U.S. Force to Help African States to Fight Terror

Excerpt, Reuters, Thursday 23 January 2003,12:50 PM ET

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters)—A U.S. force sent to hunt for any militant groups in the Horn of Africa will soon start training regional security forces in counterterrorism, the force commander said Thursday.

The task force, headquartered on a ship off Djibouti, began its mission—covering Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea Djibouti, Yemen and Sudan—last month as part of Washington’s war on terror.

The commander of the task force said he had met regional leaders to discuss measures such as bringing in military trainers to pass on counterterrorism skills and sharing security technology.

That’s all on the table across all of the countries, Maj. Gen. John Sattler of the 2nd Marine Division, told a news conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

We’re very close to start training and enhancing capability, he said.

Sattler, on an official visit to Kenya, did not elaborate on which countries would receive what kinds of assistance.

The task force comprises about 400 military personnel based aboard the USS Mount Whitney, operating in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, with another 900 soldiers stationed at a camp in Djibouti, according to the U.S. Marines.

Since the war in Afghanistan (news—web sites), Washington has feared members of Osama bin Laden (news—web sites)’s al Qaeda group, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, may have fled to the Horn of Africa.

The region has been a flashpoint for attacks by militants, most recently on Nov. 28 when 17 people, including three attackers, were killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya.