Vol. 76/No. 2      January 16, 2012

“It’s fair to say that the United States is intent on going after al-Qaeda wherever they locate, and making sure they have no place to hide,” he stated, adding this required “partnerships” with governments in Northeast Africa.

Some 3,500 U.S. military personnel are stationed at the Djibouti base, a launch point for surveillance and armed strikes by U.S. drones in Somalia.

Drones targeting Somalia also operate from an air base in southern Ethiopia and a recently reopened base in the Seychelles Islands.

The drone campaign is the latest supplement to Washington’s clandestine military operations in Somalia over the past decade. Details about this “secret war” are provided in a recent six-part series of articles in the Army Times by Sean Naylor, the paper’s senior staff writer.

Based out of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, CIA operatives sought to “build relationships with the warlords” to convince them to take action against suspected al-Qaeda personnel in Somalia, wrote Naylor. At the same time the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command was ramping up in the region.

In 2004-2005, JSOC “doubled” its forces in Kenya, now reputed to be in the “scores,” an unnamed intelligence source told Naylor. A Special Op unit also began operating out of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and by 2006 JSOC was organizing its own operations in Somalia.

The Pentagon’s intervention was aimed at tracking and assassinating alleged leaders of al-Qaeda. Toward this end, Washington has been monitoring cellphone conversations in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, since at least 2003, the Army Times said.

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a 23-year-old from Kenya, was among those targeted, beginning in 2002. Seven years later a U.S. airstrike killed him and six others in the Somali coastal town of Barawe. A helicopter then landed in the area, and troops went aground and loaded the bodies of Nabhan and three others into the aircraft, the media reported at the time.

The December 2006 invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops, which ousted the ruling Islamic Courts Council, provided new openings for U.S. special forces to increase their operations inside the country. U.S. Special Ops came from “a mix of units,” noted the Army Times, including Navy SEAL Team 6 and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.

Washington’s “preference was for Ethiopians to do the direct action missions against al-Qaeda figures whenever possible,” an anonymous intelligence official told Naylor. “The JSOC operators were to liaise with and provide assistance to them, ‘but also to effect a capture or a kill if necessary.’”

U.S. Air Force gunship attacks

Not wanting to be seen as a U.S. proxy in the Somali war, Ethiopian government officials began expressing unease about Washington’s role. They requested a halt to further airstrikes and that AC-130 operations leave Ethiopia, which “before long” they did, according to the Army Times.

Ethiopian troops, which remained in Somalia until January 2009, became increasingly resented for the shelling of urban areas and killings of thousands of civilians. During this time U.S. special forces worked closely with Ethiopian army units.

The Pentagon also launched Tomahawk cruise missile attacks from a Navy ship nearby in March and May 2008, targeting al-Shabab, an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Council that has waged war against the U.S.-backed “transitional federal government” since 2006 and controls the southern part of the country. According to the BBC, al-Shabab declared its alliance with al-Qaeda in 2010.

Naylor’s final article, titled “The Secret War: Africa Ops May be Just Starting,” points to the accelerated pace of U.S. operations in Somalia, particularly during the past six months. These include a June 23 U.S. drone attack near Kismayo; airstrikes July 6 and Sept. 15 in Lower Juba, the southernmost region of Somalia, according to SomaliaReport.com; and a Sept. 23 airstrike targeting al-Shabab at the Kismayo airport.

In October some 4,000 Kenyan troops invaded southern Somalia and have now become part of the U.S.-backed African Union’s occupation force in the country. The AU is also considering sending thousands of Ethiopian troops to operate around the central Somalia city of Baidoa.
 
 
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Cops in US increasingly employ aerial spy drones
Minn. Somalis protest bank halt on remittances  
 
 
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