Word: djiboutis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...failed state than no state at all. (The U.S. State Department lists the country's government type as "none.") The Bush Administration has long suspected that Somalia's lawlessness has made it fertile ground for terrorists, which is one reason the U.S. has stationed 1,700 troops in nearby Djibouti since 2003. On Jan. 8, a U.S. AC-130 gunship struck a suspected al-Qaeda target in southern Somalia, where the U.S. believes a number of operatives, including three men accused of carrying out the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, have been hiding. On Wednesday...
...military interest for years. Special Operations command has been active in the Horn of Africa with psychological operations and civil projects, such as building water wells and providing veterinary services, in several countries in the region for a number of years. The CENTCOM base in the tiny country of Djibouti - from which the gunship raid was staged - has become an important focus of regional counterterror efforts. Units based there have also played a central role in helping train the Ethiopian army, which last week swept across Somalia and scattered the Islamist militias that had taken control of much...
...President Bush is trying something similar. For much of 2006, Administration officials fretted about Somalia, where some of the ruling Islamists had terrorist ties. Next door in Djibouti, America stations around 1,000 troops. But instead of sending them in, we turned to Ethiopia, Somalia's neighbor and longtime rival. When the Ethiopian military rolled into Mogadishu and sent the Islamists fleeing last week, the Bush Administration kept a low profile, applauding the invasion and thanking its lucky stars that it was Ethiopia that launched...
...about emulating them. Clerics threatened death to those who did not pray five times a day and enforced strict dress codes while Courts leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys declared holy war on Ethiopia, whose eastern parts he claimed belonged to a greater Somalia, along with northeastern Kenya and Djibouti, home to a U.S. base. As TIME reported earlier this year As TIME reported earlier this year, the Courts also sent fighters to Lebanon in the summer to help Hizbollah fight Israel, and in return received weapons from Syria and Iran. The Courts even won backing from Osama bin Laden...
Intelligence and military officers have long urged that more attention be paid to Africa; some believe an enhanced presence would cut the need for "teeth." Centcom has had a small contingent in the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti since 2002, and Centcom commander General John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March that the unit has helped "discredit extremist propaganda and bolster local desires and capabilities to defeat terrorists before they can become entrenched." How? By training local forces, digging wells and building schools--not to mention goodwill...