AFRICOM's New Math, the US Base Bonanza and "Scarier" Times Ahead in Africa
Tuesday, 17 November 2015 00:00 By Nick Turse, TomDispatch | News Analysis
Leaders pose for a photo around US Army Gen. David Rodriguez (front,
center), US Army Africa Command commander, June 26, 2013, during Exercise
Western Accord 2013 in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: Sgt. Tyler Sletten / US Army
National Guard)
In the shadows of what was once called the "dark continent," a scramble has
come and gone. If you heard nothing about it, that was by design. But look
hard enough and - north to south, east to west - you'll find the fruits of
that effort: a network of bases, compounds, and other sites whose sum total
exceeds the number of nations on the continent. For a military that has
stumbled from Iraq to Afghanistan and suffered setbacks from Libya to Syria,
it's a rare can-do triumph. In remote locales, behind fences and beyond the
gaze of prying eyes, the US military has built an extensive archipelago of
African outposts, transforming the continent, experts say, into a laboratory
for a new kind of war.
So how many US military bases are there in Africa? It's a simple question
with a simple answer. For years, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) gave a stock
response: one. Camp Lemonnier in the tiny, sun-bleached nation of Djibouti
was America's only acknowledged "base" on the continent. It wasn't true, of
course, because there were camps, compounds, installations, and facilities
elsewhere, but the military leaned hard on semantics.
Take a look at the Pentagon's official list of bases, however, and the
number grows. The 2015 report on the Department of Defense's global property
portfolio lists Camp Lemonnier and three other deep-rooted sites on or near
the continent: US Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, a medical research
facility in Cairo, Egypt, that was established in 1946; Ascension Auxiliary
Airfield, a spacecraft tracking station and airfield located 1,000 miles off
the coast of West Africa that has been used by the US since 1957; and
warehouses at the airport and seaport in Mombasa, Kenya, that were built in
the 1980s.
That's only the beginning, not the end of the matter. For years, various
reporters have shed light on hush-hush outposts - most of them built,
upgraded, or expanded since 9/11 - dotting the continent, including
so-called cooperative security locations (CSLs). Earlier this year, AFRICOM
commander General David Rodriguez disclosed that there were actually 11 such
sites. Again, devoted AFRICOM-watchers knew that this, too, was just the
start of a larger story, but when I asked Africa Command for a list of
bases, camps and other sites, as I periodically have done, I was treated
like a sap.
"In all, AFRICOM has access to 11 CSLs across Africa. Of course, we have one
major military facility on the continent: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti,"
Anthony Falvo, AFRICOM's Public Affairs chief, told me. Falvo was peddling
numbers that both he and I know perfectly well are, at best, misleading.
"It's one of the most troubling aspects of our military policy in Africa,
and overseas generally, that the military can't be, and seems totally
resistant to being, honest and transparent about what it's doing," says
David Vine, author of Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America
and the World.
Research by TomDispatch indicates that in recent years the US military has,
in fact, developed a remarkably extensive network of more than 60 outposts
and access points in Africa. Some are currently being utilized, some are
held in reserve, and some may be shuttered. These bases, camps, compounds,
port facilities, fuel bunkers, and other sites can be found in at least 34
countries - more than 60% of the nations on the continent - many of them
corrupt, repressive states with poor human rights records. The US also
operates "Offices of Security Cooperation and Defense Attaché Offices in
approximately 38 [African] nations," according to Falvo, and has struck
close to 30 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling
centers.
There is no reason to believe that even this represents a complete
accounting of America's growing archipelago of African outposts. Although
it's possible that a few sites are being counted twice due to AFRICOM's
failure to provide basic information or clarification, the list TomDispatch
has developed indicates that the US military has created a network of bases
that goes far beyond what AFRICOM has disclosed to the American public, let
alone to Africans.
US military outposts, port facilities, and other areas of access in Africa,
2002-2015. Click here to enlarge. (Nick Turse/TomDispatch, 2015)
AFRICOM's Base Bonanza
When AFRICOM became an independent command in 2008, Camp Lemonnier was
reportedly still one of the few American outposts on the continent. In the
years since, the US has embarked on nothing short of a building boom - even
if the command is loath to refer to it in those terms. As a result, it's now
able to carry out increasing numbers of overt and covert missions, from
training exercises to drone assassinations.
"AFRICOM, as a new command, is basically a laboratory for a different kind
of warfare and a different way of posturing forces," says Richard Reeve, the
director of the Sustainable Security Programm e at the Oxford Research
Group, a London-based think tank. "Apart from Djibouti, there's no
significant stockpiling of troops, equipment, or even aircraft. There are a
myriad of 'lily pads' or small forward operating bases... so you can spread
out even a small number of forces over a very large area and concentrate
those forces quite quickly when necessary."
Indeed, US staging areas, cooperative security locations, forward operating
locations (FOLs), and other outposts - many of them involved in
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities and Special
Operations missions - have been built (or built up) in Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Gabon,Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, the Seychelles, Somalia, South
Sudan, and Uganda. A 2011 report by Lauren Ploch, an analyst in African
affairs with the Congressional Research Service, also mentioned US military
access to locations in Algeria, Botswana, Namibia, São Tomé and Príncipe,
Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and Zambia. AFRICOM failed to respond to scores of
requests by this reporter for further information about its outposts and
related matters, but an analysis of open source information, documents
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other records show a
persistent, enduring, and growing US presence on the continent.
"A cooperative security location is just a small location where we can come
in... It would be what you would call a very austere location with a couple
of warehouses that has things like: tents, water, and things like that,"
explained AFRICOM's Rodriguez. As he implies, the military doesn't consider
CSLs to be "bases," but whatever they might be called, they are more than
merely a few tents and cases of bottled water.
Designed to accommodate about 200 personnel, with runways suitable for C-130
transport aircraft, the sites are primed for conversion from temporary,
bare-bones facilities into something more enduring. At least three of them
in Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon are apparently designed to facilitate faster
deployment for a rapid reaction unit with a mouthful of a moniker: Special
Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa (SPMAGTF-CR-AF).
Its forces are based in Morón, Spain, and Sigonella, Italy, but are focused
on Africa. They rely heavily on MV-22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor aircraft that can
take-off, land, and hover like helicopters, but fly with the speed and fuel
efficiency of a turboprop plane.
This combination of manpower, access, and technology has come to be known in
the military by the moniker "New Normal." Birthed in the wake of the
September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed US Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the New Normal effectively
allows the US military quick access 400 miles inland from any CSL or, as
Richard Reeve notes, gives it "a reach that extends to just about every
country in West and Central Africa."
The concept was field-tested as South Sudan plunged into civil war and 160
Marines and sailors from Morón were forward deployed to Djibouti in late
2013. Within hours, a contingent from that force was sent to Uganda and, in
early 2014, in conjunction with another rapid reaction unit, dispatched to
South Sudan to evacuate 20 people from the American embassy in Juba. Earlier
this year, SPMAGTF-CR-AF ran trials at its African staging areas including
the CSL in Libreville, Gabon, deploying nearly 200 Marines and sailors along
with four Ospreys, two C-130s, and more than 150,000 pounds of materiel.
A similar test run was carried out at the Senegal CSL located at
Dakar-Ouakam Air Base, which can also host 200 Marines and the support
personnel necessary to sustain and transport them. "What the CSL offers is
the ability to forward-stage our forces to respond to any type of crisis,"
Lorenzo Armijo, an operations officer with SPMAGTF-CR-AF, told a military
reporter. "That crisis can range in the scope of military operations from
embassy reinforcement to providing humanitarian assistance."
Another CSL, mentioned in a July 2012 briefing by US Army Africa, is located
in Entebbe, Uganda. From there, according to a Washington Postinvestigation,
US contractors have flown surveillance missions using innocuous-looking
turboprop airplanes. "The AFRICOM strategy is to have a very light touch, a
light footprint, but nevertheless facilitate special forces operations or
ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] detachments over a very
wide area," Reeve says. "To do that they don't need very much basing
infrastructure, they need an agreement to use a location, basic facilities
on the ground, a stockpile of fuel, but they also can rely on private
contractors to maintain a number of facilities so there aren't US troops on
the ground."
US Army Africa briefing slide from 2012 detailing work at the Entebbe CSL.
Click here to expand.
The Outpost Archipelago
AFRICOM ignored my requests for further information on CSLs and for the
designations of other outposts on the continent, but according to a 2014
article in Army Sustainment on "Overcoming Logistics Challenges in East
Africa," there are also "at least nine forward operating locations, or
FOLs." A 2007 Defense Department news release referred to an FOL in
Charichcho, Ethiopia. The US military also utilizes "Forward Operating
Location Kasenyi" in Kampala, Uganda. A 2010 report by the Government
Accountability Office mentioned forward operating locations in Isiolo and
Manda Bay, both in Kenya.
Camp Simba in Manda Bay has, in fact, seen significant expansion in recent
years. In 2013, Navy Seabees, for example, worked 24-hour shifts to extend
its runway to enable larger aircraft like C-130s to land there, while other
projects were initiated to accommodate greater numbers of troops in the
future, including increased fuel and potable water storage, and more
latrines. The base serves as a home away from home for Navy personnel and
Army Green Berets among other US troops and, as recently revealed at
theIntercept, plays an integral role in the secret drone assassination
program aimed at militants in neighboring Somalia as well as in Yemen.
Drones have played an increasingly large role in this post-9/11 build-up in
Africa. MQ-1 Predators have, for instance, been based in Chad's capital,
N'Djamena, while their newer, larger, more far-ranging cousins, MQ-9
Reapers, have been flown out of Seychelles International Airport. As of June
2012, according to the Intercept, two contractor-operated drones, one
Predator and one Reaper, were based in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, while a
detachment with one Scan Eagle (a low-cost drone used by the Navy) and a
remotely piloted helicopter known as an MQ-8 Fire Scout operated off the
coast of East Africa. The US also recently began setting up a base in
Cameroon for unarmed Predators to be used in the battle against Boko Haram
militants.
US Army Africa briefing slide from 2013 obtained by TomDispatch via the
Freedom of Information Act. Click here to expand.
In February 2013, the US also began flying Predator drones out of Niger's
capital, Niamey. A year later, Captain Rick Cook, then chief of US Africa
Command's Engineer Division, mentioned the potential for a new "base-like
facility" that would be "semi-permanent" and "capable of air operations" in
that country. That September, the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock exposed
plans to base drones at a second location there, Agadez. Within days, the US
Embassy in Niamey announced that AFRICOM was, indeed, "assessing the
possibility of establishing a temporary, expeditionary contingency support
location in Agadez, Niger."
Earlier this year, Captain Rodney Worden of AFRICOM's Logistics and Support
Division mentioned "a partnering and capacity-building project... for the
Niger Air Force and Armed Forces in concert with USAFRICOM and [US] Air
Forces Africa to construct a runway and associated work/life support area
for airfield operations." And when the National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2016 was introduced in April, embedded in it was a $50
million request for the construction of an "airfield and base camp at
Agadez, Niger... to support operations in western Africa." When Congress
recently passed the annual defense policy bill, that sum was authorized.
According to Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, the head of US Special
Operations Command Africa, there is also a team of Special Operations forces
currently "living right next to" local troops in Diffa, Niger. A 2013
military briefing slide, obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of
Information Act, indicates a "US presence" as well in Ouallam, Niger, and at
both Bamako and Kidal in neighboring Mali. Ouagadougou, the capital of
Burkina Faso, a country that borders both of those nations, plays host to a
Special Operations Forces Liaison Element Team, a Joint Special Operations
Air Detachment, and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift
Support initiative which, according to official documents, facilitates
"high-risk activities" carried out by elite forces from Joint Special
Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara.
On the other side of the continent in Somalia, elite US forces are operating
from small compounds in Kismayo and Baledogle, according to reporting
byForeign Policy. Neighboring Ethiopia has similarly been a prime locale for
American outposts, including Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa, contingency
operating locations at both Hurso and Bilate, and facilities used by a
40-man team based in Bara. So-called Combined Operations Fusion Centers were
set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan as part of an
effort to destroy Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA). Washington Post investigations have revealed that US forces have also
been based in Djema, Sam Ouandja, and Obo, in the Central African Republic
as part of that effort. There has recently been new construction by Navy
Seabees at Obo to increase the camp's capacity as well as to install the
infrastructure for a satellite dish.
There are other locations that, while not necessarily outposts, nonetheless
form critical nodes in the US base network on the continent. These include
10 marine gas and oil bunkers located at ports in eight African nations.
Additionally, AFRICOM acknowledges an agreement to use Léopold Sédar Senghor
International Airport in Senegal for refueling as well as for the
"transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities."
A similar deal is in place for the use of Kitgum Airport in Kitgum, Uganda,
and Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All told, according
to the Defense Logistics Agency, the US military has struck 29 agreements to
use airports as refueling centers in 27 African countries.
Not all US bases in Africa have seen continuous use in these years. After
the American-backed military overthrew the government of Mauritania in 2008,
for example, the US suspended an airborne surveillance program based in its
capital, Nouakchott. Following a coup in Mali by a US-trained officer, the
United States suspended military relations with the government and a spartan
US compound near the town of Gao was apparently overrun by rebel forces.
Most of the new outposts on that continent, however, seem to be putting down
roots. As TomDispatch regular and basing expert David Vine suggests, "The
danger of the strategy in which you see US bases popping up increasingly
around the continent is that once bases get established they become very
difficult to close. Once they generate momentum, within Congress and in
terms of funding, they have a tendency to expand."
To supply its troops in East Africa, AFRICOM has also built a sophisticated
logistics system. It's officially known as the Surface Distribution Network,
but colloquially referred to as the "new spice route." It connects Kenya,
Uganda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. These hubs are, in turn, part of a
transportation and logistics network that includes bases located in Rota,
Spain; Aruba in the Lesser Antilles; Souda Bay, Greece; and a forward
operating site on Britain's Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
Germany's Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of US Air Forces Europe and one of
the largest American military bases outside the United States, is another
key site. As the Intercept reported earlier this year, it serves as "the
high-tech heart of America's drone program" for the Greater Middle East and
Africa. Germany is also host to AFRICOM's headquarters, located at Kelley
Barracks in Stuttgart-Moehringen, itself a site reportedly integral to drone
operations in Africa.
In addition to hosting a contingent of the Marines and sailors of
Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa,
Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Italy, is another important logistics
facility for African operations. The second-busiest military air station in
Europe, Sigonella is a key hub for drones covering Africa, serving as a base
for MQ-1 Predators and RQ-4B Global Hawk surveillance drones.
The Crown Jewels
Back on the continent, the undisputed crown jewel in the US archipelago of
bases is indeed still Camp Lemonnier. To quote Secretary of Defense Ashton
Carter, it is "a hub with lots of spokes out there on the continent and in
the region." Sharing a runway with Djibouti's Ambouli International Airport,
the sprawling compound is the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn
of Africa and is home to the East Africa Response Force, another regional
quick-reaction unit. The camp, which also serves as the forward headquarters
for Task Force 48-4, a hush-hush counterterrorism unit targeting militants
in East Africa and Yemen, has seen personnel stationed there jump by more
than 400% since 2002.
In the same period, Camp Lemonnier has expanded from 88 acres to nearly 600
acres and is in the midst of a years-long building boom for which more than
$600 million has already been awarded or allocated. In late 2013, for
example, B.L. Harbert International, an Alabama-based construction company,
was awarded a $150 million contract by the Navy for "the P-688 Forward
Operating Base at Camp Lemonnier." According to a corporate press release,
"the site is approximately 20 acres in size, and will contain 11 primary
structures and ancillary facilities required to support current and emerging
operational missions throughout the region."
In 2014, the Navy completed construction of a $750,000 secure facility for
Special Operations Command Forward-East Africa (SOCFWD-EA). It is one of
three similar teams on the continent - the others being SOCFWD-Central
Africa and SOCFWD-North and West Africa - which, according to the military,
"shape and coordinate special operations forces security cooperation and
engagement in support of theater special operations command, geographic
combatant command, and country team goals and objectives."
In 2012, according to secret documents recently revealed by the Intercept,
10 Predator drones and four Reaper drones were based at Camp Lemonnier,
along with six U-28As (a single-engine aircraft that conducts surveillance
for special operations forces) and two P-3 Orions (a four-engine turboprop
surveillance aircraft). There were also eight F-15E Strike Eagles, heavily
armed, manned fighter jets. By August 2012, an average of 16 drones and four
fighters were taking off or landing at the base each day.
The next year, in the wake of a number of drone crashes and turmoil
involving Djiboutian air traffic controllers, drone operations were moved to
a more remote site located about six miles away. Djibouti's Chabelley
Airfield, which has seen significant construction of late and has a much
lower profile than Camp Lemonnier, now serves as a key base for America's
regional drone campaign. Dan Gettinger, the co-founder and co-director of
the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, recently told
theIntercept that the operations run from the site were "JSOC [Joint Special
Operations Command] and CIA-led missions for the most part," explaining that
they were likely focused on counterterrorism strikes in Somalia and Yemen,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities, as well as
support for the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen.
A Scarier Future
Over many months, AFRICOM repeatedly ignored even basic questions from this
reporter about America's sweeping archipelago of bases. In practical terms,
that means there is no way to know with complete certainty how many of the
more than 60 bases, bunkers, outposts, and areas of access are currently
being used by US forces or how many additional sites may exist. What does
seem clear is that the number of bases and other sites, however defined, is
increasing, mirroring the rise in the number of US troops, special
operations deployments, and missions in Africa.
"There's going to be a network of small bases with maybe a couple of
medium-altitude, long-endurance drones at each one, so that anywhere on the
continent is always within range," says the Oxford Research Group's Richard
Reeve when I ask him for a forecast of the future. In many ways, he notes,
this has already begun everywhere but in southern Africa, not currently seen
by the US military as a high-risk area.
The Obama administration, Reeve explains, has made use of humanitarian
rhetoric as a cover for expansion on the continent. He points in particular
to the deployment of forces against the Lord's Resistance Army in Central
Africa, the build-up of forces near Lake Chad in the effort against Boko
Haram, and the post-Benghazi New Normal concept as examples. "But, in
practice, what is all of this going to be used for?" he wonders. After all,
the enhanced infrastructure and increased capabilities that today may be
viewed by the White House as an insurance policy against another Benghazi
can easily be repurposed in the future for different types of military
interventions.
"Where does this go post-Obama?" Reeve asks rhetorically, noting that the
rise of AFRICOM and the proliferation of small outposts have been "in line
with the Obama doctrine." He draws attention to the president's embrace of a
lighter-footprint brand of warfare, specifically a reliance on Special
Operations forces and drones. This may, Reeve adds, just be a prelude to
something larger and potentially more dangerous.
"Where would Hillary take this?" he asks, referencing the hawkish Democratic
primary frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. "Or any of the Republican potentials?"
He points to the George W. Bush administration as an example and raises the
question of what it might have done back in the early 2000s if AFRICOM's
infrastructure had already been in place. Such a thought experiment, he
suggests, could offer clues to what the future might hold now that the
continent is dotted with American outposts, drone bases, and compounds for
elite teams of Special Operations forces. "I think," Reeve says, "that we
could be looking at something a bit scarier in Africa."
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the
latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
NICK TURSE
Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, investigative journalist, the associate
editor of TomDispatch.com, and currently a fellow at Harvard University's
Radcliffe Institute. His latest book is Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy
Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.
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AFRICOM's New Math, the US Base Bonanza and "Scarier" Times Ahead in Africa
Tuesday, 17 November 2015 00:00 By Nick Turse, TomDispatch | News Analysis
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Leaders pose for a photo around US Army Gen. David Rodriguez
(front, center), US Army Africa Command commander, June 26, 2013, during
Exercise Western Accord 2013 in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: Sgt. Tyler Sletten /
US Army National Guard)
In the shadows of what was once called the "dark continent," a
scramble has come and gone. If you heard nothing about it, that was by
design. But look hard enough and - north to south, east to west - you'll
find the fruits of that effort: a network of bases, compounds, and other
sites whose sum total exceeds the number of nations on the continent. For a
military that has stumbled from Iraq to Afghanistan and suffered setbacks
from Libya to Syria, it's a rare can-do triumph. In remote locales, behind
fences and beyond the gaze of prying eyes, the US military has built an
extensive archipelago of African outposts, transforming the continent,
experts say, into a laboratory for a new kind of war.
So how many US military bases are there in Africa? It's a simple question
with a simple answer. For years, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) gave a stock
response: one. Camp Lemonnier in the tiny, sun-bleached nation of Djibouti
was America's only acknowledged "base" on the continent. It wasn't true, of
course, because there were camps, compounds, installations, and facilities
elsewhere, but the military leaned hard on semantics.
Take a look at the Pentagon's official list of bases, however, and the
number grows. The 2015 report on the Department of Defense's global property
portfolio lists Camp Lemonnier and three other deep-rooted sites on or near
the continent: US Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, a medical research
facility in Cairo, Egypt, that was established in 1946; Ascension Auxiliary
Airfield, a spacecraft tracking station and airfield located 1,000 miles off
the coast of West Africa that has been used by the US since 1957; and
warehouses at the airport and seaport in Mombasa, Kenya, that were built in
the 1980s.
That's only the beginning, not the end of the matter. For years, various
reporters have shed light on hush-hush outposts - most of them built,
upgraded, or expanded since 9/11 - dotting the continent, including
so-called cooperative security locations (CSLs). Earlier this year, AFRICOM
commander General David Rodriguez disclosed that there were actually 11 such
sites. Again, devoted AFRICOM-watchers knew that this, too, was just the
start of a larger story, but when I asked Africa Command for a list of
bases, camps and other sites, as I periodically have done, I was treated
like a sap.
"In all, AFRICOM has access to 11 CSLs across Africa. Of course, we have one
major military facility on the continent: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti,"
Anthony Falvo, AFRICOM's Public Affairs chief, told me. Falvo was peddling
numbers that both he and I know perfectly well are, at best, misleading.
"It's one of the most troubling aspects of our military policy in Africa,
and overseas generally, that the military can't be, and seems totally
resistant to being, honest and transparent about what it's doing," says
David Vine, author of Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America
and the World.
Research by TomDispatch indicates that in recent years the US military has,
in fact, developed a remarkably extensive network of more than 60 outposts
and access points in Africa. Some are currently being utilized, some are
held in reserve, and some may be shuttered. These bases, camps, compounds,
port facilities, fuel bunkers, and other sites can be found in at least 34
countries - more than 60% of the nations on the continent - many of them
corrupt, repressive states with poor human rights records. The US also
operates "Offices of Security Cooperation and Defense Attaché Offices in
approximately 38 [African] nations," according to Falvo, and has struck
close to 30 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling
centers.
There is no reason to believe that even this represents a complete
accounting of America's growing archipelago of African outposts. Although
it's possible that a few sites are being counted twice due to AFRICOM's
failure to provide basic information or clarification, the list TomDispatch
has developed indicates that the US military has created a network of bases
that goes far beyond what AFRICOM has disclosed to the American public, let
alone to Africans.
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af_1.jpg
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af_1.jpgUS military
outposts, port facilities, and other areas of access in Africa, 2002-2015.
Click here to enlarge. (Nick Turse/TomDispatch, 2015)
AFRICOM's Base Bonanza
When AFRICOM became an independent command in 2008, Camp Lemonnier was
reportedly still one of the few American outposts on the continent. In the
years since, the US has embarked on nothing short of a building boom - even
if the command is loath to refer to it in those terms. As a result, it's now
able to carry out increasing numbers of overt and covert missions, from
training exercises to drone assassinations.
"AFRICOM, as a new command, is basically a laboratory for a different kind
of warfare and a different way of posturing forces," says Richard Reeve, the
director of the Sustainable Security Programm e at the Oxford Research
Group, a London-based think tank. "Apart from Djibouti, there's no
significant stockpiling of troops, equipment, or even aircraft. There are a
myriad of 'lily pads' or small forward operating bases... so you can spread
out even a small number of forces over a very large area and concentrate
those forces quite quickly when necessary."
Indeed, US staging areas, cooperative security locations, forward operating
locations (FOLs), and other outposts - many of them involved in
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities and Special
Operations missions - have been built (or built up) in Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Gabon,Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, the Seychelles, Somalia, South
Sudan, and Uganda. A 2011 report by Lauren Ploch, an analyst in African
affairs with the Congressional Research Service, also mentioned US military
access to locations in Algeria, Botswana, Namibia, São Tomé and Príncipe,
Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and Zambia. AFRICOM failed to respond to scores of
requests by this reporter for further information about its outposts and
related matters, but an analysis of open source information, documents
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other records show a
persistent, enduring, and growing US presence on the continent.
"A cooperative security location is just a small location where we can come
in... It would be what you would call a very austere location with a couple
of warehouses that has things like: tents, water, and things like that,"
explained AFRICOM's Rodriguez. As he implies, the military doesn't consider
CSLs to be "bases," but whatever they might be called, they are more than
merely a few tents and cases of bottled water.
Designed to accommodate about 200 personnel, with runways suitable for C-130
transport aircraft, the sites are primed for conversion from temporary,
bare-bones facilities into something more enduring. At least three of them
in Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon are apparently designed to facilitate faster
deployment for a rapid reaction unit with a mouthful of a moniker: Special
Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa (SPMAGTF-CR-AF).
Its forces are based in Morón, Spain, and Sigonella, Italy, but are focused
on Africa. They rely heavily on MV-22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor aircraft that can
take-off, land, and hover like helicopters, but fly with the speed and fuel
efficiency of a turboprop plane.
This combination of manpower, access, and technology has come to be known in
the military by the moniker "New Normal." Birthed in the wake of the
September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed US Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the New Normal effectively
allows the US military quick access 400 miles inland from any CSL or, as
Richard Reeve notes, gives it "a reach that extends to just about every
country in West and Central Africa."
The concept was field-tested as South Sudan plunged into civil war and 160
Marines and sailors from Morón were forward deployed to Djibouti in late
2013. Within hours, a contingent from that force was sent to Uganda and, in
early 2014, in conjunction with another rapid reaction unit, dispatched to
South Sudan to evacuate 20 people from the American embassy in Juba. Earlier
this year, SPMAGTF-CR-AF ran trials at its African staging areas including
the CSL in Libreville, Gabon, deploying nearly 200 Marines and sailors along
with four Ospreys, two C-130s, and more than 150,000 pounds of materiel.
A similar test run was carried out at the Senegal CSL located at
Dakar-Ouakam Air Base, which can also host 200 Marines and the support
personnel necessary to sustain and transport them. "What the CSL offers is
the ability to forward-stage our forces to respond to any type of crisis,"
Lorenzo Armijo, an operations officer with SPMAGTF-CR-AF, told a military
reporter. "That crisis can range in the scope of military operations from
embassy reinforcement to providing humanitarian assistance."
Another CSL, mentioned in a July 2012 briefing by US Army Africa, is located
in Entebbe, Uganda. From there, according to a Washington Postinvestigation,
US contractors have flown surveillance missions using innocuous-looking
turboprop airplanes. "The AFRICOM strategy is to have a very light touch, a
light footprint, but nevertheless facilitate special forces operations or
ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] detachments over a very
wide area," Reeve says. "To do that they don't need very much basing
infrastructure, they need an agreement to use a location, basic facilities
on the ground, a stockpile of fuel, but they also can rely on private
contractors to maintain a number of facilities so there aren't US troops on
the ground."
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af2.jpg
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af2.jpgUS Army
Africa briefing slide from 2012 detailing work at the Entebbe CSL. Click
here to expand.
The Outpost Archipelago
AFRICOM ignored my requests for further information on CSLs and for the
designations of other outposts on the continent, but according to a 2014
article in Army Sustainment on "Overcoming Logistics Challenges in East
Africa," there are also "at least nine forward operating locations, or
FOLs." A 2007 Defense Department news release referred to an FOL in
Charichcho, Ethiopia. The US military also utilizes "Forward Operating
Location Kasenyi" in Kampala, Uganda. A 2010 report by the Government
Accountability Office mentioned forward operating locations in Isiolo and
Manda Bay, both in Kenya.
Camp Simba in Manda Bay has, in fact, seen significant expansion in recent
years. In 2013, Navy Seabees, for example, worked 24-hour shifts to extend
its runway to enable larger aircraft like C-130s to land there, while other
projects were initiated to accommodate
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CCsQFjAE
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcocomconferences.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2F
Manda-Bay-NAVAF.pdf&ei=ED9uVZGJI8qayATXloCYAg&usg=AFQjCNGCWKsNHZExHdG0egdq1a
WDcII_Zw&bvm=bv.94455598,bs.1,d.cWc&cad=rjagreater numbers of troops in the
future, including increased fuel and potable water storage, and more
latrines. The base serves as a home away from home for Navy personnel and
Army Green Berets among other US troops and, as recently revealed at
theIntercept, plays an integral role in the secret drone assassination
program aimed at militants in neighboring Somalia as well as in Yemen.
Drones have played an increasingly large role in this post-9/11 build-up in
Africa. MQ-1 Predators have, for instance, been based in Chad's capital,
N'Djamena, while their newer, larger, more far-ranging cousins, MQ-9
Reapers, have been flown out of Seychelles International Airport. As of June
2012, according to the Intercept, two contractor-operated drones, one
Predator and one Reaper, were based in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, while a
detachment with one Scan Eagle (a low-cost drone used by the Navy) and a
remotely piloted helicopter known as an MQ-8 Fire Scout operated off the
coast of East Africa. The US also recently began setting up a base in
Cameroon for unarmed Predators to be used in the battle against Boko Haram
militants.
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af3.jpg
http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2015_11/2015_1117af3.jpgUS Army
Africa briefing slide from 2013 obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of
Information Act. Click here to expand.
In February 2013, the US also began flying Predator drones out of Niger's
capital, Niamey. A year later, Captain Rick Cook, then chief of US Africa
Command's Engineer Division, mentioned the potential for a new "base-like
facility" that would be "semi-permanent" and "capable of air operations" in
that country. That September, the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock exposed
plans to base drones at a second location there, Agadez. Within days, the US
Embassy in Niamey announced that AFRICOM was, indeed, "assessing the
possibility of establishing a temporary, expeditionary contingency support
location in Agadez, Niger."
Earlier this year, Captain Rodney Worden of AFRICOM's Logistics and Support
Division mentioned "a partnering and capacity-building project... for the
Niger Air Force and Armed Forces in concert with USAFRICOM and [US] Air
Forces Africa to construct a runway and associated work/life support area
for airfield operations." And when the National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2016 was introduced in April, embedded in it was a $50
million request for the construction of an "airfield and base camp at
Agadez, Niger... to support operations in western Africa." When Congress
recently passed the annual defense policy bill, that sum was authorized.
According to Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, the head of US Special
Operations Command Africa, there is also a team of Special Operations forces
currently "living right next to" local troops in Diffa, Niger. A 2013
military briefing slide, obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of
Information Act, indicates a "US presence" as well in Ouallam, Niger, and at
both Bamako and Kidal in neighboring Mali. Ouagadougou, the capital of
Burkina Faso, a country that borders both of those nations, plays host to a
Special Operations Forces Liaison Element Team, a Joint Special Operations
Air Detachment, and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift
Support initiative which, according to official documents, facilitates
"high-risk activities" carried out by elite forces from Joint Special
Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara.
On the other side of the continent in Somalia, elite US forces are operating
from small compounds in Kismayo and Baledogle, according to reporting
byForeign Policy. Neighboring Ethiopia has similarly been a prime locale for
American outposts, including Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa, contingency
operating locations at both Hurso and Bilate, and facilities used by a
40-man team based in Bara. So-called Combined Operations Fusion Centers were
set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan as part of an
effort to destroy Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA). Washington Post investigations have revealed that US forces have also
been based in Djema, Sam Ouandja, and Obo, in the Central African Republic
as part of that effort. There has recently been new construction by Navy
Seabees at Obo to increase the camp's capacity as well as to install the
infrastructure for a satellite dish.
There are other locations that, while not necessarily outposts, nonetheless
form critical nodes in the US base network on the continent. These include
10 marine gas and oil bunkers located at ports in eight African nations.
Additionally, AFRICOM acknowledges an agreement to use Léopold Sédar Senghor
International Airport in Senegal for refueling as well as for the
"transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities."
A similar deal is in place for the use of Kitgum Airport in Kitgum, Uganda,
and Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All told, according
to the Defense Logistics Agency, the US military has struck 29 agreements to
use airports as refueling centers in 27 African countries.
Not all US bases in Africa have seen continuous use in these years. After
the American-backed military overthrew the government of Mauritania in 2008,
for example, the US suspended an airborne surveillance program based in its
capital, Nouakchott. Following a coup in Mali by a US-trained officer, the
United States suspended military relations with the government and a spartan
US compound near the town of Gao was apparently overrun by rebel forces.
Most of the new outposts on that continent, however, seem to be putting down
roots. As TomDispatch regular and basing expert David Vine suggests, "The
danger of the strategy in which you see US bases popping up increasingly
around the continent is that once bases get established they become very
difficult to close. Once they generate momentum, within Congress and in
terms of funding, they have a tendency to expand."
To supply its troops in East Africa, AFRICOM has also built a sophisticated
logistics system. It's officially known as the Surface Distribution Network,
but colloquially referred to as the "new spice route." It connects Kenya,
Uganda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. These hubs are, in turn, part of a
transportation and logistics network that includes bases located in Rota,
Spain; Aruba in the Lesser Antilles; Souda Bay, Greece; and a forward
operating site on Britain's Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
Germany's Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of US Air Forces Europe and one of
the largest American military bases outside the United States, is another
key site. As the Intercept reported earlier this year, it serves as "the
high-tech heart of America's drone program" for the Greater Middle East and
Africa. Germany is also host to AFRICOM's headquarters, located at Kelley
Barracks in Stuttgart-Moehringen, itself a site reportedly integral to drone
operations in Africa.
In addition to hosting a contingent of the Marines and sailors of
Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa,
Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Italy, is another important logistics
facility for African operations. The second-busiest military air station in
Europe, Sigonella is a key hub for drones covering Africa, serving as a base
for MQ-1 Predators and RQ-4B Global Hawk surveillance drones.
The Crown Jewels
Back on the continent, the undisputed crown jewel in the US archipelago of
bases is indeed still Camp Lemonnier. To quote Secretary of Defense Ashton
Carter, it is "a hub with lots of spokes out there on the continent and in
the region." Sharing a runway with Djibouti's Ambouli International Airport,
the sprawling compound is the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn
of Africa and is home to the East Africa Response Force, another regional
quick-reaction unit. The camp, which also serves as the forward headquarters
for Task Force 48-4, a hush-hush counterterrorism unit targeting militants
in East Africa and Yemen, has seen personnel stationed there jump by more
than 400% since 2002.
In the same period, Camp Lemonnier has expanded from 88 acres to nearly 600
acres and is in the midst of a years-long building boom for which more than
$600 million has already been awarded or allocated. In late 2013, for
example, B.L. Harbert International, an Alabama-based construction company,
was awarded a $150 million contract by the Navy for "the P-688 Forward
Operating Base at Camp Lemonnier." According to a corporate press release,
"the site is approximately 20 acres in size, and will contain 11 primary
structures and ancillary facilities required to support current and emerging
operational missions throughout the region."
In 2014, the Navy completed construction of a $750,000 secure facility for
Special Operations Command Forward-East Africa (SOCFWD-EA). It is one of
three similar teams on the continent - the others being SOCFWD-Central
Africa and SOCFWD-North and West Africa
http://www.c-span.org/video/?400135-4/defense-one-summit-part-4- which,
according to the military, "shape and coordinate special operations forces
security cooperation and engagement in support of theater special operations
command, geographic combatant command, and country team goals and
objectives."
In 2012, according to secret documents recently revealed by the Intercept,
10 Predator drones and four Reaper drones were based at Camp Lemonnier,
along with six U-28As (a single-engine aircraft that conducts surveillance
for special operations forces) and two P-3 Orions (a four-engine turboprop
surveillance aircraft). There were also eight F-15E Strike Eagles, heavily
armed, manned fighter jets. By August 2012, an average of 16 drones and four
fighters were taking off or landing at the base each day.
The next year, in the wake of a number of drone crashes and turmoil
involving Djiboutian air traffic controllers, drone operations were moved to
a more remote site located about six miles away. Djibouti's Chabelley
Airfield, which has seen significant construction of late and has a much
lower profile than Camp Lemonnier, now serves as a key base for America's
regional drone campaign. Dan Gettinger, the co-founder and co-director of
the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, recently told
theIntercept that the operations run from the site were "JSOC [Joint Special
Operations Command] and CIA-led missions for the most part," explaining that
they were likely focused on counterterrorism strikes in Somalia and Yemen,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities, as well as
support for the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen.
A Scarier Future
Over many months, AFRICOM repeatedly ignored even basic questions from this
reporter about America's sweeping archipelago of bases. In practical terms,
that means there is no way to know with complete certainty how many of the
more than 60 bases, bunkers, outposts, and areas of access are currently
being used by US forces or how many additional sites may exist. What does
seem clear is that the number of bases and other sites, however defined, is
increasing, mirroring the rise in the number of US troops, special
operations deployments, and missions in Africa.
"There's going to be a network of small bases with maybe a couple of
medium-altitude, long-endurance drones at each one, so that anywhere on the
continent is always within range," says the Oxford Research Group's Richard
Reeve when I ask him for a forecast of the future. In many ways, he notes,
this has already begun everywhere but in southern Africa, not currently seen
by the US military as a high-risk area.
The Obama administration, Reeve explains, has made use of humanitarian
rhetoric as a cover for expansion on the continent. He points in particular
to the deployment of forces against the Lord's Resistance Army in Central
Africa, the build-up of forces near Lake Chad in the effort against Boko
Haram, and the post-Benghazi New Normal concept as examples. "But, in
practice, what is all of this going to be used for?" he wonders. After all,
the enhanced infrastructure and increased capabilities that today may be
viewed by the White House as an insurance policy against another Benghazi
can easily be repurposed in the future for different types of military
interventions.
"Where does this go post-Obama?" Reeve asks rhetorically, noting that the
rise of AFRICOM and the proliferation of small outposts have been "in line
with the Obama doctrine." He draws attention to the president's embrace of a
lighter-footprint brand of warfare, specifically a reliance on Special
Operations forces and drones. This may, Reeve adds, just be a prelude to
something larger and potentially more dangerous.
"Where would Hillary take this?" he asks, referencing the hawkish Democratic
primary frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. "Or any of the Republican potentials?"
He points to the George W. Bush administration as an example and raises the
question of what it might have done back in the early 2000s if AFRICOM's
infrastructure had already been in place. Such a thought experiment, he
suggests, could offer clues to what the future might hold now that the
continent is dotted with American outposts, drone bases, and compounds for
elite teams of Special Operations forces. "I think," Reeve says, "that we
could be looking at something a bit scarier in Africa."
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the
latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
Nick Turse
Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, investigative journalist, the associate
editor of TomDispatch.com, and currently a fellow at Harvard University's
Radcliffe Institute. His latest book is Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy
Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.
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