EU Set to Impose Arms Embargo on Syria

BRUSSELS - EU member states moved closer to imposing an arms embargo on Syria at an April 29 meeting where member states reached a preliminary agreement on the embargo and to consider other measures to respond to Syria's action against pro-democracy protestors, said Reuters quoting EU diplomats.
"In light of the continuing violence and in order to promote a democratic process, the EU has launched its internal procedures for an embargo on arms and equipment used for internal repression and will urgently consider further appropriate and targeted measures with the aim of achieving an immediate change of policy by the Syrian leadership," Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, said in a statement after the meeting.

Gergely Polner, a spokesman for Hungary, the current EU president, said that EU ambassadors came to a political agreement to start preparing sanctions, including an arms embargo.
In terms of the timeline for a decision, Polner was quoted by Reuters as saying that "[EU governments] understood the grave situation in Syria. The presidency made it clear that as soon as we have a proposal on the table, we will start working on sanctions".
A spokesperson for Ashton said the issue was "very likely" to be on the agenda of EU foreign ministers for their meeting at the end of May, but that a decision could also be taken in council via a written procedure. Whichever mechanism is chosen, the decision to impose an arms embargo would come into force the day afterward when it has been published in the EU's Official Journal.
The spokesperson said the EU was "very likely to adopt the same kind of approach for the arms embargo as it did with Libya," banning equipment used for internal repression, such as riot gear. Review was now at the working party level, she said, adding that she did not know who would police the embargo.

Location of bin Laden Hideout Puzzles Experts

ISLAMABAD - Quiet amazement greeted the news of Osama bin Laden's death in the garrison town of Abbottabad close to the Pakistan Army's Kakul military academy.

The hideout of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is pictured after his death by U.S. Special Forces in a ground operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2. (Farooq Naeem / AFP via Getty Images)

How could bin Laden have hidden himself in such a heavily militarized and security-aware environment?

"Abbottabad was probably the best place, as it was least expected, and Abbottabad is a city of settlers, where every other house is of nonresidents," said military spokesman Brig. Azmat Ali.
South Asia analyst Brian Cloughley called it "absolutely amazing" that bin Laden was located "but a stone's throw from the [Pakistan Military Academy] and the Baloch Regimental Centre."
Cloughley declared himself "quite sure" that "no military person in Abbottabad knew he was there, if only because the word would have got out."
Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, an assistant international relations professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, said one could well question just how bin Laden had managed to hide there, but also noted that terrorists had been apprehended in Rawalpindi, an even larger garrison town that is home to the Army's General Headquarters. Abbottabad is relatively close to the tribal areas, he said, and has a major regional transportation artery running through it - and terrorists have been apprehended there in the past.
Bin Laden's death has domestic, regional and international implications for Pakistan, Jaspal said, which explains "very much why the government of Pakistan has been slow in acknowledging its coordination and cooperation with the United States" in the matter.
The primary consequences, he said, would be at home, where local terror groups affiliated with al-Qaida have already shown that Pakistan's cities and law enforcement agencies are a soft target.
Regionally, Jaspal said, India will try to use the circumstances of bin Laden's death in its "full-fledged campaign" to portray Pakistan as a "failed and terrorist state."
There would be more U.S. pressure now for Pakistan to deliver as an ally, he said, and the international community may question Pakistan's past assertions that terrorists were not hiding on Pakistani soil, but "the professionals" and intelligence communities understand that terrorist suspects are always mobile and hard to locate.
Pakistan's past record in apprehending chief terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi showed its cooperation with the West in hunting down al-Qaida terrorists, Jaspal said, even those supported by "the anti-American lobby" or al-Qaida sympathizers.
He said he now expects the "Americans will ask the government of Pakistan to intensify" operations against the so-called Quetta Shura, the Taliban leadership in Pakistan. Jaspal said Washington also would try to force Pakistan to move against the Haqqani group in Pakistan's North Waziristan province.
Cloughley said he doubts that bin Laden's death will have a "negative impact" on any terrorist group, "simply because he did not have any planning or command function."

Osama Bin Ladin is dead:US Media

 WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda's elusive leader Osama bin Laden is dead and his body has been recovered by US authorities, American media reported. US President
Barack Obama was to make the announcement shortly.

US President Barack Obama would make this announcement shortly, a senior US official said.

The official said that Bin Laden was dead, but did not provide details of how his death occurred.

Obama was imminently to address Americans in a highly unusual Sunday night appearance on television.

Russia Seeks Cease-Fire in Libya

MOSCOW - Russia on May 1 called for an immediate cease-fire in Libya and said it had "serious doubts" the West was not targeting Moammar Gadhafi and his family after Tripoli said the leader's son was killed.

Damage is shown at a home belonging to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi during a government-organized tour of Tripoli on May 1. The Libyan government said Gadhafi’s youngest son was killed in a NATO airstrike. (Mahmud Turkia / Agence France-Presse)

"The claims of the coalition members that strikes over Libya do not have the physical destruction of Moammar Gadhafi and members of his family as their goal cause serious doubts," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Reports of casualties among civilians are being received in Moscow with increasing concern," it added.
A NATO raid late April 30 killed Gadhafi's youngest son and three grandchildren, a Libyan government spokesman said .
The Libyan leader and his wife were in the building that came under attack but were not harmed, the spokesman said, calling the strike "a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country."
NATO said it had targeted a command and control center.
The Russian foreign ministry said the coalition's strikes over Tripoli and other cities had intensified in recent days.
It reeled off a series of non-military installations including premises of Libyan non-government organizations that it said had come under fire.
The ministry said this proved that Russia was right when it had warned that the "disproportionate use of force" and the exceeding of the U.N. mandate would lead to "harmful consequences and deaths of innocent people."
It called on the coalition to "cease fire immediately" and "begin a political settlement without any preliminary conditions."
Russia last month abstained from the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya, but later it accused the West of exceeding the U.N. mandate.
The U.N. resolution authorized the use of force in Libya to protect civilians from a bloody war sparked by a rebellion against Gadhafi's four decades of rule and his regime's efforts to suppress it.

Iranian General Denounces Rival Gulf States

TEHRAN, Iran - A top Iranian military officer on April 30 denounced what he called an "Arab dictatorial front" and claimed that the "Persian Gulf has belonged to Iran forever," media reports said.
"The Arab dictatorial regimes in the Persian Gulf are unable to contain the popular uprisings," Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, was widely quoted as saying by Iranian media.

"Instead of trying and failing to open an unworkable front against Iran, these dictators should relinquish power, end their savage crimes and let the people determine their own future," Firouzabadi said.
He also denounced "plots" by the Gulf Arab petro-monarchies to "carve out an identity for themselves by rejecting the identity of others," referring to Iran.
"The Persian Gulf has always, is and shall always belong to Iran," the general said.
Firouzabadi, speaking on the annual "National Day of the Persian Gulf," also condemned regional Arab monarchies for refusing to call the waterway between Iran and its Arab neighbors by its "historical name."
"With the arrival of the British and later the Americans in the region, plots were hatched to try and change the name with fake identities ... to distort the history and identity of the Persian Gulf," Firouzabadi said.
Relations between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors have deteriorated sharply, with the latter accusing Tehran of seeking to destabilize Arab regimes in favor of popular unrest that has erupted in many Arab countries.
Shiite-dominant Iran has strongly criticized Saudi Arabia's military intervention in Sunni-ruled Bahrain aimed to help crack down on a Shiite-led uprising there.
Iran says it gives "moral support" to Bahrainis but is not involved in the protests there.
Bahrain and Kuwait have in turn expelled Iranian diplomats, accusing them of espionage.
Iran has in the past claimed Bahrain as part of its territory, and it controls three islands in the southern Gulf that are also claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

Second Sub in 2011 Ordered By U.S. Navy

Using money from the newly-passed 2011 defense budget, the U.S. Navy on April 28 was finally able to do something it hasn't done for 20 years - order the construction of more than one submarine in a single year.

The Virginia-class attack submarine Hawaii enters Apra Harbor, Guam, for a scheduled port visit. The U.S. Navy has ordered two submarines to be built this year, a first in 20 years. (MC2 Corwin Colbert / Navy)

About $1.2 billion was awarded to General Dynamics Electric Boat to build the yet-to-be-named SSN 787, the 14th unit of the SSN 774 Virginia class of nuclear-powered attack submarines. The money comes after earlier contracts for long-lead items for the boat, such as the nuclear reactor.

Rel

Ordering the second sub was the Navy's top priority among items threatened by the continuing resolutions that kept the government running at 2010 levels for the first six months of fiscal 2011. A defense budget that included the second submarine was finally approved by Congress in early April and signed into law April 15.
The Navy and its submarine shipbuilding team of Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries have been working for years to bring down costs on the submarines to be able to afford two subs in a single year. The two-per-year threshold of $2 billion per sub - figured in 2005 dollars - was reached beginning with the 2012 submarine, but Congress last year added a second sub to the 2011 budget.
The $2 billion figure is somewhat mythical; factored for inflation, that amount in 2005 dollars equals about $2.6 billion in current monies.
Nevertheless, prime contractor Electric Boat claims the per-unit cost of a new Virginia-class submarine has come down about 20 percent since the first boat was ordered in 1998.
"Reducing the cost of Virginia Class ships to the point where the Navy can afford to acquire two ships per year has demanded an intense process of continuous improvement," John Holmander, Electric Boat's Virginia program manager, said in a press release. "Our task now is to ensure that we demonstrate additional improvement on each ship so taxpayers get the best possible return on the nation's investment in submarines."
Construction of Virginia-class submarines is shared equally between Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls. EB builds its hull sections at Quonset Point, R.I., and assembles the submarines at Groton, Conn. HI's submarines are built and assembled at Newport News, Va. The shipbuilders alternate on completing each boat.
Newport News will complete the SSN 787, with delivery expected around 2016.

Afghan Forces Still a Work In Progress: Pentagon

WASHINGTON - A shortage of trainers and problems plaguing the Afghan army and police could jeopardize NATO's goal to hand over security to the Kabul government by 2015, a Pentagon report said April 29.
Building up the Afghan security forces is at the heart of the NATO-led strategy to gradually withdraw foreign troops from a war that has dragged on for more than nine years.

Seeing the project as their ticket out, NATO countries are investing heavily in the effort, with the United States planning to spend $12.8 billion in 2012.
With 159,000 Afghan troops and 126,000 police trained as of March 31, the Pentagon said in a report to Congress it was satisfied at the pace of the growth of the force despite troubling rates of desertion.
For about every 10 new recruits, six soldiers quit, according to the report.
And while the number of soldiers in uniform has swelled and basic literacy courses have been launched, the capabilities of the Afghan forces remain limited.
"ANA (Afghan National Army) units are still too dependent on coalition forces for operations, and specifically logistical support," said the progress report on the Afghan war.
About three-quarters of army units are judged "effective" when backed by advisers or assistance from coalition troops, but not one army battalion or police unit is deemed able to operate independently, according to the report.
A senior administration official insisted the transfer of security duties to the Afghans was on track and that the Afghan troops were steadily making progress.
"They are more and more capable of operating and they'll need less and less support. It's a gradual process," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
"This is not something that can happen in one day."
For the Pentagon, the most serious problem facing the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is a chronic shortage of foreign trainers.
The report described "a significant shortfall of ANSF trainers and mentors, which, if not adequately addressed, poses a strategic risk to ANSF growth and an increased risk to transition."
The nearly 1,400 trainers currently on the ground represent less than half of the instructors needed. Coalition members have pledged to contribute 667 trainers, but another 740 are still lacking, the report said.
In the past two years, training focused on basic courses for the infantry but now the coalition requires more specialized instruction for medical, logistical and transport units, the official said.