ECOWAS Approves Intervention in Mali

It will be interesting to see how effective the ECOWAS intervention force is in retaking northern Mali for the Islamists.

West African regional leaders have agreed to deploy 3,300 soldiers to Mali to retake the north from Islamist extremists.

At a summit of Ecowas, the group's chairman said it was ready to use force to "dismantle terrorist and transnational criminal networks".

The soldiers would be provided mainly by Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Islamist groups and Tuareg rebels took control of the north after Mali's president was overthrown in March.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Outtara told reporters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, that the soldiers could be deployed as soon as the UN approved the military plan.

He said he hoped the Security Council would approve the plan by late November or early December.

By: Brant

Syrian Civil War Now Officially a... uh... "Civil War"

Red Cross declares Syrian conflict to be civil war - Yahoo! News

Syria's 16-month bloodbath crossed an important symbolic threshold Sunday as the international Red Cross formally declared the conflict a civil war, a status with implications for potential war crimes prosecutions.
The Red Cross statement came as United Nations observers gathered new details on what happened in a village where dozens were reported killed in a regime assault. After a second visit to Tremseh on Sunday, the team said Syrian troops went door-to-door in the small farming community, checking residents' IDs and then killing some and taking others away.
According to the U.N., the attack appeared to target army defectors and activists.
"Pools of blood and brain matter were observed in a number of homes," a U.N. statement said.
Syria denied U.N. claims that government forces had used heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery and helicopters during the attack Thursday.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the violence was not a massacre — as activists and many foreign leaders have alleged — but a military operation targeting armed fighters who had taken control of the village.

By: Brant

Child Soldiers Across the World

While there was good news over the past year, there's a lot of progress yet to be made.

More than 11,000 child soldiers were freed from military slavery last year, but the United Nations believes hundreds of thousands around the world remain at the mercy of warlords like Thomas Lubanga.
The 14-year jail term ordered against Lubanga by the International Criminal Court on Tuesday is a "historic" signal, according to Radhika Coomaraswamy, who ends a six-year term this month as UN special representative on children in conflict.
The crime of recruiting and using children as soldiers "is now written in stone, nobody can say they are unaware of it," Coomaraswamy told AFP in an interview.
Governments are starting to get the message. Only Lubanga's native Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan are holding up a UN target to rid all government armies around the world of child soldiers by 2015.
The UN believes hundreds of thousands of children are forced to fight at gunpoint by the likes of the Taliban in Afghanistan, notorious Congo warlord Bosco Ntaganda, the Shebab in Somalia, Ansar Dine in Mali and other terror groups and private armies around the world.

By: Brant

More Syrian Shootouts

I guess the UN observers are just observing Syrians shooting other Syrians at this point.

Syrian forces ambushed and killed nine army deserters in a north Damascus suburb on Monday, a human rights watchdog said, as NATO ruled out military action against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The bloodletting also appeared to spill over into neighbouring Lebanon where two people were killed overnight in street battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in Beirut, a security official said.
The latest violence in Syria comes after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded on Sunday near a team of UN observers in a Damascus suburb, and at least 48 people were killed elsewhere in the country.
The nine army deserters were killed as they were retreating under cover of darkness from the village of Jisr al-Ab near Damascus's Douma suburb, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The watchdog on Sunday had reported fighting between rebels and regime troops near Douma, during which the RPG exploded near the team of UN observers.

By: Brant

Syria Ceasefire Has Ceased Its Effectiveness

Now there are bombs going off in Damascus.

Two explosions have hit the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 40 people and wounding 170, officials say.

State TV footage of the blasts showed massive destruction in the al-Qazzaz suburb to the south of Damascus said to house a military intelligence complex.

The TV report said they were "terrorist bombings". Damascus has been the target of several bombs in past months amid continuing anti-government unrest.

The two sides are supposed to observe a ceasefire monitored by UN observers.

But violence has continued unabated, with the restive city of Homs shelled again overnight.

By: Brant

Both Sides Ignoring US Ceasefire in Syria

The US-brokered ceasefire has been pretty useless in Syria.

Security forces killed at least 10 people in fighting across Syria on Tuesday, activists said, in a 14-month-old revolt that international mediator Kofi Annan, the Red Cross and Arab League warned was deteriorating into a civil war.
Clashes between government forces and rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad raged overnight in Syrian towns and flared again during the day, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Despite an initial pause in fighting on April 12, a promised ceasefire has not taken hold. Nor has the carnage in Syria stopped, despite a parliamentary poll on Monday which the government promoted as a milestone on its path to reform but the opposition dismissed as a sham and boycotted.

I mean, really, if you're blowing up convoys 30 seconds after the head of the UN mission drives by, it's clear that you don't care much about the ceasefire.

A roadside bomb struck a Syrian military truck Wednesday, wounding six soldiers just seconds after a convoy carrying the head of the U.N. observer mission passed by.
An Associated Press reporter who was traveling in the U.N. convoy said the explosion blew out the military truck's windows and caused a plume of thick, black smoke. The U.N. convoy was not hit.
"We were driving behind the U.N. convoy as protection when a roadside bomb exploded, wounding a 1st Lieutenant and five troops," a soldier who asked to be identified only by his first name, Yahya, told The Associated Press at the scene.
At least three bloodied soldiers were rushed away.
The blast went off after the head of the U.N. observer mission, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, headed into this southern Syrian city with a team of observers and a convoy of journalists. The explosion was more than 100 meters (330 feet) behind the convoy.

By: Brant

It's Not Just The Syrian Government

Apparently the Syrian rebels are violating the cease-fire, too, putting a damper on their claims to the moral high ground.

A rebel ambush in northern Syria killed 15 security force members on Wednesday, including two colonels, as fighting flared in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based group said two rebels were also killed in the clashes, another breach of a U.N.-backed ceasefire aimed at halting the fighting between Syrian forces and rebels who are part of the year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

By: Brant

Syria's Already Ignoring Cease-Fire

Look, if Kofi Annan - the guy who presided over 2 failed UN missions to the Congo - says you're out of line and that levels of violence in your country are still unacceptable, maybe you should pay some attention. I mean, the guy clearly knows what he's talking about, eh?

The UN special envoy, Kofi Annan, has told the Security Council that Syria is still witnessing unacceptable levels of violence, despite a ceasefire being in place since 12 April.

Briefing diplomats in a closed-door session, Mr Annan said he was alarmed about surges in violence in Syrian cities after visits by UN monitors.

One activist group said 38 people were killed on Tuesday, mostly in Homs.

The UN wants to increase its observers in Syria from a handful to 300.

Mr Annan said the overall situation was "entirely contrary to the will of the international community".

He said he was "particularly alarmed" by reports of government forces firing on protesters in Hama.

"If confirmed, this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible," he said.

He also called for the rapid deployment of the observer mission.

By: Brant

What Are The Options in Syria?

We saw earlier what a former Syrian army commander thinks could be accomplished with an intervention, but is that realistic?

But what other options? Clinton told the meeting that the U.S. would aid opposition groups with more communications and logistics equipment, and that she favored new U.N. sanctions to impose an arms embargo and travel restrictions against Assad's regime. Those measures, however, are likely to be rejected by Syria's major allies, Russia and China, both of which have veto powers at the U.N. Security Council and refused to join Thursday's meeting in Paris.

Clearly frustrated at the inability of Western and Arab leaders to end the Arab Spring's bloodiest conflict, both Clinton and Juppé have described Annan's cease-fire agreement as a make-or-break deal, which could trigger far tougher action against Assad if it fell apart. Clinton described the plan in Brussels on Wednesday as Assad's "last chance," while Juppé told reporters on Thursday that leaders would "look at what new measures need to be taken" if Assad violates the terms of the cease-fire.

One thing is for certain, whatever agreement there is on the terms of the monitoring mission, you can bet the Syrians will break it.

Syria and the United Nations signed an agreement on Thursday on terms for hundreds of observers to monitor a ceasefire, but fierce diplomatic wrangling lies ahead to persuade the West the mission can have the authority and power to ensure peace.
A handful of U.N. observers are already in Syria monitoring a week-old truce that has failed to stop bloodshed. The question of whether the mission can expand while violence continues is up in the air. A crowd mobbed the head of the advance party on Thursday, some demanding the death of President Bashar al-Assad.
The U.N. Security Council - divided between Western countries that want to topple Assad and Russia and China, which support him - must agree the proposal to send a larger observer force. Russia made clear it wants the 15-member council to move now to expand the small mission, while the West is hesitating.

By: Brant

Syrians Bailing on UN Peace Plan?

Looks like the Syrians are barely paying attention to the UN-brokered peace plan

Syria has not fully complied with a U.N.-backed peace plan for the country and has yet to send a "clear signal" about its commitment to ending more than a year of violence, the U.N. chief told the Security Council in a letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
At the same time, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced hope that there may be a chance for progress on ending a 13-month conflict that has brought Syria to the brink of civil war.
Ban proposed an expanded U.N. monitoring mission, which, if approved by the council, would be comprised of "an initial deployment" of up to 300 unarmed observers to supervise a fragile week-old ceasefire between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters seeking to oust him.
But he cautioned that the fighting had not ended.

Just looking around the room... Yep, just what we figured. No astonished looks of surprise on these faces.

  By: Brant

UN Observers in Syria Welcomed With Artillery Salute

Oh, uh... never mind.

An advance team of U.N. observers was negotiating the ground rules with Syrian authorities Monday for monitoring the country's 5-day-old cease-fire, which appeared to be rapidly unraveling as regime forces pounded the opposition stronghold of Homs with artillery shells and mortars, activists said.
Even though the overall level of violence across Syria has dropped significantly since the truce took effect, government attacks over the weekend raised new doubts about President Bashar Assad's commitment to special envoy Kofi Annan's plan to end 13 months of violence and launch talks on the country's political future.
The advance team of six U.N. monitors arrived in Damascus Sunday night. Annan's spokesman said the team, led by Moroccan Col. Ahmed Himmiche, met Monday with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials to discuss ground rules, including what freedom of movement the observers would have. Ahmad Fawzi said the remaining 25 observers are expected to arrive in the coming days.

By: Brant

Guns Go Silent in Syria?

Will the UN ceasefire actually take effect? Will it hold?

Syrian troops held their fire in the hours after a U.N.-backed ceasefire took effect at dawn on Thursday, casting a silence over rebellious towns they had bombarded heavily in recent days.
But the lull did little to convince opposition activists and Western powers of President Bashar al-Assad's good faith in observing a peace plan agreed with international envoy Kofi Annan. In defiance of that deal, Syrian troops and tanks were still in position inside many towns, activists told Reuters.
"It was a bloody night. There was heavy shelling on the city of Homs. But now it is calm, and there is no shooting," said Abu Rami, an activist in Syria's third city after the 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) deadline passed. Assaults on restive neighborhoods had become more intense after Assad accepted Annan's timetable.

By: Brant

Syrian Duplicity. Again.

Hey sure, we'll agree to a ceasefire. But don't expect us to stop shooting or anything.

Syrian troops fought rebels in a town near Damascus on Thursday before a senior U.N. peacekeeper was due to seek President Bashar al-Assad's agreement for 250 unarmed U.N. observers to monitor a U.N.-backed ceasefire next week.
Explosions and heavy machinegun fire rocked Douma, 12 km (8 miles) from the capital, sending columns of smoke rising from several buildings, anti-Assad activists from the Revolutionary Council of the Damascus Countryside said.
Fighting shows no sign of abating even though Assad agreed more than a week ago to a six-point peace plan drawn up by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to end the year-long conflict.

By: Brant

Are Sanctions Actually Working in Syria?

According to this report from the BBC News it appears as though the sanctions against Syria are working, and have the bonus effect of screwing w/ Iran, who are trying to prop up their ally.

Speaking to the BBC's Weekend World Today programme, Mr Qudsi said the economy had been crippled by sanctions and that although Iran was sending money, it was not enough.


Mr Qudsi now chairs a London-based investment banking firm and has been heavily involved in private sector investment in Syria.

He said the uprising had destroyed tourism and the sanctions on exports of oil and other products had dramatically reduced the gross domestic product.

"So, effectively the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank have come down from $22bn (£14bn) to about $10bn and it is dwindling very rapidly," Mr Qudsi said.

He said the military phase against protesters could only last another six months "because the army is getting tired and will go nowhere".

"They will have to sit and talk or at least they have to stop killing. And the minute they stop killing, more millions of people will be on the streets. So they are in a Catch 22."

He added: "The apparatus of the government is slowly disintegrating and it's almost non-existent in trouble spots like Homs, Idlib, Deraa. Courts are not there; police are not interested in any sort of crime and it is affecting the government very, very badly."

But Mr Qudsi said Mr Assad would fight to the end because he and his supporters think there is "a universal conspiracy against the government of Syria".

By: Brant

Redux of Libya in Syria? Don't Bet On It

Will a new coalition step into the breach in Syria? Given the similarities with Libya - Arab dictator, Soviet client state, religious-affiliated resistance, freedom of navigation thru the Med - it's tempting to dust off the Libya plan and press "play". Not likely goig to happen, though...

Perhaps in part because of the bad blood over Libya, the world body has reached no similar consensus over Syria. Rather, the opposite, with some of the harshest diplomatic language traded for years. To the United States, the vetoes were a "travesty." German ambassador Peter Wittig essentially said that Moscow and Beijing had Syrian blood on their hands.
"China and Russia will now have to assume that responsibility in the face of the international public opinion and especially in the Arab world, the Arab citizens and, of course, in face of the Syrian people," Wittig said.
Beyond the rhetoric, the vetoes had a more practical consequence. NATO officials have made it clear that the alliance cannot act, by enforcing a no-fly zone for example, without U.N. support. Writer Derek Flood, recently in Syria with elements of the Free Syrian Army, says NATO officials envision no role for the alliance in Syria this year. But they have not ruled out a "coalition of the willing" outside the NATO orbit.
Both Russia and China are wary of any international action supporting protest against authoritarian rule. And Syria has been first the Soviet Union's -- and now Russia's -- key ally in the region after Egypt 'defected' in the 1970s. As it has for decades, Russia still supplies the Syrian government with weapons. One Russian analyst, Ruslan Pukhov, told CNN: "Once the Assad regime vanishes, we have zero influence in the region."
According to Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, al-Assad has ably judged the "diplomatic red lines" to keep Moscow onside. There have been no massacres on the scale of what happened in Hama 30 years ago (when thousands were killed after a brief uprising against his father's rule) that might have forced Russia into a corner. The persistent drip of civilian casualties over almost a year has not unleashed a tide of irresistible outrage.

By: Brant

Syrian Massacre, Russian Intransigence

Syrians are still killing their own people, and the Russians are still avoiding the facts.

Syrian government forces have bombarded the city of Homs with artillery shells and mortars, killing more than 200 people, opposition groups say.

Activists accused the military of massacring women and children in the worst violence in 11 months of unrest.

But the government denied the claims, saying activists were engaging in a propaganda campaign.

A draft UN resolution is still under discussion, with Russia indicating it is still not happy with the wording.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday the current draft included measures against President Bashar al-Assad's government, but not against armed opposition groups.

He said Moscow had tabled amendments to the text to try and ensure the UN would not appear to be taking sides in a civil war.

A vote had been expected to take place later, but Mr Lavrov said it would be a "scandal" to ask the council to vote on the resolution in its current form.

Russia is Syria's main ally on the council, and has said it will veto any resolution calling on Mr Assad to stand down.

Moscow has continued to supply weapons to Syria despite the protests.

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By: Brant

Predictable Vetos at the UN

What's that? China and the Union of We-Wish-We-Were-Still-Soviet Socialist-In-All-But-Name Not-Even-Pretending-To-Be-A-Republic-Anymore vetoed a UN resolution condemning Syria, one of their biggest arms customers? Sure didn't see that coming.

China and Russia have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria over its crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The European-drafted resolution had been watered down to try to avoid the vetoes, dropping a direct reference to sanctions against Damascus.

But Moscow and Beijing said the draft contained no provision against outside military intervention in Syria.

The US envoy to the UN said Washington was "outraged" by the vote.

Susan Rice, who walked out after the vote, said opposition to the resolution was a "cheap ruse by those who would rather sell arms to the Syrian regime than stand with the Syrian people".

The result is a huge blow to European and US efforts on the Syria issue, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan in New York says.

Maybe they're afraid of a second Libya now that NATO has shown the balls to blow shit up without the Americans cramming it down their throats (see also: Kosovo).

By: Brant

The UN and Espionage - An Annual Event

With the opening of the UN General Assembly, espionage abounds in the Big Apple.

The walkout hinted at one of the well-known but seldom spoken truths about the United Nations: The international organization, which was founded in the name of peace and security, is also a hotbed of spying and clandestine operations, where someone might very well be listening to your conversations and monitoring your emails — or perhaps reading your speeches in advance.
The start of the General Assembly each year is the Super Bowl of the U.N. spy games.
Foreign leaders descend upon New York with entourages of aides and security officers. Many have not been dispatched to practice diplomacy. They are intelligence officers, and they've come instead to recruit agents in hotels and quiet cafes around the city. In their line of work, trickery and deception trump political niceties.
While the diplomats inside the United Nations are often making headlines, FBI agents are chasing spies around the city. Justice Department lawyers are asking judges to approve wiretaps. And the CIA is searching for foreigners who might be persuaded to commit treason.
All this makes for a frenzied few weeks, especially for the FBI's Manhattan field office. The FBI's counterintelligence unit there is responsible for monitoring foreign diplomats in the city.
It's one of the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering operations in the U.S. and involves one of the FBI's most extensive electronic surveillance programs, according to former U.S. intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
It's hardly a secret to foreign intelligence officers, who are skilled at evading surveillance.

I found this tidbit particularly interesting.

The CIA is prohibited from domestic intelligence-gathering but, since the United Nations is considered foreign soil, it is authorized to run covert actions there. Its officers are also allowed to recruit foreigners to spy for the U.S., a primary goal for the CIA during the opening of the General Assembly.

By: Brant

Anniversary: North Korea Invades South Korea

Today marks the anniversary of the start of the Korean War, arguably still the most successful UN operation in their history (and what does it say that it came about 5 years into the UN's 60+ year history).

It's a war that's never officially stopped, even though it's been kinda-sorta over for 55 years now. Of course, with the heavily-armed DMZ, and the Norks being bat-shit crazy, it's a favorite among wargame designers to build some hypotheticals around.

Here's a quick-list of the gaming goodness that exists for the actual war as fought in the '50s.

Korea: The Forgotten War
The Korean War
The Forgotten War: Korea
Korea: The Mobile War 1950-51
Hell Over Korea, 1950
The Korean War
Inchon, Turning The Tide of Korea
Yalu (2nd edition) (reimplements Yalu)

You want something really entertaining? Here's a clip of a dramatic radio broadcast being interrupted with the news that the North has declared war, from the day it happened.

By: Brant

Just *Who* Is Shooting?

I love this headline: U.N. and French helicopters attack Gbagbo forces...

Here's the start of the accompanying article

U.N. and French helicopters attacked forces loyal to Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo overnight into Monday, damaging the presidential residence in Abidjan and destroying heavy weapons that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon ordered silenced.
Gbagbo refused to step down after his rival Alassane Ouattara won last November's presidential election, according to results certified by the United Nations, reigniting a civil war that has claimed more than a thousand lives and uprooted a million people.
Helicopter attacks a week ago on Gbagbo's heavy weapons by the United Nations and France appeared to bring Gbagbo's forces to the point of surrender, but they used a lull in fighting to regroup before taking more ground in Abidjan.

So here's my question: who is providing the "UN" helicopters? The UN does not - AFAIK - own any of their own armed helicopters; they get them all from their member nations. So who provided these?

By: Brant