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Europe cautious over America's Long War plan

Simon Tisdall, Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor

Pentagon's post-Iraq rethink includes targeted assassinations

London: Concern is growing among European Governments about U.S. plans to involve them in an expanded, all-out campaign against Islamist extremism from north Africa to south-east Asia, using beefed-up special forces, hi-tech weaponry and more intrusive surveillance and intelligence gathering.

The Pentagon plan, designed to fight what it describes as ``The Long War,'' envisages ``long-duration, complex operations involving the U.S. military and international partners, waged simultaneously in multiple countries round the world.''

Complex challenges

The post-Iraq rethink, known as the Quadrennial Defence Review, was published last week, and calls on existing allies such as NATO and ``moderate'' governments in the Muslim world ``to share the risks and responsibilities of today's complex challenges.''

Measures proposed, to be funded through $513 billion in U.S. defence spending for 2007, include boosting the number of special operations forces and unmanned drones used for surveillance and targeted assassinations, the creation of special teams trained to detect and render safe nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, and a new long-range bomber force.

Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Defence Secretary, on a visit to north Africa this week, said the U.S. was increasing cooperation with the Algerian Government and others, including through possible arms sales, to help create ``an environment inhospitable to terrorism.''

Echoing the U.S. thinking, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said while on visit to Nigeria on Tuesday: ``The terrorist threat to and from Africa is likely to grow over the next 10 years. The biggest risk is not of a generation of homegrown African terrorists. It is the ability of external terrorists to use Africa as a base from which to launch attacks on African and western interests in Africa itself and beyond.''

European Governments are still digesting the contents of the U.S. report and are expected to give full responses in the next few weeks. But initial reaction appears to be one of caution.

But British commanders expressed concern that increased attacks on suspect terrorists using drones — in which decisions are made rapidly by secret watchers based thousands of miles away — could have serious legal implications. They also highlighted potential problems concerning infringements of sovereignty and the bypassing of political controls and of established rules of engagement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed the idea of NATO moving beyond its borders, as it has in Afghanistan. But she suggested there should be limits on future military operations.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary-General, said: ``NATO is not a global policeman but we have increasingly global partnerships.'' —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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