Tag: Military

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday said French troops had no reason to get involved in "the internal affairs of Ivory Coast," where strongman Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to step down as president.
Sarkozy also repeated his support for Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of November's Ivorian presidential elections.
French Defence Minister Alain Juppe said earlier Tuesday that France's troops in Ivory Coast would not "take the initiative" to

QUETTA - Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani on Monday laid foundations for dismantling the Sui Cantonment and turning it into the country's third military college, saying an educated and prosperous Balochistan guaranteed a strong and sovereign Pakistan.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the country's third military college in the gas-producing town of Sui in Dera Bugti district, the army chief said the people and army could together make Pakistan stronger and masses were

SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday prepared for a major show of military strength involving fighter jets and tanks near the tense North Korean border as Washington ruled out "feel-good" talks with Pyongyang.
The live-fire exercise, planned for Thursday with self-propelled guns and 800 soldiers, follows signs of an easing of tensions on the peninsula after the North backed down from a threat to retaliate against an earlier drill.
Although similar exercises have been held at the

ISTANBUL: Nearly 200 Turkish military officers, including three top retired commanders, went on trial on Thursday charged with plotting to destabilise the government in a case likely to increase strains with the secularist armed forces.
Amid tight security the officers filed into a courtroom near Istanbul to answer accusations over an alleged 2003 conspiracy against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party government that was aimed at setting the scene for military intervention.

ISLAMABAD: Top US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, who met Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani on Wednesday, asked for a military offensive in North Waziristan saying it was vital for the elimination of terrorism not only in the Tribal Areas but also across the border in Afghanistan.
"Admiral Mullen, US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), called on the army chief at the General Headquarters. The visiting dignitary remained with him for some time and discussed matters of

TOKYO: Japan will identify North Korea as a threat and call China's military activities a concern in a review of its defence policy that will include plans to beef up its ability to cope with Beijing's rise, a newspaper reported on Monday.
The update of the National Defence Programme Guideline, the first since 2004, is expected this month as Japan confronts China's military build-up and North Korea's deadly shelling of a South Korean island. The review will be the first since

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon on Sunday condemned the latest release of classified documents by WikiLeaks and unveiled steps designed to prevent future disclosures of secret files.
"As we have in the past, we condemn this reckless disclosure of classified information illegally obtained," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement.
As WikiLeaks released 250,000 diplomatic cables to The New York Times on Sunday, the Defence Department announced a series of measures

TEHRAN: Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Sunday told Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri that Tehran was prepared to help the Lebanese army, state television's website reported.
"We have stated on several occasions, and we say it again today, that we stand alongside the Lebanese army and are prepared to cooperate" with it, Vahidi said during a meeting with the visiting premier, the report said.
In a symbolic move, Vahidi offered Hariri an Iranian-made sub-machine gun

WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the US military to scale back the visibility and intensity of its operations in Afghanistan and end night raids that he said incited people to join the Taliban insurgency, The Washington Post reported.
"The time has come to reduce military operations," Karzai told the Post in an interview. "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan ... to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life." The

ISLAMABAD: The military leadership, perturbed over the US's endorsement of India's bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, will raise this issue with General David Petreaus, commander of American and allied forces in Afghanistan, arriving in Pakistan on Thursday.
The government has already conveyed its annoyance over the US move to Washington through diplomatic channels but the country's military brass will also take up this issue with the US military authorities

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said that repeated military regimes in the country created hurdles in the way of the nation's development.
Talking to a delegation of South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) at his Raiwind residence on Monday, Nawaz said had the democratic government not been toppled by a dictator in 1999, the country would not have been facing terrorism, unemployment and inflation.
Nawaz said democracy was the solution to

ISLAMABAD
The US and Pakistan have agreed on Islamabad's own plan for a targeted military offensive in North Waziristan Agency instead of a full-fledged operation demanded by the Obama administration. Until the recently concluded US-Pak Strategic Dialogue in Washington DC, the Obama administration was asking for an all out military operation in North Waziristan but had softened its stance and agreed to a give Islamabad a chance for its own surgical strikes and limited ground

WASHINGTON
The US will train 10,000 Pakistani women in various fields and provide $2 billion in foreign military assistance to Pakistan.
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi held a joint press conference after the end of a third round of US-Pakistan strategic talks on Friday. The announcement of military assistance, which will be delivered over five years from 2012 to 2016, came at the opening of the talks.
Clinton said

LONDON: Britain is to scrap major defence assets like its flagship aircraft carrier and fleet of Harrier jets in a defence review being announced Tuesday as part of stinging, across-the-board government cuts.
Prime Minister David Cameron will tell the House of Commons from 1430 GMT the HMS Ark Royal is to be decommissioned almost immediately, while a decision on a replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent is set to be delayed.
In total, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is

Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani on Friday ordered an inquiry into a video circulating on the Internet showing the execution of blindfolded civilians by men clad in military uniforms.
Taking notice of a video, General Kayani has ordered setting up of a board of inquiry to establish the true identity of the men shown in the video and the veracity of the footage.
The board will be headed by a major general, who will be assisted by two to three senior officers with the