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WASHINGTONPresident Barack Obama will announce an accord for a new and permanent U.S. military presence in Australia when he visits next week, a step aimed at countering China's influence and reasserting U.S. interest in the region, said people familiar with his plans.
The agreement will lead to an increase in U.S. naval operations off the coast of Australia and give American troops and ships "permanent and constant" access to Australian facilities, the people said. While no new American bases will be built under the plan, the arrangement will allow U.S. forces to place equipment in Australia and set up more joint exercises, they said.
The Pentagons shadow war in Africa could have a new front, if reports coming out of Nigeria are accurate. U.S. troops are headed to Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group that has killed up to 400 people this year in an escalating campaign of bombings and shootings. At least thats what Nigerian military sources tell Scott Morgan, a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes under the pseudonym Confused Eagle. The Guardian also has the story.
U.S. officials have refused to confirm the deployment.
Boko Haram, which means Western education is sinful, has developed its own distinct brand of terror in Nigeria by carrying out acts of violence in crowds, seeking to inflict as much bloodshed and damage as possible. The group has typically gone after domestic targets, including Nigerian police and government institutions, in what is believed to be an effort to create a Sharia-ruled state. But that all changed with a major suicide bomb attack on a United Nations building this year in the capital Abuja. The strike against the U.N. raised suspicion that Boko Haram, which has a stated Islamist agenda, is now operating on a larger scale, and strengthened the idea that it may have direct ties to al-Qaida.
Greg Barton is director of the Center for Islam and the Modern World at Monash University in Australia. Over the years they've changed their philosophy to focus on a more familiar jihadi world view that wants change in the country and sees itself as part of a global struggle. And they've made links with al-Shabab in Somalia and with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria, which is very worrying," he explained. "So they've broadened their list of aims and it means it's almost impossible to negotiate with them. The top officer in the U.S. military's Africa Command, General Carter Ham, has expressed concern about Boko Haram's claim to be receiving support from other al-Qaida linked groups in the region.
General Ham told a group of defense writers in September that he is especially concerned with the stated intent of these groups to work together. He said that intent has been voiced most clearly between al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, and Boko Haram. Last year (2010) AQIM publicly announced it would support Boko Haram with weapons and training. But the two groups have used different tactics. Operating in Mali, Niger and Algeria, AQIM is notorious for kidnappings - mostly of European workers and tourists - in alleged retaliation for foreign commercial exploitation of North Africa. On the other side of the continent, there is also evidence of a relationship between Boko Haram and Somalia's militant faction al-Shabab.
Abdi Samad, a security analyst with Southlink Consultants, says he witnessed the link firsthand during a visit to Somalia in 2008, when he saw a Nigerian man leading an al-Shabab operation to excavate the graves of Sufi sheikhs in the Lower Shabelle region. I have no doubt whatsoever there is a link between Boko Haram and al-Shabab, because when I heard Boko Haram - what they're doing in Nigeria - I vividly remember, my memory goes back to 2008, when I saw that tall guy, Nigerian, who was in charge of such operations. So I have a strong suspicion about the Boko Haram they have a link with al-Shabab," Samad said. "But, [to] what extent, that's the question. I don't know it, to be honest. I don't know it.
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