Kuwait may host US Iraq backup force

The troops will be kept as a backup or rotational training force for Iraq, after the Pentagon completes the scheduled withdrawal of its current 45,000-strong force from Iraq in December, US officials said.

The proposal, not yet announced, is among a number of options the administration is considering for extending its military training role in still-violent Iraq, whose divided government has been reluctant to ask Washington directly to keep troops on its soil beyond this year.

All troops are to leave Iraq by Dec. 31 under a 2008 security agreement, but senior US officials worry that without more training the Iraqi forces may squander hard-won security gains. The Iraqi army, for example, is only now taking delivery of US battle tanks, on which they have yet to be trained.

Iraq s security forces are improving but still lack the capability to defend fully Iraqi air space, borders and territorial waters, US military officers say.

“There are some gaps in their military capabilities, their security capabilities, that we believe we could offer some assistance with,” Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday. Discussions with the Iraqis on this are in an early stage, Kirby added.

The Obama administration favors a proposal that would leave 3,000 to 5,000 US troops in Iraq next year to train Iraqi forces, US officials said this week. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Iraq has not yet asked for any extension of forces.

It has not previously been reported that staging US forces in Kuwait as a part of that training mission, or possibly along with that mission, is being considered. One of the US officials said the administration would foresee the Kuwait arrangement lasting for three years, starting in 2012, with troops rotating into Iraq for six-month stints. No decisions have been made, and it was not clear whether direct talks with the Kuwaiti government have begun.

Kuwait has played a pivotal role in the Iraq war from its beginning. The bulk of US ground forces launched the invasion from Kuwaiti territory in March 2003, and the tiny Gulf state has served as a transit point for coalition supply convoys and air transport throughout the conflict. The US uses Kuwaiti air and land bases and maintains a small force in the country now. The Iraq backup forces would be besides that contingent.

China Pledges Regular Patrols Near Disputed Islands

China has said it will do more to protect its fishing grounds next year, with regular patrols near disputed islands in the East China Sea that sparked a huge row with Japan.

The collision of a Chinese fishing trawler and two Japanese coastguard ships near the uninhabited islets, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, led to the worst breakdown in ties between Asia’s top two economies in years.

“Normal patrols to safeguard fishing around the Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea will be organised in 2011,” fisheries administration director Zhao Xingwu, was quoted Friday by the China Daily as saying.

Surveillance of fishing grounds in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea — where one Chinese fisherman died and another remained missing after a clash with South Korean coastguards last week — will also be stepped up, Zhao said.

Chinese fishermen ply the waters near the mainland, but also travel as far away as the Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga, or the waters off east African nations such as Kenya and Tanzania, which have given them special concessions.

But in the East and South China Seas, they are treading on the competing territorial claims of more than a half-dozen Asian countries, most of which involve tiny island chains that are potentially resource-rich.

Japan has protested China’s patrols near the islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by both countries and Taiwan. Patrol boats from the two sides were involved in a brief standoff last month, Chinese state media said.

The two sides have worked to restore ties since the incident, which saw Beijing reduce political, cultural and economic exchanges with Tokyo.

US and South Korea Push Ahead With war Games

The sound of new artillery fire from North Korea just hours after the U.S. and South Korea launched a round of war games in Korean waters sent residents and journalists on a front-line island scrambling for cover Sunday.

None of the rounds landed on Yeonpyeong Island, military officials said, but the incident showed how tense and uncertain the situation remains along the Koreas’ disputed maritime border five days after a North Korean artillery attack decimated parts of the island and killed four South Koreans.

As the rhetoric from North Korea escalated, with new warnings of a “merciless” assault if further provoked, a top Chinese official made a last-minute visit to Seoul to confer with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Lee and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, a senior foreign policy adviser, discussed the North Korean attack and how to ease the tensions, according to Lee’s office. Dai also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, Choe Thae Bok, was due to visit Beijing starting Tuesday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

Washington and Seoul have urged China, North Korea’s main ally and biggest benefactor, to step in to defuse the situation amid fears of all-out war.

The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Their border is one of the world’s most heavily fortified, guarded by troops on both sides.

However, North Korea disputes the maritime border drawn by U.N. forces at the close of the war, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island — 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the South Korean port of Incheon but just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the North Korean mainland — its territory.

The Koreas have fought three bloody naval skirmishes in the waters since 1999, as recently as a year ago. And eight months ago, a South Korean warship, which had been involved in one of those skirmishes, went down in an explosion, killing 46 sailors.

An international team of investigators concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the ship. The two Koreas have remained locked in a standoff over that incident, with South Korea demanding a show of regret for the attack and North Korea denying any involvement.

Tuesday’s attack — on an island with a civilian population of 1,300 — marked a new level of hostility along the rivals’ disputed sea border. Two marines and two civilians were killed when the North rained artillery on Yeonpyeong Island in one of the worst assaults on South Korean territory since the Korean War.

The attack took place as North Korea carries out a delicate transfer of power from leader Kim Jong Il to a young, unproven son in what many see as the heir’s bid to win the military’s loyalty. It also may reflect Pyongyang’s frustration that it has been unable to force a resumption of stalled international talks on receiving aid in return for nuclear disarmament.

The attack also laid bare weaknesses in South Korea’s defenses against North Korea.

North Korea said Saturday that civilian deaths were “regrettable,” but blamed South Korea for staging military drills in the waters against Pyongyang’s warnings that it would consider such exercises a provocation.

Meanwhile, North Korea mounted surface-to-air SA-2 missiles on launch pads on a west coast base and aimed at South Koreean fighter jets flying near the western sea border, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government source.

South Korea’s military said it couldn’t confirm the deployments. An official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North already deploys anti-ship missiles on its west coast bases.

The previously planned joint war games that U.S. and South Korea launched Sunday were sure to heighten the tensions.

Washington insists that the drills involving the nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier are routine and were planned well before last Tuesday’s attack.

The exercises kicked off Sunday morning when ships from both countries entered the exercise zone, an official with South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

However, a spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea said U.S. ships were still steaming toward the area and that the drills would not officially begin until later in the day.

North Korea has expressed outrage over the Yellow Sea drills involving a U.S. nuclear-powered supercarrier, and issued a fresh warning Sunday.

“We will launch merciless counter-military strikes against any provocative moves that infringe upon our country’s territorial waters,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Sunday’s burst of artillery fire in North Korea appeared to be the second in as many days.

Officials were investigating the exact location of Sunday’s artillery fire, an official with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

Pentagon begins full criminal probe of leaks

WASHINGTON: A Pentagon spokesman says the Army is leading the Pentagon’s inquiry into the source of leaked classified intelligence logs from the Afghanistan war.

See the original post: 
Pentagon begins full criminal probe of leaks

Natural Gas Could Lead to New Lebanon-Israel War

By Bassem MroueThe discovery of large natural gas reserves under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean could potentially mean a huge economic windfall for Israel and Lebanon, both resource-poor nations if it doesn’t spark new war between them.

View original post here: 
Natural Gas Could Lead to New Lebanon-Israel War

Obama Copenhagen Speech,Obama Copenhagen 2009

TrendPK.com Obama Copenhagen Speech,Obama Copenhagen 2009:For all the expectations that President Barack Obama’s appearance at the Copenhagen climate conference could part the waters and break the deadlock, his 8-minute speech thrilled nobody.
Granted, he met beforehand with a score of world leaders, and a dozen more at lunch—not to mention an hour-long one-on-one [...]

Nomura s Jellyfish

---

Nomura s Jellyfish was first posted on November 2, 2009 at 8:28 pm.