17 September 2013 by Oscar Nkala and Kim Helfrich - defenceWeb

US Army Africa Command (Africom) wants private contractors to move military equipment and supplies from the US to Egypt and 55 other countries within its Area of Responsibility (AOR) starting this month.

This comes hard on the heels of a transport contract awarded by the US Army’s Transport Command (US-TRANSCOM) to Berry Aviation to provide to provide air transport service in support of operations in western and central Africa. This contract is reportedly worth $49 million.

A solicitation notice issued by Africom Surface Distribution Services (ASDS) from its contracting office in Vincenza, Italy, on August 5 seeks contractors who will provide “transportation services of intra-theatre cargo within the Africom Area of Responsibility (AOR) and Egypt.”

The solicitation adds: “The contractor shall provide all necessary resources including logistics support and management to perform surface transport and distribution of general cargo within all fifty five (55) nations of the Africom AOR and Egypt.

In the solicitation document, Africom says materials to be transported, “although normally general in nature will not include sensitive cargo but may include hazardous materials.”

The solicitation notice adds contractors will not be required to transport classified equipment and materials, gunpowder, ammunition or military weapons and explosives.

It also states the successful contractors will not be required to move military tanks, self-propelled armoured combat vehicles with weapons, aircraft and spacecraft including satellites, radar or radio devices for remote control of weapons and equipment.

These developments come when at least one American military watcher, Nick Turse of TomDispatch.com, maintains Africom is involved in the A to Z of Africa.

“They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the US military is at work. Base construction, security co-operation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion—except at US Africa Command,” he wrote.

Giving the official line Turse goes on: “To hear Africom tell it, US military involvement on the continent ranges from the miniscule to the microscopic. The command is adamant it has only a single ‘military base’ in all of Africa: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. The head of the command insists that the US military maintains a ‘small footprint’ on the continent. Africom’s chief spokesman has consistently minimised the scope of its operations and the number of facilities it maintains or shares with host nations, asserting only ‘a small presence of personnel who conduct short-duration engagements’ are operating from ‘several locations’ on the continent at any given time”.

He quotes Colonel Tom Davis, Africom director of public affairs, as saying: “Other than our base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, we do not have military bases in Africa, nor do we have plans to establish any”. Davis admitted the US has temporary facilities elsewhere. . supporting much smaller numbers of personnel “usually for a specific activity”.

Another solicitation notice (HTC711-13-R-R016) issued in July seeks dedicated fixed wing service for the deployment and extraction of US military personnel involved in operations in the central African region.

It specifies contractors must be able to transport personnel and willing to carry hazardous cargo including ammunitions for small arms, signal flares, smoke grenades, blasting caps, rockets, mines and explosive charges in the central African theatre of operations.

“The contractor will be asked to routinely take off and land on improved and unimproved dirt airfields of a minimum of 1 800 feet in length to support resupply and personnel transportation requirements,” part of the solicitation note reads.

It said routine locations involved in the operations could include airfields such as Entebbe in Uganda, Obo and Djema in the Central African Republic. The operations will also support the training of counter-narcotics law enforcement agencies from Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Niger, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Togo, Guinea and Mali.

Apart from these developments the US Military has been supporting construction all over Africa for its allies.

A report by Hugh Denny of the Army Corps of Engineers issued earlier this year references 79 such projects in 33 countries between 2011 and 2013 including Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, The Gambia, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia with a reported price tag of $48 million.

In addition to creating or maintaining bases and engaging in military construction across the continent, the US is involved in near constant training and advisory missions. According to Davis, the command is slated to carry out 14 major bilateral and multilateral exercises by the end of this year. These include Saharan Express 2013, which brought together forces from Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, among other nations, for maritime security training; Obangame Express 2013, a counter-piracy exercise involving the armed forces of among others Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Togo; and Africa Endeavour 2013, in which the militaries of Djibouti, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Zambia, and 34 other African nations took part.

And it’s not only on land and in the air that US forces are making their presence felt more. The Defense Logistics Agency is preparing to buy 65 000 metric tonnes of marine gas oil for Africom operations.

Information obtained by defenceWeb also shows from April 2014, Africom Ships’ Bunkers programme will order fuel to be delivered “into US vessels for US Department of Defense and federal civilian agencies by barge, truck, or pipeline”.

The command is seeking up to 27 000 metric tonnes of fuel for delivery to US Air Force and Navy assets in Seychelles, an island nation off the coast of East Africa. Neighbouring Mauritius is next with a maximum order of 10 000 metric tonnes of fuel.

Other destinations for Africom fuel supplies are Tanzania, Cape Verde, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Namibia.

Sep. 11, 2013 By MARCUS WEISGERBER – Defense News

June 3rd, 2013 By Jody Ray Bennett  / International Relations and Security Network - defencetalk.com

In January 2013, US military officials finalized a Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement with the government of Niger to increase military involvement throughout the country. While the move clearly reflected developments in neighboring Mali, it had long been an operational goal of the Pentagon to establish a drone base in the region. Before the Northern Mali conflict escalated last year, the Pentagon had been flying drones in the Horn of Africa to survey Somali piracy and other armed non-state actors like Al-Shabaab. But despite complaints by West African governments and regional business interests, few resources were being devoted to the perceived threat from the nomadic Tuareg minority that was allegedly transporting weapons and other illicit goods across the Sahel.

While the connection between what some have dubbed Mali’s “Tuareg Problem” and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb remains unproven, the possibility that these groups might be working together (or perhaps the simple fact that they existed) was enough for the Pentagon to establish its first drone base in West Africa. After the Benghazi attack, in which it is believed that a lack of air support to Libya resulted in the deaths of four American diplomatic officials and multiple other injuries, some form of established US military presence in a neighboring country was perhaps inevitable. Indeed, the former commander of AFRICOM, which oversees military operations on the African continent, said about Benghazi in a New York Times interview, “Instead of responding in a day, [the new base in Niger] could respond within some number of hours.”

A logical choice

According to initial reports, the drone base sits behind a barbed-wire wall in Niamey, Niger’s capital. The US Air Force has begun flying Predator drones from the base through scorching heat and daily sandstorms. Though unarmed, these Predator drones can cover the country to conduct surveillance and other reconnaissance missions. These missions primarily look for security threats such as Al-Qaeda fighters, “guerillas from other groups hiding in the country’s mountains and hills”, and other Islamist non-state actors that threaten border security or neighboring African states.

While contractors and military officials from Chad, France, and the United States conduct unarmed drone missions from Niger to gather intelligence on the insurgency in Mali, US officials have told media outlets that they have not yet ruled out arming drones from this base for targeted killings. Indeed, US forces had long been in Mali before a permanent presence was considered, primarily to oversee the base and undertake intelligence assessments.

According to a report in The Guardian, “The White House announced in February [2013] that Obama had deployed about 100 military personnel to Niger on an ‘intelligence collection’ mission, but it did not make any explicit reference to drones.” Since the establishment of the hangars and airstrip, the presence of drone flights is hardly a secret. The Guardian further reported that the President of Niger, Issoufou Mahamadou, told the publication that “his government invited Washington to send surveillance drones because he was worried that the country might not be able to defend its borders from Islamist fighters based in Mali, Libya or Nigeria.” While US drone operations are a part of a constellation of bases across North Africa and the Middle East, the new Nigerien base now joins continental missions that occur from Djibouti, Ethiopia, and until most recently, the Seychelles.

“Niger is, of course, a natural choice, not only because of its central geographic position, but because its democratically-elected government has weathered the regional upheaval quite well and has proven a reliable ally in efforts to contain and defeat violent extremism,” said Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council and specialist on African security issues.

But uncertainties remain

“Of course,” Pham continued, “while the deployment of surveillance drones to Niger makes sense, regional security (and the strategic interests of the United States and its allies) would be better served over the long term if the deployment were accompanied by a more comprehensive engagement of the country, including greater support for its continued political, economic, and social development.”

Relations between the United States and Niger have been positive since the West African country became independent in 1962. Nevertheless, in a recent interview, Niger’s president is quoted as saying “The U.S. should do more in the area of training, equipment, land and air, and intelligence capability”, while fearlessly launching complaints about the “feeble” attempts of West African governments and militaries alike to quell insurgencies and other security threats.

While Niger may have been seen as a natural choice to establish a US military presence, officials were not sure how well a drone base would be received in a majority Muslim country. According to the Guardian article:

“US and Nigerien officials had worried that the drones might spur a popular backlash in Niger, where about 90 % of the population is Muslim. Extra security barriers were raised outside the US and French embassies as a precaution. So far, however, reaction has been muted, and many people seem to favour anything that the US and French militaries can do to prevent a spillover of violence from Mali.”

And this is precisely why the US established an operational role in the country. With an established base, the United States gains a foothold in the country at minimal cost; a new, physical military presence in the region that it can cite upon criticism of the Benghazi attack; an intelligence stake in the ongoing conflict in Mali; additional information from operations occurring in remote areas of the region; and, in addition to all of this, the ability to wield soft power abroad during a time when American taxpayers are growing increasingly frustrated with military strain in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The entire operation, however, is being carried out by AFRICOM, a military command for an entire continent with a budget of $300 million and roughly 2,000 employees. Those figures should be compared to the US Central Command that manages Afghanistan and the Middle East with a budget of approximately $800 million and 5,000 employees. A year ago, AFRICOM operations in Niger involved spending money on t-shirts, campaign signs, and other efforts to persuade citizens to vote. Now AFRICOM maintains it can “carry out both combat operations and its original ‘soft power’ missions, taking cues from envoys in the region like Bisa Williams, the United States ambassador in Niamey.”

Nevertheless, much of the Nigerien population is skeptical of outsiders, especially foreign powers that can be reminiscent of Niger’s colonial past. If drones here are weaponized, there could easily be much more blowback compared to a country like Yemen or Pakistan where armed drones regularly conduct aerial strikes.

“It is important to emphasize that the current deployment is only for unarmed intelligence-gathering aerial vehicles. It is unlikely that there will be attacks by armed drones in this area for the simple reason that there is a very limited number of such aircraft and the paucity of high-value terrorists in the Sahel – to say nothing about a lack of intelligence about such potential targets in the region – to justify yanking the aircraft from other fronts. And, even if a strike or two were carried out, such attacks are not a sustainable strategy. They simply would buy time for a political process that alone can hope to resolve the deep-seated issues in this region,” Dr. J. Peter Pham explained.

While one can question the role that these developments play in the larger US grand strategy, they have opened up West Africa to the first ongoing American military presence under the management of AFRICOM. At least for now, however, the establishment of a drone base by the United States is primarily for the use of unarmed aerial reconnaissance vehicles, and is not especially surprising in light of the growing influence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and its allies in northern Mali, within an area larger than metropolitan France.

22 May 2013 by Africom

Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) soldiers slated to deploy to Mali completed an improvised explosive device recognition course provided by the US military’s Operation Onward Liberty mentors at Edward Binyah Kesselly Military Barracks earlier this month.

The IED recognition course, held on May 3, built on prior IED familiarization and lane exercises, in which squads cycle through various scenarios, to provide the deploying soldiers with additional IED experience in preparation for their upcoming deployment, US Africa Command (Africom) said.

Onward Liberty (OOL) is a U.S. Marine Corps Forces Africa-led operation comprised of joint U.S. service members who mentor and advise the AFL in order to develop a national military that is responsible, operationally capable and respectful of civilian authority and the rule of law. OOL’s goal is to assist the AFL in building a professional and capable military force that can effectively contribute to the overall security environment in Liberia.

OOL personnel continue to mentor AFL leaders and training staff at all levels to ensure the deploying platoon is properly trained and equipped to succeed in partner-nation operations in Mali and to represent Liberia as a legitimate, capable and professional force for good.

U.S. Marine Corps 1st. Lt. Robert Rivera, AFL engineer mentor, oversaw the planning and execution of the IED lane course. “The purpose of this course was to identify strengths and improvement areas for the platoon and to build on their prior training ahead of their deployment,” he said. “They’ve received basic IED training and seen scenario lanes, and this training built on that. They encountered four different lanes which each entailed a dynamic, Mali-focused threat they may encounter.”

Rivera added that the platoon excelled at the entry control point lane specifically. “I was very impressed with the quality of their performance there,” he said. “I’m confident that they’ll be able to build on that and work on their improvement areas to continue to gain overall proficiency.”

AFL 1st. Lt. Nathaniel Waka, platoon commander, said that the combination of lane training and IED recognition posed a new challenge for his soldiers. “We’ve had training on each previously, but these scenarios were new,” he said. “The course was invaluable for helping the troops think on their feet and react in dynamic situations. With each new course and phase of training, our soldiers continue to improve and grow in confidence and proficiency.”