The U.S. Extends Its Drone War Deeper Into Africa With Secretive Base

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The U.S. Extends Its Drone War Deeper Into Africa With Secretive Base

February 26th, 2016

Awake Goy

GAROUA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, proclaimed the sign on the concrete and glass terminal building. The designation was something of a misnomer, because only three or four planes land each week in this sleepy outpost in northern Cameroon, near the Nigerian border, all of them domestic flights. The schedule of the flights tends to be unpredictable. The aging jet that had just flown me to Garoua from Douala, for example, had made an unscheduled stop in N’Djamena, the capital of neighboring Chad, so that a government minister could attend a funeral nearby. As a result, the plane had touched down in Garoua five hours late.

But that wasn’t the only unusual thing about this Cameroon Air flight. Inside the cabin I had noticed several young men who were unmistakably U.S. military — close-cropped hair, athletic builds. And as I descended from the plane and set foot on the tarmac into the blast furnace heat, I spotted a curious triumvirate waiting for them: a middle-aged, sunburned white man wearing cargo pants and a green T-shirt, flanked by two U.S. soldiers in camouflage gear.

“You the Navy guy?” the sunburned man asked me.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a journalist.”

The Navy guy, a blond and lanky figure wearing Ray Bans and carrying a daypack, approached Mr. Sunburn and introduced himself. Soon, three other Americans from the plane joined them. They stood talking and joking beside the conveyor belt inside the baggage claim, a decrepit hall with fluorescent lights, dangling electrical wires, and scuffed white walls. Then they carried their backpacks and duffel bags to the parking lot, and drove off in four-wheel-drive vehicles — bound for a secretive new military facility not far away.

Until recently, about the only Westerners to visit Garoua were big-game hunters and safari goers, but now a steady stream of crew-cut Americans has been stepping off these irregular flights from Douala and Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. Clues to what is happening can be found at Garoua’s finest hotel, the Benoue, where fruit bats fly screeching through the sky at dusk and local security agents are usually sprawled in the lobby. The hotel has 100 rooms, air-conditioning units that pump nothing but warm air, and a backyard garden with coconut palms, a cracked swimming pool, chipped ping pong tables, and a terrace where a breakfast buffet — greasy chicken pieces, black beans, and soggy croissants — is served every morning.

In late January, I sat on the hotel terrace and eavesdropped on a stubble-cheeked Englishman who was involved with the American operation in Garoua — a drone base that had opened just a few months earlier, in mid-October, on the other side of the “international” airport. He was engaged in an intense conversation with a young British colleague, and he was agitated. A local employee had taken photos of construction sites at the new base — hangars, tents, and troops — and had posted some of them on the internet. “It was a fucking breach of security,” he sputtered. “He took a photo of the fucking colonel.”

Later that day, I introduced myself to the Englishman as he was draining a Castel beer and chatting in fluent French with the hotel’s female bartender. The Englishman, who didn’t want his name used because he was not supposed to speak with journalists, said he had served five years with a French Foreign Legion parachute regiment in Corsica, then worked as a security contractor for British and American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he was a “one-man operation,” he said, working on logistics and security for the U.S. troops, who numbered about 120 at the time and were increasing with every incoming flight. He had hired 50 Cameroonians to work construction, cook, and do laundry for the Americans, and he was keeping a close eye on them, worried about leaks of information to sympathizers of Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group.

The U.S. Extends Its Drone War Deeper Into Africa With Secretive Base

February 26th, 2016

Awake Goy

GAROUA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, proclaimed the sign on the concrete and glass terminal building. The designation was something of a misnomer, because only three or four planes land each week in this sleepy outpost in northern Cameroon, near the Nigerian border, all of them domestic flights. The schedule of the flights tends to be unpredictable. The aging jet that had just flown me to Garoua from Douala, for example, had made an unscheduled stop in N’Djamena, the capital of neighboring Chad, so that a government minister could attend a funeral nearby. As a result, the plane had touched down in Garoua five hours late.

But that wasn’t the only unusual thing about this Cameroon Air flight. Inside the cabin I had noticed several young men who were unmistakably U.S. military — close-cropped hair, athletic builds. And as I descended from the plane and set foot on the tarmac into the blast furnace heat, I spotted a curious triumvirate waiting for them: a middle-aged, sunburned white man wearing cargo pants and a green T-shirt, flanked by two U.S. soldiers in camouflage gear.

“You the Navy guy?” the sunburned man asked me.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a journalist.”

The Navy guy, a blond and lanky figure wearing Ray Bans and carrying a daypack, approached Mr. Sunburn and introduced himself. Soon, three other Americans from the plane joined them. They stood talking and joking beside the conveyor belt inside the baggage claim, a decrepit hall with fluorescent lights, dangling electrical wires, and scuffed white walls. Then they carried their backpacks and duffel bags to the parking lot, and drove off in four-wheel-drive vehicles — bound for a secretive new military facility not far away.

Until recently, about the only Westerners to visit Garoua were big-game hunters and safari goers, but now a steady stream of crew-cut Americans has been stepping off these irregular flights from Douala and Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. Clues to what is happening can be found at Garoua’s finest hotel, the Benoue, where fruit bats fly screeching through the sky at dusk and local security agents are usually sprawled in the lobby. The hotel has 100 rooms, air-conditioning units that pump nothing but warm air, and a backyard garden with coconut palms, a cracked swimming pool, chipped ping pong tables, and a terrace where a breakfast buffet — greasy chicken pieces, black beans, and soggy croissants — is served every morning.

In late January, I sat on the hotel terrace and eavesdropped on a stubble-cheeked Englishman who was involved with the American operation in Garoua — a drone base that had opened just a few months earlier, in mid-October, on the other side of the “international” airport. He was engaged in an intense conversation with a young British colleague, and he was agitated. A local employee had taken photos of construction sites at the new base — hangars, tents, and troops — and had posted some of them on the internet. “It was a fucking breach of security,” he sputtered. “He took a photo of the fucking colonel.”

Later that day, I introduced myself to the Englishman as he was draining a Castel beer and chatting in fluent French with the hotel’s female bartender. The Englishman, who didn’t want his name used because he was not supposed to speak with journalists, said he had served five years with a French Foreign Legion parachute regiment in Corsica, then worked as a security contractor for British and American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he was a “one-man operation,” he said, working on logistics and security for the U.S. troops, who numbered about 120 at the time and were increasing with every incoming flight. He had hired 50 Cameroonians to work construction, cook, and do laundry for the Americans, and he was keeping a close eye on them, worried about leaks of information to sympathizers of Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group.