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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Al-Qaeda’s eyeing Africa |
| 2004-03-06 |
| Squeezed out of sanctuaries elsewhere in the world, al Qaeda may be considering new havens in Africa where they can exploit weak governments and take advantage of lawless deserts or jungles to train, recruit and plan future operations, the deputy head of U.S. forces in Europe said Friday. Key among U.S. military proposals to fight back is the temporary deployment of company-sized American units to train armies throughout the continent, patrol alongside them, or carry out U.S. missions to hunt terrorists on short notice if necessary. "Some people compare it to draining a swamp," Air Force Gen. Charles Wald told The Associated Press, eyeing a map of Africa in his office in Stuttgart. "We need to drain the swamp." Wald said al Qaeda was "being squeezed significantly by the international community" out of previous strongholds in places like Afghanistan. And as that happens, "they’re going to have to go some place else, somewhere they can operate 
and one of them obviously could be Africa." Africa, with its remote, unpoliced deserts and jungles and centuries-old Arab-African Saharan trade route, is one ideal location. Authorities, often poorly paid, are easily bribed. Communications are slow and in some places nonexistent. African armies, relatively small and poorly equipped, have difficulty monitoring the vast territories they’re supposed to control, Wald said. "It’s an area we think is becoming appealing potentially for terrorist organizations or individuals to operate with semi-impunity," Wald said. "It has a lot of expanses of open area that are conducive to terrorist operations or sanctuary." Wald said some terrorists had been sent to Iraq from North Africa and there were indications that al Qaeda has established a presence and attempted to recruit in North Africa over the past two years. Mauritania and Nigeria are among West African nations alleged by some Western think-tanks to have al Qaeda cells. Top figures from Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda circle came from Mauritania, although the government publicly cracked down hard on alleged Muslim extremism, and on alleged recruiting of fighters for Saddam Hussein’s cause in Iraq. "They’re there for a purpose, whether it’s looking for real-estate, or recruiting or looking for arms, whatever it is, we know there’s a presence," Wald said. "It may be small but it’s a bad indicator." The chief homegrown concern, however, is the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which was blamed for kidnapping 32 European tourists in the Sahara last year. Wald said the group had issued a manifesto claiming allegiance to al Qaeda. He and others have blamed the group for kidnappings and robberies in Niger and Mali, although some dismiss the culprits as simple bandits. Last month, CIA director George Tenet told Congress that small, independent groups like the Salafists are emerging as a potent threat, even as the larger and higher-profile al Qaeda loses leaders to arrest and assassination. "The areas (in Africa) are large, you have to be able to respond fast as intelligence becomes actionable," Wald said. "You have to be fast and get ahead of it, and that forces us to think of more mobile, smaller, lighter, nimble forces." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Maybe it's a good thing we're not fighting malaria as we should. Plus, they could get polio. Got to think of the bright side. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-3-6 3:39:30 AM |