Stavridis: Cooperation Key in Tackling Piracy Threat

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2012 – Hoping to build on successes over the past year in combating piracy, the top U.S. commander in Europe and other key stakeholders in the fight gathered in London this week to help chart the way forward.

Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, who also serves as the NATO commander, joined leaders from the NATO Maritime Component Command, European Union, shipping security officials and other experts to explore ways to improve their cooperation in tackling this transnational threat.

“We face a significant global problem that has caused extensive and expensive disruptions to the global maritime grid,” Stavridis noted in his blog post on the U.S. European Command website. “In particular, off the Horn of Africa in the northern Indian Ocean, we’ve seen hundreds of pirate attacks and dozens of successful hijackings over the past years.”

He estimated costs to the international community as high as $5 billion to $10 billion per year, noting that hundreds of mariners have been held hostage by pirates for ransom.

“Although the success rate and the numbers of attacks are down this year, we still have seven ships and more than 100 hostages held by Somali pirates on the largely ungoverned east coast of Africa,” the admiral said.

NATO, the European Union and a variety of other nations, including Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Iran and the Gulf States, have come together to help address this problem, he noted. With a fleet that averages 20 to 30 ships, they patrol waters stretching from the Red Sea, past the Gulf of Aden and down into the northern Indian Ocean.

Shared concern about the problem led last week to the first bilateral counter-piracy exercise between the United States and China. Crew from the guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill and other Navy assets joined Chinese People’s Liberation Army sea elements, including the frigate Yi Yang, for training near the Horn of Africa.

The sailors’ focus was on bilateral interoperability in detecting, boarding and searching suspected vessels, as well as the ability of both Chinese and American naval assets to respond to pirated vessels, a USS Winston S. Churchill spokesman reported.

Meanwhile, the shipping industry has implemented best business practices: traveling in convoys, hardening their defenses such as stringing concertina wire along their decks, posting lookouts and hiring private teams, Stavridis reported. They appear to be paying off, he said, recognizing that although many ships with embarked private security teams have been attacked, none has been successfully hijacked.

Participants at this week’s conference, co-hosted by the U.N.-sponsored International Maritime Organization, discussed ways to increase cooperation between shippers and protecting forces and ways to move ashore to pre-empt pirate strikes and disrupt pirates’ bases and logistics systems.

Another focus, Stavridis said, was on building capacity within local coast guards and to applying a comprehensive approach to make piracy less attractive as an occupation.

Missouri Army National Guard supports anti-terror training in Tanzania

By Capt. Michelle Matthews

Missouri National Guard

ARUSHA, Tanzania - The 110th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade  of the Missouri Army National Guard is conducting operations in Arusha, Tanzania, supporting Eastern Accord 2012.

Eastern Accord is a U.S. Army Africa training exercise to help the U.S. and East African participants improve their capability to respond to regional security threats.

Col. William Ward, commander, 110th MEB of Oklahoma City, and Command Sgt. Maj. John Sportsman of Maitland, Mo., are directing U.S. participation during Eastern Accord 2012.

“Our mission here is to conduct an academic program and table top exercise to improve understanding of violent extremism and share best practices to deter violent extremism in Africa,” Ward said. “MOARNG is partnering with Tanzania Peoples Defence Force counterparts to provide command and control for the exercise and help execute and facilitate the table top exercise.”

The 110th MEB coordinated planning for its part in Eastern Accord 2012 for more than a year. By partnering with the Tanzania Peoples Defence Force and other U.S. Army Africa units, Soldiers of the 110th MEB are gaining valuable experience working in a multi-national environment.

“This is a very important exercise for Soldiers of the 110th MEB. We are learning a great deal of information about countering violent extremism and continue to sharpen our skills as facilitators. The culminating table top exercise will allow for our Soldiers to showcase their expertise,” Sportsman said.

Members from the 110th are performing multiple missions during the exercise. Some of their key tasks include Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, Integration, known as RSOI. The group is responsible for coordinating travel to and from the United States and inter-country travel from the seven East African countries represented.

Several 110th MEB Soldiers will remain in Tanzania until Sept.15 to ensure all personnel return safely to their homelands.

The Missouri National Guard has about 1,200 Soldiers and Airmen deployed in supporting various operations throughout the United States and the world.

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.”

Face of Defense: Togolese-born Army NCO Lives His Dream

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Eric Pahon

82nd Combat Aviation Brigade

KHOWST PROVINCE, Afghanistan, June 26, 2012 – Army Sgt. Koku Adzoble joined the U.S. Army to make a better life for himself.

“Back in Africa, I was a teacher in high school,” said Adzoble, who claims Bronx, N.Y., as his stateside home. “When I came here, I was working in a store, and it wasn’t good for me. So, I joined the Army. I saw a way to make a difference in my life, and this is a much better place. That’s why I’m staying in.”

Adzoble emigrated to the U.S. in 2007 from Togo under the U.S. State Department’s visa lottery, which makes up to 55,000 visas available each year to countries with underrepresented populations in the U.S. The program requires applicants to either have a high school education, or two years’ work experience.

Adzoble won one of 3,777 visas offered in Togo. He graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Lomé in 2006 and was teaching high school until he moved to the United States a year later.

“I had a chance,” Adzoble said. “Some countries don’t get that chance [to award U.S. visas], so you play every year you’re eligible, and if you win, you get to come to the United States and get a visa. I was very lucky.”

Adzoble was working as a stock clerk in a New York City department store when a co-worker suggested that he join the U.S. Army.

“I was working for this one guy, and he joined the Army,” Adzoble said. “He left, and when he came back to visit, I listened to what he told me [about the Army]. What he was doing was better than what I had going at the time, so I decided to follow him. He’s the reason I joined.”

In basic training, Adzoble faced difficulty understanding English. He said his drill sergeant wanted to hold him back for additional English language training, but the company commander let him stay on and work toward graduation.

“French is our official language,” Adzoble said. “We went to school and took English as a second language, but no one really takes that seriously. We have two or three hours of English class, but no one pays that much attention to it so they don’t speak English that well.”

Adzoble improved his English skills and graduated with honors as an automated logistical specialist at Fort Lee, Va.

Following a two-year tour in Korea, Adzoble was stationed with Task Force Wolfpack, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, Fort Bragg, N.C., in December 2010. Eleven months later he deployed here to Forward Operating Base Salerno.

Army Sgt. 1st Class James Crews, Adzoble’s supervisor, says an unfailingly-positive attitude has allowed him to become a model soldier.

“He’s a hard worker,” said Crews. “He had some great leadership before he came to me in 2010. He’s one of those guys who goes straight to work when you ask him to do something. He doesn’t ask why; he just does it.”

Adzoble is a supply clerk at the base’s motor pool, keeping track of the parts inventory and monitoring deliveries. His job is critical to keeping the unit’s vehicles on the road, requiring attention to detail and the ability to keep track of dozens of components.

“He’s an encyclopedia,” Crews said of Adzoble. “He’s that type of guy who’ll pretty much look over something once or twice and he’s got it memorized. It comes in very useful. When I’m trying to find a part, I ask him, and he knows what I’m talking about and where to find it right away.”

Adzoble has a wife and a daughter in West Africa. His daughter, he said, is too young to leave Africa right now, but he hopes to establish a permanent home in the United States so his family can join him in a few years. First, he wants to explore the country and find a place he’d like his family to settle.

“I don’t want to bring them, then, the next day we have to move again,” Adzoble said. “It’s not like I don’t enjoy Fort Bragg, but I want to see more of the United States and see if there’s somewhere I might like even more.”

Adzoble hopes to earn a physics degree in the United States.

He re-enlisted for three more years of Army service, and he’s looking to earn a promotion before he leaves Afghanistan.

“He got pinned E-5 [sergeant] in December, and we’re probably going to send him to the E-6 [staff sergeant] promotion board before we leave Afghanistan,” Crews said. “He’s just that type of worker and has that type of leadership style.”

As for his daughter, Adzoble has no plans to push her into following in his footsteps.

“I’ll try my best to guide her on her own way,” he said. “She might want something different. The thing I can do is provide for her and do my best to support her. The one thing I want for her is to succeed and do something better with her life.”