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Troops fight terror in Africa with good will

DJIBOUTI — Sgt. 1st Class Ralph Buran, an Army reservist from Chipley, Fla., took aim under the scorching East African sun.

His shot had to be quick and accurate: The mountainside, barren but for thorny bushes, offered little cover.

Despite serving in the U.S. war on terror, Buran wasn’t afraid of any lethal foe this September morning.

Struggling to keep his balance atop tiny rocks, he had worries of a horn strike, a hoof kick, or worse — the tick-covered goat he was trying to vaccinate might bolt back to its herd. That would leave Buran’s veterinary team exposed longer to the heat of Djibouti, where temperatures can top 120 degrees.

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan get most of the media attention because many U.S. lives have been lost there, thousands of troops — including dozens from Tallahassee’s Marine Reserve Center and others from the Big Bend — have served as part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa since 2002. The task force, which covers a 13-country region, is based at Camp Lemonier, a Navy base in Djibouti.

The troops aim to stop terrorism — not with bullets, but by making people’s lives better by digging wells, building schools and vaccinating children and animals.

Buran’s work, for example, could make a life-or-death difference to nomads whose survival depends on their goats. The troops hope to put a positive face on America and its military to counter recruitment efforts by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Rear Adm. Jim Hart, the task force commander, said the military is ideally suited for the job because of its skilled troops, from doctors to well drillers. Unlike civilian agencies that hire local contractors for many of their relief efforts, the military can make it clear “that this is about the United States government caring about people and trying to help,” he said.

“This is a way to put an American face on what we’re doing,” Hart said. “We have the manpower and the resources; this is a relatively small investment hopefully for the return that we’re getting here.”

Guarding a tempting target

Djibouti is a Massachusetts-sized, stable Muslim country. Twice in the past three years, camp leaders have relied on Marines from the Big Bend and surrounding areas to man guard posts at Camp Lemonier and patrol the vicinity. Officials fear that the camp’s 1,600 to 1,800 troops and contractors offer a tempting target for terrorists.

America and its allies turned their attention to the area where Africa meets the Middle East after overthrowing Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in 2001. Worried that al-Qaida might flee to the area, military leaders in 2002 sent 2,000 Marines to capture or kill suspected terrorists. But the threat never fully materialized, and the mission’s focus changed.

The task force now works with U.S. embassies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and partner nations on diplomacy and development projects.

The task force moved into Camp Lemonier, an abandoned French Foreign Legion base, in 2003. The camp is the U.S.’s only base in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the Marines turned it over to the Navy last year, there is collaboration among branches of the U.S. military. Allies from Africa and elsewhere live on base and have a say in operations.

Military leaders originally set their sights on six countries in what’s known as the Horn of Africa — Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya — plus nearby Yemen. The area of responsibility grew to 13 countries that share similar threats of terrorist expansion.

U.S. mission has critics

While many Africans are grateful for the help they receive, U.S. policies have their critics. America’s recent strikes against targets in Somalia, for example, and its cooperation with African anti-terrorism units that secretly detain and beat people have alienated many Muslims.

Critics say the U.S. has made friends with the wrong people in its attempts to catch al-Qaida terrorists behind the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. They warn that many people here don’t differentiate between America’s development efforts and its covert and combat operations.

“Clearly there is a need of reassessment of U.S. policy,” said Mohamud Uluso, a Somali politician exiled in Kenya. “I think now the war on terror has overshadowed everything.”

And some people are wary of America’s expanding presence in Africa.

On Sept. 18, in Nairobi, Kenya, the capital of one of America’s staunchest allies in the region, a group of about two dozen men, women and children in head scarves and Muslim caps protesting the detention of 18 Kenyans suspected of ties to terrorism.

Military officials acknowledge that the U.S. has an interest in competing with China and others for Africa’s oil and other resources — the U.S. gets 10 percent to 15 percent of its oil from Africa, which is increasingly seen as an alternative to the unstable Middle East. But the U.S. also wants to counter the poverty, violence and instability that can radicalize whole generations.

“The United States over the last number of years has come to the realization that Africa is a very strategic place,” Hart said. “It’s a place where there are lots of resources. We have lots of interests here. We should be part of this growing community.”

Troops seeking friends

In Djibouti and across the Horn of Africa, people like Buran, a swimming-pool-supplies salesman who left home 11 months earlier as part of the 350th Civil Affairs Command in Pensacola, Fla., are working alongside Africans to make their lives better. Out in Djibouti’s harsh countryside, the animals are nomads’ sole subsistence, providing them with milk, meat and an income.

“We live with the animals,” said Mohammed Bassoma, a wrinkled, bearded clan chief who accompanied the Americans in September to vouch for their good intentions. “If the animals get sick, we get sick.”

On a morning vaccination mission near the coastal village of Tadjoura, a veterinary team of four people with a half-dozen soldiers and Navy personnel set up two pens about 800 yards from a well site called Idayta.

Within a few hours, the American team had given anti-parasite and multivitamin shots to about 750 animals, which Buran said were particularly thin. The shots would be effective for six months.

In Tadjoura, the Americans were well received.

“Americans are very helpful,” Bassoma said through a translator, “and help is always good.”