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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (62636)	12/21/2002 1:50:14 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Israel tightens control in Gaza; 11 girl killed by Isreali soldiers Reuters News Service chron.com JERUSALEM - Israel used armored combat vehicles to enforce new blockades in the Gaza Strip today and arrested militants in a crackdown after attacks, as mediators appealed for a truce to end two years of bloodshed. Palestinian witnesses and security sources said Israeli military fire killed an 11-year-old Palestinian girl as she walked along a road near the heavily guarded Jewish settlement of Morag in Gaza. An Israeli military source said they had no reports of shooting in the area. Elsewhere in the strip, the army set up blockades at the Gush Katif and Netzarim settlements effectively cutting Gaza into three. At least 6,500 Jewish settlers live in about 16 settlements among nearly two million Palestinians there. Hundreds of Palestinian cars trying to travel between the north and south of the densely populated coastal strip were piled up or turned back at the checkpoints, witnesses said. "The forces divided the Gaza Strip into three parts ... in order to prevent the movement of terrorists and weapons. (We) will permit passage for humanitarian situations," the army said. It was not immediately clear how long the Israeli army would maintain the blockades imposed after Palestinian militants shot and killed a settler rabbi Friday, but an Israeli military source said it was a "new policy" in response to attacks. The army said it arrested two militants belonging to Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for shooting the 40-year-old rabbi, and blew up their houses. A spokesman said six activists in the militant Hamas group were arrested in the West Bank. After a meeting in Washington Friday, mediators from the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations called for a cease-fire followed by Israeli withdrawal from areas occupied since the Palestinian uprising started in 2000. They said peace plans including creation of a Palestinian state were nearly complete, but they were unlikely to be presented until after Israeli elections in late January. The "Quartet" of mediators promised to quickly complete a "road map" plan which lays out steps Israelis and Palestinians must take to put peace talks back on track. "It is in everybody's best interests that there be two states living side by side in peace and this government will work hard to achieve that," President Bush said. The United States was alone in backing Israel's request to go slow on the plan until a general election on Jan. 28, which is expected to entrench the power of the ruling right-wing Likud party under current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At least 1,731 Palestinians and 671 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising for statehood erupted in September 2000.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (62636)	12/21/2002 1:51:48 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

US, UK not cooperating: Blix WASHINGTON, 21 December 2002 — Arms inspectors yesterday criticized the United States and its ally Britain for not sharing vital information on Iraq as the two nations prepared for a war in the Gulf. “If the UK and the US are convinced they have evidence, well then one would expect that they would be able to tell us where is this stuff,” said Hans Blix, in charge of chemical, biological and ballistic weapons inspection teams in Iraq. Asked if he was getting all the cooperation he wanted from Western intelligence, he told BBC radio: “Not yet. We get some but we don’t get all we need. The most important thing that governments like the UK or the US could give us would be to tell us of sites where they are convinced that they keep some weapons of mass destruction.” A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mark Gwozdecky, told Reuters the UN nuclear watchdog had also received little help despite being “led to believe that we will be getting some of this information”. Washington insisted that it will keep sharing intelligence with the weapons inspectors but will not provide secrets that risk “drying up” its sources for future data. “We want to help the inspectors to have all the evidence they need,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, but “we will never do anything that could lead to drying up of sources and methods.” Washington stood alone on Friday in saying Iraq had committed a “material breach” by lying about its weapons programs. Even its closest ally, Britain, stopped short of using the term that could trigger war. “At the moment we simply don’t know whether Iraq will be found in breach of the United Nations resolution,” Blair said. “The key thing at the moment is to make all the preparations necessary, and to make sure that we are building up the capacity in the region — both the Americans and ourselves — and that we are able to undertake this mission if it falls on us to do so,” he said on British Forces Broadcasting Service. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Iraq’s declaration contains nothing indicating that it is in material breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Ivanov’s comment was Russia’s first official reaction to the weapons declaration. Ivanov was in Washington for talks on the Middle East. The two other permanent members of the Security Council — China and France — have also refrained from saying Iraq was in “material breach” of the UN resolution. Bush administration officials have indicated the next milestone date would be Jan. 27 when the UN weapons inspectors are scheduled to make their first substantial assessment to the Security Council. They said Bush could make a decision around that time to attack Iraq. Fueling speculation of a US-led attack early next year, a German government source said Washington had asked Berlin to provide 2,000 troops to guard US bases in the country at the end of January. A US defense official said Washington will send an extra 50,000 troops and more military hardware to the Gulf by early January. The deployment will include tens of thousands of reservists and give Bush the option to start combat operations against Iraq in late January or early February, the official said. There are now about 65,000 US forces in the Gulf, including 15,000 in Kuwait on the border with Iraq. The new deployment will take the force above 110,000. “We want to be ready, but of course, it’s up to the president to decide about a war and he has not made a decision,” the official said on condition of anonymity. American and British warplanes, meanwhile, attacked Iraqi air defenses in a southern “no-fly” zone yesterday in the fifth such raid in a week. (Agencies)

To: stockman_scott who wrote (62636)	12/21/2002 2:07:29 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Alqaeda" detainees in Guantanamo enjoying good health, phone calls home. Guantanamo detainee phones home By Badar Al-Motawae, Arab News Staff JEDDAH, 21 December 2002 — A Saudi detained at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, told his family in a 45-minute telephone call this week that he had spent his days learning the Holy Qur’an by heart. It was the first phone call from Guantanamo to a Saudi family. The father of the detainee, who requested anonymity, said his 25-year-old son had called them late Wednesday at their home in Makkah.” He said he was well and had learned the Qur’an by heart,” the father said. “My son also told us that the detainees had limited freedom of movement and could attend to their devotions.” He did not, however, supply any new information about conditions in the jail where he is detained along with about 600 other Al-Qaeda suspects without any proven criminal charges against them. He said that other Saudi prisoners were anxiously waiting for their turn to call home. “He also said all his fellow prisoners enjoyed good health. On behalf of the other prisoners, he urged their relatives to write more letters as these communications “give us the feeling that we are still amidst you.” He also wanted them to pray more for the prisoners’ release, the father said. “Though his words were often interrupted with sobs, I got the impression that his condition was satisfactory,” the father added. Al-Watan newspaper said that the name of the caller was Abdul Aziz. His uncle who spoke on behalf of the family told the newspaper said his nephew did not answer most of the questions put to him as if he were afraid of some guards standing beside him and listening. In a related matter, Mohammed Al-Fouzan received a letter from his son Fahd Al-Fouzan, another Saudi prisoner in Guantanamo, on Tuesday after communications were broken off three months ago. Elham Hassan, a Bahraini lawyer and member of the international committee for the defense of Guantanamo prisoners, considered Wednesday’s telephone call a positive indication toward the acceptance of the demands of the prisoners’ relatives and governments. Elham urged the US government to release the prisoners or turn them over to their respective governments, as “the US does not possess any evidence to justify their detention.” She added that a meeting of the committee would be held in Doha next week to discuss the new developments.