[ALBSA-Info] Fw: Security Watch: Friday, 11 October 2002

[Xhuliana Agolli]

Att: Albanian related topic

xhuliana
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From: "Security Watch" <isn-daily-news at sipo.gess.ethz.ch>
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Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 12:56 AM
Subject: Security Watch: Friday, 11 October 2002


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> 
> -Chechen government under military control  
> -Federal Iraq unacceptable to Turkey  
> -Germany arrests 9/11 suspect  
> -Open EU talks with Turkey, says Greece  
> -UN investigates Afghan massacres  
> -US praises Albanian army reform  
> _________________________________________________________
> 
> -In depth: Seaborne arsenals increase US attack speed  
> www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/indepth.cfm?sNewsID=5073
> -In depth: US tested chemical weapons on own troops  
> www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/indepth.cfm?sNewsID=5074
> -In depth: Wehrmacht exhibition rekindles war crimes debate  
> www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/indepth.cfm?sNewsID=5076
> _________________________________________________________ 
> 
> 
> Chechen government under military control
>    
> Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a decree that 
> effectively subordinates Chechnya's civilian government to the 
> Russian military commandants' offices in Chechnya, Interfax 
> reported on Tuesday. The military commandants' offices will, 
> in turn, be subordinate to the joint military command in 
> Chechnya, which is ultimately under the jurisdiction of the 
> Federal Security Service (FSB). The decree empowers military 
> commandants' offices to rule on socioeconomic issues and 
> questions of law and order, in addition to the fight against 
> terrorism, Chechnya military commandant Lieutenant General 
> Sergei Kizyun said. Also on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry 
> criticized a European Court of Human Rights recommendation as 
> gross interference into and obstruction of a criminal 
> investigation. The European Court recommended that Georgia 
> delay the extradition to Russia of eight suspected Chechen 
> militants apprehended after illegally crossing the Russian 
> border into Georgia in early August. The Foreign Ministry 
> dismissed the court's concern that the Chechens might be 
> subjected to inhumane treatment upon their return to Russia, 
> noting that Russia has imposed a moratorium on the death 
> penalty. (RFE/RL)
> 
> 
> Federal Iraq unacceptable to Turkey
>    
> Iraqi Kurdish plans for a federal Iraq that would give their 
> northern region autonomy if the US ousts President Saddam 
> Hussein are unacceptable, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit 
> was quoted as saying on Wednesday. Turkey fears a separate 
> Kurdish state in Iraq will threaten its borders and encourage 
> its own estimated 12 million Kurds to make a bid for 
> independence. Other regional countries with large Kurdish 
> populations such as Syria are similarly alarmed. Turkey, a 
> close US ally with around half a million men under arms, has 
> watched with growing alarm as the Kurds of northern Iraq unite 
> and plan for a possible post-Saddam future, hoping to 
> formalize a fragile autonomy they won by breaking from Iraqi 
> control in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. The two main Kurdish 
> parties have agreed on a draft constitution for a federal Iraq 
> that would give their region wide independent powers and last 
> week held the first meeting of a regional parliament since 
> 1996. "If this draft that removes Iraq and counts Baghdad as 
> nothing is formalized and set in place, that is unacceptable 
> for Turkey," Ecevit told the Milliyet newspaper. "It all but 
> puts an end to Iraq and gives no powers to the central 
> authority." Turkey has not ruled out military action if the 
> Iraqi Kurds seek what Ankara considers excessive autonomy. 
> Turkey has fought separatist Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a 
> conflict that has cost more than 30'000 lives. (Reuters)
> 
> 
> Germany arrests 9/11 suspect
>    
> German authorities arrested a Moroccan man on Thursday on 
> suspicion of involvement in the 11 September attacks on the 
> US. Police arrested 29-year-old Abdelghani Mzoudi in the 
> northern port city of Hamburg on Thursday after a formal 
> arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday, the Federal State 
> Prosecutor said in a statement. Mzoudi was arrested on 
> suspicion of having links to the al-Qaida network and 
> providing logistical help to Mohammed Atta and other suicide 
> hijackers involved in the attacks. "The accused is alleged to 
> have supported the members of the cell around Mohammed Atta, 
> which was involved in the terror attacks on the US of 11 
> September 2001," the prosecutor's office said. Atta and other 
> leading hijackers spent time as students in Hamburg before 
> entering the US. Mzoudi will be brought before an 
> investigating judge of the Federal Supreme Court on Friday, 
> the office said. The office said Mzoudi had had close contact 
> for years with members of the Hamburg cell, which included 
> Atta and two other hijackers who died in the attacks, Marwan 
> al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, as well as key al-Qaida suspect 
> Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was arrested in Pakistan last month. 
> He had particularly close contacts with two further members, 
> Zakariya Essabar (who is still a fugitive) and Mounir El 
> Motassadeq, who goes on trial in Hamburg this month. "The 
> accused knew the organization's goals of launching terrorist 
> attacks and supported it logistically," the prosecutors office 
> said. Mzoudi allegedly gave Essabar money at the end of 2000 
> to pay for flying lessons in the US and arranged accommodation 
> for Al Shehhi in a student's hostel in Hamburg until al-Shehhi 
> left for the US in May 2000. Mzoudi spent time in training 
> camps in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000 where the attacks 
> were organized, prosecutors say. Mzoudi was detained before, 
> in a police raid in July, but later released. He was arrested 
> this week after a witness said he had spent time in 
> Afghanistan, the office said. (Reuters)
> 
> 
> Open EU talks with Turkey, says Greece
>    
> Greece said on Thursday there was no reason why the EU should 
> not set a date to start accession talks with Turkey at its 
> December summit, a day after the European Commission said 
> Turkey was not ready yet. "I believe a positive message to 
> Turkey must be sent from (the EU summit in) Copenhagen," 
> Foreign Minister George Papandreou told Greek radio. Greece 
> and fellow NATO defense alliance member Turkey have seen their 
> often tense relations improve in recent years, easing their 
> traditional enmity. Asked if this message could even be a 
> specific date for the start of negotiations, he said: "Why 
> not, we can say even that." On Wednesday the European 
> Commission recommended that 10 mainly eastern European 
> countries join the 15-nation bloc in 2004. It did not set a 
> date for the negotiations with EU hopeful Turkey. (Reuters)
> 
> 
> UN investigates Afghan massacres
>    
> The UN investigator on summary or arbitrary executions will 
> visit Afghanistan from 13-23 October to probe human rights 
> groups' allegations of mass killings by the Northern Alliance 
> and other groups. Asma Jahangir hopes to visit Kabul, the 
> former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, the central province of 
> Bamiyan and the volatile northern city Mazar-e-Sharif, 
> according to UN sources. Talks are expected with several 
> ministers. She is likely to make recommendations on a separate 
> UN probe, announced last month after an accord with the 
> transitional government, into alleged war crimes and mass 
> graves. That inquiry has not yet begun because forensic 
> experts are awaiting security guarantees. Activists have 
> called for an inquiry into the deaths of up to 1'000 captured 
> Taliban or al-Qaida fighters who were reported to have 
> suffocated in airless truck containers while being moved from 
> one place to another late last year after surrendering to 
> Northern Alliance fighters near Mazar-e-Sharif. Many of those 
> who died are believed to have been buried in a mass grave at 
> Dasht-e-Leili, not far from the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid 
> Dostum's stronghold of Shiberghan. Dostum denies deliberately 
> killing Taliban prisoners, but admits around 200 may have died 
> from wounds and weakness while being transported. One 
> investigation could open the way for many more in a country 
> where war crimes and other abuses occurred regularly during 23 
> years of civil war and occupation. The ruling Taliban were 
> accused of massacres, mainly of the minority Shi'ite Hazara 
> tribe in the Bamiyan region. Jahangir will report to the UN 
> Commission on Human Rights, whose 53 member states open an 
> annual six-week meeting in March. (Reuters)
> 
> 
> US praises Albanian army reform
>    
> The US ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, said in Tirana on 
> Tuesday that the US will continue to cooperate closely with 
> Albania, even if Albania is not asked to join NATO during the 
> next wave of expansion - due to be announced in Prague next 
> month. Burns is on a tour of NATO applicant countries ahead of 
> the alliance's Prague summit in November. Albania is among 
> nine candidate countries. The other countries are Bulgaria, 
> Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and 
> Slovenia. Albania and Macedonia are unlikely to be invited to 
> join in this round. While in Tirana, Burns praised the reforms 
> already made by the Albanian armed forces. A 10-year 
> modernization program has been drafted in cooperation with the 
> US Defense Department, which will also observe its 
> implementation. "An example of that progress [that Albania has 
> made in reforms] is demonstrated by the fact that in December 
> of this year, NATO's Partnership for Peace cell in Tirana will 
> be able to close up its shop because, in effect, Albania has 
> graduated from this program. It has fulfillled all the 
> requirements, and we'll move on to other cooperative ventures 
> together," Burns said. But Burns, a former US ambassador to 
> Greece, was also critical, stressing that the Balkans have 
> common problems to address. "As we have done in Romania and 
> Bulgaria and Macedonia... we raised the issue of corruption, 
> which remains a major challenge for the government and 
> society. We discussed the need for greater measures concerning 
> border security and particularly its impact on the drug trade, 
> the narcotics trade, and trafficking in women and children. 
> And, of course, we raised the issue of the need to deal with 
> the massive piles of weaponry and ammunition that remain in 
> this country," Burns said. Burns praised the support Albania 
> has given to the international antiterrorism campaign, noting 
> the participation of Albanian troops in the International 
> Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. (RFE/RL)
> 
> _________________________________________________________   
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