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About What's In Blue

When the Security Council approaches the final stage of negotiation of a draft resolution the text is printed in blue. What's in Blue is a regular feed of insights produced by Security Council Report on evolving Security Council decisions. It is designed to help interested readers at UN Missions keep up with what might soon be "in blue". These insights supplement the Monthly Forecasts and other reports from SCR.

What's in the news

posted on Mon 17 Jun 2013

Middle East

• Shiite Iraq militia claims it attacked Iran group. Saturday's attack on the sprawling Camp Liberty killed two members of the Iranian exile group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq as well as an Iraqi and wounded nine Iranians and seven Iraqis. Cleric Wathiq al-Batat, who leads the Mukhtar Army,said a total of 18 rockets were fired at the camp and vowed that his group will continue to attack the Iranians until they leave Iraq. On Monday, officials said three bomb attacks, including a blast in a roadside restaurant just outside the capital, killed 15 people. (AP)
• Dozens dead in car bomb attack in the Syrian northern city of Aleppo. On Monday, a blast carried out by a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida killed at least 60 members of President Bashar al-Assad's troops when it hit near a military complex in the town of al-Douwairinah near Aleppo's international airport. The blast was one of the largest attacks targeting regime force and came hours after a car bomb attack targeting a checkpoint near a military airport in Damascus. (Al Jazeera)

Arms Control and Disarmament

• US considers North Korea offer of talks. Officials from the United States, South Korea and Japan will meet in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss North Korea's offer to hold high-level talks. North Korea said it was willing to have serious discussions on a wide range of issues, including the US goal to achieve the world free of nuclear arsenal, as it urged the US to set the time and venue for the talks. (Al Jazeera)

Asia

• Bomb attacks kill 10 soldiers in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb attacks killed 10 Afghan soldiers ahead of the handover this week of full security responsibility for the country, the Defence Ministry said on Monday, 17 June. "Five soldiers were killed in Kandahar, Logar and Badkhshan provinces while five others were killed in Helmand province in roadside bombings," the Ministry said in a statement without giving further details. The date of the attacks was not stated. This week, the Afghan National Security Forces are to assume security responsibility for the country from NATO-led troops. (The Hindu)

Africa

• 'Qatar Leadership Should Address Root Causes of Darfur Crisis' say SRF. The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) has stated that "partial solutions" mooted by initiatives of the Qatar government for rebuilding and developing Darfur "ultimately only lead to further aggravation of the humanitarian and the political crisis in the region". In a statement on 14 June, the SRF crisis management team told Radio Dabanga that "the current situation in Darfur requires the Qatari leadership to pause, re-evaluate and reconsider the nature of the Darfur crisis, its relationship to the structural crisis and the overall structural system in Khartoum". (Radio Dabango)
• Shelling of UN base in Sudan kills peacekeeper. A peacekeeper was killed and two others were injured in Sudan on 14 June when artillery shells hit a UN logistics base, the UN has said. Both the UN secretary general and Security Council condemned the attack. It is not clear who was behind it, but the UN has recently accused rebels of shelling the town of Kadugli in South Kordofan state, the base's location. (BBC)

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