American Soldiers Prepare for Mission in Egypt

Egypt has been of great concern to the United States especially in relation to the security of Israel. Since the fall of Mubarak, the security of Israel from the Egyptian angle is not really ensured. Morsi's regime has witnessed numerous disorderliness and chaos with the rise of Islamic fundamentalists detrimental to Israel. To stem the tide, the US is to send troops to Egypt.

More than 400 US soldiers are preparing for their deployment to Egypt in anticipation of violent protests, riots, and the possibility of having to protect the country’s border with Israel. Training at Fort Hood for a nine-month deployment in the “near future” concluded on June 20, KCEN-TV reports, noting that the soldiers encountered Molotov cocktails and “other dangerous items” in their training.

“Just what I’ve seen over the course of the past week, this unit is already far more ready for this type of threat than we were last week,” Lt. Matthew Wilkinson told the television station. According to KDH News, the training lasted about six months.

“We want to be as professional as possible so that whatever situation we may encounter, [so] the opposing force knows that we mean business and we know what we’re doing,” said PFC Perez Alexander.

Troops from 13 nations, including the 400 from the US, will man posts and security checkpoints along the Sinai Peninsula, report any peace treaty violations between Egypt and Israel, and be prepared to respond to threats. A spokesman of the Egyptian armed forces on Saturday confirmed that 400 US troops will be deployed to Egypt, Ahram Online reports.

"The 400 US soldiers coming to Egypt as mentioned in the media are part of the periodical renewal routine for the US faction of the 13-state multinational force deployed in Sinai since the peace treaty. They are not armed with military operations gear," said spokesman Ahmed Ali on behalf of the Egyptian military.

“We are providing this clarification as we respect the right of the great Egyptian people to know the truth from its original sources and to prevent distortion of information by any instigators,” he added. The American soldiers are to bolster the capacity and capability of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO).

The Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which is made up of international peacekeepers from 13 countries, ensures that Israel and Egypt abide by the treaty and avoid a military build-up along the border. The MFO operates checkpoints, observation posts, and patrols the border. The observers also verify the terms of the peace treaty at least twice a month, and ensure free marine navigation in the Strait of Tiran.

Anti-government protests calling for the removal of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi are expected to occur on June 30. Since the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak from power, the Sinai Peninsula has suffered growing unrest and disorder, but Egypt’s military presence there is limited under the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

The treaty required that Israel’s armed forces withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, which the Jewish state had captured in 1967. Egypt was required to keep the area demilitarized, but during widespread 2011 protests, Israel agreed to allow several hundred Egyptian troops into the region.

Classified documents reveal CIA drone strikes often killed unknown people

A review of classified US intelligence records has revealed that the CIA could not confirm the identity of about a quarter of the people killed by drone strikes in Pakistan during a period spanning from 2010 to 2011.

According to a purportedly exclusive report by NBC News that mirrors findings of an April analysis by McClatchy, between September 3, 2010 and October 30, 2011 the agency’s drone programme over Pakistan routinely designated those killed as “other militants,” a label used when the CIA could not determine affiliation, if any.

The review by NBC News paints both a confusing and troubling picture of the CIA’s reported drone strike success, which three former Obama administration officials feared could have missed or simply ignored mistakes.

Of the 14 months worth of classified documents reviewed, 26 out of 114 attacks designate fatalities as “other militants,” while in four other attacks those killed are only described as “foreign fighters.”

Even more irregular are the cases when entry records conflict on the number of those killed, with one such example indicating a drone attack had killed seven to 10 combatants, and another estimating 20 to 22 fatalities.

By comparison, McClatchy’s April review of drone strikes revealed that at least 265 of up to 482 people that the CIA killed during a 12-month period ending in September 2011 were not senior al-Qaeda leaders, but were instead “assessed” as Afghan, Pakistani and “unknown extremists.” Corroborating media accounts show that US drones killed only six top al-Qaeda leaders during the same period.

One key term in analyzing drone strike records are what are known as “signature” strikes, when drones kill suspects based on behaviour patterns but without positive identification, versus “personality” strike, which is when drone targets are known terrorist affiliates whose identities are verified.

According to an anonymous senior intelligence official who spoke to NBC, at the peak of drone operations in Pakistan in 2009 and 2010 as many as half of all kills were classified as “signature” strikes.

One former senior intelligence official said that at the height of the drone programme in Pakistan in 2009 and 2010, as many as half of the strikes were classified as signature strikes.

Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, the former Director of National Intelligence from 2009 to 2010, addressed NBC’s report with the claim that the precision of drone strikes was superior to those of traditional battlefield weapons.

“In Afghanistan and Iraq and places where you have troops in combat ... you know better with drones who you’re killing than you do when you’re calling in artillery fire from a spotter [or] calling in an airplane strike,” he said.

“This is no different from decisions that are made on the battlefield all the time by soldiers and Marines who are being shot at, not knowing who fired the shot, having to make judgements on shooting back or not. This is the nature of warfare,” added Blair.

As to just how analysts arrive at determining unverified, “signature” drone targets, that system relies on data which draws connections between the unidentified individuals and known militants. That might entail monitoring everything from the frequency that a suspect visits a particular location, meets certain individuals, or makes phone calls and sends emails.  

During a key speech defending his administration’s use of targeted drone killings in May, President Obama defended the CIA’s drone programme as a “legal,” “lethal” and “effective” counterterrorism tool, while at the same time acknowledging some civilian casualties.

A report entitled “Living Under Drones,” jointly released by Stanford University and New York University in 2012, is far less muted on civilian casualties, and argues that the civilian death toll in drone strikes over Pakistan is far higher than is reported.

In the classified reports reviewed by NBC News, for example, of the 600 some killed only one is listed as a civilian, a statistic which Micah Zenko, a drone expert at the Council on Foreign Relations described as “incredible.”

The Stanford-NYU report, for its part, bases its conclusions on 130 interviews, as well as a review of media reports, though the methodology employed can itself be a subject of debate.

Separately, an Associated Press investigation in 2012 reported that out of 10 drone strikes over a period of 18 months, Pakistani villagers claimed that only 70 per cent of those killed by US strikes were militants, with the rest either civilians or tribal police.

The new Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has called for an end to drone strikes in Pakistan.

Courtesy: Russian Times