Tag Archives: Soldiers

NATO deploys troops to Poland while concerns about country’s army rise

U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for U.S.-led NATO troops at polygon near Orzysz, Poland, April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

By Lidia Kelly

ORZYSZ, Poland (Reuters) – Poland on Thursday welcomed the first U.S. troops in a multi-national force which is being posted across the Baltic region to counter potential threats from Russia.

More than 1,100 soldiers — 900 U.S. troops as well as 150 British and 120 Romanians — are to be deployed in Orzysz, about 57 km (35 miles) south of Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defense system.

Three other formations are due to become operational by June across the region.

“Deploying of these troops to Poland is a clear demonstration of NATO’s unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor,” NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, said at a welcoming ceremony for the first arrivals at Orzysz, 220 km (140 miles) northeast of the capital Warsaw.

Poland, alarmed by Russia’s assertiveness on NATO’s eastern flank, has lobbied hard for the stationing of NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Polish President Andrzej Duda called the deployment a historic moment “awaited for by generations”.

The troops’ move in Orzysz takes place as U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have changed his previously critical views of NATO and soured his attitude toward Moscow.

While running for president, Trump dismissed the alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia.

But on Wednesday, he lavished praise on NATO and said the relationship with Russia may be at an all-time low.

“I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete,” Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House.

OFFICERS RESIGN

Poland’s ruling conservatives, the Law and Justice party (PiS) allied with Duda, have signaled plans to raise funds to modernize and increase the size of its military, even though Warsaw is already among NATO’s top spenders.

But the Polish armed forces have other problems.

Nearly 30 top of its top generals and more than 200 colonels — a quarter and a sixth of the army’s total — have resigned over the last year, citing in part disagreements with Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz over personnel and other decisions.

The military has also seen potential procurement delays after Macierewicz canceled a multi-billion-dollar deal with Airbus Helicopters (AIR.PA) last year.

General Miroslaw Rozanski, a former senior commander, said in February he could not accept certain defense ministry decisions.

“We were implementing NATO decisions. Minister Macierewicz would agree with my proposals and then different decisions would be taken,” he said then.

The Defence Ministry says the officers’ departures amount to only a fraction more than in previous years. It has said, however, the army should be purged of commanders who began their service before the collapse of communist rule in 1989.

In response to Reuters’ request for a comment, a NATO official said it was up to the allies to decide how they structure their armed forces.

“What is important to NATO is that the armed forces of allies meet their capability targets, that they can operate with each other and that they have the right equipment to meet today’s security challenges,” the official said.

Polish sources said NATO, focusing on its troubled relations with the new U.S. president and Moscow, has adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude toward Warsaw.

“We are indeed the trouble makers,” a Polish government source told Reuters. “But because we fulfil all the obligations…because in the end we deliver, we are not the biggest problem right now. So, NATO has indeed adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude toward us.”

But Daniel Keohane, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH university in Zurich, said Poland’s relations within the alliance could suffer.

“While this should not in principle weaken Poland’s position within NATO, if these generals are resigning for political reasons, and a perception of an ongoing politicization of the Polish army emerges, this could cause worry in other NATO capitals,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Marcin Goettig and Pawel Sobczak in Warsaw; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Angus MacSwan)

Death around corner for civilians living on Mosul’s frontline

Abdelraziq Abdelkarim sits on a wheelchair as he enjoys the afternoon next to frontline positions of Iraqi Federal Police fighting the Islamic State in Mosul,

By Ulf Laessing

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, pensioner Abdelraziq Abdelkarim enjoys the afternoon sun outside his house in Mosul after a day of rain. He does not flinch when a mortar opens fire just around the corner.

His home is on the busiest frontline in the northern Iraqi city just 200 m (yards) from Islamic State positions. Outside his house, Federal Police units are firing at the militants.

Government forces have been evacuating civilians as they fight to seize Mosul, once the hardline Sunni militant group’s main urban stronghold in Iraq and now the scene of a six-month-old battle.

But some families refuse to go, shrugging off the danger of a mortar fired two blocks away or a counter-attack from the militants who move around at night. Gunfire rings out constantly between Federal Police and militants holed up in abandoned shops and apartments.

“I don’t want to go. I’ve lived all my life in this house,” said 72-year Abdelkarim, a former studio photographer, sitting next to his handicapped son and a grandchild.

They share a two-floor house in a narrow street with five people from two other families. Military Humvees and mortar launchers are just parked outside.

Almost 300,000 people have fled Mosul since the government offensive to recapture the city began in October, according to the United Nations.

Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes wait to get food supplies before entering at Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq

Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes wait to get food supplies before entering at Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

But Abdelkarim and his friends dread going to one of the crowded camps where aid agencies sometimes place two families in one tent for lack of space. Others stay with relatives in cramped homes.

They had stocked up food, water and petrol for a power generator when the military campaign began. There is no food store at the frontline but soldiers sometimes share rations or a family member goes to one of the food distribution centers set up by the military, they say.

“We are maybe three or four families left. The rest are gone,” said Abdullah Ahmed, a 42-year old engineer staying with Abdelkarim. “Right across out door 50 people stayed in one house but they’ve fled.”

DEATH AROUND CORNER

Their short alley shows the military’s challenges in dislodging Islamic State fighters hiding in the Old City — navigating is difficult in the labyrinth of narrow, often covered alleys offering perfect hideouts for snipers or to stage ambushes.

U.S. officials estimated about 2,000 fighters were still in Mosul in February at the start of the second phase of the campaign, to dislodge them from western sector.

Iraqi forces have been edging closer to al-Nuri Mosque — some 300 meters away — where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate nearly three years ago across territory controlled by the group in both Iraq and Syria.

But the front has hardly moved in past two weeks as Humvees or tanks are of no use in the Old City.

“See our street is about one-and-half meters wide,” said Ahmed, whose TV satellite shop was closed by Islamic State as watching TV channels was banned under its austere version of Sunni Islam.

“Near the mosque the streets only half as wide as this. There are some 40 to 50 small houses clustered around it,” he said, pointing in the direction of the mosque. “It’s very difficult to move there.”

When Federal Police opened fire with a machine gun perched on the top floor of a house through a hole broken into a wall, Islamic State fired back within two minutes with accuracy.

“There are snipers here,” a federal policeman said.

There is another reason why the friends want to avoid going to camps. IS fighters seized the husband of one of their sisters two before the government forces arrived.

“I fear they killed him because he was a policeman,” said his 30-year-old wife Dhikrayat Muwafiq, weeping in the kitchen where she was preparing rice and beans.

“I don’t want to go until we know where he is. I need to stay,” she said.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Iraqi forces wage psychological war with jihadist corpses

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The flyblown corpses of Islamic State militants have been rotting along a main street in north Mosul for two weeks, a health risk for passersby. Suicide bombers’ belts beside the fighters can still explode, killing anyone nearby.

But the Iraqi army has no intention of burying the jihadists and hopes as many people as possible will get a good look at their blackened bodies, torn apart by bombs and bullets.

As Iraqi forces prepare to expand their offensive against Islamic State from east to west Mosul, they want to stamp out any sympathy that residents may have for the group, which won instant support when it seized the vast city in 2014.

“We will leave the terrorists there,” said Ibrahim Mohamed, a soldier who was standing near three dead jihadists, ignoring the stench.

His cousin suffered death by electrocution at the hands of jihadists during Islamic State’s harsh rule of Mosul because he was a policeman.

“The message is clear to Iraqis, to keep them from joining or supporting Daesh (Islamic State). This will be your fate. The Iraqi army will finish you off,” he said.

A suicide bomber’s belt, with its detonation pin still in place, lay in the street a few feet away, near some clothing once worn by a militant.

The Iraqi army has come a long way since it collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s lightning advance into northern Iraq. After retaking half of Mosul in three months of fighting, Iraqi forces are poised to enter the western side of the city.

Victory there would mean the end of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, though Iraqi officials expect the group to fight on as insurgents in Iraq and inspire attacks in the West.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WEAPON

The corpses are left on view as a psychological weapon to deter Islamic State sleeper cells, which Iraqi officials say are highly effective and distributed across the country.

Islamic State has executed thousands of Iraqi soldiers and policemen, and their comrades are eager for revenge.

“We leave them in the street like that so the dogs eat them,” said soldier Asaad Hussein. “We also want the citizens to know there is a price for supporting terrorists.”

Sunni Mosul had accused the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government and army of widespread abuses, which they deny.

Islamic State exploited that resentment but started losing popularity after it imposed its radical version of Islam and shot or beheaded anyone deemed an enemy.

Iraqi citizens don’t seem to mind the gory sight of the bodies, with people walking past them every day as Mosul begins the work of rebuilding entire neighborhoods pulverized by Islamic State car bombs and U.S.-led air strikes.

Labourer Youssef Salim observed the corpses, still with army boots on their feet, and paused to reflect on life under Islamic State, which has lost ground in Iraq and other Arab countries. He said the bodies should not be moved.

“Do you know what smoking one, just one cigarette meant?” he asked. “Twenty-five lashes in a public square where people were forced to watch you suffer.

“If your beard length did not meet their requirements, that was a month in jail and 100 lashes in public.”

SPREADING FEAR

The militants are no longer in charge in east Mosul but they are still very capable of spreading fear.

Two men approached a soldier to complain that there were suspicious wires that may be attached to a bomb on a door at the factory where they work.

Minutes later, an increasingly familiar scene unfolded. Soldiers looked up and spotted a drone aircraft operated by Islamic State militants, located about 600 meters away across the Tigris River, which bisects Mosul.

Iraqi forces opened fired with their assault rifles, hoping to blast the small aircraft – an Islamic State weapon of choice – out of the sky before it could drop a bomb.

A few streets away, a group of young boys walked towards three more Islamic State corpses.

“The bodies should stay. Daesh killed lots of people so why should they be buried,” said Salem Jamil, 13, who was carrying a plastic bag filled with old electric wiring he hopes to sell.

But a man who approached said the bodies should be buried because that is everyone’s right.

The three militants were shot when they tried to sneak through some trees to kill soldiers.

One of the soldiers stood proudly over the dead men, including one still wearing a suicide belt. He smiled and pointed to a cigarette stuffed in one of the jihadist’s nostrils.

“We put it there because of the terrible things they did to Iraqis,” said the soldier, Asaad Najif. “The fate of any terrorist is clear. We will find you and kill you.”

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Nine Soldiers identified in Fort Hood, Texas flooding tragedy

Undated photograph of the U.S. Army post at Fort Hood, Texas

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Nine U.S. soldiers are now known to have died when a troop carrier overturned this week during a training exercise at the U.S. Army base of Food Hood in Texas, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said on Saturday.

“Based on initial reports it was a troop carrier that overturned in a stream,” Carter told a news conference on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore in reference to Thursday’s incident.

“An investigation is under way. As always, we’ll get to the bottom of this incident and others that occurred this week.”

Also on Thursday, a pilot from the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron was killed when his F/A-18 fighter crashed in Smyrna, Tennessee.

Marine Captain Jeff Kuss of Durango, Colorado, had taken off to start a practice ahead of a weekend air show when he went down about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the runway.

In Colorado the same day, a pilot with the Air Force’s Thunderbirds squadron was unhurt when his F-16 jet crashed in a field 5 miles (8 km) south of Peterson Air Force Base.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Tom Hogue)

Ten Killed in Ukrainian Violence

Ten people are dead in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels opened fire on government forces and buildings.

The attacks by the Russian proxies killed two Ukrainian soldiers and eight civilians.

“We really strongly condemn this escalation of fighting and we call all sides to cease it and to observe the ceasefire,” European Commission spokeswoman Catherine Ray told journalists in Brussels.

Ukrainian military officials say that pro-Russian forces are continually violating the cease-fire agreed to in the Minsk II accord.

“This war looks like a war of attrition,” Gen. Viktor Muzhenko, the chief of staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s Russia’s intent to demoralize our forces, and using that mechanism they want to influence Ukraine’s military leadership as well as the state leadership.”

The United Nations says the conflict in Ukraine has killed over 6,000 people since April 2014.  At least 1.4 million people have been forced to leave their homes.