Spain to send Patriot missiles to Turkey's border with Syria

This article has been corrected.

Spain on Wednesday said it will send Patriot missile batteries and 130 soldiers to Turkey as NATO mulls extending the deployment of missile defenses near the Syrian border.

The troops and missiles are expected to replace Dutch units in Adana, Turkey, when the Dutch withdraw in January 2015.

The Dutch — along with the U.S. and Germany — each deployed two Patriot batteries in early 2013 to protect Turkey’s southern border from spillover from Syria’s raging civil war. The deployment was sparked by sporadic cross-border shelling in October 2012 that killed a number of Turkish citizens.

Initially planned as a yearlong deployment, the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands all extended the assignment through January 2015. The Netherlands announced in August that it no longer had the resources to continue the mission and would pull out after that date.

“There has been some work done to find a replacement for the Dutch,” Canadian army Lt. Col. Jay Janzen, a NATO spokesman, said.

The mission was scheduled to end in January, Janzen said.

“Right now, we’re currently doing a review. It looks like it’s going to be extended further because the threat appears to still be in Syria,” Janzen said, “but the final decisions haven’t been made.”

In a news release from NATO headquarters, U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove on Thursday thanked Spain for its decision to send Patriot batteries to Turkey.

“The Alliance’s southern border is located in a difficult neighbourhood and considerable instability remains in Syria and across the region,” he said.

The potential extension of the Patriot missile mission comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is attempting to build a military coalition to deal with the self-styled Islamic State militants operating across Turkey’s border in Iraq and Syria. Turkey has yet to commit to military action against the group, which is believed to be holding a number of Turkish citizens hostage.

millham.matthew@stripes.com

Twitter: @mattmillham

The original version of this story had the incorrect last name for Lt. Col. Jay Janzen and the military to which Janzen belongs. He is a Canadian army officer.

Scots reject independence from England in historic referendum

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scottish voters have rejected independence, deciding to remain part of the United Kingdom after a historic referendum that shook the country to its core.

The decision prevented a rupture of a 307-year union with England, bringing a huge sigh of relief to the British political establishment. Scots voted 55 percent to 45 percent Thursday against independence in a vote that saw an unprecedented turnout.

A majority of voters did not embrace Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's impassioned plea to launch a new state, choosing instead the security offered by remaining in the United Kingdom.

"We have chosen unity over division," Alistair Darling, head of the No campaign, said early Friday in Glasgow. "Today is a momentous day for Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole."

Salmond conceded defeat, saying "we know it is a majority for the No campaign," and called on Scots to accept the results of the vote.

"This has been a triumph for the democratic process and for participation in politics," he said, insisting that London-based politicians were now expected to honor their promises of giving more powers to Scotland.

The No campaign won the capital city, Edinburgh, by a margin of 61 percent to 38 percent and triumphed by 59 percent to 41 percent in Salmond's home city of Aberdeen.

The Yes campaign won Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city, but it was not enough.

Salmond had argued that Scots could go it alone because of its extensive oil reserves and high levels of ingenuity and education. He said Scotland would flourish on its own, free of interference from any London-based government.

Many saw it as a "heads versus hearts" campaign, with cautious older Scots concluding that independence would be too risky financially, while younger ones were enamored with the idea of building their own country.

The result saves British Prime Minister David Cameron from a historic defeat and also helps opposition chief Ed Miliband by keeping his many Labour Party lawmakers in Scotland in place. His party would have found it harder to win a national election in 2015 without that support from Scotland.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scot, returned to prominence with a dramatic barnstorming campaign in support of the union in the final days before the referendum vote. Brown argued passionately that Scots could be devoted to Scotland but still proud of their place in the United Kingdom, rejecting the argument that independence was the patriotic choice.

"There is not a cemetery in Europe that does not have Scots, English, Welsh and Irish lined side by side," Brown said in his final speech before the vote. "We not only won these wars together, we built the peace together. What we have built together by sacrificing and sharing, let no narrow nationalism split asunder."

For his part, Cameron — aware that his Conservative Party is widely loathed in Scotland — begged voters not to use a vote for independence as a way to bash his party.

The vote against independence keeps the U.K. from losing a substantial part of its territory and oil reserves and prevents it from having to find a new base for its nuclear arsenal, now housed in Scotland. It had also faced a possible loss of influence within international institutions including the 28-nation European Union and the United Nations.

The decision also means Britain can avoid a prolonged period of financial insecurity that had been predicted by some if Scotland broke away.

In return for staying in the union, Scotland's voters have been promised significant — though somewhat unspecified — new powers by the British government, which had feared losing Scotland forever.

Katz reported from London. Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this report.

Attack on Ebola workers in Guinea reflects challenges fighting virus

JOHANNESBURG — When Guinean government officials visited the village of Womme in the country’s southeast, they planned to educate people about Ebola and show people how to avoid it — in a region where many still believe the virus doesn’t exist.

But it all went disastrously wrong.

Members of the local population responded furiously, pelting the delegation with stones and beating them with clubs, according to Guinean radio. The delegation, which included doctors and journalists, fled into the bush after the attack Tuesday.

Radio reports said a local politician, two journalists and others hadn’t been heard from since they fled the attack.

Nine people are missing, according to Guinean government. Six members of the delegation were killed, according to local media, but government officials cannot confirm the report.

Twenty-one people were injured as youths attacked, stoning six cars, in an incident that underscores the challenges for local and international health teams fighting Ebola in West Africa.

Womme is outside the town of Nzerekore, which saw a similar protest in recent weeks.

Since Ebola surfaced in this region of Guinea in February (and perhaps as early as December), medical agencies have experienced resistance from some members of the population. Doctors Without Borders, the main agency working in West Africa to stem Ebola, declared there were at least 10 villages where it couldn’t work because of hostility from local people.

The World Health Organization announced Thursday that 2,622 people had died in West Africa, mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, out of more than 5,300 reported cases. The epidemic has put ramshackle local health systems under intense pressure, leaving local populations with nowhere to seek treatment for other ailments such as malaria, to give birth, or even seek treatment for broken limbs.

Many health workers have fled their posts, afraid to work in an environment that has killed hundreds of local doctors, nurses and hygienists.

One reason the outbreak spread out of control in West Africa was terror of an incurable disease that kills more than half those infected and suspicion of outsiders who came to bring Ebola patients to hospitals. There was also alarm at warnings they should abandon long, deeply held and important burial rituals, such as washing the bodies of the dead.

Dozens of infected people went underground, evading treatment, and spreading the infection. In Liberia, Monrovia, rumors initially spread that Ebola didn’t exist. An intensive government campaign, depicting symptoms on posters around the city, gradually changed attitudes there.

But as Liberians flocked to seek treatment, they confronted a severe shortage of beds. The WHO said 315 beds available in Liberia are meeting less than 20 percent of demand.

In Monrovia alone, 1,210 beds are needed, but only 240 are available.

In Guinea’s southeast, a search team was sent to track down the delegation after the attack in Womme, but villagers destroyed a bridge leading to the village to prevent police or the military from gaining access, according to national radio.

“A team has been dispatched to verify more information,” Guinean government spokesman Damantang Camara told Reuters.

One journalist who escaped the attack said she heard villagers hunting for delegation members, suggesting they may have been abducted, the BBC reported.

Guinean radio quoted one Womme resident saying that the delegation was attacked after medical workers sprayed disinfectant in order to control the spread of the virus in public places.

The assault follows similar attacks against medical workers or health officials in several other villages and towns in recent weeks. Last month, riots erupted after a medical team sprayed a marketplace in the same region as rumors spread it was a conspiracy to infect the population.

In Sierra Leone, government officials have ordered everyone to stay at home for three days in an effort to control the spread of the disease. International medical groups including Doctors Without Borders have criticized the measure, saying it will not contain the crisis.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday it had taken too long to evacuate a French woman working with the organization caring for Ebola patients in isolation wards, and she has now contracted the virus and was diagnosed Tuesday.

Brice de le Vingne, operations manager for the organization, said there was an unacceptable delay of 42 hours because the only aircraft equipped to transport the woman had to fly from the U.S. He called for an evacuation plane to be stationed in Monrovia, the Liberian capital and epicenter of the epidemic, where most new cases are emerging.

The WHO has warned that 20,000 people could be infected before the disease is brought under control.

The International Monetary Fund has announced plans to provide loans of $127 million to the three worst affected countries, to help them cope with the crisis.

©2014 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Scotland referendum results suggest voters reject independence

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Voters in Scotland turned out in unprecedented numbers for an independence referendum and with most votes counted Friday, results suggested a strong wish to keep Scotland's 307-year union with England.

With 26 of 32 regional electoral centers reporting, the No side had about 54 percent of the vote to about 46 percent for the Yes side. Those against independence also scored a big win by strongly taking Aberdeen, Scotland's oil capital.

The average turnout was 86 percent — a record high for any Scottish election.

The Yes camp appeared resigned to defeat. Saying she was "personally bitterly disappointed" with the results, Deputy Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon told BBC that Scottish nationalists "need to pick ourselves up and move on."

After the polls closed late Thursday, a nationwide count began immediately. Many Scots stayed up overnight in homes and bars, awaiting the result.

"Why not roll the dice for once?" Yes supporter Thomas Roberts said at one Edinburgh polling station. "I'm going to sit with a beer in my hand watching the results coming in."

At Highland Hall outside of Edinburgh, where the final result will be announced later Friday, vote-counters at dozens of tables sorted through paper ballots, watched keenly by monitors from the Yes and No camps.

Eager voters had lined up outside some polling stations even before they opened Thursday. More than 4.2 million people had registered to vote — 97 percent of those eligible — including residents as young as 16.

For some, it was a day they had dreamed of for decades. For others, the time had finally come to make up their minds about the future — both for themselves and for the United Kingdom.

"Fifty years I fought for this," said 83-year-old Isabelle Smith, a Yes supporter in Edinburgh's maritime district of Newhaven, a former fishing port. "And we are going to win. I can feel it in my bones."

But financial consultant Michael MacPhee, a No voter, said he would observe the returns "with anxiety."

Scottish independence is "the daftest idea I've ever heard," he said.

After polls closed, some No campaigners said they were confident they had swayed enough undecided voters to stave off independence. They may have been helped by a last-minute offer from Britain's main political parties to give Scotland more powers if voters reject secession and by fears about the future of Britain's pensions and the National Health Service in an independent Scotland.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was to make a televised address about Britain's future Friday morning after the final result was announced.

The question on the ballot could not be simpler: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

Yet it divided Scots during months of campaigning, generating an unprecedented volume and intensity of public debate and participation. The Yes side, in particular, energized young people and previously disillusioned working-class voters.

Many questions — the currency an independent Scotland would use, its status within the 28-nation European Union and NATO, the fate of Britain's nuclear-armed submarines, based at a Scottish port — remained uncertain or disputed after months of campaigning.

One thing was known: A Yes vote would trigger 18 months of negotiations between Scottish leaders and London-based politicians on how the two countries would separate their institutions before Scotland's planned Independence Day on March 24, 2016.

Obama's no-combat pledge leaves room for US forces near front lines

WASHINGTON — Putting U.S. military boots on the ground in Iraq doesn't necessarily mean pitching infantry units into the battlefield.

The possibility raised by the top U.S. general this week of involving American forces in the ground fight against the Islamic State presents a different scenario: small groups of commandos operating in the shadows of Iraqi army units, giving advice and calling in airstrikes.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday again drew a hard line on sending U.S. forces into "another ground war in Iraq," even as U.S. combat planes and drones fly missions overhead. Yet that pledge may not preclude having American warriors coming under fire next to Iraqi troops as they root out Islamic State militants.

"The problem with all of this is the very phrase 'boots on the ground,' " said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This is a completely different kind of presence than sending in a brigade or a division."

Obama, who won the presidency on his pledge to end Iraq war, is facing fresh questions from Congress and the public about whether the U.S. risks sliding deeper into a conflict there. The debate flared up after Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee he would recommend that U.S. military advisers accompany Iraqi troops into battle if necessary to defeat Islamic State.

Some defense analysts — including Obama's former defense secretary, Robert Gates — say Islamic State can't be defeated without a ground offensive.

Dempsey was referring to something limited: special forces teams, usually operating in 12-member groups, and forward air controllers, typically two-person teams.

"If we get to the point where I think we need the JTAC with the Iraqi security forces, I'll make the recommendation. But I'm not there," Dempsey said Sept. 16 before a Senate committee, referring to a Joint Terminal Attack Controller trained to coordinate air strikes.

The United States is set to have about 1,600 military personnel in Iraq to protect American diplomatic missions and to assess and advise the Iraqi military. Obama's strategy for the conflict relies on a campaign of U.S. airstrikes supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that if Dempsey determines it's necessary at some point to send advisers to front-line positions to provide tactical advice and call in air strikes, the president will consider it on a "case- by-case basis." Obama still won't approve a combat role for U.S. ground forces, he said.

Even with those restrictions, the danger of U.S. casualties would be considerable since, to be effective, commando groups would most likely need to operate in the middle of fighting or nearby, according to Cordesman and former military officers.

Air controllers helping ground units typically work within visual range of a target, though they may be using binoculars, said Norton Schwartz, who was U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff from 2008 to 2012.

Although the U.S. sometimes confirms targets with remote imagery, such as from drones, forward air controllers are more reliable in a battlefield situation with multiple targets or moving targets, said Schwartz, now president of Business Executives for National Security.

"We can generally hit what we aim at," Schwartz said. "The question is: Is it a valid target? You want to have confidence in who's providing the information."

Dempsey alluded to unspecified technological advances in his congressional testimony, as he explained why he hasn't yet recommended send such air controllers to battlefields.

"There are technologies available that we didn't have five years ago that allow us to actually apply force and to see the situation on the ground in ways we couldn't before," he said.

David Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who commanded the combined air operations center during the war in Afghanistan, said imaging technology on U.S. warplanes would facilitate strikes on Islamic State forces moving between towns or paralyze movements within a town. Forward controllers still would make air power more effective in urban battles, said Deptula, now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia.

John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who coauthored the Army's counter-insurgency manual, said accurate information from controllers also is essential to avoid strikes that accidentally kill allies.

Another level of involvement are the larger special forces teams that both advise Iraqi forces and go with them into combat. That would magnify an Iraqi unit's effectiveness "two or three times," said Nagl.

U.S. efforts to train local troops encounter "very, very serious limits" unless advisers also go with them into combat, Cordesman said.

Special forces teams, such as those of the Army's Green Berets, can provide tactical advice, bolster unit leaders and help hold together elements of a unit it comes under fire, he said.

The U.S. used such units during the initial phase of the Afghan conflict. They moved on horseback and dismounted to direct B-52 airstrikes with laser designators and hand-held GPS devices — technology that has improved in the past decade.

The idea of returning America ground forces to Iraq today would face strong opposition among Obama's allies in the U.S. and stir opposition in Iraq.

"The American people are very burned by what happened in Iraq" with the 2003 invasion, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference.

Iraq's new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, told the Associated Press in an interview that his country rejects having foreign troops join the battle against Islamic State.

"We don't want them. We won't allow them," he said.

With assistance from Tony Capaccio and Angela Greiling Keane in Washington.

(c) 2014, Bloomberg News.

Islamic State opens major offensive in north Syria

ISTANBUL — Islamic State forces have mounted a major offensive against Kurds in northern Syria, occupying more than a dozen villages in an apparent attempt to capture another border crossing with Turkey, the local government said Thursday.

The villages are near the town of Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab, one of the last major crossing points to Turkey not in Islamic State hands. The Islamists have been trying to seize the town for months and are now attacking from three directions, with tanks, machine-gun mounted Humvees and Grad rockets against nearby villages, said Idris Nassan, who holds the title of deputy foreign minister for the Kobani canton, the administrative district that includes not just the town but the villages that surround it.

Kobani’s Kurdish defenders had been expecting the assault after intercepting Islamic State radio communications. They evacuated at least 15 villages of all but their military-age male inhabitants before the offensive began Wednesday, he said.

Many of those villages are now under Islamic State control, he said.

Nassan, however, said that the Kurdish fighters, members of the People’s Protection Unit, which is known by the Kurdish initials YPG, may be setting a trap for the Islamic State militants. “Their morale is high,” he said of the YPG. “They have a new strategy. I think in the coming days, they will do something.”

Of all the battlefronts in Syria, the fight for Kobani may be politically the most complex. Both the Islamic State attackers and the defenders from the YPG, an offshoot for the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are listed as terrorist organizations by the United States and other nations.

Nassan appealed for international military support, but that seems unlikely. Turkey does not want international aid to go to a force that in the past has mounted major guerrilla operations against Turkish military and civilian targets, and it reportedly has warned American officials not to take actions in Syria that would strengthen the YPG.

At the same time, Turkey, the United States and other countries have suspected that the YPG is working hand-in-glove with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces abandoned the region in the summer of 2012.

For their part, the Kurds say Turkey is working with the Islamic State, something Turkish officials have denied repeatedly. Nassan repeated the charge Thursday, accusing Turkey of providing logistical support to the extremists.

Whatever label is currently applied to the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, it has become at most a relatively minor threat to Turkey. Since March 2013, the two sides have been engaged in a peace process to end the three-decade-long guerrilla war.

The maneuvering near Kobani appears to be part of a general positioning of Islamic State forces in recent days, perhaps in response to the stepped-up pace of American airstrikes in Iraq and the threat of eventual strikes in Syria.

On Thursday, so-called moderate rebel forces reported that the Islamic State appeared to have drawn down their forces north of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and suspended a push to capture Bab al-Salama, a critical border crossing point for supplies destined for rebels and millions of displaced Syrian civilians.

Turkish officials said the Islamic State has been transferring fighters from Syria to Iraq, possibly to reinforce forces under increasing aerial attack.

On Thursday, the U.S. Central Command reported that its aircraft had struck an Islamic State training camp southeast of Mosul, destroying a large ground unit, two buildings the group was occupying and an armed vehicle, and had bombed an ammunition dump southeast of Baghdad.

The most recent strikes brought to 14 the number of attacks since Monday, when Central Command said it began operating under new, more aggressive rules of engagement authorized by President Barack Obama that allow offensive strikes against targets that do not directly threaten U.S. personnel. U.S. aircraft have launched 176 strikes since Aug. 7, when Obama first ordered renewed U.S. operations inside Syria.

Alhamadee is a McClatchy special correspondent. Jonathan S. Landay contributed to this from Washington.

©2014 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

With Senate vote, Obama wins support for war effort in Syria

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration can now move forward with plans to arm and train Syrian rebels — a key provision in its new war against the Islamic State — following a vote Thursday in the Senate.

The chamber voted 78-22 in favor of a bill that bars U.S. ground combat but allows the Pentagon to begin sending support to fighters opposing the extremist group after it seized territory in Syria and Iraq and beheaded two American journalists.

The House passed the measure Wednesday as part of a temporary budget bill to fund the government through Dec. 11. President Barack Obama has said he will sign it.

Congress moved quickly to approve the Syrian assistance this week despite deep reservations about the president’s newly unveiled Islamic State offensive, which relies on local forces to fight on the ground, stepped-up U.S. airstrikes and an international coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

“I am clear-eyed about the enormity of the challenge. There is risk … We must be willing to take some risk to degrade this brutal and barbaric organization,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee.

The legislation authorizes the Defense Department to redirect existing funding to the rebels, and it must notify Congress of its plans and progress. No dollar amount is specified in the bill, but the administration had requested $500 million to train about 5,000 Syrians.

The administration has estimated it may need 12,000 fighters to push out the Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate that adheres to Sharia law and said it plans a violent clash with the United States. Some lawmakers have estimated the fight could take from six years to a decade.

“Frankly, I still have many questions about the way forward,” Menendez said. “But I have no question that this particular action is needed now.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and other Republicans criticized Obama’s Syria initiative as part of a larger war plan that is politically motivated and short on policy substance.

“We know that something needs to be done, but your government doesn’t know what to do yet,” he said.

The Syria authorization was attached to a continuing resolution, a stop-gap budget measure that will temporarily fund the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims processing and investigations of improper conduct, and stave off furloughs or a shutdown. Congress must now work to pass annual funding bills before the resolution expires in December.

tritten.travis@stripes.com

Twitter: @Travis_Tritten