BRUSSELS: The US is renewing pressure on its European NATO allies to establish a long-term train-and-advise mission in Iraq, diplomats said, reviving a divisive issue for an alliance wary after a decade in Afghanistan.
US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis sent a letter to NATO headquarters in January calling for a formal NATO mission to Iraq with a semi-permanent or permanent command to train Iraqi forces, according to five senior NATO diplomats.
After a three-year war with Daesh, Washington wants to ensure the militants do not re-emerge. While NATO does have trainers in Iraq already, they number less than 20. NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss the US request in Brussels next week, with a possible decision at a summit in July.
In his letter, Mattis left many details open but suggested developing military academies and a military doctrine for the Iraqi Defense Ministry, diplomats said. Other ideas cited by diplomats include bomb disposal training, maintenance of Soviet-era vehicles and medical training.
“The US is pushing hard for a NATO role in Iraq, not in a combat role, but for a long-term assignment,” said one senior NATO diplomat on condition of anonymity.
“This looks suspiciously like another Afghanistan,” the diplomat said, referring to the long-running conflict where NATO is funding and training Afghan forces. “Few allies want that.”
Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael declined to discuss whether Mattis had sent a letter to NATO but said: “The administration continues to look for ways allies can do more to counter terrorist organizations.”
A NATO official said that the alliance is “looking into how we can step-up our training efforts.”
NATO defense chiefs will provide ministers with a range of options for an Iraq mission, while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has discussed the issue with Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, who supports a mission, diplomats said.
The US push is also part of President Donald Trump’s demand that the Western alliance go beyond its core task of defending its territory and help stem militancy.
Trump scolded allies last May at a summit in Brussels, warning of more attacks in Europe if NATO did not do more to stop militants. Even his predecessor Barack Obama sought a greater NATO role in the Middle East.
Then, US officials had raised the possibility of NATO taking over the running of the US-led coalition against Daesh, as it did of the US-led mission in Afghanistan in 2003.
The US sees NATO’s long experience in Afghanistan as putting it in an ideal position to help build up Iraqi forces after recapturing territory taken by Daesh. The US has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq.
But European allies fear being pulled into another open-ended foreign assignment that is costly, unpopular at home and potentially dangerous.
In a gesture to Trump, the 29-nation alliance agreed last year to join the coalition. However, France and Germany insisted that the decision was mainly symbolic.
The size of any potential NATO mission has not been debated, but the diplomats said they would need to be substantially more than the current team to mollify Trump. They could involve regional training centers outside Baghdad.
“This is an area where we could demonstrate relevance,” a second diplomat said, noting that allies were well aware of Trump’s campaign criticism in 2016 that NATO was “obsolete” because it did not do more to combat militants.
Creating a formal NATO mission would mean greater funding, so-called force generation to drum-up troops and a structure to keep them in the field for longer.
Difficult issues include whether military trainers would require protection and who would provide it.
Iraq would need to formally request the NATO mission, diplomats said. That would likely rely on Abadi winning re-election in May, as rival candidates backed by Iran are hostile to US troops remaining in the country.
But the pressure is also greater because NATO has not yet been able to follow up on a similar train-and-advise request from Libya’s UN-backed government in Tripoli, diplomats said, because the country is still controlled by rival factions.
Facing Trump’s demands, NATO to consider larger Iraq training mission
Facing Trump’s demands, NATO to consider larger Iraq training mission
ASEAN will want inclusive Myanmar election, Thai foreign minister says
- Thai minister: ‘If there is an election, ASEAN would want an inclusive process that included all stakeholders’
“If there is an election, ASEAN would want an inclusive process that included all stakeholders,” Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa said in a group interview.
China warns Germany against ‘manipulation and smearing’ in spying cases
- German media reported that a Chinese man was detained by security guards before he was arrested by police after taking photographs at the Kiel-Wik naval base on Dec. 9
BEIJING: Beijing on Friday warned Berlin against “manipulation and smearing” China in spying cases, after German police opened an espionage probe into a Chinese national.
“We hope that the German side will... stop using so-called espionage cases to engage in manipulation and smearing, and earnestly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in Germany,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
German media reported that a Chinese man was detained by security guards before he was arrested by police after taking photographs at the Kiel-Wik naval base on December 9.
The northern port is home to German naval installations and shipyards of the defense giant Thyssenkrupp, which builds submarines there.
Beijing on Friday said it was “not aware” of the specific case.
But Lin said China “has always required its citizens overseas to comply with local laws and regulations.”
Germany in early October said it had arrested a Chinese woman accused of spying on the country’s defense industry while working in a logistics company, including at Leipzig airport in eastern Germany.
Named only as Yaqi X., she allegedly reported to another suspected Beijing agent now under arrest, Jian G., who was working in the office of a German far-right member of the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah.
News magazine Der Spiegel, citing unnamed security sources, said that 38-year-old Yaqi X. had especially targeted the arms giant Rheinmetall, which is involved in making Leopard tanks and uses Leipzig airport for cargo flights.
Malaysia to resume search for wreckage of missing MH370 flight
- Flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014
- Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has agreed in principle to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, its transport minister said on Friday, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the proposal to search a new area in the southern Indian Ocean came from exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018.
The firm will receive $70 million if wreckage found is substantive, Loke told a press conference.
“Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin,” he said.
“We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families.”
Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.
Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight, with relatives demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.
Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70 million if it found the plane, but it failed on two attempts.
That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000-square-kilometer area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.
France’s Macron to visit Mayotte shantytowns wrecked by Cyclone Chido
- Officials in France’s poorest overseas territory have only been able to confirm 31 fatalities more than six days after the cyclone
- Some of the islands’ worst-affected neighborhoods, hillside shantytowns are largely inhabited by undocumented migrants
MAMOUDZOU: French President Emmanuel Macron was due on Friday to visit shantytowns in Mayotte ravaged by Cyclone Chido on the second day of a visit where he has faced calls to speed up relief to the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Officials in France’s poorest overseas territory have only been able to confirm 31 fatalities more than six days after the cyclone, the strongest to hit Mayotte in 90 years, but some have said they fear thousands could have been killed.
Some of the islands’ worst-affected neighborhoods, hillside shantytowns comprised of flimsy huts largely inhabited by undocumented migrants, have not yet been accessed by rescue workers.
Macron decided to extend his stay and spend the night in Mayotte after residents pleaded with him to do so.
“I think it’s a sign of respect and consideration that is important to me and which allows me to see a little more of what the population is going through,” he told reporters late on Thursday.
During the first day of his visit, Macron faced criticism and boos from some Mayotte residents for what they called his government’s sluggish response to the cyclone.
Macron said authorities were quickly scaling up support and called for unity. In a heated exchange with a jeering crowd in the evening, he defended the government against charges it neglects Mayotte.
“You are happy to be in France. If it wasn’t for France, you would be 10,000 times worse off,” he said, using an expletive.
Aboubacar Ahamada Mlachahi was one of many people struggling to secure basic needs.
“What matters first is water, for the children. Before fixing the houses, before fixing anything, the daily life... We need water,” he told Reuters.
The 34-year-old construction worker, who is originally from Comoros, said his house was destroyed by the cyclone and he is now squatting on a hillside at Longoni, Mayotte’s freight port.
“Everything is gone,” he said.
Undocumented migrants
Authorities have warned it will be difficult to establish a precise death toll in a territory that is home to large numbers of undocumented migrants from Comoros, Madagascar and other countries. Official statistics put Mayotte’s population at 321,000, but many say it is much higher.
Some victims were buried immediately, in accordance with Muslim tradition, before their deaths could be counted.
Three out of four people live below the national poverty line in Mayotte, which remains heavily dependent on support from metropolitan France.
Chido also killed at least 73 people in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi after reaching continental Africa, according to officials in those countries.
Malaysia to resume search for missing Flight MH370
- Flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014
- Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has agreed in principle to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, its transport minister said on Friday, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the proposal to search a new area in the southern Indian Ocean came from exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018.
The firm will receive $70 million if wreckage found is substantive, Loke told a press conference.
“Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin,” he said.
“We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families.”
Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.
Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight, with relatives demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.
Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70 million if it found the plane, but it failed on two attempts.
That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000-square-kilometer area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.
