[Airbornelawyer]

From the RFE/RL Newsline:

Transcaucasus and Central Asia

• GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT TAKES FIRST STEP TOWARD EXPANDING ARMED FORCES
  Parliament approved on 9 November in the first reading a draft bill that would increase the combined personnel of the Georgian armed forces, Caucasus Press reported. The draft sets the maximum number of personnel at 31,868 persons, of whom 26,000 are subordinate to the Defense Ministry, and 5,868 to the Georgian State Border Defense Department. According to the present law, the combined total strength of the Defense Ministry and State Border Department must not exceed 29,703. The Defense Ministry's troops currently number 21,468 men, according to Caucasus Press on 8 November. The Georgian armed forces were downsized in the early 1990s with the aim of creating a highly trained, highly mobile army of between 13,000-15,000 active duty personnel in line with NATO standards. However, those reductions have since been reversed (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," 22 July 2005), fuelling suspicions that Tbilisi plans military action to restore its hegemony over the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

• KYRGYZSTAN, U.S. AGREE TO RETHINK BASE AGREEMENT, PAYMENTS
  Rear Admiral Robert T. Moeller, director of plans and policy at U.S. Central Command, met with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Alibek Jekshenkulov in Bishkek on 8 November to discuss revisions to the agreement on the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported. Jekshenkulov noted that Kyrgyzstan wants the United States to pay a higher rent for the base. The first round of talks on the issue produced an agreement to review the technical and financial aspects of the current arrangement. Jekshenkulov told journalists: "As you know, in 2001 we made a very quick decision on opening this base [at Manas Airport near Bishkek], and we had no time to look carefully at the conditions of that agreement. That's why the conditions for using this base were very privileged. And now Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev has obliged us to reconsider that agreement and we just started working on it."

Southwestern Asia And The Middle East

• IRAQI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN ON OPERATION STEEL CURTAIN
  Laith Kubba told Al-Jazeera television in an 8 November interview that Operation Steel Curtain has dealt very strong blows to terrorist Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's network in Al-Qa'im. Kubba said the operation seeks to cut insurgent supply lines, and noted that the hardest part of the operation -- taking control of the city -- has been achieved. He said more than 160 foreign fighters were captured. Asked about al-Zarqawi's threat against the Iraqi government (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 8 November 2005), Kubba said: "I do not believe it can strike any governmental body, because the majority of its past operations targeted civilians.... Therefore, nobody pays attention to what this organization says because Iraqis see it as a group of criminals and mentally-ill people who come from outside to kill themselves in Iraq."

• CAR BOMB DETONATES NORTH OF BAGHDAD
  Seven policemen were killed and six wounded when a suicide car bomber targeted police patrols in Ba'qubah on 9 November, international media reported. Three civilians were also wounded in the attack. Meanwhile, Japanese Self-Defense Force troops stationed in Samawah, northwest of Al-Basrah, were attacked twice on 8 November, Al-Sharqiyah reported the same day. No Japanese troops were hurt in the attacks, which left an Iraqi policeman and a taxi driver wounded. Iraqi police in Babil Governorate arrested 11 suspected insurgents following a two-hour gun battle there on 8 November, the news channel reported. Four gunmen and three policemen were wounded in the fighting.