JIBOUTI, Nov. 16 — For the first time since American troops withdrew from Somalia after a bloody firefight in the streets of Mogadishu, the United States military is rebuilding its combat power in the horn of Africa. Posted on 11/16/2002 11:08:16 AM PST by sarcasm
JIBOUTI, Nov. 16 — For the first time since American troops withdrew from Somalia after a bloody firefight in the streets of Mogadishu, the United States military is rebuilding its combat power in the horn of Africa.
The main goal this time is to put American forces in position to strike cells of Al Qaeda in Yemen or East Africa. But the Pentagon has also begun to use Djibouti to train its forces in desert warfare — skills that could be applied in Washington's campaign against terrorist groups or on the battlefields of Iraq.
"We are getting heavy weapons ashore and firing," said Col. John Mills, the commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has been conducting a major military exercise here for just over a week. "I am preparing my unit to operate in a high intensity conflict."
At a dusty, parched and desolate stretch of African desert, marines used live ammunition as they practiced infantry assaults. Marine howitzers lobbed shells six miles. Harrier jets dropped 500 pound-bombs, and Super Cobra helicopter gunships raked the ground with fire. M-1 tanks and other armored vehicles blasted their targets.
Bereft of oil or valuable resources, the impoverished nation of Djibouti has long been a desirable base for Western militaries. Put simply, what Djibouti offers is location. It is close to Yemen and near the Bal el Mandeb Strait, a critical choke-point where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. The sea lanes near Djibouti are particularly critical since they are used for commercial shipping and to transport American war matériel to the Persian Gulf.
Djibouti has other advantages for the American military as well, including a serviceable airport and harbor. The country is accustomed to the presence of Western military forces and is politically stable.
France, which had colonized Djibouti before the nation became independent in 1977, still maintains a force of 2,800 strong here, including elements of the Foreign Legion and marines and Mirage warplanes. Djibouti, in fact, is France's largest foreign military base.
American marines who have landed on the northern coast of Djibouti three times this year in major exercises are fast becoming regular, if temporary, visitors, but other forces are digging in for the long haul.
The United States Central Command is setting up a military headquarters to oversee operations in and around the Horn of Africa. Led by Marine officer, Maj. Gen. John Sattler, the headquarters will initially be based on the amphibious command ship Mount Whitney, but it will probably be moved ashore.
About 800 American Special Operations forces and other American troops have already moved into Camp Lemonier, a former French barracks near the Djibouti airport that the Americans have turned into a bastion.
The military is not the only American organization that has found Djibouti to be a convenient launching pad. The Central Intelligence Agency is flying classified missions from an airfield in Djibouti using the Predator, an pilotless drone equipped with Hellfire missiles, according to Western officers.
The C.I.A. missions include a recent strike in which a car was blasted in a Predator attack in a remote area of Yemen, killing a Qaeda operative and five other occupants of the vehicle.
The clandestine flights have occasionally thrown a scare into the Western navies who operate in the region and who have at times mistaken the drone for a possible terrorist kamikaze. With a diverse array of American and European naval, air and land forces, and a variety of security agendas, the Horn of Africa is becoming an increasingly complex military arena.
This is not the first time that the American military has used Djibouti. AC-130 gunships were stationed here during the American military intervention in Somalia. Navy ships also stopped here for fuel until the refueling operation was shifted to Aden, Yemen. (The decision was made to build ties with Yemen's government and provide a more secure environment for replenishing Navy ships, but backfired when the U.S.S. Cole was targeted by terrorists in 2000.)
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa became an important hub for military planners.
Worried that Qaeda fighters would flee Afghanistan for Somalia and other lawless regions in Africa, the United States and its allies organized Task Force 150, a naval unit that patrols Africa's eastern coast.
Task Force 150, which is now under Spanish command, has never captured a Qaeda operative or intercepted a terrorist arms shipment. But while the Horn of Africa does not appear to have become a refuge for Al Qaeda the region is still of great interest for American defense officials.
Yemen, a known Qaeda haven, is just a short hop from Djibouti. There is also is concern that Al Ittiyad Al Ismalia, a militant group that operates in southern Somalia and is linked to Al Qaeda, could emerge as a more serious threat. There are also bandits and smugglers in the region that could be exploited by Al Qaeda, Western officials said.
"It is the job of the special services — ours, the American and the European — to track it and determine if there is something that is happening in the region," Djibouti's president, Ismail Omar Gelleh, said in an interview. "There is always a danger that there is a residue of terrorist cells in the region."
For the Marine Corps, which may be called on to fight in Africa, Yemen or Iraq, Djibouti is also one of the few nations that will let them come ashore in their amphibious landing craft, drive their armored vehicles and trucks from the beach, fire their large weapons and simulate a small war.
More than 1,500 marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are here for a major exercise. They left Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in August on three amphibious ships led by the Nassau.
The approximately 3,000 forces in the group is a mixture of Navy sailors and pilots, who operate the amphibious warships, and a Marine unit that spends its time lifting weights, studying military procedures — and waiting for their chance to storm the beaches and swing into action.
After leaving North Carolina, the marines did a stint in Kosovo. But the mood changed in October when the Nassau and its sister ships passed through the Suez Canal and moved south through the Red Sea.
During the trip, Capt. Russell P. Tjepkema, the commander of the Nassau, said he became concerned about a merchant ship whose captain indicated that the vessel had mechanical problems. But the ship seemed to be maneuvering in a way that would force the Nassau to sail closer to Yemen, where several speed boats were clearly visible.
Worried that Al Qaeda might be laying a trap, Captain Tjepkema warned the other vessels to stay away and ordered Super Cobra gunships from the Nassau to fly over them. Captain Tjepkema said he was still not sure whether he averted a terrorist attack or simply kept curious locals at bay. "You can't tell and that is the dilemma we have when we operate in this area," he said.
With merchant traffic, coastal graft and potential terrorist threats the Nassau amphibious group often has to contend with such ambiguities.
After transiting the Red Sea and emerging in the Gulf of Aden the American ships used classified techniques to disguise their identity as a military flotilla. Last week, the flotilla moved closer to the Djibouti shore for the amphibious landing.
For Capt. Terry O'Brien, the Navy officer who was in charge of the three-ship flotilla, the exercise was an opportunity to practice a land to sea assault.
The Tortuga, one of the ships in the flotilla, moved into position a mile and a half from shore so its amphibious armored vehicles could roll into the water and start moving toward shore. The Austin, another ship in the three-vessel group, released large amphibious hovercraft that can zoom at 50 miles an hour and maneuver onshore.
The Nassau set loose amphibious landing craft that look like throwbacks to World War II. To launch the landing craft, the Nassau lets water stream into its ballast tanks to lower the stern of the ship. On the Nassau's flight deck, Marine Harrier jets and helicopters took off for missions over Djibouti.
All the while, the Nassau had armed helicopters flying and picket ships at sea to fend off a terrorist attack. While the landing was an exercise, protecting the force against possible terrorists attacks was a real military mission.
Captain O'Brien said his ships would try to use deception when they could to keep potential foes off balance. "And when we can't or don't need to we will come in with force," he added. "So, if you are looking to target, we are not a soft target."
Wearing helmets and flak jackets, the Marines quickly secured the beaches and a pier in Obock, a town north of the capital. But they soon ran into a problem when the residents became alarmed that the marines might occupy the dock and interfere with Obock's supply of khat, a plant that many of Djibouti's men chew for its amphetaminelike effects. After a rowdy demonstration by local residents, a tense standoff ensued. The dispute was defused after the Djibouti military arrived and the marines moved off the dock.
Then the marines began to drive north engulfed in a veil of dust. A military camp was erected in a desolate wasteland, protected by a sand berm and supplied by thousands of gallons of water trucked in from a plant the Marines erected to desalinate sea water. A Cuban-American officer dubbed the base Camp Havana.
The main order of business for the marines was the chance to maneuver and fire their heavy weapons. For Fox Battery, the Marine artillery unit, it was the first time the battery had fired its howitzers since it left Camp Lejeune as well as an opportunity to carry out combined arms exercises with other Marine forces.
In one of the battery's combat exercises, a Marine infantry unit was trying to advance on a determined foe. A forward air controller called in an airstrike. The role of the battery was to fire an illumination round to mark the target for Harrier jets, which would mount a bombing attack, and then to fire a barrage against the enemy's air defenses to keep them from shooting down the Marine planes.
"We are coordinating our artillery, our mortars and our air, along with maneuvers, to engage targets," said Capt. Mike Landree, the artillery battery commander.
As the exercise unfolded, one of the battery's howitzers hurled an illumination round 22,000 feet in the air. It took 80 seconds for the round to land and begin to burn. Before it landed another of the battery's howitzers fired the first of its suppression rounds to disrupt the enemy's air defenses.
Some of the artillery rounds rattled some of the livestock that forage in the desert. But Colonel Mills, the commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, placated an anxious herder by buying three shell-shocked donkeys for $250 apiece.
With a new headquarters in the region and a growing focus on the Horn of Africa it is likely that Djibouti will become a familiar venue for future Marine expeditionary units, or M.E.U.'s.
"It offers things that are difficult to find, that is your ability to employ your heavy weapons systems," Colonel Mills said. "Ranges for that are disappearing all over the world as areas are getting developed. I think that M.E.U.'s possibly in the future will make this a regular stop."
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