It turns out that Bruce Springsteen's 2007 song, "Radio Nowhere," with its "I was trying to find my way home / But all I heard was a drone" opening and its morbid lyrics (see here for a detailed analysis and a video of Springsteen performing the song), was ahead of its time. -- In a blog posting following up on his Washington Post story posted Tuesday on the web, Greg Miller enumerated more clearly what he and Craig Whitlock called a "constellation of secret drone bases," naming four such bases: "a long-standing military base in Djibouti; a secret new CIA facility being built in the Arabian Peninsula; an installation on the Seychelles; and a fourth facility in Ethiopia."[1] -- He quoted an unnamed "former senior U.S. military official" who congratulated himself on the foresight the bases supposedly represent: “We’re posturing with the right capabilities [in Africa] to be able to move against targets if they start to develop rather than wait four or five years like we did in Pakistan. We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last eight or nine years with respect to basing rights.” -- And he claimed the U.S. was acting thriftily as well: “'A lot of bases [around Afghanistan] we had to pay a hefty sum of money to operate out of,' said the former official who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record. 'You don’t want all your eggs in one basket.'" -- The London Independent, which went to the trouble to create a map of "The New Drone Sites," suggested that drones from the base in the Seychelles (the focus and major revelation of the Post article) were connected to "used in two days of attacks near the Shabaab-controlled port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia last week. Unconfirmed reports suggest that up to 26 people were killed."[2] -- In reporting on the story, the Chinese news agency Xinhua called attention to a *Wall Street Journal" story about U.S. deployment of "a new force of armed drones to eastern Africa in an escalation of its campaign to strike militant targets in the region and expand intelligence on extremists."[3] -- The Wall Street Journal piece, longer than the Post piece which scooped it, was much more detailed, said nothing about the bases being "secret," and took a ho-hum business as usual attitude to them.[4] -- Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service said that a base whose location is still unclear "will be hosted by Saudi Arabia, according to an unnamed 'senior U.S. military official' quoted in a FoxNews.com report also published Thursday."[5] -- "'Operations in Saudi (Arabia) are (the) only new expansion to this plan,' the official was quoted as saying. 'The rest has been working for over a year.'" -- Lobe quoted strategists arguing both for and against the expansion of U.S. drone bases in the region....
1.
[Blog]
Checkpoint Washington: Reporting on diplomacy, intelligence and military affairs
SECRET DRONE BASES: AVOIDING PAST MISTAKES
By Greg Miller
Washington Post
September 21, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/secret-drone-bases-avoiding-past-mistakes/2011/09/21/gIQAPaN0kK_blog.html
In assembling a constellation of secret drone bases around Yemen and Somalia, the United States is trying to eliminate refuges for al-Qaeda and its affiliates. But it’s also trying to do something else: avoid the mistakes of the past.
When al-Qaeda fled Afghanistan into Pakistan in 2001 and 2002, it took years before the CIA had assembled a drone program capable of putting the terrorist network under pressure. That delay, and costly deals for air-basing access in neighboring countries, allowed al-Qaeda to flourish.
When the new bases are complete, the United States will have at least four drone airstrips in the Horn of Africa region: a long-standing military base in Djibouti; a secret new CIA facility being built in the Arabian Peninsula; an installation on the Seychelles; and a fourth facility in Ethiopia.
The bases will be used to target al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, but also position the United States to patrol other areas to which militant groups might migrate.
“We’re posturing with the right capabilities [in Africa] to be able to move against targets if they start to develop rather than wait four or five years like we did in Pakistan,” said a former senior U.S. military official familiar with special operations mission in both regions. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last eight or nine years with respect to basing rights.”
Officials said that it costs a lot more to build the bases when the need is urgent and the United States has limited options. “A lot of bases [around Afghanistan] we had to pay a hefty sum of money to operate out of,” said the former official who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record. “You don’t want all your eggs in one basket.”
That’s one lesson that U.S. officials have learned the hard way. Amid persistent tensions between Islamabad and Washington, Pakistani officials have repeatedly threatened to kick the CIA off their bases -- a move that would likely have a severe effect on the agency’s ability to target key members of al-Qaeda.
2.
World
Americas
U.S. TO EXPAND DRONE HITS WITH SECRET NEW BASES
By Daniel Howden
Independent (London)
September 22, 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-to-expand-drone-hits-with-secret-new-bases-2358758.html
The U.S. is building a ring of secret military bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula as it steps up the use of unmanned drone aircraft to strike at groups linked to al-Qa'ida.
Click HERE to view graphic (107k jpg).
A base has been built on the Indian Ocean island chain of the Seychelles, according to leaked diplomatic cables. Another is being established in Ethiopia, the Washington Post reported.
The U.S. has been launching assassination missions in Somalia targeting the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab, which publicly supports al-Qa'ida, for some time. Washington already has a base in neighboring Djibouti. Drones were used in two days of attacks near the Shabaab-controlled port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia last week. Unconfirmed reports suggest that up to 26 people were killed.
The new bases are part of a ramping up of the counter-terrorism campaign in Yemen and Somalia and there are claims that another secret base is under construction in an unnamed country in the Arabian peninsula.
"Ocean Look" -- the U.S. operation on the Seychelles -- had been billed as an anti-piracy venture, with local media invited to an open day to see one of the drones. However, secret discussions between the Seychelles government and U.S. officials, revealed in diplomatic cables released to the WikiLeaks website, show that the drones were also intended for counter-terror operations.
At one meeting, the Seychelles President James Michel invited Washington to see the archipelago as "an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean without the planes" and joked that the U.S. should move its continental headquarters, Afri-Command, there. The cables say both sides "stressed the sensitive nature of this counter-terrorism mission" and pledged not to discuss it outside the highest government circles.
When the subject of using the drones as an "offensive weapon" was brought up the U.S. was told that Mr. Michel was not "philosophically opposed" but insisted that any such move be discussed with him only. So-called "hunter killer" drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have become a mainstay of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan's border areas but while there is blanket congressional approval for their use in these countries the new campaign is aimed at suspected groups in Yemen and Somalia.
The Ethiopian embassy in London did not respond to queries from the Independent concerning claims of a U.S. drone base on its soil. The government in Addis Ababa has been a staunch ally in Washington's counter-terror operations and in return has dodged criticism for political oppression and human rights abuses at home. The alleged presence of a U.S. base on Ethiopian soil would further strengthen the Addis government's position, said Roger Middleton, a regional analyst with the Chatham House think-tank, and reinforce the controversial U.S. policy of containment of the Somali crisis.
"There is a danger that a war prosecuted in Somalia exclusively with drones will disengage the U.S. from finding a political solution," he said. "If you can control the threat that way, you have no incentive to build a sustainable solution."
3.
U.S. BUILDING SECRET DRONE BASES OVERSEAS: REPORT
Xinhua
September 21, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/21/c_131152463.htm
WASHINGTON -- The United States is building secret drone bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of counterterrorism efforts targeting al-Qaeda's affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, the *Washington Post* reported Wednesday.
One of the drone bases was in Ethiopia and aimed at the Somali militant group al-Shabab, the report said, quoting U.S. officials who declined to be identified. Another base was said to be located in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen, according to the report.
The U.S. military has expanded its use of the unmanned aircraft to carry out counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The report said the U.S. government was known to have used drones to carry out lethal attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
The Wall Street Journal also reported Wednesday that the U.S. military was deploying a new force of armed drones to eastern Africa in an escalation of its campaign to strike militant targets in the region and expand intelligence on extremists.
The reports come at a time when the U.S. is focusing more closely on al-Qaeda's affiliates outside South Asia. The core al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been significantly weakened by intensified U.S. and NATO operations there, but its affiliates elsewhere were posing an increasing threat to the U.S. national security, officials said.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has emerged as "the most dangerous regional node in the global jihad," retired Gen. David Petraeus said last week during his first Capitol Hill appearance as CIA Director.
"The extremist initiative is, to some degree, shifting to al-Qaeda's affiliates outside South Asia," he said.
AQAP, a Yemen-based terrorist group, was blamed for the failed terror plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner in December 2009. It was also behind the plot to launch attacks by mailing parcel bombs bound for the U.S. in October 2010.
4.
U.S. EXPANDS DRONE FLIGHTS TO TAKE AIM AT EAST AFRICA
By Julian E. Barnes
Wall Street Journal
September 21, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576583012923076634.html
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military is deploying a new force of armed drones to eastern Africa in an escalation of its campaign to strike militant targets in the region and expand intelligence on extremists, officials said.
The military has reopened a base for the unmanned aircraft on the island nation of Seychelles to intensify attacks on al Qaeda affiliates, particularly in Somalia, defense officials told the *Wall Street Journal*.
The U.S. has used the Seychelles base for flying surveillance drones, and for the first time will fly armed MQ-9 Reapers from the Indian Ocean site, supplementing strikes from a U.S. drone base in Djibouti.
The move comes as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials have stressed a need to urgently follow up on the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May with operations to destroy his terrorist organization.
U.S. officials say they are concerned that al Qaeda -- under pressure from U.S. operations in Pakistan -- is moving to expand operations through its affiliates in East Africa, and that a new charismatic militant leader could emerge there.
Stepped-up surveillance on the militant groups is needed to help keep al Qaeda affiliates in check, officials said.
"We do not know enough about the leaders of the al Qaeda affiliates in Africa," said a senior U.S. official. "Is there a guy out there saying, 'I am the future of al Qaeda'? Who is the next Osama bin Laden?"
The U.S. military has long operated a base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, and has already used drones against militants in Somalia.
The new Seychelles base, with the Reaper deployment, will allow for more flights and improved operational security, giving the military a better chance at uncovering and destroying al Qaeda training camps in East Africa, officials said. Militants can sometimes spot and track drones that fly over land from the base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti -- something that will be more difficult at an island base.
The Seychelles' capital, Victoria, is about 920 miles east of the southern tip Somalia, and about 650 miles northeast of Madagascar. The new base will help increase surveillance of pirates operating in the waters off Somalia. A senior defense official said the U.S. hasn't yet used the Reapers deployed the Seychelles to conduct armed reconnaissance on pirate ships, but the option is open to use the drones to strike at pirates who have mounted attacks.
"If there was a piracy situation gone wrong, the Seychelles are a good place from which to put something overhead," said the senior defense official.
The U.S. stationed Reaper drones in the Seychelles from September 2009 until this past spring, when they were withdrawn. Those aircraft weren't armed and were used only for surveillance. Officials said at the time that those drones were to be used to monitor pirates.
The new MQ-9 Reapers deployed to the Seychelles, officials said, can be configured for both reconnaissance and strike missions. The Reapers can fire Hellfire missiles, as well as guided 500-pound bombs.
A Reaper can fly 1,150 miles from base, conduct missions and return home, military officials said. The time a drone can stay aloft depends on how heavily armed it is.
The MQ-9s are operated by the Air Force from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. An Air Force team on the ground in the Seychelles launches and lands the drones as they start and finish their missions.
Officials declined to specify what countries could be reached from the Seychelles base. However, based on the official range, an aircraft could conduct missions in Somalia and other countries in eastern Africa. A Reaper could also likely reach Yemen, if it were to land in Djibouti rather than return to the Seychelles.
It would also be able to fly widely over the Indian Ocean to hunt for pirates. "It gives us reach into different areas," the senior defense official said.
The Central Intelligence Agency operates the U.S.'s best known drone campaign against militants in Pakistan. Drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa are currently conducted by the U.S. military.
Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, the prime minister of Somalia, said he didn't object to U.S.-run drones targeting members of al Shabaab, an Islamic militant group with links to al Qaeda, inside Somalia. But he said he expects to be consulted and have such operations coordinated with his government.
"One less Shabaab is better for Somalia," said the prime minister, who was appointed in June, in an interview in New York where he was attending the United Nations annual meetings. "We have the same goal and that is to eliminate this extremist threat, first in Somalia and then the rest of the world."
He said he would object, however, to the drones killing Somali pirates. "That's a different issue," he said. "These are just disillusioned youths who need an alternative livelihood."
Ronald Jumeau, the Seychelles ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview that his country welcomes the presence of the Reapers. "For the U.S. to base such military materiel in our country, it shows trust on the side of the United States," he said.
There are some reservations in the Seychelles that hosting armed drones could make the island nation a target for attacks by militant groups in Somalia.
But Mr. Jumeau said there is widespread hope that the presence of Reapers could help deter pirate attacks in the region. He added that people in the Seychelles would support strikes against pirate vessels.
Pirates regularly attack ships headed for the Seychelles. As the piracy threat has increased, tourism has suffered in the Seychelles, shaving some 4% from the country's gross domestic product, Mr. Jumeau said.
"We will take help from everyone and anyone on piracy," he said. "For us, piracy is a question of territorial integrity."
U.S. officials believe al Qaeda affiliates in Africa are increasingly working together, sharing bomb-making techniques and fighters. With the senior leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan under pressure, defense officials believe the terror group's affiliates in Yemen and Africa will pose a greater threat.
Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said he has seen ties between al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa, and Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
The groups, he said, mostly work regionally, but pose a threat to the U.S. "The regional affiliates may be gaining in the threats they pose," Gen. Ham said. "We have to find a way to keep pressure on these smaller and more regionally focused organizations."
5.
EXPANDING NETWORK OF DRONE BASES TO HIT SOMALIA, YEMEN
By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service
September 21, 2011
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105195
WASHINGTON -- As Somalia undergoes its worst famine in six decades and Yemen slides into civil war, the administration of President Barack Obama is expanding its network of bases to carry out drone strikes against suspected terrorists in both countries, according to reports published in two major U.S. newspapers Thursday.
Based in part on newly disclosed U.S. diplomatic cables recently posted by Wikileaks, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. military has been flying armed drones over both countries from a base in Djibouti and is planning to build a second base in Ethiopia.
The Post and the Wall Street Journal also reported that a base in the Seychelles that the U.S. military has previously used to fly surveillance drones will now host armed drones capable of flying their lethal payloads the more than 1,500 kms that separate the Indian Ocean island chain from Somalia and the African mainland and back.
The "constellation" of drone bases will also include a secret new Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) base that the administration announced earlier this year would be situated somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula.
That facility will be hosted by Saudi Arabia, according to an unnamed "senior U.S. military official" quoted in a FoxNews.com report also published Thursday.
"Operations in Saudi (Arabia) are (the) only new expansion to this plan," the official was quoted as saying. "The rest has been working for over a year when we long ago realised danger from AQAP (Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula)," a Yemen-based affiliate which, according to recent statements by U.S. intelligence officials, has been consolidating links with al Shabaab, the Somali group which Washington claims also has ties to Al-Qaeda.
IPS calls to the Pentagon press office for confirmation that Saudi Arabia is hosting the new base were not returned. But a former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh who has retained good ties with its government, Amb. Chas Freeman (ret.), said the report was "highly plausible" given both the "close and robust" cooperation on counterterrorism between the U.S. and the kingdom and its geographical proximity to Yemen.
According to one of the authors of the Post report, the expanding network is designed to "avoid the mistakes of the past."
"When al-Qaeda fled Afghanistan into Pakistan in 2001 and 2002, it took years before the CIA had assembled a drone program capable of putting the terrorist network under pressure," wrote Greg Miller on the Post's website. "That delay, and costly deals for air-basing access in neighboring countries, allowed al-Qaeda to flourish."
The reports come amid considerable controversy about the increased use by the Obama administration of armed drones, ominously named Predators, and the longer-range Reapers, in its counterterrorism campaign.
In Pakistan, where the CIA greatly sharply increased unilateral drone strikes -- to nearly 200 -- against "high-value" Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in the first two years of the Obama administration, the tactic has contributed heavily to an increase in anti-Americanism. An overwhelming 97 percent of respondents in a recent Pew Research Center poll in Pakistan, where anti-Americanism is at an all-time high, said they viewed drone attacks negatively.
Indeed, none other than Obama's first top intelligence chief, Adm. Dennis Blair (ret.), told an elite gathering of foreign policy and national security wonks in July that it was a mistake "to have (an air-only) campaign dominate our overall relations" with Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
"Because we're alienating the countries concerned, because we're treating countries just as places where we go attack groups that threaten us, we are threatening the prospects of long-term reform," he said. Such strikes should only be carried out with the consent of the host government.
But Obama's new Pentagon chief and former CIA director Leon Panetta rejected that criticism, insisting that the tactic had been and would continue to be "effective at undermining Al-Qaeda and their ability to plan . . . attacks (against the U.S.)".
Panetta and the Pentagon have also reportedly led the charge in an ongoing debate within the administration to broaden the current target list in Yemen and Somalia from high-level leaders of AQAP and al-Shabaab, who are presumed to share Al-Qaeda's global aims, to include low-level foot soldiers, whose motivation for joining such groups may be more parochial and less ambitious.
The drone has increasingly become the administration's "weapon of choice" in its efforts to subdue Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, although it has been used far less frequently against targets in Yemen and Somalia than in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
At least six drone strikes targeted alleged militants in Yemen in 2010 and 2011, but that number may have risen recently due to the collapse amid the ongoing political turmoil of the central government's authority over various parts of the country. Militias which Washington believes are tied to AQAP have taken control of towns near the Gulf of Aden.
"There's an assumption that the U.S. has used a lot of aerial strikes in recent months, but it's difficult to get verification," said Gregory Johnson, a Yemen expert at Princeton University.
In Somalia, where Washington has also used cruise missiles and heliborne Special Operations Forces (SOF) against senior al Shabaab leaders, there are believed to have been only two drones strikes since 2007.
According to the Post and Journal accounts, Washington used a base in the Seychelles in 2009 and 2010 to fly drones for surveillance of both Somalia and Somali piracy activity in the Indian Ocean. According to the Wikileaks cables cited by the Post, Seychelles President James Michel has concurred with the idea of arming the drones.
Somalia's prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, told the Journal that he did not object to armed drone attacks on members of Al Shabaab, provided that such operations were coordinated with his government, but that he opposed attacks on pirates.
The Post reported that the U.S. has negotiated with Ethiopia, with which Washington also cooperates closely on counterterrorism activities, for four years over building a base for armed drones on its territory. Fox News reported that the U.S. has flown surveillance drones from several Ethiopian bases.
"There could certainly be a lot of internal discussion before they would agree to authorize the use of a base (for armed drones)," said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Addis Ababa. "They don't want to be seen as a pawn of anyone."
Shinn, who teaches at George Washington University, said the use of armed drones should be highly constrained and warned against its becoming "the default policy for dealing with Somalia."
"I don't see a problem with using an aerial strike with a couple of huge caveats," he told IPS. "First, that you have intelligence which is 95 percent accurate or better on a high value target -- which is a pretty tough standard -- and, second, that there's little or no likelihood of collateral damage. If you're using these things willy-nilly on the basis of not very good intelligence, then it will be counter-productive."
Johnsen voiced similar caution, noting that "Washington has drifted into this tactic, because it can't seem to find any other good options in Yemen."
"But it runs the very real risk of actually exacerbating the situation," he noted. "The problem with drones is that the U.S. doesn't have a very good track record on killing who it's aiming at in Yemen. So it often ends up killing civilians, which drives their brothers, fathers, sons, nephews, etc. into the hands of Al-Qaeda and makes it easier for Al-Qaeda to argue that Yemen is an active theatre of Jihad, no different from Iraq or Afghanistan."
He also expressed concern about the CIA building a base in Saudi Arabia. "One of the primary motivations for Osama bin Laden's jihad against the U.S. were military bases housing U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the end of the Gulf War," he wrote on his blog, Waq al-Waq. "Does the U.S. think this current of thought no longer holds sway in Arabia?