Fitness tracking Strava App reveals outlines of secret US bases (because people jog around the perimeter) around the world and as well as potentially sensitive information about military personnel on active duty.
Here’s what US Forward Operating Base Camp Simba in Lamu County, Kenya looks like.
The long vertical line in red is Camp Simba’s runway recently expanded to accommodate Hercules C-130 transport planes.
(Don’t yet see signs of Al-Shabaab – KDF running around circles in the nearby Boni forest)
A U.S. Navy SEALs unit, of the same special category that killed Osama bin Laden, has rescued an American and a Dane from pirates who captured them three months ago in Somalia. The Danish Refugee Council said the two were flown to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, where doctors said they are in reasonably good health. The American remains in hospital for observation, but both plan to reunite soon with their families.
Navy Seals photographed during a drill at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on October 25, 2010. (John Scorza / U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
In a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday the 25th (early evening Tuesday, U.S. East Coast time), members of the highly-elite SEAL Team Six parachuted into an area near the pirates’ inland nest far from the coastal region around the town of Galkayo—a disputed, outlaw stronghold that’s earned the name “kidnap central.” Jessica Buchanan, 32, a former fourth grade teacher from Virginia, and Poul Thisted, 60, of Denmark, both employees of the Danish Demining Group (DDG), were abducted there in October. Pirates holding the pair had demanded a ransom of $10 million.
A Djibouti-based U.S. anti-terrorist unit, Joint Special Operations Command Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) launched the raid from Galkayo’s airport, near where the aid workers had been abducted. CJTF-HOA includes forces from the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
According to Somalia Report, a Nairobi-based online news service, 11 to 12 aircraft arrived at that airport right about midnight Tuesday, local time. U.S. Special Operations forces secured the airport, with plans to launch the raid between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. local time. Residents near the site of the attack reported that around 3:30 a.m, U.S. helicopters began engaging the pirates in a gun battle.
U.S. commandos captured six pirates and killed nine others, among them a pirate called Osman Alcohol, though a leading pirate commander was not counted among the dead or captured. No U.S. casualties have been reported.
Circumstances leading to the raid and rescue remain in debate. Danish government officials told Somalia Report that the timing had to do with an illness Ms. Buchanan was suffering, which doctors said they had to treat. Other sources suggest the raid was planned when the pirates moved the hostages and presented an opportunity.
Local sources told Somalia Report that the pirates initially moved the hostages offshore to a ship, the MV Albedo—a Malaysian tanker another group of pirates had seized. The vessel was already holding the two female Spanish aid workers with Medicin Sans Frontiers who Al Shabab reportedly had admitted to kidnapping from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, in November, 2011, and sold on to pirates. In addition, the pirates held hostage the ship’s crew of 23.
The reason for moving the hostages, Somalia Report said, was the pirates’ fear of airstrikes by the Kenya Defense Force. They were wary of crossfire in the ongoing war between democratic and predominantly Christian Kenya and Al Shabab, sparked by cross-border kidnappings late last year.
Obama has confirmed that he personally authorized the Galkayo mission.
Venetia Archer, an Australian formerly with the maritime intelligence division at the British Aegis Defense Services, suggests other motives: That the pirates wanted to put the abductees in a confined area, like a ship, to make it easier to secure them, and hold the DDG workers—plus the two Spanish refugee aid workers and the ship’s crew—for possible use as a human shield, in the event of a U.S. forces operation. Whatever the reason for the move to the ship, the situation changed fast. The hostages had been onboard for over a week when the abductors moved them back to land—to Iidoole village, about 19 miles from the Cacaado region.
Over the course of several days, residents ashore watched the shuttling of the two DDG hostages from the Albedo, and had relayed the information to U.S. military forces in Djibouti.
A spokesman for the autonomous region of Himaam, where Cadaado is located, welcomed the rescue operation. “We are very happy about this incident, because the pirates are the ones causing the insecurity in our region,” Mohamed Omar told Somalia Report.
Since maritime security has improved in commercial shipping lanes, pirates have begun shifting their focus to land abductions, and focusing on aid workers. Foreigners have been yielding big ransoms, making Somalia one of the most dangerous places in the world for international aid workers.
According to The New York Times, by early 2011 more than 50 vessels and at least 819 people were believed to be held hostage at sea.
Today, according to Eco-Terra, a maritime monitoring group, 44 vessels and 418 crew remain in hands of sea pirates. Judith Tebbutt, the British tourist kidnapped in neighboring Kenya last fall, is still on land in Harardhere, a pirate’s nest north of Mogadishu.
After the painful memories of Black Hawk Down in 1993 and the Quest yacht disaster in 2010, when pirates, on seeing the U.S. Navy bearing down on them, shot all four American citizens on board, any land intervention seemed out of question. But this successful raid and rescue could be a harbinger of a change.
In his State of the Union message Tuesday, President Obama praised Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, telling him, “Good job tonight.” Obama has since confirmed that he personally authorized the Galkayo mission. Its success, he said, sent another message to the world “that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.”
Just last Saturday, pirates operating near Galkayo grabbed a young American writer, who recently had arrived in Somalia to do research for a book—about piracy—on the very road pirates had snatched Buchanan and Thisted. Piracy experts fear that he may not be as lucky as the aid workers: The same clan that seized Moore also had captured DDG hostages, and experts fear they make seek revenge.
Author’s note: A U.S. official has stated that no Somalis had been captured in the course of the raid and rescue.
Margot Kiser is a Kenya-based American correspondent covering piracy, geopolitics, and wildlife conservation in East Africa. She is currently at work on a memoir of her life as a safari wife in post-socialist Tanzania, where she established a wildlife-conservation area at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Most Sundays I join friends for “prayers” at the local fabled watering hole that feels more like a club both in decor and exclusivity.
This Equatorial club must endure the odd out of sorts tourist who flushes through, their khakis and Tevas and dazed expressions are evidence that they flew in straight from a safari in the Mara. They appear impervious to the Beach Boys psychotic drug-induced rants over at the grassy knoll desiginated for Beach Boys. Their mind boggles — I hear this in New York city all the time. But in Lamu?
The other kind of semi-tourists are the U.S. Navy boys based near Magagoni or the so-called Manda Bay military base near the future Lamu port site. I had heard that these young bucks frequented this bar for their weekend R&R, but for all the Sundays I had genuflected over Young Pals, I had yet to lay eyes on any of them. I had assumed that they were more or less hard to detect for their stealth-like discretion. Maybe they were wandering around pretending to look like ultra-clean shaven backpackers.
Last Sunday, I got more than I bargained for — not only were they obvious by their mid-Western accents, large high-tech water proof Army issue watches and Oakley shades, they were shirtless, exposing bellicose tats, ploughed and talking to anyone who would listen. I bailed on my usual pew partners, when the boys invited me on an afternoon dhow ride replete with a fresh red snapper lunch.
But forget the fish (or indeed the young officer young enough to be my son, but who had made a pass at me all the same); I was infinitely more intrigued by the can of DORITOS that was being passed around. COOL RANCH, no less. Out of sight, out of mind, indeed. Never knew how much I missed them – the Doritos.
— “Mark” from Mississippi, all of 23, proudly confirmed that all food served on the base – even Christmas turkeys – is transported directly from the U.S. to prevent potential food poisoning by the likes of Al Qaeda or indeed by poor local Swahili fisherman. Mark had relayed this as if this action were a clever (if arguably paranoid) preemptive strike on part of the US military. Never mind that the Doritos themselves have enough poison in the form of preservatives to kill an Al Qaeda training battalion.
In the space of an hour, our lovely old Mozambique dhow morphed into a sailing college dorm party; people kept walking on a pair of broken Oakleys and an Iphone, straining with the tinny sounds of heavy metal music; we slipped on chapitis and grilled snapper by then creamed to a paste on the wooden floor of the dhow.
I thought I had lost my appetite when I noted that a spilled can oozing a slimy cocktail of tobacco chew and Tusker beer. While the boys (and some girls) were swilling down the Vodka and Tuskers then diving off the dhow, I remained on board devouring every last Dorito, though not before slowly licking the ranch salad dressing flavor off each side.
You can take the American out of the poison, but you can’t take the poison out of an American. Give me Junk food poison or give me death!
