Secret US Military Documents Reveal a Constellation of American Military
Bases Across Africa
Thursday, April 27, 2017
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch | News Analysis
Senegalese Armed Forces soldiers attack an objective at a live fire range
near Thies, Senegal, February 11, 2015. (Photo: US Army Africa)
military's footprint on the continent will continue to evolve, expand and
enlarge in the years ahead. (Photo: US Army Africa)
General Thomas Waldhauser sounded a little uneasy. "I would just say, they
are on the ground. They are trying to influence the action," commented the
chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) at a Pentagon press briefing in
March, when asked about Russian military personnel operating in North
Africa. "We watch what they do with great concern."
And Russians aren't the only foreigners on Waldhauser's mind. He's also
wary of a Chinese "military base" being built not far from Camp Lemonnier, a
large U.S. facility in the tiny, sun-blasted nation of Djibouti. "They've
never had an overseas base, and we've never had a base of... a peer
competitor as close as this one happens to be," he said. "There are some
very significant... operational security concerns."
At that press conference, Waldhauser mentioned still another base, an
American one exposed by the Washington Post last October in an article
titled, "U.S. has secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to
North Africa." Five months later, the AFRICOM commander still sounded
aggrieved. "The Washington Post story that said 'flying from a secret base
in Tunisia.' It's not a secret base and it's not our base... We have no
intention of establishing a base there."
Waldhauser's insistence that the U.S. had no base in Tunisia relied on a
technicality, since that foreign airfield clearly functions as an American
outpost. For years, AFRICOM has peddled the fiction that Djibouti is the
site of its only "base" in Africa. "We continue to maintain one forward
operating site on the continent, Camp Lemonnier," reads the command's 2017
posture statement. Spokespeople for the command regularly maintain that any
other U.S. outposts are few and transitory -- "expeditionary" in military
parlance.
While the U.S. maintains a vast empire of military installations around the
world, with huge -- and hard to miss -- complexes throughout Europe and
Asia, bases in Africa have been far better hidden. And if you listened only
to AFRICOM officials, you might even assume that the U.S. military's
footprint in Africa will soon be eclipsed by that of the Chinese or the
Russians.
Highly classified internal AFRICOM files offer a radically different
picture. A set of previously secret documents, obtained by TomDispatch via
the Freedom of Information Act, offers clear evidence of a remarkable,
far-ranging, and expanding network of outposts strung across the continent.
In official plans for operations in 2015 that were drafted and issued the
year before, Africa Command lists 36 U.S. outposts scattered across 24
African countries. These include low-profile locations -- from Kenya to
South Sudan to a shadowy Libyan airfield -- that have never previously been
mentioned in published reports. Today, according to an AFRICOM
spokesperson, the number of these sites has actually swelled to 46,
including "15 enduring locations." The newly disclosed numbers and redacted
documents contradict more than a decade's worth of dissembling by U.S.
Africa Command and shed new light on a constellation of bases integral to
expanding U.S. military operations on the African continent and in the
Middle East.
A map of U.S. military bases -- forward operating sites, cooperative
security locations, and contingency locations -- across the African
continent in 2014 from declassified AFRICOM planning documents. (Credit:
Nick Turse / TomDispatch)
A map of US military bases -- forward operating sites, cooperative security
locations, and contingency locations -- across the African continent in 2014
from declassified AFRICOM planning documents. (Credit: Nick Turse /
TomDispatch)
A Constellation of Bases
AFRICOM failed to respond to repeated requests for further information about
the 46 bases, outposts, and staging areas currently dotting the continent.
Nonetheless, the newly disclosed 2015 plans offer unique insights into the
wide-ranging network of outposts, a constellation of bases that already
provided the U.S. military with unprecedented continental reach.
Those documents divide U.S. bases into three categories: forward operating
sites (FOSes), cooperative security locations (CSLs), and contingency
locations (CLs). "In total, [the fiscal year 20]15 proposed posture will be
2 FOSes, 10 CSLs, and 22 CLs" state the documents. By spring 2015, the
number of CSLs had already increased to 11, according to then-AFRICOM chief
General David Rodriguez, in order to allow U.S. crisis-response forces to
reach potential hot spots in West Africa. An appendix to the plan, also
obtained by TomDispatch, actually lists 23 CLs, not 22. Another appendix
mentions one additional contingency location.
These outposts -- of which forward operating sites are the most permanent
and contingency locations the least so -- form the backbone of U.S. military
operations on the continent and have been expanding at a rapid rate,
particularly since the September 2012 attack on the U.S. Mission in
Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans. The plans also indicate that the U.S. military
regularly juggles locations, shuttering sites and opening others, while
upgrading contingency locations to cooperative security locations in
response to changing conditions like, according to the documents, "increased
threats emanating from the East, North-West, and Central regions" of the
continent.
AFRICOM's 2017 posture statement notes, for example, a recent round of
changes to the command's inventory of posts. The document explains that the
U.S. military "closed five contingency locations and designated seven new
contingency locations on the continent due to shifting requirements and
identified gaps in our ability to counter threats and support ongoing
operations." Today, according to AFRICOM spokesman Chuck Prichard, the
total number of sites has jumped from the 36 cited in the 2015 plans to 46
-- a network now consisting of two forward operating sites, 13 cooperative
security locations, and 31 contingency locations.
Location, Location, Location
AFRICOM's sprawling network of bases is crucial to its continent-wide
strategy of training the militaries of African proxies and allies and
conducting a multi-front campaign aimed at combating a disparate and
spreading collection of terror groups. The command's major areas of effort
involve: a shadow war against the militant group al-Shabaab in Somalia (a
long-term campaign, ratcheting up in the Trump era, with no end in sight);
attempts to contain the endless fallout from the 2011 U.S. and allied
military intervention that ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi (a
long-term effort with no end in sight); the neutralizing of "violent
extremist organizations" across northwest Africa, the lands of the Sahel and
Maghreb (a long-term effort with no end in sight); the degradation of the
Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin nations of
Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad (a long-term effort -- to the tune of
$156 million last year alone in support of regional proxies there -- with no
end in sight); countering piracy in the Gulf of Guinea (a long-term effort
with no end in sight), and winding down the wildly expensive effort to
eliminate Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord's Resistance Army in Central
Africa (both live on, despite a long-term U.S. effort).
The U.S. military's multiplying outposts are also likely to prove vital to
the Trump administration's expanding wars in the Middle East. African bases
have long been essential, for instance, to Washington's ongoing shadow war
in Yemen, which has seen a significant increase in drone strikes under the
Trump administration. They have also been integral to operations against
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where a substantial (and deadly) uptick
in U.S. airpower (and civilian casualties) has been evident in recent
months.
In 2015, AFRICOM spokesman Anthony Falvo noted that the command's "strategic
posture and presence are premised on the concept of a tailored, flexible,
light footprint that leverages and supports the posture and presence of
partners and is supported by expeditionary infrastructure." The declassified
secret documents explicitly state that America's network of African bases is
neither insignificant nor provisional. "USAFRICOM's posture requires a
network of enduring and non-enduring locations across the continent," say
the 2015 plans. "A developed network of FOSes, CSLs, and non-enduring CLs
in key countries... is necessary to support the command's operations and
engagements."
According to the files, AFRICOM's two forward operating sites are Djibouti's
Camp Lemonnier and a base on the United Kingdom's Ascension Island off the
west coast of Africa. Described as "enduring locations" with a sustained
troop presence and "U.S.-owned real property," they serve as hubs for
staging missions across the continent and for supplying the growing network
of outposts there.
Lemonnier, the crown jewel of America's African bases, has expanded from 88
acres to about 600 acres since 2002, and in those years, the number of
personnel there has increased exponentially as well. "Camp Lemonnier serves
as a hub for multiple operations and security cooperation activities," reads
AFRICOM's 2017 posture statement. "This base is essential to U.S. efforts
in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula." Indeed, the formerly secret
documents note that the base supports "U.S operations in Somalia CT
[counterterrorism], Yemen CT, Gulf of Aden (counter-piracy), and a wide
range of Security Assistance activities and programs throughout the region."
In 2015, when he announced the increase in cooperative security locations,
then-AFRICOM chief David Rodriguez mentioned Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon as
staging areas for the command's rapid reaction forces. Last June, outgoing
U.S. Army Africa commander Major General Darryl Williams drew attention to a
CSL in Uganda and one being set up in Botswana, adding, "We have very
austere, lean, lily pads, if you will, all over Africa now."
CSL Entebbe in Uganda has, for example, long been an important air base for
American forces in Africa, serving as a hub for surveillance aircraft. It
also proved integral to Operation Oaken Steel, the July 2016 rapid
deployment of troops to the U.S. Embassy in Juba, South Sudan, as that
failed state (and failed U.S. nation-building effort) sank into yet more
violence.
Libreville, Gabon, is listed in the documents as a "proposed CSL," but was
actually used in 2014 and 2015 as a key base for Operation Echo Casemate,
the joint U.S.-French-African military response to unrest in the Central
African Republic.
AFRICOM's 2015 plan also lists cooperative security locations in Accra,
Ghana; Gaborone, Botswana; Dakar, Senegal; Douala, Cameroon; Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso; and Mombasa, Kenya. While officially defined by the military
as temporary locales capable of being scaled up for larger operations, any
of these CSLs in Africa "may also function as a major logistics hub,"
according to the documents.
Contingency Plans
The formerly secret AFRICOM files note that the command has designated five
contingency locations as "semi-permanent," 13 as "temporary," and four as
"initial." These include a number of sites that have never previously been
disclosed, including outposts in several countries that were actually at war
when the documents were created. Listed among the CLs, for instance, is one
in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, already in the midst of an ongoing
civil war in 2014; one in Bangui, the capital of the periodically unstable
Central African Republic; and another in Al-Wigh, a Saharan airfield in
southern Libya located near that country's borders with Niger, Chad, and
Algeria.
Officially classified as "non-enduring" locations, CLs are nonetheless among
the most integral sites for U.S. operations on the continent. Today,
according to AFRICOM's Prichard, the 31 contingency locations provide
"access to support partners, counter threats, and protect U.S. interests in
East, North, and West Africa."
AFRICOM did not provide the specific locations of the current crop of CLs,
stating only that they "strive to increase access in crucial areas." The
2015 plans, however, provide ample detail on the areas that were most
important to the command at that time. One such site is Camp Simba in Manda
Bay, Kenya, also mentioned in a 2013 internal Pentagon study on secret drone
operations in Somalia and Yemen. At least two manned surveillance aircraft
were based there at the time.
Chabelley Airfield in Djibouti is also mentioned in AFRICOM's 2015 plan.
Once a spartan French Foreign Legion post, it has undergone substantial
expansion in recent years as U.S. drone operations in that country were
moved from Camp Lemonnier to this more remote location. It soon became a
regional hub for unmanned aircraft not just for Africa but also for the
Middle East. By the beginning of October 2015, for example, drones flown
from Chabelley had already logged more than 24,000 hours of intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance missions and were also, according to the
Air Force, "responsible for the neutralization of 69 enemy fighters,
including five high-valued individuals" in the war against the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria.
AFRICOM's inventory of CLs also includes sites in Nzara, South Sudan; Arlit,
Niger; both Bamako and Gao, Mali; Kasenyi, Uganda; Victoria, the capital of
the Seychelles; Monrovia, Liberia; Ouassa and Nema, Mauritania; Faya
Largeau, Chad; Bujumbura, Burundi; Lakipia, the site of a Kenyan Air Force
base; and another Kenyan airfield at Wajir that was upgraded and expanded by
the U.S. Navy earlier in this decade, as well as an outpost in Arba Minch,
Ethiopia, that was reportedly shuttered in 2015 after nearly five years of
operation.
A longtime contingency location in Niamey, the capital of Niger, has seen
marked growth in recent years as has a more remote location, a Nigerien
military base at Agadez, listed among the "proposed" CSLs in the AFRICOM
documents. The U.S. is, in fact, pouring $100 million into building up the
base, according to a 2016 investigation by the Intercept. N'Djamena, Chad,
the site of yet another "proposed CSL," has actually been used by the U.S.
military for years. Troops and a drone were dispatched there in 2014 to aid
in operations against Boko Haram and "base camp facilities" were constructed
there, too.
The list of proposed CLs also includes sites in Berbera, a town in the
self-declared Republic of Somaliland, and in Mogadishu, the capital of
neighboring Somalia (another locale used by American troops for years), as
well as the towns of Baidoa and Bosaso. These or other outposts are likely
to play increasingly important roles as the Trump administration ramps up
its military activities in Somalia, the long-failed state that saw 18 U.S.
personnel killed in the disastrous "Black Hawk Down" mission of 1993. Last
month, for instance, President Trump relaxed rules aimed at preventing
civilian casualties when the U.S. conducts drone strikes and commando raids
in that country and so laid the foundation for a future escalation of the
war against al-Shabaab there. This month, AFRICOM confirmed that dozens of
soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division, a storied light infantry
unit, would be deployed to that same country in order to train local forces
to, as a spokesperson put it, "better fight" al-Shabaab.
Many other sites previously identified as U.S. outposts or staging areas are
not listed in AFRICOM's 2015 plans, such as bases in Djema, Sam Ouandja, and
Obo in the Central African Republic that were revealed, in recent years, by
the Washington Post. Also missing is a newer drone base in Garoua,
Cameroon, not to mention that Tunisian air base where the U.S. has been
flying drones, according to AFRICOM's Waldhauser, "for quite some time."
Some bases may have been shuttered, while others may not yet have been put
in service when the documents were produced. Ultimately, the reasons that
these and many other previously identified bases are not included in the
redacted secret files are unclear due to AFRICOM's refusal to offer comment,
clarification, or additional information on the locations of its bases.
Base Desires
"Just as the U.S. pursues strategic interests in Africa, international
competitors, including China and Russia, are doing the same," laments
AFRICOM in its 2017 posture statement. "We continue to see international
competitors engage with African partners in a manner contrary to the
international norms of transparency."
Since it was established as an independent command in 2008, however, AFRICOM
itself has been anything but transparent about its activities on the
continent. The command's physical footprint may, in fact, have been its
most jealously guarded secret. Today, thanks to AFRICOM's own internal
documents, that secret is out and with AFRICOM's admission that it currently
maintains "15 enduring locations," the long-peddled fiction of a combatant
command with just one base in its area of operations has been laid to rest.
"Because of the size of Africa, because of the time and space and the
distances, when it comes to special crisis-response-type activities, we need
access in various places on the continent," said AFRICOM chief Waldhauser
during his March press conference. These "various places" have also been
integral to escalating American shadow wars, including a full-scale air
campaign against the Islamic State in Libya, dubbed Operation Odyssey
Lightning, which ended late last year, and ongoing intelligence-gathering
missions and a continued U.S. troop presence in that country; drone
assassinations and increased troop deployments in Somalia to counter
al-Shabaab; and increasing engagement in a proxy war against Boko Haram
militants in the Lake Chad region of Central Africa. For these and many
more barely noticed U.S. military missions, America's sprawling,
ever-expanding network of bases provides the crucial infrastructure for
cross-continental combat by U.S. and allied forces, a low-profile support
system for war-making in Africa and beyond.
Without its wide-ranging constellation of bases, it would be nearly
impossible for the U.S. to carry out ceaseless low-profile military
activities across the continent. As a result, AFRICOM continues to prefer
shadows to sunlight. While the command provided figures on the total number
of U.S. military bases, outposts, and staging areas in Africa, its
spokespeople failed to respond to repeated requests to provide locations for
any of the 46 current sites. While the whereabouts of the new outposts may
still be secret, there's little doubt as to the trajectory of America's
African footprint, which has increased by 10 locations -- a 28% jump -- in
just over two years.
America's "enduring" African bases "give the United States options in the
event of crisis and enable partner capacity building," according to
AFRICOM's Chuck Prichard. They have also played a vital role in conflicts
from Yemen to Iraq, Nigeria to Somalia. With the Trump administration
escalating its wars in Africa and the Middle East, and the potential for
more crises -- from catastrophic famines to spreading wars -- on the
horizon, there's every reason to believe the U.S. military's footprint on
the continent will continue to evolve, expand, and enlarge in the years
ahead, outpost by outpost and base by base.