United States Africa Command Public Affairs Office 28 November 2011 USAFRICOM - related news stories

Good morning. Please find attached news clips related to U.S. Africa Command and Africa, along with upcoming events of interest for November 28, 2011. Of interest in todays clips: The Washington Post reports on U.S. support to East African countries in an effort to stabilize Somalia and a growing U.S. military presence around Somalias perimeter. An East Africa regional summit on Friday asked Ethiopia to add its support to Kenyan, Somali and African Union forces against al-Shabab. Jeune Afrique features an interview with Lu Shaye, Director General of the Department of African Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of China. He discusses Chinas noninterference policy and increasing trade and involvement in Africa. Chinas trade with Africa reached $129 billion last year; it was only a few hundred million in 1999. The New York Times reports from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo as the presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to occur Monday, November 28. U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs Please send questions or comments to: africom-pao@africom.mil 421-2687 (+49-711-729-2687) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Top News related to U.S. Africa Command and Africa U.S. intensifies its proxy fight against al-Shabab in Somalia (The Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intensifies-its-proxy-fightagainst-al-shabab-in-somalia/2011/11/21/gIQAVLyNtN_story.html November 25, 2011 By Craig Whitlock The Obama administration is intensifying its campaign against an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia by boosting the number of proxy forces in the war-torn country, expanding drone operations and strengthening military partnerships throughout the region.

Regional Summit Urges Ethiopia to Send Troops to Somalia (Voice of America) http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Regional-Summit-Urges-Ethiopia-to-SendTroops-to-Somalia-134496173.html November 25, 2011 By Peter Heinlein A Horn of Africa regional summit has given its blessing to the return of Ethiopian troops to Somalia, but the force will remain outside African Union command. The Inter Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, Friday officially asked Ethiopia to support the campaign by Kenyan, Somali and African Union forces against Somalia's alShabab rebels. At the end of a one-day regional summit, IGAD Secretary General Mahboub Maalim said Ethiopia had agreed to help. African Union Force Makes Strides Inside Somalia (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/world/africa/africa-forces-surprise-many-withsuccess-in-subduing-somalia.html?scp=2&sq=african%20union&st=cse November 25, 2011 By Jeffrey Gettleman NAIROBI, Kenya When the first batch of African Union peacekeepers landed at Mogadishus decrepit airport in 2007, they were immediately shelled by insurgents with mortars and given little chance of success. This was Somalia after all, the graveyard of several other doomed interventions, and the African Union soldiers were a last resort for a deeply troubled mission. Lu Shaye: Africans are against interference. So are the Chinese (Jeune Afrique) NOTE: French-to-English translation of an interview, no digital link is provided November 23, 2011 By Jean-Louis Gouraud and Clara Arnaud BEIJING -- Housed in an impressive building located on one of Beijings main arteries, The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs faces the just-as-impressive headquarters of SINOPEC, one of Chinas two largest oil and gas companies. Is this an indication...? Isnt the Central Empires foreign policy guided by the necessity to secure energy supplies? In Coming Elections in Congo, Expectations of Fraud and Fears of Violence (NY Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/world/africa/in-congo-elections-fraud-is-expectedand-violence-is-feared.html?_r=1&ref=africa November 26, 2011 By Jeffrey Gettleman KINSHASA, Congo A sense of menace hangs over the long, dirty boulevards of this African metropolis. Riot police officers with face masks, helmets, Kalashnikovs and black-plastic shin guards prowl the neighborhoods. Columns of heavily armed trucks roll through town, the business ends of their cannons pointing at the populace. These are the last line of defense, the red-bereted and much feared Republican Guard, the presidents closest men.

Several killed in central Nigeria religious violence (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AO01N20111125 November 25, 2011 JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Several people were killed in religious violence in central Nigeria on Thursday, prompting the military to impose a 24-hour curfew in one region at the border between the West African country's mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south. Media bias helped Gambia's Jammeh win election: AU (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AQ00H20111127 November 27, 2011 BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh benefited from a strong media bias and greater financial resources than his rivals to secure a new five-year term in elections, the African Union said on Saturday. Doctor brain drain costs Africa $2 billion (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AO01R20111125 November 25, 2011 By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Sub-Saharan African countries that invest in training doctors have ended up losing $2 billion as the expert clinicians leave home to find work in more prosperous developed nations, researchers said on Friday. The Secret War: Fourth of a Series -- Successful Manhunt (Army Times) http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-secret-war-africa-112511/ November 23, 2011 By Sean D. Naylor, Staff writer Years of detective work led to demise of al-Qaida target His tour over, John Bennett was preparing to fly home. The CIAs station chief in Nairobi, Kenya, Bennett had been running the United States secret war in East Africa, negotiating with Somali warlords while hunting al-Qaida members across the region. On his watch, the United States and its proxies had managed to capture or kill at least 10 or so al-Qaida militants. Boko Haram kills four policemen in Yobe attacks (The Nation) http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/27814-boko-haram-kills-fourpolicemen-in-yobe-attacks.html 28 November 2011 By Duku Joel Churches, homes and the police headquarters in Gaidam, a small town in Yobe State, were set ablaze in a wave of night time gun and bomb attacks by Boko Haram, the police said yesterday. Nigeria sect 'spokesman' claims Al-Qaeda links (AFP) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ioqjtjlSlkiIVf0OzFhhOLSPfN-

Q?docId=CNG.5c1b04314cb3b8eb7163ad860eac8ec1.1011 25 November 2011 MAIDUGURI, Nigeria A purported spokesman for Islamist sect Boko Haram claimed on Thursday that the group, blamed for attacks including the suicide bombing of UN headquarters in Nigeria, has links with Al-Qaeda. Mali kidnappings highlight poor regional cooperation (AFP) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j_WFnmjZ25pc4HP_GdoIdC76 5YjQ?docId=CNG.267ee7c6df139dfd8639153103085a00.1b1 28 November 2011 DAKAR After the kidnapping of five Europeans and the murder of one other in just 48 hours in Mali, military cooperation in the vast Sahel strip south of the Sahara desert shows it is in need of strengthening. ### -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------UN News Service Africa Briefs http://www.un.org/apps/news/region.asp?Region=AFRICA (Full Articles on UN Website) As Congolese prepare to vote, Ban calls for peaceful and secure elections 27 November Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged politicians and voters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to ensure that tomorrows presidential and parliamentary elections take place as peacefully and smoothly as possible. Ahead of Ivorian legislative polls, UN envoy warns on sexual violence 26 November The envoy spearheading United Nations efforts to eradicate sexual violence in conflict today urged the Government and all political leaders in Cote dIvoire to speak out against the scourge and ensure it is not used to intimidate people ahead of critical legislative elections slated to take place next month. Ban voices deep concern over continuing violence in Egypt 26 November Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced deep concern over the continuing deadly violence in Egypt in recent days and urged the countrys transitional authorities to ensure that all citizens can enjoy basic human rights. Some 76,000 people fleeing conflict in Sudan enter Ethiopia, South Sudan 25 November The United Nations refugee agency voiced concern today over the movement of large numbers of people from Sudan into Ethiopia and South Sudan, saying that an estimated 76,000 people have moved since August, mainly as a result of conflicts. ### ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upcoming Events of Interest: 28 NOV 2011 WHEN: Monday, November 28, 2011, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. WHAT: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Discussion on " USAID's Strategy for Success in Global Health." SPEAKER: Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mndez, USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health. WHERE: CSIS, 188 K Street, NW CONTACT: 202-887-0200; web site: www.csis.org SOURCE: CSIS - event announcement at: http://csis.org/event/new-usaid-global-healthstrategy 29 NOV 2011 WHEN: Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 4:30 p.m. WHAT: Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Johns Hopkins University Discussion on Tunisia: From Dictatorship to Democratic Era. SPEAKER: Salah Bourjini, former Division Chief of the U.N. Development Program WHERE: SAIS, Room 500, Bernstein-Offit Building, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW CONTACT: Felisa Neuringer Klubes at 202-663-5626 or fklubes@jhu.edu; web site: www.sais-jhu.edu SOURCE: SAIS - event announcement at: http://www.sais-jhu.edu/calendar/index.htm 30 NOV 2011 WHEN: Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. WHAT: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) Discussion on "America's Challenge: Engaging a Rising China in the Twenty-First Century." SPEAKERS: Michael D. Swaine, David Lampton, and Geoff Dyer. WHERE: CEIP, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW CONTACT: 202-483-7600; web site: www.carnegieendowment.org SOURCE: CEIP - event announcement at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2011/11/30/america-s-challenge-engaging-risingchina-in-twenty-first-century/7g14 1 DEC 2011 U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS Full Committee Hearing WHEN: Thursday, December 1, 2011, 10:00 a.m. WHAT: U.S. Strategic Objectives Towards Iran WHO: The Honorable Wendy R. Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and The Honorable David S. Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Department of Treasury WHERE: 419 Senate Dirksen Office Building

WHEN: Thursday, December 1, 2011, 2:00 - 6:00 p.m. WHAT: Woodrow Wilson Center (WWC) Discussion on "The Price of Freedom and Democracy: Defiant Bahrainis and the Arab Spring." PANEL 1: 2:00-3:45 p.m. -- Youth, Democratic Change and the Arab Spring Speakers: Robin Wright, Distinguished Scholar, U.S. Institute of Peace and The Wilson Center and author, Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World (2011) PANEL II: 4:00-6:00 p.m. -- The Price of Freedom and Democracy: Defiant Bahrainis and the Arab Spring Keynote: Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Recipient of the 2011 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award WHERE: WWC, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW CONTACT: 202-691-4000; web site: www.wilsoncenter.org SOURCE: WWC - event announcement at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-pricefreedom-and-democracy-defiant-bahrainis-and-the-arab-spring 2 DEC 2011 WHEN: Friday, December 2, 2011, 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. WHAT: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) Discussion on "Egypt: Is There a Way Forward?" SPEAKERS: Marina Ottaway and Bahgat Korany. WHERE: CEIP, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW CONTACT: 202-483-7600; web site: www.carnegieendowment.org SOURCE: CEIP - event announcement at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2011/12/02/egypt-is-there-way-forward/7nvt WHEN: Friday, December 2, 2011, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. WHAT: Middle East Institute (MEI) Discussion on "Insights from Egypt's First Round of Voting." SPEAKERS: Joshua Stacher, Kent State University and Mohamed Elmenshawy, Al Shorouk News, Middle East Institute Scholar; moderated by Graeme Bannerman, Middle East Institute Scholar WHERE: MEI, 1761 N Street, NW CONTACT: 202-785-1141; web site: www.mei.edu SOURCE: MEI - event announcement at: http://www.mei.edu/Events/Calendar/tabid/504/vw/3/ItemID/370/d/20111202/Default.as px

### -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------New on www.africom.mil A Moroccan Natives Call to Duty

http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=7460&lang=0 November 23, 2011 By U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa Public Affairs NAPLES, Italy, Nov 23, 2011 Mohammed Bouziane is a mountain of a man. Standing 6 foot 6 inches tall he can intimidate anyone, and yet it was the Moroccan native's soft spoken skills that made the Navy choose him for a recent Secretary of State-ordered medical evacuation mission. ### -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------FULL TEXT U.S. intensifies its proxy fight against al-Shabab in Somalia (The Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intensifies-its-proxy-fightagainst-al-shabab-in-somalia/2011/11/21/gIQAVLyNtN_story.html November 25, 2011 By Craig Whitlock The Obama administration is intensifying its campaign against an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia by boosting the number of proxy forces in the war-torn country, expanding drone operations and strengthening military partnerships throughout the region. In many ways, the American role in the long-running conflict in Somalia is shaping up as the opposite of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: relatively inexpensive, with limited or hidden U.S. footprints. While the White House has embraced the strategy as a model for dealing with failed states or places inherently hostile to an American presence, the indirect approach carries risks. Chief among them is a lack of control over the proxy forces from Uganda, Burundi and Somalia, as well as other regional partners that Washington has courted and financed in recent years. All told, the United States has spent more than $500 million since 2007 to train and equip East African forces in an attempt to fight terrorism and bring a measure of stability to Somalia. Kenya, for example, sent thousands of troops into Somalia last month to fight al-Shabab, a militia affiliated with al-Qaeda, despite U.S. concerns that the invasion could backfire and further destabilize a country ravaged by two decades of civil war. This week, Ethiopia sent its own, smaller force across the border, according to Somalis. The Ethiopian government has denied these reports but acknowledged that it is considering a military offensive.

These operations are reviving painful memories of an Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that was backed by U.S. forces and preceded by an extensive CIA operation. In that case, the Ethiopian army - with some U.S. air support - rolled into Somalia to oust a fundamentalist Muslim movement that had taken over Mogadishu, the capital. But the Ethiopians eventually withdrew after they became bogged down by a Somali insurgency. "That effort was not universally successful and led, in fact, to the rise of al-Shabab after [Ethiopia] pulled out," Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters Tuesday. Al-Shabab, which means "the youth" in Arabic, has imposed a harsh version of Islamic law in parts of Somalia and organized attacks elsewhere in East Africa, including suicide bombings and kidnappings in Uganda and Kenya. While some foreign radicals including Somali Americans - have joined the group's ranks, U.S. counterterrorism officials say the movement is divided between those who share al-Qaeda's global aims and others who want to confine their actions to Somalia. The Obama administration has not directly criticized Kenya or Ethiopia for entering Somalia, saying it is legitimate for both countries to defend themselves against al-Shabab attacks on their territory. But the administration has urged both to withdraw as soon as possible and instead help expand a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu that is composed of U.S.-trained troops from Uganda and Burundi. "We have always been very cautious, prudent, concerned about the neighbors getting involved," said a senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. Millions in U.S. support Over the past four years, the State Department has provided $258 million for the African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu. The Pentagon is spending $45 million this year alone to train and equip the force with body armor, night-vision equipment, armored bulldozers and small tactical surveillance drones. In addition, the Pentagon this year has authorized $30 million to upgrade helicopters and small surveillance aircraft for two countries that border Somalia: Djibouti and Kenya. The subsidies underpin the Obama administration's strategy of building up regional forces so they can fight al-Shabab directly, while minimizing any visible role for U.S. troops. Mindful of the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" debacle, in which two U.S. military helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu and 18 Americans killed, the Obama administration has steadfastly avoided deploying soldiers to Somalia, save for small clandestine missions carried out by Special Operations forces. Instead, the U.S. military has gradually established a stronger presence around Somalia's perimeter.

To the north, in Djibouti, a small country on the Horn of Africa, about 3,000 American troops are stationed at Camp Lemonnier, the only permanent U.S. military base on the continent. Many are engaged in civil-affairs and training programs throughout East Africa, but the camp is also home to a fleet of unmanned Predator drones and Special Operations units that conduct Somalia-related missions. To the south, the U.S. military has a smaller but long-standing presence at Manda Bay, a Kenyan naval base about 50 miles from the Somali border. For several years, Navy SEALs have trained Kenyan patrols on the lookout for Somali pirates. Other U.S. forces have helped the Kenyan army train a 300-man Ranger Strike Force and a battalion of special operations forces with about 900 personnel, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Even after years of American assistance, the Kenyan armed forces still have much to learn, acknowledged another senior U.S. defense official involved in the training. "It's not for the faint of heart," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give a frank assessment. "It is tough. It's time-consuming. But from a relative standpoint, it's inexpensive. "I'm not saying, 'Do things on the cheap.' But we accomplish two things: We create regional stability, and we don't have large U.S. deployments." Kenya's mission Kenya sent about 2,000 troops into southern Somalia last month to attack al-Shabab. Two senior U.S. defense officials said they did not know if any of those Kenyan forces had received U.S training. Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, a Kenyan military spokesman, declined to comment. Obama administration officials said that they did not encourage Kenya to take military action and that the United States was not involved in the fighting in Somalia. Chirchir said Washington was providing "technical support," but he would not elaborate. U.S. officials declined to comment. Roba Sharamo, the head of the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi, said the United States may be sharing satellite imagery and other intelligence with Kenya. "Because of the political sensitivities around Somalia, the U.S. can't necessarily say, 'We are involved,'?" he said. Meanwhile, the United States has stepped up its aerial surveillance of Somalia. The Air Force is flying Reaper drones from the Seychelles, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and from a newly expanded civilian airport in Arba Minch, Ethiopia.

The Reapers can be armed with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. U.S. officials have said the Ethiopia-based drones are being used only for surveillance, not airstrikes. But they have been vague about whether the drones flying from other regional bases are armed. Part of the reason is to sow confusion in the minds of al-Shabab fighters, said Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the U.S. Africa Command. The military has sporadically conducted drone airstrikes in Somalia but without public acknowledgment. "I like it a lot that al-Shabab doesn't know where we are, when we're flying, what we're doing and specifically not doing," Ham said in an interview. "That element of doubt in the mind of a terrorist organization is helpful, not just to us but to the Somali people." Peacekeepers' victory Since 2007, the United States has been the primary backer of the African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu. The contingent is composed entirely of soldiers from Uganda and Burundi, most of whom were trained by U.S. contractors or American military advisers. The peacekeepers struggled for years to secure a foothold in Somalia but achieved a breakthrough three months ago when they chased al-Shabab fighters out of most of Mogadishu. The African Union force, however, is largely confined to the capital. Some African countries are pushing for a rapid expansion of the peacekeeping force, more than doubling its size to 20,000 troops, but it's unclear that the United States is prepared to underwrite such growth. "I don't see any increase," said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We're already at a very high level." The United States has also been a primary backer of indigenous security forces loyal to Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, contributing $85 million since 2007. Those forces, however, have been plagued by desertion and poor health and are widely seen as ineffective. Analysts said that no matter how much the Obama administration invests in proxy or Somali security forces, it won't be able to ease Somalia's chronic instability without a political solution involving its many clans. "The political track isn't there to push back an insurgency," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council's Michael S. Ansari Africa Center. Even if the Kenyan, Ethiopian and African Union troops rolled up military victories against al-Shabab, he predicted, the Islamist movement would eventually return in some form. "It's like the tide coming back," Pham said. Special correspondent Alice Klein in Nairobi contributed to this report.

### Regional Summit Urges Ethiopia to Send Troops to Somalia (Voice of America) http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Regional-Summit-Urges-Ethiopia-to-SendTroops-to-Somalia-134496173.html November 25, 2011 By Peter Heinlein A Horn of Africa regional summit has given its blessing to the return of Ethiopian troops to Somalia, but the force will remain outside African Union command. The Inter Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, Friday officially asked Ethiopia to support the campaign by Kenyan, Somali and African Union forces against Somalia's al-Shabab rebels. At the end of a one-day regional summit, IGAD Secretary General Mahboub Maalim said Ethiopia had agreed to help. "The members of the summit did request the Ethiopian government to come in and assist peace and stabilization activities that are going on in Somalia, and there was a promise from the Ethiopian government to help," he said. It was not immediately clear how Ethiopian troops would contribute to the campaign against the al-Qaeda linked rebels. But African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said the Ethiopian force would not be under the command of the AU mission known as AMISOM. "The IGAD summit was ready to even consider the possibility of Ethiopian troops to be included in AMISOM, but it is the wish of the Government of Ethiopia to continue to support, to assist in any way possible both AMISOM and TFG [Transitional Federal Government] troops without being integrated into AMISOM," Lamamra said. Officials Friday said Ethiopia has not begun operations in Somalia, though news agencies have quoted witnesses saying Ethiopian troops have taken up positions several kilometers inside the border. Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said Addis Ababa would respond to the IGAD call as soon as possible. Diplomats say the Kenyan troops that entered Somalia nearly six weeks ago are expected to become part of the AMISOM force as soon as the United Nations Security Council approves an increase in the size of the mission. AMISOM currently has an authorized strength of 12,000, but the Security Council is considering a request to increase it to 20,000. Commissioner Lamamra said Kenya's inclusion in AMISOM would provide the force with much-needed force enablers to upgrade the military campaign.

"Once Kenya is re-hatted, [wearing caps of AMISOM] already you have enablers on the ground. Helicopters are there, aircraft are there, warships are there, so there will be be a need to make proper arrangements for those enablers to be usable by the etire opeations across the entire territory of Somalia." The communique issued at the end of the summit condemns regional outsider Eritrea for supplying ammunition to al-Shabab. Eritrea denies the charge. Eritrea suspended its membership in IGAD a few years ago, but its recent attempt to rejoin has been rebuffed. The summit also took the opportunity to admit Southern Sudan as its newest member. The regional economic community now includes Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Southern Sudan and Djibouti. Four heads of state attended the summit; Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelle, and the host, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. ### African Union Force Makes Strides Inside Somalia (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/world/africa/africa-forces-surprise-many-withsuccess-in-subduing-somalia.html?scp=2&sq=african%20union&st=cse November 25, 2011 By Jeffrey Gettleman NAIROBI, Kenya When the first batch of African Union peacekeepers landed at Mogadishus decrepit airport in 2007, they were immediately shelled by insurgents with mortars and given little chance of success. This was Somalia after all, the graveyard of several other doomed interventions, and the African Union soldiers were a last resort for a deeply troubled mission. But four years later and nearly 10,000 soldiers strong, the African Union force in Somalia has hardened into a war-fighting machine--and it seems to be winning the war. Analysts say the African Union has done a better job of pacifying Mogadishu, Somalia's capital and a hornet's nest of Islamist militants, clan warlords, factional armies and countless glassy-eyed freelance gunmen, than any other outside force, including 25,000 American troops in the 1990s. The peacekeepers have performed better than anyone would have dreamed, said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Atlantic Council, a Washington research institution. Their surprising success has put the African Union in the drivers seat of an intensifying international effort to wipe out Somalias Shabab militants, once and for all. Kenya, Ethiopia, the United States, France, Djibouti, Burundi and Uganda have all jumped in to

some degree against the Shabab, a brutal and wily insurgent group that is considered both a regional menace and an international threat, with possible sleeper cells embedded in Somali communities in the United States and Europe. The Shabab have been terrorizing Somalia for years, imposing a harsh and alien form of Islam, chopping off heads and unleashing suicide bombers, including Somali-Americans recruited from Minnesota. But the African Union has dealt the Shabab a crippling blow in Mogadishu, which is what may have encouraged Kenyan and Ethiopian forces to recently invade separate parts of Somalia in an unusual regional effort to spread the Shabab thin on several fronts and methodically eliminate them. But the Shabab are hardly giving up. Young, messianic insurgents are viciously resisting the African Union troops, sometimes fighting hand to hand, with both sides suffering heavy losses. African Union officials, who have been reluctant to disclose casualties and in the past even provided apparently false accounting of the numbers, revealed that more than 500 soldiers had been killed in Somalia, making this peacekeeping mission one of the bloodiest of recent times. Oct. 20 was a particularly bad day. Shortly after dawn, several hundred peacekeepers marched into Deynile, one of the last Shabab strongholds in Mogadishu. It started off easy, too easy, groaned Cpl. Arcade Arakaza, a Burundian peacekeeper, from a hospital bed in Nairobi. There was little resistance, with a few Shabab fighters fleeing in front of them. Civilians smiled from the bullet-riddled doorways, saying things like, Dont worry, Shabab finished. But suddenly the entire neighborhood opened up on the peacekeepers with assault rifles, belt-fed machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, women, kids, everyone, Corporal Arakaza said. It was a classic envelope trap, with the Shabab drawing the peacekeepers deeper into their lair, sealing off the escape routes and then closing in from all sides. Dozens of peacekeepers were wounded, including Corporal Arakaza, who was shot through the groin, and more than 70 killed in the span of a few minutes. But the African Union soldiers clawed back, eventually capturing a chunk of Shabab territory. Unlike the Americans, who hastily left Somalia after 18 soldiers were killed during the infamous Black Hawk Down debacle in 1993, or the United Nations mission that folded not long afterward, the African Union has pressed on. It plans to send thousands more young men from deeply impoverished sub-Saharan nations into the maw of Somalia, an arrangement that is lucrative for the governments of the contributing countries and the soldiers themselves they each can make $1,000 a month as a peacekeeper compared with as little as $50 back home.

The American government is helping foot this bill, contributing more than $400 million. Even so, some American officials say the mission is underfinanced. They insist the African troops need better flak jackets, more armored trucks and helicopters. Many peacekeepers bled to death that day in Deynile because they had no way of being rescued. These guys are fighting and dying every day and theres a national interest for us in Somalia, one American official said. Its crazy were spending more money on Congo and Darfur, home to enormous United Nations peacekeeping missions that in total cost the American government more than $1 billion per year, though neither place is considered strategically vital to the United States. Few in Washington are optimistic about getting the African Union better equipment during a painful round of budget cuts at the Pentagon and State Department. While Darfur, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have high-powered champions like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited eastern Congo to spotlight the rape problem, or the countless celebrities who routinely tour Darfur, several American officials who work on Africa say there is not a strong lobby for Somalia in the White House. The Pentagon has organized occasional Special Operations strikes to take out wanted Somali terrorist suspects the Shabab have drawn increasingly close to Al Qaeda and the American government is paying contractors to train African Union troops in the ABCs of urban combat. But the official American policy is no boots on the ground, which goes for the French as well, who have also bombed Shabab camps. That leaves a dreary infantry war between the ill-equipped African peacekeepers, who come from Burundi and Uganda, with several hundred Djiboutians on their way, and the Shabab. Sgt. Astere Nimbona, another Burundian peacekeeper, said that his unit had no armored personnel carriers or tanks on the day of the Deynile battle. He marched nine hours straight under the equatorial sun, lugging pounds of bullets and an empty canteen, before he stepped into the ambush. What we did was basically suicide, he said. The African Union has shifted from blasting Shabab areas with long-range artillery, which it did in the beginning, killing many civilians, to using foot patrols. They have now succeeded in securing most of Mogadishu, without making nearly as many enemies. The peacekeepers may soon venture into Somalias famine-stricken hinterlands, where the Shabab have been blocking aid convoys from reaching starving people. There is also talk of bringing the Kenyan troops, and possibly the Ethiopian troops, under the greenand-white African Union flag.

But there is an uncomfortable bigger question. What will these African Union sacrifices amount to? All peacekeeping experts say the same thing: that peacekeepers are a BandAid on a gaping wound, a way to buy time until a political process takes hold and alleviates the causes of the conflict. In Somalia, the political process seems as bleak as ever. The Transitional Federal Government, Somalias internationally recognized authority that the African Union protects, is a collection of corrupt politicians and warlords who control almost no territory and are exceedingly unpopular. The government has yet to fix schools, open hospitals or deliver services in just about all the neighborhoods the African Union has wrested away from the Shabab in battles that often cost dozens of lives for a few crumbling city blocks. ### PAO Note: Below is a French-to-English translation of an interview that Lu Shaye, Director General of the Department of African Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of China, gave to Jeune Afrique magazine. The interview is published in the November 26, 2011 issue of Jeune Afrique. Lu Shaye: Africans are against interference. So are the Chinese (Jeune Afrique) November 23, 2011 By Jean-Louis Gouraud and Clara Arnaud Beijings Mr Africa gives his first long interview to the international press. Not only a chance to present his countrys strategy, but especially to answer Western criticism which denounces a predatory China which cares very little about freedoms on the continent. BEIJING Housed in an impressive building located on one of Beijings main arteries, The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs faces the just-as-impressive headquarters of SINOPEC, one of Chinas two largest oil and gas companies. Is this an indication...? Isnt the Central Empires foreign policy guided by the necessity to secure energy supplies? In fact, after a relentless push, China has become, within twenty years, Africas first commercial partner ahead of the U.S. and France. From a few hundred million in 1999, trade reached $129 billion (97 billion Euros) last year. Beijing switched its ideologists hat for that of a trader. Yaounds new convention center, Banguis new hospital, the Senate in Libreville, Mozambiques gas pipeline, Imboulou Dam in Congo-Brazzaville, Dakars large theaterThe reasons for the success are evident. Non-interference, mutual interests, unconditional support, turnkey projects the recipe works wonders, but it also annoys and worries [some]. This ferocious competitiveness is born of an insatiable appetite for oil and is accompanied by a not-so-picky diplomacy, claims the west, a recent fan of good

governance which realized bitterly the loss of its influence as shown by market shares. On Tuesday, October 18, we will meet with one of the main decision makers for the Chinese policy on the continent. Lu Shaye, 47, is both the Director of the ministrys Africa Department and the Africa-China Cooperation Forum (FOCAC, a triennial ministerial conference last held in Cairo in 2009). A young diplomat is waiting for us at the entrance of the Ministry, which is guarded by soldiers standing at an impeccable position of attention. He leads us into a monumental hall the entrance of which is decorated by relief representing some of Chinese cultures iconic works. Then we are brought to an elegant conference room, room # A0218, located on the first floor. At 1400 hrs sharp, Lu Shaye joined us, escorted by two assistants who did not open their mouths but took a lot of notes during the interview. Though fluent in French, the high ranking diplomat preferred to express himself in Chinese for the sake of precision, as he put it, but corrected his interpreter two or three times. Lu Shaye was gracious during the interview. He agreed to have it on the record and to answer all questions, including the annoying and personal ones. More surprising yet, coming from such a high-ranking official, he did not ask to review the transcript before its publication. He dealt with our question between sips of green tea. Jeune Afrique (JA): What are the African countries with which China does not have any relations? Lu Shaye (LS): Today, 50 countries, including South Sudan enjoy relations with the Peoples Republic of China, except 4 countries: Swaziland, Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Burkina Faso. JA: Doesnt Chinas refusal to have relations with these countries, which have recognized Taiwan, cast doubt on the principle of non-interference? LS: By having relations with Taiwan, these countries are the ones who are interfering in Chinas internal affairs. In accordance with the principle of One China, we cannot have any relations with these countries. JA: Can one still speak of the principle of non-interference when relations with China become a major electoral factor in some countries? For example, China had threatened to withdraw from Zambia if Michael Sata was elected in 2006 LS: In fact, I have read reports by western media. They saw a threat of withdrawal from the country without seeing its true cause. In 2006, then candidate Sata threatened to reestablish relations with Taiwan. China responded that, in that case, it would be obliged to withdraw from Zambia. Let us add that, today, Michael Sata is the new president after his victory last September and that he himself renounced the idea of establishing relations with Taiwan. Let me remind you of what we call non-interference. In theory, all countries are sovereign and equal. In reality, it is easy for superpowers to interfere in the affairs of poor, weak, small countries and to bully them. Thats why they [superpowers]

criticize the principle of non-interference. China has been criticized for having relations with African autocracies with no regard for human rights and democracy. But, this year, we saw Western countries discredit regimes such as Mubaraks and Ben Alis with which they were allies. The same goes for Kadhafi: He was not an ally of China; however, he was a friend of many Western leaders. JA: Speaking of Libya, when the turmoil began, the principle of non-interference kept China from taking a clear stand. During the vote for the UN resolution, it neither approved nor did it veto it. What was it waiting for before taking a stand? LS: China takes its positions based on its assessment of situations. We believe that it is up to the Libyan people to decide their future. China did not approve the UN resolution because it was worried about taking part in abuses perpetrated by other powers which may have tried to prevail in Libya. As a matter of fact, this type of scenario was referred to in the proposed text. We did not veto the resolution either because it was sponsored by the Arab League. But China is still against the interference conducted by some countries, especially by force. JA: Doesnt one ultimately become an accomplice of governments that commit criminal acts? It is possible that certain African populations expect China to intervene more in confronting their leaders. LS: I think that African countries are opposed to interference in their affairs, by China or any other country. Although there are factions in every country which ask for Western support in order to overthrow governments as we saw this year during the events which took place in the Arab World. But once in power, these same factions do not want anymore interference by others in their affairs. This year, Western countries suddenly decided to support some of these factions that had been asking for change for a long time prior to that. Today, Western countries pride themselves on supporting the demands of the North African people, but where were they before? JA: Has China given up on bringing a model society to the world? Have its motivations become exclusively commercial? LS: Relations between China and Africa are not exclusively commercial. They encompass political, economic, social and even cultural matters. But one must admit that our diplomacy has evolved significantly in the last 50 years. In the 50s and 60s, China thought that its model could be exported to Africa. So, it supported African countries in their struggle for independence and gave them unilateral economic support so that they may accomplish productive projects such as sugar mills, textile factories, and breweries and develop a national economic system. With the launching of the reform and openness policy in 1979, trade grew rapidly due to the fast development of our economy and the need for natural resources. China set up a new system whereby it takes into consideration the needs of its partners before carrying out projects. ###

In Coming Elections in Congo, Expectations of Fraud and Fears of Violence (NY Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/world/africa/in-congo-elections-fraud-is-expectedand-violence-is-feared.html?_r=1&ref=africa November 26, 2011 By Jeffrey Gettleman KINSHASA, Congo A sense of menace hangs over the long, dirty boulevards of this African metropolis. Riot police officers with face masks, helmets, Kalashnikovs and black-plastic shin guards prowl the neighborhoods. Columns of heavily armed trucks roll through town, the business ends of their cannons pointing at the populace. These are the last line of defense, the red-bereted and much feared Republican Guard, the presidents closest men. On Monday, Congo is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, only the second time in this troubled countrys history that the entire population has been able to vote. And no one here thinks it is going to be smooth. Already, several people have been killed at political rallies, including two men who were smashed with rocks on Saturday. The security forces of President Joseph Kabila have been widely accused of torturing opposition supporters. The opposition, for that matter, is hardly faultless, and Etienne Tshisekedi, a 78-year-old rabble rouser and the leading presidential challenger, recently declared himself president and stirred up his supporters to break their comrades out of jail. There have been delays, myriad logistical problems and growing accusations of fraud. More alarming, analysts say, is the possibility that the presidential race will be close, seriously testing this countrys dangerously weak institutions. People are scared, said Dishateli Kinguza, who sells baseball caps from a rickety stand here in Kinshasa, the capital. Actually, Im scared. If people dont accept who wins, its going to be bad. Ethiopia. Kenya. Zimbabwe. Ivory Coast. There is a lengthening list of very different African countries that have imploded, at great loss of life, because of disputed elections. And Congo is far more volatile and violent than all of those. This enormous nation in the heart of Africa plunged into war in 1996 when rebel fighters and Congos neighbors teamed up to overthrow one of the most corrupt men on the most corrupt continent, Mobutu Sese Seko, Congos former dictator who ran this country into the ground during three decades of kleptocratic rule. Congo has never really recovered, especially in its staggeringly beautiful eastern region, where the real spoils are: the gold, the diamonds, the tin ore, the endless miles of

towering hardwood forest. Brutal rebel groups still haunt the hills, pillaging minerals and killing and raping at will. But it is not just the east that is lawless. A witch doctor recently led a revolt in the northwest of the country. In February, rebels besieged the airport in Lubumbashi, in the south, thought to be Congos most promising city. Even here in Kinshasa, home to about 10 million people, bands of wiry, adolescent street children wielding iron bars routinely set up roadblocks and steal money from helpless motorists. There are few other places on the planet where politics are as disconnected from reality. For example, one of Mr. Kabilas campaign billboards shows him grinning next to a high-speed, Japanese-style bullet train. But Congo does not have any high-speed trains; actually, there are few working trains at all. Most Congolese say the rail network was in far better shape 70 years ago, when the Belgians ruled. These bullet-train billboards are all over Kinshasa, most often rising above crumbling streets that reek of uncollected garbage. Congos stagnation or even worse, its reverse development this year the United Nations ranked it dead last of the 187 countries on the Human Development Index is driving many people to vote against Mr. Kabila, who has been in power since 2001. I dont see any changes in my life, said Angel Nyamayoka, a single mother of seven children who scrapes by on $2 a day. We have to vote for anyone but Kabila. Many analysts say it is hard to see how Mr. Kabila could win this election fairly. Mr. Tshisekedi, a veteran Congolese politician still revered for standing up to Mr. Mobutu, is very popular in Kinshasa. He is also seen as a father figure of the Luba ethnic group, one of Congos biggest, and is expected to carry the populous Kasai regions in the south and pick up anti-Kabila votes across the country. Mr. Kabila, 40, has never been well liked in Kinshasa, where many people view him as an outsider, possibly even foreign born, who does not comfortably speak Lingala, the lingua franca. In 2006, the last election, Mr. Kabila relied on eastern Congo to win the presidency. But this time around, eastern Congo has its own champion running for president Vital Kamerhe, the well-educated former speaker of the national assembly who hails from the city of Bukavu and is expected to draw votes away from Mr. Kabila. Many analysts say that the government knows that it needs to use every trick in the bribery and repression handbook to hang on. Witnesses in Bukavu said that the presidents party recently packed a stadium full of women from the market and handed them each the equivalent of $5, what many earn in a week. A recent United Nations report described a general climate of intimidation with opposition supporters threatened, beaten or arrested and noted an episode in July in which Republican Guard soldiers set up a roadblock in a central Congolese town and warned residents that a new war would break out if they did not vote for Mr. Kabila.

But Congo is becoming the land of no consequences, as this election shows. Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka is the commander of a militia that last year, in the span of three days, raped scores of women including some in their 70s and 80s. The Congolese government has issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Sheka, but he is now running for Parliament, in the same area where the rapes took place. Similarly, Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel leader, has been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court. But Mr. Ntaganda has been promoted to a top government army job in the east, and his forces are reportedly strong-arming people into voting for Mr. Kabila. Human rights advocates despair about Congo and say this election especially worries them. If it is close, said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, the chance for significant unrest is high. But there is a crucial difference between this election and 2006, when intense gun battles erupted on Kinshasas boulevards between Mr. Kabilas forces and the militia of JeanPierre Bemba, the presidential runner-up. This time around, most opposition supporters are not part of a militia and therefore do not have guns. Western diplomats predict that Mr. Kabila, who this year pressured the Parliament to change Congos Constitution and eliminate a second round of voting, will win a thin plurality, spurring opposition protests in Congos biggest cities. But many Congolese say their country has become so exhausted and jaded that the protests will not degenerate into all-out rebellion and that they will eventually fizzle out. Well take to the streets and burn some tires and the police will shoot at us and well throw rocks, said Mr. Kinguza, the vendor of baseball caps. But that will probably be about it. ### Several killed in central Nigeria religious violence (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AO01N20111125 November 25, 2011 JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Several people were killed in religious violence in central Nigeria on Thursday, prompting the military to impose a 24-hour curfew in one region at the border between the West African country's mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south. Christian and Muslim gangs fighting over ownership of cattle and fertile farmland clashed in Barkin Ladi, an area in the central city of Jos, the capital of Plateau state. Witnesses said they counted at least 10 dead bodies.

"The STF (Special Task Force) has imposed 24 hour curfew in Barkin Ladi. No movement to and out of the council. Lives have been lost. House have been burned. We don't know how many casualties but the loss is enormous," said Charles Ekeocha, spokesman for the STF in Jos, capital of Plateau state. Nigeria has a roughly equal Christian-Muslim population and more than 200 ethnic groups live side by side, largely peacefully, but violence flares up in Plateau and other parts of the "Middle Belt" from time to time. Violence in Plateau can quickly escalate into a series of tit-for-tat attacks. More than 50 people were killed inside a week in September, and hundreds died there early this year. The tensions are rooted in fierce competition for local political power and control of fertile farmland, and local government policies have done little to calm them. The unrest is an unwelcome challenge for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is already dealing with near-daily attacks in the northeast by the Islamist sect Boko Haram. ### Media bias helped Gambia's Jammeh win election: AU (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AQ00H20111127 November 27, 2011 BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambian President Yahya Jammeh benefited from a strong media bias and greater financial resources than his rivals to secure a new five-year term in elections, the African Union said on Saturday. Former military coup leader Jammeh scored a landslide 72 percent victory on Thursday to extend his 17 year-rule over the tiny West African country, criticised for alleged human rights abuses and press-muzzling. "Although provision was made for equal access of all political parties and candidates to the public media, the actual coverage was strongly weighted in favour of the candidate of the ruling party," the AU observer mission concluded. "The gross imbalance in the financial and material capability of the candidates may have resulted in the lack of adequate visibility of the United Democratic Party (UDP) and the Independent candidates," it said of his main challengers. The bloc found that there were no acts of intimidation during voting on Friday and concluded that despite the failings, "the results are a true reflection of the will of the sovereign people of The Gambia". Results showed Jammeh won 470,550 votes, while his closest rival Ousainou Darboe got 114,177 votes, or 17 percent. Independent candidate Amath Bah scored 11 percent. Many analysts saw the incumbent's victory as a foregone conclusion.

Addressing thousands of cheering supporters in the capital Banjul, Jammeh said Gambia would one day have the best standard of living not only in Africa but in the world too, and called on rivals to work with him. "Those who have lost should come together, so we can work as one ... I will turn this country into a superpower of peace and economic better in four years time," he said. Gambians have an average income per head of around $1 a day. Earlier, Darboe urged Gambians to reject the election as rigged, while Bah complained of insufficient access to media and funds to campaign properly. One of Africa's most controversial rulers, Jammeh announced in 2007 that he had a herbal concoction that cured AIDS, but only on Thursdays, a claim derided by health experts. He has been criticised for reported threats to human rights groups and a 2008 order for all homosexuals to leave Gambia. Jammeh's standing abroad has been further strained by spats with Senegal and Guinea, while the West African body ECOWAS said this week it would not send an observer mission to the polls because it doubted they would be free and fair. Gambia is one of only handful of African states not to have diplomatic ties with China because of its recognition of Taiwan. ### Doctor brain drain costs Africa $2 billion (Reuters) http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AO01R20111125 November 25, 2011 By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Sub-Saharan African countries that invest in training doctors have ended up losing $2 billion as the expert clinicians leave home to find work in more prosperous developed nations, researchers said on Friday. A study by Canadian scientists found that South Africa and Zimbabwe suffer the worst economic losses due to doctors emigrating, while Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States benefit the most from recruiting doctors trained abroad. The scientists, led by Edward Mills, chair of global health at the University of Ottawa, called on destination countries to recognise this imbalance and invest more in training and developing health systems in the countries that lose out. "Many wealthy destination countries, which also train fewer doctors than are required, depend on immigrant doctors to make up the shortfall," Mills' team wrote in a study, which was published in the British Medical Journal.

"Developing countries are effectively paying to train staff who then support the health services of developed countries." Experts say the migration, or "brain drain", of trained health workers from poorer countries to richer ones exacerbates the problem of already weak health systems in lowincome countries battling epidemics of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. CRITICAL SHORTAGE The World Health Organisation adopted a code of practice in 2010 on international recruitment of health personnel that highlighted the problem of doctor brain drains and called on wealthy countries to offer financial help to poorer ones affected. The code is seen as particularly important for sub-Saharan Africa, which suffers from a critical shortage of doctors and has a high prevalence of diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria. The latest United Nations global HIV/AIDS report released on Monday found that 68 percent of the around 34 million people worldwide who have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS live in Africa. Using various data including published reports on primary and secondary school spending from UNESCO, Mills' team estimated the cost of educating a doctor through primary, secondary and medical school in nine sub-Saharan countries with some of the world's highest rates of HIV. The countries studied included Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The research team then added the figures together to estimate how much the origin countries paid to train doctors and how much the destination countries saved in employing them. The results show that these governments spend between $21,000, the figure for Uganda, and $59,000, in South Africa, to train a doctor, only to see them in many cases migrate to richer countries. "Among the nine sub-Saharan African countries most affected by HIV/AIDS, more than $2 billion of investment was lost through the emigration of trained doctors," the researchers said. "Our results indicate that South Africa incurs the highest costs for medical education and the greatest lost returns on investment."

The findings suggested the benefit to Britain was around $2.7 billion, and to the United States was around $846 million. Australia was estimated to have benefited to the tune of $621 million and Canada was $384 million better off. ### The Secret War: Fourth of a Series -- Successful Manhunt (Army Times) http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-secret-war-africa-112511/ November 23, 2011 By Sean D. Naylor, Staff writer Years of detective work led to demise of al-Qaida target His tour over, John Bennett was preparing to fly home. The CIAs station chief in Nairobi, Kenya, Bennett had been running the United States secret war in East Africa, negotiating with Somali warlords while hunting al-Qaida members across the region. On his watch, the United States and its proxies had managed to capture or kill at least 10 or so al-Qaida militants. However, the most wanted al-Qaida figure in East Africa, who went by a variety of aliases but whom U.S. officials called Harun Fazul, was still on the loose. A native of the Comoros Islands wanted in connection with al-Qaidas 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as well as the November 2002 attacks on Israeli targets in Kenya, Fazul had proved a very savvy enemy, according to an intelligence source with long experience in the Horn of Africa. As Bennett made final preparations for his flight out of Kenya the evening of Aug. 1, 2003, his officers and Kenyan authorities were keeping tabs on an Internet caf 274 miles to the southeast, in the city of Mombasa, where someone using an email address the CIA associated with al-Qaida in East Africa had been logging on. There was a pattern of communications, so they were kind of on standby, the intelligence source said. The pattern was the date, time and location at which somebody was accessing the Internet. Clearly, it was a favorite spot of somebodys, the source said. Bennett had a case officer in Mombasa coordinating with the local police, the source said. That case officer was present when the Kenyan authorities arrived at the caf to arrest the suspected al-Qaida emailer, only to find two suspects both male, one larger than the other instead of one. With the case officer on the phone with the Nairobi station reporting events in real time, the police placed both under arrest and were about to put them into a paddy wagon when the larger suspect, later identified as a young Kenyan named Faisal Ali Nassor, suddenly gave his companion a sharp shove and then pulled a grenade from his clothes. One guy pushes the smaller guy away from him, said a special operations source with firsthand knowledge of operations in the Horn. The [larger] guy blows himself up and takes the police out. The explosion killed Nassor and a policeman. In the ensuing chaos, the other suspect made a run for it. To the surprise of the CIA and the Kenyan authorities, that man turned

out to be Harun Fazul, East Africas most wanted man with a $5 million bounty on his head. Clearly we didnt expect to get Fazul himself, the intelligence source said. We figured wed get just his courier. But rather than just being a courier, Nassor was a suicide bodyguard, said the special ops source. Security forces converged on the scene, but Fazul was too smart for them. He ran into a mosque and emerged disguised as a woman, wearing a hijab or some other form of Islamic facial covering. He walked right out as a woman and nobody touched him, the intelligence source said. Fazul had moved in with Nassor that July. Using an ID seized from one of them, the security forces went straight to their apartment. There they found Fazuls passport, a machine for making visas, bits and pieces of other passports, as well as a light anti-tank rocket hidden in a couch, said the special ops source. But of Fazul himself, there was no sign. The wily operative had again given the authorities the slip. It would be another eight years before Fazuls tradecraft and his luck would fail him. The search for Fazul typified much of the U.S. man-hunting campaign in the Horn: It combined CIA and special operations personnel (often working through local forces), high-tech gear alongside low-tech human intelligence skills and raw courage. And yet it was often characterized by frustration and near-misses. For sheer drama, Fazuls escape with the help of his suicide bodyguard was rivaled by a similar disappearing act he pulled off a year earlier. On July 12, 2002, Kenyan police picked Fazul up in a Mombasa shop for purchasing jewelry with a credit card stolen during an armed robbery. But, according to a June 2004 Associated Press story, the cops had no idea of his true identity. The next day, seven armed police officers took Fazul to what they thought was his apartment, hoping to find stolen goods. Instead, they discovered three women and a mentally handicapped man yelling at them. Fazul, who was not handcuffed, took advantage of the chaos to sprint out. The man was well-trained, I tell you, one of the police said. He dashed to the door like a monkey, then, like a flash, he slides down the stair rail like lightning. Fazul ran out and lost his pursuers in Mombasas narrow streets. Four months later, Fazul allegedly was a key participant in al-Qaida in East Africas Nov. 28, 2002, twin attacks in Mombasa: the truck bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel, which killed about 15 civilians, and the firing of two SA-7 man-portable antiaircraft missiles at an Arkia Airlines Boeing 757 as it took off carrying 261 passengers bound for Israel. (Published reports said both missiles missed the plane, but the special ops source said a missile went through the tail without exploding.) No one was hurt. Another near-miss in the hunt for the cunning al-Qaida operative occurred in the first half of 2003 during an operation in northeastern Kenya by Joint Special Operations Task

Force Horn of Africa, which fell under Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, based in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. JSOTF-HOAs search for Fazul, Operation Bowhunt, was a mission to develop intelligence and was completely separate from Operation Black Hawk, the CIA hunt for the members of al-Qaida in East Africa, according to the special ops source. The other fellows [the CIA] were only going up north [i.e., into Somalia]. They werent spending a great deal of effort down south [i.e., in Kenya] at all. Key to Bowhunt was the high-speed vessel Joint Venture, an Australian-built catamaran designed for shallow-water access and leased by the U.S. military. JSOTF-HOA used it to probe the islands near the Kenya-Somalia border, looking for the number-one HVT [high-value target], as the source described Fazul. They actually met [Fazuls] wife down on one of the islands, but her husband slipped the net again, said the source. They missed him by 24 or 48 hours. Throughout the rest of the decade and into the next, as his colleagues in al-Qaida in East Africa and their local allies died in U.S. air and missile strikes or in combat with Somali Transitional National Government security forces or Ethiopian invaders, Fazuls status and his legend only grew. He escaped another dragnet Aug. 2, 2008, when dozens of Kenyan police raided a house in which he was believed to be staying in the coastal town of Malindi. The cops found two non-Kenyan passports bearing Fazuls photograph and a computer that had not been turned off, but the al-Qaida man was nowhere to be seen, according to the Kenyan newspaper The Daily Nation. The following year, Fazul took command of al-Qaida in East Africa. In a speech in the Somali city of Kismayo marking his appointment, he vowed to spread jihad to Somalias neighbors. Praise be to Allah, after Somalia we will proceed to Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia, he said, according to a translation posted on the Long War Journal website. When it came for Fazul earlier this year, the end was sudden, violent and completely unexpected. Late on the night of June 7, troops loyal to the Somali government (which controls little territory outside Mogadishu) stopped a black Toyota SUV carrying Fazul and driven by another militant, Musa Hussein, at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the Somali capital. When Hussein produced a pistol and reportedly fired a round, the government troops shot back, killing both militants. The Somali authorities did not initially realize they had killed Fazul, who was reportedly carrying a forged South African passport, $40,000, laptops and telephones, and buried the two militants quickly, before exhuming the bodies and comparing them to photos of Fazul. Most published reports described the incident as simply the result of Fazul and Hussein getting lost, but a detailed account on somaliareport.com said Fazul was set up by Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamist militia allied with al-Qaida. Godane had learned that senior al-Qaida figures had lost faith with al-Shabaabs Somali leaders, who they blamed for recent defeats by Somali government and African Union

forces. Fazuls mission was to effect this change, replacing Godane and other Somalis with foreign leaders, according to somalia-report.com, which attributed the information to al-Shabaab intelligence officials and other sources. Godane directed Fazul and Hussein to an al-Shabaab checkpoint. He then ordered the fighters manning the checkpoint to break it down and abandon the position, meaning that when Fazul and Hussein, neither of whom knew the area well, arrived, they continued down the road, running into the government checkpoint as Godane had planned. This account would explain why, when first stopped at the checkpoint, Hussein told the soldiers the car was carrying the elders, an honorific term for al-Shabaab leaders, according to an AP interview with the soldier who stopped the vehicle. That comment, indicating at least two passengers, along with the fact that, in the aftermath of the incident, one of the SUVs rear doors was found open, also suggests that there might have been a third militant who escaped. The United States has been monitoring cellphone conversations in Mogadishu since at least the 2003-2004 time frame but had no role in Fazuls death, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. It would have been a much better ambush had it been planned, the official said. Had it been set up, nobody would have gotten away, they might even have captured him. When the Kenyan police arrested Fazul in the Mombasa store in July 2002, they also took a man pretending to be his taxi driver into custody. That man was a 23-year-old Kenyan named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a senior al-Qaida in East Africa figure. Not realizing his value, the police allowed him to post bail, after which he promptly disappeared. The United States had been tracking Nabhan since early 2002, according to the intelligence source with long experience in the Horn. But after Nabhan reunited with Fazul four months after skipping bail and conducted the Mombasa attacks, finding him and the others connected to the incidents became a U.S. priority. To crack the Mombasa case, U.S. investigators proceeded from an assumption that the militants had used cellphones, based on the attacks being two near-simultaneous events relatively close together, geographically probably no more than 20 miles apart, the intelligence source said. The next step was to get the records of all the cellphone calls made during the period just before the attacks and determine all the numbers that never made a call again, the source said. In addition, investigators went back and looked at where they bought the scratch cards and where they bought the phones, he added. It took a few months for U.S. intelligence agents to figure out which cellphone numbers were associated with the attackers, the source said. The key to the breakthrough was the militants sloppy tradecraft: One of them was apparently given money to buy two sets of phones and SIM cards, but figured he could keep some cash for himself by just buying one set of phones, mistakenly thinking that switching out the SIM cards provided enough operational security. They used the same phones but different SIM cards, the source said. They didnt understand you could track the phone too.

Israeli intelligence agents also gave the Americans a lot of information and asked the U.S. agents to work with them, the source said. The Israelis were key initially, the source said. Clearly, they had their own sources in the region. The Kenyans also conducted some very good investigative work, the source said. They were brought in and made to feel like they were valuable. The Kenyan authorities used information provided by U.S. intelligence to get the lower-level al-Qaida operatives involved in the attacks. They made some arrests, the intelligence source said. That was all U.S., the source said of the intelligence that resulted in the arrests. Col. Mike Garrison, then the U.S. Defense and Army attach to Kenya, ended up with the expended SA-7 launcher tube from the airport attack, the source added. (Garrison declined to be interviewed for this story.) But Nabhan got away. He was very clever; he understood how to communicate under the radar, the source said. One way Nabhan evaded his enemies for so long was by rarely communicating himself. Hed send a message with somebody [and] theyd go to an email or hotmail account and send that message, the source said. Al-Qaida in East Africa used a very basic 10 code when passing on numerical information, the source said. The code involves replacing each digit with the number that would be required to bring the replaced number up to 10 for instance, theyd write 539 instead of 571. Its really simple, but it took people a while to figure out they were doing it, he said. Perhaps aware of the growing U.S. ability to monitor their cellphone conversations, alQaida cell members switched much of their conversation to the Internet, the source said. But they didnt change their email addresses often enough, allowing U.S. intelligence to track them, the source said. Eventually, we were able to find ways to break into Nabhans communications, the source said. Pushing particularly hard for the authority to go after Nabhan was Joint Special Operations Command, the organization that conducts the militarys most sensitive special operations. (Units that fight under JSOC include the Armys 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment- Delta, also known as Delta Force; the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as DevGru and SEAL Team 6; and a special mission unit based at Fort Belvoir, Va., often known as Task Force Orange, which specializes in gathering human and close-in signals intelligence.) Between 2001 and 2004, JSOC never had more than three people at a time in Somalia, according to the intelligence source. During the latter part of that period, those operators were supporting CIA missions in Mogadishu to liaise with Somali warlords and install cellphone monitoring equipment, the source said. JSOC was the junior partner on the first Mogadishu missions, but its strength in the Horn was slowly expanding. During those early years, Orange provided the core of JSOCs presence in the region, including personnel assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi as

well as a few in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, who functioned as liaisons to CJTF-HOA. In mid-2003, an interagency node staffed with intelligence and law enforcement personnel was established in the Nairobi embassy under JSOC auspices, said a special operations officer. Manned at first by maybe six people, it quickly grew and now has about 20 people, the intelligence source said. This reflected the growth of JSOCs wider presence in Kenya. The command started out with three people in Nairobi, a number that grew to five or six and now is reputed to be in the scores, the source said. The writing was on the wall that eventually this was going to become a DoD-centric effort, he added. JSOCs effectiveness in the Horn really ramped up in the 2004-2005 time frame, when it doubled its resources in Kenya and focused more tightly on intelligence collection and target development, the senior intelligence official said. As a result of JSOCs efforts, we gained a lot of understanding of what was going on, the official said. The elite command continued to thicken its network in the Horn, a process that included placing a small team in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, according to the intelligence official. JSOC commander Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal also began conducting Horn of Africa-specific video-teleconferences that connected U.S. ambassadors and CIA chiefs of station in the region with officials in Washington, the official said. In 2006, JSOC began to run its own operations in Somalia, a senior military official said. At the time, the JSOC task force in the Horn was called Task Force 88, but that has since changed, sources said. The task force was headquartered in Nairobi, but also operated out of a small base at Manda Bay in northeastern Kenya, about 50 miles from the Somali border. Some in the intelligence community wondered whether JSOC and, by extension, its Defense Department bosses, were too focused on Nabhan. I think there was a fixation certainly at DoD, said the intelligence source, adding that while some intelligence personnel thought that a movement doesnt really center on one person, JSOC saw the Nabhan hunt as a way to validate the mission it was trying to carve out in non-combat theaters. JSOC saw Nabhan as a way to shore up that third leg of the stool, the source said. The United States and its regional allies hunted Nabhan for the rest of the decade. There were several times weve gotten close to him, said the special operations officer, adding that he meant close in terms of surveillance, not missions to kill or capture the al-Qaida figure. Meanwhile the JSOC operators chafed under what they viewed as political restrictions that prevented them from going after Nabhan. But on Sept. 14, 2009, they were given the green light. Wed been tracking him for years, the senior military official said. Finally, according to the official, JSOC had both human and signals intelligence leads on Nabhans location as he joined several other

militants in two vehicles to make the 300-mile trek from Merka to Kismayo in southern Somalia. We knew his travel route, we knew the vehicles he was using, the official said. When the convoy was near the coastal town of Barawe, JSOC struck. Multiple 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment AH-6 Little Bird helicopters flew ashore from a Navy ship and attacked the militants as they were breakfasting, killing six, including Nabhan, according to news reports. One helicopter landed and operators jumped out and loaded the bodies of Nabhan and three others into the aircraft. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ### Boko Haram kills four policemen in Yobe attacks (The Nation) http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/27814-boko-haram-kills-fourpolicemen-in-yobe-attacks.html 28 November 2011 By Duku Joel Churches, homes and the police headquarters in Gaidam, a small town in Yobe State, were set ablaze in a wave of night time gun and bomb attacks by Boko Haram, the police said yesterday. Boko Haram (Western education is sin) has claimed responsibility for dozens of shootings and attacks with improvised explosive devices. The Gaidam divisional police headquarters and a bank were bombed on Saturday evening by Boko Haram and fire was exchanged into the night between police and Boko Haram members, a police spokesman was quoted by Reuters as saying. Four policemen were killed, 20 wounded, eight churches and 20 market stalls as well as Geidam council secretariat are completely destroyed. Gaidam is located less than 20km from Governor Ibrahim Gaidams hometown, Bukarti. An eyewitness told our reporter that the gunmen invaded Gaidam town at about quarter to 6pm, heavily armed. They asked scared residents, especially the youths, to join them to ensure a successful Jihad on the enemies of Islam promising that no innocent person would be harmed during the offensive that lasted three hours. There are conflicting facts as to the number of casualties in the attack. Two people are also believed to have been killed. Yobe State Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Mr Peter Ogwuche said: I am able to gather from various church members that fled the town to Damaturu,

the state capital, this morning (yesterday) that about five churches were destroyed, so far. Another eyewitness said no policeman was seen on the street throughout the period of the attack until around 9pm when some soldiers who were deployed from Damaturu later showed up in the town at the time the sect members had left. A young man, who pleaded for anonymity, said his mothers home and shop located opposite the Magistrates Court, Geidam was among the shops burnt by the attackers. I place a call to my mum only to hear a man answering the call and warning me never to call that line again. That signalled to me that my mum might be in trouble. I later learnt that they managed to escape and by now they should be on their way out of the town. Another source simply identified as Fatima, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, said by yesterday morning, virtually all the Christians, especially the Igbo, were leaving the town in large numbers; some on foot. The town is upside down. Police Commissioner Suleimon Lawals phone kept ringing without response. It was learnt that the CP had accompanied the DIG B in charge of Operation, Alhaji Audu Abubakar Karasuwa, to Gaidam to see things for himself. The Gaidam attack is the second major onslaught of the Boko Haram in Yobe State. Three weeks ago, the sects members launched co-ordinated attacks that claimed well over 65 persons lives. ### Nigeria sect 'spokesman' claims Al-Qaeda links (AFP) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ioqjtjlSlkiIVf0OzFhhOLSPfNQ?docId=CNG.5c1b04314cb3b8eb7163ad860eac8ec1.1011 25 November 2011 MAIDUGURI, Nigeria A purported spokesman for Islamist sect Boko Haram claimed on Thursday that the group, blamed for attacks including the suicide bombing of UN headquarters in Nigeria, has links with Al-Qaeda. "It is true we have links with Al-Qaeda," the man identifying himself as Abul Qaqa told reporters in a phone conference in the Hausa language spoken throughout Nigeria's mainly Muslim north. "They assist us and we assist them." Abul Qaqa has claimed to speak on behalf of Boko Haram on a number of previous occasions. He did not provide further details on the supposed link. He said "any Muslim group that is struggling to establish an Islamic state can get support from Al-Qaeda if they reach out to them."

There has long been speculation, particularly among Western nations, over whether Boko Haram has formed links with outside extremist groups, including Al-Qaeda's north African branch. Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks in Nigeria, including the August suicide bombing of UN headquarters in the capital Abuja that killed at least 24 people. The group is believed to have a number of factions with varying aims. Nigeria's secret police alleged this week that some Boko Haram members have links to politicians following the arrest of another alleged spokesman for the group. Abul Qaqa refuted the secret police claims during the phone conference, while also threatening to kill a political figure in the northeastern state of Borno as well as attack political party offices. He issued the threat against Baba Basharu, chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Borno, because of comments he reportedly made linking Boko Haram to former Borno state governor Ali Modu Sheriff. Basharu reportedly said Sheriff had allied with the group, but then the two sides had fallen out, causing Boko Haram members to turn against the then-governor. Nigerian politicians have long been accused of using gangs as muscle or to help rig elections, and links between Sheriff and Boko Haram members have been alleged a number of times. "The Borno state PDP chairman Baba Basharu should note that he is now on our death list for claiming that we had a link with former governor Ali Modu Sheriff," Abul Qaqa said. "We are going to eliminate him." Sheriff is a member of the All Nigeria People's Party, currently in power in Borno state. The PDP dominates politics nationally, but is the opposition in Borno. Abul Qaqa also said that "our next targets of attack will be political party offices ... and all buildings where political party posters are posted will also be targets. "We are calling on members of the public who have rented out their buildings to political parties to immediately convert them to other use. All posters, flags, logos of political parties should be removed from the buildings. "Similarly, anyone who adorns his house with the symbol of any political party should remove it or else the building will be burnt down." The purported spokesman said Boko Haram had two conditions for dialogue with the government, describing them as "implementation of sharia in Nigeria and the withdrawal

of troops from Maiduguri." A military task force has been deployed to the northeastern city of Maiduguri in a bid to stop Boko Haram, but soldiers have been accused of major abuses, including killing civilians and burning their homes. Islamic sharia law is in place in 12 states in northern Nigeria, but it is selectively enforced. ### Mali kidnappings highlight poor regional cooperation (AFP) http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j_WFnmjZ25pc4HP_GdoIdC76 5YjQ?docId=CNG.267ee7c6df139dfd8639153103085a00.1b1 28 November 2011 DAKAR After the kidnapping of five Europeans and the murder of one other in just 48 hours in Mali, military cooperation in the vast Sahel strip south of the Sahara desert shows it is in need of strengthening. Incidents involving armed gangs are on the rise in the region, which is home to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). On Thursday, two Frenchmen were snatched from their hotel in the northern Malian town of Hombori, followed by the abduction of four Europeans -- one of whom was killed as he tried to resist -- the next day from the ancient city of Timbuktu, a popular tourist haunt. AQIM has bases in the northern Mali desert from which it organises raids and kidnappings and traffics weapons and drugs. It also operates in Niger, Mauritania and Algeria. In April 2010, the four countries where the highest number of AQIM-related incidents have occurred -- Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania -- formed a Committee of Joint Chiefs (CEMOC), based in the Algerian town of Tamanrasset, to try and combat extremism in the region by coordinating their military operations. But nearly 18 months later, kidnappings, trafficking and attacks by AQIM are becoming commonplace in the Sahel as CEMOC struggles to create a united force. The recent arrival of thousands of Moamer Kadhafi loyalists who have fled Libya for Mali and Niger has only added to CEMOC's problems. In this wild desert region which stretches for thousands of kilometres right across Africa from west to east, it is not hard for gangs and their hostages to remain elusive.

The kidnappers of the two Frenchmen abducted on Thursday are thought to have split into two groups, one heading in the direction of the Burkina Faso border to the south and the other moving north towards Mali's border with Algeria. But the whereabouts of the Dutchman and Swede abducted Friday along with a man of British-South African nationality remain unknown. A total of nine hostages are now being held in the Sahel region and the pressure is on from European governments for local authorities to play their part in securing their release. CEMOC army chiefs meet every six months but have never yet organised joint patrols. Internal disagreements within the committee have also impacted on its effectiveness, according to a delegate from Niger at CEMOC's last meeting in the Malian capital of Bamako on November 21 who accused Algeria of not helping its neighbours enough. "Algeria's army, by itself, has greater means that the armies of Niger, Mauritania and Mali" put together, he said. "I can't understand why its army isn't deployed to help us fight AQIM." But Algeria is rattled by any suggestion of including Morocco in the committee's fight against terrorism, a diplomatic source told AFP, and is also annoyed at intervention from its former colonial power France, with whom it maintains a touchy relationship. "In not fighting together against AQIM, the Sahel countries are giving free reign to terrorists," said a Mauritanian official speaking in Bamako. But the events of last week could bring about change, said Gilles Yabi, International Crisis Group director in Dakar. "Everyone realises that this cooperation is needed to tackle these groups", he said. Mali, now the scene of multiple kidnappings, at least will "act more clearly" henceforth, he added. Last week Mali's government denounced the spate of abductions as "an attack on the country's security and stability", which "reaffirms (our) determination and unfailing commitment to any action needed to guarantee peace, security and stability". On Saturday the government chartered a plane to evacuate around 20-odd tourists in Timbuktu and sent its soldiers to join French military in the hunt for the two Frenchmen as the country seeks to mitigate the damage to its tourism industry.

Foreign governments have already started warning their citizens not to travel to Timbuktu, an oasis known as "The Pearl of the Desert" and a World Heritage site renowned for its ancient Islamic architecture. ### END OF REPORT