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U.S. Pushes Anti-Terrorism in Africa
A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier uses GI Joe toys to demonstrate tactics during a training session with Chadian soldiers south of the capital. It is part of a $500 million Pentagon initiative to provide counterterrorism training to soldiers in North and West Africa.
(U.s. Army Photo)
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Dashing down from the berm, the Chadian soldiers clambered into a Toyota truck, hanging on as it lurched and sped off across a desert path.
"Morale! Morale!" they chanted in French, ignoring Brian's warning to make a stealthy retreat.
U.S. and Chadian soldiers acknowledge that although the battalion made good progress in learning basic maneuvers, it remained unable to track international terrorists. The Pentagon plans to supply intelligence on targets and let the Chadians do the fighting, a strategy that has been tested in at least one successful operation.
Squatting under a mim tree, Sgt. Mohamed Nour Abakar, 28, sketched lines in sand moist from a desert rain, describing how he served as one of America's African fighters in a battle against terrorists in March 2004.
"I was between the border of Chad and Libya. . . . It was about 3 p.m.," he said, when his regiment received intelligence from a U.S. Navy surveillance plane on the location of 80 fighters from an Algerian group affiliated with al Qaeda. The fighters, from the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, were wanted for the kidnapping of 32 European tourists in southern Algeria in 2003.
At 6 p.m., about 150 Chadian soldiers first spotted the guerrillas, who were traveling in eight Toyota trucks mounted with heavy machine guns. "We found the Salafists hunting gazelle. When they saw us, they left the gazelle and began to shoot at us with machine guns," Abakar said.
Just then, Abakar recalled, the guerrilla commander hurled an insult -- and an appeal. "You monkeys! We are not your enemy, we are America's enemy," he yelled. "It was our mistake to fire at you, so why are you chasing us? We are all African!"
But the Chadians fought on. They pursued the guerrillas into the hills for two days, killing 28 of them and capturing seven, Abakar said. The Chadians lost 20 men, and Abakar was shot in the chest. "I was about to give up and be a civilian," he said, "but I found out the Americans were coming with new training, so I joined again."
At a closing celebration, the Chadians invited the Americans to a feast of goat stuffed with couscous and washed down with local beer. In a ceremony that followed, Abakar goose-stepped forward, clicked the heels of boots held together with staples, and swirled up his arm in salute. Jasper returned an easy salute.
But it wasn't goodbye: Next month, at an old French commando school north of N'Djamena, they'll be training together again.
