Ham Reports Progress Against al-Shabab in Africa

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

THEBEPHATSHWA AIR BASE  – Calling the elimination of safe havens and support for terrorist groups in Africa his top priority, the commander of U.S. Africa Command reported that U.S. support for Somalia’s military has had a direct impact in degrading the al-Shabab terror organization there.

“The performance of African militaries in Somalia … has been extraordinary,” Army Gen. Carter F. Ham told Soldiers Radio and Television Service reporter Gail McCabe during closing ceremonies for exercise Southern Accord here.

Ham noted the U.S. government role in training and equipping these forces and the impact it has had in increasing the African partners’ counterterrorism capabilities.

“They really have degraded the capability of al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliate operating in Somalia, where most of Somali territory is no longer receptive to al-Shabab,” he said. “They certainly still have some strong points, but are [al-Shabab is] greatly diminished over the last year, because of the role of Africans.”

While holding up Somalia as a positive trend on the continent, Ham acknowledged progress elsewhere remains mixed. He noted Mali, where about two-thirds of the country “is essentially outside the control of the interim government … and is largely controlled by transnational terrorist organizations.”

Ham called the terrorist threat his most pressing challenge. “In fact, I would say it is my highest priority, as the geographic combatant commander, … to protect America, Americans and American interests from threats that emerge from the continent of Africa,” he said. “And at present, the most dangerous of those threats are transnational terrorists.”

Countering this threat is the common denominator that drives Ham’s theater engagement strategy and its broad array of operations, exercises and security cooperation programs. This includes teaching partner nations how to improve their border security, intelligence and tactical capabilities and equipping African nations so they can operate more effectively.

It’s an effort Ham said involves the entire U.S. interagency – the departments of State, Commerce, Treasury and Justice, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other organizations – as they coordinate efforts to help address the underlying causes that create an environment where terrorists can operate.

The president’s recently released policy directive for sub-Saharan Africa recognizes the importance of security in advancing economic development that lays the foundation for democracy, Ham noted.

“The two are interrelated,” he said. “You can’t really have good, strong economic development if there is not security and stability.”

So Africom focuses on helping African partners promote security and stability. “We think it is important that we help African nations develop their own capabilities to provide their own security and also to begin the capability to contribute more expansively to regional security,” Ham said.

U.S. engagements in Africa, such as Southern Accord, are tailored to help partners build capacity and to respect the rule of law, the general said. "What we are really trying to do is help you build security forces that are not only tactically capable, but forces that are genuinely responsive to legitimate civilian control – that operate according to the rule of law and see themselves as servants of that nation,’” he explained. “And we are seeing that over and over again, and we certainly see that here in Botswana.”

Promoting that kind of engagement requires close relationships that are built over time. “It is all about relationships,” Ham said. “It is the ability to talk to a chief of defense or minister of defense and in some cases, heads of state to convey to them what it is that we are trying to do, and make sure they understand that we … don’t want to do anything that they don’t want us to do.”

A true partnership benefits all the participants, Ham said, recognizing the gains both U.S. service members and Botswana Defense Force members received as they worked together during Southern Accord.

Ham said he’s sometimes asked why what the United States needs a combatant command focused on Africa and why what happens in Africa matters to the United States. “I could easily say there are a billion reasons,” he said, recognizing the African continent’s population.

But also citing global economies and the global nature of security challenges, Ham emphasized that “what happens in Africa affects us in the United States.”

“So I think there is a whole host of reasons why America and Americans should care about advancing our interests in Africa,” he said. “And security is one component of an overall U.S. approach.”

Signs of Military Professionalism, Cooperation On Rise in Africa

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 26, 2012 – Dotting the African continent are promising examples of the capable, professional military forces U.S. Africa Command is working to promote.

As Tunisia spawned what became known as the Arab Spring in December 2010, its military opposed then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s order to use force against the pro-democracy protesters who ultimately brought down his regime.

The Ugandan army has become a professional force and plays a key role in advancing regional peace and security, conducting humanitarian operations at home while contributing thousands of troops to counterterrorism and peacekeeping efforts in neighboring Somalia.

Uganda is also among four African nations -- also including South Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- that have come together to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of Africa’s most violent and persistent rebel groups which has brutalized civilians in the region for a quarter-century.

Meanwhile, Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti are contributing forces under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, to help Somalia deal with the al-Shabab terrorist organization that threatens its transitional government.

And in Liberia -- a nation long wracked by civil war and instability -- the military once discredited as the puppet of former president and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor has become a respected organization under the direction of the democratically elected civilian leadership.

Officials at Africom, the United States’ newest combatant command focused on Africa, see these and other developments as a sign of positive trends they’re helping to shape on the continent.

Strengthening the defense capabilities of African countries and encouraging them to work together to confront common security threats and challenges has been a cornerstone of Africom’s work since its standup in 2008.

Africom has been instrumental in supporting other promising developments, Army Maj. Gen. Charles J. Hooper, Africom’s director of strategy, plans and programs, told American Forces Press Service. “We see increasing trends toward democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights,” he said. “And I think Africom has played a very positive role in supporting those trends.”

Hooper pointed to the role U.S. military advisors and mentors have played in rebuilding the Armed Forces of Liberia through a five-year, State-Department funded Africom program known as Operation Onward Liberty. For the past two years, Marine Forces Africa has led the joint Marine-Army-Air Force effort aimed at helping professionalize the Liberian military and ensuring it's able to defend the country’s borders and come to the aid of its neighbors if needed.

“This small training and education mission [is] focused on developing a cohesive Liberian armed force,” said Hooper. “I saw our Operation Onward Liberty mentors assisting them in everything from [establishing] a fair military justice system and teaching the military police to serve, to working in the clinics, all the way to assisting the young soldiers in the Liberian army who volunteered and started an elementary school on their base,” he said.

Particularly encouraging, he said, was the Liberian military’s new focus on internal development. Engineering units, for example, were using their equipment to build roads and rebuild infrastructure ravaged during years of civil war.

Hooper said he was impressed by the Liberian force that has emerged. “What I saw there was a Liberian military that had a renewed faith in itself, a renewed enthusiasm about being a force for good in its country and serving the people,” he said.

Michael Casciaro, Africom’s security cooperation programs division chief, reported similar promise in Uganda, where the command is providing training and equipment to build capability and capacity.

Casciaro said he received favorable feedback about the transformation taking place in the Ugandan military from the unlikeliest of sources: an opposition leader. “What he told us was, ‘I see the difference in Americans operating in my country… I see the impact of Americans working with the Ugandans because now they … go out and do humanitarian things for their own country, and are being used in a different way,’” Casciaro said.

In 2007, Uganda stepped up to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, followed by Burundi; both remain today as the primary troop-contributing nations. “A major objective of ours has been to prepare Africans to go into Somalia to create stability,” Casciaro said. “And [the African militaries] have been instrumental in clearing a prominent terrorist group out of Mogadishu,” a first step toward expanding the effort north to regain control of the country.

Army Brig. Gen. Arnold Gordon-Bray, Africom’s deputy operations director, called the mission in Somalia “one of the best examples of Africans helping themselves that we are involved in.”

The African Union established its African Union Mission to Somalia with a clear vision that a failed Somalia would impact the entire continent, Bray said.

“This collective grouping is epitomizing what Africom is able to do, working with the State Department, working with other international partners, working by, with and through African partners to bring stability,” he said. “It is a great mission. It is symbolic of all the great things we are trying to do.”

A full range of peacekeeping training and instruction falls under the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance, a program funded and managed by the U.S. State Department. It is designed to improve African militaries’ capabilities by providing selected training and equipment required to execute multinational peace support operations. U.S. military trainers play a supporting role, providing mentorship and specialized instruction in areas such as bomb detection or deployment logistics.

Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Africom commander, told Congress earlier this year he’s also encouraged by “an increasingly collaborative approach” among African nations standing together against al-Shabab. As they rallied to Somalia’s aid, the U.S. State Department responded to their requests for help in training and equipping those forces so they would be able to deploy to conduct their operations.

Ham called this effort a model of what U.S. Africa Command is all about: a command able to tap into the full range of U.S. government capabilities to help African nations better provide for their own security.

“And it is starting now to have significant benefit… We are seeing those African forces being more and more successful against al-Shabab each and every day,” he said. “This is one example of how building partner capacity really yields a decisive result in Africa,” he said.

Ham cited similar success in helping Africans in their fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

U.S. Special Forces advisors working with the four nations on the ground “are having a very positive effect,” he told the House Armed Services Committee in February. “We’re assisting in intelligence fusion, in facilitating long-range communications, logistics operations to sustain forces in the field for long periods of time and increased intelligence collection.”

“So I’m optimistic,” he told the House panel. “But I’m not yet to the point where we see the end in sight.”

The result, Ham said, is fulfillment of Africom’s goal of enabling Africans to solve African problems.

“If that is successful -- and I believe the trend line is pretty good right now -- that means that’s an area where the United States would not have to commit sizable forces to address a security situation,” Ham told the House panel. “And that’s really what we’re trying to do. That’s the essence of building partner capability in this collaborative approach with state and defense.”

Africom Commander Details Current, Emerging Threats

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.

American Forces Press Service

ARLINGTON, Va. , June 25, 2012 – U.S. Africa Command’s top military officer today detailed existing and emerging threats from extremist organizations on the continent in a speech at the African Center for Strategic Studies here.

Army Gen. Carter F. Ham also explained the U.S. presence in Africa and Africom initiatives based on the new U.S. defense strategic guidance.

“When you read the [guidance], you will find that the word ‘Africa’ appears precisely once,” he said. “So some question that and say, ‘So does that mean that the United States military does not really think very seriously, or is not very committed, to African security matters?’ My response to that is, ‘No, our view is actually quite different.’”

Ham said while it is true the U.S. military now is focused on the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East, the strategic guidance refers to “some very consistent and very relevant priorities for those of us who operate with our African partners.”

These include combatting extremist organizations, transnational threats and illicit trafficking; countering piracy, building partner capacity; developing nations’ capabilities to deal with humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions; and contributing to regional security, Ham said.

“All of those tasks are outlined in this document, and all of those tasks are the tasks that United States Africom focuses on with you,” he added.

The general told the audience that U.S. efforts in Africa entail an “absolute imperative … to protect America, Americans and American interests,” just as in other parts of the world.

Specifically, Ham said, his command’s seeks to protect the United States and its interests from threats that may emerge from the continent.

“I’ll start in East Africa, where we see very clearly the threat of al-Qaida in East Africa, and its affiliated organization, al-Shabaab, which operates principally, but not exclusively, in Somalia,” he said. “We also know that because -- in Somalia especially -- al-Shabaab’s presence has denied the delivery of … humanitarian assistance to a population that has been under some significant duress for a long period of time,” Ham said.

U.S. military involvement principally is in training, equipping and funding the African Union Mission and Somalian forces from Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Kenya.

“Ethiopia … has been quite effective in its role, as well,” he noted. “And we think that’s an ideal role for the United States -- not a large, U.S. military presence. We think that would be counterproductive in Somalia, actually.”

Rather, he said, the United States wants to apply its resources in Africa to help countries willing to contribute to the effort with training, equipping and with some funding so that they can continue their operations.

Other extremist organizations in Africa, such as al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram, also pose a concern, Ham said, noting that officials are increasingly concerned with the former, which now has a safe haven in a large portion of Mali after a military coup there.

The group is operating “essentially unconstrained,” Ham said, and is implementing a harsh religious law system throughout much of northern Mali. It also has “very clearly” shown a desire and intent to attack Americans, he added.

“Just to the south of that, we see the increasingly violent organization, Boko Haram, operating in Nigeria,” he said. Boko Haram is not a new organization, he told the audience, and it’s not monolithic. “Everybody in Boko Haram doesn’t feel the same way,” Ham said. “It has many different factions.”

Each of the extremist organizations is “worrisome” in its own right, the general said, and there are indications they are seeking to coordinate and synchronize their efforts.

“In other words, [they seek] to establish a cooperative effort amongst the three most violent organizations, and I think that’s a real problem for us, and for Africa’s security, in general,” he said. Al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram may be sharing funds, training and explosive materials, he added.

Libya also is a concern as it comes out of its revolution and forms its new government, Ham said.

“There very truly are those who wish to undermine the formation of that government,” he said. “And again, we see some worrying indicators that al-Qaida and others are seeking to establish a presence in Libya.”

Part of Libya’s challenge, he said, is for the new government to now bring together the many militias which fought “very bravely and effectively” to overthrow Gadhafi.

Ham said the United States seeks to help by establishing a “normalized” military-to-military relationship with Libya.

“I’ve been to Tripoli a number of times,” he added. “We’ve had Libyan officials visit us in our headquarters in Germany, and we have started to map out what the U.S. assistance might be for Libya well into the future.”

U.S. Support Aids Hunt for Central African Rebel Group

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 22, 2012 – The U.S. military is just one part of a larger, multinational effort to help four African partner nations bring rebel leader Joseph Kony and senior members of his brutal Lord’s Resistance Army to justice, said Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.

Kony and his followers, many of them reported to be kidnapped children, have for years conducted a reign of terror marked by thousands of deaths, abductions, maiming and rape across several nations in central Africa. But they gained worldwide notoriety earlier this year when a YouTube video about Kony went viral.

The United States’ focus on this problem, however, is not new, Africom officials explained.

Since the 1990s, the United States has provided Uganda humanitarian and security assistance and supported reconciliation efforts in support of Uganda’s efforts to curtail the LRA’s brutalities against civilian populations.

President Barack Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law in May 2010, affirming U.S. commitment to partners in the region to put an end to LRA atrocities. Since then, the United States has pursued a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy to help the governments and people of the region in their efforts to end the threat posed by the rebel group.

Last fall, the president increased this effort by ordering 100 special operations forces to the region, where they operate from a joint operations center in Uganda and four remote outposts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Ham emphasized that the U.S. military has no direct operational role. Instead of conducting the manhunt themselves, U.S. troops are providing information- and intelligence-sharing, logistics, communications and other enabling capabilities for host-nation troops pursuing Kony in Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Republic of the Congo.

“Our effort … is very much a supporting role to try to encourage the militaries of the four African countries that are involved, who lead their effort,” he said.

This approach, Ham explained, is consistent with Africom’s overall strategy and priorities. “The two overarching principles for us here at U.S. Africa Command are, one, simply, a safe, stable, secure Africa is in the best interest of not only the African countries, but of the United States as well,” he said. “And certainly the … effort to bring Kony to justice fits into that ... priority.”

The approach also reinforces one of Africom’s underlying principles, espoused by Obama during his visit to Ghana in 2009, in that, “in the long run, Africans are best suited to address African security problems,” the general said.

Ham recognized the challenges the Africans face in finding Kony and the LRA, who operate across a large ungoverned area and conceal their movements and limit their communications.

“It’s a large geographic area, heavily forested, very remote, [with a] lack of infrastructure, very few roads and bridges. It’s very rough terrain, and so it doesn’t lend itself to an easy solution,” he said.

Complicating the effort, he said, is the fact that the LRA’s members, estimated at about 200 in number, never congregate and operate in “very, very small groups.”

Ham reported signs of progress regarding the collective military efforts against the LRA.

“There are indications that the organization is increasingly in a survivalist mode; that they are moving frequently, that they are focused more on self-preservation than they are on extending their influence… into the small towns and villages across the region,” he said.

Ham expressed concern, however, that a desperate LRA might attempt a spectacular attack to weaken the collective will of the Africans confronting them.

“It’s a very real concern, and one we have to watch carefully,” he said.

However, Ham said he has seen increased commitment and cooperation in recent months between the Africans and expressed confidence that they ultimately will succeed in capturing Kony.

“I’m confident in the abilities of the four African countries: the level of commitment that I’ve seen from their senior officials, mostly from heads of state, certainly from ministers of interior and defense and chief of staff; the level of commitment I see from the African Union; the level of commitment from my president and from our government,” he said. “I am confident this mission will be successful.”

Ham offered a reminder about why that success matters for the United States.

“Why does America care about this part of Africa?” he said. “Because we have a great interest in regional stability and regional security. We feel…, as Americans, that our security is enhanced when other parts of the world are stable and secure as well.”