AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

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malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Mr. Matties and Waldhauser will claim now they were in Mali on a "clandestine training" mission... :lol:
Military investigating if two Marines played role in Green Beret's death
New forensic evidence suggests more people may have been present on the night of Logan Melgar's death in Mali.
by Courtney Kube / May.10.2018 / 11:56 PM ET / Updated May.11.2018 / 8:25 AM ET
WASHINGTON — The military is investigating whether two special forces Marines played a role in the choking death of a Green Beret in Mali last year and the possible cover up of how it occurred, according to five U.S. defense officials.

Two Navy SEALs from the famed SEAL Team 6 are already under investigation for their involvement in the strangling death of Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar during the predawn hours of June 4, 2017. Melgar, 34, died in embassy housing he shared with other service members in Bamako, capital of the West African nation.

A September 2017 Army Criminal Investigative Division report about the incident quotes Navy SEAL Tony DeDolph saying he and Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar were wrestling at 4 a.m. when a fellow SEAL Adamcranston Matthew came in and joined in the horseplay. According to the SEALS, the men fell down together and when they stood up Melgar wasn’t breathing.

The SEALs say they attempted CPR and tried to open an airway, but Melgar died of asphyxiation.





Navy Investigating Possible Involvement of Navy SEALs in Death of Green Beret
01:16
The same report, however, says a witness told investigators that DeDolph and Matthews were among a group of people angry at Melgar, and had made comments about getting back at him.

According to that witness, "DeDolph admitted … that he ‘choked [Melgar] out.’ " and had used duct tape on him.

A military medical examiner ruled that Melgar’s death was "homicide by asphyxiation."

Now forensic evidence uncovered during a Navy investigation indicates two Marines may have been present at some point during the night, say five U.S. defense officials.

Adam Stump, spokesperson for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has been probing the incident, declined to comment on the two Marines.

"We don’t talk about open investigations," Stump said.

A spokesperson for U.S. Marine Special Operations Command also declined to comment on the two Marines.

"It is our policy not to comment on ongoing investigations," Maj. Nick Mannweiler said.

According to the New York Times, Melgar was in Mali to provide intelligence to the U.S. ambassador about Islamic militants while the SEALs were in Mali on a clandestine mission. SEAL Team 6 is best known for the 2011 operation that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/africa/mil ... -s-n873141
Dernière modification par malikos le 12 mai 2018, 19:21, modifié 1 fois.

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Waldhauser gets grilled....
however they insist that the partner force ie. the nigeriens lead the operation. "by, with and through concept"
that is totally uncredible, but probably politically enforced on them.

the timing is interesting .....hours until help arrives. totally ill planned. bad risk management.
armoured vehicles are nice, but for that you need roads. transform some toyotas with steel plates and kevlar, only door level. light and effective.
lack of interoperability with the french, as the team on the ground could not speak to the pilots of the mirages.
they moved around during night. strange, and difficult as the speed needs to be very slow or you break your vehicle. with such a large group I would not do that.


The gentleman in the video above is clear about timelines (25:30)....took 1h31 minutes until the drone arrived as the first aircraft,
then the 2 mirages arrived well later :confused:
and over 5 hours since the battles broke out, french helicopters arrived.
Support from French aircraft and a Nigerien quick-reaction force was prompt, and the French aviation effort, specifically, “likely saved the lives of the surviving members” of the U.S. Special Operations Force team,” according to the investigation summary.

The American soldiers called for air support 53 minutes after the action started. The French aircraft arrived over the battlefield 47 minutes after that notification. The Mirage jets were not able to drop ordnance due to the confusion on the ground, but low-level passes over the fight caused the ISIS terrorists to break action and retreat. French helicopters arrived later and evacuated the surviving U.S. soldiers.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Ar ... eficienci/
...somethings does not add up here.
Dernière modification par malikos le 13 mai 2018, 12:43, modifié 3 fois.

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

According to an Oct. 23 briefing by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, the U.S. military didn’t record the Green Berets requesting air support until an hour after the ambush began.

Once the request was received, two French Mirage 2000 fighters based at Diori Hamani Airport in the Nigerien capital of Niamey scrambled within 30 minutes, according to a statement by the French military. It took them another half hour to arrive over the battlefield, around 110 miles to the north.

https://warisboring.com/french-mirage-2 ... -in-niger/
makes approx. 60 minutes after the request was made...
30 minutes for 110 miles is a little slow, guess the location data were not that good and they had to fly around a little to find the place.

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

the video from the soldiers helmet and that animation do not add up.
the same error of getting out the vehicle and then not leaving as a one solid entity was repeated multiple times.
(in the desert your vehicle is like your rifle. you do not abandon it and for simplification purposes do not leave it. stay inside)
if that animation is correct they should have all died. with no vehicles left at the end and re-grouping occurring only by chance.

....and actually the other side rather acting smart/normal:
using their key/heavy weapons,
diving the enemy and coming after them one by one
also staying mobile and outflanking

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

U.S. Identifies 3 ISIS Militants Who Led Deadly Ambush in Niger
Image

Two French helicopters evacuating American service members in Niger in October.CreditDepartment of Defense, via Associated Press
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Helene Cooper
May 29, 2018

WASHINGTON — The United States has identified at least three Islamic State leaders accused of planning and directing an ambush last October in Niger that killed four American soldiers, officials said, locking the American military in an additional and possibly lengthy campaign to hunt and kill members of a little-known extremist group in northwest Africa.

The group, known as ISIS in the Greater Sahara, claimed responsibility in January for the Oct. 4 attack. The group was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department two weeks ago.

One of the three militants that led the ambush, Doundoun Cheffou, is most likely alive, according to government documents that were described to The New York Times by two United States military officials who were not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The other two militants — Tinka ag Almouner and Al Mahmoud ag Baye, the latter of whom is believed to have trailed the team of Americans until shortly before they were attacked — were killed in the ambush.

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Two higher-ranking militants are also likely alive and connected to the attack, although it is unclear how, according to one of the military officials.

Mr. Cheffou’s whereabouts is unknown, according to the documents. The American soldiers and Nigerien troops were searching for Mr. Cheffou, a one-time cattle herder and a senior lieutenant of a former affiliate of Al Qaeda, when they left their base on the fateful mission in October that was later code-named Operation Desolate Bastion by the Pentagon.

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In April, Nigerien officials told American commanders that they had captured a suspect they believed might be Mr. Cheffou. “But upon further scrutiny, it was determined it was not him,” Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of the military’s Africa Command, told reporters this month.

Video

VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS By David Botti, Christoph Koettl, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Malachy Browne 3:10
How the Ambush of U.S. Soldiers in Niger Unfolded
One of the American soldiers ambushed by militants in Niger was wearing a helmet camera – we analyzed the footage to understand what happened.Published OnMarch 19, 2018
Representatives from American Special Operations Forces and the State Department — and, most likely, the C.I.A. — met at a base in Niger last month to examine a web of intelligence surrounding the ambush.

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They singled out high-ranking militants that led the group of fighters that attacked the team of United States soldiers, including Green Berets, and their Nigerien counterparts. But the officials at the meeting also identified roughly 20 low-level fighters, according to the documents that outline the discussion. The Pentagon has said that the American team involved in the ambush killed 20 to 25 militants.

At the meeting, the officials also discussed methods to help track the militants who participated in and helped orchestrate the ambush — an endeavor that could take years. The American military and national intelligence agencies are still searching for the militants responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012, strike on diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

French and Nigerien security officials say ISIS in the Greater Sahara has 40 to 60 core members. It is often joined by sympathetic villagers, and it has temporary alliances with other local groups — two avenues of support that can be mobilized quickly.

The branch and its leader, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, sought the recognition of the Islamic State in 2015 after breaking from Al-Mourabitoun, a Qaeda splinter group, according to a statement released by the State Department.

“This ambush made us really realize the threats out there are more organized than we thought,” Col. Maj. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of the Nigerien Special Forces, said in an interview last month, noting that the militants have also threatened village elders if they cooperate with the authorities. “Villages and hide-outs are only one or two hours apart, and the terrorists can react very fast.”

Mr. Cheffou has been connected to the kidnapping of an American aid worker, Jeffery Woodke, in Niger. In October, American intelligence agencies tracked his location to the Niger-Mali border by a ping from his cellphone. Mr. Cheffou was gone by the time the Special Forces team arrived at his camp, but hours later he was coordinating the fated ambush, according to the documents.

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The American military initially assigned Mr. Cheffou the code name Objective Naylor Road; he since has been renamed Objective Urchin Reef.

Image
Soldiers saluted as taps played Thursday during a memorial ceremony at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The names of four Special Forces soldiers killed in the ambush in Niger were among those added to the memorial wall there.CreditAndrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer, via Associated Press
The Oct. 4 attack lasted hours, separating members of the 11-man American team. An abbreviated video released by the Pentagon on May 10 detailed parts of the ambush.

A few days later, the Pentagon released a fuller version of the video, showing that the American and Nigerien troops who survived the initial ambush were attacked a second time — by friendly fire from Nigerien military forces who had been sent to rescue the troops and mistook them for the enemy.

By then, four Nigerien troops, an interpreter and four American soldiers had been killed in the ambush. Around 12:50 p.m. — having been under fire for more than an hour — 11 American and Nigerien troops fled through a swamp and broke contact with pursuing fighters. They stopped at a clearing at the edge of the swamp and prepared to make a last stand, mounting a hasty defense.

They wrote short messages to their loved ones on personal devices, according to the video, believing they would soon be overrun. The arrival of French fighter jets, which made several low passes over the area, most likely saved the lives of the remaining team members by keeping the attackers at bay, the Pentagon has concluded.

But the team still was not out of danger. When the Nigerien response team arrived around 4:40 p.m. it “mistook the team members for enemy forces,” the video says, “firing on them for 48 seconds” with automatic weapons. No one was injured.

It was not until 4:55 p.m. that French commandos and Nigerien forces secured the area, enabling French helicopters to land and evacuate the survivors of the ambush.

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Though the video asserted that none of the slain American troops were taken alive, the documents show that militants recovered the soldiers’ equipment, including advanced radios, night vision equipment, grenade launchers, personal rifles and some of the medium machine guns probably mounted to their vehicles.

In March, militias in Mali recovered a black sport utility vehicle that was driven by American troops during the ambush, along with an American medium machine gun and a sniper rifle that belonged to the team, according to the documents.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on May 30, 2018, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Identifies 3 Militants From Branch of ISIS Who Led an Ambush in Niger. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribehttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/us/politics/ ... niger.html

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

some fantastic news...US trops will be reduced.
One can hope only that this means that many US-basis will close as well.
I assume for strategic reasons the one in niger and somalia will remain....thus a little more lobbying and events are required to get them to rethink about closing them as well...
Special Operations Forces in Africa Likely to Face Cuts in Major Military Review
Image
An American Special Forces soldier training Nigerien troops during an exercise in April outside Agadez, Niger.CreditTara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt
June 4, 2018

25
WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces are likely to be sharply cut in Africa as a result of a new Pentagon strategy that focuses on combating rising threats from Russia and China and, in turn, is driving a sweeping review of the nation’s elite commando missions.

The review, ordered by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in recent weeks, could result in slashing counterterrorism forces in Africa by as much as half over the next three years. It was issued amid an ongoing Pentagon assessment of Special Operations forces worldwide after an ambush in Niger killed four American soldiers last fall.

More than 7,300 Special Operations troops are working around the world, many of them conducting shadow wars against terrorists in Yemen, Libya, Somalia and other hot spots. The Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., has also assumed important new missions in recent years, like taking the lead on combating weapons of mass destruction.

Pentagon officials said Mr. Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are worried that the commandos are spread too thin. The two leaders have ordered the military’s Special Operations and Africa commands to present a range of options by mid-June to balance rising security challenges — which also include North Korea and Iran — with vital counterterrorism operations.

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Last month’s Pentagon investigation of the deadly attack in Niger exposed a risk-taking culture among commandos. That accelerated Mr. Mattis’s decision to abandon some counterterrorism missions in Africa to focus on global powers, according to two Defense Department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We need to do C.T. more efficiently and effectively,” said Stephen Tankel, a former senior Pentagon adviser and author of a new book, “With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror.”

The potential changes are part of a transition period to focus on growing threats from Russia and China, as outlined in the Trump administration’s national defense strategy released in January.

That transition has been complicated by increasing friction between General Dunford, a polished, politically savvy Marine who is very close to Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine general himself, and Gen. Tony Thomas, a blunt, hard-charging Army Ranger who heads the Special Operations Command, according to five current and retired senior military officers and Pentagon officials.

The two generals have starkly different personal demeanors; one retired senior officer who knows both men well called General Dunford “Athens” and General Thomas “Sparta” to illustrate their styles of leadership.
l officials said General Dunford is said to be frustrated with General Thomas’s occasional verbal gaffes. In one example, at a Special Operations conference last month, General Thomas made a teasing reference to a 2016 incident involving the Tampa mayor, who had joked that he was pretending to shoot a machine gun at the news media during the city’s hostage rescue demonstrations.

In a brief interview the next day, General Thomas apologized for the remarks about the news media. Later, through a spokesman, he dismissed any tension with General Dunford, saying, “I’m extremely grateful for leadership who allow S.O.F. to thrive and remain relevant to our national defense strategy,” referring to Special Operations forces.

A spokesman for General Dunford, Col. Patrick Ryder, said the Joint Chiefs chairman had “utmost confidence in and respect for” General Thomas, and said any suggestion that the two men were at odds was “patently false.”

Even before Mr. Mattis’s directive, the Special Operations Command had started relying on conventional troops to help handle some of the missions it had accumulated since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In places where Special Operations troops are frequently in combat, such as Afghanistan and Syria, regular soldiers and Marines are sometimes attached to commando units as additional security or firepower in what is known the “uplift” program.

Image
American military personnel unfurling the American and Nigerien flags at the Air Base 201 compound in Agadez. An ambush in Niger killed four American soldiers last fall, prompting an ongoing Pentagon assessment of Special Operations forces worldwide.CreditTara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
In the past two years, the Army has also slowly begun standing up small brigades — usually of roughly 1,000 soldiers — specifically to take on advisory missions that are often specific to Special Forces troops and larger military units.

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Soldiers are selectively recruited for those Security Force Assistance Brigades instead of taxing regular Army forces for the advisory missions.

While the Army plans to field six of the advisory units, only one is fully staffed. It is currently deployed to Afghanistan, where it is facing difficulties that advisory soldiers have dealt with in the past: inexperience with local troops and a stringent military bureaucracy.

At the same time, in a nod to the increasing concern about the Russian military, more Special Operations teams have been sent to the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — and Eastern Europe to help local commando forces identify and confront possible threats from Moscow.

Nearly a decade ago, almost 13,000 Special Operations troops were deployed on missions around the globe, but a large majority were assigned to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, about 7,300 American commandos are operating in 92 countries. About half of them are posted outside the Middle East and South Asia, according to the Special Operations Command.

About 1,200 of those troops are on missions in Africa, and they face the most immediate likelihood of reductions. The Africa Command has been asked how it would conduct its counterterrorism missions on the continent if the number of commandos there was cut by 25 percent over 18 months, and by 50 percent over three years.

That would leave about 700 troops — roughly the same number as in 2014, according to data from the Africa Command’s special operations branch. By comparison, there were 70 Special Operations troops on the continent in 2006.

Some of the reassigned troops could be put on potential missions against Russia or China. Or, officials said, they could rotate into deployments to ease the strain on American commandos who have repeatedly been sent abroad.

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Maj. Sheryll I. Klinkel, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the specific planning reductions being considered but confirmed that the military’s Joint Staff had directed the review of the Africa Command’s force levels.

“In light of the National Defense Strategy’s updated priorities, the Joint Staff consistently reviews plans, operations and military investments across the globe to develop the best options that address the constantly evolving threat to U.S. national interests,” Major Klinkel said in an email.

She underscored that no final decisions had been made.

Since the deadly Oct. 4 ambush in Niger, Special Operations forces have gradually reduced the number of missions on which American advisers accompany African troops on risky operations. Those that are approved must first be vetted by officers up the chain of command who are required to take a tougher, more cautious approach when weighing the risks involved.

American commandos in Africa are now sent only on missions with local forces that are determined to have significant strategic effect, like building a new base or clearing extremists from a large area. Armed drones or other protective aircraft must accompany such missions.

If those conditions are not met, the American troops will work from fortified command centers to advise African forces on intelligence, logistics, artillery and other aspects of big operations that are important — but not as prominent as front-line combat against a range of groups aligned with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

A Pentagon investigation into the Niger attack found a “general lack” of “command oversight at every echelon.”

Army commandos saw the findings as an attack on the culture of the Special Operations forces by high-ranking conventional military officers who did not understand the nature and demands of the job in difficult environments.


25
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Helene Cooper contributed reporting. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/worl ... owers.html

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Well done. A good summarising article...all right.
The US learned the wrong lessons from the Niger ambush
by Marcel Plichta
| June 02, 2018 12:00 AM

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Niger Attack
American policymakers fail to see the Sahel region outside the lens of counterterrorism.
(Department of Defense via AP)
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The war against al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Africa is a frequently-overlooked part of America's counterterrorism effort.

Although the deaths of four Americans in Niger on October 4 brought America’s presence in Africa to the forefront of the national consciousness, the response to the tragic experience does not address the fundamental shortcomings of U.S. engagement in the Sahel region. Rather than rely on counterterrorism operations, policymakers must formulate a regional approach to contend with the political and economic roots of the conflict.

American policymakers fail to see the Sahel outside the lens of counterterrorism. Even those who are supposed to approach the region from non-security perspectives, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, view the conflict in narrow and militaristic terms. And, while Congress was keen to understand what went wrong during the operation on October 4, the actual policy changes have come entirely from the Department of Defense.



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A declassified summary of the investigation into the incident, released May 10, recommended only minor changes. These reforms, while important to the tactical picture, do not address the overarching strategic problems with U.S. operations in Niger and the Sahel region.

The United States has been focusing on how to fight in the Sahel instead of how to win, and no one is more aware of these shortcomings than U.S. Africa Command itself. When General Waldhauser, head of AFRICOM, testified before Congress in March 2018, he affirmed that “very few, if any, of the challenges on the African continent can be resolved in the military use of force.” AFRICOM’s construction of an airfield in Agadez and altered mission guidelines is all well and good, but real political and economic development in the Sahel requires significant reforms beyond the military.

The main focus of the U.S. mission in Sahel, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert S. Karem, is to provide security force assistance to the Nigerien government, but a more capable Nigerien army is not the solution to the region’s problems. In fact, large sections of the population see security forces as a threat to their safety rather than a guarantor of it. Security force assistance in Niger also comes at the expense of security sector reform and non-military development efforts, leaving the country and its counterterrorism partners in the region with more effective militaries—but little else.

Senior U.S. policymakers have also failed to address the localized nature of violence in the region. Jihadi groups more often originate from local-level ethnic or tribal disputes than religious convictions, with the party that feels weaker seeking out the protection and material benefits of a jihadi patron. Many groups have no fixed loyalties to al Qaeda or ISIS, and they frequently change affiliations between them.

U.S. strategy is ill-suited to dealing with these local dynamics. The only thing accomplished by reducing the violence to a battle between legitimate states and terrorists is the undercutting any potential political settlements.

When the main problem is radical groups co-opting local grievances, the U.S. needs to articulate to the government of Niger and its neighbors how responsible governance will undermine Jihadi rhetoric. Poor governance is one of the factors that generated threats to the regime in the first place, so policymakers should seriously consider how to strengthen civil governance and spur economic development, rather than focus solely on improving the security forces. A variety of development efforts, including some by USAID, are underway, but a thoughtful whole-of-government approach from the U.S. would allow it to continue helping the Sahel states and pressure them to institute democratic reforms responsive to the needs of their long-abused citizens.

The United States cannot achieve stability in the Sahel through half-measures. There either needs to be a substantive plan to address the root causes of regional instability, or a significantly lighter U.S. military presence in the region. As it stands, a prolonged engagement in the Sahel with no clear endgame will only divert sorely-needed funds and manpower from other missions to a fight which the military cannot win alone.

Marcel Plichta, a postgraduate student in Global Security at the University of Glasgow, has been writing about U.S. policy in sub-Saharan Africa since 2015.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... ger-ambush

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Amie and Nick...guess they wont get best freinds with US-armee..
:lol:



democracynow.org/shows/2017/10/27

US presence creates terrorism! This view is shared by so many observers now :scratch:

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

I post this here since it is from the post.

Just a glimpse of what awaits the US (based on the French experiences), particularly in the north.

Once they turn up the heat and conduct drone strikes, for sure Islamists will even come from far away after them.
Distances are relative in the desert...I would expect that the rayon of action of drones will dictate participation in the "party". Some will feel invited and pay them a visit. Get ready in the north of niger.
Or technically speaking: "Without a rapid reaction force and gunship, your base is quite vulnerable. That is not your mandate.
Are you willing to escalate to ensure your own security?"

malikos
The Washington Post

Africa
Car bomb kills 4 in Mali, 3rd extremist attack in 3 days

In this photo taken on Wednesday May, 30, 2018, a member of the Army stand guard at the entrance of the headquarters of a new five-nation West African counterterror force, in Mali. A car packed with explosives detonated at the headquarters of a new, five-nation West African counterterror force, setting off a gun battle that left at least two soldiers and two attackers dead and several soldiers wounded, officials with the Mali-based force told The Associated Press on Friday, June 29, 2018. (Baba Ahmed/Associated Press)
by Baba Ahmed | AP July 1

BAMAKO, Mali — A suicide car bomb aimed at a patrol of French soldiers has killed four civilians Sunday in Gao in northern Mali, said officials.

The suspected extremist attack is the third in three days in Mali, which is preparing for presidential elections on July 29.

“French soldiers in armored vehicles were patrolling ... when a gray-colored 4X4 car drove by them before exploding,” said Atayoub Maiga, a Gao resident who witnessed the explosion.

“I saw French helicopters coming to the scene of the attack and evacuating wounded,” he said.

According to the Malian Ministry of Homeland Security said that 31 were wounded, including eight French soldiers.

This is the third attack targeting military forces in Mali in the past three days. Two soldiers and one civilian were killed on Friday in the car bomb attack on the G5 Sahel force command post in the central town of Sevare. The al-Qaida affiliate in Mali has claimed responsibility for that attack. On Saturday at least four Malian soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a land mine in the Koro area in central Mali.

The recent series of attacks are creating doubts about how Mali will be able to secure safe elections at the end of July.

In 2012, northern Mali was occupied by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida before being expelled a year later by French forces. Although the extremists no longer control major cities, they are in the countryside and frequently carry out attacks.

The brazen attacks highlight the extremist threat in West Africa that made headlines in October with the killing of four U.S. service members in an ambush in neighboring Niger.

The assaults come shortly before French President Emmanuel Macron and African leaders meet at an African Union summit on Monday in Mauritania, with the regional extremist threat on the agenda.

A number of extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are active in Mali, often targeting local security forces and the world’s deadliest active U.N. peacekeeping mission. They also have staged high-profile attacks in the capitals of Mali and Burkina Faso, including simultaneous assaults on the French Embassy and army headquarters in Burkina Faso’s capital in March.

The 5,000-strong G5 Sahel force launched last year brings together troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania. It has received millions of dollars in backing from the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and others.

The new force joins multiple counterterror efforts in the Sahel region including France’s largest overseas military deployment, Operation Barkhane, which has 3,000 French troops in the region which are based in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.

___

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/af ... fe70af7bbc

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Identification:
Minute 1:47 on voit des officier Tunesien ou Marrocain?
Avatar de l’utilisateur

tahiadidou
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Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par tahiadidou »

ANP bien sur. C'est très clair.
Pour quelqu'un qui arrive a reconnaitre un camion flouté, tu m'étonnes...

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

Merci tahiadidou. Non manque de expertise. Je suis civil.
(Je me attendais un truc vert pour les algerien, pas rouge)

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

THE U.S. IS BUILDING A DRONE BASE IN NIGER THAT WILL COST MORE THAN $280 MILLION BY 2024
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/21/us- ... er-africa/

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

.....we dont wanna have a base....but we need a base....aha.

malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: AFRICOM [United States Africa Command]

Message par malikos »

what does VEO mean?....anyway the maps clearly include algeria in the south and north... :affraid:

U.S. MILITARY SAYS IT HAS A “LIGHT FOOTPRINT” IN AFRICA. THESE DOCUMENTS SHOW A VAST NETWORK OF BASES.
Nick Turse
December 1 2018, 1:00 p.m.
THE U.S. MILITARY has long insisted that it maintains a “light footprint” in Africa, and there have been reports of proposed drawdowns in special operations forces and closures of outposts on the continent, due to a 2017 ambush in Niger and an increasing focus on rivals like China and Russia. But through it all, U.S. Africa Command has fallen short of providing concrete information about its bases on the continent, leaving in question the true scope of the American presence there.

Documents obtained from AFRICOM by The Intercept, via the Freedom of Information Act, however, offer a unique window onto the sprawling network of U.S. military outposts in Africa, including previously undisclosed or unconfirmed sites in hotspots like Libya, Niger, and Somalia. The Pentagon has also told The Intercept that troop reductions in Africa will be modest and phased-in over several years and that no outposts are expected to close as a result of the personnel cuts.

According to a 2018 briefing by AFRICOM science adviser Peter E. Teil, the military’s constellation of bases includes 34 sites scattered across the continent, with high concentrations in the north and west as well as the Horn of Africa. These regions, not surprisingly, have also seen numerous U.S. drone attacks and low-profile commando raids in recent years. For example, Libya — the site of drone and commando missions, but for which President Donald Trump said he saw no U.S. military role just last year — is nonetheless home to three previously undisclosed outposts.

“U.S. Africa Command’s posture plan is designed to secure strategic access to key locations on a continent characterized by vast distances and limited infrastructure,” Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander, told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, though he didn’t provide specifics on the number of bases. “Our posture network allows forward staging of forces to provide operational flexibility and timely response to crises involving U. S. personnel or interests without creating the optic that U. S. Africa Command is militarizing Africa.”

According to Adam Moore, an assistant professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles and an expert on the U.S. military’s presence in Africa, “It is getting harder for the U.S. military to plausibly claim that it has a ‘light footprint’ in Africa. In just the past five years, it has established what is perhaps the largest drone complex in the world in Djibouti — Chabelley — which is involved in wars on two continents, Yemen, and Somalia.” Moore also noted that the U.S. is building an even larger drone base in Agadez, Niger. “Certainly, for people living in Somalia, Niger, and Djibouti, the notion that the U.S. is not militarizing their countries rings false,” he added.

For the last 10 years, AFRICOM has not only sought to define its presence as limited in scope, but its military outposts as small, temporary, and little more than local bases where Americans are tenants. For instance, this is how Waldhauser described a low-profile drone outpost in Tunisia last year: “And it’s not our base, it’s the Tunisians’ base.” On a visit to a U.S. facility in Senegal this summer, the AFRICOM chief took pains to emphasize that the U.S. had no intension of establishing a permanent base there. Still, there’s no denying the scope of AFRICOM’s network of outposts, nor the growth in infrastructure. Air Forces Africa alone, the command’s air component, has recently completed or is currently working on nearly 30 construction projects across four countries in Africa. “The U.S. footprint on the African continent has grown markedly over the last decade to promote U.S. security interests on the continent,” Navy Cmdr. Candice Tresch, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Intercept.

While China, France, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates have increased their own military engagement in Africa in recent years and a number of countries now possess outposts on the continent, none approach the wide-ranging U.S. footprint. China, for example, has just one base in Africa – a facility in Djibouti.

According to the documents obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act, AFRICOM’s network of bases includes larger “enduring” outposts, consisting of forward operating sites, or FOSes, and cooperative security locations, or CSLs, as well as more numerous austere sites known as contingency locations, or CLs. All of these are located on the African continent except for an FOS on Britain’s Ascension Island in the south Atlantic. Teil’s map of AFRICOM’s “Strategic Posture” names the specific locations of all 14 FOSes and CSLs and provides country-specific locales for the 20 contingency locations. The Pentagon would not say whether the tally was exhaustive, however, citing concerns about publicly providing the number of forces deployed to specific facilities or individual countries. “For reasons of operational security, complete and specific force lay-downs are not releasable,” said Tresch.

While troops and outposts periodically come and go from the continent, and some locations used by commandos conducting sensitive missions are likely kept under wraps, Teil’s map represents the most current and complete accounting available and indicates the areas of the continent of greatest concern to Africa Command. “The distribution of bases suggests that the U.S. military is organized around three counter-terrorism theaters in Africa: the Horn of Africa — Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya; Libya; and the Sahel — Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso,” says Moore, noting that the U.S. has only one base in the south of the continent and has scaled back engagement in Central Africa in recent years.

AFRICOM-bases-1543529943 U.S. Africa Command’s “Strategic Posture” — listing 34 military outposts — from a 2018 briefing by Science Advisor Peter E. Teil. Image: U.S. Africa Command
Niger, Somalia, and Kenya
Teil’s briefing confirms, for the first time, that the U.S. military currently has more sites in Niger — five, including two cooperative security locations — than any other country on the western side of the continent. Niamey, the country’s capital, is the location of Air Base 101, a longtime U.S. drone outpost attached to Diori Hamani International Airport; the site of a Special Operations Advanced Operations Base; and the West Africa node for AFRICOM’s contractor-provided personnel recovery and casualty evacuation services. The other CSL, in the remote smuggling hub of Agadez, is set to become the premier U.S. military outpost in West Africa. That drone base, located at Nigerien Air Base 201, not only boasts a $100 million construction price tag but, with operating expenses, is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers more than a quarter-billion dollars by 2024 when the 10-year agreement for its use ends.

Officially, a CSL is neither “a U.S. facility or base.” It is, according to the military, “simply a location that, when needed and with the permission of the partner country, can be used by U.S. personnel to support a wide range of contingencies.” The sheer dimensions, cost, and importance of Agadez seems to suggest otherwise. “Judging by its size and the infrastructure investments to date, Agadez more resembles massive bases that the military created in Iraq and Afghanistan than a small, unobtrusive, ‘lily pad,’” says Moore.

The U.S. military presence in Niger gained widespread exposure last year when an October 4 ambush by ISIS in the Greater Sahara near the Mali border killed four U.S. soldiers, including Green Berets, and wounded two others. A Pentagon investigation into the attack shed additional light on other key U.S. military sites in Niger including Ouallam and Arlit, where Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed in 2017, and Maradi, where SOF were sent in 2016. Arlit also appeared as a proposed contingency location in a formerly secret 2015 AFRICOM posture plan obtained by The Intercept. Ouallam, which was listed in contracting documents brought to light by The Intercept last year, was the site of an SOF effort to train and equip a Nigerien counterterrorism company as well as another effort to conduct operations with other local units. Contracting documents from 2017 also noted the need for 4,400 gallons per month of gasoline, 1,100 gallons per month of diesel fuel, and 6,000 gallons of aviation turbine fuel to be delivered, every 90 days, to a “military installation” in Dirkou.

While the five bases in Niger anchor the west of the continent, the five U.S. outposts in Somalia are tops in the east. Somalia is the East Africa hub for contractor-provided personnel recovery and casualty evacuation services as well as the main node for the military’s own personnel recovery and casualty evacuation operations. These sites, revealed in AFRICOM maps for the first time, do not include a CIA base revealed in 2014 by The Nation.

All U.S. military facilities in Somalia, by virtue of being contingency locations, are unnamed on AFRICOM’s 2018 map. Previously, Kismayo has been identified as a key outpost, while the declassified 2015 AFRICOM posture plan names proposed CLs in Baidoa, Bosaaso, and the capital, Mogadishu, as well as Berbera in the self-declared state of Somaliland. If locations on Teil’s map are accurate, one of the Somali sites is located in this latter region. Reporting by Vice News earlier this year indicated there were actually six new U.S facilities being constructed in Somalia as well as the expansion of Baledogle, a base for which a contract for “emergency runway repairs” was recently issued.

According to top secret documents obtained by The Intercept in 2015, elite troops from a unit known as Task Force 48-4 were involved in drone attacks in Somalia earlier this decade. This air war has continued in the years since. The U.S. has already conducted 36 air strikes in Somalia this year, compared to 34 for all of 2017 and 15 in 2016, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Somalia’s neighbor, Kenya, boasts four U.S. bases. These include cooperative security locations at Mombasa as well as Manda Bay, where a 2013 Pentagon study of secret drone operations in Somalia and Yemen noted that two manned fixed-wing aircraft were then based. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan also mentions contingency locations at Lakipia, the site of a Kenyan Air Force base, and another Kenyan airfield at Wajir that was upgraded and expanded by the U.S. Navy earlier in this decade.

Libya, Tunisia, and Djibouti
Teil’s map shows a cluster of three unnamed and previously unreported contingency locations near the Libyan coastline. Since 2011, the U.S. has carried out approximately 550 drone strikes targeting al Qaeda and Islamic State militants in the restive North African nation. During a four-month span in 2016, for example, there were around 300 such attacks, according to U.S. officials. That’s seven times more than the 42 confirmed U.S. drone strikes carried out in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan combined for all of 2016, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a London-based nonprofit news organization. The Libya attacks have continued under the Trump administration, with the latest acknowledged U.S. drone strike occurring near Al Uwaynat on November 29. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan listed only an outpost at Al-Wigh, a Saharan airfield near that country’s borders with Niger, Chad, and Algeria, located far to the south of the three current CLs.

Africa Command’s map also shows a contingency location in neighboring Tunisia, possibly Sidi Ahmed Air Base, a key regional U.S. drone outpost that has played an important role in air strikes in Libya in recent years. “You know, flying intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones out of Tunisia has been taking place for quite some time,” said Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander, last year. “[W]e fly there, it’s not a secret, but we are very respectful to the Tunisians’ desires in terms of, you know, how we support them and the fact that we have [a] low profile…”

Djibouti is home to the crown jewel of U.S. bases on the continent, Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion outpost and AFRICOM’s lone forward operating site on the continent. A longtime hub for counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia and the home of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF–HOA), Camp Lemonnier hosts around 4,000 U.S. and allied personnel, and, according to Teil, is the “main platform” for U.S. crisis response forces in Africa. Since 2002, the base has expanded from 88 acres to nearly 600 acres and spun off a satellite outpost — a cooperative security location 10 kilometers to the southwest, where drone operations in the country were relocated in 2013. Chabelley Airfield has gone on to serve as an integral base for missions in Somalia and Yemen as well as the drone war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “United States military personnel remain deployed to Djibouti, including for purposes of posturing for counterterrorism and counter-piracy operations in the vicinity of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and to provide contingency support for embassy security augmentation in East Africa,” President Donald Trump noted in June.

AFRICOM-strat-posture-EUCOM-bases-1543529964 A map of U.S. military bases — forward operating sites, cooperative security locations, and contingency locations — across the African continent from declassified Fiscal Year 2015 U.S. Africa Command planning documents. Image: U.S. Africa Command
Cameroon, Mali, and Chad
AFRICOM’s strategic posture also includes two contingency locations in Cameroon. One is an outpost in the north of the country, known as CL Garoua, which is used to fly drone missions and also as a base for the Army’s Task Force Darby, which supports Cameroonian forces fighting the terrorist group Boko Haram. Cameroon is also home to a longtime outpost in Douala as well as U.S. facilities in Maroua and a nearby base called Salak, which is also used by U.S. personnel and private contractors for training missions and drone surveillance. In 2017, Amnesty International, the London-based research firm Forensic Architecture, and The Intercept exposed illegal imprisonment, torture, and killings by Cameroonian troops at Salak.

In neighboring Mali, there are two contingency locations. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan lists proposed CLs in Gao and Mali’s capital, Bamako. The 2018 map also notes the existence of a CSL in Chad’s capital N’Djamena, a site where the U.S. began flying drones earlier this decade; it’s also the headquarters of a Special Operations Command and Control Element, an elite battalion-level command. Another unidentified contingency location in Chad could be a CL in Faya Largeau, which was mentioned in AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan.

In Gabon, a cooperative security location exists in Libreville. Last year, U.S. troops carried out an exercise there to test their ability to turn the Libreville CSL into a forward command post to facilitate an influx of a large number of forces. A CSL can also be found in Accra, Ghana, and another CSL is located on a small compound at Captain Andalla Cissé Air Base in Dakar, Senegal. “This location is very important to us because it helps mitigate the time and space on the continent the size of Africa,” said AFRICOM commander Waldhauser while visiting the Senegalese capital earlier this year.

Only one base lies in the far south of the continent, a CSL in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, that is run by the Army. To its north, CSL Entebbe in Uganda has long been an important air base for American forces in Africa, serving as a hub for surveillance aircraft. It also proved integral to Operation Oaken Steel, the July 2016 rapid deployment of troops to rescue U.S. personnel after fighting broke out near the American Embassy in Juba, South Sudan.

“We Have Increased the Firepower”
In May, responding to questions about measures taken after the October 2017 ambush in Niger, Waldhauser spoke of fortifying the U.S. presence on the continent. “We have increased, which I won’t go into details here, but we have increased the firepower, we’ve increased the ISR [intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance] capacity, we’ve increased various response times,” he said. “So we have beefed up a lot of things posture-wise with regard to these forces.” This firepower includes drones. “We have been arming out of Niger, and we’ll use that as appropriate,” Waldhauser noted this summer, alluding to the presence of armed remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs, now based there.

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AFRICOM did not respond to multiple requests to interview Waldhauser.

After months of reports that the Defense Department was considering a major drawdown of Special Operations forces in Africa as well as the closure of military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, the Pentagon now says that less than 10 percent of 7,200 forces assigned to AFRICOM will be withdrawn over several years and no bases will close as a result. In fact, U.S. base construction in Africa is booming. Air Forces Africa spokesperson Auburn Davis told The Intercept that the Air Force recently completed 21 construction projects in Kenya, Tunisia, Niger and Djibouti and currently has seven others underway in Niger and Djibouti.

“The proliferation of bases in the Sahel, Libya, and Horn of Africa suggests that AFRICOM’s counterterrorism missions in those regions of the continent will continue indefinitely,” Moore told The Intercept. Hours after Moore made those comments, the Pentagon announced that six firms had been named under a potential five-year, $240 million contract for design and construction services for naval facilities in Africa, beginning with the expansion of the tarmac at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/u-s ... -of-bases/
Dernière modification par malikos le 06 décembre 2018, 23:58, modifié 1 fois.
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