SF Troops To Mozambique

We have troops in about 80 countries and now we can add one more to the growing list…..

The disturbing news as reported that insurgents are beheading children….

An insurgency in Mozambique that began in 2017 is escalating in intensity and leading to disturbing new claims from human rights groups. This week, the UK aid group Save the Children accused insurgents allied with the Islamic State of beheading children as young as 11, reports Reuters. The aid agency offers eyewitness accounts from mothers whose villages were raided. “We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him,” says a 28-year-old identified as Elsa, who was hiding with three smaller children. “We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed, too.” Her boy was 12. Another mother tells a similar story of her 11-year-old son. The New York Times, meanwhile, reports that the US military got involved this week—in the form of a dozen Green Berets who are training Mozambique solders on how to fight the insurgents.
The war “is part of an alarming expansion of insurgencies believed to have ties to the Islamic State in several parts of Africa,” write Declan Walsh and Eric Schmitt in the Times. “I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” says Col. Richard Schmidt, deputy commander of US Special Operations Forces in Africa. “For this to crop up so quickly is concerning.” The BBC digs into the background of the war, which appears to have risen in part out of anger that locals weren’t benefiting from the nation’s burgeoning ruby and gas industries. The violence is centered in the northeastern province of Cabo Delgado. Both sides have been accused of atrocities, and Reuters notes that beheadings have been a hallmark of the fighting. But the new claims about the beheading of children raise the accusations of human rights groups to a new level.

But why deploy to Mozambique?

There are other signs that the US may become more involved in Mozambique. The US claims the group fighting in northeastern Mozambique has ties to ISIS. Last week, the Biden administration designated the group, known as al-Sunna wa Jama’a, as a foreign terrorist organization.

But it’s not clear how strong the ties are between al-Sunna wa Jama’a and ISIS, or if they are even linked at all. The US is quick to lump together Islamist militant groups in Africa with ISIS or al-Qaeda as a pretext for intervention.

Even a report The New York Times questioned the link between the two groups. The Times story said some experts fear the terror designation from the US could hamper future efforts to end the fighting through negotiations or complicate humanitarian aid deliveries.

The real reason for this deployment…..

The US International Development Finance Corporation, which the Trump administration launched to counter China’s infrastructure projects, has invested heavily in gas projects in Mozambique.

So this is about China….and not the horrific stories coming from the country?

So the interventions continue.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Still Bringing The Troops Home

Trump trying to gain favor for the election he just lost he has gone on a tear to bring the troops home (well at least out of the danger zones) Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea and even from Germany…..and keeping with the fad he stared he has ordered US troops out of Somalia…

The Pentagon announced on Friday that President Trump ordered the withdrawal of the “majority” of US troops from Somalia.

“The President of the United States has ordered the Department of Defense and the United States Africa Command to reposition the majority of personnel and assets out of Somalia by early 2021,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The statement said “some forces may be reassigned outside of East Africa,” but the remaining troops will be reassigned to neighboring countries to “allow cross-border operations.”

The US currently has approximately 700 troops in Somalia. The majority of them were sent by the Trump administration. The US operations in the country consist of training local forces, covert raids, and a drone war against al-Shabab.

(antiwar.com)

Not to worry….the troops will just be moved and home is not on the agenda….

The New York Times reported on the plan and said the troops would be repositioned to neighboring Djibouti and Kenya, where the US drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based.

President Trump dramatically escalated the air war against al-Shabab by loosening the rules of engagement when he first came into office. In 2019, the Trump administration conducted 63 airstrikes in Somalia, the most US airstrikes on the country in a single year.

Out of Somalia but not out of harm’s way…..

Next I would like to hear the Biden plan for Somalia and the US troops under his command.

Since Biden has always been on the wrong side of war I suspect that he will leave Somalia pretty much as it is today.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Here We Go Again!

The US has started many useless wars and our Dear Supreme Leader Trump has just decided we have not had enough war…so why not just start another drawn out affair?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The U.S. is committing itself to a long-term stabilization mission in a chronically unstable country. The mission involves training and equipping the local government forces to fight against jihadi insurgents and won’t end until those local forces are capable of fighting on their own. Unfortunately, recruitment is low and the training is slow going, in part because the local U.S.-backed government is weak and commands little public support. Under the pretext of fighting international terrorism, the U.S. is taking on a group that poses little direct threat to the United States, is being drawn into local conflicts unrelated to its ostensible mission, and risks creating more radicalization through civilian casualties.

It could be Iraq or Afghanistan (or substitute communist for jihadi and it could be any number of Cold War proxy conflicts), but in this case it’s Somalia.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/trump-somalia-executive-order-military-national-emergency.html

We have Iraq, Syria, Yemen and now an extension of our commitment to Somalia……of goody….HERE WE GO AGAIN!

When will the American people hit their saturation point for war? We keep allowing these “leaders” (I use the term loosely) to send our citizens into wars that serve no purpose other than making profits for some and death for others…..

Why is this?

Africa: East And West

I try to keep my readers up to date on the happenings in Africa….especially the terrorists operating within the continent.

Recently there was an attack in Nairobi Kenya….all fingers are pointing at al-Shabaab, originally from Somalia….but this group is known but that is about all that can be said…..but who and what is al-Shabaab?

Al-Shabaab is the deadliest jihadi group in sub-Saharan Africa, largely operating in Somalia but known for brutal attacks on neighbouring Kenya.

Founded in 2006, the group – whose name translates from Arabic as the “The Youth” or “Mujahideen Youth Movement” – began as the militant arm of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an alliance of hard-line Sharia courts in southern Somalia who sought to rival the Transitional Federal Parliament for control of the country.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/al-shabaab-who-africa-terror-group-jihadi-group-somalia-islamist-a8728921.html

Then we go to the West of the continent……Burkina Faso

I recently wrote a post about the situation in the country……https://lobotero.com/2019/01/08/in-the-land-of-the-lost/

After that post I read a report on an uptick of terrorism in the country of Burkina Faso……

Ten years ago, the prospect that Nigeria would become a jihadist hotspot—let alone the world’s third “most terrorized” country after Iraq and Afghanistan—received hardly any consideration (Africanews.com, December 6). Nevertheless, much has changed in ten years. Today the situation in northeastern Nigeria is worse than any predictions made a decade ago. Moreover, the violence from Nigeria has spilled over into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon. This begs the question—are there “peaceful” countries today in West Africa that ten years from now could spiral into jihadist violence?

This article examines the security situation in southern Burkina Faso, which shares borders with “peaceful” countries on the West African coast, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. Those countries have largely been spared from jihadist violence, with the exception of the 2016 Grand Bassam attack in Côte d’Ivoire that left 16 dead. Now, however, they appear to be on the verge of suffering from jihadist spillover from Burkina Faso into the northern regions of their countries. This article first reviews recent attacks that have occurred in southern Burkina Faso and discusses the networks of groups operating there. It then highlights certain structural factors in coastal West African countries that jihadists could exploit to launch attacks similar to what they have done in Nigeria, if not Burkina Faso and Mali as well.

https://jamestown.org/program/burkina-faso-and-the-looming-jihadist-threat-to-coastal-west-africa/

There have been increases in terrorist activity in Africa….but so far it has been contained to regional attacks and concentration……but they could expand their reach at anytime…especially if they learn to work together instead of factionalism.

As Africa comes out of the tag of Third World the opportunities for terrorists groups gets better and better…..African nations need to be vigilant to try and prevent the rise as permanent.

The Return To Somalia

Recently the East African nation of Somalia has been in the news more so than in the years since “Black Hawk Down” incident…first the US is re-opening the embassy in Somalia…..

Image result for Somalia images

In a sign of how much the security situation in Somalia’s capital has improved, the US has established a permanent diplomatic presence there for the first time in almost 28 years. In a sign of how dangerous Mogadishu remains, many staffers will remain at the US diplomatic mission to Somalia based in Nairobi, Kenya. The State Department said the permanent diplomatic mission was opened in a small ceremony Sunday. “This historic event reflects Somalia’s progress in recent years,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement, per the BBC. The department still lists Somalia as “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” and it’s not clear whether Ambassador Donald Yamamoto will be moving to Mogadishu from Nairobi.

The US closed and evacuated its embassy in Mogadishu at the start of 1991 as Somalia’s civil war intensified and the government collapsed. Officials have not disclosed how many diplomatic personnel will be moving to Mogadishu, where the US already had a facility for visiting staffers from Nairobi inside the heavily guarded airport security zone, ABC News reports. The announcement of the restoration of the permanent diplomatic presence comes 26 years to the day after George HW Bush announced that 20,000 American troops would be sent to the country to “save thousands of innocents from death.” They were withdrawn after 18 service members were killed in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.

Is this for some diplomatic mission? I cannot see it since diplomacy is not a priority for the Trump admin…..could it be because our military has an expanding role in the country?

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has dramatically increased lethal strikes in Somalia. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has carried out more than 30 strikes in each of 2017 and 2018, more than twice the previous highest total during the Obama presidency. As part of a recent series of strikes in Somalia, on Nov. 20, the U.S. military conducted a “planned and deliberate” airstrike that the U.S. military claimed killed as many as 27 members of al-Shabaab.

AFRICOM said, as it has in numerous cases, that the operation did not kill or injure any civilians. Such claims require greater scrutiny in the wake of repeated allegations of civilian casualties in Somalia by U.S. and U.S.-backed Somali forces in the past two years. The impact on the ground in Somalia also raises serious questions about the effectiveness of this approach and whether the United States would be better served by exploring alternatives.

https://www.justsecurity.org/61708/u-s-lethal-operations-somalia-rise-effective/

The Somali military has an expanding role in conjunction with the US in the battle with the terrorist group called…..al Shabab…..

A large military operation against al-Shabaab is underway in southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, with locals from a farming village reporting that they’ve heard gunfire and explosions overnight.

Somali officials reported a joint operation involving their own commandos and US ground troops attacking a pair of highway checkpoints under the control of al-Shabaab, and which the group has been using to charge tolls to passing commercial vehicles.

There was more fighting clearly than just the two checkpoints. Locals reported that the whole area has been “sealed off,” including the farming village. The US also reportedly carried out two airstrikes against the area, reportedly destroying a minibus that Somali officials believe was full of explosives.

(antiwar.com)

Another region for another American war of intervention and another source of profit for the M-IC…..the real reason for American adventurism…..the smell of cash has started a many of a war…..

Once Around The Horn

I have written a bunch about the Arabian Peninsula…..the policies of Saudi Arabia and the situation with Qatar and in all that time only a mention has been given to the policies of the UAE…..I will try to change that……

Let’s begin with the Horn of Africa……for those not quite sure…..

Image result for horn of africa images

As you can see the importance of this region for a lot of the crude flows through this region….oil that is…Texas Tea, black gold….yada yada….

I have written about this region before (listed in further reading section at the close of this post)…..it seems that all nations are trying to get that toe hold in this region….US, Russia, China and now the UAE…..

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has emerged in recent months as an important protagonist in the Horn of Africa. Through political alliances, aid, investment, military base agreements and port contracts, it is expanding its influence in the region. A recent manifestation came in the summer of 2018, when Eritrea and Ethiopia announced – after a flurry of visits to and from Emirati officials – that they had reached an agreement to end their twenty-year war. Emirati and Saudi diplomacy and aid were pivotal to that deal. Elsewhere, however, Gulf countries have played a less constructive role. Competition between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and Qatar on the other, spilled into Somalia beginning in late 2017, aggravating friction between Mogadishu and Somali regional leaders. Abu Dhabi’s relations with the Somali government have collapsed. As its influence in the Horn grows, the UAE should build on its Eritrea-Ethiopia peace-making by continuing to underwrite and promote that deal, while at the same time looking to reconcile with the Somali government.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/united-arab-emirates/b65-united-arab-emirates-horn-africa

UAE is interested but they are by no means the only ones…….

Arab Gulf states are intervening more assertively in sub-Saharan Africa to capitalize on economic opportunities and protect their security interests.

They view Africa as a relatively uncontested arena in which they can experiment with foreign interventions as part of their strategy to prove their rising status on the world stage.

The impact of Gulf states’ rivalries in Africa is becoming increasingly damaging, as their zero-sum rivalry has provoked retaliations, which have dangerously destabilized vulnerable parts of Africa, such as during the fallout to the GCC crisis.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/gulf-scramble-africa-gcc-states-foreign-policy-laboratory

What does it say when our supposed “allies” show the shame adventurism for conflict that this country does?

Read! Learn Stuff!

Rwanda: The Genocide

I am pleased to say that I am getting regular followers and readers from all over the world and recently I have had a loyal visitor from the East African country of Rwanda.

Image result for Rwanda images

As my tradition I try to write posts from the country of my visitor as an appreciation for their loyal and their time.

Rwanda in the past had a horrible civil war that resulted in a genocide and on the 24th anniversary I wrote a post to explain what the US did or should I say did not do? https://lobotero.com/2018/04/27/rwanda-24-years-later/

An author has written a children’s book about those dark days of the genocide…….

One day in a Rwandan village, a girl called Mahoro became a close friend with a boy called Ntwali without knowing that their parents had an issue between them.

It is a fictional story told by Patrick Gihana, a Rwandan artiste and author in his new illustrative book, “Humura Mwana”, written specifically for children.

Mahoro, who fell in love with Ntwali whom they studied together in primary school, didn’t understand why their parents opposed this relationship which was not harmful at all.

Gihana’s book is written in simple language, using mostly cartoons than words. He narrates to children Rwandan history since the arrival of the colonialists until the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

https://allafrica.com/stories/201809120095.html

This is a good thing for the best way to see that this type of genocide does not happen again is to educate children on the results.

Hopefully is small attempt will go a long way to preventing a occurrence of violence again.

If there is something I missed please let me know and I shall correct my mistake.

Thanx for the visits and your time…..chuq

Black Hawk Down

24 years ago this month …….

A name that will live in infamy (to use a phrase from the past)….the year is 1994 and the US military was sent into Mogadishu, Somalia on an UN peace keeping mission…..the US decided the way to go about their task was to put away a local warlord, Mohamed Aidid…..taking on this task was mission drift and it went horribly wrong.

The year is 2001 and Hollywood issues a film adaptation to the book “Black Hawk Down”……the movie was a success but then most movies about war are a success…..the actual “war” may not be a success but the movie will be.

During this engagement the US lost 19 soldiers and 73 wounded….but like most of the “war stories” there will be more to the story than the movie will tell……

The 2001 blockbuster war film Black Hawk Down depicted a battle largely forgotten upon the movie’s release. Being released in the wake of 9/11 also gave it an extra dose of significance it might not have held otherwise. The battle occupies a special place in American military history, a legendary status among other post-Cold War military engagements that struggle to gain recognition in the public eye.

The price paid for recognition, however, is that the story becomes a legend that takes on a life of its own. It goes on an unscripted journey, ending up in a place well-removed from where it began. Consequently, the public often appreciates the wrong story or only a part of it. 25 years after the Battle of Mogadishu and 17 years after the film’s release, what the public believes it knows about Black Hawk Down, if not entirely inaccurate, isn’t the whole story.

Dramatic retellings are, of course, entitled to take creative license with a true story. This piece doesn’t contest such alterations. Nor are any of these facts “untold” – they are widely available in various books on the battle. Instead, this piece aims to correct some widely-held assumptions about the battle and reveal some lesser-known facts that have the potential to alter public perception of the Battle of Mogadishu.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/10/03/what_you_may_not_know_about_black_hawk_down_113860.html

This was in our recent history…..keep in mind that NO war is as heroic or as romantic as the movie would have us believe.

Turn The Page!

Should US Troops Take Control Of The Mission?

A loyal reader of IST writes a good blog about East Africa, https://africommons.com/ …..recent he wrote he wrote a post that ask a question.

Since I write a lot about war and other conflicts I thought I would put his post on here and see if there were any answers from my readers…..

This is in the nature of a “thought experiment” rather than an actual suggestion at this point, but here goes rough sketch of the basic points:

1) We all recognize–whether we are willing to publicly admit it–that Somalia is in a “permanent” war state although progress has been made from the lowest ebbs over the years. Somalia is like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen in the sense that it is a place in which perpetual fighting appears indefinitely sustainable pending some major change.

https://africommons.com/2018/09/24/should-the-united-states-offer-to-replace-ugandan-and-burundian-troops-in-amisom/

My response was that the US was slowly doing just that……we keep adding troops to the fight against the insurgents in Somalia. But my personal feeling is that we should NOT expand any further…..for we are fighting a “War” on a tactic….a war that cannot be won.

We have too many feet in a fire……we could use the money here in this coungtry.

Please let my friend know you opinion on his question.

Thanx for helping out……chuq

Ethiopia–A Rising Star?

During the Cold War the East African nation of Ethiopia was on the front lines in our struggle with the USSR….it was a perfect region for the gathering of Sigint…..but has been happening since the end of the Cold War?

Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of a short-lived Italian occupation from 1936-41. In 1974, a military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile SELASSIE (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state. Torn by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive refugee problems, the regime was finally toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia’s first multiparty elections were held in 1995. A border war with Eritrea in the late 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000. In November 2007, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC) issued specific coordinates as virtually demarcating the border and pronounced its work finished. Alleging that the EEBC acted beyond its mandate in issuing the coordinates, Ethiopia has not accepted them and has not withdrawn troops from previously contested areas pronounced by the EEBC as belonging to Eritrea. In August 2012, longtime leader Prime Minister MELES Zenawi died in office and was replaced by his Deputy Prime Minister HAILEMARIAM Desalegn, marking the first peaceful transition of power in decades.

Ethiopia is a cog in our responses on the Horn of Africa….plus the renegade nation of Somalia is next door and from time to time has bucked the influence of Ethiopia in the region…..but their “friendship” with the US these days helps their star to rise in the Horn…..

When we think of countries competing for power and influence in the Horn of Africa, a short list of candidates comes to mind: the U.S., Iran, China, Russia, Turkey and various European powers. Notably absent from this list are countries from within the region itself. But this may be about to change. Ethiopia has recently launched a number of political, economic and foreign policy reforms aimed at redefining the country internally and externally. These moves are a sign that Addis Ababa wants to increase its influence in the region and might be laying the groundwork to emerge as a regional power.

Ethiopia is uniquely positioned to take on this role. It has a history of resisting foreign intervention and remaining, for the most part, free of external domination in a region that was widely colonized by European powers. Now, as the presence of foreign powers grows, Ethiopia will need to become more assertive if it wants to compete for influence with these outside forces. But it has a number of challenges with which it must contend if it is to project power beyond its borders. This Deep Dive will examine the country’s history that has led it to this unique point in time and the conditions it must meet before it will be able to wield more influence in the region.

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/ethiopia-regional-power-making/

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: East Africa