{"id":67012,"date":"2015-11-30T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=67012"},"modified":"2015-11-30T00:40:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T00:40:21","slug":"in-mali-and-rest-of-africa-the-u-s-military-fights-a-hidden-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/11\/in-mali-and-rest-of-africa-the-u-s-military-fights-a-hidden-war\/","title":{"rendered":"In Mali and Rest of Africa, the U.S. Military Fights a Hidden War"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 Nov 2015 – <\/em>The general leading the U.S. military\u2019s hidden war in Africa says the continent is now home to nearly 50 terrorist organizations and \u201cillicit groups\u201d that threaten U.S. interests. And today, gunmen reportedly yelling \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali\u2019s capital and seized several dozen hostages. U.S. special operations forces are \u201ccurrently assisting hostage recovery efforts,\u201d a Pentagon spokesperson said, and U.S. personnel have \u201chelped move civilians to secured locations, as Malian forces clear the hotel of hostile gunmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Republic<\/a>

Republic of Mali and U.S. Special Operations Forces troops stand in formation during the opening ceremony of the Flintlock 10 Exercise held May 3, 2010, in Bamako, Mali.
Donald Sparks\/AFRICOM<\/p><\/div>\n

In Mali, groups like Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa have long posed a threat. Major terrorist groups in Africa include al Shabaab, Boko Haram and al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). In the wake of the Paris attacks by ISIS, attention has been drawn to ISIS affiliates in Egypt<\/a> and Libya<\/a>, too. But what are the dozens of other groups in Africa that the Pentagon is fighting with more special operations forces, more outposts, and more missions than ever?<\/p>\n

For the most part, the Pentagon won\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, chief of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, made a little-noticed comment earlier this month about these terror groups. After describing ISIS as a transnational and transregional threat, he went on to tell the audience of the Defense One Summit, \u201cAlthough ISIS is a concern, so is al Shabaab, so is the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army in Central Africa and the 43 other illicit groups that operate in the area \u2026 Boko Haram, AQIM, and other small groups in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolduc mentioned only a handful of terror groups by name, so I asked for clarification from the Department of Defense, Africa Command (Africom), and Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA). None offered any names, let alone a complete accounting. SOCAFRICA did not respond to multiple queries by The Intercept<\/em>. Africom spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo would only state, \u201cI have nothing further for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the State Department maintains a list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), including 10 operating in Africa (ISIS, Boko Haram, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, al Shabaab, AQIM, Ansaru, Ansar al-Din, Ansar al-Shari\u2019a in Tunisia, as well as Libya\u2019s Ansar al-Shari\u2019a in Benghazi and Ansar al-Shari\u2019a in Darnah), it \u201cdoes not provide the DoD any legal or policy approval,\u201d according to Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Defense Department spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DoD does not maintain a separate or similar list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations for the government,\u201d she said in an email to The Intercept<\/em>. \u201cIn general, not all groups of armed individuals on the African continent that potentially present a threat to U.S. interests would be subject to FTO. DoD works closely with the Intel Community, Inter-Agency, and the [National Security Council] to continuously monitor threats to U.S. interests; and when required, identifies, tracks, and presents options to mitigate threats to U.S. persons overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time the Defense Department has been unable or unwilling to name the groups it\u2019s fighting. In 2013, The Intercept<\/em>\u2019s Cora Currier, then writing for ProPublica, asked for a full list of America\u2019s war-on-terror enemies and was told<\/a> by a Pentagon spokesperson that public disclosure of the names could increase the prestige and recruitment prowess of the groups and do \u201cserious damage to national security.\u201d Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School who served as a legal counsel during the George W. Bush administration, told Currier that the Pentagon\u2019s rationale was weak and there was a \u201cvery important interest in the public knowing who the government is fighting against in its name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The secret of whom the U.S. military is fighting extends to Africa. Since 9\/11, U.S. military efforts on the continent have grown in every conceivable way, from funding and manpower to missions and outposts, while at the same time the number of transnational terror groups has increased in linear fashion, according to the military. The reasons for this are murky. Is it a spillover from events in the Middle East and Central Asia? Are U.S. operations helping to spawn and spread terror groups? Is the Pentagon inflating the terror threat for its own gain? Is the rise of these terrorist organizations due to myriad local factors? Or more likely, is it a combination of these and other reasons? The task of answering these questions is made more difficult when no one in the military is willing to name more than a handful of the transnational terror groups that are classified as America\u2019s enemies.<\/p>\n

Before 9\/11, Africa seemed to be free of transnational terror threats, according to the U.S. government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2000, for example, a report prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College\u2019s Strategic Studies Institute examined the \u201cAfrican security environment.\u201d While noting the existence of \u201cinternal separatist or rebel movements\u201d in \u201cweak states,\u201d as well as militias and \u201cwarlord armies,\u201d it made no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terror threats.<\/p>\n

In early 2002, a senior Pentagon official speaking on background told<\/a> reporters that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan might drive \u201cterrorists\u201d out of that nation and into Africa.\u00a0\u201cTerrorists associated with al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be present in this region,\u201d he said. \u201cThese terrorists will, of course, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed about genuine transnational threats, the official drew attention to Somali militants, specifically several hundred members of al Itihaad al Islamiya \u2014 a forerunner<\/a> of al Shabaab \u2014 but admitted that even the most extreme members \u201creally have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.\u201d Questioned about ties between Osama bin Laden\u2019s core al Qaeda group and African militants, the official offered tenuous links, like bin Laden\u2019s \u201csalute\u201d to Somali fighters who killed U.S. troops during the infamous 1993 Black Hawk Down incident.<\/p>\n

The U.S. nonetheless deployed military personnel to Africa in 2002, while the State Department launched a big-budget counterterrorism program, known as the Pan Sahel Initiative, to enhance the capabilities of the militaries of Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. In 2005, that program expanded to include Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia and was renamed the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership.<\/p>\n

In the years that followed, the U.S. increased its efforts. In 2014, for example, the U.S. carried out 674 military missions across the continent \u2014 an average of nearly two per day and an increase of about 300 percent since U.S. Africa Command was launched in 2008. The U.S. also took part in a number of multinational military interventions, including a coalition<\/a> war<\/a> in Libya, assistance to French and African forces fighting militants in Central African Republic and Mali, and the training and funding of African proxies to do battle against extremist groups like al Shabaab and Boko Haram.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has also carried out a shadow war of special ops raids<\/a>, drone strikes<\/a> and other<\/a> attacks<\/a>, as well as an expanding number of training missions<\/a> by elite\u00a0forces. U.S. special operations teams are now deployed to 23 African countries \u201cseven days a week, 24\/7,\u201d according to Bolduc. \u201cThe most effective thing that we do is about 1,400 SOF operators and supporters integrated with our partner nation, integrated with our allies and other coalition partners in a way that allows us to take advantage of each other\u2019s capabilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military has also set up a network of bases<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 although it is loath to refer to them in such terms. A recent report by The Intercept<\/em>, relying on classified documents leaked by a whistleblower, detailed an archipelago of outposts<\/a> integral to a secret drone assassination program that was based at the premier U.S. facility on the African continent, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. That base alone has expanded<\/a> since 2002 from 88 acres to nearly 600 acres, with more than $600 million allocated or awarded for projects and $1.2 billion in construction and improvements planned<\/a> for the future.<\/p>\n

A continent relatively free of transnational terror threats in 2001 is \u2014 after almost 14 years of U.S. military efforts \u2014 now rife with them, in the Pentagon\u2019s view. Bolduc said the African continent is \u201cas lethal and dangerous an environment as anywhere else in the world,\u201d and specifically invoked ISIS, which he called \u201ca transnational threat, a transregional threat, as are all threats that we deal with in Africa.\u201d But the Pentagon would not specify whether the threat levels are stable, increasing, or decreasing. \u201cI can\u2019t get into any details regarding threats or future operations,\u201d Lt. Col. Baldanza stated. \u201cI can say that we will continue to work with our African partners to enable them in their counterterrorism efforts as they further grow security and stability in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Bolduc tempered expectations that his troops might be able to transform the region in any significant way. \u201cThe military can only get you so far,\u201d he told the Defense One Summit audience. \u201cSo if I\u2019m asked to build a counter-violent extremist organization capability in a particular country, I can do that \u2026 but if there\u2019s not \u2026 a valid institution to plug it into, then we are there for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A top general says Africa is home to nearly 50 terrorist organizations and \u201cillicit groups\u201d that threaten U.S. interests. But the Pentagon refuses to name more than a handful of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}