The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Colombia's Santos vows to thwart Nicaragua's 'expansionist plans'
- Egypt tightens Sinai security, assesses militant threat
- Dismantling Syria chemical weapons arsenal would be tough task
| Colombia's Santos vows to thwart Nicaragua's 'expansionist plans' Posted: BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Monday he will do everything in his power to prevent Nicaragua's "expansionist" ambitions over domestic territory and called an international court ruling that gave waters to Nicaragua inapplicable. After years of diplomatic wrangling, the International Court of Justice in November drew a demarcation line in favour of Nicaragua, reducing the expanse of ocean belonging to Colombia and sparking a diplomatic dispute that led both sides to send armed vessels to patrol the contested waters. Colombia has been angered by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's plans to allow foreign companies to explore for oil in Caribbean seas that Colombia maintains are its own and Santos has ordered his navy to remain in the disputed waters. Santos said Nicaragua also wants to push its maritime borders closer to the historic city of Cartagena. "Colombia is confronting, and will confront, such expansionist pretensions with all the determination and rigor it requires," Santos said in a televised national address. "What I guarded as a sailor and defended as a minister, I will protect until the ultimate consequences as president," said Santos, a former defence minister and navy cadet. Describing the court ruling as "not applicable," Santos said he would oppose any attempt by Nicaragua to extend its sea frontier toward Colombia and has a series of technical and judicial arguments ready to press its case, which he declined to reveal. Any sign that Colombia is headed for victory in the dispute could give a boost to Santos whose approval ratings are just 21 percent, according to a recent Gallup opinion poll. He must say by November whether he will run for a second presidential term in elections next May. In a strongly worded address sure to raise the hackles of leftist Ortega, Santos said the ruling would only be applicable if it was accompanied by an international treaty which would be subject to congressional approval required by Colombia's constitution. The government has already withdrawn from the so-called Bogota Pact, a treaty under which signatory countries agreed in 1948 to recognize rulings by the International Court of Justice and to find peaceful solutions to their conflicts. Santos, 62, a Harvard-educated scion of one of Colombia's most influential families, stopped short of saying he would not abide by the ruling and he has stated in the past that Colombia would not go to war to resolve the dispute. The Hague-based World Court's decision increased the size of Nicaragua's continental shelf and economic exclusion zone in the Caribbean, which gives it access to underwater oil and gas deposits as well as fishing rights. Ortega has already begun to carve up areas to offer for oil and gas exploration, enraging Colombians. But he has also indicated he may be willing to discuss the maritime boundaries set out in the court ruling. In 2007 the court ruled that three large islands in the maritime area - San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina - belong to Colombia. The islands are a popular holiday destination for Colombian and foreign tourists. (Additional reporting by Peter Murphy; editing by Christopher Wilson) |
| Egypt tightens Sinai security, assesses militant threat Posted: CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has tightened control of crossings from the Sinai peninsula and continued assaults on militants after an Islamist group based there said it tried to kill the interior minister in Cairo last week, the state news agency reported on Monday. The group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility on Sunday for Thursday's suicide bombing aimed at Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim. It promised more attacks in revenge for a crackdown on Egypt's Islamists, raising fears that militant violence in Sinai could spread across the country. The Egyptian military on Saturday launched a major assault on militants in North Sinai, killing or wounding at least 30 people in clashes close to the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The assault continued on Monday, with security forces killing nine and arresting 10 "armed elements" near Sinai cities of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, state news agency MENA reported early on Tuesday, citing security sources. MENA said Ibrahim decided to boost security surveillance and tighten control of crossings from Sinai to other Egyptian regions in conjunction with a broad security campaign in the peninsula. Earlier, state television said one supporter of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood was killed and 10 people were injured in clashes between soldiers and supporters of the group in North Sinai on Monday. Security sources later said two people were killed in the clashes. In two separate incidents in central Sinai, three soldiers were injured when gunmen opened fire, according to MENA, while security sources said two soldiers were killed in attacks by gunmen in Sinai. Islamist militancy has risen sharply in the often lawless region adjoining Israel and the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere in Egypt, since the army deposed Mursi two months ago following mass protests against him. Thursday's daylight attack was the most spectacular so far. A suicide car bomber blew himself up next to Ibrahim's convoy as he left his Cairo home for work in an armoured limousine. The bomber, a passerby and an unidentified person were killed and more than 20 were wounded. Security officials said they were assessing the threat posed by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which is said to have 700 to 1,000 members and is considered the second-largest Islamist militant group in Sinai behind Salafiya Jihadiya, which has an estimated following of around 5,000 members. Some officials doubt Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is capable of mounting attacks outside Sinai. Security officials told Reuters they were especially concerned that the group, whose name means "supporters of Jerusalem", will use stolen government vehicles for car bombs. ATTACK ON TAMARUD CO-FOUNDER In another development, unidentified gunmen on Monday opened fire on the car of the co-founder of a movement that helped bring down Mursi. The Tamarud movement's website said Mahmoud Badr's car was stolen in the attack on the outskirts of Cairo and that he was unharmed. It also said the gunmen seized papers related to the committee entrusted with amending the constitution that Mursi had signed into law. Badr is a member of the committee. Mohamed Haykal, another founding member of Tamarud, told the website of state newspaper Al-Ahram that "thugs" were responsible for the incident and that it was not a political attack against Badr or Tamarud. He added that the papers did not contain information of great importance. Badr was a vocal supporter of the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood following Mursi's removal from power. The Tamarud movement said it secured 22 million signatures for a petition calling on Mursi to step down. It mobilised mass protests against his rule that prompted the army to install a new government. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis counts Grad rockets among its weapons and produces homemade bombs used against Egyptian security forces and soldiers, security sources said. Rocket-propelled grenades are often fired at buildings housing security forces. Last year, the group claimed responsibility for rocket attacks launched on Israel from Sinai. It has also claimed responsibility for at least 10 attacks in the past two years on a gas pipeline linking Egypt, Israel and Jordan. Sinai's eastern border with Israel and Gaza is a particularly sensitive one. Israel made its concerns known when Islamist militant groups expanded into a security vacuum left by the fall of Egypt's veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Since the army toppled Mursi - and especially since security forces killed hundreds of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood when they smashed protest camps in Cairo on August 14 - there have been online calls from radicals to abandon attempts to achieve Islamist rule by democracy and instead step up violence. (Editing by Will Dunham and Mohammad Zargham) |
| Dismantling Syria chemical weapons arsenal would be tough task Posted: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any deal with Syria to hand over its chemical weapons in the middle of a chaotic civil war would be difficult for inspectors to enforce and destroying them would likely take years, U.S. officials and experts caution. Syria's strongest backer, Russia, proposed on Monday that Damascus save itself from a U.S. military strike over its alleged use of chemical weapons by putting its stockpiles under international control. The proposal was welcomed by Syria and seized upon by the secretary-general of the United Nations. U.S. President Barack Obama said the offer was a potential breakthrough but had to be handled with scepticism. Syria has never signed a global treaty banning the storage of chemical weapons and is believed to have large stocks of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agents. The actual use of chemical weapons is banned by a 1925 treaty to which Damascus is a signatory. Accounting for Syria's chemical arms cache - believed to be spread over dozens of locations - would be difficult, as would be shielding arms inspectors from violence. "This is a nice idea but tough to achieve," said one U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity. "You're in the middle of a brutal civil war where the Syrian regime is massacring its own people. Does anyone think they're going to suddenly stop the killing to allow inspectors to secure and destroy all the chemical weapons?" the official said. Amy Smithson, an expert on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, said a lack of hard data on Syria's chemical weapons inventory would complicate verification. She pointed to years of cat-and-mouse manoeuvring between U.N. weapons inspectors and then-president Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq as an example of what could happen in Syria. "The Iraqis lied through their teeth. They did everything they could to hide these ultra-secret weapons programs," Smithson said. "Libya also did not come completely clean when it forfeited their weapons of mass destruction program." CHEMICAL WEAPONS MOVED AROUND Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre, oversees chemical weapons facilities in Dumayr, Khan Abou, Shamat, and Firaqlus, according to the U.S. Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Brigadier General Mustafa al-Sheikh, a Syrian army defector, told Reuters this summer that most of the chemical weapons have been transported to Alawite areas in Latakia and near the coast. Some chemical munitions remain in bases around Damascus, he said. The United States has been watching Syria move around its chemical weapons since last year. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week he thinks Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces are doing that to keep them secure. But the Syrian government's motives are unclear and U.S. officials privately acknowledge those movements complicate identification of chemical weapons sites. "While Assad controls the chemical stockpiles, they've been moved over time," a second U.S. official said, also speaking on condition he not be named. "Security and relocation of those weapons with a very fluid situation on the ground with the opposition forces (fighting) could pose challenges." Experts say it would take months to locate and secure Syria's chemical weapons and years to destroy them - and there is always the possibility some are left over. "You're always going to have the problem of the bomb in the basement," said Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund group, which opposes the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. "It's possible that the regime would hold some back that you wouldn't know about … But there's ways of getting at that," he added, pointing to past efforts to cross-check stockpiles against production records. For Obama, who is waging an uphill battle to win domestic support for military action, a U.N. deal could prevent a potentially devastating defeat in Congress. But even as he described Russia's proposal as potentially positive in a NBC television interview, Obama said: "I think you have to take it with a grain of salt initially." (Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Alistair Bell and Lisa Shumaker) |
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