Nato Troops

PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- In the fading afternoon light, a group of former soldiers sat at a table in a bar along the rutted street that runs through the center of this Bosnian Serb stronghold."

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is making preliminary plans for deploying up to 20,000 U.S. ground troops to help with U.N. peacekeeping efforts in the Bosnia if talks in Geneva produce a peace accord to end the bitter conflict, say U.S. officials.But President Clinton said no final decision will be made on the precise number of troops and how they will be deployed until he is certain that any peace agreement is "fair, fully embraced by the Bosnian government, and is enforceable."

WASHINGTON -- In the Darfur region of Sudan, a methodical and relentless genocide has taken place. Since the terror began in early 2004, 180,000 to 400,000 Sudanese people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced by their government's systematic campaign to eliminate the non-Arab and African tribal groups of Darfur. Today, acts of genocide continue, and the security situation in Darfur has degenerated so badly that the United Nations and international aid agencies have dramatically scaled back operations in certain areas.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An anti-Taliban militia leader was the apparent target of a suicide bombing yesterday in southern Afghanistan that left at least 80 people dead and dozens injured, authorities said. The bombing at a dogfighting match just outside Kandahar was thought to have been the deadliest single suicide attack since the Taliban movement was driven from power more than six years ago. Authorities said the apparent target was militia leader Abdul Hakim Jan, who was killed in the explosion.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Three Afghan protesters were killed yesterday when a crowd enraged by caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked a NATO military base on the second day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan. About 1,000 protesters marched on the NATO base in Maymana, capital of Faryab province, and Norwegian troops fired tear gas to prevent them from entering, said Yousuf Stanizai, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. Someone in the crowd apparently threw grenades, and the blasts killed three demonstrators and injured 18 others, Stanizai said.

The Obama administration may finally be on the right track in its strategy for combating terrorism, as its new strategic doctrine has sworn off counter-insurgency in favor of a more targeted approach — one that we see already in effect as unmanned drones carry out strikes in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. The new approach is contained in a 19-page document, the "National Strategy for Counterterrorism," which was outlined Wednesday by John O. Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism chief.

AFTER 17 days and a partial agreement in the Kosovo negotiations, nothing is assured.If the Yugoslav army and Albanian rebels don't renew fighting before the March 15 resumption of negotiations in France; if President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia accepts a NATO peace-keeping force in Kosovo; if Albanian extremists settle without a guarantee of sovereignty, and if Congress allows a few thousand U.S. troops among 30,000 NATO troops on the ground -- then the...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A car bomb apparently targeting a provincial governor leaving a funeral killed eight people yesterday as NATO took command of the first ground combat mission in the alliance's 57-year history. The bomb, which was hidden in a police car, exploded outside a mosque 12 miles south of Jalalabad after Nangarhar governor Gul Agha Sherzai left a memorial service for warlord Younis Khalis, police said. "A car entered the mosque [compound] and it was full of land mines," said police chief Basir Salangi.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Escorted by NATO troops in armored vehicles, buses lurched and rolled out of Sarajevo early yesterday, taking Bosnian Muslims to villages in which they lived before the war, where they cast ballots and were then hustled hastily away.In yesterday's municipal elections, seen as a vital part of the Bosnian peace accord, people across Bosnia voted in their prewar towns, many returning for the first time to places they were expelled from in the conflict among Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

WASIHNGTON - The mission of 3,500 NATO troops in Macedonia, including Americans, is billed as short and simple - disarm ethnic Albanian rebels and leave in 30 days. Instead, it is a perilous enterprise that is ill-thought-through and almost certainly destined for failure. Yes, a peace treaty has been signed. The ethnic Albanians say they will hand over their weapons on a tandem track as the Macedonians in this tiny country enact laws to give them more rights. Will that happen? Almost anyone on the ground will reply with a resounding no. The violence and ethnic hatreds have already pushed too far. The situation is much like that in Bosnia as the shelling of Sarajevo began.