U.S. Intends to Reconstitute U.S. Forces Japan as Joint Forces Headquarters

July 28, 2024 | By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News

Through a phased approach, the U.S. plans to convert U.S. Forces Japan into a joint force headquarters which will report to the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the U.S. secretary of defense said today following the conclusion of a two-plus-two ministerial meeting in Tokyo.

Included in the meeting were Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa and Japan's Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara.

"We welcome an historic decision to modernize our alliance command and control to better meet the challenges of today and tomorrow," said Austin during a press briefing today that followed the high-level meetings. "The United States will upgrade the U.S. Forces Japan to a joint force headquarters with expanded missions and operational responsibilities." 

 "We're reinforcing the rules-based international order that keeps us all safe. And the agreements that we've advanced today will ensure that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains a cornerstone of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific." Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III 

The new joint force headquarters will be commanded by a three-star officer and will serve as a counterpart to Japan's own Japan Self-Defense Forces Joint Operations Command, Austin said. 

"This will be the most significant change to U.S. Forces Japan since its creation, and one of the strongest, improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years," he said. "Japan's new Joint Operations Command will further allow our forces to work together more closely than ever. And these new operational capabilities and responsibilities will advance our collective deterrence." 

Austin said the change is based on a desire to work more closely with Japan and enhance the effectiveness of the existing relationship. 

Also part of the discussions, Austin said, were ways to increase bilateral presence in Japan's Southwest Islands; a reaffirmation of the importance of cooperation on cybersecurity, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cross-domain operations and bilateral exercises and training; and ideas for new areas for defense industrial cooperation. 

According to a joint statement by the Security Consultative Committee, meeting participants discussed co-production opportunities to expand production capacity of both Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement missiles. 

"Finally, we held a separate two-plus-two ministerial level meeting on extended deterrence, and that has never been done before," Austin said. "During that meeting, I reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to defend Japan with the full range of our capabilities, including our nuclear capabilities." 

As part of the extended deterrence meeting, participants discussed, among other things, North Korea's destabilizing activities in the region, including its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile programs; China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal; and Russia's unlawful arms transfers with North Korea. 

Austin said he considered both meetings in Tokyo to be a success. 

"We are reinforcing our combined ability to deter and respond to coercive behavior in the Indo-Pacific and beyond," he said. "We're reinforcing the rules-based international order that keeps us all safe. And the agreements that we've advanced today will ensure that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains a cornerstone of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific."

கறுப்பு ஜுலை 2024

 

உலகமய நகரமாகும் மலையகம்

 

Tamils 'unlawfully detained' since 2021in UK-controlled Diego Garcia

 

A view from inside the asylum seekers’ camp on Diego Garcia.

The Tamils stranded on 'secretive' British island in Indian Ocean

Migrants 'unlawfully detained' since 2021 shipwreck on UK-controlled Diego Garcia, site of important US military base

BY HARRIET MARSDEN, THE WEEK UK PUBLISHED 15-07-2024

A paradise island in the Indian Ocean has become the centre of a complex legal dispute, a battle for control – and a "prison" for stranded migrants.

In 2021, Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing persecution attempted to sail to Canada to claim asylum, when their fishing boat suffered a leak. British navy ships rescued dozens and brought them to Diego Garcia, the largest of the disputed Chagos Islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot) – long claimed by Mauritius – and site of a secretive military base leased by the UK to the US. The group of 60, including at least 16 children, claim to have been "unlawfully detained" since: the first people to file asylum claims in the Biot.

The territory's Supreme Court was due to rule on the claim last week, but hours before the judge and lawyers got on the US military plane to start their journey, the US cancelled the hearing. Officials said they were "withdrawing its consent" for access to the "heavily restricted" island, with communication seen by the BBC describing the reasons as "confidential" – but that the visit presented "risks to the security and effective operation" of the base. 

But parts of the island where access was denied (such as a gym and a swimming pool) were visited by US cheerleaders and celebrity chefs earlier this year. The fact that the Biot Supreme Court has been "prevented from sitting in its own territory on Crown land is an extraordinary affront to the rule of law", said Tessa Gregory, a partner at Leigh Day, the London-based solicitors representing the Tamils.

The dispute over the Chagos Islands

Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands, an archipelago about 310 miles south of The Maldives. The Biot is constitutionally separate from the UK, but administered from London. 

The UK took the Chagos Islands from its then colony Mauritius in 1965 and evicted the population of more than 1,000 people, to build a military base. It signed an agreement in 1966 to lease the base to the US for 50 years, which has been extended and is now set to expire in 2036. So although Diego Garcia is technically in a British territory, most of the island is under US military control, including the accommodation and transport. 

The US has sent planes from Diego Garcia to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, while two B52 bombers were sent there for training earlier this year. The CIA has also denied allegations that it has been used as a base to interrogate terror suspects after 9/11.

Since Mauritius gained its independence in 1968, it has claimed ownership of the islands. In 2000, the British High Court ruled that the forceful eviction of Chagossians had been illegal, and granted them right of return – to any island except Diego Garcia.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2019 that the UK's control of the whole territory was "unlawful" and should end. In 2021, a separate UN maritime court found that the UK's control of the islands amounted to an "unlawful occupation".

But "regardless of widespread international opinion in favour of Mauritius, London has largely ignored these decisions", said Foreign Policy. The UK government also argues that the refugee convention does not apply there. 

Foreign Office plans to give the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius in a "Cyprus-style deal" were scrapped earlier this year, said The Telegraph. Then defence secretary Grant Shapps "urged" David Cameron not to cede the islands to Mauritius – a growing ally of China. 

The plight of migrants on Diego Garcia

"In many ways, the island – with its pure white sands, palm trees and azure seas – looks a lot like paradise", said The Guardian. But for the 60 asylum seekers, "that idyll could not be further from their reality" – they remain "stuck there" in a "desperate, dangerous limbo".

They are forced to live in a "makeshift tented camp the size of a football pitch, surrounded by a 7ft-high metal fence". The tents are "infested with rats, mice and cockroaches". One person told the paper: "My mental state is deteriorating. I live in a body that has no life inside it".  

Many of the detainees "say they are escaping torture and persecution by either Sri Lankan security forces" due to their Tamil ethnicity, said The New Humanitarian, or Indian security forces due to being Sri Lankan refugees.

But on Diego Garcia, guarded by private security company G4S, "they are treating us like prisoners", two asylum seekers said in an anonymous written statement. A G4S spokesperson denied the claims, saying the company "treats the migrants on the island with dignity and respect at all times".

But there have been "multiple suicide attempts" and "reports of sexual harassment and assaults", said the BBC. Some have been flown to Rwanda for medical treatment, but remain under Biot administration. "During Tuesday’s virtual hearing, one of the migrants on the island collapsed multiple times."

Last year, UN representatives who visited the camp reported that "conditions there amounted to arbitrary detention". The Foreign Office has also said that the island is not suitable for migrants. A ruling in their favour could allow them to claim compensation for years of detention, as well as having implications for Chagossians' calls for reparations for their eviction.

The asylum seekers are "pinning all their hopes on their legal teams to get them off the island and to a place of safety where their troubled children can thrive", said The Guardian. One told the paper: "We hope we will be allowed to escape from hell." 

Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021. 

Was there a second Trump shooter?

' Trump TERROR ' - Criminal Or Political ?

Almost immediately after the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at his campaign rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday, some in the crowd told reporters that they had tried to alert law enforcement that a suspicious man was on a nearby roof. Now, a newly surfaced video backs up those accounts of warnings, showing a chaotic scene in which bystanders started calling out to police nearly a minute and a half before the shots rang out.

The footage, posted to social media late Sunday, shows several witnesses yelling and directing at least one police officer toward the roof of a neighboring business. Authorities say that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump and attendees from the roof before he was killed by law enforcement.

                                     

Witnesses notice shooter

0:57

Witnesses at former president Donald Trump's rally noticed someone on a nearby roof and started yelling to police, two minutes before gunfire rang out. (Video: @djlaughatme via TikTok-N/A ENB)

In the new video, one man shouts “Officer! Officer!” as others point toward the building. “He’s on the roof!” a woman says. The video also shows a police officer in a black uniform looking up toward the top of the building.

Growing evidence that law enforcement were made aware of Crooks before he opened fire has put the Secret Service under pressure to explain what analysts have described as a major security failure. After Crooks fired on the rally, Trump was wounded, two members of the audience were injured and one was dead.

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle sent a memo to her agents Sunday praising their fast efforts to move Trump to safety after shots were fired. Also Sunday, President Biden said he had ordered an “independent review” of security at the rally. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday echoed that call for an independent investigation, calling the attempted assassination a security “failure.”

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Crooks began firing two minutes and two seconds after the starting point of the newly published video, which begins with a man’s voice saying that people were pointing toward the roof, according to a Washington Post analysis of footage from the event. The shots began 86 seconds after the first audible attempts to alert police, according to the analysis, which synchronized several clips based on the sound of Trump’s voice over the public address system as he addressed supporters at a farm show grounds in Butler County, Pa.

The new video supports previously reported statements from other witnesses, who said in interviews with The Post and other media that they warned police that a man had climbed onto the roof of the business, Agr International, which makes industrial equipment.

Police snipers return fire after shots were fired while Trump was speaking at a campaign event in Butler. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

While Secret Service officers monitored the event inside the secure area, police officers from local township and county departments were assigned to secure the outer perimeter, The Post has reported. Officials said it was typical for the Secret Service to assign local police this responsibility, but that plans for securing the perimeter are structured and signed off by the Secret Service and are ultimately part of the overall Secret Service security plan for the event.

The uniform and department emblem worn by the police officer in the new video appears to match those of the Butler Township Police Department. The department, which had personnel at the event according to local and county officials, did not respond to questions from The Post.

Ben Maser, who was watching the event from just outside the security perimeter, told The Post that he reported to a police officer twice in the span of two minutes that he had seen a suspicious-looking man on the building roof. Maser, who confirmed that he is visible in the newly surfaced video clip, said he first warned the officer an estimated 30 seconds before the time period captured in the video.

The police officer “didn’t say anything” to Maser in response to either alert, he said. On the first occasion, when Maser saw the man on the roof moving forward in a crouched position, the officer looked in the direction of the building, according to Maser. On the second, when the man was lying down, Maser said that he advised the officer to move to a spot where he would be able to see the man.

“When I turned to go back to that spot is when I heard the gunshots, and then it was just chaos,” said Maser, a 41-year-old welder who lives near the event site.

Maser said he never saw a gun with the man on the roof, and no gun can be seen in the newly surfaced video.

Secret Service agents react as shots are fired toward Trump on Saturday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Another witness, Greg Smith, told BBC News that he and other attendees outside the secure perimeter tried for “two or three minutes” to alert police to Crooks, after they saw him crawl on the Agr roof carrying a rifle. Smith said he was dismayed that Trump was not removed from the stage before shots rang out.

“The police are down there running around on the ground,” Smith said. “We’re like, ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.’ And the police were like ‘Huh? What?’ like they didn’t know what was going on.”

Smith did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.

Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told The Post that one local police officer did confront Crooks before the shooting. It was not immediately clear whether that officer was the one seen examining the building in the newly surfaced video footage.

The officer hoisted himself up on the roof to check on reports of a suspicious man, Slupe said. But the officer, who was not able to access a gun because he was gripping the edge of the roof, had to drop down when the shooter aimed his weapon at him, the sheriff said.

“He lets go because he doesn’t want to get killed,” Slupe said. The shooter then began firing at the rally site, the sheriff said.

Members of law enforcement at the campaign rally site on Saturday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

An executive at Agr International, which manufactures quality control equipment for the bottle industry, told The Post that the company had worked with local police before the event on security matters. Police blocked off public access to the company’s parking lot and that space was available for law enforcement use, said William Bellis, the firm’s chief financial officer.

A member of the FBI Evidence Response Team works near the building where a gunman was fatally shot by law enforcement. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Bellis said there was no easy way to access the roof of Agr’s building. “If they were on the roof they’d need a ladder,” he said soon after the shooting Saturday. Aerial video footage from after the event showed a ladder propped against the building that evening. It is not clear when it was placed there.

Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.