BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
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Volume 12 Issue 309 Jumada-al-Akhar 12, 1433 AH / May 4 2012 - $1
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UN says Syrian army still using heavy weapons
One year anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden Federal and local authorities stepped up security in New York City on May 2 as a precaution on the anniversary of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s death one year ago. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed in a covert US operation in the early morning of May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Read more on page 10.
Obama sees ‘clear path’ to end Afghan mission
US President Barack Obama has declared that the US combat role in Afghanistan is winding down just as it has already ended in Iraq. “We can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” he said at the end of a secretive trip to the war zone on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. “Our goal is to destroy al-Qaeda, and we are on a path to do exactly that,” Obama said in a speech on Tuesday to America broadcast from Bagram air base halfway around the world. He spoke after signing an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai setting post-war promises and expectations. With two armoured troop carriers as a backdrop, Obama made his remarks in the midst of his endeavor to win re-election as US president and commander in chief. He said that he will keep up the steady withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and that there is a “clear path to fulfill our mission” after more than a decade of military involvement there. “My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war,” he said. “Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” he said. “The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon.” Obama’s unannounced visit in the midst of his 2012 re-election campaign appeared aimed at showing US voters he is pursuing a strategy to wind down the war. He was also seeking to reassure Afghans that Washington was not abandoning them in the face of a continuing Taliban insurgency. Most US and NATO troops are due to leave in 2014. Earlier in the day, Obama and Karzai signed a strategic partnership accord that charts the future of US-Afghan relations beyond the end of the NATO combat mission in the country in 2014. The partnership spells out the US relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014, covering security, economics and governance. The deal is limited in scope and
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essentially gives both sides political cover: Afghanistan is guaranteed its sovereignty and promised it won’t be abandoned, while the US gets to end its combat mission in the long and unpopular war but keep a foothold in the country. The deal does not commit the United States to any specific troop presence or spending. But it does allow the US to potentially keep troops in Afghanistan after the war ends for two specific purposes: continued training of Afghan forces and targeted operations against al-Qaeda. The group is present in neighboring Pakistan, but has only a nominal presence inside Afghanistan. The US president, making only his third trip to Afghanistan since taking over as commanderin-chief in 2009, arrived at 17:50 GMT. Obama’s last trip in December 2010 lasted only a few hours when he flew into Bagram air base, outside Kabul, to meet US troops but he did not meet with Karzai. Ties between Kabul and Washington have strained since last May amid a series of bloody massacres and incidents by US troops against Afghan civilians as a 130,000-strong US-led NATO force fights a fierce Taliban insurgency. The last of the remaining 87,000 American troops in the country are due to pull out by the end of 2014, some 13 years after a US-led campaign in late 2001 to oust the Taliban regime accused of harbouring bin Laden. Source: Al-Jazeera
Syrian security forces have kept heavy weapons in cities in breach of a UN-brokered cessation of hostilities, but the government and opposition both have committed truce violations, a top UN official has said. The 24 unarmed military observers now in Syria have seen Howitzer guns, armoured personnel carriers and other weaponry in cities, Herve Ladsous, the UN peacekeeping chief, told a press conference on Tuesday at UN headquarters. Ladsous insisted, however, that the monitors were having an effect in cities where they have been allowed to go. Withdrawing weapons and troops from Syrian cities was a key part of a six-point peace plan agreed by President Bashar al-Assad and UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. Syria has told the UN that weapons have been pulled back. “Regarding the heavy weapons, yes, our military observers do see a number of APCs, for instance, they see a number of Howitzers and other military equipment in most places where they are,” Ladsous said. Syria has told the monitors that the armoured carriers have been disarmed but this has not been verified, Ladsous added. Ladsous, a UN undersecretary, said that government forces and opposition groups have broken the truce. “All the parties need to take further steps to ensure a cessation of violence in all its forms,” he said. “The important fact is that violations do come from both sides,” he said while refusing to say whether one side had committed more breaches. A separate UN official said on Tuesday that more than 34 children have allegedly been killed in Syria since the truce officially took hold last month. “Since a truce was agreed on April 12 ... and despite the deployment of United Nations ceasefire monitors, more than 34 children have allegedly been killed,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special envoy for children and armed conflict, said in a statement. “I urge all parties in Syria to refrain from indiscriminate tactics resulting in the killing and wounding of children,” The UN also said on Tuesday it was accelerating the deployment of 300 unarmed ceasefire observers to Syria to ensure all are on the ground by the end of May to monitor both sides’ compliance with Annan’s six-point peace plan. “We have 24 observers on the ground and I fully expect this
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