Defence`s Feeds

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The European Commission Director-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Lowri Evans, and the Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency (EDA), Jorge Domecq, today signed a Delegation Agreement by which the Commission entrusts the EDA with the management of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) to be launched in early June. The signing was attended by Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Deputy Director General Pierre Delsaux (DG GROW) as well as Jean-Eric Paquet, the Commission's Deputy Secretary-General.

The aim of the Preparatory Action, which is the first substantial EU funded action for defence research, is to demonstrate the added-value of EU-funded research in the defence sector. Running over a three-year period (2017-2019), the PADR will be a genuine test-bed for proving the relevance of European defence research and laying the foundations for a fully-fledged EU defence R&D programme in the Multi-annual Financial Framework beginning in 2021. It is a central element of the ‘Research Window’ of the European Defence Fund proposed by the Commission last November.

The PADR will provide European added value as the research projects will focus on capability priorities at European level, notably through the Capability Development Plan (CDP), and on areas where Member States can no longer afford to act alone. Thereby, it will also create new incentives for cooperation both among governments and industry.

At the signing ceremony, Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska stated: “The Commission is ready to play its role to the full and to even put EU funds and legal frameworks to support defence research and defence capabilities. This is potentially a game changer. However, to achieve this we need the expertise of the EDA. Together we can make a real difference. This partnership will continue to be important as we build the Defence Fund with the implementation of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme”.

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq thanked the Commission for making the Delegation Agreement possible and said the EDA was looking forward to a good and fruitful implementation. He stated: “Our work in carrying forward the Preparatory Action will be in line with EDA’s role as central operator for EU funded defence related activities as well as the preferred cooperation forum and management support structure at EU level for participating Member States to engage in technology and capability development activities, highlighted at EDA’s last Ministerial Steering Board. I am proud we have successfully achieved this agreement which lays the basis for a sound and fruitful cooperation between the Commission and EDA for the years to come. It is a balanced Delegation Agreement in which the Commission and EDA will be genuine partners. The Preparatory Action on Defence Research will be the test bed for the coming European Defence Research Programme”.

 

Foundations laid by successful Pilot Project

The foundations for the Preparatory Action were laid last year with the successful launch of a much smaller ‘Pilot Project on Defence Research’ which is also managed by the EDA on the basis of a Delegation Agreement signed in November 2015. The Pilot Project was a first opportunity for the EDA to demonstrate its ability to manage EU funding for defence research.

Mr Domecq stressed that the Agency was now ready and well prepared to run the much bigger PADR with its €90 million budget of which €25 million are earmarked for 2017.

The EDA played an important ‘upstream role’ in setting up the Preparatory Action and will also have a crucial ‘downstream’ task to fulfil, as a hub for the exploitation of the outcome of the different R&T projects under the PADR.

 

Next steps

Now that the Delegation Agreement is signed, the EDA will immediately proceed with its implementation. The first step will be the launch, on 7 June, of the 2017 calls for proposals. An Information Day is then scheduled for 27 June in order to inform entities from industry and the research community (including universities) about the opportunities and modalities of the Preparatory Action. Proposals can be submitted by the autumn and the signature of the first grant agreements is envisaged by the end of this year. Calls for 2018 proposals are expected to be launched early next year.

 

More information:

• EDA factsheet on PADR
• Practical details on 27 June Information Day
• Preparatory Action on Defence Research: Commission adopts financial decision with project détails (EDA webnews, April 2017)
  
  

On 8 June, SEDE will consider the draft report by Bodil Valero (Greens-EFA, Sweden) on "Arms export: the implementation of Common Position 2008/944/CFSP". The EU collectively is the second largest arms supplier in the world (with 26% of all sales) and the Common Position is a set of rules, guidelines and principles that govern the exports of arms, military technology and equipment and intends to enable EU Member States to make socially responsible decisions concerning those exports.
In her draft report Ms Valero makes a series of recommendations in order to improve the implementation of the Common Position with the aim of avoiding that military technologies are exported to non-eligible countries and un-authorised end users. She also makes proposals to boost information exchange among Member States, to make their reporting more standardised and timely and to increase the role of parliaments and public opinion in scrutinising the arms trade.
Further information
Draft report
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Speedcast International Limited has expanded its contract with Airbus, one of the world's largest defence contractors, to include a partnership in the Philippines.

On 21 June 2017 from 14:30 to 19:30, the European Parliament will organise a high-level conference on migration management in the European Parliament in Brussels. The conference will bring together political leaders, policymakers and practitioners to contribute to a reflection on a strategy to manage migration flows, and ensure a stable and prosperous environment at our borders. It will be organised in cooperation with the relevant parliamentary committees. Speakers will notably include:

Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament

Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission

Federica Mogherini, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission

Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank

Markku Markkula, President of the Committee of the Regions

Dimitris Avramopoulos, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship

Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Development

Julian King, Commissioner for Security Union

Louise Arbour, United Nations Special Representative for International Migration

William Lacy Swing, Director General of the International Organisation for Migration

Claude Moraes, Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee

Linda McAvan, Chair of the Committee on Development

Further information
Registration
Programme
Poster
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Russian RPK-200 Light Machine Gun

Austal has delivered the second Cape-class Australian defence vessel (ADV), Cape Inscription, to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

The Indian Navy's newest Scorpene-class submarine, INS Kalvari, has successfully carried out the test-firing of its underwater torpedo missile for the first time.

Lockheed Martin company Sikorsky has contracted aerospace and defence firm CPI Aerostructures to deliver maintenance repair and overhaul services for tow hook assemblies deployed on the US Navy's primary airborne mine countermeasures aircraft, MH-53E…

The third European Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Course for 2017 (EAATTC 17-3), hosted by the Spanish Airforce at Zaragoza airbase runs from 28 May to 9 June 2017. Initiated under the EDA Cat A European Air transport fleet Programme and run together with the European Air Transport Command (EATC), the course has reached its maturity and is on the verge of being moved to a permanent organisation in charge of planning and executing courses. This edition of EAATTC will represent the beginning of the transition phase of responsibilities between EDA and European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC).  

This edition of EAATTC gathers five aircraft from four different countries (Belgium: C130; Germany: C160; Poland C130 and Spain: C295 and C130) and support personnel coming from Italy, the European Air Transport Command (EATC) as well as JAPCC. The training aims to provide air transport crews with a robust airlift tactics training syllabus in order to enhance interoperability between European air forces. 

The course is dedicated to single-ship flying missions which, as the training goes on, will evolve from an initial low level tactical scenario to a more complex air-to-air and ground-to-air threats environment. Nine flights are planned for the single ship course. At the end of the course, crews will receive a Graduation Certificate based on the completion of the syllabus objectives by June 8. 
 

European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC) 

On June 8 the new European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC) will be officially opened by Head of the EDA, High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini and Minister of Defence of Spain Dolores de Cospedal. ETAC represents the largest transfer of a project, created and developed by the EDA, to one of its Member States on a permanent basis. 

Zaragoza will officially become the home of the European Air Transport Fleet (EAFT) Programme on June 8th in a ceremony marking the transfer of this project from the EDA to Spain. Created in 2011 by EDA, and signed by 20 participating nations, the EATF partnership aims to increase the EU’s airlift capabilities by addressing shortages and increasing interoperability. The establishment of a permanent multinational airlift training centre (ETAC) marks a major step forward in European defence collaboration in the critical capability domain of tactical airlift. 
 

Media Day – June 8

Members of the media can avail of seats available on board a flight from Brussels to Zaragoza airbase (kindly provided by the Belgian Defence) for the opening of ETAC. All details can be found here. 

On June 8 EDA will be live from Zaragoza airbase for special coverage of the opening of ETAC. Throughout the day we will be bringing you live updates on twitter of the opening ceremony, graduation of aircrews, interviews and visits to the 3D printing lab. 

Visit our twitter page (@EUDefenceAgency) and get involved using #EUdefence.  

 

 

More information:

• Zaragoza to permanently host the European Tactical Airlift Center from June
• EATF project page  
• EDA consultation to identify impact of 3D-printing technologies in defence

 

 

 

As of 24 May, Dspnor relocated 500m from its headquarters to its new purpose-built offices.

Caroline Field has joined MMI Engineering (MMI) as a Resilience Practice leader.

ARTEMIS PRO is a handheld underwater computer that incorporates a target detection sonar, DVL, camera, dive-light, acoustic positioning, data modem and GPS navigation aids, which are designed to assist commercial and search-and-rescue divers in locat…

Speedcast International Limited, a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, designs secure integrated IT and communications solutions to optimise mission-critical networks for defence clients.

Americas

• F/A-18 Super Hornets operated by the US Navy will have the Infrared Search and Track System (IRST) integrated onboard by Boeing. The $89 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract calls for the initial design and development, procurement of prototyping hardware, technical risk reduction efforts, integrated product support, and technical reviews of IRST Block II with the F/A-18E/F aircraft to support the system through the preliminary design review. Work is expected to continue through to April 2020. The IRST is designed to locate the heat emitted by aircraft engines without the use of active radar, which is easily detected by enemy planes and ships. It also helps countering stealth technology.

• The Canadian government is continuing to pay into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, with the latest instalment of $30 million quietly paid in April. Having already paid $373 million into the program since 1997, the fees keeps Ottawa at the table as one of nine partners in the fighter jet project for the next year, allowing to compete for billions of dollars worth of contracts associated with the building and maintaining F-35, as well as benefitting from a discount on units for its air force. Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, had vowed to take Canada out of the F-35 program while on the election campaign trail last year. However, since taking office, the Liberal government has paid the annual fee twice while pursuing an interim procurement of Super Hornets in order to fill the capability gap left by the ditched F-35.

• General Atomics’ new MQ-9B SkyGuardian UAV has set a new flight endurance record by topping 48 hours in the air. The new variant of the Predator B broke the record during a flight at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz., while carrying 6,065 pounds of internal fuel. It flew between 25,000 and 35,000 feet for the duration of the mission and landed 48.2 hours later. The previous endurance record was held by Predator XP, which flew 46.1 hours in February 2015.

Middle East & North Africa

• Elbit Systems has been contracted to deliver its J-Music DIRCM (Direct Infrared Countermeasures) system to an international organization. The $25 million deal will be carried out over a three-year period. The Multi Spectral Infrared Countermeasures (MUSIC) systems is a family of directed infrared counter-measures solutions to protect aircraft against heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles. The system is meant for protection of large aircraft and includes the PAWS IR missile warning systems.

Europe

• Saab hopes that its JAS-39 Gripen fighter stands a good chance in an upcoming Croatian fighter replacement competition, adding that the Balkan nation is closer to modernizing its fighter jet force than might have been previously expected and would look to take offers soon. Zagreb has already inspected the Gripen and is now in the process of researching information on other fighters as a possible replacement for its fleet of MiG-21s. Saab has been focusing on increasing Gripen sale and lease agreements in central and eastern Europe, with the Czech Republic and Slovakia recently signing a “Joint Sky” agreement to co-operate on maintaining a joint Gripen fleet, while a Bulgarian interim government selected the Gripen as the best option for a new fighter fleet. However, Bulgaria’s new Prime Minister, Boiko Borissov, recently indicated that its MiG-29s could keep flying for another eleven years so a quick sale to Sofia may not be on the cards just yet.

Asia Pacific

• The Indonesian government has officially deployed its first batch of five BTR-4M armored personnel carriers from Ukraine’s Kharkiv-based Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau after testing by the army in January. Ordered in 2014 with delivery coming in 2016, the contract provides the option for further supplies of 50 vehicles comes within the framework of increased capacity of Ukraine’s military industrial complex after supplying the APCs to Ukraine’s armed forces. Both countries are also looking at expanding bilateral defense cooperation with talks ongoing to form joint ventures for the production of guided air-to-air missiles, Ukrainian radar systems and Ukrainian military cargo planes.

• MD Helicopters has received a $76.7 million contract for logistical and contractor support for MD 530F Cayuse Warrior helicopters operated by the Afghan Air Force. US Army Fiscal 2017 funds of $37.6 million have been allocated to the program, with work to be carried out in Mesa, Ariz., and Afghanistan. The program is expected to be finished by May 31, 2018. 27 Cayuse Warriors were delivered to Kabul last year to assist in a variety of missions including escorts, over-watch, and close air support.

• The Philippines may look to Russian defense wares to arm its fleet of KAI FA-50PH fighters and AW-109 attack helicopters. Manilla has been contemplating a Russian defense deal for a number of sought items, including sniper rifles, but is also looking at acquiring precision guided munitions for its air wing. Last week, Islamist militants affiliated with the Islamic State stormed the town of Marawi, resulting in President Rodrigo Deuterte declaring martial law across the country’s southernmost island of Mindana.

Today’s Video

• J-Music:

Afghanistan remains an attractive place for international jihadists to come and fight, despite the competing appeal of Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Since the post-2001 insurgency broke out, foreign fighters have come from Pakistan, Central Asia and the Arab world, some bringing their families. An unknown number have ended up in Afghan detention. More information about these detainees, says AAN’s Kate Clark, would help give a better idea about the foreign contingent fighting in the insurgency. She also looks into what the Afghan government is doing with them.

The research for this dispatch is supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations. This is the latest report in a series by the author on the detention of foreigners on Afghan soil (for earlier reporting, see AAN’s Detentions Dossier.

Who are Afghanistan’s foreign security detainees?

Trying to get information on security detainees in Afghanistan is always tricky, particularly so when they are foreign. There is no publicly available detail on numbers or nationalities, so information for this piece has been pulled together from several off-the-record interviews with government and non-government sources, as well some public documentation and press reporting.

One source of information is the claims made by government officials to the media that foreign fighters have been captured. Such reports need to be treated with some caution. Research by AAN last year (“How to identify a Chechen”) questioned the evidential basis of many of the claimed sightings of Chechens, both alive and dead, for example. (1) The Afghan authorities may also be no better at identifying suspects than the United States was. Many of those it held at Bagram and Guantanamo, both foreign and Afghan, turned out to be non-combatants. The ‘Pakistani militants’ at Bagram, according to details provided by their lawyers, included minors, old men and even a Shia accused of belonging to the Sunni-sectarian group, Lashkar-e Tayba.

With these caveats in mind, news reports of the capture of foreign fighters mainly concern Central Asians (often mixed groups of men, women and children) and Pakistanis (men only). (2) Most of the reported arrests occurred in Nangarhar, which makes sense. The province has a porous border with Pakistan’s tribal areas, where there has been a concentration of foreign and Pakistani militant groups, and ‘hosts’ the one stronghold of Daesh (Islamic State of Khorasan Province) in Afghanistan (see AAN reporting here and here), making it attractive to some international jihadists. Military operations by the Pakistan army in North Waziristan – the Zarb-e Azb operation and its successors – launched on 15 June 2015 and continuing since, have also driven many foreign militants across the border into Afghanistan. The other ‘hot-spot’ for reports of foreign detentions is the north (AAN has a forthcoming dispatch touching on foreigners fighting with militant groups there) with occasional reports from the south-east.

This pattern of reporting matches information from the team which monitors al Qaeda, Daesh and individuals and groups ‘associated’ with al Qaeda for the United Nations Security Council sanctions committee. In its January 2017 report, the team said fighters loyal to “Al-Qaida-affiliated groups, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan” who had fled the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in Pakistan “continue to fight within Taliban groups,” and that “Al-Qaida fighters acted as specialized instructors for Taliban groups, in particular where the design of improvised explosive devices was concerned.” Despite dwindling resources, the team said that al Qaeda “remains hopeful that the Taliban will be successful and that it can ‘piggyback’ on that success.”

The UN monitoring team also reported, in January, that about 700 foreigners were fighting for Daesh (ISKP) alongside about 900 Afghans in Nangarhar. Although the group had sustained heavy losses, it reported, recruitment was still high from the “Afghanistan/Pakistan border region.” In the north, the monitoring team said fighters from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan continued to fight… as a distinctly identifiable group.”

The significance of the foreign fighters – and a plea for information

Afghan officials often highlight the foreign element in the Afghan insurgency in claims that look designed to attract central government or international resources or explain territorial losses. Such claims are not just found at the local level, but also at the most senior. On 6 March 2017, for instance, National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar told the Asian Security Conference in Delhi that a quarter of the insurgents – he estimated 10,000 men ­– were foreign. The statistic seems scarcely credible.

More information about the foreign detainees could help firm up government claims. It could also undermine them, which might be why officials are so unforthcoming on detail. During ISAF’s tenure in Afghanistan, for example, a former senior officer who served in the later years of the mission, told AAN, they found that most of the insurgents they detained were Afghan and Taleban, and were picked up fighting very near to where they lived. He said that even though there was reporting bias (most detentions resulted from night raids which would emphasise the local character of those captured), the findings still undercut claims then of the significance of foreign fighters in the war.

Atmar’s claim that a quarter of the militants are foreign appears far-fetched. However, lower numbers are still significant, says Taleban specialist Michael Semple of Queen’s University, Belfast:

To judge their significance, you do not just count them. [The foreign fighters] include some of the most experienced military functionaries. In particular, they have a reputation for supplying the most competent attack planners… particularly for urban terrorist attacks. They are not numerous in blowing themselves up – they probably do not want to deplete their numbers – but they are certainly involved in preparation, including rigging up vehicles as IEDs, and also in training.

In terms of their impact on the civilian population, foreign fighters may also loom large. They tend to be more abusive than Afghan fighters because of the absence of any restraining local or tribal ties. One researcher in Paktia described foreign fighters there as “independently powerful” and beyond Taleban discipline. (3) Some foreigners may come under direct Taleban command, says Semple, fighting as ‘embeds’, but many are partially or fully autonomous. Al Qaeda fighters, for example, should act in coordination with the Taleban’s military command structure, given that their leader Aiman al-Zawahiri has formally sworn loyalty to successive Taleban leaders, but even that is not always the case. Foreigners fighting with Daesh tend to be completely free-floating. (4)

Whether foreign jihadists act as free agents or ‘force multipliers’ for the Taleban, it is clear that Afghanistan still has attractions for them: it is the place where mujahedin defeated a superpower, where the Taleban created an ‘Islamic state’ in the 1990s, where the 9/11 attacks were conceived, and one of the few places where jihadists can still try to kill American soldiers. From an analyst’s point of view, it would be useful to have more accurate, publically-available information about the foreigners now in Afghan detention – their names, number, nationalities, who they were fighting with, when and why they come to Afghanistan, and so on. The make-up of the security detainee population says a lot about the make-up of the insurgency, including the role and likely strength of the foreign contingent.

What to do with foreign detainees?

While the number of foreign security detainees is unknown, some are creating dilemmas for the Afghan government in ways that will be familiar to the United States. The US ran its own detention facilities in Afghanistan until December 2014 and opted to hold both Afghan and foreign detainees without trial (also called administrative detention and internment). In 2005, it introduced a system where review boards assessed cases periodically and could decide to release detainees. After such decisions, Afghan detainees would be released quickly, but foreigners could find themselves languishing in limbo in the US detention facility at the Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, for years. The US was loath to release them in Afghanistan where they might join or re-join the insurgency. Instead, it sought guarantees from the detainees’ home countries that they would be both monitored and not be tortured, or it tried to find third countries willing to give the same guarantees.

The US was dilatory about finding places for such men until 2014, its final year in charge of Bagram, when it suddenly managed to transfer more than 50 detainees out of Afghanistan (for more detail, see here). In the end, it had just six foreigners left in its custody when its detention programme ended. These six were handed over to the Afghan authorities on 12 December 2014 (read about them here). Two of them were soon repatriated. (5)

Internment or trial – and then what?

President Hamed Karzai was unwilling to use administrative detention, despite US pressure to do so and moved swiftly to stop its use in 2012 when he discovered that Afghan officials, following the US example, were using it at Bagram (see here and here). President Ashraf Ghani, however, decided to introduce the measure, issuing a decree on 9 October 2015. Parliament, however, rejected it. (6) So, currently, the only way to detain someone legally in Afghanistan is through the courts: prosecution and conviction. In this regard, AAN has been told, foreign security detainees are treated the same as Afghans. “If they committed crimes in Afghanistan,” said the then commander of Bagram, General Faruq Barakzai, in 2015, “[they] will be prosecuted like Afghans, according to Afghan law. An Afghan court will decide whether it views their cases and finds them guilty, or finds there is no evidence against them.” (7)

However, if a foreign security detainee has been tried and convicted and has served his or her sentence, the Afghan government finds itself facing the same problem that confronted the US military after it decided a detainee no longer needed to be detained: what to do with him? Some foreign detainees can be repatriated, but not all. Some countries, AAN was told by a senior government official, do not want their nationals back. For other detainees, it is the risk of torture which makes repatriation tricky and potentially illegal. Under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) (signed by Afghanistan in 1984 and coming into force in 1987), an individual may not be transferred if there is “substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture” (the principle of non-refoulement codified in article 3 of the Convention).

Details on transfers of prisoners and instances where the government has not been able to transfer third country nationals can be found in a government submission, received on 1 April 2016, outlining Afghanistan’s record on torture (see paragraphs 148 and 157 to 161 here). The submission was made for the CAT committee ahead of hearings, held on 24 and 25 April 2017, to review Afghanistan’s adherence to the Convention (see AAN reporting here).

The CAT committee had asked Afghanistan to outline procedures, safeguards and records on the transfer of prisoners and extradition of suspects and convicts, bearing in mind the non-refoulement principle. The submission said that all extraditions and transfers “shall be based on the mutual agreements considering the international conventions.” The requesting state must be a party to the CAT, not be accused of torturing those accused or convicted of crimes, and provide “a letter guaranteeing that torture and inhuman treatments will not be inflicted on the extradited criminal or prisoner.”

The submission says that in 2013, in accordance with ‘mutual extradition and judicial cooperation treaties’ with Iran and Tajikistan, 31 Iranians and nine citizens of Tajikistan, “arrested following various reasons were transferred to their country.” (It is noticeable that such treaties do not exist for Pakistan and other Central Asian countries where foreign security detainees are likely to come from.) One citizen each from Bangladesh, Nepal, South Africa, Iraq, and Turkey were also repatriated that year, with the prisoners’ written consent. The government did not give more up-to-date figures or detail as to whether these individuals were ordinary or security prisoners. However, the submission also said that seven Iranians, three citizens of Kyrgyzstan, one from Tajikistan, and one Iraqi had ‘disagreed’ with being repatriated and had instead asked to seek asylum in other countries. The Afghan government has introduced them to the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) to seek help in this.

Dealing with the American legacy

Since this submission, at least four more foreign detainees are believed to have asked not to be repatriated, following the end of their prison sentences or after having been found not guilty. They were all previously detained by the US and were handed over to the Afghan government on 12 December 2014. We have detail on them after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in America led to the release of some of their files (see also AAN reporting on the detainees). After transfer to Afghan custody, AAN was told that prosecutors began to prepare cases against them (read about that here).

Two of the detainees are brothers from Tajikistan, Said Jamaluddin and Abdul Fatah, born respectively in 1990 and 1983 in Dehgalman. (8) They are the sons of a well-known and longstanding jihadist leader, Mullah Amruddin (also known as Amriddin Tabarov), a 60 year old Tajikistani militant who is reported to have come to Afghanistan in 1993 and who fought with different Central Asian and Pakistani jihadi groups in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The brothers were captured on 22 March 2009 during a raid on a house in Imam Sheh [as written, probably Imam Saheb] in Kunduz and admitted, their files say, to being members of the Islamic Movement of Turkestan. It is one of the constellation of splinter groups and re-brandings around the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). (9) The US decided, more than seven years ago, on 23 February 2010, that their continued detention was no longer necessary to “mitigate the threat” it said they posed, and they could be transferred.

No suitable place was found for them, however, and, in 2014, they found themselves transferred into Afghan hands. Soon after, in February 2015, they were put on trial not for a terrorism-related offense, but for illegal entry into Afghanistan (see this Washington Post piece which quotes their lawyer). The judge found them guilty and gave them a three year jail sentence, but he ruled that their years already spent in detention cancelled the sentence out. Nevertheless, AAN was told, the pair are still in custody in Bagram. They fear being tortured if deported to Tajikistan and have requested asylum in a third country.

The third ‘inherited’ detainee is an Uzbek, Musa/Muso Akhmadjanov/Ahmedjanov, son of Anwar Ahmedjanov. He was born in Tashkent in 1980, and according to his US file, was captured on 23 May 2010 as he crossed into Afghanistan from Mashhad, Iran. He has told his lawyer (quoted in the same Washington Post article) that he had left Uzbekistan because the authorities were harassing him over growing a beard and “looking like a Muslim.” His lawyer said he went to Turkey where he married a local woman, but was then expelled, in 2010, for not having a visa. His US case file says he admitted to being a member of the Islamic Jihad Union (see footnote 9) and alleged he had been facilitating the movement of foreign fighters across Afghanistan. According to the Post, however, the Afghan courts have repeatedly ruled that there is insufficient evidence of his having done anything illegal in the country. “We have concluded to [sic] hand over the accused person to the officials of his country,” the newspaper reported a three-judge appellate panel as ruling in May 2015. “[If] the individual would feel threatened from [a] safety perspective, then we request application of international law for his safety and security.” Ahmedjanov told his lawyer he would like to go back to Turkey, but according to the Post, the Turkish authorities can find no record of his marriage. He is also, AAN was told, still in Bagram.

Finally, the Egyptian Abu Ikhlas al-Masri was born on 31 December 1963 in Dimiat in the Nile Delta and came to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation in 1988. He never returned home, but married a woman from Kunar province and settled there. As a young man, he had joined the Egyptian militant group, Islamic Jihad, members of which would go on to form the ‘Egyptian’ element of al-Qaeda under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahri. By 2006, Abu Iklhas was appearing regularly in media and academic reporting as ‘a’ or ‘the’ senior al-Qaida commander in Kunar. (10) He was reported captured in December 2010 during an attack on Jalalabad airport. A leaked ISAF report from 2012, State of the Taliban, reported him as telling his interrogators, “Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can’t (expletive) on a tree in Konar (Province) without them watching. The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad.” It is not known how the trial of Abu Ikhlas went, but AAN was told he is also still in custody in Bagram, despite having finished his sentences.

The particular problem of women prisoners

Foreign detainees include women and their children, as well as men. AAN was told that some have been put on trial and convicted of security offences, but not all. For example, we were told of five “Daesh widows” (from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) who were picked up, along with three children, on the road from Nangarhar to Kabul last year, fleeing the fighting in that province. An official told AAN they were questioned, but no charges were brought. Despite the lack of charges, the women and children have remained in custody and here, there seems to be a conflation of two thorny issues: what to do with foreigners with no place to go and also what to do with women who have no mahram (guardian). It is a “weird legal black hole,” one official told AAN.

Detention dilemmas

The Afghan government finds itself in the same quandary as the US, unable to repatriate some of its foreign detainees, but also unwilling to release them for fear they will join or re-join the insurgency. For now, the Afghan government has opted to continue to hold them. (11) This is essentially illegal, as Afghan law has no provision for administrative detention. As the US discovered, finding third countries willing to host such men is difficult and Afghanistan has far less clout than America. It may be, therefore, that those deemed suitable for release but who fear torture if repatriated could find themselves in custody for many years to come.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert

 

(1) The piece quoted an ISAF officer with years of experience in northern Afghanistan who wrote in 2011:

We see it here [Mazar-e Sharif] in the provincial hospital, where dead bodies of insurgent KIAs are brought to. When the bodies are not claimed by family members, they are automatically labeled Foreign Fighters and depending on their faces: Asiatic = Uzbeks; dark-skinned = Pakistani; and Caucasian = Chechens. This is done by doctors as well as police and everybody takes it at face value. 

(2) A search on the internet looking for news reports of foreigners detained in the last three years produced the following items, all of which quote Afghan government officials as their source:

Two ethnic Uzbeks, both Tajik nationals, were detained in Kunduz on 9 June 2014. A third man, reported to be Pakistani who had accompanied them, was said to have blown himself up after refusing to surrender.

27 “armed Pakistani citizens” were arrested in Paktia on 26 August 2014, while travelling in a four-vehicle convoy that also included a military vehicle, said the Ministry of Interior.

Five alleged members of the Pakistani Taleban suspected of perpetrating the 16 December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, which left 150 people (mainly children) dead, were detained on 14 January 2015 in eastern Afghanistan.

“[N]ine Russian-speaking militants,” five men, a woman and three children (sic), the Nangarhari governor’s spokesman said, had been arrested on 10 December 2015. Most likely, said The New York Times, they were Central Asians coming from Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal areas to join Daesh in Achin and Kot districts of Nangarhar. The woman blew herself up, killing herself, the three children and a security official.

Fifteen foreigners were reported detained in Nangarhar on 13 December 2015 – twelve Uzbeks and Tajiks, a mixed group of men, women and children, in Rodat district, and, separately, three Pakistanis, residents of Kuramm, Tirah and Swat, in Ghani Khel districts.

Five “Russian-speakers”, were detained on 18 March 2016 by the Afghan intelligence agency, the NDS, the agency announced: three women and two men during a house search in Khiwa district of Nangarhar.

Two citizens of Tajikistan were captured, again by the NDS, on 13 July 2016 in Bati Kot in Nangarhar, together with two Afghans from Parwan; all four, the NDS said, had been intent on travelling to Iraq and Syria to join Daesh.

Two Pakistanis from Khyber Agency suspected of belonging to Lashkar-e-Islam were reported arrested in Achin district on 6 November 2016.

Seven Pakistani Taleban were reported arrested, along with two Afghan Taleban, in Ghanikhel district of Nangarhar, reportedly with arms, on 9 January 2017.

(3) The local researcher blamed Pakistani Waziris and other foreigners who had crossed into Paktia in 2010 in large part for the deterioration of security in the province. He said:

If there is a problem between local people and local Taleban, there is a chance it can be sorted out. With Taleban from further afield, it is less easy. There is no comeback against the foreign fighters… People have gone to Waziristan to complain [to the then shura in Miram Shah] but there they just shrug their shoulders. It is like when NATO commits a crime, what can Karzai or the ANA do?

(4) Semple points out that foreigners can never be completely autonomous in Afghanistan. They need locals “to vouch for them in dealings with the civilian population and with other fighters.” Foreign militants therefore recruit Afghan helpers, known as ‘ansar’, after the title given to the people of Medina who helped the Prophet Muhammad in his exile from Mecca. The US military would call them ‘facilitators’.

(5) The two men who were repatriated had been ‘rendered’ from Pakistan to Afghanistan by the CIA in 2002 and badly tortured at one of the agency’s black sites (read about their experiences here).

(6) MPs rejected detention without trial, but, on 11 May 2016, did pass other controversial parts of the decree, including authorising the Afghan intelligence agency, the NDS, to hold and interrogate individuals without judicial oversight or possibility of legal challenge for 60 days. The normal limit under the 2014 Criminal Procedural Code is 72 hours.

(7) See also the government’s submission (http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1108&Lang=e) to the Convention Against Torture Committee (see AAN reporting here which said:

During military operations against terrorist groups – in which foreign citizens are too [sic] – they resist the security forces at the time of their arrest. The security forces in that situation resort to use of force and tough treatment. But, after the arrest, during prosecution, they shall not be tortured and shall be treated based on the laws of Afghanistan. After being assessed by the relevant prosecutor, the courts will decide on their extradition to other states. (p23)

(8) The US gives all detainees a unique Internment Serial Number or ISN. These are crucial for tracking detainees through US files because spellings of names vary or sometimes are not given at all. The numbers of the four men detailed here are: Said Jamaluddin (ISN 4057), Abdul Fatah (ISN 4058), Musa/Muso Akhmadjanov/Ahmedjanov, (ISN 20370) and Abu Ikhlas al-Masri (ISN 21064).

(9) Central Asian jihadi groups are fissiparous and confusing. The oldest, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), emerged in the early 1990s after the Karimov government cracked down on all legal opposition groups in the country and some Islamist activists went underground. It is also the best known in Afghanistan because of its presence during the Taleban era, fighting alongside the Taleban against the Northern Alliance in exchange for a safe haven. In 2001, IMU fighters fled to the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, but particularly since the Pakistani Zarb-e Azb offensive in North Waziristan, have been fighting on this side of the border.

The Islamic Jihad Union split from the IMU in 2002. Originally founded by Uzbeks, it seems to have concentrated on recruiting Turkish and German-Turkish fighters (see a detailed paper on IJU here). The Islamic Movement of Turkestan was another split/rebranding of the IMU, which however never amounted to much.

(10) See mentions of Abu Ikhlas here, here, here, here, here and here.

(11) In the course of the research for this piece, AAN was told by both a senior government and a non-government source that some foreign detainees have more recently been transferred to their home countries despite a substantial risk of torture. AAN was told of a Kazakh Islamic State commander deported to Kazakhstan, and a group of Uighurs to China. This information has not been verified, but we were told the government was motivated by the foreign policy imperative of maintaining good relations with countries in the region. If true, this would represent a possible breach of the Convention against Torture and thus, is an issue that needs watching.

 

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The aim of the workshop was to provide an overview of the EU arms export control system as well as options for improvement. The main speaker, Dr Sibylle Bauer, Director of the Dual-Use and Arms Trade Control Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), provided a brief overview of the main elements of the EU Common Position 2008/944/CFSP and then focused on aspects related to strengthening implementation of the eight criteria of the Common Position, the enhancement of compliance with the reporting obligation by Member States, possible ways to increase the transparency and public scrutiny of the export control framework and the development of the EU’s institutional framework in this context. Her presentation was followed by a debate involving members of the Security and Defence Committee of the European Parliament, the outcome of which may feed into the EP Annual Report on Arms Export.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Blueprint Subsea has announced its Oculus M series of multibeam sonar units, which are a new generation of versatile imaging sonar solutions developed for use in a versatile range of underwater applications.