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Geeska Afrika Online

U.S. Troops Cooperating with Ethiopians to Monitor Porous Border with Somalia

Training Ethiopians in Counter-Terrorism Techniques

U.S. forces based in neighboring Djibouti are helping Ethiopia monitor its long, porous border with Somalia for terrorist activity and are training Ethiopian troops in counter-terrorism techniques, Associated Press quoted a senior U.S. military official as saying Friday.

"We consider Ethiopia a valued partner in our mission to detect, disrupt and defeat terrorists who pose an imminent threat to our coalition partners in the Horn of Africa," Maj. Gen. John F. Sattler told reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Ethiopia.

He said the monitoring assistance involved "locating potential places where terrorists may attempt to cross the border into Ethiopia." Sattler, who is commander of the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa based aboard the U.S.S. Mount Whitney in the Gulf of Aden off Djibouti, said the information helps Ethiopia deploy its forces more efficiently by placing them "at the right place at the right time." He did not elaborate on how the monitoring was carried out.

Immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, officials in the Bush administration began calling Somalia, a lawless nation that has not had a central government since 1991, a potential terrorist haven. Ethiopia, which has sent troops into Somalia several times since the mid-1990s, backed the claim, saying that al-Ittihad al-Islami, a Somali group that carried out attacks inside Ethiopia, had ties to Osama bin-Laden's al-Qaida terror

network.

Ethiopian troops reportedly quashed al-Ittihad training camps in Somalia in 1997-98. Somalia lost a war with Ethiopia in 1977 over control of Ethiopia's southeastern regions that is inhabited largely by ethnic Somalis (Somali National Regional State).

Sattler said the task force would remain in the region to combat terrorism whether or not a war broke out in Iraq. "The strong commitment of our partners in the Horn to fight terrorism in the region is setting the state for success," said Sattler, whose previous duties include heading the public affairs division at U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The joint task force's area of operation includes the airspace, land areas and coastal waterways of Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen.

Some 1,200 U.S. troops have set up base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti as part of the task force. Another 400 U.S. Navy Force and Army troops are aboard the Mount Whitney.

Sattler has previously described the task force's main mission as keeping terrorists from taking refuge in the region and hunting down those who already have. 

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