USA To Spend $125 Million On Training African Militaries To Fight The WOT

[NATO AIR]

hopefully this will help them out, as well as helping to bring greater stability to that part of the world.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0917/p06s01-woaf.html?s=hns

from the September 17, 2004 edition

US engages Africa in terror fight

The US is rolling out a nine-country, $125 million military training program.

By Abraham McLaughlin | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

LOUMIA, CHAD – It's a sweltering morning in Chad's scrub-brush desert. A herd of goats grazes on tufts of green. Round huts bake in the strengthening sun.
Suddenly the goats scatter as gunfire fills the air. Chadian soldiers behind a row of machine guns unload on their target: a giant berm standing in for Al Qaeda. Villagers turn as a batallion of Chadian Army troops swoops in from the right. The thap-thap of their AK-47s joins the chorus as shots pound the dirt mound.

And 23 US Marines look on.

For six weeks they've been teaching 168 Chadian soldiers counterterrorism basics - surprise attacks, border patrolling, intelligence gathering, and more. This is the final exam.

"Lookin' good," says Maj. Paul Baker, the mission commander.

The training here in remote Chad is just one sign of how the US military is engaging Africa in the global terror war as never before. There are, for instance, joint US naval exercises with Nigeria this month. There are reported antiterror patrols along the Kenya-Somalia border. And there's the new expansion of the Chad program from a four-nation, $7 million project to a nine-country plan with an expected budget of up to $125 million. It aims to prevent terrorists from roaming in and around the Sahara desert.

We're "looking at Africa as a place of growth for the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense," says Major Baker, standing in his command post under a giant shade tree. There's growing evidence of terrorist activities on the continent. And there's a need to protect Africa's rapidly expanding oil industry. So the US military is paying attention.

From eight bullets to 122,000

The American presence is having a big impact around the region. Before the Marines arrived in Chad, the Chadians had nearly no real military experience. During their basic training each one shot just eight bullets - it's all the government could afford. Chad ranks 167th out of 177 nations on the 2004 United Nations Human Development Index. Per capita income is 73 cents a day.

The soldiers weren't much for marksmanship. "They couldn't hit a 15-foot berm from 20 meters away," marvels Baker. But in six weeks of US-sponsored training, they shot about 122,000 bullets. They've also gotten new US uniforms and 13 new Toyota pickups. It will all be used to patrol the vast open spaces in northern Chad. Back in March, Chadian troops - with help from a US surveillance plane - reportedly killed 42 Islamic fighters in the desert highlands of the north.

Troops in the nearby countries of Niger, Mauritania, and Mali have also received similar training and gear as the Chadians. And as part of the new Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Initiative, troops in Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco will get US training and hardware, too - at a cost to the US of up to $125 million.

But why the American largesse?

All these nations are in and around the Sahara Desert and the Sahel, a band of land that's south of the big desert and that runs east to west Across Africa. These are vast, lawless lands where terrorists linked to Al Qaeda are known to operate - and where the region's large Muslim populations sometimes offer support or sympathy to extremists.

For instance, a man named Emad Abdelwahid Ahmen Alwan reportedly traveled across this part of Africa in 2002 recruiting and raising funds. He was a close associate of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and was eventually killed by the Algerian Army.

Also, an Algerian outfit called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, took 32 European hostages in 2003. It reportedly received $6 million in ransom from the German government. Then its leader, Amman Saifi, went on a weapons-buying spree before reportedly being captured by a Chadian rebel group.

All of this was enough to make the US military pay attention. The region may not be the next Afghanistan in terms of terror incubation, but with America's global counterterror efforts squeezing extremist groups, the Sahara and Sahel have become "a very appealing place for people to travel through, recruit, and find refuge," says Gen. Charles Wald, deputy head of the US European Command, which has responsibility for much of Africa.

Other US military and counterterror activities in Africa include: an FBI academy in Bostwana that addresses antiterrorism issues in its training of regional police officers; a military base in Djbouti with at least 2,000 US troops, from which the US launches antiterror missions in the volatile Horn of Africa region; a separate $100-million program to help five East African countries battle terrorism; and the upcoming joint naval exercise with Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.

The oil factor

Indeed, the other major driver of US military interest in Africa is oil. The US now gets about 15 percent of its oil from Africa. In a decade that could rise to 25 percent. Oil-producing nations like Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea (home of a recent apparent attempted coup) are strategic hot-spots.

Despite Africa's growing importance, General Wald says there aren't plans to build US bases on the continent. Rather, "There are thousands of bases already built in Africa, and we'd like access to them," he says.

America's strategy in Africa is generally to maintain a low profile - providing assistance and training rather than big troop deployments.

Still, some see potential problems. In Nigeria, Muslim groups are already skeptical of the US. With greater American activity, there's a danger they'll "become more extreme," warns Anneli Botha, a senior terrorism researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa.

Also, insecure regimes may use US hardware and training to "hassle political opponents," she warns, adding, "Democracy in Africa is a very nice concept, but it's not very secure." For instance, Chad's President Idriss Deby, considered an authoritarian leader and in power since 1990, is changing the Constitution to allow himself to run for a third term. Since 1998 he's been facing a rebellion in the north and could be tempted to use the newly trained troops to try to crush it, although his military leaders deny any plans to do so.

But in the Chadian sunshine, soldier Abakar Ibrahim clearly shows how US training has instilled pride and antiterror resolve. "We're sharpshooters now," he says, keeping his finger off the trigger of his AK-47, just as the marines taught him to do. "Terrorists are the enemy for all the world. We can help America fight them."

 

[onedomino]

"Also, an Algerian outfit called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, took 32 European hostages in 2003. It reportedly received $6 million in ransom from the German government."

Not surprising. Rather than aggressively fighting terror, the Germans negotiate and appease; thereby allowing German money to be used for new terrorist recruitment and weapons purchases.

I hope that some of the African anti-terror forces being trained with the $125 million are used in Darfur to counter free roaming Islamic terrorists in that region.

 

[waltky]

Wonder how many malnourished children that $125M would feed?...

UNICEF Treats Record Number of Sahel Children for Malnutrition
December 12, 2012 — The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says that aid agencies treated a record number of children in the Sahel region of West Africa for life-threatening severe acute malnutrition this year. Though many lives were saved, experts say that episodes of severe acute malnutrition in children have irreversible, life-long impacts on health, which are further compounded by widespread chronic malnutrition in the region.

An estimated 1.1 million children living in Africa’s Sahel region suffered from severe acute malnutrition in 2012 as erratic rainfall and severe food shortages aggravated already high rates of chronic malnutrition. UNICEF reports that approximately 850,000 of these children will have received emergency food aid and other medical treatment by the end of the year. “We’ve done a big efforts, all of us, and this is what we have achieved. Which of course is big, but of course that also means some children, unfortunately, not been given treatment,” said UNICEF’s acting regional director, Manuel Fontaine.

UNICEF says undernourishment contributes to more than half of child deaths in the Sahel. Malnutrition makes a child more vulnerable to otherwise treatable illnesses like diarrhea or malaria. UNICEF says without proper treatment, a child with severe acute malnutrition is nine times more likely to die than a well-nourished child. Real success, Fontaine said, would be not having to treat these children at all. “Those children, basically, shouldn’t have been there in the first place and we need to be able to assist them so that they don’t have to come through that point of being severely malnourished,” she said.

Felicite Tchibindat, the regional nutrition advisor for UNICEF, said that preventing malnutrition is particularly crucial during the first two years of life. “You see children that are malnourished at an early age have a high risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and all that kind. You have the brain damage, which is irreversible, because at that time you need quality nutrients, and care, which they don’t have," she explained. "In the long run, they have less in terms of years of schooling, sometimes 1.5 years less. Also, there is an impact on their IQ.”

Stunted growth due to malnutritiion is also a major problem. A 2012 study by World Vision and Save the Children found that an average two-and-a-half-year-old girl in Niger is 8.5 cm shorter than the average height for that age. The study said that many stunted children will never regain the lost height or weight, and that the effects of malnutrition can pass to the next generation with stunted mothers more likely to have low-birth-weight babies. Tchibindat says malnutrition has an economic impact as well.

MORE

 

[BecauseIKnow]

This is gonna be an excuse more African countries will use as a means to getting money. Our government is full of idiots. Killing will not resolve any issues. The corruption in those countries need to end. Ending this military style aid will be for the better. I hate how we extend the fight. Why not just encourage resolutions for them, a solution to the problems.

It's much better for a peaceful solution rather then make everyone fight each other in that region. That's why I hate what the military encourages there. There is something weird going on......they are putting these people against each other for a reason.....it's sickening.