GCOM Summary (only) 2010 Aug 18

[Felix The Assassin]

U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 18, 2010

New Developments
•Suicide Bomber Kills Dozens In Attack On Iraqi Army Recruits. A suicide bomber penetrated apparently lax security measures at an Iraqi Army recruiting office in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing dozens of recruits in the first major bombing of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The attack comes in the fraught period just ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline for American forces to reduce their numbers. Iraqi soldiers said they pulled at least 40 bodies away from the scene. Iraqi officials at the Ministry of Interior and the nearest hospital said the death toll was at least 48, with more than 120 wounded. On Tuesday evening, the Iraqi police said 8 people were killed and 44 wounded after a bomb attached to a fuel truck loaded with kerosene blew up in Ur, a Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad, The Associated Press reported. (New York Times – see attached)

•If Afghanistan Dissolves Security Firms, Guards Will Join Taliban, Some Predict. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to do away with over 50 firms, both foreign and domestic, which employ more than 24,000 guards working mostly for Western entities battling daily to secure the most dangerous roads in Afghanistan so that critical supply convoys can reach U.S. and NATO troops. Karzai has set a four-month timeline to dissolve the companies and bring their workload under his government's control. In a decree issued Tuesday, Karzai said private security personnel must join the Afghan police or quit working by the deadline. An exception will be made for guards on the property of international organizations, such as embassies, but the government will provide all off-campus security. International leaders believe that Karzai's timeline is far too ambitious to ensure a smooth transition to another method of security. (Washington Post – see attached)

•'Three Cups Of Tea' A Byword For U.S. Effort To Win Afghan Hearts And Minds. "So, did you have your three cups of tea?" a U.S. infantryman, bulky in body armor, asked another soldier as he emerged from the mud-brick home of an Afghan village elder. In this case, it wasn't tea but slices of cool melon, served to the sweating troops who spent an hour crouched on a plastic tarp covering the dirt floor of the house in this hamlet in northern Afghanistan. But the phrase "three cups of tea" has entered the American troop lexicon as shorthand for any leisurely, trust-building chat with locals. It is drawn, as legions of readers can attest, from the bestselling book of the same title by former mountaineer Greg Mortenson, who has devoted himself to establishing girls schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)

•Pakistani Floods Could Further Hurt Unstable Nation As Military Focuses On Aid. Staggered by the scale of destruction from this summer's catastrophic floods, Pakistani officials have begun to acknowledge that the country's security could be gravely affected if more international aid does not arrive soon. The floods have submerged an area roughly the size of Italy, displaced 12 percent of the population and destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and crops. But with the government admittedly overwhelmed and foreign aid trickling in, the worst may be still to come, as Pakistan struggles to deal with food shortages, disease outbreaks and a mass migration of homeless families. All those factors have the potential to further destabilize a nation undermined by weak governance and a vicious insurgency even before the crisis. (Washington Post – see attached)

•Insurgents, Police Clash Amid Pakistan Flooding. Islamist militants attacked police posts in Pakistan's northwest and killed two civilians active in an anti-Taliban militia, challenging a security establishment straining under a national flooding disaster, police said Wednesday. A group of militants first killed two members of a militia in the Adezai area of Peshawar as they headed to pray at a mosque late Tuesday, said Liaqat Ali Khan, Peshawar police chief. In the hours after, dozens of militants from the Khyber tribal region, which lies along the Afghan border, attacked police posts in the Sarband area of Peshawar. The two sides exchanged fire for about an hour before the militants retreated to Khyber, Khan said. He said several militants were killed, but there were no police casualties. The clashes suggest Islamist insurgents are not abandoning their campaign against the state despite the flooding that has affected some 20 million people – or one in nine Pakistanis. (Boston Globe/AP)

Military Coverage
•Judge In Norfolk Throws Out Piracy Charge Against 6 Somalis. A federal judge in Norfolk Tuesday threw out the piracy charge against six Somalis accused of attacking the local Navy ship Ashland, dealing a blow to the government's attempt to revive a piracy statute that had not been used in nearly 200 years. The Somalis still face seven other charges in the April 10 attack on the Ashland off the Horn of Africa, but the piracy charge carried the harshest penalty - life in prison. They remain accused of firing on the amphibious dock landing ship, based at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Va. "The court finds that the government has failed to establish that any unauthorized acts of violence or aggression committed on the high seas constitutes piracy," U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson said in his ruling. (Virginian-Pilot – see attached)

Homeland Security
•Terrorist Interrogation Tapes Found. The CIA has videotapes, after all, of interrogations in a secret overseas prison of admitted 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh. Discovered in a box under a desk at the CIA, the tapes could reveal how foreign governments aided the United States in holding and interrogating suspects. And they could complicate U.S. efforts to prosecute Binalshibh, who has been described as one of the "key plot facilitators" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Apparently the tapes do not show harsh treatment – unlike videos the agency destroyed of the questioning of other suspected terrorists. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP – see attached)

•Colo. Man Wants Another Try At Capturing bin Laden. The Colorado man detained in Pakistan while trying to track down Osama bin Laden says he wants to try again. Gary Faulkner said Tuesday it could be weeks or months before he makes another trip and still has to raise money for it. The 51-year-old unemployed construction worker says he wants to bring the al-Qaida leader to the United States. Faulkner was detained June 13 in Pakistan after he was found with weapons and night-vision equipment. Pakistan released him without charges and he returned to the U.S. Faulkner says he believes he'll be allowed back into Pakistan. The Pakistani Embassy in Washington said no one was available to comment Tuesday. Faulkner has kidney disease and needs regular dialysis. (ABC News/AP)

World Developments
•Second Deadly Blast Rocks Russia’s Caucasus. Russia’s North Caucasus region was rocked by violence on Tuesday as two explosions killed one person and injured many more, underscoring the fragile security on the country’s southern flank. A blast ripped through a café in Pyatigorsk, a town in Stavropol region on Tuesday afternoon, injuring at least 21 people, the local health ministry said. The explosion was caused by a car bomb detonated outside the café in the spa town which is popular with Russian tourists. Earlier on Tuesday a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a checkpoint in North Ossetia in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region, killing one policeman and wounding two others. A man blew himself up while trying to cross from Ingushetia to South Ossetia, said spokesperson Maria Gatsoeva. (London Financial Times – see attached)

•Report: N. Korea Proposed Summit Talks With S. Korea. North Korea offered to hold a summit with South Korea in an apparent bid to secure economic aid, but Seoul rejected the idea citing increased tensions, a news report said Wednesday. Seoul had told North Korea last year that it would give the North aid if Pyongyang agreed to a summit, but when the North recently asked if that offer stood it was told that circumstances had changed, according to the report in the mass-circulation Dong-a Ilbo newspaper, which cited unidentified South Korean government officials. Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Jong-joo denied there was any current government-level dialogue between the Koreas about a summit. She said she had no knowledge of whether there may have been dialogue in the past. (Houston Chronicle/AP)

•Man Shot After Rushing Turkey's Israel Embassy. A Palestinian man known to Israeli police was shot and wounded by Turkish embassy security guards on Tuesday after breaking into the mission in Tel Aviv and taking hostages. The man was subdued and Turkish diplomats questioned him for more than four hours before he limped out of the embassy handcuffed and accompanied by Turkish embassy staff members, an Israeli policeman and a paramedic. An ambulance evacuated him to hospital. An Israeli Arab lawyer who spoke to the man by phone to try to calm him down said the Palestinian had held hostage the Turkish consul-general and his wife for some two hours. They managed to escape after Turkish security officers shot and wounded the Palestinian, who was armed with a gun and a knife. Israeli officials declined to confirm the hostage-taking account. (Reuters)

Public Opinion
•Poll: Opposition To Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Reach All Time High. Two-thirds of Americans favor President Obama's plan to remove combat troops from Iraq by the end of the month as opposition to the war in that country, as well as the one in Afghanistan, has climbed to new highs. According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, Obama's withdrawal plan wins support not because Americans think the U.S. has achieved its goals in Iraq – only three in 10 feel that way – but because a majority believe that the U.S. will never achieve its goals in that country no matter how long troops remain there. That's one reason why 69% oppose the war in Iraq – the highest amount of opposition in any CNN poll. Unpopularity with the war in Afghanistan also reached an all-time high in CNN polling with 62% saying they oppose it. (CNN)