by Frida Berrigan, Foreign Policy In Focus, Sept 19, 2007
A U.S. Army captain in Africa waxes philosophical. It’s like the old saying, he opines; “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever.”
Is he talking about skills-building, or community empowerment? No: Captain Joseph Cruz goes from channeling the musician Speech from the American hip-hop group Arrested Development back to his military-approved talking points: “the same can be said about military to military training and that’s why we do it.”
The Delta company soldier is one of 1,800 based in Djibouti at an old French Foreign Legion base, and he is comparing lessons in small naval patrol boat tactics, approaches to counter terrorism operations, and how to use an M-16 rifle, to teaching a man to fish.
It is not just the Djiboutians who are receiving these lessons — members of the Ethiopian, Ugandan and Kenyan armed forces have also been on “fishing trips” with the U.S. military.
Most Americans have never heard of Djibouti, and fewer can pronounce it correctly, but here — far from the bombed bridges of Baghdad and the flourishing poppy fields of Afghanistan — is the third front of the war on terrorism. As Rear Admiral Richard Hunt, the Commander of Combined Joint Taskforce-Horn of Africa (or CJT-HOA, in inimitable military style), explains: “Africa is the new frontier that we need to engage now, or we are going to end up doing it later in a very negative way.”
As part of the CJT-HOA these soldiers are also building schools, digging wells and sanitizing slaughterhouses. Their work is delineated by the four Ps and the three Ds: Prevent conflict, promote regional stability, protect coalition interests and prevail against extremism in East Africa and Yemen through diplomacy, development and defense.
Amid the commemorations, tributes, and critiques that cluster around the September 11 anniversary, we should not lose sight of how the war on terrorism is militarizing Africa. With under-tapped oil reserves, vast stretches of ungoverned space, impoverished populations and pandemics of AIDS/HIV and other diseases, Africa is now on Washington’s radar screen. The National Security Strategy for the United States, 2006 says: “Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority of this administration.” But the most significant way that high priority status is being expressed is through commitments of military aid, training, troops and equipment.
The U.S. base in Djibouti is just one plank in a new platform of military engagement in Africa. There is also the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), which Congress funded at $500 million over six years in 2005. There are also increased naval maneuvers in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, and establishment of a P3 Orion aerial surveillance station in Algeria.
And now, as though the Pentagon does not have enough on its plate, President George W. Bush has established United States African Command (AFRICOM) as the newest U.S. military sphere of influence. The command brings together most of the continent (Egypt will remain under CENTCOM) for the first time, and according to President Bush it “will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa.”
But the administration is mostly trying to define AFRICOM by what it is not:
Theresa Whelan, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, says: “Africa Command is not going to reflect a U.S. intent to engage kinetically in Africa. This is about prevention. This is not about fighting wars.” At another point, Whelan also said “This is not about a scramble for the continent.”
“We are not at war in Africa. Nor do we expect to be at war in Africa. Our embassies and AFRICOM will work in concert to keep it that way,” notes Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa.
Despite these reassurances, many African nations view this move with a healthy dose of skepticism. They are expressing this view by shutting their doors. AFRICOM is temporarily based in Germany, but commanders hope to make the move to the region by fall 2008. The military seems to be favoring a “lily pad” approach of small bases across West Africa and the Horn region so as to not commit significant troops or lend credence to African concerns of a U.S. occupation. But where are these lily pads going to go?
Zambia has said no. In early September, President Levy Mwanawasa said that within the Southern African Development Community (a network of fourteen nations) “none of us is interested” in hosting the command. The South Africa Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has refused to meet with U.S. General William “Kip” Ward, who will command AFRICOM. Lekota said recently, “Africa has to avoid the presence of foreign forces on her soil.”
But, some countries are viewing AFRICOM as an opportunity. The United States has already secured access agreements with Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Gabon and Namibia. And the United States’ close ally Liberia has aggressively promoted of the Command. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf penned a widely cited and circulated op-ed for AllAfrica.Com that hyped the Command as an opportunity for African nations. She has lobbied hard for AFRICOM to come to Liberia. The United States is also looking at Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Djibouti, and Ethiopia as possible locations.
In case none of these options work out, the Navy has a novel (and very expensive) idea to forgo land completely and house AFRICOM on a high-tech joint command and control ship that would circumnavigate the region.
Even as these discussions continue, some African nations are receiving significant increases in military aid and weapons sales; most of these increases have gone to oil-rich nations and compliant states where the U.S. military seeks a strategic toehold. The Center for Defense Information recently completed “U.S. Arms Exports and Military Assistance in the “Global War on Terror;” an analysis of increases in military aid since September 11, 2001. The report compares the military aid and weapons sales in the five-year leading up to 2001 and the five years since.
For example: since September 11, Kenya, which the State Department describes as a “frontline state” in the war on terrorism, has received eight times more military aid than in the preceding five years.
Djibouti, which has opened its territory to U.S. forces, received forty times more military aid, and an eightfold increase in the value of weapons transfers.
Oil-rich Algeria, where the surveillance equipment is based, has received ten times more aid and a warm embrace from Washington.
Nigeria, the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States, is slated to receive $1.35 million in Foreign Military Financing for 2008 despite persistent human rights abuses.
Mali is described as an “active partner in the war against terrorism” by the State Department and is a good example of a little military aid going a long way. The desert nation is slated to receive just $250,000 in International Military Education and Training (IMET funding) and no Foreign Military Financing in 2008. But, Mali participates in both the Regional Defense Counter Terrorism Fellowship Program and the Anti-terrorism Assistance program, receiving additional funding through these programs. Aid comes in other forms too. Just this week, a U.S. C-130 military transport plane dropped food aid to Malian soldiers as they pursued armed members of the Tuareg ethnic group. This sort of assistance is not documented or quantified in any ledger or report but — if repeated regularly — could significantly increase the Malian military’s capabilities.
U.S. arms sales to Ethiopia, which has one of Africa’s largest armies, have roughly doubled and military aid has increased two and a half times. But the nation has not received military Humvees since 2002, when it used them against its own people. During protests following the May 2002 elections, the Ethiopian military fired on crowds from the Humvees, killing 85 people. The U.S. sold the Humvees to Ethiopia for counter-terrorism operations. Will the other military assistance Ethiopia receives be similarly abused?
It is always heartening (and non-threatening) to hear soldiers speaking of their mission in altruistic terms. “The hope is to prevent another Iraq or Afghanistan by giving back,” says John Harris, commander Command Senior Enlisted Leader of CJT-HOA. But, the soldiers are not there to make friends. The base had been used twice to launch incursions into Somalia (without the permission or even knowledge of the Djiboutian government).
Richard Lugar (R-IN), one of the wise men in the Senate, commented during an AFRICOM hearing that the Pentagon enjoys far greater resources than the State Department. He observed, “This imbalance within our own structure will be reflected in AFRICOM initially — hopefully not perpetually.” There is no indication that humanitarian investments will outpace military contributions any time soon — especially when the justification for aid remains the war on terrorism.
The Congressional Research Service’s latest accounting of the Global War on Terrorism, of which AFRICOM would be a part, puts the cost at $611 billion since 2001, not including additional recent requests of $147 billion and another $50 billion.
For less than that $808 billion spent in the last six years, we could provide universal primary education, reduce infant mortality by two thirds and provide universal access to potable water and not just for the United States, but also for the world. These Millennium Development Goals have languished with sporadic investment and big promises, while military solutions to problems are funded robustly.
Reexamining this imbalance seems like a crucial first step. And the battle for African hearts and minds will not be won if it’s clear that it is being waged more for the sake of U.S. strategic interests than African needs.
FPIF columnist Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate at the Arms and Security Project of the New America Foundation.
Showing posts with label Djibouti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Djibouti. Show all posts
U.S. Supports Ethiopian Government Violence
Refugees: Ethiopia killing civilians in separatist crackdown
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers, Sept. 14, 2007
BOSSASSO, Somalia — The Ethiopian government is starving and killing its own people in the remote eastern Ogaden region, according to refugees, who describe a terrifying four-month crackdown in which security forces have sealed off villages, torched homes and businesses, commandeered food and water sources, and beaten, raped or executed anyone who resists.
Hundreds of civilians already may have been killed in the crackdown on a separatist movement known as the Ogaden National Liberation Front, according to interviews with dozens of Ogadenis who've gathered in a steadily growing refugee camp in this steamy port city 300 miles from the Ethiopian border.
"They strangled my wife with a rope," said Ahmed Mohammed Abdi, a 35-year-old farmer from Degehabur province, who came home one day this month to see his wife's body lying by the door, his 1-month-old son still suckling at her breast. That night, he fled into the bush and began a seven-day trek to the relative safety of northern Somalia.
"If you come and try to identify the dead body, the soldiers will beat you also," said the wiry, wide-eyed Abdi. "I was afraid to be killed, so I ran away."
A top aide to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi rejected the allegations. The government has barred reporters and international relief groups from most of the region, a vast desert that stretches from the central Ethiopian highlands to the border with Somalia.
In July, Ethiopia expelled the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross from the Ogaden, accusing its workers of aiding the rebels. Last week, the aid agency Doctors Without Borders said it also had been denied access, and it warned of a major humanitarian crisis.
Some aid workers worry that the Ogaden could become a second Darfur, referring to the Sudanese government crackdown on insurgents in that country's Darfur region, which the United States has labeled genocide. In this instance, the United States has come out in support of Ethiopia, one of its most important African allies in the war on terrorism.
The U.S. has helped train Ethiopia's military — one of the largest and best equipped in Africa — and backed its recent invasion of Somalia to topple a fundamentalist Islamic regime there. Last week, after visiting one town in the Ogaden, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer condemned the rebels and said reports of military atrocities were unsubstantiated.
"We urge any and every government to respect human rights and to try and avoid civilian casualties," Frazer said, "but that's difficult in dealing with an insurgency."
The accounts given by dozens of refugees in Bossasso this week paint a grim picture: Ethiopian forces burning or blockading scores of towns and villages in a strategy seemingly aimed at starving the population, which widely supports the insurgency.
Since June, soldiers have confiscated food and medicine from shops, stolen camels and livestock and blocked people from using water wells, refugees said. Few commercial trucks have been allowed in, and relief workers say that food and humanitarian aid also has been stopped for most of the summer.
The people, mainly ethnic Somali nomads and farmers, are surviving on the meat and milk of their remaining goats.
"They burned down my house," said Fatima Abdi Mohammed, a 40-year-old mother of six from a village near the eastern town of Warder. When she tried to protest, soldiers beat her with the handles of daggers, she said.
"There is no water, no food, no health services. If people leave to fetch water with camels, they are killed or beaten."
Many refugees said women in their villages had been raped. Khadar Sherif Ahmed, 22, a villager from Degehabur, said he'd watched security forces storm a mosque and fatally stab five people — the oldest an 80-year-old man, the youngest a child of 8.
Bereket Simon, a senior aide to Prime Minister Zenawi, denied that soldiers were abusing or killing civilians.
"We are singling out the terrorists. We know how to deal with insurgents," he said. "This army is well trained, and they know their mission."
Earlier this month, Ethiopian forces escorted a U.N. fact-finding mission through parts of the Ogaden, but the team wasn't allowed to visit areas that refugees described as the worst affected.
Ethiopian officials accuse the separatist movement of fighting Ethiopian troops in Somalia and of receiving weapons and funding from archenemy Eritrea.
The movement grew out of decades of neglect by successive governments in Addis Ababa, which left the region the least developed part of one of the world's least developed nations. Land-line and mobile phone networks barely function; walkie-talkies are the most reliable form of communication.
Long-simmering tensions flared in April when fighters from the Ogaden National Liberation Front raided a Chinese-run oil installation in the region, killing 74 people. Within weeks, Ethiopian forces had launched their reprisals.
Now the walkie-talkies have been confiscated, the land lines are dead and anyone caught using a cell phone risks a beating or worse, refugees said. Ogadenis caught on the roads also are dealt with harshly.
Sadiq Mohammed Ali, a 34-year-old businessman from Korahe province, was transporting a herd of goats to Bossasso last month with four employees when soldiers stopped their trucks and demanded their papers.
Two of the men were Somalis, and they were unharmed. But Ali and his two cousins, all Ogadenis, were forced out of their vehicles, blindfolded, undressed and thrown to the ground, Ali said.
A shot rang out, and one of his cousins yelled in pain. When the soldiers went to inspect the body, Ali made it to his feet and ran into the bush. He walked for six days before reaching Somalia, but now is stuck in Bossasso, afraid of what may have befallen his wife and five children at home.
"I have no news from my family and no way to go back," Ali said. "I am stranded here."
Roughly 1,000 refugees have made it to Bossasso, a port on the Gulf of Aden several hundred miles from the heart of the Ogaden, and there are new arrivals nearly every day. Getting here requires walking north for a week or longer in blood-boiling heat, evading soldiers, before reaching the border with the semi-autonomous Somaliland region.
Some refugees remain there while others hitch rides to Bossasso, which has a population of several thousand Ethiopians. In Bossasso, many live in tumbledown shacks made of sticks and cardboard, paying $2 a month to Somali landlords.
The U.N. refugee agency doesn't know how many Ogadenis have fled in recent months, although it thinks that several hundred are in Somaliland and neighboring Djibouti.
"There hasn't been a refugee flood," said Alexander Tyler of the Somalia office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "That could be a reflection of the control that Ethiopia still has over the area."
Mohammed Ali Farah, a 40-year-old from Warder who watched soldiers burn down his tiny cafe in June, then strangle three women who refused to vacate their cafe next door, said many villagers were too scared to leave.
"Historically (the military) used to fight us," Farah said. "They used to arrest and punish us. But such extensive killing, we've not seen before."
(McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Jason McLure contributed to this report from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.)
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers, Sept. 14, 2007
BOSSASSO, Somalia — The Ethiopian government is starving and killing its own people in the remote eastern Ogaden region, according to refugees, who describe a terrifying four-month crackdown in which security forces have sealed off villages, torched homes and businesses, commandeered food and water sources, and beaten, raped or executed anyone who resists.
Hundreds of civilians already may have been killed in the crackdown on a separatist movement known as the Ogaden National Liberation Front, according to interviews with dozens of Ogadenis who've gathered in a steadily growing refugee camp in this steamy port city 300 miles from the Ethiopian border.
"They strangled my wife with a rope," said Ahmed Mohammed Abdi, a 35-year-old farmer from Degehabur province, who came home one day this month to see his wife's body lying by the door, his 1-month-old son still suckling at her breast. That night, he fled into the bush and began a seven-day trek to the relative safety of northern Somalia.
"If you come and try to identify the dead body, the soldiers will beat you also," said the wiry, wide-eyed Abdi. "I was afraid to be killed, so I ran away."
A top aide to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi rejected the allegations. The government has barred reporters and international relief groups from most of the region, a vast desert that stretches from the central Ethiopian highlands to the border with Somalia.
In July, Ethiopia expelled the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross from the Ogaden, accusing its workers of aiding the rebels. Last week, the aid agency Doctors Without Borders said it also had been denied access, and it warned of a major humanitarian crisis.
Some aid workers worry that the Ogaden could become a second Darfur, referring to the Sudanese government crackdown on insurgents in that country's Darfur region, which the United States has labeled genocide. In this instance, the United States has come out in support of Ethiopia, one of its most important African allies in the war on terrorism.
The U.S. has helped train Ethiopia's military — one of the largest and best equipped in Africa — and backed its recent invasion of Somalia to topple a fundamentalist Islamic regime there. Last week, after visiting one town in the Ogaden, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer condemned the rebels and said reports of military atrocities were unsubstantiated.
"We urge any and every government to respect human rights and to try and avoid civilian casualties," Frazer said, "but that's difficult in dealing with an insurgency."
The accounts given by dozens of refugees in Bossasso this week paint a grim picture: Ethiopian forces burning or blockading scores of towns and villages in a strategy seemingly aimed at starving the population, which widely supports the insurgency.
Since June, soldiers have confiscated food and medicine from shops, stolen camels and livestock and blocked people from using water wells, refugees said. Few commercial trucks have been allowed in, and relief workers say that food and humanitarian aid also has been stopped for most of the summer.
The people, mainly ethnic Somali nomads and farmers, are surviving on the meat and milk of their remaining goats.
"They burned down my house," said Fatima Abdi Mohammed, a 40-year-old mother of six from a village near the eastern town of Warder. When she tried to protest, soldiers beat her with the handles of daggers, she said.
"There is no water, no food, no health services. If people leave to fetch water with camels, they are killed or beaten."
Many refugees said women in their villages had been raped. Khadar Sherif Ahmed, 22, a villager from Degehabur, said he'd watched security forces storm a mosque and fatally stab five people — the oldest an 80-year-old man, the youngest a child of 8.
Bereket Simon, a senior aide to Prime Minister Zenawi, denied that soldiers were abusing or killing civilians.
"We are singling out the terrorists. We know how to deal with insurgents," he said. "This army is well trained, and they know their mission."
Earlier this month, Ethiopian forces escorted a U.N. fact-finding mission through parts of the Ogaden, but the team wasn't allowed to visit areas that refugees described as the worst affected.
Ethiopian officials accuse the separatist movement of fighting Ethiopian troops in Somalia and of receiving weapons and funding from archenemy Eritrea.
The movement grew out of decades of neglect by successive governments in Addis Ababa, which left the region the least developed part of one of the world's least developed nations. Land-line and mobile phone networks barely function; walkie-talkies are the most reliable form of communication.
Long-simmering tensions flared in April when fighters from the Ogaden National Liberation Front raided a Chinese-run oil installation in the region, killing 74 people. Within weeks, Ethiopian forces had launched their reprisals.
Now the walkie-talkies have been confiscated, the land lines are dead and anyone caught using a cell phone risks a beating or worse, refugees said. Ogadenis caught on the roads also are dealt with harshly.
Sadiq Mohammed Ali, a 34-year-old businessman from Korahe province, was transporting a herd of goats to Bossasso last month with four employees when soldiers stopped their trucks and demanded their papers.
Two of the men were Somalis, and they were unharmed. But Ali and his two cousins, all Ogadenis, were forced out of their vehicles, blindfolded, undressed and thrown to the ground, Ali said.
A shot rang out, and one of his cousins yelled in pain. When the soldiers went to inspect the body, Ali made it to his feet and ran into the bush. He walked for six days before reaching Somalia, but now is stuck in Bossasso, afraid of what may have befallen his wife and five children at home.
"I have no news from my family and no way to go back," Ali said. "I am stranded here."
Roughly 1,000 refugees have made it to Bossasso, a port on the Gulf of Aden several hundred miles from the heart of the Ogaden, and there are new arrivals nearly every day. Getting here requires walking north for a week or longer in blood-boiling heat, evading soldiers, before reaching the border with the semi-autonomous Somaliland region.
Some refugees remain there while others hitch rides to Bossasso, which has a population of several thousand Ethiopians. In Bossasso, many live in tumbledown shacks made of sticks and cardboard, paying $2 a month to Somali landlords.
The U.N. refugee agency doesn't know how many Ogadenis have fled in recent months, although it thinks that several hundred are in Somaliland and neighboring Djibouti.
"There hasn't been a refugee flood," said Alexander Tyler of the Somalia office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "That could be a reflection of the control that Ethiopia still has over the area."
Mohammed Ali Farah, a 40-year-old from Warder who watched soldiers burn down his tiny cafe in June, then strangle three women who refused to vacate their cafe next door, said many villagers were too scared to leave.
"Historically (the military) used to fight us," Farah said. "They used to arrest and punish us. But such extensive killing, we've not seen before."
(McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Jason McLure contributed to this report from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.)
African states oppose US presence
Simon Tisdall in Washington, Guardian Unlimited, June 25, 2007
The Pentagon's plans to create a new US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves publicly with the US "global war on terror".
A US delegation led by Ryan Henry, the principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy, returned to Washington last week with little to show from separate consultations with senior defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU).
An earlier round of consultations with sub-Saharan countries on providing secure facilities and local backup for the new command, to be known as Africom and due to be operational by September next year, was similarly inconclusive.
The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly told Mr Henry this month that they would play no part in hosting Africom. Despite recently improved relations with the US, both said they would urge their neighbours not to do so, either, due to fears of future American intervention. Even Morocco, considered Washington's closest north African ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.
"We've got a big image problem down there," a state department official admitted. "Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."
Another African worry was that any US facilities could become targets for terrorists, the official said. Dangled US economic incentives, including the prospect of hundreds of local jobs, had not proven persuasive.
Mr Henry said African officials had agreed during the talks that counter-terrorism was "a top security concern". But he added: "The countries were committed to the African Union as the continent's common security structure. They advised us that Africom should be established in harmony with the AU."
The US talks with Libya appear to have been frank. "In the area of security, they are looking for Africa-only solutions... I wouldn't say we see eye to eye on every issue," Mr Henry said. "I wouldn't say we see eye to eye on every issue."
Mr Henry emphasised the US was not seeking to supplant or supersede African leadership but rather to reinforce it. He said the creation of Africom would not entail the permanent stationing of large numbers of US troops in Africa, as in Asia and Europe.
Its overall aim was to integrate and expand US security, diplomatic, developmental and humanitarian assistance in collaboration with regional allies, not increased interventionism, he said.
Unveiling the plan in February, president George Bush said Africom would advance "our common goals of peace, security, development, health, education, democracy and economic growth".
But African opposition appears to have modified Washington's approach. Mr Henry said the latest plans envisaged "a distributed command" that would be "networked" across several countries, rather than a single, large headquarters in one place.
"There will be a staff headquarters... with a four-star in-theatre commander," he said. "(But) information technology allows us to bring people at dispersed geographical locations together. We are investigating the possibility of having the command distributed in a number of different nodes around the continent."
Mr Henry said this approach matched that of Islamist terrorists. "Al-Qaida is working in a distributive structure itself. It's establishing nodes throughout the region and there's been an establishment of al-Qaida in the Maghreb."
The state department official said the US remained confident that partners for the Africom project would eventually be found, although concerns persisted about political stability, misgovernance and corruption issues in some potential sub-Saharan partner countries.
The official added that the command's security focus would include suspected terrorist training camps in Mali and southern Algeria, the spread of Islamic fundamentalist ideas and violence in the Maghreb, northern Nigeria and the Horn of Africa, suspected uranium smuggling in the Sahel region - and addressing the political instability and economic deprivation that fed extremism.
Energy supply is another factor sparking heightened US interest, notably in west Africa. Gulf of Guinea countries including Nigeria and Angola are projected to provide a quarter of US oil imports within a decade.
US aid and development projects in Africa are expanding rapidly. Mr Bush asked Congress this month to double to $30bn (£15bn) over the next five years US funding for Aids relief, plus $1.2bn to fight malaria. Washington has also broadened its involvement in efforts to end the Darfur crisis. Laura Bush, the First Lady, embarked on a five-day consciousness-raising tour today, to Senegal, Mozambique, Zambia and Mali.
The Pentagon's plans to create a new US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves publicly with the US "global war on terror".
A US delegation led by Ryan Henry, the principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy, returned to Washington last week with little to show from separate consultations with senior defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU).
An earlier round of consultations with sub-Saharan countries on providing secure facilities and local backup for the new command, to be known as Africom and due to be operational by September next year, was similarly inconclusive.
The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly told Mr Henry this month that they would play no part in hosting Africom. Despite recently improved relations with the US, both said they would urge their neighbours not to do so, either, due to fears of future American intervention. Even Morocco, considered Washington's closest north African ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.
"We've got a big image problem down there," a state department official admitted. "Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."
Another African worry was that any US facilities could become targets for terrorists, the official said. Dangled US economic incentives, including the prospect of hundreds of local jobs, had not proven persuasive.
Mr Henry said African officials had agreed during the talks that counter-terrorism was "a top security concern". But he added: "The countries were committed to the African Union as the continent's common security structure. They advised us that Africom should be established in harmony with the AU."
The US talks with Libya appear to have been frank. "In the area of security, they are looking for Africa-only solutions... I wouldn't say we see eye to eye on every issue," Mr Henry said. "I wouldn't say we see eye to eye on every issue."
Mr Henry emphasised the US was not seeking to supplant or supersede African leadership but rather to reinforce it. He said the creation of Africom would not entail the permanent stationing of large numbers of US troops in Africa, as in Asia and Europe.
Its overall aim was to integrate and expand US security, diplomatic, developmental and humanitarian assistance in collaboration with regional allies, not increased interventionism, he said.
Unveiling the plan in February, president George Bush said Africom would advance "our common goals of peace, security, development, health, education, democracy and economic growth".
But African opposition appears to have modified Washington's approach. Mr Henry said the latest plans envisaged "a distributed command" that would be "networked" across several countries, rather than a single, large headquarters in one place.
"There will be a staff headquarters... with a four-star in-theatre commander," he said. "(But) information technology allows us to bring people at dispersed geographical locations together. We are investigating the possibility of having the command distributed in a number of different nodes around the continent."
Mr Henry said this approach matched that of Islamist terrorists. "Al-Qaida is working in a distributive structure itself. It's establishing nodes throughout the region and there's been an establishment of al-Qaida in the Maghreb."
The state department official said the US remained confident that partners for the Africom project would eventually be found, although concerns persisted about political stability, misgovernance and corruption issues in some potential sub-Saharan partner countries.
The official added that the command's security focus would include suspected terrorist training camps in Mali and southern Algeria, the spread of Islamic fundamentalist ideas and violence in the Maghreb, northern Nigeria and the Horn of Africa, suspected uranium smuggling in the Sahel region - and addressing the political instability and economic deprivation that fed extremism.
Energy supply is another factor sparking heightened US interest, notably in west Africa. Gulf of Guinea countries including Nigeria and Angola are projected to provide a quarter of US oil imports within a decade.
US aid and development projects in Africa are expanding rapidly. Mr Bush asked Congress this month to double to $30bn (£15bn) over the next five years US funding for Aids relief, plus $1.2bn to fight malaria. Washington has also broadened its involvement in efforts to end the Darfur crisis. Laura Bush, the First Lady, embarked on a five-day consciousness-raising tour today, to Senegal, Mozambique, Zambia and Mali.
337 U.S. deaths in Afghanistan, region
AP - As of Friday, June 22, 2007, at least 337 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures June 16, 2007.
Of those, the military reports 216 were killed by hostile action.
Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 61 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey and Yemen.
There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.
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The latest deaths reported by the military:
• No deaths reported.
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The latest identifications reported by the military:
• Army Sgt. Dustin J. Perrott, 23, Fredericksburg, Va.; died Thursday in Miri of wounds suffered when an explosive detonated near his vehicle; was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
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On the Net:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/
Of those, the military reports 216 were killed by hostile action.
Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 61 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey and Yemen.
There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.
___
The latest deaths reported by the military:
• No deaths reported.
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The latest identifications reported by the military:
• Army Sgt. Dustin J. Perrott, 23, Fredericksburg, Va.; died Thursday in Miri of wounds suffered when an explosive detonated near his vehicle; was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
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On the Net:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/
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