threats from Pyongyang in recent weeks, including a vow to launch nuclear strikes on the United States and a warning Saturday that the Korean Peninsula was in a "state of war." Pyongyang is angry over annual U.S.-South Korean military drills and a new round of U.N. sanctions that followed its Feb. 12 nuclear test, the country's third. Analysts see a full-scale North Koreanattack as unlikely and say the threats are more likel...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai has met with the Emir of Qatar in Doha to discuss the possible opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state. The move could foster the peace process with the Islamic fundamentalist movement in a bid to stem violence as foreign combat forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The Qatar News Agency says Karzai met with the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and other senior government officials on Sunday. It also says he held talks with Qatar's ambassador to Pakistan during a tour of an Islamic art museum in Doha. The report didn't give details, but Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai has said the talks would include the peace process and the opening of a Taliban office.