Algerian insurgents are becoming more active in Africa's remote, ungoverned deserts, and increased cooperation and intelligence-sharing among African nations will be key to averting future attacks by such groups, a top US general said Saturday.
US Major General Thomas Csrnko said the No. 1 threat to the region was Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an al-Qaeda affiliated movement that loaded fighters onto a dozen trucks earlier this month and attacked an isolated Mauritanian army outpost near the Algerian and Mali borders.
The surprise assault left 15 Mauritanian soldiers and nine Salafists dead. Csrnko said insurgents from the group, which the US has designated a terrorist organization, fled with captured arms and ammunition.
The Salafists are accused of kidnapping 32 European tourists in the Sahara in 2003 and of carrying out numerous attacks in Algeria itself. Csrnko is the special forces commander for US European Command, or EUCOM, which oversees US military activities in Europe and all of Africa. During the Flintlock exercise, about 1,000 US special forces troops are training 3,000 African soldiers.
Csrnko and others are in West Africa for a two-week US-led joint counterterrorism exercise called Flintlock, taking place June 6-26. The exercises involve nine African nations -- Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal -- a vast area the US is pouring more money and equipment into in a bid to keep terrorists at bay. Africa's "ungoverned" spaces -- particularly deserts where security forces are hard to come by -- are the chief concern of American commanders fearful terrorists may seek refuge there.
Csrnko said Algerian Salafists were conducting supply and smuggling operations within the Sahara region, using well-established, centuries-old trade routes that forge paths through harsh deserts.
Al-Qaeda terror cells are still believed to be active in Afghanistan, launching attacks alongside Taliban rebels. Csrnko said as many as 25 percent of foreign fighters from North Africa were heading to Iraq to fight US forces and their allies. Iraq has become a terrorist magnet in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion, with suicide car bomb attacks daily. US officials say a small number of fighters are returning to North Africa as well, trained in guerrilla tactics and bomb-making.
US forces began training armies in Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Chad in 2003. That effort has been expanded to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal, and its budget will be boosted from US$6 million to US$100 million for five years, starting in 2007.
Csrnko said US forces would aim to train with the same African units in the future with a view toward improving the capabilities of quick reaction forces, not regular armies.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS