Anyone who uses vile language when referring to Pakistan should be executed, said the Islamabad-loyal chief minister of the Balochistan province of the country, Jam Mohammad Yousaf. He made the comment at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Pakistan Muslim League.

It is fine for people living in Balochistan to politically oppose central government, but the use of filthy language will not be tolerated, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported him as saying.

The province, the largest in Pakistan, is also the most violent, with many internal disputes between warring factions, long-running bitter arguments with Islamabad and Islamism spreading across the border from Afghanistan. (more…)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information provided to The Associated Press.

The military’s request, if embraced by President Bush and approved by Congress, would boost this year’s budget for those wars to about $170 billion.

Military planners assembled the proposal at a time when Bush is developing new strategies for Iraq, such as sending thousands of more U.S. troops there, although it was put together before the president said the troop surge was under consideration.

Overall, the war in Iraq has cost about $350 billion. Combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the cost has topped $500 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. (more…)

But this time it’s between France and Israel

After French troops in southern Lebanon almost shot down an Israeli fighter jet that was diving toward them on Nov. 17, France warned the Israeli ambassador that Israel was constantly breaking the UN-brokered ceasefire by operating over-flights in the south and in other regions.

The Israelis at first claimed the incident had not happened and pointed out they did not have a policy of authorizing flyovers. Later, under pressure from the French, who are leading the UN mission (UNIFIL) in Lebanon, an Israeli government spokesman admitted there had been an incident but downplayed it, saying it was misunderstood. (more…)

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday offered to share Iranian-made nuclear technology with Arab states in the Gulf after they expressed a desire to acquire it, Iranian media reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to provide its experience and valuable achievements in peaceful nuclear technology as a clean source of energy and as oil replacement to all regional countries,” Ahmadinejad told a visiting Kuwaiti envoy, Mohammed Zeyfullah Shirar.

Ahmadinejad’s offer comes a week after Gulf Cooperation Council leaders ended a two-day summit in Riyadh by announcing they planned to seek nuclear energy technology. (more…)

Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday British troops would stay in Iraq “until the job is done” and pledged to support the country’s weak government as it battles sectarian violence and a raging Sunni Arab insurgency.

Just before Blair landed in Baghdad for an unannounced visit, gunmen in police uniforms carried out a mass kidnapping at a Red Crescent office in the capital,highlighting Iraq’s security challenges. Police said 10 to 20 people were seized but Red Crescent officials said more were snatched.
Blair said he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had discussed the need for national reconciliation and building up Iraq’s security forces to fight soaring Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian violence that has pushed the country close to all-out civil war.

“We stand ready to support you in every way that we can so that in time the Iraq government and the Iraqi people can take full responsibility for their affairs,” Blair, who is touring the Middle East, told a news conference. (more…)

Iraq and Afghanistan Are Straining the Force, Chief of Staff Warns

Warning that the active-duty Army “will break” under the strain of today’s war-zone rotations, the nation’s top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation’s main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today’s Pentagon policies is “not right.” (more…)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday rejected a bipartisan panel’s recommendation that the United States seek the help of Syria and Iran in Iraq, saying the “compensation” required by any deal might be too high. She argued that neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq.

“If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway,” Rice said in a wide-ranging interview with Washington Post reporters and editors. She said she did not want to trade away Lebanese sovereignty to Syria or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon as a price for peace in Iraq. (more…)

Awash in a sea of petrodollars, Saudi Arabia is expected to spend tens of billions of dollars in the coming years revamping its military forces, according Forecast International’s most recent Middle East defense market analysis.
“The Saudis are essentially engaged in a whole-scale overhaul of the structure of the regular armed forces, and a major upgrade of the paramilitary National Guard, which is the prime internal security force,” said Tom Baranauskas, Forecast International’s Middle East analyst. From best initial estimates, the Saudis will be spending about $40 billion on these procurements, but the total could go as high as $60 billion.

Signed or pending big ticket programs include Typhoon fighters for the Air Force, helicopters for all of the services, armored vehicles for the National Guard, new frigates for the Navy, and a multibillion-dollar security barrier for the entire length of the border. Notably, the Saudis are spreading the wealth around, with British, French and U.S. suppliers looking to benefit the most from the arms-buying spree. The intent is to prevent the country from becoming dependent on any one supplying nation. (more…)

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday that the Jewish state will remain mum on whether it has atomic weapons, following comments by the incoming US defense secretary that the Jewish state was a nuclear power.

“Israel will not say or not say whether we have nuclear weapons,” Peres told public radio. “It suffices that one fears that we have them and that fear in itself constitutes an element of dissuasion.”

The Jewish state is widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, but has never confirmed or denied the suspicions.

“Israel is the only country threatened with destruction. Israel does not threaten any other state,” Peres said.

No, instead they lobby the United States to destroy their enemies for them… (more…)

Nato has lost contact with one of its chartered helicopters travelling from Kandahar to Tirin Kot base in the Uruzgan province of Afghanistan.

Taliban fighters claim to have downed the aircraft, a Russian MI25, using a rocket.

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) could not confirm that the helicopter had been shot down.

A spokesman said: “Searches are continuing to find the craft.”

The MI25 helicopter, the largest Russian cargo helicopter in existence, was manned by a Russian crew and used to supply Dutch military bases in Afghanistan. (more…)

The gulf’s two military powers, Sunni-Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, are lining up behind their warring religious brethren in Iraq in a potentially explosive showdown, as expectations grow in both countries that America is preparing a pull-out of its troops.

The Saudis are understood to be considering providing Sunni military leaders with funding, logistical support and even arms, as Iran already does for Shia militia in Iraq.

The strategy — outlined in an article last week by Nawaf Obaid, a senior security adviser to the kingdom’s government — risks spiralling into a proxy war between Saudi and Iranian-backed factions in the next development in Iraq’s vicious sectarian conflict. (more…)

1. The third Lebanon war There will be a war next summer. Only the sector has not been chosen yet. The atmosphere in the Israel Defense Forces in the past month has been very pessimistic. The latest rounds in the campaigns on both fronts, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, have left too many issues undecided, too many potential detonators that could cause a new conflagration. The army’s conclusion from this is that a war in the new future is a reasonable possibility. As Amir Oren reported in Haaretz several weeks ago, the IDF’s operative assumption is that during the coming summer months, a war will break out against Hezbollah and perhaps against Syria as well.

At the same time, the IDF does not anticipate a long life for the cease-fire achieved last Saturday night with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. When the present tahdiya (lull) joins its predecessors that fell apart - the hudna (cease-fire) of summer 2003 (which lasted for a month and a half) and the tahdiya of winter 2005 (which was in its death throes for months until its final burial at the end of the disengagement) - there is a danger that the big bang will take place in Gaza. At its conclusion, like a self- fulfilling prophecy, IDF soldiers will return to the heart of Rafah for the first time in 13 years. (more…)

Senior Pakistani officials are urging Nato countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul that might exclude the Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops.

Western ministers have been stunned. “Kasuri is basically asking Nato to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban,” said one Western official who met the minister recently. (more…)

Pakistan test launched a nuclear-capable medium range missile on Wednesday, two days after South Asian rival India conducted its first trial of a new ballistic intercept system.
The Pakistani Hatf 4 or Shaheen-1 missile — Shaheen means “eagle” in Urdu — has a range of 700 kilometers (437 miles) meaning it can hit targets deep inside neighbouring India.

“Pakistani troops today conducted a successful launch of the medium range Hatf 4 or Shaheen-1 missile,” the military said in a statement.

The test came as part of a continuing exercise by Pakistan’s Army Strategic Force Command. On November 16 Pakistan test fired a Ghauri missile with a longer range of 1,300 kilometers (812 miles) away. (more…)