[A-List] Georgia Model: US European Command Moves Into Africa

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=21052

Stars And Stripes
March 17, 2004


EUCOM-based troops training Mali, Mauritania
militaries for border patrols
By Jon R. Anderson


-The training is part of a new State Department
program, known as the Pan Sahel Initiative....A group
of Marines is poised to begin similar training in Chad
and Niger along Libya?s southern border later this
summer.
-[General] Wald said about 200 special forces troops
were forming the vanguard of that effort with the
training in Mali and Mauritania.
A training task force of about two dozen Marines will
soon follow in Niger and Chad....The training will be
modeled closely after the 2-year-old Georgia Train and
Equip Program, which has trained some 3,000 troops....

-while denying recent reports the U.S. military was
planning to establish a permanent base in Algeria,
Wald did say EUCOM wanted to set up an outpost there
that would allow refueling rights and open up greater
training possibilities.
Meanwhile, North African military chiefs are planning
to meet at the EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart,
Germany, for the first time on Monday.




Military leaders have dispatched teams of Europe-based
special forces troops to train the Mali and
Mauritanian militaries to better police the Saharan
badlands along their borders with Algeria.

The training is part of a new State Department
program, known as the Pan Sahel Initiative, designed
to help buttress border patrols in a region of Africa
that military officials describe as an emerging front
line in the war on terror.

A group of Marines is poised to begin similar training
in Chad and Niger along Libya?s southern border later
this summer.

?We are paying greater attention to Africa, both
northern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa,? Marine Gen.
James Jones, the head of U.S. European Command, told
congressional leaders March 3.

As U.S.-led military efforts in Central Asia and the
Middle East put the squeeze on terrorist groups there,
Jones said, ?we are seeing indications of [the
terrorists?] willingness to move to Africa to start to
develop their footholds and to export their particular
brand of terrorism and instability.?

The goal of the Pan Sahel Initiative, State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters last week,
?is to help Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania control
their borders, interdict smuggling and to deny their
use of territories to terrorists and other
international criminals.?

Upcoming training in Chad, he said, comes in the wake
of military operations by the Chadian military against
an al-Qaida-linked organization called the Salafist
Group for Call and Combat operating in the region.

Officials have earmarked some $7 million in aid and
military equipment for the program, including new
four-wheel drive vehicles, according to EUCOM
spokeswoman Lt. Col. MJ Jadick, who is in Mali.

?One of the lessons we?ve learned is you can?t wait
for the problem to become large and then address it,?
Jones? deputy, Gen. Charles Wald, told reporters in
Washington on March 8. ?You have to get ahead of this
problem. And North Africa is no different.?

Wald said about 200 special forces troops were forming
the vanguard of that effort with the training in Mali
and Mauritania.

A training task force of about two dozen Marines will
soon follow in Niger and Chad, according to Maj. Tim
Keefe, a Marine spokesman in Europe. The training will
be modeled closely after the 2-year-old Georgia Train
and Equip Program, which has trained some 3,000 troops
in the former Soviet satellite, he said.

?We?re going to a kind of basic training with
individual infantry skills, but also go up to company-
level tactics,? Keefe said. ?They should have a very
strong capability once they?ve completed the
training.?

Still, Wald said the training along the southern rim
of the Sahara is only the beginning. Using the old
military adage of ?crawl, walk, run,? Wald said the
training effort is currently ?in the crawl phase.
We?ll walk eventually, and then we?re going to run.?

The training in Mali began in November.

?Initially, it was about a four-week training mission
to train the trainers of a brand-new company in basic
rifle marksmanship,? said a 33-year-old special forces
?A-team? detachment commander with the Germany-based
1st Battalion, 10th special forces Group, who led the
effort in Timbuktu.

Speaking by telephone, the captain ? who is not being
identified under interviewing ground rules from the
public affairs office ? said the mission has now
shifted to training the entire company. That?s
included everything from basic individual infantry
skills to squad-level, and now, to platoon-level
training.

?At this point, we?ve shown them all the basic skills
they need,? said the officer, explaining this phase of
the training is scheduled to wrap up with
?multiplatoon? exercises by the end of March.

How the training continues remains to be seen, a EUCOM
spokesman said.

?At this stage, there is no specific training
currently planned beyond what the Marines are looking
at,? said Lt. Col. Bill Bigelow. However, ?we do plan
to remain engaged through the Pan Sahel Initiative and
throughout North Africa,? he said.

Indeed, while denying recent reports the U.S. military
was planning to establish a permanent base in Algeria,
Wald did say EUCOM wanted to set up an outpost there
that would allow refueling rights and open up greater
training possibilities.

Meanwhile, North African military chiefs are planning
to meet at the EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart,
Germany, for the first time on Monday.







__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
http://mail.yahoo.com