Tag Archives: Military

Air and sea search for Myanmar army plane missing with 120 aboard

By Wa Lone and Shoon Naing

YANGON (Reuters) – Ships and planes were scouring the coast of southern Myanmar on Wednesday after a military aircraft vanished over the Andaman Sea with 120 soldiers, family members and crew on board, the army and civil aviation officials said.

The Chinese-made Y-8-200F transport plane left the coastal town of Myeik at 1:06 p.m (0636 GMT), heading north to Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon on a regular weekly military flight that stops at several coastal towns along the way, officials said.

The plane lost contact 29 minutes after take-off while flying at 18,000 feet (5,485 meters) over the sea, about 43 miles (70 km) west of the town of Dawei, the military said.

“We don’t know what exactly happened to this plane after the loss of contact,” said Kyaw Kyaw Htey, a civil aviation official at Myeik airport.

Civil aviation authorities initially said there were 105 people onboard. The military later said those on board included 106 soldiers and their family members and 14 crew. The maximum capacity of the aircraft was 200 people, said a military officer.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar, but Kyaw Kyaw Htey said the weather had been “normal” with good visibility when the plane took off.

The military launched a search soon after the plane went missing, mobilizing six navy ships and three military planes, said the army in a news release. The search continued as darkness fell.

Some 300-400 people, including firefighters, medics, emergency and welfare officials, gathered on the shore near the town of Launglon, close to the area where the navy search was concentrated, said Naing Myo Thwin, the chairman of the local funeral association, from the scene.

“We haven’t seen any trace of the plane yet,” Naing Myo Thwin told Reuters by telephone. He doubles as a member of the local hospital’s emergency team.

Aung Win, a local police officer also speaking from the scene by telephone, confirmed that there were a large number of people gathered on the beach. He said because they had not found any trace of the plane they were moving to other areas along the shore.

The aircraft was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It was carrying 2.4 tons of supplies, the military said.

Aircraft incidents, both civilian and military, are not uncommon in the Southeast Asian country.

A military helicopter crashed in June last year in central Myanmar, killing three military personnel on board.

Five military personnel were killed last February after an air force aircraft crashed in the country’s capital Naypyitaw, according to media reports.

Two people were killed and 11 injured after a small plane crashed in central Myanmar in 2012.

(Additional reporting by Yimou Lee; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alex Richardson)

Philippine troops find stash of banknotes as fighters pull back

A government soldier carries a box containing 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) cash seized from a vault in a house previously controlled by militants in the Marawi city, Philippines June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Jerome Morales

By Neil Jerome Morales

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippines troops found bundles of banknotes and cheques worth about $1.6 million abandoned by Islamist militants holed up in Marawi City, a discovery the military said on Tuesday was evidence that the fighters were increasingly penned in.

Fighters linked to Islamic State have been cornered in a built-up sliver of the southern lakeside town after two weeks of intense combat. The military said that over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers.

In one house they found a vault loaded with neat stacks of money worth 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) and cheques made out for cash worth 27 million pesos ($550,000).

“The recovery of those millions of cash indicates that they are running because the government troops are pressing in and focusing on destroying them,” Marines Operations Officer Rowan Rimas told a news conference in the town as helicopters on machinegun runs buzzed overhead.

Black smoke poured from an area near one of the town’s mosques and the lake after bombings by OV-10 attack aircraft and artillery fire from the ground.

The battle for Marawi has raised concerns that the ultra-radical Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao.

Officials said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia but also from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The fighters prepared for a long siege, stockpiling arms and food in tunnels, basements, mosques and madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, military officials say. The Philippines is largely Christian, but Marawi City is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Progress in the military campaign has been slow because hundreds of civilians are still trapped or being held hostage in the urban heart of the town, officials have said.

“In a few days, we will we will be able to get everything, we will be able to clear the entire Marawi City,” armed forces Chief of Staff General Eduaro Año said in a radio interview.

‘MAYBE THEY WATCH WAR MOVIES’

Fighting erupted in Marawi after a bungled raid aimed at capturing Isnilon Hapilon, whom Islamic State proclaimed as its “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to the group. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of up to $5 million for his arrest.

On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte offered a bounty of 10 million pesos ($200,000) to anyone who “neutralized” Hapilon, and 5 million pesos for each of the two brothers who founded the Maute group, one of four factions that banded together to take the town.

Police on Tuesday arrested a man who identified himself as the father of the Maute brothers. He was in a vehicle along with other members of his family that was stopped at a checkpoint in Davao City, 260 km (160 miles) to the southeast.

“As a patriarch and the father of the Maute brothers … I guess he can still persuade his sons to stop the fighting in Marawi and once and for all surrender to the government,” regional military spokesman Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay told the news conference.

Armed forces chief Año said about 100 Maute militants were holding out in Marawi, and the military was checking a report that one of the brothers, Omarkhayam, had been killed in an air strike.

Duterte, who launched a ruthless campaign against drugs after coming to power a year ago, has said the Marawi fighters were financed by drug lords in Mindanao, an island the size of South Korea that has suffered for decades from banditry and insurgencies.

Jo-Ar Herrera, a military spokesman, said the discovery of the banknotes and cheques was evidence the militants had links to international terrorist groups. However, he said an investigation was needed to establish the facts.

It is possible that the money came from a bank that was raided on the first day of the siege. Herrera told Reuters last week that a branch of Landbank had been attacked and he had heard that one of its vaults was opened.

A four-hour ceasefire to evacuate residents trapped in the town was interrupted by gunfire on Sunday, leaving some 500-600 inside with dwindling supplies of food and water.

Officials say that 1,469 civilians have been rescued.

The latest numbers for militants killed in the battle is 120, along with 39 security personnel. The authorities have put the civilian death toll at between 20 and 38.

Asked to describe the fighting skills and training of the militants in the town, Major Rimas said: “They have snipers and their positions are well defended. Maybe they watch war movies a lot, or action pictures a lot so they borrowed some tactics from it.”

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Germany says will avoid escalation of Turkey row during troop pullout

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu attend a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he would try to avoid damaging already strained relations with NATO partner Turkey during a withdrawal of German troops, as he didn’t want a mounting dispute to push Ankara into closer ties with Moscow.

Sigmar Gabriel said his officials would do their best not to escalate the situation as German troops left the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey – in reaction to Ankara’s decision to restrict German lawmakers’ access to the soldiers.

“Above all we should organize the withdrawal so that there is no megaphone diplomacy where we trade insults,” Gabriel told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He said he had agreed with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen that the German cabinet would deal with the issue on Wednesday. He also said the defense ministry had already been working on a withdrawal plan.

Turkey’s ties with Germany and other European Union states deteriorated sharply in the run-up to Turkey’s April 16 referendum that handed President Tayyip Erdogan stronger presidential powers.

Germany, citing security concerns, banned some Turkish politicians from addressing rallies of expatriate Turks before the referendum. Ankara responded by accusing Berlin of “Nazi-like” tactics, drawing rebukes from Berlin.

Turkey has reignited a row over access to German forces on its territory by imposing new restrictions on German lawmakers visiting Incirlik.

The German deployment at Incirlik is part of a mission providing reconnaissance aircraft to support U.S.-led coalition operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Gabriel said the defense ministry had concluded it now made more sense logistically to send Germany’s Tornado jets to Jordan.

“We have no interest in pushing Turkey into a corner … we don’t want to push it towards Russia,” Gabriel said. “This is no small thing but it is about more than Incirlik, it’s about our relationship with Turkey,” he said.

Turkey has been seeking to improve relations with Russia. Last month it agreed plans with Moscow and Tehran to reduce the fighting in Syria, and has been working to end economic barriers imposed after Turkey shot down a Russian plane near the Syrian border in 2015.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after meeting Gabriel in Ankara on Monday that relations with Germany had suffered recently, but that trade and investment between the two countries were still strong.

“We spoke about how we can focus on this more, what steps could be taken to increase contact between the two nations and disperse this negative atmosphere,” he said.

Berlin is also worried about a security crackdown in Turkey after last year’s failed coup. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and 50,000 people jailed pending trial.

“Turkey wants an expansion of the customs union. We say we are ready for that … but you have to move, too,” said Gabriel, who stressed that adhering to the rule of law was necessary.

Germany has also pushed for the release of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who was arrested in Turkey in February on a charge of spreading terrorist propaganda.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Colombia peace deal security gains will take decade: general

Juan Pablo Rodriguez, Commander of the Colombian Military Forces, greets children during the army's arrival to an area that was previously occupied by FARC rebels, in Meta, Colombia June 1, 2017. Picture taken June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

By Luis Jaime Acosta

GRANADA, Colombia (Reuters) – Consolidating security gains from Colombia’s recent peace deal with FARC guerrillas while battling remaining leftist rebels and drug trafficking gangs will take a decade, according to the head of the armed forces.

Nearly 7,000 rebels from the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are in the midst of a demobilization process, but dissidents from the group and fighters from the National Liberation Army (ELN) remain top targets for the military, General Juan Pablo Rodriguez told Reuters.

“Once the FARC leave, other agents of violence will try to fill their space and that is the challenge that the armed forces and the national police have – to occupy those areas, to reestablish security,” Rodriguez said Thursday during a visit to Meta province, which once had heavy FARC presence.

“We are intensifying territorial control operations to prevent violent actors from arriving,” he added.

The Andean country and the FARC signed a peace deal late last year after more than 52 years of war and recently extended the deadline for rebels to hand over weapons. The country’s conflict has killed more than 220,000 people.

Most fighters are now living in 26 special United Nations demobilization zones, but some units have refused to lay down their arms and are expected to continue their involvement in the cocaine trade, illegal mining and extortion.

Smaller rebel group the ELN has begun much-delayed peace talks with the government, but negotiations are expected to take years.

Crime gangs like the Clan del Golfo, Los Pelusos and Los Puntilleros are trying to move into former rebels’ territories, Rodriguez said, despite 65,000 police and soldiers sent to secure the areas.

The Clan and the Puntilleros both count former right-wing paramilitaries among their leadership, while some members of the Pelusos are ex-fighters from another rebel group that demobilized in the early 1990s. The gangs have around 3,800 members, Rodriguez said.

“Stabilization is very complicated, very difficult. Colombians have to understand it will take time.” Rodriguez said. “I would say at a minimum in ten years we will be able to see how we’ve done and see more concrete results.”

FARC dissidents have been holding a U.N. official working on to substitute illegal crops hostage for nearly a month, while the Clan is accused of killing police officers in the north of the country.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Trump administration approves tougher visa vetting, including social media checks

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection arm patch and badge

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has rolled out a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants worldwide that asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.

The new questions, part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, was approved on May 23 by the Office of Management and Budget despite criticism from a range of education officials and academic groups during a public comment period.

Critics argued that the new questions would be overly burdensome, lead to long delays in processing and discourage international students and scientists from coming to the United States.

Under the new procedures, consular officials can request all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history.

Officials will request the additional information when they determine “that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting,” a State Department official said on Wednesday.

The State Department said earlier the tighter vetting would apply to visa applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities.”

President Donald Trump has vowed to increase national security and border protections, proposing to give more money to the military and make Mexico pay to build a wall along the southern U.S. border.

He has tried to implement a temporary travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority nations that a U.S. appeals court refused to reinstate, calling it discriminatory and setting the stage for a showdown in the Supreme Court.

The Office of Management and Budget granted emergency approval for the new questions for six months, rather than the usual three years.

While the new questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of an individual visa application.

Immigration lawyers and advocates say the request for 15 years of detailed biographical information, as well as the expectation that applicants remember all their social media handles, is likely to catch applicants who make innocent mistakes or do not remember all the information requested.

The new questions grant “arbitrary power” to consular officials to determine who gets a visa with no effective check on their decisions, said Babak Yousefzadeh, a San Francisco-based attorney and president of the Iranian American Bar Association.

“The United States has one of the most stringent visa application processes in the world,” Yousefzadeh said. “The need for tightening the application process further is really unknown and unclear.”

(Editing by Sue Horton and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. college teaches veterans to heal each others’ mental wounds

Dr. Bob Dingman, Director of the Military and Veterans Psychology Concentration, speaks to Reuters at William James College of Psychology, the first in the nation to run a program focusing specifically on training military veterans to treat the mental health problems of their fellow soldiers and veterans, in Newton, Massachusetts, U.S., May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Scott Malone

NEWTON, Mass. (Reuters) – Former U.S. Army Specialist Tara Barney will never forget the 2013 night when a fellow soldier cried as he described holding a dying friend in his arms, a wartime memory he had not shared with anyone.

“I can’t even talk to my wife like this,” she recalled her friend saying. “Nobody would understand.”

Barney, now 34, says that moment defined her future.

She finished her four-year enlistment and enrolled in William James College, which says it is the only U.S. psychology graduate school focused on training veterans as counselors.

Founded in 2011, the school’s programs aim to address the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health conditions experienced by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other conflicts.

“If you talk to most vets, they want to talk to people who have had the same sets of experiences,” said Robert Dingman, the director of military and veterans psychology at the school, located west of Boston. “We don’t believe by any means that only vets can help vets, but we think it’s a good career pathway.”

Estimates of how many of the country’s 19 million veterans experience mental health problems vary widely. A federal government report released last year found that about 40 percent of veterans who received care through the Veterans Health Administration were diagnosed with a mental health or substance abuse condition, most commonly depression, followed by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Other data suggest that figure may represent a higher rate of mental health and substance abuse than is seen among the overall population of veterans. An analysis of medical research by the RAND Corp think tank found that rates of PTSD likely range from 5 percent to 20 percent of veterans.

CULTURES COLLIDE

William James College wants to bridge the cultural divide between veterans, some of whom view seeking mental health care as akin to admitting weakness, and psychologists and counselors, many of whom know little about military culture.

The gap is wide enough that Barney’s fellow student, Adam Freed, left a graduate psychology program at Yale University when he realized he was failing to connect with patients’ issues related to their or their loved ones’ military service.

“It was just something that was completely alien to me,” said Freed, 31. “I became increasingly interested in why didn’t I get it?”

Freed decided the best way to understand was to enlist. He signed up for the New York Army National Guard and went on to serve a tour in Afghanistan before enrolling at William James. This month he returned to active duty as an Army captain and military psychologist.

The college, previously known as the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology before renaming itself after the 19th-century philosopher, regarded as one of the founding thinkers of American psychology and brother to novelist Henry James, boasts a growing population of veterans, who this year represented about 50 of its 750 students.

Barney said her friends and even her wife were skeptical when she told them she was planning a career in psychology after stints as a prison guard and working on Army missile systems.

But the experience with her fellow soldier friend had convinced her that her military service would be invaluable as a counselor, she said, adding, “Some people just don’t want to know the veteran’s experience.”

Several students in the program said they also hope to overcome the cultural gaps that can make it harder for therapists to connect with veterans.

Fewer than one in 12 adult Americans have served in the armed forces, and the students said many veterans are wary of discussing their wartime experiences with people who do not share a military background.

Freed recalled a psychologist asking him during a job interview what it felt like to be “blown up.” Freed had avoided such an incident in combat but said he did not consider the topic as appropriate for casual conversation.

“I don’t think people ask about other forms of trauma with the same laissez-faire attitude,” Freed said. “I would confidently say that they would not ask, ‘What was it like to be raped?’ These are both things that are extremely, extremely traumatic and yet they are treated in a very different way.”

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

Exclusive: Kim’s rocket stars – The trio behind North Korea’s missile program

FILE PHOTO : North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the intermediate-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2's launch test with Ri Pyong Chol (2nd L in black uniform) and Jang Chang Ha (R) in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) May 22, 2017. REUTERS/KCNA/File Photo

By Ju-min Park and James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – After successful missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un often exchanges smiles and hugs with the same three men and shares a celebratory smoke with them.

The three, shown with Kim in photographs and TV footage in North Korean media, are of great interest to Western security and intelligence agencies since they are the top people in the secretive country’s rapidly accelerating missile program.

They include Ri Pyong Chol, a former top air force general; Kim Jong Sik, a veteran rocket scientist; and Jang Chang Ha, the head of a weapons development and procurement center.

The photographs and TV footage show that the three are clearly Kim’s favorites. Their behavior with him is sharply at variance with the obsequiousness of other senior aides, most of whom bow and hold their hands over their mouths when speaking to the young leader.

Unlike most other officials, two of them have flown with Kim in his private plane Goshawk-1, named after North Korea’s national bird, state TV has shown.

With their ruling Workers Party, military and scientific credentials, the trio is indispensable to North Korea’s rapidly developing weapons programs – the isolated nation has conducted two nuclear tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year, all in violation of U.N. resolutions.

“Rather than going through bureaucrats, Kim Jong Un is keeping these technocrats right by his side, so that he can contact them directly and urge them to move fast. It reflects his urgency about missile development,” said An Chan-il, a former North Korean military officer who has defected to the South and runs a think tank in Seoul.

Kim Jong Sik and Jang are not from elite families, unlike many other senior figures in North Korea’s ruling class, North Korean leadership experts say. They said Ri, the former air force commander, has been to one of the better-regarded schools in North Korea, but he and the other two were hand-picked by Kim Jong Un.

“Kim Jong Un is raising a new generation of people separate from his father’s key aides,” said a South Korean official with knowledge of the matter, referring to Kim Jong Il, who died in late 2011 leaving the younger Kim in charge.

The official requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

THE ‘BIG POTATO’

The most prominent of the three is Ri, according to leadership experts.

Always shown smiling in photographs, he is now deputy director of the Workers’ Party Munitions Industry Department, which oversees the development of North Korea’s ballistic missile program, according to the South Korean government and U.S. Treasury.

The department was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury in 2010 and Ri was named by the South Korean government last year for activities related to the country’s weapons programs.

“The big potato in that trio of people is Ri Pyong Chol,” said Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership. “He’s been around since before Kim Jong Un was even talked about with any seriousness”.

Born in 1948, Ri was partly educated in Russia and promoted when Kim Jong Un started to rise through the ranks in the late 2000s, Madden and the South Korean government official said.

Ri has visited China once and Russia twice. He met China’s defense minister in 2008 as the air force commander and accompanied Kim Jong Il on a visit to a Russian fighter jet factory in 2011, according to state media.

“Ri looks like the party’s guy in the missile program,” said Kim Jin-moo, an expert on North Korea’s elite and former government think tank analyst in Seoul.

THE ROCKET SCIENTIST

The rocket scientist in the trio is Kim Jong Sik.

He started his career as a civilian aeronautics technician, but now wears the uniform of a military general at the Munitions Industry Department, according to experts and the South Korean government.

But it was his role in the North Korea’s first successful launch of a rocket in 2012 which really helped him earn recognition, Madden said.

“When that thing went off and entered into a lower earth orbit, he got credit for that,” said Madden. “The nuclear and missile guys under Kim Jong Un are getting their jobs based on merit”.

Last year, Kim Jong Sik was at the National Aerospace Development Administration or “NADA”, North Korea’s official space agency, where he escorted Kim Jong Un through the mission control room ahead of a successful long-range rocket launch in February.

State TV footage showed him riding to a launch site in Kim Jong Un’s private plane. Upon arrival, he accompanied the young leader down the red carpet and received flowers from other senior officials.

Most other details, including his age, are not known.

THE MYSTERY MAN

Of the three men, the least is known about Jang Chang Ha, president of the Academy of the National Defence Science, previously called the Second Academy of Natural Sciences.

The body is in charge of the secretive country’s research and development of its advanced weapons systems, “including missiles and probably nuclear weapons”, the U.S. Treasury said in 2010 in its decision to blacklist the group.

The organization obtains technology, equipment, and information from overseas for use in weapons programs, the Treasury said. Jang was added to the Treasury blacklist in December 2016.

Under Jang’s leadership, the academy has around 15,000 staff, including some 3,000 missile engineers, according to South Korean media reports, citing unnamed sources.

North Korea’s banned weapons program began in the early 2000s with a similar trio of men close to the leadership who specialized in procurement, science and military affairs.

Of them, logistician Jon Pyong Ho has died. The others – scientist So Sang Guk and military coordinator O Kuk Ryol – are elderly and no longer in the public eye.

Their place, Madden said, has been taken by Kim Jong Un’s hand-picked men.

“These are the men bringing North Korea’s missile program into the 21st Century.” he said.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in WASHINGTON; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Venezuela military defends protests role, backs Maduro congress

A firefighter walks past burned debris at the Ombudsman office in Maracaibo, Venezuela May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Isaac Urrutia

By Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS (Reuters) – Decried by protesters as “murderers” defending a dictator, Venezuela’s military insisted on Thursday it was not taking sides in the national political turmoil, though it did back socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s controversial plan for a new congress.

The armed forces’ National Guard unit has played a pivotal role in two months of unrest rocking Venezuela, often blocking marches and using teargas and water cannons to fight youths hurling stones and Molotov cocktails.

At least 57 people have been killed, including one National Guard member and two policemen.

The military defended its record during the protests, in which Maduro opponents have staged daily demonstrations demanding elections, humanitarian aid to offset a brutal economic crisis, and freedom for jailed activists.

“The Bolivarian National Armed Forces have made a superlative effort to keep the peace, protect life as a fundamental right, and keep institutional stability,” it said in a statement.

The communique was a response to Chief State Prosecutor Luisa Ortega, who on Wednesday accused security forces of excessive force against protesters. She said one student was killed by a tear gas cannister fired from close range by a National Guard.

The military statement said Ortega’s “pre-qualification” and “hypothesis” were damaging to soldiers’ morale, and fodder for “the negative public opinion right-wing groups” want to spread.

The death of Juan Pernalete, 20, has become a rallying cry for protesters. But senior officials have suggested the student was killed by someone within opposition ranks using a pistol as a way to discredit the government.

The armed forces statement said officers had absolutely respected rights, behaved with “stoicism” and “sacrifice”, and had shown restraint under verbal and physical aggression including seven attacks on military installations.

“In no way are partisan positions adopted,” it added, noting that any “excesses” or “irregularities” were punished.

According to the government, 17 National Guard officers and seven policemen have been arrested over deaths during the protests.

STREET STRESS

Thursday’s statement backed the president’s plan to create a super-body, known as a Constituent Assembly, with powers to re-write the constitution and supersede other institutions in the oil-producing country.

Maduro accuses foes of seeking a coup with U.S. help and says the assembly is needed to bring peace. But opponents argue it is a ploy to stay in power by setting up a congress filled with government supporters.

Polls show the ruling Socialists would lose any conventional election, and the opposition’s main demand is to bring forward the 2018 presidential vote.

“The National Constituent Assembly … represents a space to find solutions to our problems with understanding, harmony and brotherhood,” the military said.

A key power-broker in the past, including during a short-lived 2002 coup against former leader Hugo Chavez, the military’s role is seen as crucial. Opposition leaders hope it may withdraw support for Maduro as the unrest drags on.

On the street, soldiers often stand impassive behind riot shields as protesters harangue them, or as women sometimes offer flowers. When crowds try to pass their security cordons, fighting starts and can last hours, with stones, excrement, bottles and petrol bombs thrown at them.

In private, some low-ranking National Guard members have admitted they are exhausted, fed up with being the first line against protesters, and suffering the same economic problems as much of the population.

“I’m shattered, brother. Do you think I want to be here?” said one National Guard member at a recent protest, briefly sitting on a wall after he and colleagues sent scores of protesters fleeing with a volley of tear gas cannisters.

Security forces are also finding that low salaries and opposition to Maduro are hurting their recruiting and retention efforts, sources in or close to the armed forces and police have told Reuters.

Opposition leaders say dozens of dissenting military members have been arrested in recent weeks, though there is no confirmation of that, and in public the armed forces’ leaders are standing firm behind the unpopular Maduro.

(Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte; Editing by Frances Kerry)

As Taliban gain and U.S. weighs troop hike, a widow’s plea to ‘finish the job’

FILE PHOTO: Widow Alexandra McClintock holds her son Declan during a burial service for her husband, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew McClintock, who was killed in action in January at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia March 7, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On a cold morning in January, Alexandra McClintock shoved her bare hands into the pockets of her black jacket and gazed at the endless rows of graves in Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac River from Washington D.C.

Taking her hands out of her pockets and falling to her knees, she hugged a white marble tombstone as her sobs drowned out the bugle calls from a nearby funeral. Only the sound of her giggling one-and-a-half-year-old son, Declan, forced her to wipe away her tears and loosen her grip on the tombstone.

One year and a day earlier, a Green Beret soldier and chaplain had stood in her living room in Seattle to tell her that her husband, Sergeant First Class Matthew McClintock, 30, was killed in a firefight with Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

McClintock was one of more than 900 American and coalition troops killed in Helmand since 2001 — about a quarter of the more than 3,000 deaths in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Now U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is contemplating sending more troops to Afghanistan to boost 8,400 others there more than 15 years after the Islamist Taliban government was toppled. A decision is expected within weeks.

Current and former U.S. officials say that plans being discussed call for sending 3,000-5,000 more troops into what has become America’s longest war.

Some relatives of the U.S. dead ask whether their loved ones have died in vain, particularly as U.S. administrations are reluctant to commit a large amount of resources to a conflict that is often forgotten.

“I feel like my husband’s death is being dismissed and like my husband died for nothing,” Alexandra told Reuters.

“We need to finish the job instead of just continuing to just barely get up to the line… we need to make my husband’s death mean something,” she said.

Some U.S. officials warn that the situation in Afghanistan is worse than they had expected and question the benefit of sending more troops there. Any politically palatable number of additional U.S. and allied forces — like the size of the deployment being considered by the Trump administration — would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security, the officials say.

Trump is likely to be sucked deeper into the war, which began when former President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Former President Barack Obama sought to pull out the remaining U.S. troops by the end of his tenure, but left thousands there to train and assist Afghan forces.

FILE PHOTO: Widow Alexandra McClintock (L) holds her son Declan while placing a rose on the casket of her husband U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew McClintock, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in January, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia March 7, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Widow Alexandra McClintock (L) holds her son Declan while placing a rose on the casket of her husband U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew McClintock, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in January, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia March 7, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo

‘BLEEDING ULCER’

Large stretches of Helmand province, source of much of the world’s illegal opium supply, are again in the hands of the Taliban who have steadily pushed back Afghan forces which controlled less than 60 percent of territory earlier this year.

Last month, about 300 U.S. Marines were sent to Helmand, where McClintock was fatally shot in the head during an hours-long gun battle near the town of Marjah.

As far back as 2010, then Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top allied military commander in Afghanistan, referred to Marjah as a “bleeding ulcer”.

McClintock’s last trip home was in October 2015 for Declan’s birth. He stayed a few extra days to help Alexandra deal with her postpartum depression.

“All he wanted to do was hold his son all the time or take pictures of me holding him and he was there for every single second,” McClintock said.

The couple last spoke on Jan 1, 2016 on Skype. He promised he would be home in a month. His last words were: “I love you most.”

Four days later, and just weeks before he was supposed to complete his deployment, McClintock was killed.

Alexandra had just returned from a therapy session when her doorbell rang.

“I remember the sound that came out of me when I collapsed, I remember crawling into my fireplace,” she said.

Two weeks later, she received a package.

It wasn’t addressed to anyone but sat outside her door. In the box was a late Christmas present from McClintock; two shirts that said “momma bear” and “baby bear.”

Resting in a case on a mantle in her living room, Alexandra displays the American flag that was draped over her husband’s casket during his funeral at Arlington Cemetery in March 2016.

What she does not put on display is a letter of condolence she received from Obama which now sits in a drawer. The generic letter, of a type traditionally sent to the relatives of deceased service members, made Alexandra feel “dismissed,” she said.

“My husband died for their war, for this war,” she said, adding that she nevertheless supported the war.

“It doesn’t get easier,” Alexandra said. “I still have dreams where I wake up thinking that Matt is in bed next to me, and I have to remember that he is gone.”

For a graphic on U.S. troop fatalities in Afghanistan, click: http://tmsnrt.rs/2rCletQ

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Alistair Bell)

Alexandra McClintock holds her son Declan with her husband U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew McCintock in this October 2015 handout photo provided May 24, 2017. Courtesy Alesandra McClintock/Handout via REUTERS

Alexandra McClintock holds her son Declan with her husband U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew McCintock in this October 2015 handout photo provided May 24, 2017. Courtesy Alesandra McClintock/Handout via REUTERS

North Korea, if left unchecked, on ‘inevitable’ path to nuclear ICBM: U.S.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats (L) and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea, if left unchecked, is on an “inevitable” path to obtaining a nuclear-armed missile capable of striking the United States, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The remarks are the latest indication of mounting U.S. concern about Pyongyang’s advancing missile and nuclear weapons programs, which the North says are needed for self-defense.

U.S. lawmakers pressed Stewart and the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to estimate how far away North Korea was from obtaining an intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) that could reach the United States.

They repeatedly declined to offer an estimate, saying that doing so would reveal U.S. knowledge about North Korea’s capabilities, but Stewart warned the panel the risk was growing.

“If left on its current trajectory the regime will ultimately succeed in fielding a nuclear-armed missile capable of threatening the United States homeland,” Stewart said.

“While nearly impossible to predict when this capability will be operational, the North Korean regime is committed and is on a pathway where this capability is inevitable.”

The U.N. Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday behind closed doors to discuss Sunday’s test of a solid-fuel Pukguksong-2 missile, which defies Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The meeting was called at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

INTELLIGENCE GAPS

John Schilling, a missile expert contributing to Washington’s 38 North think tank, estimated it would take until at least 2020 for North Korea to be able to develop an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and until 2025 for one powered by solid fuel.

But Coats acknowledged gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea and the thinking of its leader Kim Jong Un.

He cited technological factors complicating U.S. intelligence gathering, including gaps in U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), which rely on assets like spy satellites and drone aircraft.

“We do not have constant, consistent ISR capabilities and so there are gaps, and the North Koreans know about these,” Coats said.

Washington has been trying to persuade China to agree to new sanctions on North Korea, which has conducted dozens of missile firings and tested two nuclear bombs since the start of last year.

New data on Tuesday showed China raised its imports of iron ore from North Korea in April to the highest since August 2014 but bought no coal for a second month after Beijing halted coal shipments from its increasingly isolated neighbor.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible over its weapons programs, although U.S. officials say tougher sanctions, not military force, are the preferred option.

Trump’s defense secretary, Jim Mattis, said on Friday any military solution to the North Korea crisis would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Dalgleish)