The Jim Bakker Show

Vietnam gives thumbs-up to U.S. regional role

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam supports U.S. “intervention” in the Asia-Pacific if it helps keep peace and stability, the defense ministry said, in a timely endorsement of a continued U.S. presence amid uncertainty over Washington’s faltering “pivot”.

Vice defense minister, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, met on Monday with Cara Abercrombie, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, and told her Vietnam backed a positive U.S. role.

The general’s words of support, conveyed by a normally reclusive defense ministry, come when the United States most needs them, with its “rebalance” – aimed at boosting its Asian foothold and tempering China’s rise – now under strain in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election.

Vinh “affirmed that Vietnam will support the U.S and other partners to intervene in the region as long as it brings peace, stability and prosperity”, it said in a statement.

At the dialogue, Abercrombie said the United States would not change its rebalance strategy, the statement added.

Uncertainty lingers in Asia over changes ahead at the White House and whether a new leadership would give less priority to keeping China in check as it grows increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, a waterway vital to global trade.

Washington’s traditional defense alliances in Southeast Asia are currently being tested, with ties with Thailand frosty since a 2014 coup and questions about the future of a tight military relationship with the Philippines under volatile new President Rodrigo Duterte, a staunch U.S. critic.

Relations between the United States and Vietnam, in contrast, have warmed substantially in the past two years, much to do with jitters over the South China Sea to which Hanoi has disputes with Beijing.

The latest affirmation of those ties came after the full lifting of a U.S. lethal arms embargo on Vietnam in May, allowing closer defense links and some joint military exercises between the former enemies.

Two U.S. warships earlier this month made a call at a new international port built at Vietnam’s strategic Cam Ranh Bay in a brief but symbolic return for U.S. combat vessels.

The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam last week admitted the U.S. dynamism once seen in the region had “a little bit diminished”, but said there was still appetite for U.S. involvement.

Ted Osius also said a dramatic change in U.S.-Vietnam ties was “not about to happen” because of Philippine leader Duterte’s outreach toward China.

(Reporting by My Pham; Editing by Martin Petty)

Week of violence in South Sudan kills 60, government says

By Denis Dumo

JUBA (Reuters) – Fighting in South Sudan killed at least 60 people this week, the military said on Friday, stoking fears the region could plunge back into full-scale war.

Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang accused the rebels of “burning civilians, maiming women and child abductions and setting ablaze properties”.

Armed men loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar killed 11 government soldiers and 28 civilians from Saturday to Thursday, Koang said in a press statement. Twenty-one rebels were also killed, he said.

A spokesman for the rebels denied the accusations.

“Those who are committing atrocities and raping are deserted SPLA (government) soldiers who have not been paid for several months and their families are starving. Our forces are aiming to target only those in uniforms,” the deputy spokesman for the opposition forces, Dickson Gatluak, told Reuters by phone from Ethiopia.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, sank into civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, sacked Machar, a Nuer, from his position as vice president. Subsequent fighting often followed ethnic lines and human rights groups say both sides targeted civilians.

A peace pact in 2015 ostensibly ended the fighting but has frequently been violated. Major clashes broke out again in July. Machar fled the country and is seeking medical treatment in South Africa. He has been replaced as vice president by General Taban Deng Gai.

The government wants the international community to designate the rebels as terrorists and take punitive measures against them.

Koang said that could include “travel bans, asset freeze and extradition to ICC of key players including … Riek Machar.” The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) tries suspects accused of war crimes and genocide.

On Monday, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said it had received reports of horrific attacks on civilians, including some who were burned to death, and urged both sides to control their forces.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld, editing by Larry King/Mark Heinrich)

Aleppo rebels outgunned but confident as siege bites

By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A senior rebel commander said on Friday that Syrian government forces would never be able to capture Aleppo’s opposition-held east, more than three weeks into a ferocious offensive, but a military source said the operation was going as planned.

Russian air strikes were proving of little help to government ground forces in urban warfare, the deputy commander of the Fastaqim rebel group in Aleppo said. While air strikes have pounded much of the city, they have avoided frontlines where the sides are fighting in close proximity, apparently out of fear they could hit the wrong side, he said.

The rebels were well prepared for a siege imposed this summer, and preparations for a counter attack were under way, Melhem Akidi told Reuters.

“Militarily there is no danger to the city of Aleppo,” he said, adding: “The more dangerous thing is the daily massacres by the regime that are targeting not just the people but the foundations of life in Aleppo.”

However, the Syrian military source and a second pro-government military source in the field said the campaign was on course, reiterating denials that civilians were being targeted.

“The accomplishments so far are moving according to the plan, and we are working according to gradual steps,” said the second source, a non-Syrian and part of a regional alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

The assessments, on the eve of a meeting between U.S. and Russian foreign ministers in Switzerland to try to resume their failed efforts to find a diplomatic solution, point to a protracted battle for Aleppo.

Syria’s biggest city before the war has been divided into areas controlled by the government and rebels for several years. The rebel-held east is the last major urban stronghold of the nationalist rebels fighting Assad, and recapturing it would be a major strategic prize.

The Syrian army, supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power, announced a major offensive to capture the rebel-held part of the city on Sept. 22, unleashing firepower not previously seen in the 5-1/2-year long war.

The onslaught has killed several hundred people and flattened many buildings. Hospitals have also been hit, leading the United States and France to accuse Russia and the Syrian government of war crimes.

Moscow and Damascus say they are only targeting militants.

ONSLAUGHT THREATENS BREAD SUPPLY

A member of Aleppo’s opposition city council told Reuters fuel reserves used to operate bakeries could run out in a month if the siege persists. A mill was bombed on Wednesday, another threat to the city’s bread supply, he said.

The air strikes have been accompanied by ground assaults by government forces, including Shi’ite militias from Iraq and Lebanon. Their clearest advance so far is the capture of ground to the north of Aleppo, including the Handarat camp.

The army has also reported gains in the city center itself. The rebels have consistently said these have been repelled. A Syrian military source said the army had gained control over several industrial facilities and an agricultural college located in northeastern Aleppo on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the war, said the government advances so far did not match the intensity of the firepower unleashed.

The bombardment was expected to bring “much greater results”, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Syria’s civil war has killed 300,000 people and left millions homeless while dragging in regional and global powers and allowing for the expansion of jihadist groups including Islamic State, which controls wide areas of the east.

While Assad is backed by Russia, Iran and an array of Shi’ite militias from Arab neighbors, the Sunni rebels seeking to oust him are backed by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies.

LITTLE HOPE FOR PEACE TALKS

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, possibly joined by ministers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

American officials have voiced little hope for success, however, and Lavrov said on Friday he had “no special expectations” for the talks.

Kerry broke off talks with Lavrov last week over the Aleppo offensive. The resumption of negotiations, despite the fighting, was a sign of the lack of options facing Western nations over the Syria conflict, where they worry increased arms supplies for the rebels could end up in the hands of jihadist groups.

The Syrian government and its allies have been steadily encircling the rebel-held east of Aleppo this year, first cutting the shortest route to nearby Turkey, before fully blockading the city this summer.

Assad said this week capturing Aleppo would be a springboard for pushing militants to neighboring Turkey, a major sponsor of the rebellion.

He has offered the Aleppo rebels an amnesty if they lay down their arms, though they have dismissed it as a trick.

ALEPPO “STEADFAST”, FUEL RUNNING OUT

Akidi, speaking from Aleppo, said he was “certain that nobody would be able to storm” the east, which he said could not be compared to other less populous and less well-armed areas that have been captured from rebels by the government.

“Everyone who stayed in Aleppo, which was under threat of siege for a long time, has prepared for steadfastness,” he said.

He also noted the proximity of nearby insurgent strongholds west of Aleppo and in Idlib province, and what he described as the government’s “fragile” hold over an important access point on the city’s southern periphery. “I do not rule out that the revolutionaries will be able to break the siege soon,” he said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report on Thursday that 406 people had been reported killed and 1,384 wounded in eastern Aleppo from Sept. 23 until Oct. 8. In government-held western Aleppo, which is frequently targeted by rebel shelling, 91 people including 18 children were killed over a similar period.

Muhammad Sandeh, of the opposition city council, said a fuel reserve controlled by the council could dry up in eastern Aleppo in a month or less if the siege persists.

“There are enough bakeries, but there isn’t enough flour or fuel,” Sandeh told Reuters from Aleppo. “The families get half of their bread needs,” he said. The air strike on a mill on Wednesday had severely reduced bread supply, he said.

Water supplies have also been affected by the violence.

OCHA said the situation had improved slightly after the parties reached an Oct. 10 agreement to protect water stations from the conflict.

Ibrahim Abu al-Laith of the Civil Defence rescue service that operates in rebel-held areas said that even after pumping stations were repaired and the water returned, it couldn’t reach residents due to a lack of fuel.

Fuel is the lifeline of the eastern districts, he said.

“Ours is running out.”

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Pravin Char)

Exclusive: Islamic State crushes rebellion plot in Mosul as army closes in

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.

Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week. Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Among them was a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on IS affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed al-Taie, from Mosul’s Nineveh province Operation Command’s military intelligence.

Reuters is not publishing the name of the plot leader to avoid increasing the safety risk for his family, nor the identities of those inside the city who spoke about the plot.

The aim of the plotters was to undermine Islamic State’s defense of Mosul in the upcoming fight, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Mosul is the last major stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. With a pre-war population of around 2 million, it is at least five times the size of any other city Islamic State has controlled. Iraqi officials say a massive ground assault could begin this month, backed by U.S. air power, Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite and Sunni irregular units.

A successful offensive would effectively destroy the Iraqi half of the caliphate that the group declared when it swept through northern Iraq in 2014. But the United Nations says it could also create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting 1 million people.

Islamic State fighters are dug in to defend the city, and have a history of using civilians as human shields when defending territory.

CAUGHT

According to Hashimi, the dissidents were arrested after one of them was caught with a message on his phone mentioning a transfer of weapons. He confessed during interrogation that weapons were being hidden in three locations, to be used in a rebellion to support the Iraqi army when it closes in on Mosul.

IS raided the three houses used to hide the weapons on Oct. 4, Hashimi said.

“Those were Daesh members who turned against the group in Mosul,” said Iraqi Counter-terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “This is a clear sign that the terrorist organization has started to lose support not only from the population, but even from its own members.”

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition which conducts air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq was unable to confirm or deny the accounts of the thwarted plot.

Signs of cracks inside the “caliphate” appeared this year as the ultra-hardline Sunni group was forced out of half the territory it overran two years ago in northern and western Iraq.

Some people in Mosul have been expressing their refusal of IS’s harsh rules by spray-painting the letter M, for the Arabic word that means resistance, on city walls, or “wanted” on houses of its militants. Such activity is punished by death.

Numani said his service has succeeded in the past two months in opening contact channels with “operatives” who began communicating intelligence that helped conduct air strikes on the insurgents’ command centers and locations in Mosul.

A list with the names of the 58 executed plotters was given to a hospital to inform their families but their bodies were not returned, the residents said.

“Some of the executed relatives sent old women to ask about the bodies. Daesh rebuked them and told them no bodies, no graves, those traitors are apostates and it is forbidden to bury them in Muslim cemeteries,” said one resident whose relative was among those executed.

“After the failed coup, Daesh withdrew the special identity cards it issued for its local commanders, to prevent them from fleeing Mosul with their families,” Colonel al-Taie said.

A Mosul resident said Islamic State had appointed a new official, Muhsin Abdul Kareem Oghlu, a leader of a sniper unit with a reputation as a die-hard, to assist its governor of Mosul, Ahmed Khalaf Agab al-Jabouri, in keeping control.

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of the offensive.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Peter Graff)

Exclusive: Obama, aides expected to weigh Syria military options on Friday

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives aboard the Marine One helicopter to depart O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and his top foreign policy advisers are expected to meet on Friday to consider their military and other options in Syria as Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to pummel Aleppo and other targets, U.S. officials said.

Some top officials argue the United States must act more forcefully in Syria or risk losing what influence it still has over moderate rebels and its Arab, Kurdish and Turkish allies in the fight against Islamic State, the officials told Reuters.

One set of options includes direct U.S. military action such as air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases, said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

This official said one danger of such action is that Russian and Syrian forces are often co-mingled, raising the possibility of a direct confrontation with Russia that Obama has been at pains to avoid.

U.S. officials said they consider it unlikely that Obama will order U.S. air strikes on Syrian government targets, and they stressed that he may not make any decisions at the planned meeting of his National Security Council.

One alternative, U.S. officials said, is allowing allies to provide U.S.-vetted rebels with more sophisticated weapons, although not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which Washington fears could be used against Western airliners.

The White House declined to comment.

Friday’s planned meeting is the latest in a long series of internal debates about what, if anything, to do to end a 5-1/2 year civil war that has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.

The ultimate aim of any new action could be to bolster the battered moderate rebels so they can weather what is now widely seen as the inevitable fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo to the forces of Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It also might temper a sense of betrayal among moderate rebels who feel Obama encouraged their uprising by calling for Assad to go but then abandoned them, failing even to enforce his own “red line” against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

This, in turn, might deter them from migrating to Islamist groups such as the Nusra Front, which the United States regards as Syria’s al Qaeda branch. The group in July said it had cut ties to al Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. ANOTHER TRY AT DIPLOMACY

The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday to resume their failed effort to find a diplomatic solution, possibly joined by their counterparts from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but

U.S. officials voiced little hope for success.

Friday’s planned meeting at the White House and the session in Lausanne occur as Obama, with just 100 days left in office, faces other decisions about whether to deepen U.S. military involvement in the Middle East — notably in Yemen and Iraq — a stance he opposed when he won the White House in 2008.

Earlier Thursday the United States launched cruise missiles at three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.

In Iraq, U.S. officials are debating whether government forces will need more U.S. support both during and after their campaign to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in the country.

Some officials argue the Iraqis now cannot retake the city without significant help from Kurdish peshmerga forces, as well as Sunni and Shi’ite militias, and that their participation could trigger religious and ethnic conflict in the city.

In Syria, Washington has turned to the question of whether to take military action after its latest effort to broker a truce with Russia collapsed last month.

The United States has called for Assad to step down, but for years has seemed resigned to his remaining in control of parts of the country as it prosecutes a separate fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and in Iraq.

The U.S. policy is to target Islamic State first, a decision that has opened it to charges that it is doing nothing to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and particularly in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Renewed bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has killed more than 150 people this week, rescue workers said, as Syria intensifies its Russian-backed offensive to take the whole city.

Anthony Cordesman of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank suggested the United States’ failure to act earlier in Syria, and in Aleppo in particular, had narrowed Obama’s options.

“There is only so long you can ignore your options before you don’t have any,” Cordesman said.

(Writing By Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by John Walcott; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

Turkish army says Islamic State putting up ‘stiff resistance’ in Syria

A Turkey military vehicle near an ISIS stronghold

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Islamic State militants in northern Syria are putting up “stiff resistance” to attacks by Turkish-backed rebel fighters, Turkey’s military said on Wednesday, almost two months after it launched an incursion to drive them away from its border.

Supported by Turkish tanks and air strikes, the rebels have been pushing toward the Islamic State stronghold of Dabiq. Clashes and air strikes over the past 24 hours have killed 47 jihadists, the military said in a statement.

“Due to stiff resistance of the Daesh (Islamic State) terror group, progress could not be achieved in an attack launched to take four settlements,” it said, naming the areas east of the town of Azaz as Kafrah, Suran, Ihtimalat and Duvaybik.

However, the operation to drive the jihadists away from the Turkish border, dubbed “Euphrates Shield”, has allowed Turkish-backed rebels to take control of about 1,100 square km (425 square miles) of territory, the military said.

A Syrian rebel commander told Reuters the rebels were about 4 km (2.5 miles) from Dabiq. He said capturing Dabiq and the nearby town of Suran would spell the end of Islamic State’s presence in the northern Aleppo countryside.

A planned major offensive on the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, southeast of Dabiq and an important strategic target, depended on how quickly rebels could take control of the roughly 35 km (22 miles) in between the two cities, he said.

Al-Bab is also a strategic target for the Kurdish YPG militia, which, like the rebels, is battling Islamic State in northern Syria but is viewed as a hostile force by Turkey.

In a daily round-up on Euphrates Shield’s 50th day, the Turkish army said 19 Islamic State fighters had been “neutralized” in clashes and eight rebels were killed. Twenty-two rebels were wounded and Turkish forces suffered no losses.

Turkish warplanes destroyed five buildings used by Islamic State fighters, while U.S.-led coalition jets “neutralized” 28 of the jihadists and destroyed three buildings, it said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Louise Ireland)

Iraq requests U.N. emergency meeting on Turkish troops in north

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, August 24, 2016.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the presence of Turkish troops on its territory as a dispute with Ankara escalates.

Turkey’s parliament voted last week to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across northern Iraq by a year to combat “terrorist organizations” – a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State.

Iraq condemned the vote, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned Turkey risked triggering a regional war. On Wednesday, Ankara and Baghdad each summoned the other’s ambassador in protest at remarks from the other camp.

“The Iraqi foreign ministry has presented a request for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss the Turkish violation of Iraq’s territory and interference in its internal affairs,” said a statement on the ministry’s website.

Turkey says its military is in Iraq at the invitation of Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, with which Ankara maintains solid ties. Baghdad says no such invitation was ever issued.

Most of the Turkish troops are at a base in Bashiqa, north of Mosul and close to Turkey’s border, where they are helping to train Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and Sunni fighters.

Tensions between Baghdad and Ankara have risen with expectations of an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces to retake Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under Islamic State control, captured by the militants two years ago.

Turkey has said the campaign will send a wave of refugees over its border, and potentially on to Europe.

Ankara also worries that Baghdad’s Shi’ite Muslim-led forces will destabilize Mosul’s largely Sunni population and worsen ethnic strife across the region, where there are also populations of Turkmens, ethnic kin of the Turks.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim echoed this worry again on Thursday, saying the presence of Ankara’s troops in Bashiqa will continue to ensure that the demographics of the region will not change. Iraq’s hostile reaction is “incomprehensible”, he added.

However, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu sought to play down the spat over Bashiqa in comments later on Thursday.

“We do not see a serious problem there and we think this problem will be overcome,” he told a news conference with his Italian counterpart in Ankara. “Iraq must leave the rhetoric aside so we can assess how to resolve this subject.”

He said around 3,000 local fighters, Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen, were being trained against Islamic State at the camp and they had so far “neutralized” around 750 of the group’s militants in the area.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad, Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Residents flee as Afghan troops battle Taliban in city of Kunduz

KABUL (Reuters) – Thousands of residents have fled or face deteriorating conditions as fighting between Afghan forces and Taliban militants entered its third day in the embattled northern city of Kunduz, officials said on Wednesday.

Taliban fighters easily penetrated the city’s defenses on Monday, raising questions about the capacity of the Western-backed security forces, even as international donors meet in Brussels to approve billions of dollars in new development aid for Afghanistan.

“Most civilians have abandoned Kunduz city and have gone to neighboring districts or provinces,” said Kunduz provincial governor Asadullah Amarkhel. “There is no electricity, no water and no food. Many shops are closed.”

Government troops, backed by U.S. special forces and air strikes, have made slow but “significant” progress in clearing the city, said Kunduz police chief Qasim Jangalbagh.

He acknowledged, however, that the situation remained dangerous for many residents.

“There are security problems in the city,” he said. “People do not have enough food, water and other needs so they are evacuating the city to go to safe places.”

In social media posts, the Taliban rejected claims that the government had retaken Kunduz and accused security forces and U.S. troops of committing abuses against civilians.

The U.S. military command in Kabul said there was “sporadic” fighting within Kunduz but Afghan security forces controlled the city.

American aircraft conducted at least two air strikes on Wednesday to “defend friendly forces who were receiving enemy fire”, the military said in a statement online.

“The city is locked down,” said Hajji Hasem, a resident leaving Kunduz with his family on Wednesday. “If the Taliban and air strikes do not kill you, hunger and thirst will.”

Increased attacks by insurgents hoping to topple the Western-backed government and install Islamist rule have tested the Afghan security forces who are struggling to defend major cities and roads a year and a half after a NATO-led force declared an end to its combat mission.

The violence has displaced nearly 1 million Afghans within the country, according to the United Nations, and contributed to an exodus of tens of thousands to Europe and other areas.

The two-day, EU-led donor conference in Brussels is seeking fresh funds despite Western public fatigue with involvement in Afghanistan, 15 years after the U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

(Reporting by Afghanistan bureau; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Russia’s Putin suspends plutonium cleanup accord with U.S. because of ‘unfriendly’ acts

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday suspended an agreement with the United States for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium because of “unfriendly” acts by Washington, the Kremlin said.

A Kremlin spokesman said Putin had signed a decree suspending the 2010 agreement under which each side committed to destroy tonnes of weapons-grade material because Washington had not been implementing it and because of current tensions in relations.

The two former Cold War adversaries are at loggerheads over a raft of issues including Ukraine, where Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and supports pro-Moscow separatists, and the conflict in Syria.

The deal, signed in 2000 but which did not come into force until 2010, was being suspended due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation”, the preamble to the decree said.

It also said that Washington had failed “to ensure the implementation of its obligations to utilize surplus weapons-grade plutonium”.

The 2010 agreement, signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on each side to dispose of 34 tonnes of plutonium by burning in nuclear reactors.

Clinton said at the time that that was enough material to make almost 17,000 nuclear weapons. Both sides then viewed the deal as a sign of increased cooperation between the two former adversaries toward a joint goal of nuclear non-proliferation.

“For quite a long time, Russia had been implementing it (the agreement) unilaterally,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists on Monday.

“Now, taking into account this tension (in relations) in general … the Russian side considers it impossible for the current state of things to last any longer.”

Ties between Moscow and Washington plunged to freezing point over Crimea and Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine after protests in Kiev toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich.

Washington led a campaign to impose Western economic sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Relations soured further last year when Russia deployed its warplanes to an air base in Syria to provide support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops fighting rebels.

The rift has widened in recent weeks, with Moscow accusing Washington of not delivering on its promise to separate units of moderate Syrian opposition from “terrorists”.

Huge cost overruns have also long been another threat to the project originally estimated at a total of $5.7 billion.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Pakistan ‘completely rejects’ Indian claim of cross-border strikes

By Asad Hashim and Fayaz Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Pakistan on Friday “completely rejected” India’s claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation.

In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out “surgical strikes” on Thursday, sending special forces to kill men preparing to sneak into its territory and attack major cities.

Indian officials said troops had killed militants numbering in the double digits and that its soldiers had returned safely to base before dawn, but declined to provide more evidence of the operation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and killed two soldiers.

“The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out ‘surgical strikes’,” Sharif’s office said in a statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Friday.

It added that the country was ready “to counter any aggressive Indian designs,” but gave no further details.

The U.S. State Department said Washington was watching the situation closely and urged “calm and restraint” by both sides, saying it did not want to see escalation by the two nuclear-armed countries.

“Nuclear-capable states have a clear responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “That’s my message publicly and that’s certainly our message directly.”

Pakistan captured an Indian soldier on Thursday on its side of the border, but India said this was unrelated to the raid as the man had inadvertently strayed across the frontier.

Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that India blames on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory.

A senior leader of Modi’s ruling party declared himself satisfied with India’s “multi-pronged” response to the attack on the army base.

“For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it,” Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote in a column for the Indian Express newspaper.

India has also launched a diplomatic campaign to try to isolate Pakistan. Its decision on Tuesday to boycott a summit of South Asian leaders in November in Islamabad was followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan expressing their “inability” to attend.

Sri Lanka said on Friday that peace and security were vital for regional cooperation, but stopped short of pulling out.

“SURGICAL FARCE”

While India’s public and politicians have welcomed the operation, Pakistan greeted New Delhi’s version of events with scepticism and ridicule.

Television news channels and newspapers reported only small arms and mortar fire, a relatively routine occurrence on the de facto border.

Pakistan’s Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times, led its edition with the headline “‘Surgical’ farce blows up in India’s face”.

Rising tensions have also hit cultural ties.

Pakistani cinemas have stopped screening Indian films in “solidarity” with the armed forces, and after an Indian filmmakers’ group banned its members from hiring Pakistani actors. Indian-made Bollywood films are wildly popular in both countries.

India’s announcement of the raid on Thursday raised the possibility of military escalation that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border, and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the 3,300-km (2,100 miles) border.

Hundreds of villages were being cleared along a 15 km (9 mile) strip in the lowland region of Jammu and further north on the Line of Control in the Himalayan mountains of Kashmir.

“Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls,” said Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

“People who have not been able to migrate were instructed not to venture out of their houses early in the morning or late in the night.”

Modi’s government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir, where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian forces.

Pakistan said on Friday that Sharif’s special envoys had arrived in Beijing to brief China on the deteriorating situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir. China, a Pakistan ally, expressed its concern, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Farmer Rakesh Singh, 56, who lives in the Arnia sector of Jammu, said his family were among the first to leave home because his village was within range of Pakistan’s artillery.

“We suffer the most,” he said. “It is nothing new for us.”

(additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO; Writing by Rupam Jain and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)

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