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U.S. Forces Succeed in E. Africa
Associated Press January 03, 2006DJIBOUTI - al-Qaida is active in Somalia, but U.S. counterterrorism forces are succeeding in keeping its influence from spreading in East Africa - using shovels as their weapons, a commander said Monday.
Maj. Gen. Tim Ghormley, who assumed command of the task force in May, said his troops are focusing on humanitarian projects including drilling wells and refurbishing schools and clinics to improve the lives of residents in the region and keep them away from the terror network.
"We know that al-Qaida al-Itihaad is in Somalia," Ghormley told reporters in an interview at his base in the impoverished nation of Djibouti. "They'd like to export that ... if we weren't there they would be."
While the al-Qaida linked group al-Itihaad was largely destroyed or disbanded by Ethiopian troops fighting inside Somalia by 1997, some of its members have regrouped under new guises and have begun to grow in strength, according to an International Crisis Group report released in July.
Somalia, divided into warring fiefdoms and with no central government, remains fertile ground for terrorists.
The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, set up in this former French colony in June 2002, is responsible for fighting terrorism in nine countries around the Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia in Africa and Yemen on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
"I believe we're winning," Ghormley said, sitting on a wicker sofa under ceiling fans in a reception hall. "You can't contain them (al-Qaida), but we can take away their recruiting pool and deny them access and that's what we're trying to do."
He singled out a well-drilling project near the eastern Ethiopian hamlet of Gode, which drew the gratitude of the villagers.
But he also acknowledged the threat posed by terrorists taking sanctuary in Somalia and other lawless regions. African governments have historically had a hard time providing security in remote rural areas or patrolling vast borders where nomads frequently cross without detection.
Ghormley spoke after a New Year's pep rally for troops by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, who is on an eight-nation tour with his wife, Lynne, "American Idol" star Diana DeGarmo and other entertainers.
Pace told the troops their job was important despite the remoteness of the outpost, saying they were the "wave of the future."
The impoverished region, which is home to many Muslims, is a well-established recruiting ground for terrorist groups and U.S. officials describe it as a critical theater in the fight against terrorism.
The region has already suffered four terrorist attacks, all either claimed by - or attributed to - Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. In August 1998, car bombs destroyed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; in October 2000 suicide bombers attacked the USS Cole while it was refueling in Yemen; and in November 2002 attackers tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner minutes before a car bomb destroyed a hotel on Kenya's coast.