AFRICA U.S. soldiers teach Chad, other nations to fight terrorists

Al-Qaida operates here, and the continent's oil industry is expanding.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
LOUMIA, Chad -- It's a sweltering morning in Chad's scrub-brush desert. A herd of goats grazes on tufts of green. Round huts bake in the strengthening sun.
Suddenly the goats scatter as gunfire fills the air. Chadian soldiers behind a row of machine guns unload on their target: a giant berm standing in for Al-Qaida. Villagers turn as a battalion of Chadian Army troops swoops in from the right. The thap-thap of their AK-47s joins the chorus as shots pound the dirt mound.
And 23 U.S. Marines look on.
For six weeks they've been teaching 168 Chadian soldiers counterterrorism basics -- surprise attacks, border patrolling, intelligence gathering and more. This is the final exam.
"Lookin' good," says Maj. Paul Baker, the mission commander.
Joining global war
The training here in remote Chad is just one sign of how the U.S. military is engaging Africa in the global terror war as never before. There are, for instance, joint U.S. naval exercises with Nigeria this month. There are reported anti-terror patrols along the Kenya-Somalia border. And there's the new expansion of the Chad program from a four-nation, $7 million project to a nine-country plan with an expected budget of up to $125 million. It aims to prevent terrorists from roaming in and around the Sahara desert.
We're "looking at Africa as a place of growth for the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense," said Baker. There's growing evidence of terrorist activities on the continent. And there's a need to protect Africa's rapidly expanding oil industry. So the U.S. military is paying attention.
Big impact
The American presence is having a big impact around the region. Before the Marines arrived in Chad, the Chadians had nearly no real military experience. During their basic training each one shot just eight bullets -- it's all the government could afford. Chad ranks 167th out of 177 nations on the 2004 United Nations Human Development Index. Per capita income is 73 cents a day.
The soldiers weren't much for marksmanship. "They couldn't hit a 15-foot berm from 20 meters away," marvels Baker. But in six weeks of U.S.-sponsored training, they shot about 122,000 bullets. They've also gotten new U.S. uniforms and 13 new Toyota pickups. It will all be used to patrol the vast open spaces in northern Chad. Back in March, Chadian troops -- with help from a U.S. surveillance plane -- reportedly killed 42 Islamic fighters in the desert highlands of the north.
Nearby countries, too
Troops in the nearby countries of Niger, Mauritania and Mali have also received similar training and gear as the Chadians. And as part of the new Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Initiative, troops in Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco will get U.S. training and hardware, too -- at a cost to the United States of up to $125 million.
But why the American largesse? All these nations are in and around the Sahara Desert and the Sahel, a band of land that's south of the big desert and that runs east to west across Africa. These are vast, lawless lands where terrorists linked to Al-Qaida are known to operate -- and where the region's large Muslim populations sometimes offer support or sympathy to extremists.
The region may not be the next Afghanistan in terms of terror incubation, but with America's global counterterror efforts squeezing extremist groups, the Sahara and Sahel have become "a very appealing place for people to travel through, recruit and find refuge," says Gen. Charles Wald, deputy head of the U.S. European Command, which has responsibility for much of Africa.
Other operations
Other U.S. military and counterterror activities in Africa include: an FBI academy in Bostwana that addresses anti-terrorism issues in its training of regional police officers; a military base in Djbouti with at least 2,000 U.S. troops, from which the United States launches anti-terror missions in the volatile Horn of Africa region; a separate $100-million program to help five East African countries battle terrorism; and the upcoming joint naval exercise with Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.
Indeed, the other major driver of U.S. military interest in Africa is oil. The United States now gets about 15 percent of its oil from Africa. In a decade that could rise to 25 percent. Oil-producing nations like Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe and Equatorial Guinea (home of a recent apparent attempted coup) are strategic hot-spots.