Intelligence successes in U.S. Central Command have led to the capture of suspected terrorists and interdictions of drug shipments off the Horn of Africa, a senior CENTCOM official said today.
| I notice they haven't been splashing the details of the snags, though... |
Service members of Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa have worked closely with local governments and with CENTCOM’s maritime component to combat terrorism in the region, Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Sattler, CENTCOM’s operations director, said during a telephone interview with Pentagon reporters from the command’s forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Forces are working particularly hard to cut off lines of communication from the Arabian Peninsula across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Intelligence in this arena has led to the capture of suspected terrorists, Sattler said. He said "a number" of suspected terrorists have been taken from dhows, traditional fishing vessels in the region, and "pushed into the interrogation system because of their ties to al Qaeda," but gave no other details.
| In three or four months there'll be a brief flurry of captures and shootouts in the area... |
In interdicting these dhows, officials have captured several suspected drug dealers and turned them over to law-enforcement authorities of the local nations. "So we have been successful when we’ve stopped those dhows," Sattler said.
Between the work of this CJTF and the work going on in Western Africa, it looks like we are no longer conceding African territory to the bad guys. |