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What’s the US navy doing in Africa? It’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, straitjacketed in secrecy, and hogtied by crimson tape. Or at the least it could be if it have been as much as the Pentagon.
Ten years in the past, I launched into a quest to reply that query at TomDispatch, chronicling a rising American navy presence on that continent, a build-up of each logistical capabilities and outposts, and the chance that much more was occurring out of sight. “Maintain your eye on Africa,” I concluded. “The U.S. navy goes to make information there for years to return.”
I knew I had a narrative when US Africa Command (AFRICOM) didn’t reply fundamental questions truthfully. And the command’s response to the article instructed me that I additionally had a brand new beat.
Not lengthy after publication, AFRICOM wrote a letter of criticism to my editor, Tom Engelhardt, trying to discredit my investigation. (I responded level by level in a follow-up piece.) The command claimed america was doing little on that continent, had one measly base there, and was clear about its operations. “I might encourage you and those that have curiosity in what we do to evaluate our Web site, www.AFRICOM.mil, and a brand new Protection Division Particular Net Report on U.S. Africa Command at this hyperlink http://www.protection.gov/residence/options/2012/0712_AFRICOM/,” wrote its director of public affairs, Col. Tom Davis.
A decade later, the hyperlink is lifeless; Davis is a functionary at Pima Group School in Tucson, Ariz.; and I’m nonetheless maintaining a tally of AFRICOM.
Just a few months in the past, in truth, I revealed the existence of a beforehand unknown AFRICOM investigation of an airstrike in Nigeria that killed greater than 160 civilians. A previously secret 2017 Africa Command doc I obtained known as for an inquiry into that “US-Nigerian” operation that was by no means disclosed to Congress, a lot much less the general public.
Since then, AFRICOM has steadfastly refused to supply a substantive touch upon the strike or the investigation that adopted and gained’t even say if it’ll launch related paperwork to members of Congress. Final month, citing my reporting, a gaggle of lawmakers from the newly fashioned Safety of Civilians in Battle Caucus known as on Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin to show over the information on, and reply key questions on, the assault. The Pentagon has thus far stored mum.
Has AFRICOM then, as Davis contended so way back, been clear? Is its web site the go-to spot for details about US navy missions on that continent? Did its operations there stay few and innocuous? Or was I onto one thing?
A Kinder, Gentler Combatant Command
From its inception, in accordance with its first commander, Normal William Ward, AFRICOM was supposed “to be a distinct type of command”: much less hardcore, extra Peace Corps. “AFRICOM’s focus is on warfare prevention,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Protection for African Affairs Theresa Whelan stated in 2007, “relatively than warfighting.”
In 2012, Ward’s successor, Gen. Carter Ham, instructed the Home Armed Companies Committee that “small groups” of American personnel have been conducting “a variety of engagements in assist of U.S. safety pursuits.” Years later, retired Army Brigadier Normal Don Bolduc, who served at AFRICOM from 2013 to 2015 and headed Particular Operations Command Africa till 2017, would provide some readability about these “engagements.” Between 2013 and 2017, he defined, American commandos noticed fight in at the least 13 African nations: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia. US troops, he added, have been killed or wounded in motion in at the least six of them.
Between 2015 and 2017, there have been at the least 10 unreported assaults on American troops in West Africa alone. A month after that January 2017 Nigerian air strike, in truth, US Marines fought Al Qaeda militants in a battle that AFRICOM nonetheless gained’t admit happened in Tunisia. That April, a US commando reportedly killed a member of warlord Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army within the Central African Republic. The following month, throughout an advise, help, and accompany mission, 38-year-old Navy SEAL Kyle Milliken was killed and two different People have been wounded in a raid on a militant camp in Somalia. That very same yr, a Navy SEAL reportedly shot and killed a person outdoors a compound flying an Islamic State (ISIS) flag in Cameroon. And that October, AFRICOM was lastly compelled to desert the fiction that US troops weren’t at warfare on the continent after ISIS militants ambushed American troops in Niger, killing 4 and wounding two extra. “We don’t know precisely the place we’re at on this planet, militarily, and what we’re doing,” stated Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, then a member of the Senate Armed Companies Committee, after assembly with Pentagon officers concerning the assault.
Within the 2010s, I might, in truth, assist reveal that america had performed at the least 36 named operations and actions in Africa—greater than wherever else on earth, together with the Center East. Amongst them have been eight 127e packages, named for the budgetary authority that enables Particular Operations forces to make use of international navy items as surrogates in counterterrorism missions. Extra not too long ago, I might report on 11 of these proxy packages employed in Africa, together with one in Tunisia, code-named Obsidian Tower and by no means acknowledged by the Pentagon, and one other with a notoriously abusive Cameroonian navy unit linked to mass atrocities.
5 of these 127e packages have been performed in Somalia by US commandos coaching, equipping, and directing troops from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda as a part of the struggle in opposition to the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. In 2018, 26-year-old Alex Conrad of the Army’s Special Forces was killed in an assault on a small US navy outpost in Somalia.
Such outposts have lengthy been a degree of rivalry between AFRICOM and me. “The U.S. maintains a stunning variety of bases in Africa,” I wrote in that preliminary TomDispatch article in July 2012. Colonel Davis denied it. “Apart from our base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti,” he claimed, “we shouldn’t have navy bases in Africa.” I had, he insisted, filed that article earlier than AFRICOM may get me additional outpost materials. “If he had waited, we might have offered the knowledge requested, which may have higher knowledgeable his story.”
I had begun requesting data that Might, known as in further questions in June and July, after which (as requested) put them in writing. I adopted up on the ninth, mentioning my looming deadline and was instructed that AFRICOM headquarters might need some solutions for me on the tenth. That day got here and went, as did the eleventh. TomDispatch lastly revealed the piece on July twelfth. “I respectfully submit {that a} vigorous free press can’t be held hostage, ready for data which may by no means arrive,” I wrote Davis.
Once I later adopted up, Davis turned out to be on depart, however AFRICOM spokesperson Eric Elliott emailed in August to say: “Let me see what I can provide you in response to your request for an entire checklist of services.”
Then, for weeks, AFRICOM went darkish. A follow-up e-mail in late October went unanswered. One other in early November elicited a response from spokesperson Dave Hecht, who stated that he was dealing with the request and would offer an replace by week’s finish. I’m positive you gained’t be shocked to be taught that he didn’t. So, I adopted up but once more. On November sixteenth, he lastly responded: “All questions now have solutions. I simply want the boss to evaluate earlier than I can launch. I hope to have them to you by mid subsequent week.” Did I get them? What do you suppose?
In December, Hecht lastly replied: “All questions have been answered however are nonetheless being reviewed for launch. Hopefully this week I can ship the whole lot your method.” Did he? Hah!
In January 2013, I acquired solutions to some questions of mine, however nothing about these bases. By then, Hecht, too, had disappeared and I used to be left coping with AFRICOM’s Chief of Media Engagement, Benjamin Benson. When requested about my questions, he replied that public affairs couldn’t present solutions and I ought to as a substitute file a Freedom of Info Act (FOIA) request.
To recap, six months later, Benson advisable I begin once more. And in good religion, I did. In 2016, three and a half years later, I lastly acquired a partial response to that FOIA request: one web page of partially redacted—to not point out ineffective—details about (yep!) Camp Lemonnier and nothing else.
I might spend years investigating the bases Davis claimed didn’t exist. Utilizing leaked secret paperwork, I make clear a community of African drone bases integral to US assassination packages on the continent in addition to the existence of a secret community of Nationwide Safety Company eavesdropping outposts in Ethiopia. Utilizing previously secret paperwork, I revealed an excellent bigger community of US bases throughout Africa, once more and once more. I used little-noticed open-source data to focus on actions at these services, whereas serving to expose homicide and torture by native forces at a drone base in Cameroon built-up and frequented by People. I additionally spotlighted the development of a $100 million drone base in Niger; a beforehand unreported outpost in Mali apparently overrun by militants after a 2012 coup there by a US-trained officer; the enlargement of a shadowy drone base within the Horn of Africa and its position in deadly strikes in opposition to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; a whole lot of drone strikes from Libya to Somalia and the ensuing civilian casualties; and the flailing, failing US warfare on terror all throughout Africa.
Not surprisingly, AFRICOM’s web site by no means had a lot to say about such reporting, nor may you go there to search out articles like:
“The AFRICOM Recordsdata: Pentagon Undercounts and Ignores Navy Sexual Assault in Africa”
“New Information Exhibits the U.S. Navy Is Severely Undercounting Civilian Casualties in Somalia”
“U.S. Troops in Africa May be in Hazard. Why Is the Navy Attempting to Conceal It?”
You Know You’re on Goal When You’re Getting a Lot of Flak(s)
Within the years since, a parade of AFRICOM press officers got here and went, replying in a by-then-familiar trend. “Nick, we’re not going to reply to any of your questions,” Lt. Commander Anthony Falvo, head of its public affairs department, instructed me in October 2017. Did he, I requested, consider AFRICOM needn’t deal with questions from the press generally or solely from me. “No, simply you,” he replied. “We don’t contemplate you a reputable journalist, actually.” Then he hung up.
That very same month, I used to be inadvertently ushered behind the closed doorways of the AFRICOM public affairs workplace. Whereas trying to hold up on me, a member of the workers unintentionally put me on speakerphone and instantly I discovered myself listening in to the goings on, from banal banter to shrieking outbursts. And, consider me, it wasn’t fairly. Whereas the command repeatedly claimed its personnel had the utmost respect for his or her native counterparts, I found, for instance, that at the least sure press officers appeared to have a remarkably low opinion of a few of their African companions. At one level, Falvo requested if there was any “new intelligence” relating to navy operations in Niger after the 2017 ambush that killed these 4 American troopers. “You’ll be able to’t put Nigeriens and intelligence in the identical sentence,” replied somebody within the workplace. Laughter adopted and I revealed the sordid particulars. That very month, Anthony Falvo shipped off (actually ending up within the public affairs workplace of the USS Gerald Ford).
Right now, a brand new coterie of AFRICOM public affairs personnel discipline questions, however Falvo’s successor, Deputy Director of Public Affairs John Manley, a real skilled, appears to be on name each time my questions are particularly problematic. He swears this isn’t true, however I’m positive you gained’t be shocked to be taught that he fielded my queries for this text.
After Col. Tom Davis —who left AFRICOM to hitch Particular Operations Command (the place, in a personal e-mail, he known as me a “turkey”)—failed to reply to my interview requests, I requested AFRICOM if his defer-and-deny system was the easiest way to tell the American public. “We aren’t going to touch upon processes and procedures in place a decade in the past or present opinions on personnel who labored within the workplace at the moment,” stated Manley.
“Our duty is to supply well timed, correct, and clear responses to queries acquired from all members of the media,” Manley instructed me. Sure, me, the reporter who’s been ready since 2012 for solutions about these US bases. And by AFRICOM requirements, perhaps that’s not likely so lengthy, given its infinite failures in quelling terrorism and selling stability in locations like Burkina Faso, Libya, and Somalia.
Nonetheless, I give Manley plenty of credit score. He isn’t thin-skinned or afraid to speak and he does provide solutions, though generally they appear so far-fetched that I can’t consider he uttered them with a straight face. Although he agreed to debate his replies additional, I doubted that badgering him would get both of us wherever, so I’ll simply let his final one stand as a digital monument to my 10-year relationship with AFRICOM. Once I requested if the general public affairs workplace had at all times been as forthcoming, forthright, and useful with my queries as attainable, he unleashed the proper capstone to my decade-long dance with U.S. Africa Command by providing up only one lone phrase: “Sure.”
