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War on terror in East AfricaU.S. military task force works to stabilize area seen as potential breeding ground for terroristsBy Shashank BengaliKnight Ridder NewspapersSANKABAR, ETHIOPIA - This is the war on terrorism that most Americans haven't heard of:
A few days after Christmas, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Adam Reed rode into the parched, hungry village of Sankabar with a present: a new water pump. This month, Reed returned to the village, where elders gleefully showed the soldier from Sidon, Miss., what the simple irrigation system had brought: budding green fields of corn, bananas and oranges, the most promising crops in years.
A small U.S. military task force in East Africa is installing water pumps, rebuilding schools and health clinics, making medical house calls and training national armies -- all part of a mission to stabilize a region that's seen as a potential breeding ground for terrorist groups.
``We are coming out of drought because of the pump,'' said Omar Ahmed, a Sankabar elder. ``So we say thank you, America. And thank you, Mr. Reed. He is the first guy to give us help.''
What's going here provides a glimpse of the Bush administration's global war on terrorism, which is being fought -- mostly in the shadows -- elsewhere in Africa and across the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia using different combinations of military, covert, economic and diplomatic weapons.
Separated from the Middle East by only a narrow waterway, the Horn of Africa is home to 90 million Muslims, many of whom live in crushing poverty and political isolation. Al-Qaeda has had success in the area, bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, attacking the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000 and nearly shooting down an Israeli charter plane over Kenya in 2002.
The 1,500 troops of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa have been stationed since 2002 at Camp Lemonier, a former French base on the Red Sea in the tiny coastal nation of Djibouti. They were sent to hunt down al-Qaeda operatives in East Africa, but there are few known terrorist cells working in the vast area -- two-thirds the size of the United States -- and the troops haven't made many arrests.
Instead, theirs has become a humanitarian mission, with public relations benefits. By bringing aid to remote villages, commanders say, they help alleviate the poverty and alienation that foster terrorism and score image points against terrorist recruiters who would paint the United States as a villain.
``We are in a generational fight for hearts and minds,'' said Maj. Gen. Timothy Ghormley, the task force commander. ``We do water projects and build schools that help a poor child in a village, and in 20 years that child will remember us.''
Ghormley, who as a young Marine in Vietnam helped to train militias to fight Viet Cong, likes to boast that his troops haven't fired a single shot. Made up largely of engineering and construction units, the task force has built 52 schools, 23 medical facilities and 25 water wells. It has also trained military forces in six countries, including Uganda and Ethiopia, to shore up their border security.
Though far smaller, it's the most significant U.S. military engagement in Africa since 25,000 troops went to Somalia in 1992, an operation that ended after 18 were killed in the infamous ``Black Hawk Down'' episode.
In villages where the troops have worked, the feel-good factor is unmistakable. But the region is huge and complex and the mission's budget limited, and some experts wonder whether the military is willing to remain in the region long enough to have a serious impact.
It's nice that we can do these things, but this isn't long-term development, said Princeton Lyman, the director of the Africa task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, a research center in New York and Washington. It's good for our image... but it doesn't substitute for general development because the troops come and go.
Still, Ghormley sees hope in his mission.
``If we fight this battle here well,'' Ghormley said, ``we won't have to fight battles like we do in Iraq and Afghanistan.''
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