The Rise of NATO in Africa

Source: Internationalist 360

May 29 2022

Civilian casualties of US bombing in Somalia

Anxiety about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Russian border is one of the causes of the current war in Ukraine. But this is not the only attempt at expansion by NATO, a treaty organization created in 1949 by the United States to project its military and political power over Europe. In 2001, NATO conducted an “out of area” military operation in Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years, and in 2011, NATO—at the urging of France—bombed Libya and overthrew its government. NATO military operations in Afghanistan and Libya were the prelude to discussions of a “Global NATO,” a project to use the NATO military alliance beyond its own charter obligations from the South China Sea to the Caribbean Sea.

NATO’s war in Libya was its first major military operation in Africa, but it was not the first European military footprint on the continent. After centuries of European colonial wars in Africa, new states emerged in the aftermath of World War II to assert their sovereignty. Many of these states—from Ghana to Tanzania—refused to allow the European military forces to reenter the continent, which is why these European powers had to resort to assassinations and military coups to anoint pro-Western governments in the region. This allowed for the creation of Western military bases in Africa and gave Western firms freedom to exploit the continent’s natural resources.

Early NATO operations stayed at the edge of Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea being the major frontline. NATO set up the Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH) in Naples in 1951, and then the Allied Forces Mediterranean (AFMED) in Malta in 1952. Western governments established these military formations to garrison the Mediterranean Sea against the Soviet navy and to create platforms from where they could militarily intervene in the African continent. After the Six-Day War in 1967, NATO’s Defense Planning Committee, which was dissolved in 2010, created the Naval On-Call Force Mediterranean (NOCFORMED) to put pressure on pro-Soviet states—such as Egypt—and to defend the monarchies of northern Africa (NATO was unable to prevent the anti-imperialist coup of 1969 that overthrew the monarchy in Libya and brought Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power; Gaddafi’s government ejected U.S. military bases from the country soon thereafter).

Conversations at NATO headquarters about “out of area” operations took place with increasing frequency after NATO joined the U.S. war on Afghanistan. A senior official at NATO told me in 2003 that the United States had “developed an appetite to use NATO” in its attempt to project power against possible adversaries. Two years later, in 2005, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, NATO began to cooperate closely with the African Union (AU). The AU, which was formed in 2002, and was the “successor” to the Organization of African Unity, struggled to build an independent security structure. The lack of a viable military force meant that the AU often turned to the West for assistance, and asked NATO to help with logistics and airlift support for its peacekeeping mission in Sudan.

Alongside NATO, the U.S. operated its military capacity through the United States European Command (EUCOM), which oversaw the country’s operations in Africa from 1952 to 2007. Thereafter, General James Jones, head of EUCOM from 2003 to 2006, formed the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008, which was headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, because none of the 54 African nations were willing to give it a home. NATO began to operate on the African continent through AFRICOM.

Libya and NATO’s Framework for Africa

Libya after NATO bombardment

NATO’s war on Libya changed the dynamics of the relationship between the African countries and the West. The African Union was wary of Western military intervention in the region. On 10 March, 2011, the AU’s Peace and Security Council set up the High-Level ad hoc Committee on Libya. The members of this committee included then-AU Chairperson Dr. Jean Ping and the heads of state of five African nations—former President of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Mali’s former President Amadou Toumani Touré, former President of South Africa Jacob Zuma and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni—who were supposed to fly into Tripoli, Libya, and negotiate between the two sides of the Libyan civil war soon after the committee’s formation. The United Nations Security Council, however, prevented this mission from entering the country.

At a meeting between the High-Level ad hoc Committee on Libya and the United Nations in June 2011, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations during that time, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, said, “It is unwise for certain players to be intoxicated with technological superiority and begin to think they alone can alter the course of human history toward freedom for the whole of mankind. Certainly, no constellation of states should think that they can recreate hegemony over Africa.” But this is precisely what the NATO states began to imagine.

Chaos in Libya set in motion a series of catastrophic conflicts in Mali, southern Algeria and parts of Niger. The French military intervention in Mali in 2013 was followed by the creation of the G5 Sahel, a political platform of the five Sahel states—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger—and a military alliance between them. In May 2014, NATO opened a liaison office at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. At NATO’s Wales Summit in September 2014, the alliance partners considered the problems in the Sahel that entered the alliance’s Readiness Action Plan, which served as “[the] driver of NATO’s military adaptation to the changed and evolving security environment.” In December 2014, NATO foreign ministers reviewed the plan’s implementation, and focused on the “threats emanating from our southern neighborhood, the Middle East, and North Africa” and established a framework to meet the threats and challenges being faced by the South, according to a report by the former President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Michael R. Turner. Two years later, at NATO’s Warsaw Summit in 2016, NATO leaders decided to increase their cooperation with the African Union. They “[welcomed] the robust military commitment of Allies in the Sahel-Sahara region.” To deepen this commitment, NATO set up an African Standby Force and began the process of training officers in African military forces.

Meanwhile, the recent decision to eject the French military is rooted in a general sensibility growing in the continent against Western military aggression. No wonder then that many of the larger African countries refused to follow Washington’s position on the war on Ukraine, with half the countries either abstaining or voting against the UN resolution to condemn Russia (this includes countries such as Algeria, South Africa, Angola and Ethiopia). It is telling that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said that his country “is committed to advancing the human rights and fundamental freedoms not only of our own people but for the peoples of Palestine, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Syria and across Africa and the world.”

The ignominy of Western—and NATO’s—follies, including arms deals with Morocco to deliver Western Sahara to the kingdom and diplomatic backing for Israel as it continues its apartheid treatment of Palestinians, bring into sharp contrast Western outrage at the events taking place in Ukraine. Evidence of this hypocrisy serves as a warning while reading the benevolent language used by the West when it comes to NATO’s expansion into Africa.

---

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Eritrea Versus AFRICOM: Defending Sovereignty in the Face of Imperialist Aggression

Eritrea Versus AFRICOM: Defending Sovereignty in the Face of Imperialist Aggression

The rapid expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent should be a cause for concern as African nations are quickly surrendering their sovereignty to the US. As the only country without a relationship to AFRICOM, Eritrea bears the brunt of US vilification. We must salute Eritrea’s ongoing project of national liberation.
 

The U.S. has built military-to-military relations with 53 out of the 54 African countries that include agreements to cede operational command to AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. The broad network of AFRICOM military bases, as well as those from France and other world powers, are examples of how African states are surrendering their sovereignty through neocolonial relationships with Western countries. African self-determination and national sovereignty are impossible as long as the U.S. and its European allies are allowed to use military power to control African land, labor, and resources.

A major component of AFRICOM’s activities includes the indoctrination of African security forces through military training, including through the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA) (formerly the African Crisis Response Initiative) (ACRI) ),  Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) ,  International Military Training and Education (IMET) Program, and the numerous military exercises carried out by AFRICOM forces, including African Lion , Cutlass Express , Phoenix Express , Obangame Express , and Flintlock , among many other exercises, which have included participation from almost every African country. As Netfa Freeman pointed out in a recent article, “an indoctrination about the inherent goodness of the U.S.-European role in Africa accompanies this military training with blindspots about the true legacy of colonialism.”

The U.S. military uses the myriad security challenges facing the African continent as an important justification for AFRICOM’s existence, and the most prominent of these justifications is the threat that the U.S.-led “war on terror” is seemingly addressing. However, these security challenges and terror threats are actually driven in large part by the presence of foreign militaries on the continent. Before September 11, 2001, Africa seemed to be free of transnational terror threats . Since then, U.S. military efforts on the continent have grown in every conceivable way, from funding and boots on the ground to missions and outposts, while at the same time the number of transnational “terror” groups has increased in linear fashion . Despite this increase, extremist groups are active in less than 10 of the 54 countries in Africa. Justifications for AFRICOM’s presence on the continent, such as the rise of terrorist groups, ignore that the Pentagon and the CIA have recruited and trained extremists to fight as their proxies on many occasions.

It is clear that the African heads of state with working relationships with AFRICOM are surrendering their sovereignty and inviting a destabilizing presence.

Eritrea is the only country on the African continent without US military relations. In 1977, the last Americans at Kagnew Station, the U.S. military station in present-day Asmara, Eritrea, officially left the US’s listening post in the region. Kagnew was initially acquired through a deal with the Ethiopian government in 1943, an important geostrategic location for the US Navy during the Cold War. At the time, the Eritrean Armed Struggle for Independence against imperial Ethiopia (1961-1991) was ongoing; it was fear of heightened violence and warfare in Eritrea that led to the US’s ultimate and official withdrawal from Asmara and its closure of Kagnew in 1975.

This history is important in understanding the West’s contemporary vilification of Eritrea, as it is the only country on the African continent without a relationship with AFRICOM. We can’t and shouldn’t ignore the significance of this vilification as it relates to any African country’s sovereignty and the refusal to govern based on directives from the United Nations (or its allied entities). Eritrea’s defense forces are not only organized, but soldiers’ military training, skills, and expertise do not come from France, the United States, or any other major Western power. This is a notable difference from other African countries. Even the African Union’s standing army, the African Standby Forces, operates according to the UN’s notion of peacekeeping . 

Today, a focal point of critique when it comes to Eritrea is its national service program, “Sawa,” which high school students complete in their final year (12th grade). In its conception in 1994, national service was supposed to be for a limited time period. However, conditions in Eritrea changed when the former political party of Ethiopia, the TPLF, an organization that initially claimed anti-imperialist aims , became a client to US interests in the Horn of Africa. This led to a border conflict and warfare from 1998 – 2000, which ended the period of peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia after formal Eritrean independence in 1991. Post-war, Eritrea was in a no war-no peace situation, whereby the specter of territorial infringement was a real possibility in a TPLF-led Ethiopia that consistently preached a vision of an Abay Tigray (Tigrinya for “large Tigray”) — a dream to expand into and occupy Eritrea, making it a Tigrinya ethno-state. For many, national service in Eritrea is ongoing.  

National service is not a totally uncommon feature of modern day nation-states; countries from South Korea to Israel have national service, which include a military training component. But these countries are seldom critiqued for requiring military service of their citizens. The origin of Eritrea’s national service program, “Sawa,” in 1994 came from a need to give youth work post-war. Decades of colonialism and war left a nascent Eritrean society with purposefully destroyed infrastructures in an effort to de-skill Eritreans both technically and militarily. We can tie this to the US’s goal of “policy [and] security interests in Eritrea” when it sponsored the UN resolution to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1952, setting off Haile Selassie’s imperial expansionist project in the Horn. These historical-political events are germane to understanding what it means for an African country like Eritrea, whose policies largely focus on developing human capital and capacity and protecting national sovereignty, and which chooses  not to have US-European military relations.

It is helpful and interesting, then, to link Max Weber’s theory of states (and sovereignty), in which he posits that one feature of a legitimate state is a standing army, with how Jemima Pierre theorizes the manifestation of white supremacy and racism in Africa. What does it mean for African people to be organized and possess the military capabilities to defend themselves and their nation? We must eradicate the legacies of imperialism enacted through mechanisms like AFRICOM, which often manifest in unfounded accusations about terrorism and the levying of unjust sanctions . And we must salute and support Eritrea’s project of national liberation.

Dina M. Asfaha is completing her doctorate in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on medical practices and mutual aid pioneered in the Nakfa trenches of Eritrea during Eritrea’s liberation struggle against imperial Ethiopia (1961-1991), and how these social practices continue to inform the contemporary framework of Eritrean sovereignty.

Tunde Osazua is a member of the Africa Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the coordinator of BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network, which is the organizing arm of the U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign.

China is Not Colonizing Africa

Source: Black Agenda Report

December 1 2021

Narratives are Amplified with Badly Photoshopped Falsehoods

International media cannot be trusted to give accurate information. Skepticism is especially warranted when China is the topic and allegations of colonizing Africa make headlines.

International media are reporting that the Ugandan government has turned over Entebbe airport to a Chinese bank in order to make payment on a loan. “Museveni to surrender Uganda’s only international airport over Chinese loan,” claimed The Guardian . Similar headlines have appeared widely and all repeat as fact an allegation that Uganda will lose its airport to Exim bank.

Uganda has not defaulted on the $200 million loan yet the false bad news continues to be reported. Despite denials from China and Uganda the story continues to circulate and is now accepted as being true.

The bad journalism resonates despite inaccuracies in these accounts because they repeat a now familiar trope, that China offers “debt traps” to African nations and has become the 21st century colonizer of the continent. In reality, Africa is colonized by the same nations which began their exploitation by carving up the continental at the 1884 Berlin Conference.

It is a French billionaire, Vincent Bolloré , who controls 16 West African ports through bribery and influence peddling. France also controls the CFA currency of its former colonies. Canadian companies control gold mining in Burkina Faso, Mali and Democratic Republic of Congo. Decades after the struggle for independence, British soldiers are still stationed in Kenya .

The U.S. and its allies have little to offer except exploitation in the form of extraction and military control through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). It is China that pursues development projects with new railroads in Nigeria and Angola, and a highway in Kenya. The only narrative that makes the colonizers look good is a smear against China. The U.S./EU/NATO formation still has a hold on African nations and corporate media continue to act as governmental spokespeople and endlessly repeat whatever they are told.

The terms on Chinese loans are better than those of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). China doesn’t demand austerity in return for project funding, interference is not the goal. The difference is well known and clear and explains why news about China and Africa is so negative and why falsehoods are so readily accepted.

This particular fake news broke just days before the Forum on China-African Cooperation (FOCAC) was scheduled to take place in Dakar, Senegal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Senegal just weeks earlier and repeated the usual anti-Chinese screeds. The most basic journalistic standards are not followed with these stories which appear at opportune moments. Allegations of Chinese debt traps should be viewed with great skepticism.

Black/African people are very much interested in the condition of their brothers and sisters all over the world. This dynamic is generally a positive one but it also creates a susceptibility to believe in lies when they are spun well enough. The Chinese as colonizer trope has been repeated too often and information about Africa is too scant for most people to analyze these news stories correctly. We are left with nothing but “China is bad” tales that are accepted because of well meaning but misdirected concerns for Africans.

The story of Uganda is particularly complex. The Ugandan government is a U.S. puppet, a full fledged participant in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), and a terrorist nation which invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo and killed millions of people. While it is important to dispel myths about China it is also important to do so without covering up for Uganda and nations like it.

That is why the Black radical tradition must be nurtured and revived. Without it the world is viewed through the eyes of imperialism’s lackeys and media manipulators. All the truth about African nations and their relations with the rest of the world must be known and clearly understood. Africa is a key part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI certainly benefits China and its involvement in African countries is obviously a benefit to them. What is needed are impartial journalistic standards free of state run falsehoods and political discernment that reveals useful information.

While the airport story was told and retold, China announced a plan to provide African nations with 1 billion doses of Covid vaccines. The project involves donations and joint ventures which will waive the intellectual property rights that have hampered vaccinations in Africa. Neither the United States or its allies have attempted to do anything similar on behalf of the countries we are told live under Chinese subjugation.

The media do indeed have the power to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty appear innocent. The intricacies of international financing cannot be left to scribes for powerful countries. Events taking place at this juncture in history require far more.

Margaret Kimberley’s is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents  . Her work can also be found at patreon.com/margaretkimberley    and on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com

#NoMore U.S. in Africa: BAP Statement to Nov. 21st Rallies for Ethiopia

Black Alliance for Peace

November 21 2021

We in the Black Alliance for Peace stand in uncompromising opposition to the U.S.-led imperialist aggression against Ethiopia and by extension against her neighboring countries Eritrea, Somalia, and beyond. U.S. policy against Ethiopia cannot be understood without putting it within the broader context of U.S. imperialism’s geostrategic interest in the Horn of Africa in particular, and the whole of Africa in general. 

It is not lost on the Black radicals and revolutionary Pan-Africanists that the U.S. settler colonialist state is an extension of Western Europe and as such it is motivated by a white supremacist, imperialist worldview. 

In spite of its benevolent rhetoric, the U.S.’ unwavering commitment to full spectrum dominance reveals the only true intentions it has for Ethiopia and for our homeland, Africa. Since the 1950s African movements against colonialism and for continental unity, have been sabotaged by U.S. administrations of both parties. Leaders such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo were assassinated by the CIA, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup. Ten years  ago, the U.S. led the NATO bombing of Libya  which decimated the country, killing not only the leader Muammar Gaddafi but also an untold number of Libyans. This was the first operation of its U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, that has since been responsible for thoroughly militarizing the continent of Africa, including waging an unmitigated drone war in Somalia.

The relative instability in Ethiopia can only be sustained through U.S. support. The empty rhetoric from officials like U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken represents the propaganda aspect of the hybrid war waged against Ethiopia.

It is important that we see the sanctions, media misinformation, and arrogant ultimatums by U.S. imperialism for what they are; the desperate machinations of a global power in crisis. 

Western imperialism is being confronted by people-centered expressions of resistance in Africa and globally.

This week a French military convoy from Ivory Coast transiting across Burkina Faso towards Niger (a source of uranium for France) was stopped by 10,000 demonstrators demanding that the French forces evacuate from the region. The convoy had already been stopped on November 17th in the Burkina Faso city of Bobo Dioulasso and on the 18th in the capital of Ouagadougou. The imperialist press won’t cover this resistance.

Now expressions of solidarity from around the world are standing up for the Horn of Africa. 

While the Black Alliance for Peace is committed to peace, we understand there can be no peace without justice, and we will stand in solidarity with all peoples (and nations) who strive to liberate themselves from all forms of neocolonial oppression. 

BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire to the domestic war against poor people and working-class Black people within the United States.

We unequivocally support and uplift mutual cooperation, solidarity, and peace among all parties and people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the broader Horn of Africa region. We support African-led, localized conflict resolution that is not tied to advancing imperialism, neo-colonialism or any other nefarious Western agendas.

We must all transform our mobilizations into organized protracted struggle that forges a transcontinental cooperation that will save ourselves from the greatest threat to peace and stability on the planet, the U.S. government. 

The U.S.-EU-NATO axis of domination will ultimately find its deathbed in Africa at the hands of the Pan-African masses.

U.S. out of Africa!

Shut down AFRICOM!

No compromise!

No retreat!

Banner photo: Refugees, who arrived recently from Ethiopia, setting up their shelter in Sudan. (UNFPA/Sufian Abdul-Mouty)

36 Likes

Inside the Secret World of US Commandos in Africa

Source:  International 360
August 11 2020

Nick Turse, Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou and Amanda Sperber in Nairobi
United States Special Operations forces (SOF) — including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets and Marine Corps Raiders — are the US military’s most highly trained soldiers, specialising in counterterrorism, counter-insurgency, and “direct action” combat raids, among other missions. Their operations are shrouded in secrecy.

Although US commandos operate on the African continent with the agreement of host governments, ordinary Africans are rarely told about the full extent of US activities — nor offered a say in how and why Americans operate in their countries. Even basic information, like the sweep and scope of deployments by elite US troops and clandestine combat by American commandos on the continent, is mostly unreported across Africa.

But a Mail & Guardian investigation can, for the first time, reveal where US special operators have been active on the African continent — and offer exclusive details about low-profile missions that have been largely kept under wraps.

In 2019, US Special Operations forces were deployed in 22 African countries: Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Côte D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania and Tunisia.

This accounts for a significant proportion of US Special Operations forces’ global activity: more than 14% of US commandos deployed overseas in 2019 were sent to Africa, the largest percentage of any region in the world except for the greater Middle East.
These figures come from information provided to the M&G by the US military’s Special Operations Command and Africa Command (AFRICOM).

An interview with Donald Bolduc, a retired brigadier general and head of Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA) until 2017, shed further light on these operations. He said that as of 2017, US Special Operations forces had seen combat in 13 African nations. America’s most elite troops continued to be active in 10 of those countries — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia and Tunisia — last year.

The military footprint of the United States in Africa is extensive. Previous reporting has revealed the existence of a string of military bases across the continent. Formerly secret 2019 AFRICOM planning documents show that there were 29 bases located in 15 different countries or territories, with the highest concentrations in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

More secretive still are the activities of US special operators. Their presence in African countries is rarely publicly acknowledged, either by the US or host nations; citizens are not told what these elite troops are doing on their land.

The US military is tight-lipped about exactly what its elite forces do in each country, but special operators have long conducted missions that range from capture-or-kill commando raids to training missions.

The M&G has spoken to a wide range of sources to fill in the blanks, including US military officers and diplomats; active and retired US special operators; African government and military sources; recipients of US military training in Africa and civilian witnesses. What emerges is a comprehensive picture of US special forces activities in Africa.

Some operations are conducted under the auspices of the so-called 127e programs, named for a budgetary authority that allows US Special Operations forces to use local military units as surrogates in counterterrorism missions. For reasons of security, Special Operations Command will not release information on 127e programs, said spokesperson Ken McGraw.

However, the M&G has confirmed that in recent years the US has conducted at least eight 127e programs in Africa, most of them in Somalia. These activities in Somalia were conducted under the code names Exile Hunter, Kodiak Hunter, Mongoose Hunter, Paladin Hunter and Ultimate Hunter, and involved US commandos training and equipping troops from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda as part of the fight against the Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

Currently, the US is conducting two 127e programs in Somalia, according to an AFRICOM official.

The number of ground missions carried out by US commandos in Somalia has never previously been revealed, but US Air Force documents obtained by the M&G and corroborated by Bolduc indicate the scale of these efforts. The documents, from the 449th Air Expeditionary Group based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, show that the US and partner nations conducted more than 200 ground missions against al-Shabab between June 2017 and June 2018.

This number is no anomaly. “That’s about average, annually, for the time I was there, too,” said Bolduc, who headed  Special Operations Command Africa from April 2015 to June 2017.

Africa Command characterises missions with partner forces as “advise, assist and accompany” or “AAA” missions, but such operations can be indistinguishable from combat. During a 2017 AAA mission, for example, Navy SEAL Kyle Milliken, a 38-year-old senior chief petty officer was killed and two other Americans were wounded in a raid on an al-Shabab camp about 65km west of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

AFRICOM does not disclose the number of advise, assist and accompany missions by country, but in an email to the M&G, the command acknowledged 70 such missions in East Africa in 2018, 46 in 2019 and seven in 2020 as of early June.

Among the other special ops-oriented efforts that are still active in the region ― as of February this year ― is Oblique Pillar, an operation that provides private contractor helicopter support to Navy SEALs and the units of the Somali National Army whom they advise; Octave Anchor, a low-profile psychological operation focused on Somalia; and Rainmaker, a highly classified signals intelligence effort.

Another major theatre of US special operations is northwest Africa. Much of the world, for example, first became aware of US military operations in Africa in October 2017, after the Islamic State (IS) ambushed American troops near Tongo Tongo in Niger, killing four US soldiers — two of whom were Green Berets. Those troops belonged to Operational Detachment-Alpha Team 3212, an 11-man unit working with a Nigerien force under the umbrella of Juniper Shield.

Juniper Shield is the United States’ marquee counterterrorism effort in northwest Africa, involving 11 nations: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. Under Juniper Shield, US Special Operations forces have long trained, advised, assisted and accompanied local partner forces conducting missions aimed at terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Boko Haram and IS.  The effort, according to the AFRICOM documents, was ongoing as of February.

The other key activity in the region is Exercise Flintlock — an annual special operations training exercise, conducted by Special Operations Command Africa, focused on enhancing the capability of nations in West Africa to plan and conduct counterterrorism missions. Participating African nations included Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

Libya has also been a major focus. Last year, the United States withdrew its commandos from Libya as the civil war there flared. “Due to increased unrest … a contingent of US forces supporting US Africa Command temporarily relocated from the country in response to security conditions on the ground,” AFRICOM announced in April 2019. Those troops have never returned, according to AFRICOM spokesman John Manley. But that has not, apparently, halted US operations focused on Libya.

According to the AFRICOM documents, Operation Junction Serpent — a surveillance effort in Libya that began as part of the 2016 campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State targets in the coastal city of Sirte — is still active. Under Junction Serpent, Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC — the secretive organisation that controls the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 and other special mission units — was given special authority to develop targeting information for air strikes. A sister operation named Odyssey Resolve, involving intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights over Libya, was another component of the special operations campaign of air strikes in Sirte and was also ongoing as of February.

Not all of the places where US commandos operate in Africa are in or near war zones. Take, for example, Botswana — one of the continent’s most established and peaceful democracies.

In response to questions from the M&G, the US Embassy in Botswana said that elite US troops participated in Exercise Upward Minuteman, a three-week training event held in June 2019 at the Thebephatshwa Air Base in Molepolole. The training involved 200 National Guardsmen from the North Carolina National Guard and an unspecified number of soldiers from the Botswana Defence Force (BDF). It includes everything from weapons training to air and ground assault simulations.

“The US Military enjoys a strong bilateral security co-operation relationship with the BDF since its inception. As such, we conduct a variety of military-to-military engagement that at times includes special forces. Over the recent years we have conducted SOF-specific expertise exchanges in 2017 and 2019,” said the embassy’s public affairs officer, Ineke Margaret Stoneham.

Botswana’s armed forces enjoy a relatively clean reputation. This is not true of all the countries with which the US has  partnered. Take Burkina Faso, where US special operations units have trained Burkinabe security forces in countering improvised explosive devices, and advised them ahead of counter-terrorism operations. In July, a Human Rights Watch report implicated Burkinabe soldiers in mass killings in the northern town of Djibo — and this is not the first time they have been accused of serious human rights violations.

Temi Ibirogba, a programme and research associate with the Africa Program at the Center for International Policy, warned that training, equipping and assisting the militaries of nations accused of human rights violations empowers them and provides justifications for abuses.  “If the most powerful democratic nation in the world is supporting your military, you’ll surely believe that the human rights violations you’ve committed are excusable,” she told the M&G.

Speaking on background, a US State Department spokesperson told the M&G that, “The United States is deeply concerned by the growing number of allegations of human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by state security forces in the Sahel, including those documented by Human Rights Watch.”

The spokesperson added: “We exclude from assistance and training individuals or units guilty of human rights violations. We will, therefore, be following ongoing investigations closely to determine how these allegations will affect our legal obligations under US law. To date, we have no information indicating that US-trained or -equipped individuals or units have been implicated in any of the abuses reported.”

Andy Duhon, a former US Special Operations forces officer with more than a decade of experience operating in the Sahel region, questioned the effectiveness of the US military’s involvement in Africa. He said that the US does not understand what African countries want and, as a result, is unsure how to best intervene.

“The US isn’t doing enough. It wants to help but it needs to do a better job of understanding grassroots organisations, governments and the military, instead of just sending money towards long-term training and equipment programmes,” said Duhon.

Comfort Ero, the International Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director, said that the extent of US Special Operations forces in Africa illustrates the “creeping build-up” of the US military on the continent. Although, she added, it’s a mixed message: “There’s a build-up on the one hand, and restraint on the other. It’s clear that the US does not want to be on the frontline.”

Ero said that the lack of transparency ― from both US and African governments ― on the US military’s presence in Africa is a cause for concern, as is their apparent willingness to work with authoritarian governments. “It does feed into that broader concern that some states are being propped up … the US is seen as legitimising and further prolonging authoritarian tendencies, or states [that] are not seen as having legitimacy.”

With additional reporting in Gaborone by Joel Konopo of the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism. Editing by Simon Allison. Produced by Kiri Rupiah.

This investigation was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

AFRICOM: A Neocolonial Occupation Force?

Source:  Counterpunch
December 11 2018

Amid the George HW Bush imperial death-orgy, the endless saga of Midtown Mussolini’s daily news cycle, the seemingly unprecedented political upsurge in France, and countless other show-stopping news stories, you likely missed three very sad, yet revealing, incidents out of the Sahel region of West-Central Africa.

First, on November 18th, a massive offensive against a Nigerian military base by a faction of the Boko Haram terror group known as the Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) killed upwards of 100 soldiers. The surprise attack came at a time when Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who famously (and repeatedly) has declared victory against Boko Haram and terrorism, has faced a crisis of legitimacy, falling approval ratings, and an impending election in early 2019.

Just days later, on November 22^nd, while most Americans were gathering with family and eating turkey on Thanksgiving, a contingent of about 50 armed militants kidnapped at least 15 girls in Niger, just outside a town in the Diffa region, near the border with Nigeria. While Boko Haram did not officially claim responsibility, many have attributed the action to the terror group, or one of its factions, given their propensity to use kidnappings for propaganda and fundraising.

And on the very same day, also in Diffa near the Niger-Nigeria border, suspected Boko Haram militants killed seven employees of Foraco, a French well drilling and mining company.

This spate of deadly, and rather brazen, attacks on civilians along the Niger-Nigeria border paints a troubling picture of the continued instability of the region, and give the lie to the idea that counter-terrorism operations, ongoing for a number of years now, have put Boko Haram and other terror groups on the back foot.

This reality is undoubtedly a political liability for Nigerian President Buhari who was elected on the promise of stamping out terrorism and bringing stability and the rule of law to Nigeria. Of course, a number of uncomfortable questions can and should be asked of Buhari, his top military commanders, and other bureaucrats in his administration.

But perhaps the more salient questions should be posed, not to Nigeria’s government, but to the US Government itself, and specifically its African Command (AFRICOM). For it is Washington, not Abuja, that has poured billions of dollars into counter-terrorism and surveillance in the Sahel and West Africa. Considering the laundry list of attacks and killings, one could naturally ask the question: What exactly is the US doing over there, if not counter-terrorism?

Nigeria, Niger, and AFRICOM

These most recent incidents paint a worrying portrait of the on-the-ground reality in the region where terror groups not only continue to exist, but seemingly are thriving. Lucrative trade in illicit goods, drugs, human trafficking, and more has continued to line the pockets of these militant organizations. But the very fact that these killings are continuing calls into question the efficacy of, and agenda behind, the US AFRICOM force.

As the Washington Post reported back in 2013, the US has chosen Agadez, Niger as the site of a massive new drone facility that will act as a “strategic foothold” in West Africa, specifically with regard to the stated mission of surveillance of terrorist networks. And the US has been flying drones from the facility for more than five years.

However, as The Intercept’s Nick Turse has reported, what was originally intended to be a relatively small facility hosting a few US drones and military advisers has ballooned into a more than $100 million investment that will be one of the US’s most costly foreign military construction projects. And instead of simply housing a handful of Predator drones, the facility will be the base for MQ-9 Reaper drones before the end of next year. Naturally, it’s unclear just how many drones are already flying out of the facility, though knowledgeable observers assume a significant number already are.

This base, which will act as a hub of the broader AFRICOM drone surveillance network sprawling over much of the African continent, is just a short flight from where these latest horrific incidents have taken place. And yet, it seems the US either was unable or unwilling to do anything to stop them. Even with the most advanced surveillance and communications equipment, somehow groups of dozens or hundreds of fighters are moving into towns conducting mass kidnappings, pillage, and worse all under the nose of Washington.

And beyond the Agadez base, the US has a military presence in both Niger and Nigeria, with both countries routinely hosting US soldiers and military advisers, often with the specific intent of assisting local forces in the fight against Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. An ambush attack against 4 US soldiers in Niger has recently brought the issue into the headlines as Washington considers reducing the number of ground operations its soldiers directly participate in.

It should also be noted that the US operates a number of other clandestine surveillance hubs throughout the continent, at least one of which is in relatively close proximity to the area where the attacks took place. As the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock reported in 2012:

“A key hub of the U.S. spying network can be found in Ouagadougou, the…capital of Burkina Faso… Under a classified surveillance program code-named Creek Sand, dozens of U.S. personnel and contractors have come to Ouagadougou in recent years to establish a small air base on the military side of the international airport. The unarmed U.S. spy planes fly hundreds of miles north to Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara.”

Moreover, AFRICOM leads annual, large-scale military exercises throughout the region, as well as focusing on broad strategic initiatives that embed US military forces into the military command structures of these countries.

A Little History

It should be noted that the US has been involved in the Sahel region going back to the early years of the George W. Bush administration, even before the establishment of AFRICOM, which was later greatly expanded by the Obama administration.

After 9/11, the United States began to grow its military footprint on the African continent under the guise of a ‘War on Terror’, selling this notion to a United States gripped with fear of terrorism. With programs such as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, later broadened into the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, Washington managed to provide military and financial assistance to compliant countries in North Africa – a policy whose practical application meant that the US military became the dominant force in the Sahel region, supplying the human and material resources for which the governments of the region were starved. Naturally, this meant an implicit subservience to US military command.

And with the establishment of AFRICOM, these relationships were further cemented such that today we see annual, massive military exercises such as Exercise Flintlock which brings together numerous African countries under the auspices of US military leadership. While this year marked the first time that the more than 20 nations’ militaries were led by African forces, it remains US military at the head of the table.

Any guesses where Flintlock 2018 took place? That’s right, Niger.

It’s the Resources, Stupid

President Obama was not the architect of AFRICOM, which was established in 2007 under Bush, but he was perhaps its greatest champion, greatly expanding its scope and funding.

Obama grandly proclaimed in 2014:

“Today’s principal threat no longer comes from a centralized Al Qaeda leadership. Instead, it comes from decentralized Al Qaeda affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused in the countries where they operate…We need a strategy that matches this diffuse threat; one that expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military thin, or stir up local resentments.”

As with all things Obama, the truth and disinformation so seamlessly blend together that it can be difficult to parse one from the other. While no doubt there is truth in what he stated, the underlying subtext is much more interesting to consider. For while Obama and his cohorts would endlessly wax poetic about security and stability, the true mission of AFRICOM is neocolonial in nature.

Yes, it must be said that in fact AFRICOM is an occupying force that in no way functions to guarantee the security of African people (see Libya, among others), but rather to guarantee the free flow of resources out of Africa and into the Global North, particularly former colonial powers like France and Britain, and of course the US.

In case there’s any doubt, consider the following statements from Vice-Admiral Robert Moeller, military deputy to former commander of AFRICOM General William ‘Kip’ Ward, who told an AFRICOM conference in 2008 that AFRICOM’s goal was “protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market.” Furthermore, Moeller wrote in 2010, “Let there be no mistake. AFRICOM’s job is to protect American lives and promote American interests.”

So, if we strip away the flowery rhetoric about stability and security, both, of course, vital to resource extraction and export, it becomes clear that it is, in fact, natural resources that drive the US strategic interest in Africa, along with countering the growing Chinese footprint on the continent.

Major oil discoveries

The last decade has seen major oil discoveries throughout the Lake Chad Basin which have transformed how the states of West Africa view their economic future. At the heart of the basin is Lake Chad, surrounded by the countries of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.  According to a 2010 assessment from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Chad Basin has “estimated mean volumes of 2.32 billion barrels of oil, 14.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 391 million barrels of natural gas liquids.”  The potential size of these resources has attracted the attention of political and business leaders, both in the region and internationally.

Those oil reserves have gained the attention of each of the Lake Chad littoral states, and led to something of a scramble among them to siphon off as much oil from their neighbors as possible. Of course, it’s not only oil and gas that are of interest, especially since the US has become a net exporter of oil.

But for France, the former colonial power in the region, which still maintains a large military presence in the Sahel under the auspices of Operation Barkhane, oil remains an essential priority in Africa.

As a top oil executive in Chad told Nigerian daily This Day that, “Currently, oil from Lake Chad being drilled by the Republic of Chad is…shipped through tankers to the international refineries at the Port of Le Havre in France.”

And in Niger, a country rich in mineral deposits such as uranium which are vital to France’s vast nuclear energy sector, France remains the dominant economic player. As Think Africa Press reported in 2014:

“France currently sources over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy and is dependent on Niger for much of its immediate and future uranium supply. This dependence could grow even further when production at the recently-discovered Imouraren uranium deposit is up and running in 2015. The mine is set to produce 5,000 tonnes of uranium per year and would help make Niger the second-largest uranium producer in the world. Areva, which is 87 percent owned by the French state and holds a majority share in three out of the four uranium mining companies operating in Niger, is funding the new mine.”

And oh, by the way, Niger’s president Mahamadou Issoufou is a former employee of Areva, the French company that dominates the uranium trade in Africa.

Perhaps then we should return our thinking to the recent attack that killed seven employees of the French drilling company Foraco. Was this part of the broader efforts by French capitalists to continue extracting uranium and/or other minerals for shipment back to the “mother country”? One has to wonder, considering Foraco does not confine itself solely to drilling wells for water.

Is the US surveillance architecture so brittle and inept that it simply missed the movement of hundreds of members of the very organizations Washington is allegedly fighting in the region? Is it simply that the US is unable to effectively spy on this area until its massive Agadez base is complete? Is it that these terror groups have grown in sophistication such that they are able to elude the most advanced military and spying capabilities in the world?

The answers to these questions might take some time to fully emerge. But what we do know is that US military in Africa is effectively an occupation and resource extraction force that uses local militaries as proxies for its own agenda. The terror groups operating in the region have made untold millions and committed countless atrocities right under the noses of the purportedly benevolent American military forces.

So, if counter-terrorism is really what the US is interested in in the Sahel and West Africa, then the AFRICOM mission is an abject failure. Of course, seen as a neocolonial occupying force utilizing both hard and soft power to entrench US hegemony and guarantee the free flow of resources from Africa, it is a rousing success.

Shutting down AFRICOM and the New Scramble for Africa

Source:  Black Agenda Report
October 3 2018

The US must cease its military occupation of Africans at home and abroad, and abandon its attempt to rule the world by force.

“U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations.”

Marking exactly 10 years after the establishment of AFRICOM, short for U.S. Africa Command, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has launched “U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM,” a campaign designed to end the U.S. invasion and occupation of Africa.

Although U.S. leaders say AFRICOM is “fighting terrorism” on the continent in reality AFRICOM is a dangerous structure that has only increased militarism. The real reason for its existence is geopolitical competition with China.

When AFRICOM was established in the months before Barack Obama assumed office as the first Black President of the United States, a majority of African nations—led by the Pan-Africanist government of Libya—rejected AFRICOM, forcing the new command to instead work out of Europe. But with the U.S. and NATO attack on Libya that led to the destruction of that country and the murder of its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, corrupt African leaders began to allow AFRICOM forces to operate in their countries and establish military-to-military relations with the United States. Today, those efforts have resulted in 46 various forms of U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations.

“The real reason for AFRICOM’s existence is geopolitical competition with China.”

Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, the head of AFRICOM, declared in 2008 , “Protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market is one of Africom’s guiding principles.”

AFRICOM is the flip side of the domestic war being waged by the same repressive state structure against Black and poor people in the United States. The Black power and civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s was met with the repressive response of the FBI in the form of its COINTELPRO or Counter Intelligence Program that effectively obliterated these movements for social justice and self-determination. While in the very same era on the continent of Africa, the CIA conspired with other colonizing powers to do the exact same things, exemplified by the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana the and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo.

BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign links the resistance to the domestic war on Black people to U.S. interventionism and militarism abroad. Not only does there need to be a mass movement in the U.S. to shut down AFRICOM, this mass movement needs to become inseparably bound with the movement that has swept this country to end murderous police brutality against Black and Brown people. The whole world must begin to see AFRICOM and the militarization of U.S. domestic police departments as counterparts.

There is a petition that should be signed and distributed by all peace and justice loving people in support of BAP’s effort to help shut down all U.S. foreign military bases as well as NATO bases: tinyurl.com/ShutDownAFRICOM

BAP makes the following demands:

1. the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa,
2. the demilitarization of the African continent,
3. the closure of U.S. bases throughout the world, and
4. the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) opposing AFRICOM and conducting hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent.

Netfa Freemanis an organizer in Pan-African Community Action (PACA), a member organization in the Black Alliance for Peace, as well as an Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Recolonization of Africa by Endless War

Source:  Black Agenda Report
November 8 2017

“Washington is running a gruesome protection racket in Africa, simultaneously creating the conditions for armed groups to thrive while offering protection against them.”

Recolonization of Africa by Endless War

 

Six years ago, on October 20th, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered, joining a long list of African revolutionaries martyred by the West for daring to dream of continental independence.

Earlier that day, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte had been occupied by Western-backed militias, following a month-long battle during which NATO and its “rebel” allies pounded the city’s hospitals and homes with artillery, cut off its water and electricity, and publicly proclaimed their desire to “starve [the city] into submission.” The last defenders of the city, including Gaddafi, fled Sirte that morning, but their convoy was tracked and strafed by NATO jets, killing 95 people. Gaddafi escaped the wreckage but was captured shortly afterward. I will spare you the gruesome details, which the Western media gloatingly broadcast across the world as a triumphant snuff movie. Suffice to say that he was tortured and eventually shot dead.

We now know, if testimony from NATO’s key Libyan ally, Mahmoud Jibril, is to be believed, it was a foreign agent, likely French, who delivered the fatal bullet. His death was the culmination of not only seven months of NATO aggression, but of a campaign against Gaddafi and his movement the West had been waging for over three decades.

“It was a foreign agent, likely French, who delivered the fatal bullet.”

Yet it was also the opening salvo in a new war –- a war for the military recolonization of Africa.

The year 2009, two years before Gaddafi’s murder, was a pivotal one for US-African relations. First, because China overtook the US as the continent’s largest trading partner; and second because Gaddafi was elected president of the African Union.

The significance of both for the decline of US influence on the continent could not be clearer. While Gaddafi was spearheading attempts to unite Africa politically, committing serious amounts of Libyan oil wealth to make this dream a reality, China was quietly smashing the West’s monopoly over export markets and investment finance. Africa no longer had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF for loans, agreeing to whatever self-defeating terms were on offer, but could turn to China –- or indeed Libya –- for investment. And if the US threatened to cut them off from their markets, China would happily buy up whatever was on offer. Western economic domination of Africa was under threat as never before.

The response from the West, of course, was a military one. Economic dependence on the West –- rapidly being shattered by Libya and China –- would be replaced by a new military dependence. If African countries would no longer come begging for Western loans, export markets, and investment finance, they would have to be put in a position where they would come begging for Western military aid.

“Economic dependence on the West –- rapidly being shattered by Libya and China –- would be replaced by a new military dependence.”

To this end, AFRICOM –- the US army’s new ‘African command’ –- had been launched the previous year, but humiliatingly for George W. Bush, not a single African country would agree to host its HQ; instead, it was forced to open shop in Stuttgart, Germany. Gaddafi had led African opposition to AFRICOM, as exasperated US diplomatic memos later revealed by WikiLeaks made clear. And US pleas to African leaders to embrace AFRICOM in the “fight against terrorism” fell on deaf ears.

After all, as Mutassim Gaddafi, head of Libyan security, had explained to Hillary Clinton in 2009, North Africa already had an effective security system in place, through the African Union’s “standby forces,” on the one hand, and CEN-SAD on the other. CEN-SAD was a regional security organization of Sahel and Saharan states, with a well-functioning security system, with Libya as the lynchpin. The sophisticated Libyan-led counter-terror structure meant there was simply no need for a US military presence. The job of Western planners, then, was to create such a need.

NATO’s destruction of Libya simultaneously achieved three strategic goals for the West’s plans for military expansion in Africa. Most obviously, it removed the biggest obstacle and opponent of such expansion, Gaddafi himself. With Gaddafi gone, and with a quiescent pro-NATO puppet government in charge of Libya, there was no longer any chance that Libya would act as a powerful force against Western militarism. Quite the contrary –- Libya’s new government was utterly dependent on such militarism and knew it.

“Gaddafi had led African opposition to AFRICOM.”

Secondly, NATO’s aggression served to bring about a total collapse of the delicate but effective North African security system, which had been underpinned by Libya. And finally, NATO’s annihilation of the Libyan state effectively turned the country over to the region’s death squads and terror groups. These groups were then able to loot Libya’s military arsenals and set up training camps at their leisure, using these to expand operations right across the region.

It is no coincidence that almost all of the recent terror attacks in North Africa – not to mention Manchester – have been either prepared in Libya or perpetrated by fighters trained in Libya. Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, Mali’s Ansar Dine, and literally dozens of others, have all greatly benefited from the destruction of Libya.

By ensuring the spread of terror groups across the region, the Western powers had magically created a demand for their military assistance which hitherto did not exist. They had literally created a protection racket for Africa.

In an excellent piece of research published last year, Nick Turse wrote how the increase in AFRICOM operations across the continent has correlated precisely with the rise in terror threats. Its growth, he said, has been accompanied by “increasing numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia.

“Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, Mali’s Ansar Dine, and literally dozens of others, have all greatly benefited from the destruction of Libya.”

In fact, data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM’s establishment. In 2007, just before it became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000. By AFRICOM’s own official standards, of course, this is a demonstration of a massive failure. Viewed from the perspective of the protection racket, however, it is a resounding success, with US military power smoothly reproducing the conditions for its own expansion.

This is the Africa policy Trump has now inherited. But because this policy has rarely been understood as the protection racket it really is, many commentators have, as with so many of Trump’s policies, mistakenly believed he is somehow ‘ignoring’ or ‘reversing’ the approach of his predecessors. In fact, far from abandoning this approach, Trump is escalating it with relish.

What the Trump administration is doing, as it is doing in pretty much every policy area, is stripping the previous policy of its “soft power” niceties to reveal and extend the iron fist which has in fact been in the driving seat all along. Trump, with his open disdain for Africa, has effectively ended US development aid for Africa –- slashing overall African aid levels by one third, and transferring responsibility for much of the rest from the Agency for International Development to the Pentagon –- while openly tying aid to the advancement of “US national security objectives.”

In other words, the US has made a strategic decision to drop the carrot in favor of the stick. Given the overwhelming superiority of Chinese development assistance, this is unsurprising. The US has decided to stop trying to compete in this area, and instead to ruthlessly and unambiguously pursue the military approach which the Bush and Obama administrations had already mapped out.

“Terror attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM’s establishment. In 2007.”

To this end, Trump has stepped up drone attacks, removing the (limited) restrictions that had been in place during the Obama era. The result has been a ramping up of civilian casualties, and consequently of the resentment and hatred which fuels militant recruitment. It is unlikely to be a coincidence, for example, that the al Shabaab truck bombing that killed over 300 people in Mogadishu last weekend was carried out by a man from a town which had suffered a major drone attack on civilians, including women and children, in August.

Indeed, a detailed study by the United Nations recently concluded that in “a majority of cases, state action appears to be the primary factor finally pushing individuals into violent extremism in Africa.” Of more than 500 former members of militant organizations interviewed for the report, 71 percent pointed to “government action,” including “killing of a family member or friend” or “arrest of a family member or friend” as the incident that prompted them to join a group. And so the cycle continues: drone attacks breed recruitment, which produces further terror attacks, which leaves the states involved more dependent on US military support. Thus does the West create the demand for its own “products.”

It does so in another way as well. Alexander Cockburn, in his book Kill Chain, explains how the policy of ‘targeted killings’ –- another Obama policy ramped up under Trump –- also increases the militancy of insurgent groups. Cockburn, reporting on a discussion with US soldiers about the efficacy of targeted killings, wrote that: “When the topic of conversation came round to ways of defeating the [roadside] bombs, everyone was in agreement. They would have charts up on the wall showing the insurgent cells they were facing, often with the names and pictures of the guys running them,” Rivolo remembers. “When we asked about going after the high-value individuals and what effect it was having, they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, we killed that guy last month, and we’re getting more IEDs than ever.’ They all said the same thing, point blank: ‘[O]nce you knock them off, a day later you have a new guy who’s smarter, younger, more aggressive and is out for revenge.”’

Alex de Waal has written how this is certainly true in Somalia, where, he says, “each dead leader is followed by a more radical deputy. After a failed attempt in January 2007, the US killed Al Shabaab’s commander, Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, in a May 2008 air strike. Ayro’s successor, Ahmed Abdi Godane (alias Mukhtar Abu Zubair), was worse, affiliating the organization with Al-Qaeda. The US succeeded in assassinating Godane in September 2014. In turn, Godane was succeeded by an even more determined extremist, Ahmad Omar (Abu Ubaidah). It was presumably Omar who ordered the recent attack in Mogadishu, the worst in the country’s recent history. If targeted killing remains a central strategy of the War on Terror”, De Waal wrote, “it is set to be an endless war.”

“Endless war undermines China’s blossoming relationship with Africa.”

But endless war is the whole point. For not only does it force African countries, finally freeing themselves from dependence on the IMF, into dependence on AFRICOM; it also undermines China’s blossoming relationship with Africa.

Chinese trade and investment in Africa continues to grow apace. According to the China-Africa Research Initiative at John Hopkins University, Chinese FDI stocks in Africa had risen from just two percent of the value of US stocks in 2003 to 55 percent in 2015, when they totaled $35 billion. This proportion is likely to rapidly increase, given that “Between 2009 and 2012, China’s direct investment in Africa grew at an annual rate of 20.5 percent, while levels of US FDI flows to Africa declined by $8 billion in the wake of the global financial crisis”. Chinese-African trade, meanwhile, topped $200 billion in 2015.

China’s signature ‘One Belt One Road’ policy –- to which President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion to create global trade routes designed to facilitate $2 trillion worth of annual trade –- will also help to improve African links with China. Trump’s policy toward the project was summarized by Steve Bannon, his ideological mentor, and former chief strategist in just eight words: “Let’s go screw up One Belt One Road.” The West’s deeply destabilizing Africa policy –- of simultaneously creating the conditions for armed groups to thrive while offering protection against them – goes some way toward realizing this ambitious goal. Removing Gaddafi was just the first step.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer who has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. This article previously appeared in IBW21 [2] (The Institute of the Black World 21st Century) website

AFRICOM – Staggering But Not Yet Down For The Count

Source:  Black Agenda Report
February 21 2018

“The AFRICOM serpent has spent more than a decade slithering into almost every African country and establishing a venomous presence.”

Even though Donald Trump thinks Africa is a “shit hole” the continent forced its way into his life anyway in October when four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger. After Trump deflected blame to others and made a soldier’s widow cry, he apparently returned quickly to his fantasies about boatloads of Norwegian immigrants swarming Ellis Island.

The military establishment was not so quick to change the subject. Their detailed investigation of the Niger matter has produced what is reported to be a damning assessment of the capacity of the U.S. military to carry out its imperialist agenda in Africa. The rest of us aren’t allowed to read it yet because, as the New York Times explained: “…public release has been delayed until General [Thomas] Waldhauser [head of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)] appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee to present the command’s annual ‘posture hearing,’ scheduled for the last week of February.”

The New York Times goes on to say: “Defense officials said that the delay in part aims to keep senators from focusing on the Niger ambush during the hearing and, in turn, excoriating General Waldhauser when he testifies before the committee.” The convenient temporary suppression of the report will allow the General to present senators with the usual upbeat AFRICOM propaganda about U.S. soldiers digging wells and bringing medicine to downtrodden African villagers while giving friendly advice to African armies about how to fight terrorism.

“The convenient temporary suppression of the report will allow the General to present senators with the usual upbeat AFRICOM propaganda.”

Findings about failures of the campaign to militarize Africa are welcome news after the AFRICOM serpent has spent more than a decade slithering into almost every African country and establishing a venomous presence. Even better news is that the study reportedly “…calls for the Pentagon to scale back the number of ground missions in West Africa, and to strip commanders in the field of some authority to send troops on potentially high-risk patrols.”

With respect to the military deaths in Niger, the New York Times noted: “…[T]he ambush has exposed holes in the argument that the Pentagon has made under three different administrations: that in many far-flung places, American troops are not actually engaged in combat, but just there to train, advise and assist local troops.” Not only is the U.S. military engaged in combat, it has also formed an unholy alliance with France that gives both countries the opportunity to wreak havoc in Africa tag-team style. For example, in 2012 when one of Mali’s soldiers, who had been trained by AFRICOM, staged a coup that displaced Mali’s democratically elected government, the French military stepped in to try to clean up the mess.

“The study calls for the Pentagon to scale back the number of ground missions in West Africa, and to strip commanders in the field of some authority to send troops on potentially high-risk patrols.”

The U.S. has also had France’s back. State Department documents show that while Muammar Gadhafi lived, France coveted Libya’s oil and wanted desperately to stop plans to create a Pan-African currency backed by Libyan gold. In an effort to satisfy French desires, the U.S. stepped in and did the dirty work of arming vicious Libyan racists and terrorists who, in turn, not only committed a grisly assassination of Gadhafi, but also began a campaign of genocide against blacks in Libya.

In Niger, when French uranium mining operations in Arlit and a military installation in Agadez were attacked in 2013, the U.S. military stepped in, and its continuing involvement there eventually cost the lives of four U.S. soldiers last year. A Guardian article about the 2013 attacks said: “The militants vowed to hit any country that helped France…” Someone apparently made good on that threat.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians claim they are clueless. Senator Lindsey Graham said: “I didn’t know there were 1,000 troops in Niger. This is an endless war without boundaries, no limitation on time or geography. We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing.” Even though Donald Trump is probably less informed than Graham, his administration not only increased the number of drone strikes in Somalia, but also removed limits on drone strikes and commando raids that Barack (The King of Drones) Obama established in 2013.

“The U.S. has formed an unholy alliance with France that gives both countries the opportunity to wreak havoc in Africa tag-team style.”

Nevertheless, AFRICOM itself may already be downsizing. Lauren Ploch, a Congressional Research Service Africa analyst commented: “AFRICOM’s security cooperation spending was down in 2017 from the previous few years.” If the recently completed report on U.S. military engagement in Niger has the expected impact, the U.S. military presence in Africa will be scaled back even more — at least temporarily. But because the long-term interests of the U.S. Empire demand the continuing western capitalist domination of the African continent, the generals and strategists will no doubt huddle and figure out a more effective way to sell the AFRICOM idea, and it will return.

A temporarily scaled-back AFRICOM will present a window of opportunity that will probably close quickly. Those who want to prevent the further military domination of Africa must therefore make haste to do whatever possible to ensure that an already disintegrating AFRICOM project crumbles into dust and is swept away forever by African desert winds.

Mark P. Fancher is an attorney who writes frequently about the U.S. military presence in Africa. He can be contacted at mfancher(at)comcast.net

Drones in the Sahara

Source:  The Intercept
February 18 2018

A Massive U.S. Drone Base Could Destabilize Niger — and May Even Be Illegal Under Its Constitution

LATE IN THE morning of October 4 last year, a convoy of Nigerien and American special forces soldiers in eight vehicles left the village of Tongo Tongo. As they made their way between mud-brick houses with thatched roofs, they were attacked from one side by dozens of militants, if not hundreds. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Nigeriens and Americans fled, some on foot, running for cover behind trees and clusters of millet, their boots caked in the light brown earth. By the time the fighting was over, five Nigeriens and four Americans were killed, their bodies left naked in the bush after the militants took their uniforms.

The news went straight to the front pages in the United States and sparked a conflict between the family of one of the soldiers and President Donald Trump, after the president made insensitive remarks during a condolence call to the soldier’s widow. But the story also spread like wildfire throughout Niger, where the big news wasn’t so much that American soldiers had been killed, but that Americans soldiers were fighting in the country in the first place.

“I was surprised to learn that Americans had died in the Tongo Tongo attack,” Soumana Sanda, the leader of an opposition party in the Nigerien Parliament and taekwondo champion, told me in an interview in his pristine and sparsely decorated office in Niamey, the country’s quiet capital on the banks of the Niger River. “That was the moment I found out, as a Nigerien, as a member of parliament, as a representative of the people, that there is indeed (an American) base with ground operations.”

It was the same on the street. Moussa, a middle-aged man who sells children’s textbooks and novels on a busy corner in Niamey, captured the feelings of many I talked with. “We were surprised,” he said. “For us, this is another form of colonization.” Out of apprehension that he could get in trouble for voicing his views openly, he declined to give his last name.

US building a $110 million drone base in Niger

In fact, U.S. Special Operations forces have been in Niger since at least 2013 and are stationed around the country on forward operating bases with elite Nigerien soldiers. What happened in Tongo Tongo is just a taste of the potential friction and instability to come, because the pièce de resistance of American military engagement in Niger is a $110 million drone base the U.S. is building about 450 miles northeast of Niamey in Agadez, a city that for centuries has served as a trade hub on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, not far from Mali, Algeria, Libya and Chad. In January, I hopped aboard an aging plane that followed a roundabout route to one of America’s largest-ever military investments in Africa, its latest battleground in an opaque, expensive, and counterintuitive war on the continent.

Aerial view of the American drone base in Agadez, Niger, on June 4, 2017.
Photo: Google Earth

FLYING INTO AGADEZ requires a tour around Niger’s countryside. I boarded a 30-year-old Fokker 50 propeller plane that is owned by Palestinian Airlines and leased to state-owned Niger Airlines with a Palestinian crew. After stopping in the southern cities of Zinder and Maradi, we descended on Agadez, its rectangles and triangles of compounds and dirt roads forming a mosaic, with the surrounding reddish beige of the desert stretching out in all directions as far as the eye can see.

On the southeast edge of the civilian airport, accessible by tracks in the sand used mainly to exit the town, is Nigerien Air Base 201, or in common parlance “the American base.” The base, scheduled for completion in late 2018, is technically the property of the Nigerien military, though it is paid for, built, and operated by Americans. It is being constructed on land formerly used by Tuareg cattle-herders. So far, there is one large hangar, ostensibly where the drones could be housed, a runway under construction, and dozens of smaller structures where soldiers live and work.

The air strip will be large enough for both C-17 transport planes and MQ-9 Reaper armed drones, as The Intercept’s Nick Turse found out in 2016. A Nigerien military commander with direct knowledge of the base, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press, told me that it will be mainly used to surveil militants like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al Mourabitoun, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and local Islamic State affiliates including Boko Haram, which operate in border zones in neighboring countries. The U.S. currently flies drones out of an airport in Niamey, but those operations will be shifted to Agadez once the new base is completed.

American Special Forces operate separately from the drone base, which is run by the Air Force. The Green Berets are on the ground “training” Niger’s special forces and carrying out capture missions with them from the outposts of Ouallam near the Malian border, Aguelal near the Algerian border, Dirkou along the main transport routes between Niger and Libya, and Diffa, along the southeastern border with Nigeria and Chad, according to the same Nigerien commander. I’ve actually seen them at the Diffa base, a prominent local journalist has seen them at Dirkou, and I spoke to a person who worked at the Aguelal base.

When asked to confirm the American presence in those areas of Niger, U.S. Africa Command spokesperson Samantha Reho replied, “I cannot provide a detailed breakdown of the locations of our service members in Niger due to force protection and operational security limitations. With that said, I can confirm there are approximately 800 Department of Defense personnel (military, civilian, and contractor) currently working in Niger, making that country the second-highest concentration of DoD people across the continent, with the first being in Djibouti at Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.”

The U.S. is just one of several Western militaries that have established and strengthened military ties to Niger over the past few years. France has had soldiers in the country since 2013, when it launched Opération Serval in neighboring Mali. In 2015, France reopened a colonial fort in Madama, close to the border with Libya — unthinkable during the times of Moammar Gadhafi; the Libyan leader maintained a sphere of influence in the region that would have been at odds with a French military presence. Germany sent its own troops in Niger to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission across the border in Mali, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel even visited Niger in 2017. And Italy recently announced it would send 470 troops to a French base in the north of Niger to fight migrant transporters.

Sugarcane vendors stand outside during a ceremony at a police station in Agadez, Niger, Jan. 15, 2018.   Photo: Joe Penney

Read full article here