The Long War Journal: The Horn

Written by Bill Roggio on August 13, 2004 12:09 AM to The Long War Journal

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2004/08/the_horn.php

Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld -- including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-i-Mohammed -- operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities.

While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. We now have troops in the Philippines, helping to train that country's armed forces to go after terrorist cells that have executed an American, and still hold hostages. Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy. Our Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block the shipment of weapons and the establishment of terrorist camps in Somalia. - President George W. Bush, 2002 State of the Union Address

I am currently working on a post that encompasses the overall scope of the War on Terror, to show that our actions are not isolated to just Afghanistan, Iraq or the Middle East. The goal is for the post to be ‘alive’, updated each time a subject area is covered. As President Bush indicated in the 2002 State of the Union address, the war is truly global. There are many conflicts which are under-covered by the media and the American public has little understanding of the extent of the problems we face to defeat our enemies. The scope of war post may help illustrate the vast nature of the Global War on Terror.

While the war is not confined to al Qaeda, the amount of countries we are fighting to hunt al Qaeda alone is astounding. A recent article in the Telegraph exposes America’s involvement in Africa, a mostly unknown front in the War on Terror.

American special forces teams have been sent to Sudan to hunt down Saudi Arabian terrorists who have re-established secret al-Qa'eda training camps in remote mountain ranges in the north-eastern quarter of the country. The terrorists, who are thought to take orders from Saudi Arabia's most wanted man, Saleh Awfi, have taken refuge in at least three locations in the Jebel Kurush mountains, which run parallel to the Red Sea coast of Africa's biggest country. An American Delta Force officer, who recently spent a week in Sudan tracking the terrorists, said the camps are used to train new recruits to wage jihad, or holy war, against the West and its allies. The trainees are instructed how to handle weapons and build and transport bombs. The officer said it was proving difficult to pin the terrorists down. 'We have a read on the rat-lines and the wider camp areas, but these are shifting camps in a very spread out part of the country. Our job is to tie them down tighter and tighter. They are moving pretty easily from their base points to the Red Sea coast, and then back and forth to Saudi. The Saudis are pretty annoyed about it.' Awfi, according to the Saudi Arabian government, is a former prison officer and a veteran of al-Qa'eda training camps in Sudan in the early 1990s. He is believed to have moved on to Afghanistan before turning up in Iraq before the war last year. Now back in his homeland, he emerged as the local al-Qa'eda leader earlier this summer. Riyadh has launched a nationwide crackdown on terrorist cells after an amnesty expired last month but Awfi has evaded capture, even though he is believed to live in a safe house in the Riyadh area.

The article also notes an important point made here just the other day that the Saudis are actively cooperating in the hunt for al Qaeda. The shattering of al Qaeda’s sanctuary had an obvious consequence, the dispersal of al Qaeda to other failed states and lawless regions of the world. This should not be viewed as a negative, as it places more pressure on al Qaeda, who has been forced to flee the safety of Afghanistan. Once the group is on the run, they can be tracked while in transition, and are forced to devote more energy and resources to protecting their network, shielding their finances and establishing new training camps.

Western diplomats in Saudi Arabia said that the new Sudanese camps, which were established in the last nine months, have become a vital staging ground for al-Qa'eda. 'There is significant traffic from these camps to the peninsula across the Red Sea,' one said. 'There is no real Sudanese government or army control over the mountains. The terrorists slip through the cracks, up into the hills where they can train, rest and build up the spirit of jihad. With things getting hot over here, they can get organised over there.'

Al-Qa'eda had its headquarters in Sudan between 1992 and 1996 until Khartoum's Islamic regime succumbed to western pressure to expel the group and Osama bin Laden fled to Afghanistan. Two years later President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on al-Qa'eda camps in Sudan and Afghanistan.
Sudan has resisted western and Saudi Arabian pressure for it to deploy an army battalion in the Jebel Kurush, to flush out the al-Qa'eda presence. It has, however, allowed small teams of American soldiers to pass into the country as part of official visits, such as last month's trip by Colin Powell. A team of five special forces soldiers broke off from the Powell entourage for a week-long mission in the Kurush mountains, where aerial surveillance had established a list of villages where suspicious activity had been detected.

American forces are hunting a series of groups linked to al-Qa'eda across North Africa. Special anti-terrorist operations in Sudan and the Horn of Africa are undertaken by marines based in Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.

Djibouti’s strategic importance in fighting terrorism in the Horn of Africa cannot be underestimated. Djibouti sits astride the Bab el-Mandab strait, one of the world's oil transit chokepoints. Directly across Djibouti from the Bab el-Mandab strait is Yemen and the Arabian penisula. Almost 2,000 American sailors, airmen, soldiers and Marines are stationed at Camp Lemonier. Not only has the force stationed there disrupted terror plots and arrested al Qaeda members, but they are working with the regional governments of the Horn to establish security, train their militaries, share intelligence and provide humanitarian aid. Our presence in Camp Lemonier will likely play a role in dealing with the terrorism problem in the Sudan, which looks to be worse than most think.

Dan Darling, of Regnum Crucis, links to a briefing given by Ronald Sandee, a senior counter-terrorism analyst for the Dutch Ministry of Defense titled “Islamism, Jihadism and Terrorism in Sudan” that outlines Sudan’s history in supporting terror organizations and the complex political nature of Sudan that makes it a difficult situation to address. Of note is the extent to which Sudan is being used to shelter and train Islamic Terrorists.

Sudan is being used as a hub for Palestinian terrorist groups, AQ and the Jihadist networks. In the Arab controlled part of the country there are training camps for a wide range of groups, including the IMU, al-Qa’ida, Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement, HAMAS, Saudi oppositional groups and Mujahedin who turn up as volunteers in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Some of the camps are located near the border with Eritrea, north of Port Sudan in the Jebel Kurush mountains, or near the Libyan border. Other camps are in the Nuba Mountains or in Darfur. Sometimes camps are not more than 100 square meters, but the same goes for camps in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

As the Telegraph article implies, Sudan is giving tacit support for American Special Forces teams to track and hunt al Qaeda, but will not take its own action to ferret out foreign terrorists. Sudan must go much further than this to be considered a partner in the war. If the information is true that Sudan is becoming a new safe haven for al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist and is allowing Islamist terror organization to establish a foothold, the problem will need to be addressed either by diplomatic or military means. Sudan’s complicity in the genocide in its Darfur region, with its backing of the murderous Janjaweed militias, adds a further level of complexity to the problem. The outcome depends on Sudan’s willingness to renounce terrorism and act against the terrorists within its borders.