Feral Jundi

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Military News: US Sends Military Advisers To Africa To Hunt Down Joseph Kony And The LRA!

Filed under: Military News,Uganda — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 4:50 PM

Yes! This is a mission that just makes sense and I will be cheering it on all the way. It is about time and hopefully these guys can find them and eliminate them. Especially since Invisible Children has set up a communications network to give a voice to the people.

Perhaps that will be a big focus in the beginning, and that would be to upgrade the communications networks and even expand them throughout all of the villages.  That map I posted shows exactly the areas that the LRA is at, and the more updates and data coming in from that network, the better. Couple that with some of the toys that these advisers will have, and I am hoping that this mission won’t take long.

But who knows?  The LRA are some serious jungle dwellers, and have survived this long. Personally, I could care less how long it takes, because this is one of those deals that should have been taken care of a long time ago. It is worth the push and it is worth the effort. –Matt

 

Obama sends military advisers to central Africa
By Matt Spetalnick and Laura MacInnis
Oct 14, 2011
President Barack Obama said on Friday he was sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to help and advise government forces battling Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels accused of murder, rape and kidnapping children.
Obama — who once denounced the LRA as an “affront to human dignity” — made clear the troops would serve as trainers and advisers in efforts to hunt down rebel leader Joseph Kony and would not engage in combat except in self-defense.
In a letter to Congress, Obama said the first U.S. forces arrived in Uganda on Wednesday and would be deployed to South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo “subject to the approval of each respective host nation.”
Obama’s decision commits U.S. forces to help confront a rebel group that has drawn international condemnation for decades of chilling violence, including hacking body parts off victims and the abduction of young boys to fight and young girls for use as sex slaves.
While the U.S. military has maintained a large base in Djibouti since 2003, the latest mission marks an expanded role in conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa by putting U.S. troops in the field to support local forces in direct combat with insurgents.

(more…)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Industry Talk: Ugandan PSC’s Eye Business In Somalia After AMISOM Victories

Now this is a very interesting development. All of these security contractors from Uganda that have participated in such programs like TWISS in Iraq, are now looking at Somalia as the next market for security contracts. Which makes total sense, and especially since there is a massive pool of Ugandan security contractors created by their efforts in Iraq.

Uganda is also a huge contributor of forces for AMISOM, so it would only be fair that their country’s PSC’s would have a crack at any contracts in Somalia. I would imagine Burundi would also be interested in entering the reconstruction market in Somalia as well. Uganda has also lost 57 plus troops in the war, and Burundi has lost 78. But the real market of force would come out of Uganda.

This pool of security contractors are also trained to western standards, with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they could be an excellent tool to use for Somalia’s reconstruction plans. But like the article mentioned below, if the gains made by AMISOM are lost, then there really is no chance of PSC’s coming in. We will see how it goes? –Matt

 

Ugandans eye businesses in Somalia
By John Semakula
12th September, 2011
THE business community in Uganda received the news of AMISOM’s recent victory against the al-Shabaab militants in Mogadishu with a smile of hope. ?The community had long wanted to venture into Somalia but the insecurity in the country had hindered it. ?When news emerged that the AU peacekeepers had secured 90% of Mogadishu from the militants, managers of various companies in Uganda started drawing business plans for Somalia.

(more…)

Monday, July 26, 2010

Industry Talk: U.S. Pledges More Support To Battle Somali Rebels

“We have reviewed since Sunday the support that we’re providing to Amisom. We are going to beef that up,” Mr. Crowley said. “We’ve been the major contributor to the Amisom mission. That won’t change.”

The U.S. State Department, under a program known as Africap, provides funding for private contractors to train, outfit, transport and supply African troops in various peacekeeping missions. The State Department’s latest contract, which began in September 2009, provides $1.5 billion to private contractors to outfit Amisom and other troops. 

*****

     This is the part of the article I clued in on.  I imagine ‘beef that up’ equates to more money for the AFRICAP program, and similar programs.  So it will be interesting to see if any new changes come down the pipe.

     If you follow what is going on with Somalia right now, things are happening quickly, that will lead to the reality of more troops from throughout the region joining the AMISOM mission.  My question though is that will these troops be professional enough to do the job, or will they do more harm than good and bring more support to Al Shabab?

     Hopefully with this beefing up process, we also send some folks in there that can assist in organizing and helping along these new troops.  Unfortunately, if what happened to Ethiopia is any clue as to how all this will go down, then these new armies have a lot of work cut out for them. I wish them well though, and I certainly hope they can stick it to the Al Shaboob. –Matt

——————————————————————

U.S. Pledges More Support to Battle Somali Rebels

July 16, 2010

By WILL CONNORS in Kampala, Uganda, and KEITH JOHNSON in Washington

The Obama administration on Thursday said it would bolster its support to the African Union troops providing much of the firepower in Somalia’s battle against al Shabaab, the Somali militant group that has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s deadly blasts in Uganda.

The triple bombing in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, killed 76 people, including one American, gathered in a restaurant and a bar during Sunday’s World Cup soccer final.

Ugandan officials say they believe more than 20 members of Somalia’s al Shabaab militant group entered Uganda several months before the blasts. Ugandan authorities have arrested nine people, all Somalis, in connection with the attack since Monday, according to a Ugandan military official close to the investigation.

Uganda is part of an African Union force that launched an offensive early this month, alongside Somalia’s government, against al Shabaab militants who control large swaths of largely lawless Somalia.

An Al Shabaab leader on Thursday thanked its militants who carried out the weekend attacks and said more such attacks would be carried out in Uganda. “I say to the Ugandan president what has happened in Kampala was only the beginning. We will keep revenging what your soldiers remorselessly did to our people,” Sheik Muktar Abu Zubayr said in an audio message played on Mogadishu radio stations, according to the Associated Press.

(more…)

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Industry Talk: Three Triple Canopy Security Contractors Killed In Green Zone Rocket Attack, Iraq

   Rest in peace to the fallen.  This last couple of weeks has been a bad one for our industry and my heart goes out to the friends and family of the dead.  These deaths are also a reminder of the kind of sacrifice this industry is making in this war.

   As for Iraq, I expect to see more deaths as our industry steps up to fill more security vacuums created by the departure of troops.  The war is entering a very interesting and dangerous phase, and one in which the enemy will certainly try to take advantage.  They will probably step up attacks on the Iraqi government, as well as step up any attacks on places that are in the process of transition.

    What I mean by that is as we hand over more responsibilities to the Iraqis in terms of security, or in terms of occupying key bases, the enemy will do all they can to throw a wrench into that process.  Anything they can do to show how ineffectual the government is, or their inability to protect the citizenry, will be in the play book. They will do all they can to present an image that all the hard work and progress made by the US and it’s partners in Iraq, went out the window as they leave by the thousands. This time period will certainly be a test for Iraq and it’s security forces.

    I suspect that the enemy will also see what they can get away with, with the new security arrangements between the Iraqi forces and whatever ‘civilian forces’ we have left in the country. That means mortar or rocket attacks to test any counter attacks, or they might even take a page from the Afghan playbook and try some ‘suicide assaulter’ attacks at bases and outposts.

     Not to mention the fact that the Iranians will probably have a hand in some of this transitional chaos. It was reported that this is a concern, and I could see those guys gearing up for some Iraq play time as well. Only time will tell. –Matt

——————————————————————

Three U.S. Embassy guards killed in rocket attack in Baghdad’s Green Zone

By Ernesto LondoñoFriday, July 23, 2010

BAGHDAD — A rocket attack in Baghdad’s Green Zone Thursday afternoon killed three guards employed by the U.S. Embassy and wounded 15 people, including two Americans, the embassy said.

Two of the guards killed were Ugandan and one was Peruvian, embassy officials said.

Also Thursday, Iraqi officials disclosed that four detainees linked to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq escaped this week from a prison the United States handed over to Iraqi control last week.

In a statement on the Green Zone attack, the embassy said those killed or wounded worked for a government contractor that protects U.S. facilities in Iraq. Herndon-based Triple Canopy employs the Ugandan and Peruvian guards who work at the embassy.

The statement did not say whether the rocket landed inside the embassy compound. Some of the guards work at outer checkpoints.

The United States has long employed Peruvian guards to protect civilian and military installations in Iraq. In recent months, according to guards, it has begun phasing out Peruvians in favor of Ugandans, who work for less money. Guards from third-country nations earn $450 to $1,000 a month, the guards said.

Insurgents have for years lobbed rockets toward the heavily guarded, sprawling U.S. Embassy compound inside the Green Zone. Such attacks intensified in the spring and summer of 2007 and again in the spring of 2008, and have since occurred sporadically. Most do not result in casualties.

The attack underscored the tenuousness of security a month before the U.S. military is scheduled to declare the nominal end of its combat mission in Iraq and reduce its troop level to 50,000.

Although violence has decreased in the country, attacks occur almost daily, and many Iraqis fear that political violence will intensify in the months ahead as a struggle for power spawned by the inconclusive March 7 parliamentary elections drags on.

(more…)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Africa: Why Can’t Anyone Stop The LRA?

Filed under: Africa — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 4:01 AM

    Apart from friendships with shady dictators, the LRA has gotten pretty good at what it does — massacring and hiding throughout the region. “They’ve developed skills that no military has on Earth,” said Frank Nyakairu, who covered the LRA for 10 years for Uganda’s Daily Monitor and now works for Reuters. LRA fighters are excellent at hiding in and moving quickly across rough terrain, often at night, and few conventional militaries can keep up. The LRA has also honed its ability to forage and loot the supplies it needs, including child soldiers. Few if any similar guerrilla or insurgent groups worldwide have been capturing, brainwashing, and training children for as long as the LRA, and its leaders have refined their brutal techniques to an art form.

    The LRA’s child soldiers have also made offensive operations against the movement extremely difficult because, bluntly put, children are a tactical advantage. Nyakairu covered several ambushes, for example, in which LRA child soldiers posed innocently playing football or bathing naked. As soon as Ugandan forces passed, the children grabbed hidden guns and opened fire.

***** 

   This is a chilling run down on the history of these animals, and how they have gotten away with their murderous exploits.  The quote up top is especially troubling.  In essence, this group of soldiers will do anything to survive. They have had total freedom to develop whatever strategy and tactics they think is necessary, and this child soldier based army is what has evolved.

   I have talked about pseudo-operations recently and this is another area of discussion in which no one has really covered.  Using children for operations, is an unfortunate tactic of some of the most despicable characters out there.  But it is something that needs to be studied, because in a world of non-state actors, there are no rules.  Using children as soldiers is perfectly acceptable to these folks, just as long as they achieve their goals.

   Like the quote up top has stated, the ‘LRA has developed skills that no military has on earth’, and love them or like them, they have survived. They survive in the bush, they move fast, they have learned to live a life on the run, and they deploy their child soldiers like little pseudo operators, and this is working for them.  Highly immoral, but it is working for them.

   Now to answer the question why no one is able to stop them?  There is a simple answer to this question.  There is no political will to do what is necessary.  Everyone cries as to how immoral or terrible the LRA is, but no one has the guts to step in and just kill him.  We are too worried about what these corrupt countries and militaries think in this region, and we continue to throw money at them with the hopes that they will accomplish a task that they are not up to.  Worse yet, if they actually kill or capture Joseph Kony, they will effectively end their anarchy gravy train that the West has loaded up with money.  Kill Joseph, and the AGT is done.

   Nope, if the West actually cared about the people of these regions, they would effectively ignore these governments and militaries, and kill Joseph Kony.  Of course these countries would grumble and whine about threatening their sovereignty, but in the end, the world would be a better place because we actually removed such horrible human. I see no other way, and as this article has explained, the strategy has failed to kill him.  What instead has happened, is the west has stood by and watched a psychotic killer, destroy the lives of thousands of children, as well as kill and maim thousands of people throughout Africa. –Matt

——————————————————————–

Why Can’t Anyone Stop the LRA?

One of the evilest rebel armies in Africa has been kidnapping children and brutally murdering civilians for 20 years despite constant international efforts to wipe it out. Why?

BY MICHAEL WILKERSON | APRIL 19, 2010

In its nearly 20 years of fighting in northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) killed or injured thousands of civilians, abducted scores of children to fill its ranks, and traumatized a whole generation of Ugandans. But in recent years, it was beginning to look as if Uganda’s nightmarish two-decade struggle against the LRA was at last coming to an end. The rebels had mostly been driven out of northern Uganda in 2005 by government troops, and the last LRA attacks on Ugandan soil were in 2006. The terror that once plagued the country’s north was finally fading into memory.

The LRA, however, was not. It was just moving next door — to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR), where the rebels have continued their trademark nastiness, including a DRC rampage between Dec. 14 and 17, 2009, that killed more than 300 people. The massacre, chronicled in a recent Human Rights Watch report, shows that the LRA is still an immense threat to unarmed civilians.

(more…)

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress