Military

Monday

Fraser Nelson

The world’s most wanted man becomes the world’s most wanted photograph

Will we see pictures of the dead Bin Laden? When Saddam’s sons were killed, pictures of their corpses were released by the American military, on the grounds that it was crucial for Iraqis to believe they were no more. This time, we’re told that Bin Laden has already been buried at sea, the Saudis having refused to repatriate his body. The CIA say they have pictures from yesterday’s assassination, and that the pictures of Bin Laden circulating right now (which have been picked up by some of the British media) are fake. It’s unclear whether they intend to release the real pictures. Bin Laden’s body was identified by some members

Peter Hoskin

Osama Bin Laden’s death: the world responds

We have already seen Barack Obama’s statement on the death of Osama Bin Laden. Below is more reaction from across the world: David Cameron: “The news that Osama Bin Laden is dead will bring great relief to people across the world. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen – for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives, many of them British. It is a great success that he has been found and will no longer be able to pursue his campaign of global terror. This is a time to remember all those murdered by Osama Bin Laden, and

Peter Hoskin

A map that raises questions

Here’s a map that I’ve put together of the area where Bin Laden was discovered and killed. The red point is his suspected residence, the blue and green points are Pakistani military centres. You can, of course, zoom in, out and around the image, as well as click on the points for captions: View A map that raises questions in a larger map

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A triumph for America that raises questions about Pakistan

The killing of Osama Bin Laden is one of the clearest victories in the war on terror since the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001. It is a major triumph for American intelligence. Bin Laden’s death does not mark the end of the war on terror. But it does close a chapter and demonstrate that the United States has the willingness and the determination to keep up a manhunt for a decade. Perhaps, the biggest question it raises is about Pakistan. Bin Laden was found not in the lawless, border regions of Pakistan but living in a mansion right in the heart of the country in Abbottabad.

Peter Hoskin

Osama Bin Laden is dead

The manhunt is over, as is the man. After almost a decade since 11 September 2001, a decade of the Afghan conflict, Osama Bin Laden is dead. The Al Qaeda leader was shot by US forces, not in a dusty cave complex in the mountains, but at a large house north of Islamabad. Announcing the news last night, Barack Obama called it, “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.” It will surely be remembered as the most significant achievement of his Presidency, too. Let’s remember, though, that Bin Laden was not Islamist terror, just as Islamist terror is not Bin Laden. The fundamentalists

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

An honest plea? Or a cynical gambit?

I was planning on collating today’s sunny newspaper covers for Coffee House — but Tim Montgomerie has beaten me to it. So let’s, instead, turn our attention away from the Royal Wedding, and on to Libya. A striking thing has happened there this morning: Gaddafi has called for a ceasefire, and for negotiations between his regime and NATO. Although the murderous leader’s television address was shot through with the usual defiant rhetoric — “No one can force me to leave my country and no one can tell me not to fight for my country,” he bellowed — it also included some concessionary passages. “Let us negotiate,” was one of them.

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Why Gitmo ought to be closed

It is hard to feel anything but nauseous when reading the Guardian’s continuing special report on Guantanamo Bay, which started yesterday. The paper has released hundreds of classified files which were obtained last year by Wikileaks, including detainee assessments prepared between 2002 and 2009 to summarise what the government knew about each detainee — and they do not paint a pretty picture. Some detainees are clearly guilty as sin. But others seem to have been caught in the crosshairs of conflict. One example seems to be Abdul Badr Mannan, who was arrested in Pakistan and turned over to US forces in the belief that he was affiliated with al-Qaeda. According

Thursday

Daniel Korski

The Libyan intervention needs to be stepped up

The government is rightly proud of the Libya intervention. Not only did it save thousands of lives in Benghazi but it was conducted in way that learnt the lessons of the past. The Foreign Secretary took pains to get a UN resolution, making the mission legal, and kept the shape-shifting Arab League committed throughout. But unless the government is now  willing to unlearn the lessons of the past, and act both more unilaterally and even illegally, its multilateral, UN-sanctioned action may have been for nothing. For Misrata is now getting the punishment that had been planned for Benghazi. The town is being destroyed in a seige that looks like the

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Hague: advisors on the ground is not boots on the ground

William Hague let the cat out of the bag on Sky News earlier, arguing that military advisors sent to aid the rebels in Libya did not constitute ‘British boots on the ground’. He said: “This is an expansion of the diplomatic presence we have in Benghazi…It’s not boots on the ground. I stress it’s not training fighting forces…it is to help them organise themselves to protect civilian life.” The reaction is fevered, with the sagacious Sir Menzies Campbell helpfully reminding everyone that Vietnam began when a President sent military advisors. But, one braided colonel does not an invasion make. This move was to be expected: at the weekend, Cameron implied

Sunday

David Blackburn

Cameron: we’re looking at doing more for the Libyan rebels

As James Kirkup says, David Cameron’s appearance on Sky News this morning was intriguing. In addition to trying to reassure the massing media doubters that the coalition “remains strong” despite its differences, the PM was keen to discuss the military mission in Libya. The letter that he authored with Sarkozy and Obama on Friday asserted that regime change was a necessity for peace. Since then, both Whitehall and the Elysee have insisted that Gaddafi cannot remain. How then might he go? Plainly, Gaddafi will not abdicate of his own volition. On the other hand, Cameron is adamant that there can be no ‘invasion or occupation’, and he reiterated the point

Saturday

Daniel Korski

Should the West negotiate with Gaddafi?

This week, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband gave a speech in the United States about Afghanistan, proposing the hand over of responsibility for building a political solution to the UN, headed by a Muslim mediator capable of negotiating with the Taliban as well as partners throughout the region. Last week, also saw former US negotiator Daniel Serwer make an interesting parallel to his time negotiating peace in Bosnia: ‘In my experience, there is nothing like staring a military commander in the face, asking him what his war objective is, and discussing alternative means to achieve it.  I asked the commander of the Bosnian Army that question in 1995, having been

Friday

James Forsyth

The government should recall parliament

Today’s declaration (£) by Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy that Nato’s operation in Libya will continue until Gaddafi leaves power marks a shift in their rhetoric and makes explicit that regime change is the war aim. This has led to calls to recall parliament, most notably from David Davis on the World at One, to debate this change. Parliament merely voted to enforce the UN resolution which was not a mandate for regime change. The government would be well advised to heed these requests. It would be the best way of maintaining the necessary political support for the mission. Now that regime change is the explicit war aim,

David Blackburn

Oh what a lovely war

The triumvirate of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy have presented a united front to NATO and the Arab League and said there will be no respite in Libya. Writing to the Times (£), they say: ‘Britain, France and the United States will not rest until the United Nations Security Council resolutions have been implemented and the Libyan people can choose their own future.’ They also add that to leave Gaddafi in power would be an ‘unconscionable betrayal’, a marked shift in emphasis. It’s rousing stuff, designed to twist reluctant arms at the NATO summit in Berlin. However, as former ambassador to Tripoli Oliver Miles suggests, this letter is unlikely to be

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Hague’s return

William Hague has had a good war. He began poorly, as the FCO struggled to evacuate Britons from Libya. But since then, the Foreign Secretary has showed deft diplomatic skill and leadership. The FCO has been focused on Libya and every able-bodied person has been drafted into duty, with diplomats now running the operation in No 10, and the Cabinet Office. On the Today programme, the Foreign Secretary batted away the idea, much loved by realists and pessimists, that because Britain did not know, with forensic detail, how exactly the intervention would end, it should not have become involved. There are many mountains still to climb. European governments need to

Monday

Daniel Korski

Can Nato cope in Libya?

Just because Nicolas Sarkozy believes something does not make it untrue. The French president was adamant that Nato shouldn’t take over the Libya campaign. He preferred to run an ad hoc coalition of the willing. Britain, however, was keen for the alliance to take control of a mission that seemed too loosely-organised. Once the United States decided to fade into the background of the military operation, the impetus for a switch to Nato grew. A few weeks into the transfer, people are beginning to wonder whether President Sarkozy was right in the first place. According to yesterday’s Sunday Times, Nato is doing what it did in Bosnia: blocking the rebels

Friday

Freddy Gray

How about reintroducing conscription?

The American academic and foreign policy realist Stephen Walt has put an interesting idea on his blog: would re-introducing the draft make America less interventionist? Perhaps it would, and perhaps there’s a good case to be made for doing the same in Britain. Calling for a return to conscription might sound like a silly right-wing trope, but it makes sense from an anti-war perspective: we might be less eager to send our soldiers to fight and die in distant conflicts if there were the slightest possibility that we might have to go, too. I’m not sure I agree, though. It’s not as if national service prevented war in the past.

Daniel Korski

Libya: winning the stalemate

Author Alison Pargeter picks up the debate about Libya and al Qaeda in this morning’s Times (£), dismissing the idea that a new “jihadist hotspot” is being created. As I wrote some time ago, it is difficult even for people who have travelled in eastern Libya to know anything for sure. I hear from sources in Benghazi that the Islamists number among some of the better troops – having had training and experience in fighting. They offer what one person called “small unit cohesion”, in contrast to poorly-organised rebel force. But they do not seem to run or even hold sway over the movement. The bigger question in Libya right

Peter Hoskin

More demands on George Osborne

Is the defence budget the most chaotic in all Whitehall? George Osborne said as much last October — and he’s still dealing with its hellish intricacies now. The main problem, as so often in military matters, is one of overcommitment. Thanks to various accounting ruses on Labour’s part, large parts of the MoD’s costs were hidden in the long grass of the future. It was buy now, pay later — with Brown doing the buying bit, and the coalition doing the paying. The number that William Hague put on it last year was £38 billion. The MoD was spending £38 billion more, over this decade, than had been budgeted. Even

Monday

David Blackburn

17,000 servicemen to go

The MoD has released its plan for redundancies. The numbers and plan were leaked at the weekend, but here are some details: 1) There will be 17,000 redundancies – 7,000 from the army and 5,000 each from navy and RAF. The first tranche will be notified by commanding officers in September 2011. 2) Some of the reductions are expected to be achieved through not filling vacancies and slowing recruitment, but it is estimated that 11,000 jobs will be lost by April 2015. 3) This is a compulsory programme, but the MoD hopes that the majority of losses can be met through volunteers. Volunteers will serve a 6-month notice period, non-volunteers

Daniel Korski

Is al Qaeda in Libya?

This is one of the key questions about the Libya intervention. The Libyan Fighting Islamic Group was once one of the largest jihadist groups in the world and many Libyans fought in Iraq. So the fear of al Qaeda’s presence in Libya is well-founded. The terrorist network certainly appears to be trying to associate itself with the rebellion, much as the Muslim Brotherhood tried to exploit events at Tahrir Square. But there is very little evidence to fuel concern about Al Qaeda, except for a quote from Admiral James Stavridis, who said that there had been “flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda” and “Hizbollah” involvement. Notice the word