Iran tension: Western navy troops start war drills in US

CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina: With beach landings, 25 naval ships and an air assault, the United States and eight other countries are staging a major amphibious exercise on the US East Coast this week, fighting a fictional enemy that bears more than a passing resemblance to Iran.

After a decade dominated by ground wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the drill dubbed Bold Alligator is “the largest amphibious exercise conducted by the fleet in the last 10 years,” said Admiral John Harvey, head of US Fleet Forces Command.

About 20,000 US forces, plus hundreds of British, Dutch and French troops as well as liaison officers from Italy, Spain, New Zealand and Australia are taking part in the exercise along the Atlantic coast off Virginia and North Carolina.

An American aircraft carrier, amphibious assault ships including France’s Mistral, Canadian mine sweepers and dozens of aircraft have been deployed for the drill, which began on January 30 and runs through mid-February.

Monday was “D-day” for Bold Alligator, with US Marines stepping on to the beach from hovercraft, near the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina.

The American military, mindful that Marines have spent most of their time in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan since 2001, said the goal was “to revitalize, refine, and strengthen fundamental amphibious capabilities and reinforce the Navy and Marine Corps role as ‘fighters from the sea.’”

With defense spending coming under pressure after years of unlimited growth, the Marines — which devoted a brigade to the exercise — also are anxious to protect funding for their traditional role as an amphibious force.

The exercise scenario takes place in a mythical region known as “Treasure Coast,” with a country called Garnet, a theocracy, invading its neighbor to the north, Amberland, which calls for international help to repel the attack.

Garnet has mined several harbors and deployed anti-ship missiles along the coast.

The threat of mines, anti-ship missiles and small boats in coastal waters conjure up Iran’s naval forces, but the commanders overseeing the drill, Admiral Harvey and Marine Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, say the scenario is not based on any particular country.

Amid rising tensions with Iran and threats from Tehran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, naval officers and military planners are keenly aware of the Islamic Republic’s arsenal of mines and anti-ship missiles.

When asked by reporters last week, Harvey acknowledged that the exercise scenario was “certainly informed by recent history” and that it was “applicable” to the Strait of Hormuz, as well as other areas.

Harvey also said the exercise incorporated lessons from the 2006 Lebanon conflict, when Iran-backed Hezbollah forces hit an Israeli navy corvette with an anti-ship missile.

The Pentagon opened the drill to allied forces for the first time this year, with 650 French troops among those participating.

In their AMX-10 wheeled reconnaissance vehicles and VAB armored personnel carriers, the mission of the French forces was “to land first to secure a path for the Americans,” said Second Lieutenant Chens Bouriche, a French military spokesman.

Sudan rebels capture 29 Chinese workers

 

Rebels in Sudan s South Kordofan state have captured 29 Chinese workers after a battle with government forces, a spokesman for the insurgents said on Sunday.

 

Nine members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) were also being held, Arnu Ngutulu Lodi of the Sudan People s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), told AFP.

 

“Yes, we have captured them,” he said. “I want to assure you right now they are in safe hands.”

 

He said the Chinese have not been kidnapped and none have been wounded.

 

They, along with the Sudanese, were captured on Saturday when the rebels destroyed a Sudanese military convoy between Rashad town and Al-Abbasiya in the northeast of the province, which has been at war since June.

 

Lodi said the Chinese were working mainly on road construction in the area.

 

They are being held in the Nuba mountains “until further notice” because of the security situation.

 

“Today is a little bit calm but we are expecting at any time SAF may launch an attack on us,” he said.

 

Spokesmen for Sudan s army and the Chinese embassy could not be immediately reached for comment.

New weather system to begin from tomorrow

TrendPK.com
LAHORE: Meteorological Department forecast the beginning of new rain spell from tomorrow, TrendPK reports Friday.

According to Meteorological Department, the new weather system will enter from Balochistan tomorrow to trigger snowfall over the mountains of the province during the night between Saturday and Sunday.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Upper Punjab areas, Islamabad, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are expected to receive showers on Sunday and Monday with snowfall likely on the mountains. TrendPK

US seeking to expand raids into Pakistan: NYT

United State News: Top US military commanders in Afghanistan are seeking to expand ground raids by Special Operations Forces across the border in Pakistans tribal areas, The New York Times reported Monday.

Amid growing US frustration with Pakistans lackluster efforts at removing militants from strongholds there, the officials are proposing to escalate military activities in the nuclear-armed nation, the Times said in its online edition.US forces have been largely restricted to limited covert operations and unmanned drone strikes in Pakistan due to fears of retaliation from a population that often holds strong anti-American sentiment in a country rife with militants.Even these limited operations have provoked angry reactions from Pakistani officials. The drones are believed to be largely operated by the CIA.Amid a looming July deadline for American troops to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, military and political leaders pointed to a renewed sense of urgency.Military commanders told the newspaper that the Special Operations plan which has not yet been approved could help them secure much-needed intelligence if militants were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.US officials said they were particularly keen to capture rather than kill militant leaders from the Taliban or the Haqqani network in order to obtain intelligence about future operations.Weve never been as close as we are now to getting the go-ahead to go across, a senior US officer said.But a senior official from President Barack Obamas administration said he did not favor cross-border operations, saying they have been mostly counterproductive unless they targeted top al Qaeda leaders.The official also worried that political fallout in Pakistan over the operations could counter any tactical gains.CIA-backed Afghan militias, previously believed to only carry out intelligence-gathering operations, have also crossed the border into Pakistans tribal belt during secret missions, including one in which a militia destroyed a militant weapons cache, officials told the Times.An Afghan political leader said one of the raids by the Paktika Defense Force one of six CIA-trained Afghan militias was initiated to capture a Taliban commander in Pakistan. The mission was ultimately unsuccessful but Pakistani militants opened fire on the Afghans.Another CIA-backed force near the eastern Afghan province of Khost was recently deployed in the mountains along the Pakistan border, where it is due to try to intercept Taliban fighters during the winter, an American military officer told the Times, saying the militia has so far proven effective.

Nepal plane crash kills all 22 on board

All the 22 people including the passengers and crew members on board a small passenger plane that crashed in a mountainous area in eastern Nepal were killed, police said Thursday after a rescue team reached the site.

The Twin Otter plane carrying three crew and 19 passengers including one American smashed into a mountainside shortly after taking off from a small airstrip 140 kilometres (90 miles) east of Kathmandu on Wednesday afternoon.

We have recovered 20 bodies. We are still searching for the other two, but we can be sure there are no survivors, police spokesman Bigyan Raj Sharma told the reporters. The aircraft has broken up completely and is scattered over 200 metres (yards) of dense forest.It is not yet known what caused the Tara Air plane to crash.

Sharma said the bodies of the victims would be flown by helicopter to Kathmandu later Thursday. The United States embassy in Kathmandu confirmed that one was an American citizen and said it was in contact with the man’s family. The other passengers were initially thought to have been Nepalese, but media reports suggested they may have been Bhutanese pilgrims who claimed to be locals to qualify for a cheaper air fare. This could not immediately be confirmed, but Sharma said identity documents from Bhutan had been found at the crash site. Khotang, the remote district in eastern Nepal where the plane took off, is not a major tourist destination, but it is home to two sites of religious significance, a Hindu temple and a Buddhist monastery.

Air travel is popular in Nepal, which has only a very limited road network. Many communities, particularly in the mountains and hills, are accessible only on foot or by air.Aviation accidents are relatively common, particularly during the summer monsoon, when visibility is usually at its worst. Last month, a helicopter crashed near Mount Everest during a mission to rescue two stranded climbers, killing the pilot and an engineer. In August, a plane headed for the Everest region crashed in bad weather killing all 14 people on board, including four Americans, a Japanese and a British national.

An investigation blamed the crash on a power failure. It said the plane’s generator failed and the pilot did not follow the proper procedures to conserve the remaining battery power.Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic airline founded in 1998 which runs a service to many remote destinations across Nepal.Yeti’s last major accident was in 2008 when a passenger plane crashed on landing at Lukla airport, the gateway to Mount Everest, killing all 19 people on board, most of them German tourists.

Rao Shakeel admits mismanagement during Hajj

Former DG Hajj operations Rao Shakeel on Thursday admitted mismanagement in Hajj arrangements in the SC, while the Ministry of Religious Affairs submitted the record of 630 Hajj tour operators in the court. A7-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chuadhry began hearing of a suo moto notice of Hajj corruption scandal.

Former DG Rao Shakeel filed his written reply in the court, stating that the hiring he made from April to June was on merit and after that no person was inducted; the lodgings for the pilgrims were just two kilometers away from the Harram. When the CJP asked Rao that how come he got appointed as DG for there are many NAB cases on him. You took extra 700 riyals from the Hujjaj and made their accommodations on the mountains and you also hired Ahmed Faiz illegally, the CJ maintained while addressing Shakeel. The hearing has been adjourned till Dec 13 (Monday).

I will present evidence in court on Monday, says Swati
Hailing the SC for its notice of the Hajj corruption scandal, Federal Minister for Science & Technology Azam Khan Swati has said that he would present the evidence in this respect in the apex court on Monday (Dec 13). Had I resigned, no minister has got the guts to bring such a huge corruption to light, the minister said.

He said that he is not interested in retaining the ministership, My ministry is people of Pakistan and my silence would have been a crime towards the nation. The poor pilgrims have been ripped off but whoever is involved in corruption has to face the music, Swati maintained.

Tempers cool in Kashmir after summer of violence

SRINAGAR: As the first snows fall in the mountains of Indian Kashmir, tempers are also cooling after a summer of violence that saw more than 100 people die in street protests.

For more than three months, thousands of protesters, many of them teenagers, fought pitched battles with security forces in the highly militarised disputed territory, with scores killed during police shooting.

The deaths, which reached 18 in a 24-hour period in September on the worst day of violence, caused the biggest Kashmir crisis for the Indian government since the start of an insurgency against Indian rule in 1989.

But for two weeks, the region has been mostly calm, attributed partly to a series of measures by the government designed to strangle the protests and defuse anger in the Himalayan region.

For the time being, the cycle of violence has been broken — good news for

Rescuers try to reach Philippines storm survivors

CAUAYAN: Typhoon Megi inched away from the Philippines on Wednesday after killing 19 people, as relief workers scrambled to deliver aid to remote towns that were devastated by the storm.

The governor of the hardest-hit province of Isabela, Faustino Dy said that residents in three coastal towns had suffered massive damage to their homes and were left with limited food supplies after huge waves washed away roads.

“Their food supply is only up to Sunday. But going there is very difficult. There is no road to reach them,” Dy told reporters in Cauayan, the closest city to the worst-hit towns.

Dy, who had flown by helicopter to the devastated areas, said that as many as 20,000 people were affected.

Many of them had survived by fleeing into the mountains before Megi hit, he and other officials said.

Regional social welfare chief Arnel Garcia said

Landslide buries hundreds of homes in Mexico

OAXACA: A landslide buried some 300 homes in southwestern Mexico early on Tuesday and is feared to have killed hundreds while they slept, local authorities and media said.

Heavy rain in the mountains of Oaxaca state loosened the soil around the town of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, four hours’ drive from the capital of Oaxaca, famous for its colonial buildings and nearby archeological sites.

Authorities said bad weather had affected roads in the area and would delay rescue teams. A civil protection source declined to comment on the estimated number of victims but Excelsior, a leading national newspaper, said 1,000 people were feared dead.

A storm system in the western Caribbean has generated widespread rain in the area over the past week. AGENCIES

Neelum Valley receives season’s first snowfall

Staff Report

MUZAFFARABAD: Neelum Valley with all of fountains, springs and waterfalls lies north-south of Muzaffarabad, and has received its first snowfall of the season, SAMAA learnt Tuesday.

The valley received rain with lightning last night. Mild spells of snowfall started in the mountains which made the weather pleasant in upper parts of the valley.

Meanwhile, minimum temperature in most parts of the state fell due to rains and snow.

Snowfall and cold weather has made the problems of homeless flood victims worse as the entire 90 mile long Neelum Valley is the worst hit by flash floods. SAMAA

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