This probably won’t make his base very happy — not that they’ll protest too much about it anyway. That’s only for when the other side is in charge — but it does beef up America’s capabilities in executing war on terror. It’s been no secret in the defense industry that President Obama fell in love with the military’s drones and almost immediately accelerated funding and production. Now that includes secret bases to launch anti-terrorism operations. It is the least troubling way to execute war-aims in a time of undeclared wars against non-state entities (terrorists).
The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said.
One of the installations is being established in Ethi o pia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somalia from there.
The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen.
The rapid expansion of the undeclared drone wars is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, even as al-Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan has been weakened by U.S. counterterrorism operations.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.