Thai military denies using toxic gas in the battle of Cambodian border

April 23, 2011, 11: 38 am EDT by Daniel Ten Kate

April 24 (Bloomberg) - Thailand, denied the accusations that his soldiers have used toxic gas against Cambodian troops in the bloodiest fighting along the disputed border since tensions broke out three years ago.

Battles which began April 22 killed five Thai and six Cambodian, according to army officials of, and reports, ending two months of peace since the United Nations Security Council urged a permanent ceasefire on February 14 of press. Used Thai soldiers "guns heavy loading of the toxic gas" fighting yesterday, Ministry of defence of Cambodia said in a statement. "Cambodians are really incredible for a story like that," Veerachon Sukondhadhpatipak, Deputy spokesman of the Thai army, said by telephone from Bangkok. "" " They still make stories publish us poorly. "The resumption of the fighting at the time when the Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vejjajiva is preparing to call an election in early May. The Thailand member is causing clashes raise his popularity in the event where he stages an another coup, the Cambodian Government Phay Siphan said by telephone from Phnom Penh, the capital. "The Thai military to move against us so they can say they are protecting Thai land and earn the credibility of their people,"he says. "We are a small country and we cannot afford to take Thai land." We need peace to build our country. "Southeast Asian neighbors have blamed each other for cause the battles which took place several hundred kilometres west of border clashes in February near the temple of Preah Vihear a world heritage site. Ministry of defence of Cambodia, said Thai troops were aimed to support the temples in dispute, while said Abhisit Thailand would not invade its neighbours and reprisal of the Cambodian attack. "International rules"our movements are consistent with international rules", Abhisit said today in a weekly televised speech. "In our retaliation, we attack military points only.". Our retaliation will be appropriate with Cambodian attacks. "Five Thai soldiers died in the two days of fighting, said Veerachon. Fighting also killed six Cambodian soldiers, Xinhua Chinese news agency reported, citing Suos Sothea, a commander of a unit of artillery on the border.Clashes resume tensions along the border escalated in 2008 after the Thailand opposed efforts in Cambodia to list temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site. Fighting in February was at least 10 dead and 30 000 people travel.The Thailand refused to accept observers from the border of the Indonesia, which holds the rotating Presidency of the 10 Association members of Southeast Asia Nations.International Arena "the shock of the latter is another attempt by Cambodia to raise bilateral dispute on the international scene."said today accused Abhisit.Cambodge Thailand of the use of cluster bombs during the fighting in February, a charge confirmed by established the United Kingdom Cluster Munition Coalition, which grows to an international ban on the weapons these munitions scatter over a large area to the detonation. Cambodia and the Thailand are not among the 108 countries which have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions.In 1962, the International Court of Justice decided in a vote of 9-3 that Cambodia had the sovereignty of Preah Vihear. He did not rule on the lands surrounding the temple, and the two countries have not yet reconciled 10,422 miles square (26,993 square kilometres) waters contested in the Gulf of Thailand which can contain oil and gas reserves.264 Billion in the Thailand economy is more than 26 times the size of Cambodia. The Cambodian army spent $ 191 million in 2009, compared with 4.9 billion for the military in Thailand, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

-With the help of Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok. Editors: Paul Tighe, Anand Krishnamoorthy

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok to dtenkate@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at the ptighe@bloomberg.net

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War in Libya could drag on, military analysts say

The posting of liaison officers - probably fewer than 40 by you, and as a military instructor is also carefully not reported - a sign, they said that only a combination of military pressure from the sky, economic pressure on the Government and a better organized and coordinated rebel group will finally convince Col. Muammar el-Gaddafi, that he no option but to stop you.

"Some Libya thought of could be fast,", a senior said Ambassador to NATO. "But no military commander thinks so."

Sending consultants to Libya is the latest in a series of characters effort for the NATO campaign, which set out with a seriously began American-led attack, but has seemed to fizzle out as command was transferred to NATO on 31 March. After that an offensive was rebel smashed by Qadhafi forces, which the rebels reeling towards the eastern town of Ajdabiya sent.

New tactics of Qadhafi troops - mix with civilians, camouflage arms and drive pickup trucks instead of military vehicles - pilot, it was hard for NATO to objectives are. At the same time the rebels have hammered loyalist artillery and tanks held city of Misurata, with cluster bombs, allegedly, by large parts of the world, so that civilians to protect prohibited a mockery of the NATO central mission.

But as the new Qadhafi seem tactics, divisions within the Alliance's strategy of damage, Robin Niblett, Director of Chatham House, said the Royal Institute Affairs in London of international. Only six of the 28 countries participate in the air raids and France and the United Kingdom are about half of them during Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Canada do the rest.

Prominent Nations such as Italy and Spain are back, and other aircraft only for the support of the no-fly zone have sent or are helping to enforce the arms embargo. The Obama administration, which has ruled out deploying American troops in Libya, announced Wednesday that it approximately $25 million in military surplus supplies, even though not weapons, to the Libyan opposition forces would authorize.

"You want to Qadhafi of a collective will, send that there is no way that he is a firm and unified opposition, facing" Mr Niblett said. "And he is a European-led NATO, which is not enough contiguous see."

"If I were him, I consider European differences and heart of them, take in the opposition so weak," said Mr Niblett.

Colonel Qadhafi "feel there is a gap between means and ends," he added. "He can by divisions among allies and feeling that he part of a political solution can be, because he can feel at the end, there are not enough cohesion strategy follow up to the end, look at" which is his downfall.

Colonel Qadhafi and his sons to leave convincing, he said: "we need both the political and military track, and we have bits of the military and a broken political situation, and we give the best shot of the strategy."

In a sense, the problems in the NATO changes can be traced since the end of the cold war. With the end of the threat of the Soviet Union and the expansion to global missions outside Europe, NATO of less has an Alliance as a coalition of like-minded Nations, analysts say.

"If NATO went from area it an Alliance, stopped," said Francois Heisbourg, an expert in the Foundation for strategic research in Paris defense. "In the area it is partnership unlimited liability." But now with a global scope, everything needs to be negotiated, and it is all à la carte. "This is the post cold war world."

Tomas Valasek, a defense expert at the London Centre for European reform, to NATO one political party, "a coalition of countries with largely the same interests, but with different views." It was inevitable after the cold war, he said that NATO countries would focus on various threats: terrorism and Afghanistan for some, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands; Russia, for the Central Europeans. He said "I know why they remain in NATO"As for the rest,"also."

NATO never said what it was, Mr Valasek. "NATO of more a transactional site in the future be so as in Libya, the Willigen will mostly coalitions, with the support of NATO."

The reject NATO official criticism, that Alliance has done a good job in a short time and that the air campaign is working well.

"There is no question of the collective will of NATO" to the UN resolution on Libya perform, Oana Lungescu, spokeswoman for the Alliance said. She said that in the three weeks since NATO took command of the operation, "we are steadily Qadhafi's ability degrading, to carry out and maintain attacks on his own people and gradually the regime forces pressing."

But almost all are agreed, "that there no military solution to the crisis as such", said Ms Lungescu.

"This mission is the pressure for a credible political solution," she said.

A senior NATO Ambassador asked for patience. "At the end of the balance changes, it has," he said. "Qadhafi gets no more weapons, no more tanks, no more ammunition, and he gets weaker and the others get stronger over the course of time." "And at some point someone decides in Qadhafi, have a political way out."

Colonel Qadhafi Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa, defected to the United Kingdom three weeks ago - where he half-heartedly as an encouragement to others to the Libyan leader change pages treated was - there was no significant defector since.

The current political debate, which said senior NATO Ambassador, is not whether the war will end Libya in negotiations, but the nature and context of the discussions. Some countries would like to start negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi, before he makes with the clear goal of leaves, he has to leave. But others, especially the rebels, saying that negotiations can only after the Colonel and his sons are sure of the country.

For now, Mr Valasek said, the problem is that Colonel Qadhafi and NATO supported opposition time on their side think. "It may take this is as leads us military force longer everyone to see." "But if we want a shared Libya we need to sit down and negotiate."

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Washington.

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Libya warns against UK military Advisor - Aljazeera.net

Libya's deputy foreign minister has spoken out against a?British plan to send a team of military?officers to the North African country?to advise?the rebels.

Khaled?Kaim said Britain's attempt to help?the opposition forces would be futile.

"This is not in the interest of the UK," Kaim told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday.

"This is an impossible mission. To organise who? They (the rebels) are different groups. There is no leader. They are not well-organised, and I am sure it will be a failure," Kaim said.

His comments came after the British foreign minister, William Hague,?announced that military advisers would join a group of British diplomats already co-operating with the Libyan National Transitional Council, based in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

"They will advise the National Transitional Council on how to improve their military organisational structures, communications and logistics, including how best to distribute humanitarian aid and deliver medical assistance," he said.

However, the foreign office said the team would not train or arm forces fighting troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Hague insisted that the deployment would be "fully within the terms" of the United Nations Security Council resolution on Libya that authorised the set up of a no-fly zone over the country.

'Taking sides'

Hague's announcement sparked some criticism among supporters of British prime minister David Cameron's coalition government.

Several lawmakers from Cameron's Conservative Party called for the recall of parliament, now in recess, to debate the move. They argued that circumstances have changed since parliament approved British participation in the Libya no-fly zone last month.

Keep up with all the latest developments here

Peter Bone, one Conservative lawmaker, voiced concern that Britain seemed to be "taking sides in a civil war".

But Omar Ashour, director of Middle East studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter said the deployment of British advisers to Libya is a necessary step.

"[There are] training problems, logistical problems. Many of the forces in the [opposition] are merely civilians who have never taken up arms before. So there will need to be some training," Ashour told Al Jazeera.

"It's necessary right now especially because many Libyans - from Misurata and Benghazi - have been calling for direct boots on the ground."

EU armed escorts

The European Union, meanwhile, said it is ready, in principle, to provide armed escorts to secure UN aid convoys in Libya,?though UN officials said they do not?need such guards for the time being.

The proposal drew a warning from?Libya's deputy foreign?minister that sending armed escorts would be tantamount to a military operation.

The UN resolution bans the use of foreign troops in Libya.

Russia - a veto-wielding member of the Security Council - already has complained that the NATO action in bombing Libya's military has overstepped its mandate, and therefore is unlikely to approve any further extension of the alliance's operations.

"The UN Security Council never aimed to topple the Libyan regime," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in Belgrade on Tuesday. "All those who are currently using the UN resolution for that aim are violating the UN mandate."

The NATO-led international operation to enforce the no-fly zone and protect civilians has been criticised by Libyan pro-democracy forces?in recent weeks for failing to do enough to protect them from attack by pro-Gaddafi fighters.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil,?an opposition?leader touring Europe in search of more logistical support, said the Libyan opposition is not looking to other nations to remove Gaddafi.

"We are not looking or inviting anybody to kill him, and we don't have such a possibility, but we hope he and his regime can leave Libya as soon as possible," Abdul-Jalil said in Italy.

Stalemate

The military struggle for control of Libya has ground to a stalemate, with?pro-democracy fighters?backed by air strikes apparently capable of holding their ground in the east of the country, while Gaddafi continues to control Tripoli and the west, apart from the city of Misurata.

But Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, told state television on Tuesday that he was confident the rebellion would fail.
"I am very optimistic and we will win," Saif said on Allibya television. "The situation changes every day in our favour."

Meanwhile Libya's opposition leaders said that at least 10,000 people had died since the start of the conflict in February.

Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Benghazi, said: "Given the intensity of the conflict, it doesn't come as a surprise.

"We have focused on areas like Misurata, where the humanitarian crisis is well documented; however it is happening throughout Libya, the full extent of the crisis is not known and there is no real idea of [casualty] figures."

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies  Email  Print  Share  Send Feedback Topics in this articlePeopleWilliam HagueMuammar GaddafiCountryLibyaBritainUnited KingdomOrganisationLibyan National Transitional Council Featured on Al Jazeera Nigeria: Ripe for a WikiLeaks revolution? Leaked cables helped expose high-level corruption, but will those revelations impact upcoming elections?  China's interests in Gaddafi Huge oil and financial deals play major part in Beijing's support for Libya's despot and halt to foreign intervention.  It's Arab and it's personal The Arab revolution puts regional and international powers on notice as it pushes for the removal of autocrats.  Recognising Palestine? The efforts of the Palestinian Authority to push for statehood are nothing more than an elaborate farce, writer says.

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