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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Joint Task Force Begins Anti-Terror Work |
| 2002-12-13 |
| The U.S.-led combined task force to combat global terrorism in and around the strategic Horn of Africa formally opened for business Friday with the arrival of the USS Mount Whitney in the Gulf of Aden off Djibouti. "Today, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has arrived on-station," Maj. Gen. John F. Sattler, the force commander, told reporters at Djibouti airport where he had flown in from the amphibious command ship. Disrupting and defeating "transnational terrorist groups posing an imminent threat" to partners in the U.S.-led coalition against global terrorism is the force's mission, he said. Sattler emphasized that the task force is a combined effort of many countries in the global war on terrorism, which, he said, "is not a war against any people or any religion." "It is a struggle between the forces of freedom and those who seek to spread hatred and fear, both in the Horn of African region, and around the world." Some 400 members representing all the U.S. armed services, civilian personnel and members of coalition forces are embarked on the Mount Whitney, a 635-foot Norfolk, Va.,-based class LCC 19 ship commissioned in 1971. Another 900 U.S. military personnel are based at Camp Lemonier, a former French installation, adjacent to the airport. Asked whether a more permanent U.S. presence would be established in the former French colony at the end of the Red Sea wedged in between Ertirea, Ethiopia and Somalia, Sattler pointed out that the command headquarters is the Mount Whitney. "It can stay afloat for a long time, so there's no rush to move ashore," he said. The countries included in the task force's mission area include Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Sudan, where bin Laden was based during the early 1990s. Nice neighborhood, good hunting, lots of targets U.S. officials, including President Bush (news - web sites), have indicated that they believe that al-Ittihad al-Islami, a Somali group linked to al-Qaida, was responsible for the Nov. 28 twin attacks on two Israeli targets in Kenya in which 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and several suicide bombers died. Asked whether the task force was authorized to intervene after such events, Sattler replied: "We are here to detect these events before they happen and share the information with coalition partners." He said a decision to intervene "would be made at the highest level." "Mr. President, can I waste someone?" "Sure, go right ahead, John." |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Sheik Djibouti, baby... |
| Posted by: mojo 2002-12-13 14:00:20 |
| #2 Always open season, no bag limit. |
| Posted by: Steve 2002-12-13 10:49:04 |
| #1 Instead of hunting elks, they'll be hunting elk hunters. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-12-13 10:25:37 |