US urges African air forces to form NATO-style ties
Tue Aug 28, 2012 3:43pm GMT
By David Lewis
DAKAR (Reuters) - The United States urged African nations on Tuesday to pool
their air force assets in a NATO-style effort to take on terrorists and
international criminals rather than struggle to fund costly independent
operations.
Many African air forces are small components of the national military and
Washington, concerned about Africa-based al Qaeda agents, traffickers and
illegal fishing, wants to help improve cooperation across the continent.
General Philip Breedlove, commander of the U.S. Air Forces, Europe, told
African air chiefs meeting in Senegal the situation meant any one nation
would struggle to tackle groups operating across borders.
"Taking them on requires a regional approach ... by developing partnerships,
countries can assist one another in meeting these requirements," he said.
"We can best support these efforts by effectively deploying our air assets
as an air team against these extremists."
Breedlove made no reference to specific threats and did not give details on
any U.S. support but warned: "The consequences of insignificant action, I
believe, are dire."
Outside a few rich nations, African air forces are often limited to a
handful of helicopters and sometimes ageing fixed wing jets.
While U.S.-backed African forces have made progress retaking parts of
rebel-held Somalia, the takeover of northern Mali by Islamists linked to al
Qaeda has created a new security void that many countries fear is a launch
pad for radical violence in the region.
Latin American drug traffickers, sometimes aided by local officials, have
taken advantage of West Africa's porous borders to use the region as a
transit point for a cocaine trade valued in the hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Illegal fishing in under-policed waters cost governments in West Africa as
much as $1.5 billion in lost revenues.
U.S. officials speaking at the start of three days of talks between American
officers and their African counterparts drew comparisons to NATO and its
policy of pooling resources between nations.
"That applies equally to West Africa as it does to Europe," said Lewis
Lukens, the U.S. ambassador to Senegal.
Law enforcement officials say varying abilities of regional forces, a wide
array of legislation and basic barriers like language have prevented
regional cooperation.
Lukens said cooperation could change this.
"There is no reason that in the future, information from a Senegalese
aircraft couldn't use be used to support Senegal, the Gambia, Cape Verde as
they pursue illegal fishing boats or narco-traffickers through each other's
waters," he said.
Somalia must form new government, EU's Ashton says
Tue Aug 28, 2012 5:39am GMT
By Richard Lough
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's leaders have shown a commitment to reform
but must move to install a new government in the economically and
politically fragile country, the EU's foreign policy chief said during a
visit on Monday.
Catherine Ashton's first visit to the war-ravaged country coincided with
African Union driving Islamist militants from a port south of the capital.
Ashton said she had frank discussions with the country's leaders a day ahead
of an expected, though already delayed, vote for a new parliamentary
speaker.
That vote is seen as a crucial step towards the chamber electing a new
president, the culmination of a reform process mired by allegations of
intimidation, bribery and repeated setbacks.
"What I've seen is real commitment, a recognition that the world is watching
and an understanding that we need to see this process reach conclusion,"
Ashton told reporters in Mogadishu's heavily fortified airport.
Since the outbreak of civil conflict in 1991 there has been no central
government control over most of the country, but now there is an opportunity
to close that long chapter through a regionally brokered and U.N.-backed
roadmap.
As part of the process, a new president should have been elected before
August 20.
In spite of heavy pressure from donors, the deadline was missed, though
Western diplomats hope the delay will last no more than a few weeks. The
bigger question is whether the new government can make a break from the
string of ineffective interim administrations of recent years.
"It is so important to get the speaker elected tomorrow and get parliament
moving. We've seen what needs to be done and we've also seen Mogadishu
beginning to thrive," Ashton said, referring to the city's economic recovery
over the last year.
REBELS ABANDON PORT
About 90 km (55 miles) south of the coastal city, al Qaeda-allied rebels
abandoned their positions in the strategic port of Marka under military
pressure from African Union soldiers.
It could be a tactical retreat, as the rebels have done before, pulling out
of Mogadishu more than a year ago and numerous other strongholds since.
"Our enemies will never control Marka peacefully," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu
Musab, the spokesman for al Shabaab's military operation, told Reuters on
Monday.
A number of al Shabaab's top commanders had fled towards Marka in recent
months following a string of victories by the allied forces, the African
Union force, known as AMISOM, said.
"The capture of Marka is also critical for AMISOM future operations to
liberate the city of Kismayo, the extremists' largest source of illicit
revenue," it said in a statement.
Separately, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a
statement issued in Nairobi that gunmen killed one of its staff members,
Yassin Mohamed Hassan, a Somali aid worker in Marka.
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said Hassan was part of a
mission overseeing irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation.
FAO, which has over 100 staff living and working across Somalia, is one of
the few agencies that still have access to some of the most dangerous parts
of Southern Somalia.
