Obama nominates Hillary as Secretary of State

Monday, December 01, 2008 (Chicago): US President-elect Barack Obama on Monday named former Democrat rival Senator Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State in his incoming administration and retained Robert Gates as the Defence Secretary.

The team of Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden also officially announced other key members of their cabinet, nominating Eric Holder as Attorney General, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations and General Jim Jones as the new National Security Adviser.

"In this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning - a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, and to seize the opportunities embedded in those challenges," Obama said in a statement issued by his transition team.

To succeed, a new strategy should be pursued that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power -- military and diplomacy, intelligence and law enforcement, economy and the power of "our moral example," the country's first African-American President said.

"The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that. They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world," Obama, who will be taking office as the 44th US President on January 20 next year, said.

US, India face Pak blackmail on terror

WASHINGTON: The United States and India face tactics bordering on blackmail from a militarized Pakistan - where civilian control is still very dodgy - as they coordinate efforts to eliminate terrorism in the region, according to analysts and officials on both sides.

In what is turning out to be an elaborate chess game in the region, Islamabad on Saturday made its "Afghan move" to counter the US-India pincer, telling Washington that it will have to withdraw some 100,000 Pakistani troops posted on its western borders to fight the al-Qaida-Taliban and move them east to the Indian front if New Delhi makes any aggressive moves.

In Washington, Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani said there is no movement of Pakistani troops right now, but if India makes any aggressive moves, "Pakistan will have no choice but to take appropriate measures."

Stripped of complexities, Pakistan is conveying the following message to the US: If you don't get India to back down, Pakistan will stop cooperating with US in the war against terror. Consequently, this also means Pakistan will use US dependence on its cooperation to wage a low-grade, asymmetric, terrorism-backed war against India.

Pakistan's withdrawal of troops from the Afghan front would obviously undermine the US/Nato battle in Afghanistan and allow breathing space for Taliban and al-Qaida. It would also ratchet up confrontation with India, which is at low ebb right now because Islamabad has been forced to engage on its western front and this minimizes Pakistan-backed infiltration into Kashmir, allowing India to tackle the insurgency in the state.

In fact, some experts surmise that the terror strike on Mumbai may have been aimed at precisely this - taking the pressure off Pakistan on its Afghan front, where it is getting a battering from US predators and causing a civilian uprising on its border, and allowing Islamabad to return to its traditional hostile posture against India on its eastern front.

The US-India-Pakistan tangle was the subject of intense debate among analysts on Sunday talk shows, with some analysts like former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin expressing apprehension that al-Qaida could be achieving its objective of getting some relief through such proxy attacks.

Vexed US officials have been in constant communication with their Indian counterparts to deal with the complex situation arising from what both sides privately agree has become a chaotic country dominated by rogue elements from its military and intelligence services.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been speaking with India's External Affairs Minister regularly to get a sense of India's mood and moves, worried that any overtly aggressive response by New Delhi will undermine US effort in Afghanistan.

President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama have also spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to show US support, but also to moderate Indian response. Both Washington and New Delhi are starting to realise that the Pakistani military still calls the shots in Islamabad behind the civilian façade, officials here concede privately.

The weakness of Pakistan's civilian leadership was fully exposed on Saturday when the country’s army chief once again overruled a civilian government decision - this time to send the Director General of its spy agency ISI to India to coordinate the investigation into the latest terror attack on Mumbai.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari explained it away saying there was a miscommunication and Islamabad only meant to send a ''Director'' and not Director-General, at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s request. But no one was fooled by the ''clarification'' -- the reversal of the earlier decision came after a midnight meeting Pakistan’s Army Chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI chief himself, had with Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani.

Pakistan’s threat about troop withdrawals from the Afghan front also followed the Zardari-Kiyani-Gilani meeting, leaving little doubt about the real power center in Islamabad despite the recent return to democratic rule.

The situation is made even more complex by the transition process in the US where President Bush is winding down from the White House and President-elect Obama is readying to take charge. Both sides have made the Pakistan problem a top priority as they coordinate response, tactics, and communication relating to developments in the region.

The latest attacks on Mumbai also threatens to torpedo Obama's stated objective of promoting good ties between New Delhi and Islamabad, so that Pakistan can focus its energy on the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan that are controlled by Islamic extremists.

But hardliners in Pakistan's military and strategic circles, who resent what they see as the country's civilian government doing Washington's bidding and fighting what they argue is a US war, are against this. The terror strike on Mumbai evidently has several objectives - one of them being to cause a rift between Washington and New Delhi and damage US-India ties.

While Pakistan's fledgling civilian government has made all the right moves and noises about cooperation with India, officials here reckon it is being continuously undermined by the hard-line military whose importance, and lavish funding, depends on keeping up a hostile posture against India.

Even in the political sphere, Pakistan's continued existence as a single entity is premised on enmity with India, the glue which keeps the country together. Some Pakistanis have suggested in recent months that take away animosity against India, then Pakistan's founding itself becomes questionable.

Already, many Pakistanis are starting to question the relevance of a country where more people are killed in intra-religious warfare between Shias and Sunnis than in Hindu-Muslim communal riots in India. Two of Pakistan's four territories are wracked by insurgencies, and the intelligence community's reading is that resurrecting the hostile posture against India is one way the hard-line elements in Pakistan hope to contain this domestic conflagration.

While Pakistan is playing its one desperate Afghan card, both India and US can separately bring Pakistan to its knees in no time. The US and its allies are dependent on Pakistan for supplies to its troops in Afghanistan, but they can also plug the economic plug on the country and cause it to collapse in no time. India controls Pakistan's lifeline and jugular with river waters that originate in India and flow into Pakistan.

But punishing Pakistan with this levers would also throw the country into absolute chaos and bring extremists elements to the fore leading to a Somalia kind of situation -- with nuclear weapons in the mix. This is the fear that Pakistan is exploiting to stay afloat and stave off sanctions from the west and punishment from India.

The solution, analysts say, is to get Pakistan's civilian leadership to exert control over its hard-line military and intelligence which functions on its own existential agenda.

This is easier said than done. America's foremost strategic guru Henry Kissinger told Fareed Zakaria's GPS program on CNN, which devoted an entire hour to the crisis, that Pakistan's civilian government had made good statements vis-à-vis ties with India,"but its capacity to implement them is questionable."

Russia to upgrade missiles: report

Moscow, December 01, 2008: A top Russian general is quoted as saying the military will upgrade its missiles in response to US plans to deploy weapons in space.

Interfax news agency quotes Col-Gen Nikolai Solovtsov as saying Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles will be modernised to protect them from prospective space-based components of the US missile defence system.

Solovtsov is the chief of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces.

Russian officials have criticised US plans for space-based weapons, saying they could trigger a new arms race. Washington has resisted efforts by Russia and China to negotiate a global ban on weapons in space.

Solovtsov also reportedly said today that the military will commission new RS-24 missiles with multiple warheads.

Lanka troops capture key LTTE town after 18 years

Monday 01 December, 2008: Sri Lankan army on Monday captured a strategic town in Tamil Tiger stronghold of Mullaitivu 18 years after it was seized by rebels, as the troops advanced towards the rebel headquarters in the island's embattled north.

Troops seized Kokavil town, about 20 km south of the rebel 'capital' of Kilinochchi, the army said calling it a "long-awaited milestone" in the war.

The LTTE has controlled the town since they overran a military camp there in 1990.

The capture is the latest sign of the government troops' dominance in the civil war. Since withdrawing from a 2002 ceasefire with the rebels in January, the military has been carrying out a major offensive in the rebel-dominated north.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has admitted that they lost territory in the ongoing onslaught but their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has vowed to fight on.

"Troops of Sri Lanka Army 57 division today reached a long-awaited milestone on their march into the LTTE dens in Wanni with the liberation of the Kokavil town in Mullaittivu," the Defence Ministry said.

Infantrymen of the 57 division first reached a location few kilometres north of Kokavil and then turned the thrust southwards destroying all remaining LTTE strongholds down to nearby Mankulam area, the military said.

Meanwhile, army snipers deployed ahead of the Jaffna forward defence lines have killed three LTTE rebels since Sunday, military sources reported.

According to the sources, a LTTE cadre was killed this morning at Muhamalai, while two others were sniped on Sunday, at Kilaly and Muhamalai respectively.

Separately, troops have also recovered a claymore mine during search operations at Kilaly in Jaffna today.

In Andankulam in Mullaittivu, troops conducted search operations and recovered a huge cache of weapons.

According to the Defence Ministry, the troops seized two LTTE bunkers in Kumulamunai and recovered 46 anti-personnel mines.

At Akkarayankulam in Kilinochchi, army troops inflicted damages to the rebel fighters in two different clashes and captured the bunkers on Sunday.

Clashes were also reported from Kurukandi and Adampan in Kilinochchi and Ponnnar and Muhamalai areas in northern Jaffna on Sunday, the military said adding, the security forces suffered some damages due to anti-personnel mine explosions at Muhamalai.

The LTTE, fighting since 1983 to create a separate homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils, had taken over Kokavil after capturing an army camp in 1990.

Lieutenant Saliya Upul Aladeniya, the commander who was the last officer in charge of the isolated camp, died in the fighting and was posthumously conferred with the Parama Weera Vibhushanaya, the country's highest award for the gallantry at the battlefield.

He was the first officer to be so awarded.

Chabad House attack an enemy action against us: Israel

Monday, December 01, 2008, (Jerusalem): Taking the terror strikes on a Jewish establishment in Mumbai seriously, Israel's Defence Ministry has decided to view the attack on Nariman House or Chabad House as an "enemy action" against the State of Israel.

The decision will entitle the families of the victims of Nariman House the same financial benefits that are granted to victims of terror attacks in Israel.

At least eight Israelis have been identified among the dead in last week's terror attacks in Mumbai which claimed around 200 lives.

A seven-member team of Israeli police's victim identification unit left for India on Sunday to assist in locating and identifying two missing Israelis, who have not reported in yet.

Of the four Israelis that the Foreign Ministry's situation room listed as being out of contact, two were reportedly found on Sunday.

"We must search for them (the other two) among the casualties of the various attacks," said Chief Superintendent Itzik Coronio, who is heading the delegation which also include two high ranking anti-terror experts.

"All the bodies have been evacuated to a few central locations, and that is where we expect to focus our work," Coronio added.

The team has prepared "identification kits" containing identifying details of each of the missing Israelis obtained from their families and Israel Defense Forces records. These details include fingerprints, dental records and DNA samples.