Pakistan army units attacked Taliban positions in South Waziristan in a continued assault on Taliban leaders that is beginning to show some progress. The latest operations against the Taliban follows a CIA-operated drone missile strike on August 5 that was said to have assassinated Baitullah Mehsud, who’d led the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) since he formed it as a splinter group of the Taliban in Afghanistan in December 2007. The TTP denied that Mehsud was killed before admitting his death earlier this week with an announcement of a power-sharing agreement between two rival leaders, which some analysts predict may fracture into renewed dissension. The Pakistani Taliban, based in the remote North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), was reportedly responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (whose husband, Asif Ali Zardari, became Pakistan’s president last September), bombings of U.S. and NATO supply convoys traveling to Afghanistan, the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in Peshawar in June and of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last year. In April, it seized control of the district of Buner and much of the Swat Valley, just 60 miles from Islamabad. General David Petraeus, Commander of Central Command, and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had each criticized the Bush administration for air strikes because collateral damage of civilian casualties violates a fundamental principle of counterinsurgency strategy. Lately, perhaps sensing an opportunity for rare Pakistani action against the Taliban, each has personally encouraged senior Pakistani officials to continue their own operations. The effect of the Pakistani operations on the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan is still unclear, but protecting the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan is itself one of the Obama administration’s principal foreign policy priorities.
Iraq has approved China’s purchase of Swiss oil giant Addax Petroleum, giving China’s Sinopec Group oil rights in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. The Iraqi Oil Ministry initially said it would blacklist
Sinopec if it acquired Addax after China pursued drilling concessions in Kurdistan without consulting Iraqi officials. At the time, Iraq’s Deputy Oil Minister Abdul Kareem al-Leaby was quoted as saying, “We sent a letter to Sinopec….If it confirms the purchase of Addax, we would consider blacklisting it.” Baghdad has been reluctant to allow the autonomous Kurdish region to sign its own oil contracts, but a Sinopec executive has said the Chinese company’s operations were not going to be affected by tensions between the central government and Kurdish officials. The $7.2 billion purchase is China’s largest-ever overseas acquisition. The takeover will also give China new acquisitions throughout Africa, including Nigeria, Gabon and Cameroon, where Addax has been active.
After calling a U.S.-Colombian deal on military bases a “declaration of war,” Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has warned he will break off diplomatic ties with Bogota. “We have to prepare the breaking off of relations,” Chavez told his foreign minister. “This is going to happen.” The agreement over U.S. use of seven Colombian military bases has created increasing tension between the two Latin American countries. “The agreement of the seven bases is a declaration of war against the Bolivarian Revolution,” Chavez said, referring to his socialist political movement, which he named for the 19th-century Venezuelan leader Simon Bolivar. Both Chavez and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, a conservative and a close U.S. ally, plan to meet later this week at a regional summit of South American leaders in Argentina. The United States says the seven Colombian bases will replace a single Ecuadorean base, where the United States is now denied access, and will be used to help interdict drug smuggling and combat terrorism. Chavez sees the growing American presence as a threat to his socialist government.
North and South Korea began discussions at a North Korean resort with the goal of arranging reunions for members of some 100,000 families separated during the 1950-1953 Korean War and who otherwise cannot communicate. The last family reunions were held in October 2007, but were discontinued after last year’s inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak, who made such exchanges conditional on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. The South Korean state news agency Yonhap reports, “Watchers expect that family reunions, when resumed, will help resuscitate other inter-Korean ventures.” After being condemned by the international community in May for conducting its second nuclear test, North Korea’s engagement this week follows a recent succession of apparently conciliatory gestures. Last week North Korean officials attended the funeral ceremonies of South Korea’s former President Kim Dae-jung and, two weeks ago, the North hosted former President Bill Clinton and agreed to release two detained American journalists.