SENEGAL/FILE: President Obama to make African visit as U.S. increases military focus in region

Record ID: 493625

  • Title: SENEGAL/FILE: President Obama to make African visit as U.S. increases military focus in region
  • Date: 25th June 2013
  • Summary: TIMBUKTU, MALI (FILE - SEPTEMBER 4, 2007) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) MALIAN COMMANDER GIVING ORDERS TO HIS SOLDIERS FEET OF MALIAN SOLDIERS WALKING COMMANDER GIVING ORDERS SOLDIERS STAMPING THEIR FEET TO ATTENTION VARIOUS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPH IN TIMBUKTU TOWN
  • Embargoed: 10th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mali
  • Country: Mali
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA73HHAY9ZPG15YYYY90FF74R1K
  • Story Text: On the ground in northern Mali earlier this year it was African and French troops who fought back al-Qaeda linked Islamist rebels, but the U.S. was never far behind, providing intelligence as well as transport aircraft to move in French and African forces.
    Striking militant bases with drones, supporting African forces in Somalia and Mali and deploying dozens of training teams across the continent, the United States military has quietly returned to Africa.
    In February, President Barack Obama reported to Congress that the Pentagon had deployed around 100 troops to Niger to conduct unmanned reconnaissance flights over Mali and share intelligence with France.
    Jean-Herve Jezequel is a security analyst at the Dakar branch of the International Crisis Group.
    "I think that the deployment in February 2013 of the drones corresponds with the idea that Americans think there is a need for them to support the efforts by the international community, including France, but also the African Union and Economic Community of West African States, in Mali," he said.
    The U.S. presence remains almost entirely low key, barely mentioned in the context of Obama's upcoming visit to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
    Nevertheless, with some 4-5000 personnel on the ground at any given time, the United States now has more troops in Africa at any time since its humiliating 1994 withdrawal from Somalia.
    Forging military links between the U.S. and Africa has sometimes been far from easy.
    Not a single African country was willing to host U.S. African Command AFRICOM when it was created in 2008, forcing a somewhat idiosyncratic location in Stuttgart, Germany.
    Though AFRICOM says much of its work has simply involved training other African forces, past years of U.S. instruction failed to turn Mali's rag-tag army into a force capable of facing an Islamist threat stretching across the Sahara.
    Years of corruption and neglect led the Malian army to a string of defeats against al Qaeda-linked militants last year, leaving northern Mali under Islamist control and sparking a military coup by disgruntled officers in the capital Bamako.
    Jezequel said the U.S. presence still pales in comparison to some other Western countries, notably Mali's former colonial power, France.
    "I think that the Sahel zone has been the object of increasing attention since the 2000s from the American army, but still their effective presence has been limited. Especially if you look at, since the beginning of the year, the increased presence of the French Army and in certain months the deployment of 12,000 men from the United Nations, and equally the African presence in Mali," said Jezequel.
    Today, a European Union training mission seeks to succeed in Mali where U.S. instruction did not.
    Malian troops are working to forge units from scratch and build cohesive teams ahead of the July deployment of U.N. troops to the region.
    The 12,000-strong U.N. force, known as MINUSMA, will take over peacekeeping duties next month from an African regional mission.
    General Mamadou Mansour Seck, former Senegalese army Chief of Staff and former ambassador to the United States said the U.S. should focus its efforts in the region on increased elite training.
    "We would like our cooperation to be more open, they help us a lot particularly in terms of training, and that's a good thing, but I think that if they helped us with specialised forces, like for example GIGR in France, the Navy SEALs, the type of people who went to Bin Laden in Pakistan. These are the types of fights, because it's not with the big battalions that we conduct this type of war," he said from his home in Dakar.
    Washington's focus on counter-terrorism in Africa is also apparent in Nigeria, where the al-Qaeda linked Boko Haram group regularly claims attacks in northern Nigeria and Abuja, and was responsible for the kidnapping of a French family of seven from neighbouring Cameroon.
    According to AFRICOM, much of the U.S. effort also involves intelligence sharing and advice to help governments counter groups such as Boko Haram.
    But Seck questions the amount of intelligence sharing that actually occurs and whether the U.S. is doing enough to help West Africa stem the tide of religious extremism.
    "Maybe not. I ask myself, the Americans are our friends, but often they are friends that are not frank, particularly when it comes to intelligence. They have the tendency to ask you what you have but they won't give you what they have. That is a difficulty, it's a problem. But they are supposed to be global, they should say it's in both our interests, and when you have intelligence, and at the right moment, don't wait for us to ask, tell us, because that's what's going to enable us to take up the arms," he said.
    A spike in piracy attacks is alarming Western powers, not least the United States, as regional governments struggle to cope.
    In 2010, the International Maritime Bureau, which has monitored global piracy since 1991, recorded 33 attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.
    Last year, that figure jumped to 58.
    Analysts say widespread under-reporting means the figure reflects just a fraction of the total, as there is little hope of rescue and reporting attacks bumps up insurance premiums.
    Efforts to improve national maritime forces in the region by the U.S. and their European counterparts recently involved the training of seven coastguards in the region, including off the coast of Senegal.
    A new code of conduct for the countries of West and Central Africa, drafted with the help of the U.S. military, calls upon governments to work together to dismantle onshore bases and impound ships believed to be used in maritime crime.
    U.S. military officials say they believe their programs too have gone well beyond counterterrorism. Warship visits have also become an increasingly effective training tool, they say, with personnel on a visiting American warship able to provide large numbers of short courses.
    Rising numbers of African officers - including very senior officials and those seen on the fast track to high office - have also been invited to conferences and U.S. military colleges.
    In countries such as Liberia, the U.S. says it is focused on making armies democratically accountable - and avoiding coups.
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