United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

3 January 2011

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Obama condemns Egypt, Nigeria bombings (AFP)

(Nigeria) President Barack Obama on Saturday denounced separate "outrageous"
bombing attacks in Egypt and Nigeria.

Can Obama keep Sudan from exploding after its referendum? (Washington Post)
(Sudan) President Obama is trying to avoid having to issue his own mea culpa over a
genocide. Obama's test comes in Sudan, which on Jan. 9 is supposed to hold a
referendum on whether the country's southern region will secede from the north. I

Opinion: US offer of asylum for Ivory Coast's Gbabgo reveals outdated foreign
policy (Christian Science Monitor)
(Ivory Coast) The Obama administration’s approach to Ivory Coast's incumbent
President Laurent Gbagbo, based on reporting from The New York Times, suggests that
US officials are caught in a time warp.

Backing for southern Sudan's secession in January poll could rekindle civil war (The
Irish Times)
(Sudan) “For autocratic regimes, focused on retaining control over their population,
there is no such thing as a win-win situation; if anyone else gains, then by default, they
lose,” says Thomas Talley, a lieutenant colonel in the US army assigned to US Africa
Command. “There will be war in Sudan.”

Role of Oil In Sudan (Voice of America)

(Sudan) The US–backed 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) brought an end
to the civil war in Sudan… but the threat of a return to conflict remains close because
of the huge oil reserves, mostly located in the south, with much less in the north.

With Much at Stake, a Peaceful Vote on Dividing Sudan Appears More Likely (New
York Times)
(Sudan) What are the chances that the independence referendum in southern Sudan on
Jan. 9, the culmination of a peace process that ended decades of civil war between north
and south, will set off another one? It seems the chances are slim and getting slimmer.
Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
(OpEdNews.com)
(Pan Africa) Air strikes, drone and cruise missile attacks, special forces operations,
helicopter gunship raids, counterinsurgency campaigns, multinational armed
interventions, cluster bomb and depleted uranium weapons use, and the entire panoply
of military actions associated with the Afghanistan-Pakistan war are already being
conducted in Africa and will only be increased.

Raila Odinga departs for the Ivory Coast with a final warning for dictator Laurent
Gbagbo (Newstime Africa)
(Ivory Coast) The African Union has sent the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga,
with a final message to the Ivory Coast dictator, Laurent Gbagbo, to step down or face
the ultimate threat of legitimate forceful removal.

Bomb explodes at army barracks in Nigeria (Associated Press)

(Nigeria) A bomb blast tore through a beer garden at a Nigerian army barracks where
revelers had gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve, witnesses said, and state-run
television reported Friday that 30 people died, though police immediately disputed
that.

Mali Tackles Al Qaeda and Drug Traffic (New York Times)

(Mali) In a sign that Mali both acknowledges the terrorism issue and seeks to address
it, the country is rolling out a new development plan, hoping to tackle the problem at its
roots.

Kidnappings Highlight Al-Qaida's Rise In The Sahara (NPR)

(Pan Africa) Recent U.S. cables leaked by the WikiLeaks website show al-Qaida gaining
a foothold in the Sahel, a lawless region in the Sahara desert, straddling the African
nations of Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Algeria. How to counter and curb growing
Islamist militancy and banditry in this vast, poorly policed zone is a priority for
governments in West Africa, Washington and beyond.

Desperate act leads to unrest in Tunisia (Associated Press)

(Tunisia) Recent protests have exposed a side of Tunisia that the country has long tried
to hide: the poverty of the countryside, poor job prospects for youths and seething
resentment at the government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who has ruled
Tunisia with an iron fist since 1987.

General FAIL: The Military’s Worst Tweeters (Wired)

Generals and admirals are powerful people. Their decisions determine the course of
thousands of lives, with aftereffects that can affect millions more. Their budgets can
dwarf those of entire countries. Their words are parsed like the Talmud for clues about
the future of American warfare. And they absolutely cannot tweet.
Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
(OpEdNews.com)
The New Year began with three North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers killed in
Afghanistan and 20 people, all portrayed as militants, killed in four American missile
strikes in northwest Pakistan. The third drone missile attack killed four people
attempting to rescue and remove the bodies of the victims of the first, a technique used
by the U.S. and NATO in their war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Ban reaffirms UN's unwavering support for presidential poll result in Côte
d'Ivoire
 Darfur mediation team voices commitment to peace negotiations
 Sudan: UN envoy lauds courage of both sides ahead of independence vote in
South
 Ban appoints Karin Landgren of Sweden as new UN envoy for Burundi
 Any attack on new Côte d’Ivoire leader will be repulsed, top UN envoy warns
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, January 6, 2011; Brookings Institution

WHAT: Waging Peace in Sudan: The Inside Story of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement and the Prospects for Sudan’s Future
WHO: Hilde F. Johnson, author and former Minister of International Development of
Norway; Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ); Gayle Smith, National Security Council senior
director for development and democracy; Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Rich
Williamson
Info: https://www.cvent.com/EVENTS/Register/IdentityConfirmation.aspx?
e=998af087-00b2-4e56-a2b7-9e9b46877662

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday and Wednesday, February 8-9, 2011; National Defense

Industrial Association, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC
WHAT: Defense, Diplomacy, and Development: Translating Policy into Operational
Capability
WHO: Keynote Speakers include ADM Michael Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs
of Staff; BG Simon Hutchinson, GBR, Deputy Commander, NATO Special Operations
Forces Headquarters; ADM Eric T. Olson, USN, Commander, U.S. Special Operations
Command; Gen Norton A. Schwartz, USAF, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
Info: http://www.ndia.org/meetings/1880/Pages/default.aspx
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Obama condemns Egypt, Nigeria bombings (AFP)

HONOLULU, Hawaii – President Barack Obama on Saturday denounced separate
"outrageous" bombing attacks in Egypt and Nigeria.

"I strongly condemn the separate and outrageous terrorist bombing attacks in Egypt
and Nigeria," said Obama, who was visiting Hawaii.

"The attack on a church in Alexandria, Egypt caused 21 reported deaths and dozens of
injured from both the Christian and Muslim communities.

"The perpetrators of this attack were clearly targeting Christian worshipers, and have
no respect for human life and dignity. They must be brought to justice for this barbaric
and heinous act," Obama stressed.

He said the bombing in Abuja, Nigeria, targeted "innocent civilians who were simply
gathering -- like so many people around the world -- to celebrate the beginning of a
New Year."

"The United States extends its deepest condolences to the families of those killed and to
the wounded in both of these attacks, and we stand with the Nigerian and Egyptian
people at this difficult time," Obama added.

The State Department also issued a statement condemning the bombing in Alexandria,
and extending condolences to the victims.

"The Department of State continues to gather information regarding this heinous act,"
spokesman Mark Toner said.
------------------
Can Obama keep Sudan from exploding after its referendum? (Washington Post)

Looking back on his presidency, Bill Clinton has often expressed regret over his
administration's failure to stop the genocide that ravaged Rwanda in 1994 and cost
800,000 lives, even referring to it as a "personal failure" on his part. And President
George W. Bush, who labeled the mass killings in Darfur in 2004 as "genocide," has
voiced frustration over his inability to persuade the United Nations and others to
intervene more forcefully.

Now President Obama is trying to avoid having to issue his own mea culpa.

Obama's test comes in Sudan, which on Jan. 9 is supposed to hold a referendum on

whether the country's southern region will secede from the north. If the south votes for
independence - as it is expected to do after decades of marginalization and a north-
south civil war - deadly violence could easily erupt. The government in Khartoum has
proved willing to brutalize its citizens (in the Darfur region and elsewhere) to remain in
power and achieve its aims, and secession would bring to the fore unresolved tensions
over Sudan's oil wealth and where to draw the new borders.

This time, the United States seems to have finally learned its lesson. In recent months,
the Obama White House has convened multiple meetings of top advisers to discuss
Sudan, sent a special envoy to the region more than 20 times and offered Khartoum a
package of carrots and sticks aimed at avoiding the worst violence. While the
administration won't deal directly with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir,
who has been indicted for war crimes committed in Darfur, U.S. officials have enlisted
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Sudan's neighbors to send a strong message
that the referendum must be held peacefully and on time.

"This is the first time I have seen the U.S. government devote so many high-level
resources to preventing violence before it happens rather than responding to it after the
fact," Samantha Power told me in an interview. Power - whose 2002 book, "A Problem
From Hell," chronicled the world's failure to deal with 20th-century genocides and mass
slaughters from Armenia and the Holocaust to Rwanda and Bosnia - is now an adviser
to Obama.

But these efforts and resources may not be enough. Yes, the world is watching: In
addition to Washington's diplomatic push, the African Union is trying to broker peace,
European nations are sending economic assistance, and 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in
southern Sudan monitoring the situation. But the sad reality is that even an actively
engaged international community may be unable to head off mass violence in the
months or years ahead.

A coup in Khartoum, a cattle raid in the south that escalates into tribal violence, a rogue
militia commander deciding to start a new conflict in a fragile border region - there is
virtually no limit to the plausible scenarios that could lead to renewed fighting in
Sudan. Ethnic and economic tensions, the willingness of political leaders to manipulate
them and the easy availability of weapons will continue to make the country vulnerable
to violence, even genocide.

If the referendum is not held on time or is tampered with by the north, "there is a huge
potential for war," former guerrilla soldier Acuil Malith Banggol told me during my
recent trip to the south. "Both parties are arming themselves, and there will be more
destruction. . . . There is no way southern Sudan is going to accept being humiliated and
subject to slavery, racial discrimination and religious discrimination."

Preventing such violence through diplomacy, as the Obama administration is

attempting, is obviously preferable to dealing with it later - but the options may be
limited. Diplomacy can be effective only if it is complemented by willingness to take
action if prevention fails. And here, the legacy of places such as Rwanda and Bosnia
yields a dispiriting conclusion: It is hard to have confidence that the world would be
willing or able to intervene to stop a mass slaughter in Sudan, especially in the months
after the referendum, when international attention will inevitably fade.

It is far from clear that the U.N. Security Council would react quickly to an unfolding
crisis, and most experts agree that the U.N. troops in Sudan would be of little use
should atrocities commence. (Years of conferences, NATO and E.U. deliberations, and
think-tank studies on civilian protection have yet to yield momentum for an effective
international rapid-deployment force to deal with such emergencies.) The United States
has the capacity to intervene militarily in Sudan, but after 10 years of war in
Afghanistan and Iraq, would it have the will, and would it be effective?

If the unthinkable were to happen in Sudan this year, we might hear echoes of Romeo
Dallaire, the Canadian general in charge of peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1994, who
futilely begged the United Nations for more troops to end the slaughter there - and who
has lived in anguished regret over his failure ever since.

In many respects, southern Sudan should offer an easy test case for the international
community. The potential for crisis has been slow-burning, with the January
referendum date long looming as a possible trigger for violence, so the world's political
and military leaders have had the luxury of giving serious planning and thought to how
to avoid calamity. Two successive U.S. administrations of both parties, along with
political leaders from Africa and elsewhere, have worked hard, if not always effectively,
to keep the peace process on track. And everyone involved in the diplomatic efforts is
keenly aware of the recent failures to prevent massive killing in Darfur, where an
ongoing conflict has kept more than 2 million people living perilously in displacement
camps.

The Obama administration is populated with senior officials - Vice President Biden,
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton come to
mind - who understand the consequences of past inaction. Although it took some time
to reach this point, the administration is now focused on preventing the worst. U.S.
officials have been considering humanitarian contingencies for months, and the White
House has appointed a director of war crimes and atrocities whose full-time job is to
nudge the bureaucracy to address crises such as Sudan.

As the referendum approaches, there are reasons to hope that the worst violence might
be averted. Northern Sudan's political leaders are publicly suggesting that they could
live, albeit grudgingly, with an independent southern Sudan. U.N. officials are
reporting relative calm in the border regions where violence might first emerge.
Authorities in both north and south seem committed to resolving their differences
politically and understand that renewed war - after six years of uneasy peace - would
be disastrous for their economies and security. They also know that fresh fighting
would jeopardize the oil revenue on which both sides depend.
But the situation remains extremely dangerous. As India, Bangladesh and the former
Yugoslavia attest, the partition or breakup of states has often been extremely bloody for
civilians. In my conversations with dozens of people in the south, genuine hope for the
future was mixed with a sober understanding of the risks ahead: After all, almost
everyone endured terrible hardship during the civil war - the loss of a parent or child,
slavery, or a massacre in their village.

And they are hardly sure that they can count on the world to keep history from
repeating itself. As they see it, the depredations that took place in southern Sudan, long
before Darfur became a household name in the West, received scant attention from
other governments and peoples.

Goi Jooyui Yol, a political commissioner in Akobo County in the south, keenly
remembers the silence of the international community when the massive violence
engulfed his country in the 1980s and 1990s, taking more than 2 million lives and
displacing an additional 4 million people. The violence was "very intense," he told me.
"Before the world knew, many people were killed."

Next time, ignorance won't be an excuse.

------------------
Opinion: US offer of asylum for Ivory Coast's Gbabgo reveals outdated foreign
policy (Christian Science Monitor)

The Obama administration’s approach to Ivory Coast's incumbent President Laurent

Gbagbo, based on reporting from The New York Times, suggests that US officials are
caught in a time warp. They’re behaving as if it is the 1990s, and their object is to induce
former dictator Joseph Désiré Mobuto from power in the Congo. The proffer of
“asylum” in the US – or a plum posting with an international agency — has the ring of
lunacy about it, as if the administration was mistaking Mr. Gbagbo for former Liberian
Preisdent Charles Taylor, former Zambian President Kenneth Kuanda, or even current
Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.

Gbagbo may possess many flaws, but he is not in need of asylum or an international job
for which he neither suited professionally nor temperamentally. Nor will comical offers
of relocating him to the US induce him to leave Ivory Coast. Gbagbo might indeed be
wondering who is crazier, him or the US officials assigned to oversee his exit from
office.

His defiant response to foreign criticism is thus no crazier than the American
conception of his exit. In his address on the eve of 2011, Gbagbo said the pressure for
him to quit amounted to “an attempted coup d’etat carried out under the banner of the
international community”.
To be sure, Gbagbo must go; not in a coup d’etat, but in a legal, necessary and inevitable
transfer of power. But once out of power, Gbagbo should be free to choose where he
wishes to live, and even include Ivory Coast on the list of his future domiciles.

I recall distinctly how former President Jerry Rawlings in neighboring Ghana was able
to live peacefully amid his former subjects after he was “termed out” ten years ago. One
night in 2002, while dancing with my Nigerian wife, Chizo, to a hi-life band in Ghana's
capital, Accra, I found myself admiring Mr. Rawlings up close. He was dancing with his
wife’s sister barely inches from me. I wrote an article at the time called “Dancing with
Dictators” in which I marveled at the capacity of Ghanaians to permit their former
dictator-turned-elected-president to live peacefully among them.

So, the answer to the question of whither Gbagbo post presidency is simple: let him
choose the terms of his persistence.

The zany notion presented by the Obama administration, expressed to The New York
Times by one anonymous official, that “the longer the stalemate ensues, and the more
violence there is, the more that window closes,” reflects an ossified view of African
politics, a bygone understanding of the internal dynamics within Ivory Coast and West
Africa.

The reality that Obama’s people refuse to face is that two years into office, their
president has been unable to forge an effective policy for US engagement with Nigeria,
the sub-regional economic powerhouse, or Ivory Coast, the most important
Francophone country.

Only in Liberia, where the US has a legacy of outsized influence, has Obama’s presence
been felt. Everywhere else in West Africa, even in docile Ghana, the new president has
left no mark, which is why, as I noted last month in the Christian Science Monitor, his
political fortunes appear to run counter the fortunes of American relations with the sub-
Saharan.

To be sure, in the days and weeks ahead, the US will influence the events in Ivory
Coast. But Obama’s amateur Africanists should not flatter themselves: their influence,
at best, is limited.

Only by playing well with others – the French, the United Nations, and the sub-regional
ECOWAS grouping dominated by Nigeria – will the US have any role in the outcome in
Abidjan. For Americans in power, the era of hubris and over-reach – towards Africa
and the international community – has yet to end.
------------------
Backing for southern Sudan's secession in January poll could rekindle civil war (The
Irish Times)
The clock is ticking. Every new visitor to Juba, the southern Sudanese capital, can’t miss
it. At the first roundabout on the road from the airport to the dusty city, a digital clock
stares down on a jamboree of UN vehicles and motorbike taxis below.

“Countdown to Southern Sudan Referendum Period Remaining. 10 days. 255 hours.

15323 minutes.”

On January 9th, southern Sudanese are scheduled to vote in an independence

referendum that will split Africa’s biggest country and give birth to the world’s newest.

The issue is no longer whether the south will vote Yes. The south’s political leaders are
united in their quest for freedom, while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has
already called a vote for secession “inevitable”.

The question now is whether renewed fighting will break out between the north and
south, or even, if the south votes to split, between the newly independent tribes in the
south.

On the first issue, the consequences are almost too horrible to contemplate. More than 2
million people died in the 22-year civil war that only ended in 2005 with the signing of
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the two sides.

More than five years later, although agreement has still not been reached on the final
demarcation of the border between the two regions and the sharing of oil revenues,
four-fifths of which lie in the south.

The Khartoum government in the north says it has agreed to offer rights of self-
determination to southern Sudan, but there has been a worrying build-up of troops on
either side of the north- south border in recent weeks.

In Blue Nile State, north Sudanese forces were required under the CPA to reduce forces
to the pre-war level of two battalions (about 1,600 soldiers). According to the state’s
governor, Malik Agar, they still have 20,000 troops there.

The south has about 17,000, according to the Small Arms Survey, and local observers
have noted a marked increase in traffic of tanks, trucks and pick-ups in recent weeks by
southern Sudanese forces.

A resumption of war could cost Sudan $50 billion in lost economic growth over 10
years, according to a study by Frontier Economics.

The Khartoum government has waged war against rebel and secessionist tribes in the
east, south and west of the country for years. Taking on the south again, no matter how
horrible the consequences, might not be such a huge problem for them.
“For autocratic regimes, focused on retaining control over their population, there is no
such thing as a win-win situation; if anyone else gains, then by default, they lose,” says
Thomas Talley, a lieutenant colonel in the US army assigned to US Africa Command.
“There will be war in Sudan.”

It is a particularly gloomy assessment, but even if he is wrong, several dissidents with

their own local or tribal grievances have begun to launch insurrections against the
south’s ruling SPLM regime.

The government has managed to quell them in the run-up to the vote, but keeping the
south stable and peaceful will require a lot more work, no matter what the result on
January 9th.
------------------
Role of Oil In Sudan (Voice of America)

The US–backed 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) brought an end to the
civil war in Sudan… but the threat of a return to conflict remains close because of the
huge oil reserves, mostly located in the south, with much less in the north.

Sudan's ruling National Congress Party has always denied there is a link between the
CPA and oil. Recently the foreign minister of Sudan Ali Karti said it the intention was
to end the war, and nothing more.

Khartoum has changed a lot since the war ended. Peace has boosted oil production to a
half million barrels a day. The generated money is easily visible on the streets of the
Sudanese capital. Skyscrapers are being built, new bridges constructed, fancy cars
cruise the city, and foreign bank accounts are available and popular.

Hafiz Mohammed, an analyst based in Khartoum, thinks that oil is a key part of the
CPA.

"I think the oil is one of the main factors which actually influence the whole CPA or the
comprehensive peace agreement, because it is the main source of income for the north
and south," says Mohammed.

"The north has other resources but the oil is still a major factor, that is why they have
the wealth sharing protocol which addresses the issue of how to divide the proceeds of
the oil sale," Mohammed explains.

The south is expected to ovewhelmingly vote for seperation from the north in January's
referendum. According to Mohammed, secession could have a very severe impact on
the north’s economy,
He says the north is going to face problems, there is no way of denying that. "The
north," he says, " is going to loose at least 50% of its income which in turn will affect the
foreign currency proceeds which in turn will affect the value of the currency (the
sudanese pound) which will then have a devastating impact on Sudan generally."

Another analyst, Alhajj Hamad, blames the government for putting the oil money in the
pocket of officials and not preparing the country for the likelihood that the south might
decide to seceed. The citizens of the north never had a share in the oil revenue, the oil
directly went into the coffers of the government to expand securityand the military
apparatus. Hamad says, "in the last six years 35% of the annual budget was for security
and defence."

The vice-presidents of the north and south, Ali Osman Taha and Riak Machar, agreed
last month to jointly guard the oil fields before and after the refrendum to help
guarantee the oil revenues. Hamad says there are plans in place to to hand over the
control of the fields from the north to the south.

"It is very clear that in the post referendum period, there is one initiative by the current
Minister of Energy in which he has suggested a slow paced handover for the south. As
you know on the referundum vote, it is mostly expected the south will go for a
separation. Then six months after the referendum they are supposed to have a kind of
an action plan for a handover," explains Hasmad.

The agreement of the two vice presidents might be the first step to in-corparate the
regions. Both depend on each other, one doesn’t have oil and the other doesn’t have
pipelines to export the oil.

Some northerners are not worried about the south’s secession. As president Omar
Bashir pointed out recently, the effect of the seperation would be minimal.

Umeima Ahmed an NCP member of parliament says proudly, that the north lived
without oil before and can again.

"The oil has been just discovered five years ago, we were managing our lives before
that. Now we will look for other alternatives, we have gold and vast lands with water to
farm on, let the southhave their oil," Ahmed asserts.

The north has expanded its farming sector and currently is exploring for more oil in the
western region of Darfur. According to Hamad, oil means more political problems in a
nation already suffering because of oil.

She says, "already in the oil fields of South Darfur, there is production of 30, 000 barrels
a day. Surely, we should not feel happy because of the experience of the south. With
oil there is more political instability, and now with 30,000 barrels in Bileil in South
Darfur simply means 30,000 political problems," she says.

The senior member of NCP and the head of the energy committee in the national
assembly, Mohammed Abdallah Musa, says oil production in the north will double.

"Our aim in the coming period is to expand our exploration, " Musa says " because we
don’t want more troubles connected oil. We are satisfied, and ready to accept having a
new neighboring nation."

Whether that will remain true once southern oil revenues dry up is one of the big
question marks hanging over the outcome of the referendum, and the end of the CPA.
------------------
With Much at Stake, a Peaceful Vote on Dividing Sudan Appears More Likely (New
York Times)

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the
situation “a ticking time bomb.”

A team of British researchers are so concerned about the looming possibility of a

conflict that they published a study on the price the world would pay if one broke out:
$100 billion.

Even George Clooney is focusing on it and has joined with Google to monitor the
potential battlefields, by satellite imagery.

But what, really, are the chances that the independence referendum in southern Sudan
on Jan. 9, the culmination of a peace process that ended decades of civil war between
north and south, will set off another one?

It seems the chances are slim and getting slimmer.

True, Sudan is a vast, poor country with a long track record of conflict. Arms are easy to
get here and militias roam just about every corner of the country. The referendum will
indeed be delicate because the south will most likely vote (by about 99 percent) to
secede, splitting the largest country in Africa in two and taking with it most of Sudan’s
oil.

But as the clock counts down toward voting day, despite earlier prognostications of a
delay, there are more and more signs that things will go smoothly.

Just last week, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, publicly pledged to help his
“southern brothers.”
“The ball is in your court,” he said at a rally. “The decision is yours.”

Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, is also confident the vote will be
peaceful. “I don’t feel any inclination to hostilities between the two parties,” he said,
according to Sudan’s news agency.

The stakes are so high that neither side, the Islamist northern Sudanese government or
the former rebels who lead southern Sudan, seems to want to be sucked into a war
again, or at least to start one. Over the past year, there has been such a steady drumbeat
of Armageddon predictions and hand-wringing over the referendum that a broad array
of potential problems have been prepared for and contingency plans discussed. The
stage is now set for the vote to be historic and highly emotional, but not a catastrophe.

Both sides, according to many analysts, are more pragmatic than they are often given
credit for. Despite being portrayed as careless brutes in many Western countries, the
Islamist cabal that controls Sudan, starting with Mr. Bashir, has shown surprising
elasticity.

Mr. Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges,
the United States and the United Nations have imposed sanctions on northern Sudan
and the rebellion in Darfur continues to grind on. Mr. Bashir and company remain
firmly in control in Khartoum, the capital, which continues to get hefty diplomatic and
financial support from China and the Arab world, but they seem eager to normalize
relations with the West and know that interference with the referendum would torpedo
any chance of that happening.

Though the north will clearly lose out if the south breaks off, northern leaders seem to
have accepted that there is little they can do about it. According to Mohammed Hamad,
a political science professor in Khartoum, Mr. Bashir will be reluctant to go to war
because “others will use it as an excuse, and Israel and the U.S. will try to dispose the
regime.”

Whether there is any truth to this theory may be immaterial, since many in Khartoum
seem to firmly believe it.

The southern leaders, for their part, do not seem to want war. Why would they? They
are on the verge of peacefully achieving what has taken decades of sacrifice. More than
two million people were killed in the north-south civil war, which began in the 1950s
and pitted animist and Christian rebels in the south against Arab rulers in the north.

The southern leaders have been enjoying a taste of autonomy since 2005, when a north-
south peace treaty was signed. They have rebuilt towns and invested hundreds of
millions, perhaps even billions, in roads, ministries, schools and factories, much of
which could be bombed into oblivion in a few days by the north’s growing air force. To
keep their dreams of independence alive, the southerners seem ready to make
concessions. This includes sharing the oil.

“We’re not about to cut the pipes,” said Gideon Gatpan Thoar, the information minister
for Unity State, one of the oil-rich states in the south.

Oil may ultimately hold Sudan together. Though 75 percent of Sudan’s oil revenue
comes from the south, it is landlocked, and the pipeline to export that oil runs through
the north. Mr. Thoar said it would be a “disaster” to do anything to stop the flow of oil,
which provides both north and south with a huge percentage of government revenue.

On their side, the northerners seem ready to give up some oil and take the economic hit.

“The north will suffer,” said Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, a top adviser to Mr. Bashir.
“We expect, after secession and the loss of oil revenue, that we will have to impose
more stringent economic measures. Definitely there is going to be a setback at the very
beginning.”

The biggest risk, then, that a war will break out seems to lie in the uncontrolled
elements, the “unknown unknowns,” as former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
famously said.

For example, in Abyei, one disputed area along the yet-to-be-demarcated north-south
border, there are militias aligned to the north and to the south, but they are not
necessarily controlled by either. According to several analysts, these militias could fire
the first shots, possibly provoked by a land dispute. Then the northern and southern
armies, both of which have been buying enormous quantities of weapons in recent
years, could pile in.

Beyond that, there are rebels in Darfur in the west, rebels in the east, rebels in the Nuba
Mountains and along the Nile River, raising fears that if war erupted, it could spread
rapidly.

“I can imagine the east going off; I can imagine Darfur going off; I can imagine the rest
of the Sudan; but to disintegrate this area, it is difficult,” said Mr. Hamad, the political
science professor in Khartoum, referring to the central Sudanese heartland around the
Nile. “The inhabitants here are not tribal. I have never consulted my tribal elders to
solve any problems. I go to the police, I go to school.”

He continued: “The people of central Sudan — and this is very important for you to
understand the future of Sudan — are pro-state, and they accept the government, and
when they depose a government, they depose it to bring a better government.”
“There will be decay, maybe,” he said, after the separation of the south. “But
disintegration, no.”

He and others also predicted that in coming days, northern and southern leaders might
agree to divide the Abyei territory, which would significantly reduce the chances of a
conflict.
------------------
Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
(OpEdNews.com)

The New Year began with three North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers killed in
Afghanistan and 20 people, all portrayed as militants, killed in four American missile
strikes in northwest Pakistan. The third drone missile attack killed four people
attempting to rescue and remove the bodies of the victims of the first, a technique used
by the U.S. and NATO in their war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

The West's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is currently the longest, largest and
deadliest in the world. Fatalities among U.S. troops, non-U.S. NATO and allied forces,
Afghan National Army soldiers and anti-government fighters reached a record high last
year: 498, 213, 800 and an unknown number (by U.S. and NATO accounts well into the
thousands), respectively. The United Nations estimated 2,400 Afghan civilians were
killed in the first ten months of last year, a 20 percent increase over the same period in
the preceding year. Approximately a thousand people were killed by U.S. drone missile
strikes in Pakistan.

It says something discouraging about a world of almost 200 nations that perhaps no
more than half a dozen countries - so-called rogue states (alternatively Condoleezza
Rice's "outposts of tyranny") - have voiced opposition to the war.

Washington's self-designated global war on terror (sometimes capitalized), in recent

years more politely and antiseptically called overseas contingency operations, has not
diminished in intensity but rather escalated in breadth and aggressiveness from West
Africa to East Asia and against targets not remotely related to al-Qaeda, which has
proven as nebulous and evasive as the West portrays it being ubiquitous.

From 2001 to the present the U.S. has engaged in and supported military operations
against Marxist guerrillas in Colombia and the Philippines, ethnic Tuaregs in Mali,
nominally Christian insurgents in Uganda and Shiite Houthi militia in northern Yemen
in the name of combating...al-Qaeda. The Wahhabist school of extremism that
characterizes al-Qaeda and analogous groups derives its doctrinal inspiration and
material support from Saudi Arabia, yet last October Washington announced a $63
billion arms package with the kingdom, the largest foreign weapons deal in American
history.
Washington and its NATO military allies have opened a war front across the Arabian
Sea from Pakistan in the east to Somalia and Yemen in the west as the central focus of
operations that began almost ten years ago. [1]

On October 1, 2008 the Pentagon formally launched its first overseas military command
in the post-Cold War era, U.S. Africa Command, which takes in 53 nations and an entire
continent except for Egypt, which remains in Central Command.

The second command's area of responsibility reaches from the eastern border of Libya
to the western border of China and southern border of Russia. From Egypt to
Kazakhstan. The Horn of Africa region, including Somalia, was ceded by Central
Command to Africa Command (AFRICOM), but the Arabian Peninsula, including
Yemen, remains in Central Command.

Though the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of Africa, now subsumed
under AFRICOM and based in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, includes thirteen
nations in East Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula in its area of
operations: Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. Operation Enduring
Freedom, under which the U.S. conducts its greater Afghan war, encompasses sixteen
countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan,
Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.

The U.S. maintains at least 2,500 troops in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and in late 2009
deployed over 100 troops, Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) equipped for
guided bombs and missiles and three P-3 Orion anti-submarine and maritime
surveillance aircraft to Seychelles.

Washington was accused by Houthi rebels in the north of Yemen of participating with
Saudi Arabia in deadly bombing raids against them in the northwestern province of
Sa'ada in December of 2009. They stated American jet fighters launched 28 attacks in the
province which included bombing the governor's house and killing 120 people in one
attack. [2]

Later in the same month the U.S. conducted cruise missile and air strikes with the use of
cluster bombs in southern Yemen which killed over 60 civilians, mostly women and
children. Another air strike was launched in March of 2010.

Leading American officials have demanded drone missile strikes in Yemen and several
hundred U.S. special forces are deployed to the country.

The U.S. and its allies in NATO and the European Union are actively involved in the
civil war in Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.
The Pentagon supported the Ethiopian invasion of the country in 2006 and launched
two days of air strikes in January of the following year. In the autumn of 2009 U.S.
special forces conducted a deadly helicopter gunship raid in southern Somalia.

The New Year in Somalia started with a fierce battle between foreign troops backing the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and al-Shabaab rebels, resulting in at 15 dead
and 25 wounded. Inhabitants of the Somali capital reported that "the Mogadishu sky
turned red [and] kids were crying and had been unable to sleep as the crackling of
machine guns and barrages rocked throughout the city." [3]

There are approximately 6,000 troops from U.S. military client states Uganda and
Burundi fighting on behalf of the formal government of the country under the banner of
the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Although approved by the African
Union, AMISOM and its predecessor, the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) Peace Support Mission in Somalia (IGASOM), primarily have
been initiatives by Washington and its allies in NATO and the EU.

European warships are deployed for NATO's Operation Ocean Shield and the EU's
Operation Atalanta off Somalia's coast in the Gulf of Aden. (In military matters the
distinction between NATO and the EU is becoming an increasingly formal one.)

At least fifteen EU member states, most of them also NATO members - Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Sweden,
Finland, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus - have sent no fewer than 150 military personnel to
Uganda to train 2,000 Somali troops for war in their homeland in a program financed by
the U.S.

In the middle of last month the local press reported that the first 1,000 Somali soldiers
"trained by officers from the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and senior
military officers from 27 European Union countries" graduated from the Bihanga
military training school in Western Uganda, a "facility...set up early this year to train
TFG Officers and foot soldiers in a bid to boost the military capability of war-torn
Somalia...."

"The soldiers are expected to provide the core of officers and men of a new Somali
army...to provide a much-needed boost to the fragile Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) in Mogadishu." [4]

Since June of 2007 NATO has provided airlift and sealift for AMISOM (Ugandan and
Burundian) troops deployed to Somalia. The next year NATO flew a Burundian
battalion into Somalia and in March of last year the Western military bloc transported
1,700 Ugandan troops into and 850 out of the Somali capital.
The month before the initial inauguration of AFRICOM in 2007, when it was still under
U.S. European Command (whose top commander is simultaneously NATO Supreme
Allied Commander Europe), a Pentagon official announced that Africa Command
"would involve one small headquarters plus five 'regional integration teams' scattered
around the continent" and that "AFRICOM would work closely with the European
Union and NATO," particularly France, a leading member of both organizations, which
was "interested in developing the Africa standby force". [5]

In the same year the U.S. Defense Department acknowledged it had already "agreed on
access to air bases and ports in Africa and 'bare-bones' facilities maintained by local
security forces in Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe,
Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia." [6]

The five regions of Africa identified by the U.S. military - north, south, east, west and
central - are all represented by the locations named above and are each home to a
branch of the African Standby Force (Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and
Central), like AMISOM nominally under the control of the African Union but in fact
overseen by the U.S. and NATO.

The North Atlantic Alliance inaugurated the NATO Response Force, in NATO's own
words "a highly ready and technologically advanced multinational force made up of
land, air, maritime and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly
to wherever it is needed," in and off the coast of the African island of Cape Verde in
2006 in a two-week, 7,000-troop exercise codenamed Steadfast Jaguar. [7]

The African Standby Force is modeled after the NATO Response Force.
"NATO...supports staff capacity building through the provision of places on NATO
training courses to AU [African Union] staff supporting AMISOM, and support to the
operationalisation of the African Standby Force - the African Union's vision for a
continental, on-call security apparatus similar to the NATO Response Force." [8] It is a
joint project of NATO and the Pentagon, formerly U.S. European Command and
currently U.S. Africa Command.

To date the only fully successful implementation of the project is the Eastern Africa
Standby Force, whose Eastern Africa Standby Brigade (with headquarters in Ethiopia
and its Eastern African Standby Brigade Coordination Mechanism in Kenya) consists of
Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda,
Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania (as an observer) and Uganda.

It is largely coterminous with the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of
Africa without Yemen and with Burundi and Rwanda added. In October of 2009 the
Eastern Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) held military exercises in Djibouti, where
Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of Africa is based.
Last month the defense chiefs of the twelve members of EASBRIG (presumably Eritrea
was absent) met in the capital of Burundi to discuss "the Policy Framework for the
Establishment of the Eastern Africa Standby Force [EASF] and the Memorandum of
Understanding for Cooperation between the Eastern Africa Standby Force Coordination
Mechanism [EASBRICOM] and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
[IGAD] that aims to harmonise the relations of both institutions...." [9]

NATO, which has been training African Standby Force staff officers at its training
center in Oberammergau, Germany, has designated the NATO Joint Command Lisbon
to implement the bloc's military cooperation with Africa. Joint Command Lisbon has
what it identifies as a Senior Military Liaison Officer at the African Union headquarters
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (The territory of every nation in Africa except for Liberia,
founded by the American Colonization Society in 1821-1822, was formerly ruled by
nations that joined NATO: Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain
and Turkey.)

On September 5, 2007 "the North Atlantic Council -" NATO's top political decision
making body - agreed to provide assistance to the African Union with a study on the
assessment of the operational readiness of the African Standby Force brigades,"
according to the NATO website.

In the west of Africa, the Economic Community of West African States Standby Force
brigade is being readied to intervene in Ivory Coast to depose President Laurent
Gbagbo as the Dutch Defense Ministry announced last week that one of its ships was
"heading for the coast of Cote d'Ivoire to provide supplies for French warships
stationed there." [10]

U.S. Naval Forces Europe - U.S. Naval Forces Africa, which is headquartered in Naples,
Italy and directs its operations through the U.S. Sixth Fleet, also headquartered in Italy,
launched the Africa Partnership Station in 2007 as a naval component of AFRICOM.
Warships assigned to it have visited several African nations on the east, west and south
ends of the continent, among them Angola, Cameroon, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Reunion, Sao Tome
and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo.

Last month the Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Vicki
Huddleston and the State Department's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto (who was ambassador to Ethiopia when it
invaded Somalia in 2006) visited U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart,
Germany. While there the Defense Department's Huddleston asserted that "East Africa
becomes extremely high for DOD [the Department of Defense] in terms of priority. So
the highest priority for DOD, and therefore AFRICOM, becomes East Africa because of
Somalia and then West (Africa), North Africa...." [11]
The month before, Ugandan People's Defence Air Force Chief Major General Jim
Owoyesigire visited 17th Air Force (Air Forces Africa) at the Ramstein Air Base in
Germany, also headquarters for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and NATO's Allied Air
Command.

Owoyesigire stated that his country's new air force was in part the product of an
African air chiefs conference he attended in Ramstein in 2007 where he "began learning
from the US Air Force."

In regards to Uganda's role as one of the two major belligerent forces in the war in
Somalia and its counterinsurgency war at home (and across its borders) against the
Lord's Resistance Army, the air force head confirmed that "Help from U.S. Africa
Command and 17th AF has been a key enabler for the UPDAF's [Ugandan People's
Defence Air Force's] contribution to these missions."

"When we started in AMISOM, we had no airlift capability. General Ward [William

Ward, AFRICOM commander] came and visited and helped us to partner with the U.S.
Air Force to get this airlift capability. To get training, 17th AF came and trained us in
loading cargo and airdrops, and this has really helped us.

"This is a wide question, but right now, we are asking 17th AF to come and help us
establish a squadron officers' school and NCO academy in Uganda. If we can develop
these schools, then we can also involve our east African partners." [12]

Early in December the commander of U.S. Army Africa, Major General David Hogg,
visited Algeria to meet with senior military and government officials to discuss
"bilateral relations and regional issues," including joint reconnaissance and training
activities and "a future visit by Algerian soldiers to the United States to investigate how
the Army integrates its lessons learned center into its training regime."

U.S. Army Africa is the Army's newest service component command and is based in
Vicenza, Italy, assigned to AFRICOM and tasked with "developing relationships with
land forces in Africa and supporting U.S. Army efforts on the African continent." [13]

The regional issues deliberated on by the American general and his Algerian
counterparts relate to Algeria's military campaign against Salafist insurgents and
similar counterinsurgency operations throughout the Sahel, which consists of parts of
Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria,
Senegal, Somalia and Sudan.

At the end of last month U.S. military personnel assigned to Combined Joint Task Force
- Horn of Africa and Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti participated in a combat casualty
course in Burundi as part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored program. According to
James Cobb, State Department program country manager in Burundi, "The course is
part of a U.S. Department of State initiative to provide African armies an opportunity to
partner with American defense forces to develop their peacekeeping skills for
operations throughout Africa." [14]

In December the defense chief of Djibouti, Major General Fathi Ahmed Houssein, met
with AFRICOM commander General William Ward at AFRICOM headquarters in
Stuttgart to discuss "joint security cooperation activities and potential areas of further
cooperation...in East Africa and throughout the continent."

As the AFRICOM website put it:

"Djibouti hosts approximately 3,000 U.S. and allied personnel at Camp Lemonnier,
which is the only major U.S. military facility in Africa, though small teams of U.S.
personnel work across the continent on short-term assignments. The main military
organization at Camp Lemonnier is the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa
(CJTF-HOA). A component of U.S. AFRICOM, CJTF-HOA sends teams throughout the
East Africa region [to] protect U.S. and coalition interests."

Among several joint programs, the generals elaborated plans for "Support to Djiboutian
armed forces in the Eastern African Standby Brigade
(EASBRIG) field training exercise, aimed to assess the readiness and capability of
EASBRIG, a component of the African Union's Africa Standby Force...."

And expansion of the "International Military Education and Training, a program that
invites foreign military officers to attend military schools in the United States, and
provides funding for trainers to provide specific, localized training in African
countries."

As well as the continuation of the "Africa Contingency Operations Training and

Assistance program, designed to improve African militaries' capabilities by providing
selected training and equipment required to execute multinational...operations."

Ward and Houssein also discussed "other ways to increase support in building partner
capacity in the Horn of Africa through the U.S. Defense Department's 1206 program [to
train and equip foreign militaries for "counterterrorism or stability operations"] and the
U.S. State Department's Partnership Regional East African Counter-Terrorism
program," especially in regard to Ugandan-Burundian AMISOM operations in Somalia.
[15]

Air strikes, drone and cruise missile attacks, special forces operations, helicopter
gunship raids, counterinsurgency campaigns, multinational armed interventions,
cluster bomb and depleted uranium weapons use, and the entire panoply of military
actions associated with the Afghanistan-Pakistan war are already being conducted in
Africa and will only be increased.
------------------
Raila Odinga departs for the Ivory Coast with a final warning for dictator Laurent
Gbagbo (Newstime Africa)

The African Union has sent the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, with a final
message to the Ivory Coast dictator, Laurent Gbagbo, to step down or face the ultimate
threat of legitimate forceful removal. Gbagbo, who has shown defiance in the face of an
election that was won outright by his rival, Alassane Ouattara, must have
underestimated the resolve of the International community in its determination to
remove him and ensure democracy prevails. The United States of America has been
quite impressive, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not only been at the
forefront calling for Gbagbo to step down, her government has instituted stiff sanctions
targeting senior officials of the Gbagbo regime. The US support has been remarkable
and should be commended. The UK government has also said it would support military
action once a decision has been made.

Raila Odinga is known to be a fierce no-nonsense negotiator, who will tell it as it is to

Gbagbo, and is expected to deliver the final non-negotiable ultimatum for the dictator
to vacate the presidency. Laurent Gbagbo has embarrassed his country and his fellow
African Union colleagues, who have been working very hard to ensure democracy
becomes the political way of life across Africa. He has demonstrated blatant hunger for
power and an insatiable appetite for the trappings that comes with the presidency. He
should recognise that it will not be the end of the world for him, and that it is someone
else’s turn to govern. There is no turning back, the world is determined to see him go.

Laurent Gbagbo’s recalcitrance has now resulted in the UN investigating human rights
abuses in the country, and the focus now is on mass graves that have been reportedly
concealed by the regime preventing UN officials to investigation atrocities that may
have culminated from the recent elections in the country. Efforts have also been made
by ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West Africa States, to try and end the
impasse, but Gbagbo was defiant as three West African heads of states flew into
Abidjan with an attractive package to lure him to step down. This intransigence has in
turn angered his colleagues in the region who have now threatened to use legitimate
military force to remove him. The next 25hrs is vital as the final push begins to bring an
end to this political drama that threatens the very peace and security of the entire West
African region.
------------------
Bomb explodes at army barracks in Nigeria (Associated Press)

ABUJA, Nigeria — A bomb blast tore through a beer garden at a Nigerian army
barracks where revelers had gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve, witnesses said, and
state-run television reported Friday that 30 people died, though police immediately
disputed that.
A local police spokesman said the blast occurred at about 7:30 p.m. Friday in Abuja, the
capital of Africa's most populous nation.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion in this oil-rich nation
where citizens remain uneasy after bombings at other locations had killed dozens of
people several days earlier.

"It's unfortunate that some people planted (a) bomb where people are relaxing because
of the new year," Air Marshal Oluseyi Petirin told journalists. "Nobody has been able to
give accurate figures (of casualties), but we have rescued some people."

An anchor on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority gave a death toll of 30 to

viewers Friday night. The channel did not give an estimate on the number of injured.

Local police spokesman Jimoh Moshood immediately disputed the figure, saying only
four people had died and 13 were wounded. Death tolls remain contentious in Nigeria,
as politicians often inflate or shrink tolls to suit their aspirations.

Witnesses said the market appeared full at the time of the blast. A local journalist at the
scene told The Associated Press that soldiers carried injured people away, with one
officer saying he feared there were fatalities.

In the minutes after the explosion, police and soldiers swarmed the area, blocking
onlookers from entering the area. Later, an AP journalist saw police carrying out
covered bodies and putting them in the back of police vehicles. Officers shouted at each
other to keep the bodies covered and hidden from onlookers.

The base, called the Mogadishu Cantonment, includes an area of market stalls and beer
parlors referred to locally as a "mammy market." There, civilians and soldiers regularly
gather for drinks and its famous barbecued fish.

The blasts come days after a similar attack struck a nation that remains uneasily divided
between Christians and Muslims. On Christmas Eve, three bombs exploded in the
central Nigerian city of Jos, killing dozens of people. That area has seen more than 500
die in religious and ethnic violence this year alone.

Members of a radical Muslim sect attacked two churches in the northern city of
Maiduguri the same night, killing at least six people.

The sect, known locally as Boko Haram, later claimed responsibility for both attacks in
an Internet message. Police say they are still investigating those attacks.
Boko Haram means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language. Its
members re-emerged recently after starting a July 2009 riot that led to a security
crackdown that left 700 people dead.

The Christmas Eve killings in Jos and Maiduguri add to the tally of thousands who
already have died in Nigeria in the last decade over religious and political tension. The
bombings also come as the nation prepares for what could be a tumultuous presidential
election in April.

This isn't the first time Nigeria's typically quiet capital has seen violence this year. A
dual car bombing killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more during an Oct. 1
independence celebration in the capital. The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-rich
southern delta, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, claimed
responsibility for the attack.

In a statement, a spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan said whoever planted the
bomb wanted "to turn the joys of fellow Nigerians to ashes."

"This is extreme evil. It is wicked. It defies all that we believe in and stand for as a
nation," the statement from Ima Niboro read.

It added: "They must be made to pay. No one, and we repeat, no one, can make this
nation ungovernable."

Nigeria, an OPEC-member nation, remains a vital supplier of easily refined crude oil to
the U.S. Unrest in the West African nation has affected oil prices in the past. Beyond
that, Western diplomats worry ethnic, religious and political violence could hobble the
nation of 150 million people forever just as it adjusts to democracy after years of
military dictatorships and coups.
------------------
Mali Tackles Al Qaeda and Drug Traffic (New York Times)

BAMAKO, Mali — The tourism minister, N’Diaye Bah, visibly bristled when asked
about the possibility that Al Qaeda’s North African offshoot might kidnap foreigners in
fabled Timbuktu or anywhere across Mali’s northern desert.

France spread such rumors, he insisted. “They want to create this security issue that
does not exist,” he said, wagging his finger. “When you come to Mali, there is no
aggression against tourists. How can you say there is insecurity in this country?”

Yet the United States and French Embassies, among other foreign missions, explicitly
warn against traveling to Timbuktu and indeed the entire desert that sweeps across
roughly two-thirds of this landlocked West African nation. A French Embassy map
colors the entire north red, a no-go area.
This uneasy, public standoff has existed for some time, reflective of Mali’s insistence
that it is not a font of violence like some of its neighbors, notably Algeria. But in a sign
that Mali both acknowledges the issue and seeks to address it, the country is rolling out
a new development plan, hoping to tackle the problem at its roots.

The dearth of jobs and prospects in the north helps drive the region’s twin ills —
narcotics trafficking and Islamic radicalism. By setting up military barracks, infirmaries,
schools, shopping areas and animal markets in 11 northern towns, the Malian
government hopes to establish a more visible government presence, foster economic
activity and form a bulwark against lawlessness.

“The ultimate goal of the project is to eradicate” Al Qaeda’s affiliates in Mali, said
Adam Tchiam, a leading Malian columnist.

Mali does not deny that an estimated 200 to 300 fighters from Al Qaeda of the Islamic
Maghreb (Maghreb being the Arabic term for west) have found a perch in their desert,
although most are believed to be Mauritanians and Algerians. But Mali often depicts
the terrorists as a problem generated elsewhere.

“We are hostages to a situation that does not concern us,” news reports quoted
President Amadou Toumani Touré as saying.

Behind the scenes, however, the president has been more forthcoming. In a meeting
with the American ambassador, Gillian A. Milovanovic, and senior American military
officers last year, he said the extremists “have had difficulty getting their message
across to a generally reluctant population,” according to an embassy cable obtained by
WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations. Still, Mr. Touré
acknowledged, “they have had some success in enlisting disaffected youth to their
ranks.”

In recent years, the Qaeda affiliate has left a trail of violence across Mauritania, Niger,
Algeria and Mali, taking aim at tourists, expatriate workers, local residents and security
forces. Hostages taken in the porous border regions have been executed or ransomed.
Five French and two African workers kidnapped in Niger last September are believed
to be held in northern Mali.

The Algerians and some Western diplomats accuse the Malians of being too soft on
terrorism, an opinion reflected in the cables obtained by WikiLeaks. But Mali’s
defenders argue that the regional problem is far larger than any one poor country can
address.
To that end, Mauritania recently moved uninvited troops permanently across the
border in Mali to eradicate a Qaeda encampment, diplomats said, and Mali did not
object.

For his part, President Touré has been trying to forge a regional consensus on the issue,
but the leaked cables and diplomats suggest that Algeria has been reluctant to take part.
Algerian officials regularly criticize the presence of French and American training
forces, saying they constitute another threat.

Mali’s own plan faces two main problems, one domestic and one foreign. Tuareg rebels
fought the government in the desert for decades, with the 1992 peace treaty specifying
that the government forces completely withdraw from the north. Deploying them there
risks reigniting a conflict that still simmers.

Even so, some northerners endorse almost any government action in the harsh
environment, where battling sand alone constitutes a daily struggle.

“There are villages that have never seen an administrator, never seen a nurse, never
seen a teacher,” said Amboudi Side Ahmed, a businessman in the capital, Bamako, who
was raised in the north. “You could stay in a village up there for 10 years and never see
a government official.”

Then there is the question of whether these northern hubs are even feasible, given the
reluctance of foreign aid workers to venture north and finance projects there. “The
president says the poor protect Al Qaeda because they do not have any means,” said
Mr. Tchiam, the columnist. “Where are the means?”

While foreign governments recognize that the north needs development, the lack of
security hampers it. American Embassy personnel, for example, can travel north only
with express permission of the ambassador, which she said she rarely granted.

“Development is critical in dealing with the north,” Ambassador Milovanovic said, but
“so long as security is unstable, it is hard to get those projects going.”

“We cannot just throw money up there.”

After her own visits, she has tried to meet local requests by offering training for
midwives or supplying four-wheel-drive ambulances. As part of its broader efforts to
counter extremism in northern Mali, the United States also underwrote a series of radio
soap operas whose plot twists emphasized the dangers of extremism.

Beyond that, Washington provides basic military training, sometimes even more basic
than envisioned. An exercise on what to do when the driver of a vehicle is shot dead
revealed a startling truth — most Malian soldiers did not know how to drive. Lessons
were instituted. But Malian officials want more.

“How many people in the north listen to the radio? That is never going to be strong
enough to change their views on A.Q.M.I. or religious fundamentalism,” said Mohamed
Baby, a presidential adviser working on fixing the northern problem, using the initials
of the French name for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. “We need to deal with
development, with the lack of resources.”

Qaeda fighters have sometimes ingratiated themselves by paying inflated prices for
food, fuel and other goods. Diplomats believe that the extremists have also informed
local smugglers that they will pay a premium for kidnapped Westerners.

Aside from collecting ransoms for hostages, Al Qaeda is believed to be financing its
operations by exacting tolls from drug smugglers and traffickers in arms, humans and
illicit goods. Since at least the 10th century, Timbuktu has been a crossroads for trade
routes across the Sahara, and the modern age is no different.

A series of drug-laden planes make the loop from South America to the Sahel, but
numbers are elusive, said Alexandre Schmidt of the United Nations drug office. In one
notorious 2009 episode, a Boeing 727 believed to have ferried cocaine from Latin
America was set on fire after it got stuck in the sand.

Both the drug smugglers and Al Qaeda offer young men a quick route to money and
symbols of prestige like a pickup truck. The government plan has no easy, short-term
ways to compete, officials concede.

“They can recruit young people and undermine both the economy and the religion,”
Mr. Baby said of the militants. “We have to build up some kind of resistance.”
------------------
Kidnappings Highlight Al-Qaida's Rise In The Sahara (NPR)

Recent U.S. cables leaked by the WikiLeaks website show al-Qaida gaining a foothold in
the Sahel, a lawless region in the Sahara desert, straddling the African nations of Niger,
Mali, Mauritania and Algeria. How to counter and curb growing Islamist militancy and
banditry in this vast, poorly policed zone is a priority for governments in West Africa,
Washington and beyond.

Motorbikes buzz up and down the streets of the ancient, sandy town of Agadez, the
regional capital of northern Niger and the gateway to the desert. The town is largely
empty of tourists who used to flock in their thousands to the historic town, en route to
and from the desert.
Mayor Yahaya Namassa Kane partly blames a three-year Tuareg rebellion for their
absence. But he's also irked by Western travel advisories issued after seven foreigners
were abducted in mid-September in northern Niger.

"Those who kidnapped these people do not come from this region," he said. "They came
from neighboring countries and took their hostages across the border.

"But I think branding our region, Agadez and northern Niger, as insecure — a red-alert
zone — is a bit much. That's not the case at all."

The militant group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claims it snatched the five nationals
from France, the former colonial power in Niger, as well as one from Togo and another
from Madagascar. They were all working at the French Areva uranium mine in Arlit,
north of Agadez. The captives are believed to be held in neighboring Mali.

Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State
Department, says the U.S. is concerned by the activity.

"This al-Qaida affiliate and kidnapping activity is very worrisome, because this has
turned into a significant revenue stream, and millions and millions of dollars have been
paid in ransoms," he said. "And this results in the group being able to keep operating,
continue the kidnapping and possibly even move money to either other parts of al-
Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb — or to other parts of the al-Qaida network."

France responded to the abductions by sending troops to the region. Al-Qaida's

northwest Africa branch killed a Frenchman in July. Regional governments — including
Niger's military junta and the authorities in Mali, Mauritania and Algeria — have been
holding emergency meetings to try to step up anti-terrorism coordination.

The Sahel stretches from West Africa all the way to Somalia in the Horn; al-Qaida-
linked fighters have raised their profile in this zone over the past year, mounting attacks
on local armies and seizing hostages.

Regional specialist Bright Simons, director of policy research at the IMANI think tank,
says that despite the U.S. military training armies in the Sahara region, the U.S.
response is confused.

"Defense, security, rule of law and the rest of it: How does America integrate all these
things into the agenda that it has?" he said. "It cannot assume that this is something that
they can win, simply by providing targeted support to certain military forces and the
rest of it."
Experts warn that though the Islamists number only a few hundred, they have joined
forces with local rebels and bandits to take advantage of the vast and lawless Sahara
desert area.

"We know that it is very hard to put groups totally out of business, particularly in
sparsely inhabited, undergoverned regions," the State Department's Benjamin said.
"But, having said that, I don't think there's any question but that we can reduce that
kind of breakout threat significantly, and make it a nuisance as opposed to a formidable
threat that threatens really to spill over boundaries."

At a recent peace concert in Agadez, the youth called for their northern desert region to
be given a chance to demonstrate its potential, a view shared by Bess Palmisciano of
New Hampshire whose NGO, Rain for the Sahel and Sahara, runs community outreach
programs in Niger.

Foreign aid workers were mostly withdrawn from the Agadez area after the
kidnappings, but they help provide everything from clean water to medical treatment,
education and farming support for desert nomads and many others.

Palmisciano says that when such relief organizations leave, it's the local people who
suffer most.

"It seems to me this is the very time when we should be making an effort to enter the
region, to help people get back on their feet, to strengthen them, so that they don't feel
they need to take money from someone who says, help us hijack this car or kidnap this
person," she said.

Palmisciano said it's important to show those who have little, and need much, that they
have friends in the world who will stand with them against such threats.
------------------
Desperate act leads to unrest in Tunisia (Associated Press)

TUNIS, Tunisia – It started with a young man who set himself on fire, acting out of
desperation after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he sold without a permit.

Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old university graduate without a steady job, trying
to support his family. His self-immolation — which left him in intensive care, wrapped
head to toe in white bandages — shocked the North African nation and sparked
protests over unemployment that have led to at least three deaths.

For decades, Tunisia has promoted itself as an Arab world success story, a place where
the economy is stronger than in neighboring countries, women's rights are respected,
unrest is rare and European tourists can take stress-free vacations at beach resorts.
But the recent protests have exposed a side of Tunisia that the country has long tried to
hide: the poverty of the countryside, poor job prospects for youths and seething
resentment at the government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who has ruled
Tunisia with an iron fist since 1987.

Groups including the International Monetary Fund have praised Tunisia for holding up
relatively well during the global economic crisis, and the country had growth of 3.1
percent in 2010, according to government figures.

Unemployment is the weak spot, at nearly 14 percent last year. The situation is worse
outside the capital and tourist zones, in regions like Sidi Bouzid in the center-west,
where Bouazizi lived.

It's also worse for educated youths. In a country where schooling has been emphasized
for decades, 80,000 educated graduates enter the job market every year, and there isn't
enough work for them.

Frederic Volpi, a North Africa scholar, says Tunisia has been "an overachiever in terms
of promoting itself" despite its problems of political and civil rights and the economic
imbalance between the successful regions and the countryside.

"What is surprising is not so much that we now discover that there are problems in
Tunisia," said Volpi, a senior lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "The
surprise for people who actually analyze the region is, how come the international
community, the media and observers could be fooled previously by the rhetoric of the
Tunisian success story?"

Ben Ali's government tolerates little public dissent and has been caught off guard by the
discontent. A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks called Tunisia a "police state"
and says Ben Ali has lost touch with his people.

Ben Ali said the protest violence was manipulated by foreign media and hurt the
country's image. He replaced the communications minister in a government reshuffle,
but retained the interior minister despite opposition calls to oust him.

He also ordered the prime minister to mobilize authorities nationwide for a 6.5 billion
dinar ($4.5 billion) plan to create jobs for Tunisians with university diplomas — a
substantial sum for a country of only 10 million people.

But the opposition says the government's response has been inadequate and that the
protests are fueled not only by unemployment but by the lack of human rights.

The protests "show a profound crisis and illustrate a pressing need for change that
would bring a return of confidence to citizens so they can lead lives that are free and
dignified in their homeland," said Nejib Chebbi, founder of the Progressive Democratic
Party

The protests started in Sidi Bouzid soon after Bouazizi's Dec. 17 suicide attempt. Police
confiscated his goods, and an officer slapped him in front of passers-by, his supporters
say. He tried to lodge a complaint, but authorities refused to accept it. Desperate, he
doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in public.

The self-immolation touched off demonstrations in neighboring towns, and later, in

other regions.

Police opened fire at one protest, killing an 18-year-old. Another 44-year-old who was
wounded by a bullet at the same protest died of his injuries Friday in the hospital, the
man's family said.

At another protest, a 24-year-old jobless protester was electrocuted after announcing he

wanted to end his life and mounting a high-voltage electricity pole.

Demonstrators have set police cars ablaze and threw firebombs at official buildings.
Lawyers marched in several cities Friday in solidarity with demonstrators.

Opposition politicians say dozens have been arrested.

The unrest has gone with little mention in Tunisia's media, which is heavily controlled
by the state.

But there was one surprising and potentially encouraging sign. Private station Nessma
TV broadcast a program Thursday about the protest movement — a show without
precedent in Tunisian history for its treatment of a politically sensitive subject.

In it, Sidi Bouzid's residents spoke of their suffering and complained of corruption,
nepotism and impunity of those in power. Mounir Souissi, local reporter for the
German news agency DPA, called the program "a true
------------------
General FAIL: The Military’s Worst Tweeters (Wired)
Generals and admirals are powerful people. Their decisions determine the course of
thousands of lives, with aftereffects that can affect millions more. Their budgets can
dwarf those of entire countries. Their words are parsed like the Talmud for clues about
the future of American warfare. And they absolutely cannot tweet.

Twitter may be nearing 200 million users worldwide. But the military has a love-hate
relationship with microblogging: The Marines, for instance, banned it last year, along
with other social networking services. But communications officers are coming around
to the argument that it’s a tweet-or-be-tweeted-about information world. If the military
doesn’t use tools like Twitter to spread its message, the argument goes, it’ll risk losing
control of stories and influencing people. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, has become a prolific tweeter as @thejointstaff, weighing in on
controversies like the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The result: more than 32,000
followers.

Mullen, alas, is an exception. Twitter and flag officers still generally go together like oil
and water. It’s a new medium, after all, and no one says they’ve got to go ALL-CAPS
EVERYTHING like Kanye or get into tweet-fights with detractors to use the medium
well. But for some, the growing pains are apparent, even if we’re not seeing any Direct-
Message Fails.

(Full disclosure: The Pentagon asked me a few months ago to share some thoughts about social
media at a recent forum.)

Just because you can set up a Twitter account doesn’t mean you use it well. Here’s our
guide to some of the lamest military Twitter feeds.

1. Adm. James Stavridis. Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander and former

Southern Command leader, is considered by many to be one of the brightest lights in
the military, a well-respected strategic thinker and all-but-certain future Joint Chiefs
chairman. He’s also a technophile — he once assured bloggers that he personally replies
to wall posters on his Facebook page — and prolific blogger. Here’s Stavridis riffing off
of Dr. Strangelove to discuss a recent NATO strategic-planning document, for instance.
Natural-born tweeter, right?

If only. Stavridis’ Facebook friends get jokey photos of his wife with a giant “fish” they
“caught” in the Caribbean. And @stavridisj’s followers get the kind of updates you’d
expect from a co-worker who’s really excited about the deli’s new sandwich. Dec. 1:
“Just briefed SECDEF and headed home to Belgium!” Last week, he let us know he had
a briefing in Stuttgart, because we were curious. As if he’s worried about Mullen or
Defense Secretary Robert Gates looking over his shoulder, Stavridis keeps us updated
on when he meets with, say, the Belgians on Afghanistan. Come on, admiral, you’re
supposed to be the most social-media-forward officer in the military. More like these
updates on NATO’s help in combating Israel’s recent forest fires in real time; less “Just
finished an off-site with a dozen of my key Admirals and Generals — finding
efficiencies and interagency integration.” You can fit the Strangelove reference into 140
characters.

2. Gen. Carter Ham. Is it really necessary to tweet “Thanks!!!” to everyone who fills out
a survey? Ham, the next commander of all U.S. troops in Africa, had the unenviable
task this year of studying troops’ attitudes to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. By all
accounts, he did a thorough and professional job. But if @GenCarterHam was supposed
to supplement Ham’s effort, it didn’t exactly take advantage of Twitter. Not only did
Ham tweet a mere 42 times between March and September, only 12 of those tweets
asked troops to fill out online surveys about the repeal — and only half of those actually
gave his tweeps the URL to do so. None used the popular #DADT hashtag to attract
nonfollowers’ attention.

Instead, Ham gave gold stars to everyone who took the survey, without discussing any
interesting issues raised. The Coast Guard gave “insightful comments and questions,”
and you don’t get to know what they were. Fort Hood gave a “lively” discussion,
making it “easy to see why they call it ‘The Great Place!’” Same with the Naval
Academy: “Great insights from staff, faculty and Midshipmen. But, I didn’t enjoy
taunting about recent football results.” It isn’t just Army cadets who need to step their
game up.

3. Gen. Martin Dempsey. Another missed opportunity. Dempsey commands the

Army’s Training and Doctrine Command — basically the ground service’s brain. All
the Army’s long-term thinking about the future of land warfare and how to adapt to it
runs through TRADOC, as it’s known. Which is why following @Martin_Dempsey
ought to be a real-time account of an adaptive Army.

But what do we get? “I encourage you to share your stories and photos of Fort
Monroe’s rich heritage for a new book. Details at: http://bit.ly/ftmonroe” Or, in
March: “Outstanding morning of briefers, ideas, and insight at the TRADOC Senior
Leaders Conference here in WIlliamsburg, VA.” Maybe you could share with us what
you learned? Instead, Dempsey prefers to tweet out speeches or guidance that he gives
on modernizing the force. Far be it for a blog to deride the use of Twitter for self-
promotion, but here’s an opportunity for Dempsey to interact with soldiers and learn
what they think is necessary for the Army’s future. Indeed, here’s @Martin_Dempsey
tweeting a speech he gave about getting soldiers to “engage the Army on what it means
to be part of a profession,” rather than just calling them to do so on Twitter. All told, he
asked for soldiers’ input a grand total of twice, and didn’t retweet a single reply. For
TRADOC not to cash in on a transformative technological innovation is just too ironic.

4. Brig. Gen. Steven Spano. The previous tweeters are stingy with their big-think. But
Spano, the communications chief for the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, has no
shortage of way-out-there-in-the-blue tweets. His feed is actually one of my favorites,
because rarely am I sure what @accsix is actually tweeting about. “Best practices in
theory often result in best intentions in reality,” begins Spano’s Dec. 22 gem, “unique
variables must drive unique practices in similar business lines.” Come again? “If the
value of information at rest greatly diminishes over time, shouldn’t our security model
be more flexible and adaptive?” If only, general! Run with that! Lead the way! I promise
it’ll get you more followers.

5. Gen. Will Fraser. Spano’s boss at Air Combat Command seems to view Twitter as
primarily a morale booster. @ACCBoss is a feed filled with you-guys-rule tweets like:
“Superb visit to 705 CTS [Combat Training Squadron] at Kirtland AFB – tremendous
progress has been made with distributed mission operations.” And: “Promoted MajGen
Ted Kresge to LtGen – he is off to command 13th Air Force – we wish him all the best
and thank him for his continued service.” All of which is cool. But this is a
revolutionary moment for air combat, with remotely piloted aircraft playing the role
that fighter jets once played. Maybe Fraser has some Twitter-friendly perspectives on
that he could share? There’s more to social networking than sharing a reenlistment
ceremony at the Talladega Superspeedway.

Bottom line, sirs: Donald Rumsfeld has a better Twitter feed than you do right now.
You going to let that stand?
------------------
Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
(OpEdNews.com)
The New Year began with three North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers killed in
Afghanistan and 20 people, all portrayed as militants, killed in four American missile
strikes in northwest Pakistan. The third drone missile attack killed four people
attempting to rescue and remove the bodies of the victims of the first, a technique used
by the U.S. and NATO in their war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

The New Year began with three North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers killed in
Afghanistan and 20 people, all portrayed as militants, killed in four American missile
strikes in northwest Pakistan. The third drone missile attack killed four people
attempting to rescue and remove the bodies of the victims of the first, a technique used
by the U.S. and NATO in their war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

The West's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is currently the longest, largest and
deadliest in the world. Fatalities among U.S. troops, non-U.S. NATO and allied forces,
Afghan National Army soldiers and anti-government fighters reached a record high
last year: 498, 213, 800 and an unknown number (by U.S. and NATO accounts well into
the thousands), respectively. The United Nations estimated 2,400 Afghan civilians were
killed in the first ten months of last year, a 20 percent increase over the same period in
the preceding year. Approximately a thousand people were killed by U.S. drone missile
strikes in Pakistan.

It says something discouraging about a world of almost 200 nations that perhaps no
more than half a dozen countries - so-called rogue states (alternatively Condoleezza
Rice's "outposts of tyranny") - have voiced opposition to the war.

Washington's self-designated global war on terror (sometimes capitalized), in recent

years more politely and antiseptically called overseas contingency operations, has not
diminished in intensity but rather escalated in breadth and aggressiveness from West
Africa to East Asia and against targets not remotely related to al-Qaeda, which has
proven as nebulous and evasive as the West portrays it being ubiquitous.
From 2001 to the present the U.S. has engaged in and supported military operations
against Marxist guerrillas in Colombia and the Philippines, ethnic Tuaregs in Mali,
nominally Christian insurgents in Uganda and Shiite Houthi militia in northern Yemen
in the name of combating...al-Qaeda. The Wahhabist school of extremism that
characterizes al-Qaeda and analogous groups derives its doctrinal inspiration and
material support from Saudi Arabia, yet last October Washington announced a $63
billion arms package with the kingdom, the largest foreign weapons deal in American
history. 

Washington and its NATO military allies have opened a war front across the Arabian
Sea from Pakistan in the east to Somalia and Yemen in the west as the central focus of
operations that began almost ten years ago.

On October 1, 2008 the Pentagon formally launched its first overseas military command
in the post-Cold War era, U.S. Africa Command, which takes in 53 nations and an entire
continent except for Egypt, which remains in Central Command.

The second command's area of responsibility reaches from the eastern border of Libya
to the western border of China and southern border of Russia. From Egypt to
Kazakhstan. The Horn of Africa region, including Somalia, was ceded by Central
Command to Africa Command (AFRICOM), but the Arabian Peninsula, including
Yemen, remains in Central Command.

Though the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of Africa, now subsumed
under AFRICOM and based in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, includes thirteen
nations in East Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula in its area of
operations: Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. Operation Enduring
Freedom, under which the U.S. conducts its greater Afghan war, encompasses sixteen
countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan,
Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.

The U.S. maintains at least 2,500 troops in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and in late 2009
deployed over 100 troops, Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) equipped for
guided bombs and missiles and three P-3 Orion anti-submarine and maritime
surveillance aircraft to Seychelles.

Washington was accused by Houthi rebels in the north of Yemen of participating with
Saudi Arabia in deadly bombing raids against them in the northwestern province of
Sa'ada in December of 2009. They stated American jet fighters launched 28 attacks in the
province which included bombing the governor's house and killing 120 people in one
attack.
Later in the same month the U.S. conducted cruise missile and air strikes with the use of
cluster bombs in southern Yemen which killed over 60 civilians, mostly women and
children. Another air strike was launched in March of 2010.
Leading American officials have demanded drone missile strikes in Yemen and several
hundred U.S. special forces are deployed to the country.

The U.S. and its allies in NATO and the European Union are actively involved in the
civil war in Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.

The Pentagon supported the Ethiopian invasion of the country in 2006 and launched
two days of air strikes in January of the following year. In the autumn of 2009 U.S.
special forces conducted a deadly helicopter gunship raid in southern Somalia.
The New Year in Somalia started with a fierce battle between foreign troops backing the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and al-Shabaab rebels, resulting in at 15 dead
and 25 wounded. Inhabitants of the Somali capital reported that "the Mogadishu sky
turned red [and] kids were crying and had been unable to sleep as the crackling of
machine guns and barrages rocked throughout the city."

There are approximately 6,000 troops from U.S. military client states Uganda and
Burundi fighting on behalf of the formal government of the country under the banner of
the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Although approved by the African
Union, AMISOM and its predecessor, the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) Peace Support Mission in Somalia (IGASOM), primarily have
been initiatives by Washington and its allies in NATO and the EU.

European warships are deployed for NATO's Operation Ocean Shield and the EU's
Operation Atalanta off Somalia's coast in the Gulf of Aden. (In military matters the
distinction between NATO and the EU is becoming an increasingly formal one.)

At least fifteen EU member states, most of them also NATO members - Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Sweden,
Finland, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus - have sent no fewer than 150 military personnel to
Uganda to train 2,000 Somali troops for war in their homeland in a program financed
by the U.S.

In the middle of last month the local press reported that the first 1,000 Somali soldiers
"trained by officers from the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and senior
military officers from 27 European Union countries" graduated from the Bihanga
military training school in Western Uganda, a "facility...set up early this year to train
TFG Officers and foot soldiers in a bid to boost the military capability of war-torn
Somalia...."
"The soldiers are expected to provide the core of officers and men of a new Somali
army...to provide a much-needed boost to the fragile Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) in Mogadishu."
 
Since June of 2007 NATO has provided airlift and sealift for AMISOM (Ugandan and
Burundian) troops deployed to Somalia. The next year NATO flew a Burundian
battalion into Somalia and in March of last year the Western military bloc transported
1,700 Ugandan troops into and 850 out of the Somali capital.

The month before the initial inauguration of AFRICOM in 2007, when it was still under
U.S. European Command (whose top commander is simultaneously NATO Supreme
Allied Commander Europe), a Pentagon official announced that Africa Command
"would involve one small headquarters plus five 'regional integration teams' scattered
around the continent" and that "AFRICOM would work closely with the European
Union and NATO," particularly France, a leading member of both organizations, which
was "interested in developing the Africa standby force".

In the same year the U.S. Defense Department acknowledged it had already "agreed on
access to air bases and ports in Africa and 'bare-bones' facilities maintained by local
security forces in Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe,
Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia."

The five regions of Africa identified by the U.S. military - north, south, east, west and
central - are all represented by the locations named above and are each home to a
branch of the African Standby Force (Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and
Central), like AMISOM nominally under the control of the African Union but in fact
overseen by the U.S. and NATO.

The North Atlantic Alliance inaugurated the NATO Response Force, in NATO's own
words "a highly ready and technologically advanced multinational force made up of
land, air, maritime and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly
to wherever it is needed," in and off the coast of the African island of Cape Verde in
2006 in a two-week, 7,000-troop exercise codenamed Steadfast Jaguar. The African
Standby Force is modeled after the NATO Response Force.

"NATO...supports staff capacity building through the provision of places on NATO

training courses to AU [African Union] staff supporting AMISOM, and support to the
operationalisation of the African Standby Force - the African Union's vision for a
continental, on-call security apparatus similar to the NATO Response Force." [8] It is a
joint project of NATO and the Pentagon, formerly U.S. European Command and
currently U.S. Africa Command.

To date the only fully successful implementation of the project is the Eastern Africa
Standby Force, whose Eastern Africa Standby Brigade (with headquarters in Ethiopia
and its Eastern African Standby Brigade Coordination Mechanism in Kenya) consists of
Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda,
Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania (as an observer) and Uganda.

It is largely coterminous with the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of
Africa without Yemen and with Burundi and Rwanda added. In October of 2009 the
Eastern Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) held military exercises in Djibouti, where
Combined Joint Task Force -" Horn of Africa is based.

Last month the defense chiefs of the twelve members of EASBRIG (presumably Eritrea
was absent) met in the capital of Burundi to discuss "the Policy Framework for the
Establishment of the Eastern Africa Standby Force [EASF] and the Memorandum of
Understanding for Cooperation between the Eastern Africa Standby Force
Coordination Mechanism [EASBRICOM] and the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development [IGAD] that aims to harmonise the relations of both institutions...."

NATO, which has been training African Standby Force staff officers at its training
center in Oberammergau, Germany, has designated the NATO Joint Command Lisbon
to implement the bloc's military cooperation with Africa. Joint Command Lisbon has
what it identifies as a Senior Military Liaison Officer at the African Union headquarters
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (The territory of every nation in Africa except for Liberia,
founded by the American Colonization Society in 1821-1822, was formerly ruled by
nations that joined NATO: Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain
and Turkey.)

On September 5, 2007 "the North Atlantic Council -" NATO's top political decision
making body - agreed to provide assistance to the African Union with a study on the
assessment of the operational readiness of the African Standby Force brigades,"
according to the NATO website. 

In the west of Africa, the Economic Community of West African States Standby Force
brigade is being readied to intervene in Ivory Coast to depose President Laurent
Gbagbo as the Dutch Defense Ministry announced last week that one of its ships was
"heading for the coast of Cote d'Ivoire to provide supplies for French warships
stationed there."
 
U.S. Naval Forces Europe - U.S. Naval Forces Africa, which is headquartered in Naples,
Italy and directs its operations through the U.S. Sixth Fleet, also headquartered in Italy,
launched the Africa Partnership Station in 2007 as a naval component of AFRICOM.
Warships assigned to it have visited several African nations on the east, west and south
ends of the continent, among them Angola, Cameroon, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Reunion, Sao Tome
and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo.
Last month the Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Vicki
Huddleston and the State Department's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto (who was ambassador to Ethiopia when it
invaded Somalia in 2006) visited U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart,
Germany. While there the Defense Department's Huddleston asserted that "East Africa
becomes extremely high for DOD [the Department of Defense] in terms of priority. So
the highest priority for DOD, and therefore AFRICOM, becomes East Africa because of
Somalia and then West (Africa), North Africa...."

The month before, Ugandan People's Defence Air Force Chief Major General Jim
Owoyesigire visited 17th Air Force (Air Forces Africa) at the Ramstein Air Base in
Germany, also headquarters for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and NATO's Allied Air
Command.

Owoyesigire stated that his country's new air force was in part the product of an
African air chiefs conference he attended in Ramstein in 2007 where he "began learning
from the US Air Force."
 
In regards to Uganda's role as one of the two major belligerent forces in the war in
Somalia and its counterinsurgency war at home (and across its borders) against the
Lord's Resistance Army, the air force head confirmed that "Help from U.S. Africa
Command and 17th AF has been a key enabler for the UPDAF's [Ugandan People's
Defence Air Force's] contribution to these missions."

"When we started in AMISOM, we had no airlift capability. General Ward [William

Ward, AFRICOM commander] came and visited and helped us to partner with the U.S.
Air Force to get this airlift capability. To get training, 17th AF came and trained us in
loading cargo and airdrops, and this has really helped us.

"This is a wide question, but right now, we are asking 17th AF to come and help us
establish a squadron officers' school and NCO academy in Uganda. If we can develop
these schools, then we can also involve our east African partners."

Early in December the commander of U.S. Army Africa, Major General David Hogg,
visited Algeria to meet with senior military and government officials to discuss
"bilateral relations and regional issues," including joint reconnaissance and training
activities and "a future visit by Algerian soldiers to the United States to investigate how
the Army integrates its lessons learned center into its training regime."

U.S. Army Africa is the Army's newest service component command and is based in
Vicenza, Italy, assigned to AFRICOM and tasked with "developing relationships with
land forces in Africa and supporting U.S. Army efforts on the African continent."
The regional issues deliberated on by the American general and his Algerian
counterparts relate to Algeria's military campaign against Salafist insurgents and
similar counterinsurgency operations throughout the Sahel, which consists of parts of
Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria,
Senegal, Somalia and Sudan.

At the end of last month U.S. military personnel assigned to Combined Joint Task Force
- Horn of Africa and Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti participated in a combat casualty
course in Burundi as part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored program. According to
James Cobb, State Department program country manager in Burundi, "The course is
part of a U.S. Department of State initiative to provide African armies an opportunity to
partner with American defense forces to develop their peacekeeping skills for
operations throughout Africa."

In December the defense chief of Djibouti, Major General Fathi Ahmed Houssein, met
with AFRICOM commander General William Ward at AFRICOM headquarters in
Stuttgart to discuss "joint security cooperation activities and potential areas of further
cooperation...in East Africa and throughout the continent."    

As the AFRICOM website put it: "Djibouti hosts approximately 3,000 U.S. and allied
personnel at Camp Lemonnier, which is the only major U.S. military facility in Africa,
though small teams of U.S. personnel work across the continent on short-term
assignments. The main military organization at Camp Lemonnier is the Combined Joint
Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). A component of U.S. AFRICOM, CJTF-HOA
sends teams throughout the East Africa region [to] protect U.S. and coalition interests."

Among several joint programs, the generals elaborated plans for "Support to Djiboutian
armed forces in the Eastern African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) field training exercise,
aimed to assess the readiness and capability of EASBRIG, a component of the African
Union's Africa Standby Force...."

And expansion of the "International Military Education and Training, a program that
invites foreign military officers to attend military schools in the United States, and
provides funding for trainers to provide specific, localized training in African
countries."

As well as the continuation of the "Africa Contingency Operations Training and

Assistance program, designed to improve African militaries' capabilities by providing
selected training and equipment required to execute multinational...operations."
Ward and Houssein also discussed "other ways to increase support in building partner
capacity in the Horn of Africa through the U.S. Defense Department's 1206 program [to
train and equip foreign militaries for "counterterrorism or stability operations"] and the
U.S. State Department's Partnership Regional East African Counter-Terrorism
program," especially in regard to Ugandan-Burundian AMISOM operations in Somalia.
Air strikes, drone and cruise missile attacks, special forces operations, helicopter
gunship raids, counterinsurgency campaigns, multinational armed interventions,
cluster bomb and depleted uranium weapons use, and the entire panoply of military
actions associated with the Afghanistan-Pakistan war are already being conducted in
Africa and will only be increased.
------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Ban reaffirms UN's unwavering support for presidential poll result in Côte d'Ivoire
2 January – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has reaffirmed the United Nations'
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in Côte d'Ivoire reflected the will of the people and the result must therefore be upheld.

Darfur mediation team voices commitment to peace negotiations

31 December – Members of the Darfur mediation team, including the United Nations,
the African Union and Qatar, today stated their continued commitment to negotiations
aimed at achieving peace in the strife-torn Sudanese region.

Sudan: UN envoy lauds courage of both sides ahead of independence vote in South
31 December – The top United Nations official in Sudan today praised the leaders of
both North and South for their close cooperation ahead of the southern region’s
referendum on independence, the culminating stage of the accord that ended 20 years
of civil war between the two.

Ban appoints Karin Landgren of Sweden as new UN envoy for Burundi

31 December – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today named Karin Landgren of
Sweden as his new envoy for Burundi, where she will head the scaled-down United
Nations operation tasked with helping the Central African nation consolidate peace and
development.

Any attack on new Côte d’Ivoire leader will be repulsed, top UN envoy warns
31 December – The United Nations today warned Côte d’Ivoire’s outgoing president
that it would “repulse and defeat” any attack by his partisans on the headquarters of his
internationally recognized successor, and that he himself would be held personally
accountable for human rights abuses.