The war on terror is about to enter a new theater. Africa has emerged into the spotlight of global counter-terror operations because of repeated appearances of Africans among the foreign fighters in Iraq. The Navy and Marine Corps are concerned that the vast and lawless expanses of Africa could make the continent a potential terrorist sanctuary. The reasons that make Africa a safe haven for terrorist organizations are the same ones that make the continent difficult for American military operations. The challenges associated with making inroads onto the continent, perhaps the most impoverished, corrupt, and ungoverned region on the planet, leave the Navy and Marines with a daunting task before them.
Africa's Many Challenges
Africa is enormous by any measure. As the second-largest continent, it contains nearly 800 million inhabitants in 53 countries situated across a geographic range that includes rainforest, desert, and plains. African culture is as diverse as the topography: more than 2,000 languages have been identified, and Nigeria alone has 350 ethnic groups. The three major religious segments are Islam, Christianity, and traditional African religions; this last category contains a plethora of different practices that vary by region.
Africa is rife with problems. News stories focus on war, corruption, famine, and disease. Recent conflicts in Liberia, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone have captured headlines around the world. Since 1948, 25% of all UN peacekeeping operations have occurred in Africa, including half of all current ongoing operations.1 Of the 53 African nations, eight or nine could be described as war zones. Somalia and Sierra Leone fit the definition of failed states where anarchy and ineffective government are the rule of the day. Other nations teeter on the precipice of revolution or civil war. Likewise, endemic corruption and criminal complicity in African governments (best described as kleptocracies) rob the citizens of opportunities to improve their conditions and promise to keep foreign peacekeepers coming back for years. For example, Nigerian leaders are estimated to have stolen $400 billion from government funds over the past 40 years.2
In many cases, African leaders are directly responsible for the miserable conditions of their constituents such as food scarcities, rising infant-mortality rates, soaring budget deficits, human rights abuses, international sanctions, and prolonged serfdom for millions. Transparency International, a watchdog organization measuring corrupt practices worldwide, put African countries such as Cameroon, Kenya, and Angola near the top of the list. The continent is home to 23 of the world"s poorest countries and 60% of its people live below the global poverty line (less than one U.S. dollar per day). Most eek out a living as subsistence farmers. Approximately 8.1 million of the world's 22 million cross-border displaced persons are in Africa.3 These political and domestic problems undermine outside efforts to help African nations. The Bush administration recognized this in its National Security Strategy: "Poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders."
However, not all of Africa's problems are man-made. In Niger and along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and other illnesses kill one in four children before the age of five.4 A National Intelligence Council report estimated that half of the world's infectious diseases commonly occur in Africa. Half of the inhabitants of sub-Sahara Africa lack safe drinking water and are illiterate. One third have no health care.5
Already in critical condition, in the fall of 2004 the situation worsened; a severe drought and the worst locust plague in 15 years destroyed the harvest. The World Food Program estimates that 2.5 million of Niger's 12 million people need immediate food aid.6 Malawi, along the Great African Rift, is the site of the second major food crisis in the last 12 months. The same drought that wreaked havoc on Niger threatens 5 million of Malawi's 12 million citizens. The drought, along with abject poverty and higher than usual corn prices (the staple crop in the region), have led to a crisis that will not abate until the next harvest begins in April of next year. All this despite nearly $250 million from international donors, including $48 million of corn from U.S. farmers.
Possibly the worst crisis African nations face is not conflict or famine, but the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sub-Saharan Africa has just 10% of the world's population but it contains 60% of all the people living with HIV-more than 25 million. The disease has already killed 2.4 million Africans and conditions are expected to worsen before they improve. Southern Africa is the most affected: life expectancy has dropped below age 40 in nine countries. Zimbabwe, with 75% of adults infected, has seen life expectancy drop to 34 in 2003 from 52 in 1990. Four countries have declared HIV/AIDS the biggest threat to national security that the country faces.
The New Threat: Terrorism in Africa
For the United States, at war with a growing movement of Islamic fundamentalism, the biggest political and military concern in Africa is terrorism. All these dire conditions-border disputes, ethnic conflicts, corruption and mismanagement, famine, HIV-make Africa a fertile breeding ground for Muslim extremism and terrorist recruitment. On a continent where 50% of the population is under 15 years old and where the population is expected to grow from 800 million to 2 billion by 2050, this vast pool of angry, unskilled youth is a population vulnerable to jihadist sentiment and creates a critical problem demanding immediate attention.
There is already plenty of evidence of terrorist activity in Africa. The history of al Qaeda in Africa goes back to 1991, when Osama bin Laden used Sudan as his operating base until U.S. and international pressure forced the Sudanese government to withdraw the welcome mat for him in 1996. In August 1998 al Qaeda exploded two massive car bombs outside the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people (including 12 Americans) and injuring 5,000. In response, U.S. Navy warships fired cruise missiles into suspected terror sites near Khartoum later that month during Operation Infinite Reach.
In 2002, al Qaeda operatives killed 15 people in an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and simultaneously fired surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli passenger jet departing Mombasa's airport. In 2003, four suicide bombers attacked Jewish, Spanish, and Belgian sites in Casablanca, Morocco, killing 33 people. The 11 March 2004 train bombings in Madrid were carried out by African jihadists and killed 191 people and wounded 1,400 others. The 7 July 2005 London bombers who killed 51 people and injured more than 700 were assisted by collaborators from Africa.
In September 2005, the U.S. Department of State listed the African organization Salifist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) as a foreign terrorist organization putting it on par with al Qaeda.7 The GSPC gained notoriety with its June 2003 kidnapping of 32 Western tourists in Algeria. Terrorist groups such as GSPC use the vast ungoverned expanses of the Sahara Desert to their advantage, ferrying arms, cash, and contraband along established smuggling routes.
Pentagon officials estimate that 25% of the foreign fighters in Iraq-estimated to be 5,000-8,000-are Africans. The officials also indicate that a stream of veteran jihadists from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are returning to Africa to train new soldiers and use insurgent tactics against their native countries. As Marine Corps General James Jones, commander, U.S. European Command, and former Commandant of the Marine Corps, said at a Pentagon news conference on 20 October 2005, "We already have evidence of fighters going from Africa, spending some time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then migrating back to Africa."
The Navy and Marine Corps Role
Navy and Marine Corps teams are leading the way into Africa. Similar to the near-continuous presence maintained in the Persian Gulf region over the last 60 years to protect American strategic interests and promote democratic values, U.S. military presence in Africa demands an increased level of attention and commitment. Prior to 2005, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps conducted little direct action in Africa. The majority of involvement on the continent has been logistical support to deployed peacekeeping forces or non-combatant evacuation operations of U.S. embassy personnel during crises. For example, since 1990, the U.S. Navy has conducted eight such operation in Africa.
The Navy and Marine Corps established its first foothold in sub-Saharan Africa with its base at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, headquarters of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). Started at sea on board USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20), the operation touched land in 2002 and is now run by Marine Corps Major General Timothy Ghormley under the Marine Forces Central Command. The only permanent U.S. base in Africa, its mission is to disrupt violent Islamic networks in the region, including within Somalia and Kenya. Its headquarters are just a few dozen miles across the Gulf of Aden from where al Qaeda terrorists attacked USS Cole (DDG-67) in October 2000.
Currently, the task force's mission is to win hearts and minds rather than engage directly with terrorists, Major General Ghormley recently told Navy Times. His primary maneuver elements are not combat units but rather "doctors, veterinarians, well drillers, and civil engineers." In September 2005, the Pentagon announced that CJTF-HOA would shift command back to the U.S. Navy. Rear Admiral Richard Hunt will assume duties as Commander, Joint Task Force Horn of Africa though it will still remain a joint staff.
Africa falls under the responsibility of General Jones in his role as commander of European Command. One of General Jones' most important programs is Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans Sahara (OEF-TS), launched in June 2005 in nine nations circling the Sahara Desert. General Jones envisions the operation as having two purposes. First, training African troops would help nationals trying to protect their own borders, including fighting drug and arms smuggling. Second, the operation would give the United States increased visibility as we fight to keep terrorist organizations from taking root in developing countries.
In Africa, OEF-TS got its start with the June 2005 Flintlock exercise. The largest deployment of U.S. military forces into Africa since World War II, the exercise saw the movement of nearly 1,000 U.S. Navy SEALs and other special forces into Algeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad to train host-nation forces in small-unit tactics, security operations, medical training, and land warfare. The Department of Defense-run element of the larger Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, OEF-TS has received $500 million in funding. As Navy Commander Tim Maricle, an operator at Special Operations Command Europe and a participant in Flintlock 2005 described it, "Flintlock is the first step in a long journey into Africa, one that won't foreseeably require direct U.S. engagement but will involve training Africans to defend themselves, a kind of proxy war against terrorism by American trained forces."
Training the African Military
For the time being, the Navy and Marine Corps are spread too thin supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to make significant deployments into Africa. General Jones knows well the challenges and necessity of operations in Africa under these conditions: "Modest near-term investments will enable us to avert crises that may require costly U.S. intervention in the future."8 Rather, the engagement philosophy is focused on terrorism prevention by training Africans to govern and police themselves. With the ultimate goal of self-empowerment in mind, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps will conduct security assistance and training to achieve conflict prevention. As General Jones put it, the United States must be active on the continent so African nations "don't become the Afghanistans and Iraqs of the future."9
These low-cost, high-return events are designed to create a grass-roots ability that can be enhanced at a later date when Navy and Marine Corps assets and funding become more available. According to Major General Ghormley of CJTF-HOA, the mission is not one of nation-building. Rather, his Marine task force in Djibouti is focused on building capabilities for local governments to foster stability on their own. "We're trying to improve the underlying conditions. Poverty itself doesn't bring about terrorism but destitution with no way ahead brings about a turn to a more radical approach."
Examples of the self-empowerment strategy are events such as the annual West African Training Cruise (WATC). Each year since 1978 the Navy and Marines have conducted WATC, a deployment along the coasts of nations such as Nigeria, Ghana, Sierre Leone, and Senegal to train with their African counterparts. In the most recent deployment, a Marine rifle platoon from Camp Lejeune sailed on a six-week voyage to Ghana, Senegal, and Guinea on board USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44) and the high speed vessel Swift (HSV-2). The Marines on board Gunston Hall trained their African counterparts on riverine operations, ambush, counter-ambush, combat patrol, jungle-warfare tactics, and night-vision techniques. Additionally, Navy Seals and special-boat crews assigned to Naval Special Warfare Unit Two in Stuttgart, Germany, embarked on board Swift for riverine and boat handling training.
With this idea of long-term stability in mind, the U.S. Navy is pursuing the development of a forward operating base in the Gulf of Guinea region on the west side of the continent. The region currently provides about 15% of America's oil imports, a number expected to grow to 25% by 2015, surpassing the amount from the Persian Gulf nations.10 The linchpin nation in the region is Nigeria, the fifth-largest oil producer in the world. A U.S. Navy base or forward operating site in the region would provide a location to conduct military training with regional navies and a base of operations in the event of a crisis in this important strategic area.
Like Operation Earnest Will in 1988, when U.S. Navy ships escorted Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf, the need is similar in the Gulf of Guinea for a type of sea-basing: launching and sustaining combat forces to protect oil platforms, tankers, and the nearly 40,000 U.S. oil workers and $60 billion of investments from U.S. companies in the region.11 The vulnerability of U.S. citizens in the Gulf of Guinea was apparent with the 11 January 2006 kidnapping of four oil workers, including American Patrick Landry, by armed bandits who approached an offshore oil facility in canoes. Landry and the others were released after 19 days of extensive negotiations.
Coastal security programs akin to those in the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa are necessary to bring stability and energy security to the beleaguered region. Without this assistance, the situation will deteriorate as recent incidents have graphically illustrated. According to the International Maritime Bureau, waters along the Somali coast and the Mozambique Channel are the most dangerous regions in the world for acts of piracy. The value of Navy presence was demonstrated by USS Winston S. Churchill's (DDG-81) interception and seizure of a pirate mother ship on 20 January 2006, a target potentially involved with more than 35 acts of piracy in the last nine months. In a more recent incident, USS Cape St. George (CG-71) and USS Gonzalez (DDG-66) came under fire from a suspected pirate vessel as the ships maneuvered into position to conduct a routine vessel inspection during maritime security operations on March 18 in the Indian Ocean off the central coast of Somalia. The two Navy ships returned fire with small arms, killing one suspected pirate, injuring five others, and causing a fire in the vessel which subsequently burnt to the waterline.
The U.S Navy and Marine Corps presence builds trust with African nations and makes a significant contribution to stabilizing the area against pirates, criminals, and terrorists. In March 2004, a Navy EP-3 conducting surveillance in the Chadian desert relayed intelligence of the movement of 80 GSPC terrorists to Chadian armed forces. At the time of their detection, the terrorists were traveling along smuggling routes in eight Toyota trucks with mounted heavy machine guns and freely passing through the open national borders of the Sahara. Some 150 Chadian soldiers engaged the terrorists and pursued them for two days. Eventually 28 terrorists were killed and their leader, Abderazak al-Para, was captured, tried, and imprisoned in Algeria.12 General Jones said the operation was "a military strike that essentially dealt a near-death blow, if not a death-blow" to the terrorist cell.
President George W. Bush noted on numerous occasions that he wants a military "ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world." As challenging as making inroads in Africa will be, the Navy and Marine Corps have started what will be the beginning of a long involvement on the continent. By investing in African allies now, the Navy and Marine Corps can avoid the extended challenges faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or to put it another way, as General Jones recently told a small group of Marines in Washington in 2004, "I can tell you, without any fear of exaggeration, that in [your] future, [you] will be very expert in things African."
Lieutenant Commander Paterson is the African desk officer at Special Operations Command, Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. A 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he is also a surface warfare and foreign area officer.