From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jun 22 2010 - 10:30:56 EDT
INSIDE THE SECRET CIA WAR AGAINST AL-QAEDA IN AFRICA
<http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=78225>
21 June 2010
By Damian Whitworth and Michael Evans
<http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/> The London Times
The new front line in America's War on Terror is a motley collection of
dilapidated colonial-era buildings, temporary huts and rows of tents on the
dusty outskirts of an airport in one of Africa's smallest and least-known
countries.
Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign Legion barracks in Djibouti, is at
the heart of rapidly expanding covert operations against al-Qaeda in
Somalia, Yemen and the Horn of Africa. From here the CIA tracks al-Qaeda
operatives in neighbouring countries and targets them with missiles fired
from drones.
The American operation is shrouded in secrecy but The Times was given rare
access to the base. On one side of Ambouli airport is a modest civilian
terminal from which travellers can fly to Dubai and Addis Ababa. On the
other side of the runway is the growing military facility.
Hercules transport aircraft, Marine helicopters and US Army personnel
buzzing around in golf carts are the outward signs of the military presence
but in the small town of buildings sprawling away from the airfield - many
of them just large shipping containers - the very modern, secret war is
being orchestrated.
About 900 American troops arrived in 2002. The CIA, with its own section at
Camp Lemonier, had an early success, firing a Hellfire missile from a
Predator drone that killed Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, suspected of being
the planner of the attack on USS Cole off Aden in 2000 in which 17 American
sailors died. Another CIA strike, using a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle
last year, killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a senior figure linked to al-Qaeda.
Today there are about 3,000 US troops here, up to 1,000 of them believed to
be special operations forces, assigned to US Africa Command (Africom). Half
of the 3,000 are attached to Combat Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, whose
mission is to work openly with nations in the region to build their capacity
for confronting terrorism in their countries.
The secret war against al-Qaeda is carried out from Djibouti by the potent
combination of CIA paramilitary operatives and special operations troops - a
CIA/Defence Department counterterrorism warfare formation initiated by
President George W Bush and, under great secrecy, expanded by President
Obama.
Only this month it emerged that President Obama had authorised the
deployment of special operations troops into 75 countries, an increase of 15
territories since the Bush Administration. Operations have been stepped up
in particular in Somalia and Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden.
The use of drones has also been increased significantly since President
Obama took office.
One key US target is Anwar alAwlaki, the first US citizen to be placed on
the CIA's list of targets it wants to kill. Thought to be in hiding in
Yemen, he has been linked to some of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as to Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound
aircraft on Christmas Day, and the US Army gunman charged with killing 13
people in Fort Hood.
>From Camp Lemonier, the CIA is acting in a warfighting role, not in its more
traditional intelligence-gathering and analysis function. Although the CIA
controls Predator strikes in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in
Djibouti CIA paramilitary operatives and special operations troops are
fighting against al-Qaeda so closely that some senior American defence
figures are concerned at the apparent lack of political control over their
activities.
The CIA's operations are covered by a code called "Title 50", which allows
its operatives to carry out "covert" intelligence actions that are
"deniable". Special operations troops, however, function according to a
different code, "Title 10", under which they are more accountable for their
actions.
One former senior US defence official told The Times: "The trouble is, in
places like Djibouti, the CIA are working so closely with special operations
troops that the lines get blurred. President Obama has now loosened the
leash for special operations forces and there is little difference between
covert and deniable intelligence action and clandestine activities by the
military."
The former official said that the special operations troops were highly
effective. "For obvious reasons these guys want to act immediately when they
get intelligence about a suspect in Somalia. If civilians are killed, then
there are political repercussions," he said.
The joint CIA/special operations teams have had some undoubted successes,
the most notable being the helicopter-borne raid in southern Somalia in
September in which Saleh Ali Nabhan, a Kenyan and top al-Qaeda suspect, and
three others were killed when a missile hit their vehicle. Nabhan was wanted
for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and other
attacks.
The presence of so many Americans, along with French, German and Japanese
personnel, provides a financial injection to Djibouti. The French colonial
buildings in Djibouti City are dilapidated and the streets are filled with
unemployed men chewing khat, their mouths stained green by the drug.
secret
A US Marine on exercise near Camp Lemonier. The CIA is fighting so closely
with US troops that there are questions in Washington over the control of
operations.
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