What's going on in the World Today 140311

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USA

U.S. Naval Update Map: March 6, 2014

AFRICA

In Africa, Investment May Follow Sustained Security

Libya: Military Intercepts North Korean Oil Tanker March 10, 2014

Libyan military forces have intercepted the North Korean oil tanker that allegedly loaded illegal oil purchases from rebel forces, Libyan officials said, Libya Herald reported March 10. The tanker is being escorted to Misrata port.

ASIA

Japan's Policy Toward Russia Is Put to the Test

NIGHTWATCH 140305

North Korea: North Korea fired seven short-range rockets from its east coast range near Wonsan on 4 March, using multiple rocket launchers.

Three of the rockets were 240 mm multiple rockets which have a 55 kilometer range. Four rockets were 300-mm rockets which have a range of 155 km, according to the South Korean National Defense Ministry statement.

Comment: The timing of the launches, which are occurring during Allied exercises, is the only potentially unusual feature of these firings. This looks like crew training again, but on rockets instead of ballistic missiles.

Now if the missiles and rockets had been fired towards the Demilitarized Zone or over South Korea and into the water, those acts would have been provocative as well as unprecedented in the last 30 years.

EUROPE

Russia: France Set To Deliver Warship March 5, 2014

The French-built Vladivostok helicopter carrier is setting sail for Russia from the French port of Saint-Nazaire, AP reported March 5. The warship is part of a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal that marks the most valuable sale of weaponry from a NATO member to Russia. France has said it has no plans to void the deal despite its criticism of Russian actions in Crimea. The crisis is reminding countries in Central and Eastern Europe such as Poland and Lithuania that their alliances with the European Union and NATO have clear limitations

Conversation: A Renewed Eurasian Standoff Looms Beyond Ukraine

U.S.: Military To Boost Training, NATO Air Policing March 5, 2014

The U.S. Department of Defense plans to increase training for Poland's air force and provide additional U.S. aircraft for the NATO air policing mission over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Reuters reported March 5. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the moves are intended to provide NATO's leaders with options to help to stabilize the situation surrounding the crisis in Ukraine

MEXICO/LATIN AMERICA



Changes in Cocaine Smuggling Tactics

Central America: Cocaine Smugglers Return to the Sea

Mexican Drug Lord, Thought Dead in 2010, Is Reported Killed

MEXICO CITY — In the annals of the Mexican criminal underworld, the son of a powerful drug lord was announced captured and paraded before cameras only for the authorities to later discover they had the wrong guy. Another gang leader was killed, but then associates stole the body. On Sunday, a kingpin presumed dead for more than three years reappeared in the news, to be declared really dead this time.

The authorities said Nazario Moreno, a powerful gang leader known for his quasi-religious preachings that undergirded first the gang La Familia and more recently its spinoff, the Knights Templar, had died Sunday in a confrontation with the military. Officials were understandably cautious but said they had confirmed the man was Mr. Moreno this time.

“From the analysis of the set of 10 fingerprints carried out by the Criminal Investigation Agency, the identity of Nazario Moreno González is positively concluded, 100 percent,” Monte Alejandro Rubido García, the executive secretary of the federal security cabinet, said at a news conference, adding that the result of genetic studies would soon be released.

Mr. Rubido said rumors that Mr. Moreno was alive led to an investigation that found he was not only alive but a leader of the Knights Templar. A car and communication equipment that were believed to be his were seized on Friday. A dragnet closed in on him early Sunday morning.

When the military and the police sought to arrest him, Mr. Moreno opened fire and was killed, Mr. Rubido said.

The renewed death of Mr. Moreno, 40, whose nickname was “The Craziest One,” will surely add to his legend, particularly in Michoacán State, in western Mexico, where he was strongest and where those gangs have terrorized communities with killings, rapes, extortions and kidnapping.

Mr. Moreno secured a particular place among drug and organized crime capos for his affinity for Christian-style verse, collected in a “bible” that followers often carried. He often justified grisly violence, including beheadings, as acts of affirmation to his cultish code. He was often called El Chayo, a play on the nickname for Nazario and the Spanish word for rosary....

AFGHANISTAN

NIGHTWATCH 140311

Afghanistan: On Monday, Taliban leaders warned Afghans against voting in presidential elections on 5 April. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement emailed to media that the group also had instructed clerics across the country to spread the word that the election is "an American conspiracy."

The statement told Afghans they should "reject completely" the election and not put themselves in danger by going to the polls. "We have given orders to all our mujahedeen to use all force at their disposal to disrupt these upcoming sham elections and to target all its workers, activists, callers, security apparatus and offices."

According to the press, Mujahid stated no specific threats or other details about Taliban disruption plans. During the 2009 presidential election, Taliban fighters assaulted and killed election workers, attacked candidates and also attacked voters, in some cases cutting people's fingers off. The group also warned the government against using public buildings, such as mosques and schools, for Hpolling.

Comment: During the 2004 presidential election, the first after the US ouster of the Taliban government, the Taliban also vowed to disrupt the voting. They surged operations nationwide and sustained hundreds of attacks of all kinds for several days, but failed to disrupt the voting.

In 2004 more than 8 million Afghans voted, representing about 70% of the registered voters. Only a handful of polling places were closed because of security. The Taliban attacks killed fewer than two dozen soldiers and elections workers and injured fewer than 50 people.

The Taliban vowed to disrupt the 2009 elections as well, despite the presence of the 30,000-strong US surge force. They executed more than 400 attacks on election day alone, the highest single day total in 15 years, according to a UN report. A heightened level of fighting continued during the week after the elections.

Polling places were closed in some districts because of violence and in many others because of widespread voter fraud. Taliban attacks killed almost three dozen people. The final vote count showed that more than 4.5 million voters participated, less than one-third of the number of registered voters.

Thus, the Taliban surge in 2009 remains the benchmark for Taliban capabilities. If the results of Taliban disruption operations next month equal or exceed those of 2009, they will have invalidated the election.

CHINA

China Takes a Regional Approach to Economic Development

China's Proposed Military Reorganization

IRAN

Trade Routes Between India and Iran

IRAQ

NOTHING SIGNIFICANT TO REPORT

ISRAEL

NOTHING SIGNIFICANT TO REPORT

RUSSIA

Russia's Cultural Influence in Former Soviet States

Western-Russian Competition Continues in the European Borderlands

Ukraine's Crisis Gives New Impetus to the Visegrad Group

Russia Traps Ukrainian Ships
Ukraine: NATO To Monitor Situation From The Air March 10, 2014

NATO will use reconnaissance aircraft to monitor the situation in Ukraine from Polish and Romanian airspace, the BBC reported March 10. Aircraft such as the E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system -- better known as the AWACS -- combine a powerful radar with an airborne command center capable of coordinating the efforts of other assets. Airborne early warning aircraft allow the close monitoring of borders as well as tracking locations and movements of forces.

SYRIA

Exclusive: Syria to miss deadline to destroy 12 chemical arms sites-sources at OPCW

(Reuters) - Syria will miss a major deadline next week in the program to destroy its chemical weapons production facilities, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Thursday.

Syria declared 12 production facilities to the OPCW and has until March 15 to destroy them under a deal agreed with the United States and Russia. Damascus has already missed several deadlines laid out in the agreement.

"That will definitely be missed," said an official involved in discussions with Syria, referring to the March 15 deadline.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said there were seven "hardened" aircraft hangars and five underground facilities. "None of them have been destroyed at the moment," the official said.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Damascus agreed last year to destroy all chemical weapons facilities and surrender 1,300 metric tons of toxic agents to a joint OPCW/United Nations mission. It has until June 30 to eliminate its chemical weapons program completely.

The deal averted U.S. missile strikes threatened by Washington after an August 21 sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in the outskirts of the capital.

Syria missed a February 5 deadline to ship all chemicals abroad for destruction and is weeks behind schedule. It has increased the handover of poisonous agents, including a shipment of mustard gas this week, but will not meet a March 30 deadline to neutralize all the chemicals overseas, sources at OPCW said.

That process was already supposed to have started on board the U.S. MV Cape Ray, a cargo ship outfitted with special chemical neutralization equipment. But only a quarter of the so-called priority 1 chemicals, the most dangerous ingredients for chemical weapons, have been relinquished, officials said.

DEADLINES IGNORED

Syria is not taking the deadline for the destruction of production facilities seriously, another source at the OPCW said on Thursday.

"They are not doing things in the timeframe they promised they would," the source said. "The process is in volatile waters."

The latest comments in The Hague, where members of the OPCW are meeting until Friday, came after sharp criticism of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Powers...

MIDDLE EAST GENERAL

Libya: Missile Strikes Tanker Carrying Illegal Oil Shipment March 11, 2014

A North Korean-flagged oil tanker that left Libya with an illegal oil shipment has been struck by a missile and is on fire, the Libya Herald reported March 11. Authorities gave no details on who fired on the tanker. Libya's parliament voted earlier in the day to remove Prime Minister Ali Zeidan from office because of his failure to stop eastern rebels from exporting the country's oil.

MISC

March 7, KXTV 10 Sacramento – (California) FBI bust credit card fraud ring. FBI agents served arrest warrants at two homes and a trucking business in California after two men allegedly ran a payment card fraud scheme through the business and compromised around 23,000 American Express credit cards. A complaint stated that searches discovered over 50 academic reports from the San Juan Unified School District containing personal identifying information.