[bert]

......and there are no Navy bases close-by that I know of.....

There is a base at Djibouti very close by and home of the Africa Command HQ

We have major assets pretty much right there

[dirtboy]

There is a base at Djibouti

Thanks for the info. From an article I found searching, there were about 800 special forces assigned to that base in 2002, mostly for hunting al Qaeda in Yemen at the time. I imagine they also work in Somalia as well. It would be interesting how many are SEALs as opposed to Rangers. So if SEALs were there, that would shave a lot of travel time off. I still would think they would have drawn up a tactical plan and practiced it before departing.