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Africa: North
US-trained troops patrolling the Sahara
2004-12-15
Adjusted the title.
A company of 150 soldiers from Niger has brought the war on terrorism to a new frontier, carrying out a three-week hunt for armed bandits linked to an Algerian terror group in the inhospitable terrain of the Sahara desert and the Sahel region. "It was tough," said Major Moussa Salaou Barmou, whose unit was the first US-trained group to go out on a mission in the arid region. "We managed to get a couple of them, but the rest escaped into Algeria. As soon as we got close, they just moved on -- we couldn't keep pace."
They can't outrun an airplane, and I think we ought to teach the Niger air force how to do this; a few leftover Skyraiders would do nicely.
The tally from the three skirmishes last month around Mount Tamgak, about 600 miles northeast of Niamey, Niger's capital, was relatively modest: seven bandits killed, two Niger soldiers lightly injured, according to Moussa. But senior US military officials say the message sent by the mission is critical in West Africa. For the first time, the armed forces of four nations -- Niger, Mali, Chad, and Mauritania -- will patrol what had been a 3,000-mile wide no-man's land as vast as the continental United States.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#9  Actually, I haven't LH, but that's the one Fred has a link to. Still, its got to be more accurate than anything Mr. Goher is getting his news from, and the blogger has links to many of the other Iraqi sites. My latest news comes from a Kurdish aquaintance -- Saturday evening over dinner we discussed what his family back home has been saying recently. (His brother is so excited by the opportunities that he is becoming a collector of cars, his sister enjoys not fearing the late night knock on the door, but worries about terrorists who occasionally toss a grenade into the market where she shops. Both are eager to vote in January, and know young men who've joined the Iraqi police or National Guard.)
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-12-15 6:44:49 PM  

#8  TW - did you actually read the last couple of posts on Healing Iraq?

the country may not be in chaos (as Dan said, the Shia and Kurd areas are ok) but Baghdad is seriously snafued, or at least the part that Healing Iraq lives in.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2004-12-15 5:01:32 PM  

#7  only chaos if you consider the sunni areas being iraq in total - the rest of the country (80%) is progressing along.. Goher - need to stop taking the msm line as gospel...
Posted by: Dan   2004-12-15 1:48:03 PM  

#6  No, Dcreeper, the title originally read "US troops patrolling the Sahara". That would have been Biggish News to me. Then I read the article and found that they were only US-trained troops, which for me is Not News, though others might find it interesting. Title's been fixed now.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-12-15 1:41:09 PM  

#5  Angie is being sarcastic?
USA trains folks all over the place...
the concept (us-trained = american) does not really make sense.. though I kinda wish it was that easy to instill our values :-p
Posted by: Dcreeper   2004-12-15 12:23:38 PM  

#4  ...they're not US troops, they're US trained troops.

Yeah. What's up with the misleading title, Dan? The Globe's headline was correct.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-12-15 10:34:42 AM  

#3  Aside from that, Goher, they're not US troops, they're US trained troops. And just because we're in Iraq doesn't mean we need to suck our resources out of the rest of the world and put them all in Iraq. Come back when you can read and think.
Posted by: Tom   2004-12-15 8:22:12 AM  

#2  That's not chaos, that's post-invasion mopping up. Go read the Iraqi bloggers to find out what's really going on, rather than demonstrate your ignorance.
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-12-15 7:04:59 AM  

#1  If the US has some soldiers to spare, why do not they send them to Iraq to control the chaos there?
Posted by: Goher   2004-12-15 6:24:37 AM  

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