₦airaland Forum

Africom and the Pentagon jealously guard information about their outposts in Africa, making it impossible to ascertain even basic facts — like a simple count — let alone just how many are integral to JSOC operations, drone strikes, and other secret activities. “Due to operational security, I won’t be able to give you the exact size and number,” Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo, an Africom spokesperson, told The Intercept by email. “What I can tell you is that our strategic posture and presence are premised on the concept of a tailored, flexible, light footprint that leverages and supports the posture and presence of partners and is supported by expeditionary infrastructure.”

https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/10/CampLemonnier-Aircrafts01.png

While generally austere, many of these bases — including the airfields in Chabelley and Manda Bay — have expanded in recent years, with more on the way. Last year, for example, Capt. Rick Cook, who at the time was chief of Africom’s engineer division, mentioned the potential for a “base-like facility” that would be “semi-permanent” and “capable of air operations” in Niger. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016, introduced in April, requests $50 million for construction of an “Airfield and Base Camp at Agadez, Niger … to support operations in western Africa.”
https://prod01-cdn06.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/10/SQ08_TargetAftica01-promo.jpg
Since 9/11, a multitude of other facilities — including staging areas, cooperative security locations and forward operating locations — have also popped up (or been beefed up) in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, South Sudan, and Uganda. A 2011 report by Lauren Ploch, an analyst in African affairs with the Congressional Research Service, also mentioned U.S. military access to locations in Botswana, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and Zambia. According to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. military has struck 29 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers. These locations are only some of the nodes in a growing network of outposts facilitating an increasing number of missions by the 5,000 to 8,000 U.S. troops and civilians who annually operate on the continent.

https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/10/AfricaMap01.png

U.S. Africa Command — the umbrella organization for U.S. military activities on the continent, known as Africom — insists that it maintains only a “small footprint” in Africa and claims that Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion outpost, is its only full-fledged base. However, a number of new facilities have been opened in recent years, and even Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has acknowledged that Lemonnier serves as “a hub with lots of spokes out there on the continent and in the region.”

One of those spokes can be found just 10 kilometers southwest of Camp Lemonnier. After numerous mishaps and crashes, drone operations were moved from the camp to the more remote Chabelley Airfield in September 2013. Predator drones have also been based in the cities of Niamey in Niger and N’Djamena in Chad, while Reaper drones have been flown out of Seychelles International Airport. The Pentagon study, conducted by the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Task Force, also notes that, as of June 2012, there were two contractor-operated drones, one Predator and one Reaper, flying out of Arba Minch, Ethiopia. Off the coast of East Africa, a detachment equipped to dispatch a Scan Eagle, a low-cost, low-tech drone used by the Navy, or an MQ-8 Fire Scout, a remotely piloted helicopter, added to the regional array of surveillance assets, as did those associated with “Armada Sweep,” a ship-based system for collecting electronic communications. Additionally, two manned fixed-wing aircraft were based in Manda Bay, Kenya. Recent reports also indicate that the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, is now working out of two bases in Somalia — one in Kismayo, the other in Baledogle.

IyaIode:
lboe fool

yoruba arab owned slave

SomebodyLovesMe:
Had this boy indeed been a terrorist and ended up harming people, no one would be blaming the US Police or talking about Islamophobia or Racism.

The police did the right thing by arresting a suspect.

I am glad he ended up being innocent and that things are being done to make him feel better, but we should not replace common sense and caution with political correctness.

the boy is a boko

prettysolid:
I have had to re read the story 3 times now and still dont understand its point or purpose

google darfur genocide, janjawiid militia and Bashir

He didn't invent sh1t.

He took the insides of a clock and put them in a pencil case with all the wires and sh1t exposed to look like a bomb.

He had racked up weeks in suspensions before the clock thing for pulling pranks and his sister had been suspended too for making bomb threats also he had a chip on shoulder with the principle and his dad had problems with the city and is a known Islamic extremist and media wh0re

Now we see him taking photos with a confirmed war criminal and mass murderer

dont no why this little prik reminds me of sanusi

maybe because he is an entitled little punk who get s away with outright lies

"The Paris-based Web site reports that the teenager told reporters that he was "extremely delighted" to meet Bashir and hoped to return to visit the Sudanese president again >" a new invention and success."

This fuccking kid is a boko confirm

There cant be a gay gene.

Fagg0ts don't reproduce which makes passing on the fagg0t gene impossible.

They just don't want to admit they are manipulated retarrds and all their life is about politics. Just like the dead fool above.

The only biological possibility to be gay is when you have a mutation in your fetal stage and you dont produce enough testosterone(no sexuality programmed).

And even then you're not born as a fagg0t ,your sexuality is just not programmed and you can CHOOSE

This is where the media shilling begins to sell this lifestyle and ediots like the dead fool above are a big part of this gay scam

They feed on the attention given to them just for being gay. If you starve them out, they'll be gone in a few generations.

Of course, there would still be gays, just not as publicly as they are.

In a way, the anti-gay are the ones to blame for how things currently are. Had they just left the gays alone, there'd be no oppression points and they'd just get treated as any other person who is too public with their sexuality.

remember: there's always a choice. they are fagg0ts by choice or parental and societal prodding.

what do you expect from a lawyer and fake pastor?

Lordxdonval:
[Suits him right.

He was advocating for a life of death and he got it served personally to him

He died believing a lie...

[size=18pt]Study: No, There's No Evidence Of a 'Gay Gene'[/size]

An unpublished UCLA study challenging the societal ‘born this way’ dogma of homosexuality has already been gaining traction in the public media since its presentation at an annual scientific conference last week.

The twin study conducted at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, finds that homosexuality may be triggered by environmental factors after birth. The research uses an algorithm covering epigenetic markers from several genomic sites of 37 sets of identical male twins to predict homosexuality in males, with 70 percent accuracy, as presented at the American Society of Human Genetics 2015 Annual Meeting in Baltimore.

“The finding is highly controversial because it suggests that some men are not born gay, but are turned homosexual by their surroundings,” Sarah Knapton of Telegraph suggested.

The research attracted widespread criticism, from gay people who cry ‘homophobe!’ to experts who decry the study as "statistically [in]significant."

Dr. Eric Vilain, an author on the study and director at the Institute for Society and Genetics (ISG) at UCLA, has been championed as a hero in many publications who misconstrued the study itself. Ironically, he's also been scalded by politically correct leftists on issues of transgenderism ever since he coauthored an op-ed in the LA Times last May called “What should you do if your son says he's a girl?”

The op-ed, written by two award-winning intersex experts, challenged the idea that adult transgenderism is inevitable for boys with gender dysphoria, and encouraged parents to not be quick to assume that their feminine-acting boys are gay.

Gender dysphoric children have not usually become transgender adults. For example, the large majority of gender dysphoric boys studied so far have become young men content to remain male. More than 80% adjusted by adolescence.

The op-ed also challenges Barack Obama’s statement last April, which called for a ban on all LGBTQ conversion therapies. The op-ed stated that some such therapies done by professionals could be useful in “trying to help children avoid later medical stress,” and bear no moral biases against transgendered people.

Dr. Vilain’s op-ed was attacked by readers of the LA Times, who took it as an offense to the LGBTQ community.

“Good to see Fox News has bought the LA Times and forced them to publish this bull $#!+," was one response.

"Shame on Eric Vilain," someone tweeted.

there is a systematic campaign to sell the gay life as a normal human biological response by the press , scientific committee and even crooked politicians like obama.

Hollywood is even in on the game. Hardly any sitcom do you have out there that does not have your token gay character.

Gay men represent less than 2% of the male population in the west but the media wants us to believe they are everywhere

The power that be want to force homosexuality as normal.

Bruce Jenner and co are the poster child for selling this gay rubbish .

good

[size=18pt]Cleric: 'Real Islam' is About Abducting Women and Destroying Churches...[/size]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_full/public/uploads/2015/10/ga.jpg?itok=2qYqOkzk

During a recent televised interview with Grand Ayatollah Ahmad al-Baghdadi, the leading Shia cleric of Iraq made clear why Islam and the rest of the world can never peacefully coexist.

First he spent some time discussing “defensive jihad,” saying that all capable Muslims are obligated to fight for the “liberation” of “occupied” territory, for instance, Israel .

He then explained “offensive jihad,” Islam’s primary bloodline, which forged what we now call the “Muslim world” over the centuries.

According to the ayatollah, when they can—when circumstance permits it, when they are strong enough—Muslims are obligated to go on the offensive and conquer non-Muslims (a fact to be kept in mind as millions of Muslim “refugees” flood the West).

The Muslim cleric repeatedly yelled at the secularized host who kept interrupting him and protesting that Islam cannot teach such intolerance. At one point, he burst out: “I am the scholar of Islam [al-faqih]. You are just a journalist. Listen to me!”

Expounded Al-Baghdadi:

If they are people of the book [Jews and Christians] we demand of them the jizya—and if they refuse, then we fight them. That is if he is Christian. He has three choices: either convert to Islam, or, if he refuses and wishes to remain Christian, then pay the jizya [and live according to dhimmi rules].

But if they still refuse—then we fight them, and we abduct their women, and destroy their churches—this is Islam!... Come on, learn what Islam is, are you even a Muslim?!

As for the polytheists [Hindus, Buddhists, etc.] we allow them to choose between Islam and war! This is not the opinion of Ahmad al-Husseini al-Baghdadi, but the opinion of all five schools of jurisprudence [four Sunni and one Shia].

Towards the end of the interview, because the clean-shaven, suit-and-tie-wearing host kept protesting that this cannot be Islam, the ayatollah burst out, pointing at him with contempt and saying, “Who are you? You’re going to tell me what to believe? This is the word of Allah!”

Indeed. Not only is it the word of Islam’s deity, but it is the fundamental, insurmountable obstacle for peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Al-Baghdadi—and the countless other Muslim clerics, Sunni and Shia, that hold these views—are not “radicals.” For offensive jihad is no less codified than, say, Islam’s Five Pillars, which no Muslim rejects.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” states that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”

Islam has yet to “completely be made over.”

Renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) explained jihad as follows:

In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.

Here it’s worth noting that even the most offensive jihad is seen as an “altruistic” endeavor, not unlike the “white man’s burden” of the 19th century. After all, the ancient argument that “we must reform your ways, with our ways, for your own good” has been one of the most cited justifications for offensive jihad since the 7th century.

Indeed, soon after the death of Islam’s prophet Muhammad (634), when his jihadis burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They reportedly replied as follows:

Allah has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of Allah, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of Allah.

Fourteen hundred years later, in March 2009, Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view:

As a member of the true religion [Islam], I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Sharia], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.

Even al-Qaeda partially justified its jihad against America for being “a nation that exploits women like consumer products”; for not rejecting the “immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.”

If the “white man’s burden” was/is to “civilize” Muslims, by bringing them “democracy,” “human rights,” and “secularism,” the “Muslim man’s burden”—captured by Allah’s word to Muslims, “Jihad is ordained for you, though you dislike it” (Koran 2:216)—has long been to “civilize” Westerners by bringing them under the umbrella of Sharia.

This positive interpretation of jihad ensures that, no matter how violent and ostensibly unjust a jihad is, it will always be vindicated in Muslim eyes: the ugly means will be justified by the “altruistic” ends.

Finally, as Grand Ayatollah Ahmad al-Baghdadi pointed out, the need for Muslims to wage offensive jihad “is not the opinion of Ahmad al-Husseini al-Baghdadi… This is the word of Allah!”

Nor is it the “opinion” of ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr, al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, or any of the other countless past and present jihadis. No, jihad to conquer and bring Sharia to non-Muslims is the command of Allah.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260452/iraqi-ayatollah-abducting-women-and-destroying-raymond-ibrahim

thebestonearth:
op is that the best you can think About?

[size=18pt]Cleric: 'Real Islam' is About Abducting Women and Destroying Churches...[/size]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_full/public/uploads/2015/10/ga.jpg?itok=2qYqOkzk

During a recent televised interview with Grand Ayatollah Ahmad al-Baghdadi, the leading Shia cleric of Iraq made clear why Islam and the rest of the world can never peacefully coexist.

First he spent some time discussing “defensive jihad,” saying that all capable Muslims are obligated to fight for the “liberation” of “occupied” territory, for instance, Israel .

He then explained “offensive jihad,” Islam’s primary bloodline, which forged what we now call the “Muslim world” over the centuries.

According to the ayatollah, when they can—when circumstance permits it, when they are strong enough—Muslims are obligated to go on the offensive and conquer non-Muslims (a fact to be kept in mind as millions of Muslim “refugees” flood the West).

The Muslim cleric repeatedly yelled at the secularized host who kept interrupting him and protesting that Islam cannot teach such intolerance. At one point, he burst out: “I am the scholar of Islam [al-faqih]. You are just a journalist. Listen to me!”

Expounded Al-Baghdadi:

If they are people of the book [Jews and Christians] we demand of them the jizya—and if they refuse, then we fight them. That is if he is Christian. He has three choices: either convert to Islam, or, if he refuses and wishes to remain Christian, then pay the jizya [and live according to dhimmi rules].

But if they still refuse—then we fight them, and we abduct their women, and destroy their churches—this is Islam!... Come on, learn what Islam is, are you even a Muslim?!

As for the polytheists [Hindus, Buddhists, etc.] we allow them to choose between Islam and war! This is not the opinion of Ahmad al-Husseini al-Baghdadi, but the opinion of all five schools of jurisprudence [four Sunni and one Shia].

Towards the end of the interview, because the clean-shaven, suit-and-tie-wearing host kept protesting that this cannot be Islam, the ayatollah burst out, pointing at him with contempt and saying, “Who are you? You’re going to tell me what to believe? This is the word of Allah!”

Indeed. Not only is it the word of Islam’s deity, but it is the fundamental, insurmountable obstacle for peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Al-Baghdadi—and the countless other Muslim clerics, Sunni and Shia, that hold these views—are not “radicals.” For offensive jihad is no less codified than, say, Islam’s Five Pillars, which no Muslim rejects.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” states that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”

Islam has yet to “completely be made over.”

Renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) explained jihad as follows:

In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.

Here it’s worth noting that even the most offensive jihad is seen as an “altruistic” endeavor, not unlike the “white man’s burden” of the 19th century. After all, the ancient argument that “we must reform your ways, with our ways, for your own good” has been one of the most cited justifications for offensive jihad since the 7th century.

Indeed, soon after the death of Islam’s prophet Muhammad (634), when his jihadis burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They reportedly replied as follows:

Allah has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of Allah, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of Allah.

Fourteen hundred years later, in March 2009, Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view:

As a member of the true religion [Islam], I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Sharia], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.

Even al-Qaeda partially justified its jihad against America for being “a nation that exploits women like consumer products”; for not rejecting the “immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.”

If the “white man’s burden” was/is to “civilize” Muslims, by bringing them “democracy,” “human rights,” and “secularism,” the “Muslim man’s burden”—captured by Allah’s word to Muslims, “Jihad is ordained for you, though you dislike it” (Koran 2:216)—has long been to “civilize” Westerners by bringing them under the umbrella of Sharia.

This positive interpretation of jihad ensures that, no matter how violent and ostensibly unjust a jihad is, it will always be vindicated in Muslim eyes: the ugly means will be justified by the “altruistic” ends.

Finally, as Grand Ayatollah Ahmad al-Baghdadi pointed out, the need for Muslims to wage offensive jihad “is not the opinion of Ahmad al-Husseini al-Baghdadi… This is the word of Allah!”

Nor is it the “opinion” of ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr, al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, or any of the other countless past and present jihadis. No, jihad to conquer and bring Sharia to non-Muslims is the command of Allah.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260452/iraqi-ayatollah-abducting-women-and-destroying-raymond-ibrahim

thebestonearth:
op is that the best you can think About?

Islam's Latest Contributions to Peace

2015.10.15 (Maiduguri, Nigeria) - Two suicide bombers massacre forty-two worshippers at a rival mosque.

2015.10.13 (Maiduguri, Nigeria) - Four other people are wiped out by three Fedayeen suicide bombers in an otherwise peaceful neighborhood.

2015.10.13 (Jerusalem, Israel) - Two Palestinians board a bus and begin hacking and shooting Jews, killing two.

2015.10.13 (Jerusalem, Israel) - A Palestinian rams into a group of Israeli pedestrians then hacks several with a meat cleaver, killing a 60-year-old rabbi.

2015.10.12 (Mukoko, DRC) - ADF Islamists hack eight people to death with machetes.

2015.10.12 (Kandahar, Afghanistan) - A UN doctor is shot to death on her way home.

thebestonearth:
op is that the best you can think About?

fool

we know your religion is bullshit

Hysmady:
Her husband?

poverty

[size=28pt]50-man armed robbery gang[/size]

[size=18pt]The Police is officially useless![/size]

[size=18pt]Growing Instability[/size]

The collapse of Mali after a coup by an American-trained officer and Chad's flight from the fight in that country are just two indicators of how post-9/11 US military efforts in Africa have fared. "In two of the three other Sahelian states involved in the Pentagon's pan-Sahelian initiative, Mauritania and Niger, armies trained by the US, have also taken power in the past eight years," observed journalist William Wallis in the Financial Times. "In the third, Chad, they came close in a 2006 attempt." Still another coup plot involving members of the Chadian military was reportedly uncovered earlier this spring.

In March, Major General Patrick Donahue, the commander of US Army Africa, told interviewer Gail McCabe that northwestern Africa was now becoming increasingly "problematic." Al-Qaeda, he said, was at work destabilizing Algeria and Tunisia. Last September, in fact, hundreds of Islamist protesters attacked the US embassy compound in Tunisia, setting it on fire. More recently, Camille Tawil in the CTC Sentinel, the official publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point, wrote that in Tunisia "jihadis are openly recruiting young militants and sending them to training camps in the mountains, especially along Algeria's borders."

The US-backed French intervention in Mali also led to a January revenge terror attack on the Amenas gas plant in Algeria. Carried out by the al-Mulathameen brigade, one of various new al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-linked militant groups emerging in the region, it led to the deaths of close to 40 hostages, including three Americans. Planned by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of the US-backed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was only the first in a series of blowback responses to US and Western interventions in Northern Africa that may have far-reaching implications.

Last month, Belmokhtar's forces also teamed up with fighters from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa—yet another Islamist militant group of recent vintage—to carry out coordinated attacks on a French-run uranium mine and a nearby military base in Agadez, Niger, that killed at least 25 people. A recent attack on the French embassy in Libya by local militants is also seen as a reprisal for the French war in Mali.

According to the Carnegie Endowment's Wehrey, the French military's push there has had the additional effect of reversing the flow of militants, sending many back into Libya to recuperate and seek additional training. Nigerian Islamist fighters driven from Mali have returned to their native land with fresh training and innovative tactics as well as heavy weapons from Libya. Increasingly battle-hardened, extremist Islamist insurgents from two Nigerian groups, Boko Haram and the newer, even more radical Ansaru, have escalated a long simmering conflict in that West African oil giant.

For years, Nigerian forces have been trained and supported by the US through the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. The country has also been a beneficiary of US Foreign Military Financing, which provides grants and loans to purchase US-produced weaponry and equipment and funds military training. In recent years, however, brutal responses by Nigerian forces to what had been a fringe Islamist sect have transformed Boko Haram into a regional terrorist force.

The situation has grown so serious that President Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency in northern Nigeria. Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke out about "credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism." After a Boko Haram militant killed a soldier in the town of Baga, for example, Nigerian troops attacked the town, destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing an estimated 183 people.

Similarly, according to a recent United Nations report, the Congolese army's 391st Commando Battalion, formed with US support and trained for eight months by US Special Operations forces, later took part in mass rapes and other atrocities. Fleeing the advance of a recently formed, brutal (non-Islamic) rebel group known as M23, its troops joined with other Congolese soldiers in raping close to 100 women and more than 30 girls in November 2012.

"This magnificent battalion will set a new mark in this nation's continuing transformation of an army dedicated and committed to professionalism, accountability, sustainability, and meaningful security," said Brigadier General Christopher Haas, the head of US Special Operations Command Africa at the time of the battalion's graduation from training in 2010.

Earlier this year, incoming AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a review of the unit found its "officers and enlisted soldiers appear motivated, organized, and trained in small unit maneuver and tactics" even if there were "limited metrics to measure the battalion's combat effectiveness and performance in protecting civilians." The U.N. report tells a different story. For example, it describes "a 14 year old boy… shot dead on 25 November 2012 in the village of Kalungu, Kalehe territory, by a soldier of the 391 Battalion. The boy was returning from the fields when two soldiers tried to steal his goat. As he tried to resist and flee, one of the soldiers shot him."

Despite years of US military aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo, M23 has dealt its army heavy blows and, according to AFRICOM's Rodriguez, is now destabilizing the region. But they haven't done it alone. According to Rodriguez, M23 "would not be the threat it is today without external support including evidence of support from the Rwandan government."

For years, the US aided Rwanda through various programs, including the International Military Education and Training initiative and Foreign Military Financing. Last year, the US cut $200,000 in military assistance to Rwanda—a signal of its disapproval of that government's support for M23. Still, as AFRICOM's Rodriguez admitted to the Senate earlier this year, the US continues to "support Rwanda's participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa."

After years of US assistance, including support from Special Operations forces advisors, the Central African Republic's military was recently defeated and the country's president ousted by another newly formed (non-Islamist) rebel group known as Seleka. In short order, that country's army chiefs pledged their allegiance to the leader of the coup, while hostility on the part of the rebels forced the US and its allies to suspend their hunt for Joseph Kony.

A strategic partner and bulwark of US counterterrorism efforts, Kenya receives around $1 billion in US aid annually and elements of its military have been trained by US Special Operations forces. But last September, Foreign Policy's Jonathan Horowitz reported on allegations of "Kenyan counterterrorism death squads... killing and disappearing people." Later, Human Rights Watch drew attention to the Kenyan military's response to a November attack by an unknown gunman that killed three soldiers in the northern town of Garissa. The "Kenyan army surrounded the town, preventing anyone from leaving or entering, and started attacking residents and traders," the group reported. "The witnesses said that the military shot at people, raped women, and assaulted anyone in sight."

Another longtime recipient of US support, the Ethiopian military, was also involved in abuses last year, following an attack by gunmen on a commercial farm. In response, according to Human Rights Watch, members of Ethiopia's army raped, arbitrarily arrested, and assaulted local villagers.

The Ugandan military has been the primary US proxy when it comes to policing Somalia. Its members were, however, implicated in the beating and even killing of citizens during domestic unrest in 2011. Burundi has also received significant US military support and high-ranking officers in its army have recently been linked to the illegal mineral trade, according to a report by the environmental watchdog group Global Witness. Despite years of cooperation with the US military, Senegal now appears more vulnerable to extremism and increasingly unstable, according to a report by the Institute of Security Studies.

[size=18pt]The Collapse of Mali[/size]

As the US-backed war in Libya was taking down Qaddafi, nomadic Tuareg fighters in his service looted the regime's extensive weapons caches, crossed the border into their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that country. Anger within the country's armed forces over the democratically elected government's ineffective response to the rebellion resulted in a military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who had received extensive training in the US between 2004 and 2010 as part of the Pan-Sahel Initiative. Having overthrown Malian democracy, he and his fellow officers proved even less effective in dealing with events in the north.

With the country in turmoil, the Tuareg fighters declared an independent state. Soon, however, heavily-armed Islamist rebels from homegrown Ansar al-Dine as well as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Libya's Ansar al-Sharia, and Nigeria's Boko Haram, among others, pushed out the Tuaregs, took over much of the north, instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, and created a humanitarian crisis that caused widespread suffering, sending refugees streaming from their homes.

These developments raised serious questions about the efficacy of US counterterrorism efforts. "This spectacular failure reveals that the US probably underestimated the complex socio-cultural peculiarities of the region, and misread the realities of the terrain," Berny Sèbe, an expert on North and West Africa at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, told me. "This led them to being grossly manipulated by local interests over which they had, in the end, very limited control."

Following a further series of Islamist victories and widespread atrocities, the French military intervened at the head of a coalition of Chadian, Nigerian, and other African troops, with support from the US and the British. The foreign-led forces beat back the Islamists, who then shifted from conventional to guerrilla tactics, including suicide bombings.

In April, after such an attack killed three Chadian soldiers, that country's president announced that his forces, long supported by the US through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, would withdraw from Mali. "Chad's army has no ability to face the kind of guerrilla fighting that is emerging," he said. In the meantime, the remnants of the US-backed Malian military fighting alongside the French were cited for gross human rights violations in their bid to retake control of their country.

After the French intervention in January, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "There is no consideration of putting any American boots on the ground at this time." Not long after, 10 US military personnel were deployed to assist French and African forces, while 12 others were assigned to the embassy in the Malian capital, Bamako.

While he's quick to point out that Mali's downward spiral had much to do with its corrupt government, weak military, and rising levels of ethnic discontent, the Carnegie Endowment's Wehrey notes that the war in Libya was "a seismic event for the Sahel and the Sahara." Just back from a fact-finding trip to Libya, he added that the effects of the revolution are already rippling far beyond the porous borders of Mali.

Wehrey cited recent findings by the United Nations Security Council's Group of Experts, which monitors an arms embargo imposed on Libya in 2011. "In the past 12 months," the panel reported, "the proliferation of weapons from Libya has continued at a worrying rate and has spread into new territory: West Africa, the Levant [the Eastern Mediterranean region], and potentially even the Horn of Africa. Illicit flows [of arms] from the country are fueling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups."

Another critical location is Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, home to a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative that, according to military documents, supports "high risk activities" carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that the initiative provides "emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with partner nations throughout the Sahel," although official documents note that such actions have historically accounted for just 10% of monthly flight hours.

While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program, citing operational security concerns, military documents indicate that it is expanding rapidly. Between March and December of last year, for example, the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative flew 233 sorties. In just the first three months of this year, it carried out 193.

AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson has confirmed to TomDispatch that US air operations conducted from Base Aerienne 101 in Niamey, the capital of Niger, were providing "support for intelligence collection with French forces conducting operations in Mali and with other partners in the region." Refusing to go into detail about mission specifics for reasons of "operational security," he added that, "in partnership with Niger and other countries in the region, we are committed to supporting our allies… this decision allows for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations within the region."

Benson also confirmed that the US military has used Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling stops as well as the "transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities" like training missions. He confirmed a similar deal for the use of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All told, the US military now has agreements to use 29 international airports in Africa as refueling centers.

[size=18pt]Obama's Scramble for Africa[/size]

The US-backed war in Libya and the CIA's efforts in its aftermath are just two of the many operations that have proliferated across the continent under President Obama. These include a multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, consisting of intelligence operations, a secret prison, helicopter attacks, drone strikes, and US commando raids; a special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders in the jungles of the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a massive influx of funding for counterterrorism operations across East Africa; and, in just the last four years, hundreds of millions of dollars spent arming and training West African troops to serve as American proxies on the continent. From 2010-2012, AFRICOM itself burned through $836 million as it expanded its reach across the region, primarily via programs to mentor, advise, and tutor African militaries.



In recent years, the US has trained and outfitted soldiers from Uganda, Burundi, and Kenya, among other nations, for missions like the hunt for Kony. They have also served as a proxy force for the US in Somalia, part of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) protecting the US-supported government in that country's capital, Mogadishu. Since 2007, the State Department has anted up about $650 million in logistics support, equipment, and training for AMISOM troops. The Pentagon has kicked in an extra $100 million since 2011.

The US also continues funding African armies through the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership and its Pentagon analog, now known as Operation Juniper Shield, with increased support flowing to Mauritania and Niger in the wake of Mali's collapse. In 2012, the State Department and the US Agency for International Development poured approximately $52 million into the programs, while the Pentagon chipped in another $46 million.

In the Obama years, US Africa Command has also built a sophisticated logistics system officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially referred to as the "new spice route." Its central nodes are in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda; Bangui and Djema in Central African Republic; Nzara in South Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon's showpiece African base, Camp Lemonnier.

In addition, the Pentagon has run a regional air campaign using drones and manned aircraft out of airports and bases across the continent including Camp Lemonnier, Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia, Niamey in Niger, and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while private contractor-operated surveillance aircraft have flown missions out of Entebbe, Uganda. Recently, Foreign Policy reported on the existence of a possible drone base in Lamu, Kenya.

In fact, a look at the official State Department list of terrorist organizations indicates a steady increase in Islamic radical groups in Africa alongside the growth of US counterterrorism efforts there—with the addition of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in 2004, Somalia's al-Shabaab in 2008, and Mali's Ansar al-Dine in 2013. In 2012, General Carter Ham, then AFRICOM's chief, added the Islamist militants of Boko Haram in Nigeria to his own list of extremist threats.

The overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya by an interventionist coalition including the US, France, and Britain similarly empowered a host of new militant Islamist groups such as the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which have since carried out multiple attacks on Western interests, and the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, whose fighters assaulted US facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In fact, just prior to that attack, according to the New York Times, the CIA was tracking "an array of armed militant groups in and around" that one city alone.

According to Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Libya, that country is now "fertile ground" for militants arriving from the Arabian Peninsula and other places in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in Africa to recruit fighters, receive training, and recuperate. "It's really become a new hub," he told me.

The Terror Diaspora

In 2000, a report prepared under the auspices of the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute examined the "African security environment." While it touched on "internal separatist or rebel movements" in "weak states," as well as non-state actors like militias and "warlord armies," it made no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. In fact, prior to 2001, the United States did not recognize any terrorist organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, a senior Pentagon official claimed that the US invasion of Afghanistan might drive "terrorists" out of that country and into African nations. "Terrorists associated with al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region," he said. "These terrorists will, of course, threaten US personnel and facilities."

When pressed about actual transnational dangers, the official pointed to Somali militants but eventually admitted that even the most extreme Islamists there "really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia." Similarly, when questioned about connections between Osama bin Laden's core al-Qaeda group and African extremists, he offered only the most tenuous links, like bin Laden's "salute" to Somali militants who killed US troops during the infamous 1993 "Black Hawk Down" incident.

Despite this, the US dispatched personnel to Africa as part of Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in 2002. The next year, CJTF-HOA took up residence at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, where it resides to this day on the only officially avowed US base in Africa.

As CJTF-HOA was starting up, the State Department launched a multi-million-dollar counterterrorism program, known as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, to bolster the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania. In 2004, for example, Special Forces training teams were sent to Mali as part of the effort. In 2005, the program expanded to include Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and was renamed the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership.

Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Schmidle noted that the program saw year-round deployments of Special Forces personnel "to train local armies at battling insurgencies and rebellions and to prevent bin Laden and his allies from expanding into the region." The Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership and its Defense Department companion program, then known as Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans-Sahara, were, in turn, folded into US Africa Command when it took over military responsibility for the continent in 2008.

As Schmidle noted, the effects of US efforts in the region seemed at odds with AFRICOM's stated goals. "Al Qaeda established sanctuaries in the Sahel, and in 2006 it acquired a North African franchise [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb]," he wrote. "Terrorist attacks in the region increased in both number and lethality."

[size=18pt]The US Military and the Unraveling of Africa[/size]

The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of US Africa Command's big success stories. The Gulf... of Guinea.

Never mind that most Americans couldn't find it on a map and haven't heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I talked with AFRICOM's chief spokesman, the Economist had asked if the Gulf of Guinea was on the verge of becoming "another Somalia," because piracy there had jumped 41% from 2011 to 2012 and was on track to be even worse in 2013.

The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where "stability," the command spokesman assured me, had "improved significantly," and the US military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?

The signal event in this tsunami of blowback was the US participation in a war to fell Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi that helped send neighboring Mali, a US-supported bulwark against regional terrorism, into a downward spiral, prompting the intervention of the French military with US backing. The situation could still worsen as the US armed forces grow ever more involved. They are already expanding air operations across the continent, engaging in spy missions for the French military, and utilizing other previously undisclosed sites in Africa.



A careful examination of the security situation in Africa suggests that it is in the process of becoming Ground Zero for a veritable terror diaspora set in motion in the wake of 9/11 that has only accelerated in the Obama years. Recent history indicates that as US "stability" operations in Africa have increased, militancy has spread, insurgent groups have proliferated, allies have faltered or committed abuses, terrorism has increased, the number of failed states has risen, and the continent has become more unsettled.

[size=18pt]The US Military and the Unraveling of Africa[/size]

The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of US Africa Command's big success stories. The Gulf... of Guinea.

Never mind that most Americans couldn't find it on a map and haven't heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I talked with AFRICOM's chief spokesman, the Economist had asked if the Gulf of Guinea was on the verge of becoming "another Somalia," because piracy there had jumped 41% from 2011 to 2012 and was on track to be even worse in 2013.

The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where "stability," the command spokesman assured me, had "improved significantly," and the US military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?

A careful examination of the security situation in Africa suggests that it is in the process of becoming Ground Zero for a veritable terror diaspora set in motion in the wake of 9/11 that has only accelerated in the Obama years. Recent history indicates that as US "stability" operations in Africa have increased, militancy has spread, insurgent groups have proliferated, allies have faltered or committed abuses, terrorism has increased, the number of failed states has risen, and the continent has become more unsettled.

Since 2011 when US naval patrols became a permanent feature of the Gulf of Guinea, piracy has increased by 41% !

America is behind all criminal activities in the gulf of guinea in order to force an AFRICOM base to Nigeria.

This is exactly how piracy spiked in the gulf of Aden (off Somalia) after US naval ships became permanent there.