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US training Malian troops to fight GSPC
The caravan driver seemed to slow for a moment, but jumped at the sound of gunfire and herded his camels away as a line of Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers ran across the sand shouting "boom! boom!""You're already dead! Lie down!" came a shout from behind a sand-coloured jeep, as Timbuktu's 512th Motorised Infantry Company bore down on their imagined enemy. Thursday marks the final day of training with U.S. Special Forces for Mali's troops in the Sahara desert, patrolling a region roughly the size of Texas where Washington says Islamic extremists are roaming freely along ancient trading routes. "They've run out of blank ammunition," said the U.S. Special Forces Detachment Commander, as the soldiers imitated the sound of rifle fire. "Limited resources make it challenging." U.S. military experts have been in Timbuktu since January, giving basic weapons training and teaching Malian troops how to move effectively in platoons and ambush the enemy. The aim is to help the former French colony's army to police massive swathes of sand and stop what the United States calls terror networks criss-crossing the desert and setting up cells. The armies of Mali, one of Algeria's southern neighbours, and Chad say they have clashed with GSPC members in recent months. "What you see is fundamentalist preachers coming through trying to seduce a peace-loving region in Mali and the Sahel into a more fundamentalist branch of the religion," Vicki Huddleston, U.S. ambassador in Mali, told Reuters by telephone. She said the idea was to "empower the militaries" in West African countries on the southern fringes of the Sahara, and get them to work together. Colonel Younoussa Barazi Maiga, who heads the Malian forces that cover the huge region north of Timbuktu, said his troops had chased up to 100 GSPC members out of Mali in January. "They had some bases towards the west and we attacked them. There were about 20 vehicles with around four or five people in each," he said, watching his troops complete an ambush exercise. "They have never done any harm to our people but we don't want them here," he said, adding they had fled to Niger and Chad. The armies of Chad and neighbouring Niger will receive U.S. training, like their counterparts in Mali and Mauritania. U.S. satellites are also helping pinpoint suspected militants. Brigadier General Douglas Lute, deputy director of the plans and operations centre at U.S. European Military Command (EUCOM), which is responsible for most U.S. military operations in Africa, said the GSPC was the main concern in the Sahara. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-19 |
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