The Army is beginning a three-phase plan to consolidate bases in Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany.

The DoD announced today that it will return 22 U.S. Army, Europe, sites in Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany, plus the Giessen General Depot between 2010 and 2015.

These site closures are scheduled in conjunction with U.S. Army force structure changes in Europe that consolidate remaining personnel onto other DoD main operating bases and allow excess facilities to be returned to the host nation.

Final dates for returns are event driven and subject to change. Site returns are planned as follows:

         • U.S. Army Garrison Mannheim
                    – Mannheim Class III Point (Summer 2010)
                    – Taylor Barracks (December 2010)
                    - Sullivan Barracks (2014)
                    – Benjamin Franklin Village Family Housing (2014)
                    – Funari Barracks (2014)
                    – Coleman Barracks (2015)
                    – Lampertheim Training Area (2015)
                    – Edigheim Beacon Site (2015)
                    – Spinelli Barracks (2015)

         • U.S. Army Garrison Heidelberg
                    – Schwetzingen Training Area (Summer 2010)
                    – Hammonds Barracks (December 2010)
                    – Campbell Barracks (2015)
                    – Patton Barracks (2015)
                    – Tompkins Barracks (2015)
                    – Kilbourne Kaserne (2015)
                    – Heidelberg Hospital (2015)
                    – Heidelberg Community Support Center (2015)
                    – Heidelberg Golf Course (2015)
                    – Heidelberg Army Heliport (2015)
                    – Mark Twain Village Family Housing (2015)
                    – Oftersheim Small Arms Range, including Heidelberg Rod and Gun Club (2015)
                    - Patrick Henry Village Family Housing (2015)

         • U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden
                    - Giessen General Depot (2015)

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today embarked on a five-nation trip that will begin with his participation in a major Asian security conference in Singapore, reports AFPS’ John D. Banusiewicz.

In addition to Singapore, the secretary will travel to Azerbaijan, England, Belgium and Germany.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit – known as the “Shangri-La Dialogue” for the Singapore hotel where it’s held — is the ninth annual conference since its 2002 inception. A senior defense official speaking on background called it “the pre-eminent security conference in Asia.”

“The secretary and a lot of his counterparts are able to gather and talk freely about a range of issues and introduce a range of security issues for the Asia-Pacific region,” the official said, “but [he] also will have an opportunity to have bilateral discussions with many of his counterparts.”

Gates will articulate certain U.S. strategic interests – both publicly and privately - in Asia, the official added, including through a speech he’ll deliver June 4.

“Given where we are in the defense cycle,” the official said, “[this] allows the secretary to talk for the first time about the implications of the reviews that have happened, especially the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the implications for our security posture and presence and policies in Asia.”

The secretary will emphasize the importance the United States places on its role in Asia, the official said, as well as the need for mutual responsibility for all countries in the region.

Gates also will thank nations that have been contributing to efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the official said.

A June 4 bilateral meeting with Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro will be the first between the two men, and the senior defense official said it’s hoped their talk will be a precursor to higher-level U.S.-Indonesia visits. Gates is expected to discuss defense cooperation and how the United States can help to bring Indonesia to a leadership position in Southeast Asia on a range of issues, including maritime security and international peacekeeping.

Gates also will meet briefly with New Zealand’s defense minister, Wayne Daniel.

“This will be the first time that they will have met since we did a re-evaluation of our approach toward defense cooperation with New Zealand, which allowed for some broader level of defense engagement, … albeit still not a return to the alliance that we used to have with New Zealand before they implemented anti-nuclear legislation,” the official said. “But it will be a good chance for the secretary and the minister to discuss how to move forward with this new policy and where we can explore cooperation.”

New Zealand’s role in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province is one such topic, the official said. “They’re looking at refining their contribution based on the situation on the ground and our policy,” the official said. “Since Bamiyan is arguably one of the safer provinces, [we’re] looking at how we can adjust that so that it can be turned over to Afghan security forces when appropriate.”

Gates also will have a bilateral meeting with Shiv Shankar Menon, India’s national security advisor. The secretary visited India early this year, the senior official noted, and this meeting will be a chance to press forward with the U.S. defense engagement with India. The meeting between Gates and Menon will take place just after a strategic dialogue here between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indian Foreign Minister Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna in Washington, the senior defense official noted.

Another bilateral meeting is scheduled between Gates and his Vietnamese counterpart, Lt. Gen. Phung Quang Thanh Sr. “The engagement with Vietnam is a real focus that we’re trying to build,” the official said. “It’s going at its own measured pace.” Gates and Thanh have met in Washington and at last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, he noted, and the meeting this week will seek to continue that momentum and to “see where this can go and where we can really both benefit together as Vietnam is becoming an even larger player in the region.” With Vietnam’s emergence as a leading proponent for multilateralism in the region, the official added, it’s expected that Gates and Thanh will discuss Asian security issues at large as well as bilateral matters.

Another senior defense official briefing reporters on background said a bilateral meeting in Singapore with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young will give Gates and Kim an opportunity to discuss the apparent North Korean sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan on March 26, which killed 46 sailors.

“The secretary will convey to the minister our full support for the way in which the Korean government has been handling the crisis, that our commitment to the defense of Korea is and remains unequivocal, and that we’re committed to continuing to work with Korea and our other allies and partners in the region to try to lessen the threat that North Korea poses to regional stability,” the official said.

On June 5, Gates will meet briefly with Mongolian Defense Minister Luvsanvandan Bold, in part to thank him for Mongolia’s contributions as “resolute and good partners in Afghanistan,” the official said. Later, he’ll meet with Singaporean Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean. Gates always appreciates getting Singapore’s views on what’s going on in the region and sharing the U.S. perspective, the official said.

“In addition to being a good regional player, [Singapore also is] a contributor to Afghanistan,” the official said. “So that’s something they’ll talk about as well.”

Gates also will participate in a trilateral meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, a practice that began at last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue.

On June 6, Gates will fly to Baku, Azerbaijan, where he’ll meet with President Ilham Aliyev, and the next day, he’ll meet with Defense Minister Col. Gen. Safar Abiyev. About a quarter of the supplies bound for U.S. forces in Afghanistan pass through Azerbaijan.

“The secretary has not really had a chance to engage with them,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said, “and this is an opportunity for him to express our appreciation, and also to figure out how we can work better together to maintain the level of support that is now flowing through Azerbaijan.”

After meeting with his counterpart in Azerbaijan, Gates will travel to London, where he’ll meet with leaders of Britain’s new government. The secretary will meet with Prime Minister David Cameron on June 7 and with Defense Minister Liam Fox and Foreign Secretary William Hague the next day.

On June 9, Gates will travel to Brussels, Belgium, for a meeting of NATO defense ministers. When the NATO meetings conclude June 11, the secretary will fly to Germany, where he’ll visit wounded warriors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and speak at the Kaiserslautern High School graduation ceremony before heading back to Washington.

A growing number of recruits from Western nations — including the U.S. — are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend training camps run by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, American and European counterterrorism officials say.

The flow of Western recruits has continued despite the intensified American campaign to take out terrorist leaders with drone missile attacks.

According to the Washington Post, A propaganda videotape released in September by a group calling itself the German Taliban showed a gunman identified as Abu Ibrahim the American. The tape was one of several released by groups affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaida warning of an attack on German targets if the government did not withdraw its 3,800 troops from Afghanistan. At least 30 recruits from Germany have traveled to Pakistan this year for training, Germany security forces say.

The Post added:

“About 10 people — not necessarily the same individuals — have returned to Germany this year, fueling concerns that fresh plots are in the works against European targets.”

Pakistani officials in August arrested a dozen foreigners on their way to North Waziristan, a tribal region where many of the training camps are located. Among them was Mehdi Ghezali, a former inmate at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In July, American officials announced that they had taken into custody New Yorker Bryant Neal Vinas, who confessed to traveling to al-Qaida camps in Pakistan and training to become a suicide bomber.

While he has been in custody, the U.S. has made a series of successful drone strikes on suspected al-Qaida locations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, raising questions about whether Vinas provided the information that led to any of the deadly attacks, according to The Associated Press.

Vinas also told American authorities that he spent time in Pakistan with another New York resident, whose whereabouts are unknown. Al-Qaida and its affiliates have now developed an extensive recruiting network, The Post disclosed, with agents providing Western recruits with guidance, money, and travel routes to South Asia.

Below is a portion of a press conference which took place prior to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates departing Germany:

Q: So today is an important day — the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraqi cities.  We’ve seen a peak of violence these past weeks and your commanders and yourself said that it was pretty predictable.  However, I was wondering if you could give us an assessment of the security in Iraq for the next month?  What is the Pentagon’s assessment?  What might happen?

SEC. GATES:  Well, I think it really varies around the country.  You have some places like Fallujah and Ramadi and Kirkuk, Basra that are pretty quiet.  Mosul — they were in the middle of a fight in Mosul when this deadline came, and we’re seeing some of these high profile suicide attacks in Baghdad.

And I think the general view is that part of General Odierno and what he has been anticipating for weeks was that al Qaeda, in particular, as soon as we began — two things.  First, as soon as we began to leave the cities, al Qaeda would try and reignite the sectarian violence, and to the degree that he has seemed relatively positive about developments, I think it’s because even after these high profile bombings and with a lot of casualties, that sectarian violence has not reignited.  And I think his view is most Iraqis are sick and tired of the violence.

The other thing is al Qaeda and others trying to increase the level of violence to try and pretend that they were the ones that forced us out of the cities and also to try and demonstrate deficiencies of the Iraqi security forces.

So this is — I think our commanders have anticipated these strategies on the part of the remaining al Qaeda and a few others, to try and take advantage of our withdrawal to get into the cities.  And the failure to spark new sectarian violence is what is, I think, making them as positive as they sound.

Q: So what do you expect for the next month to happen?

SEC. GATES:  Well, I expect that there’ll continue to be sporadic attacks as people try and take advantage of our being out of the cities.  But we’re not — you know, we’re not coming home and in many respects, being out of the cities and able to focus on, say, the belts around Baghdad and some of these other areas may, in fact, allow us to help the Iraqi security forces by preventing those who want to foment trouble from getting into the cities.

So I think we can continue the partnership that’s been developed with the Iraqi security forces.  We’ll just be doing it outside the cities.

To view the entire press conference, click here.

The President commemorates D-Day in Europe; we’ll have the latest. Plus, what’s it like jumping from 10,000 feet with the Army’s elite Golden Knights? One reporter finds out.

Eight military bases from across the country and Germany have received the Secretary of Defense Environmental Award. Plus, the man accused of shooting two Army recruiters enters a plea and more.