US navy to fight crime, terror along African coast

Dakar, May 20: The United States is boosting its naval presence along the lawless West African coast to combat terrorism, illegal migration and drug trafficking and to secure US oil interests, senior naval and coastguard officials said.

Amid concerns that weak government controls in some West African states has made the region fertile for drug cartels, people smugglers and Islamist groups, the US Navy command in Europe has focused its activities southward.

''The clear majority of shipping coming into the United States is coming off the coast of West Africa into the Gulf of Mexico,'' Vice-Admiral John Stufflebeem, commander of the US Sixth Fleet based in the Mediterranean, said yesterday.

''So we are interested in this (region) from a security perspective from our own homeland, and in commerce and quite frankly, oil is one part of it,'' he told Reuters.

The Gulf of Guinea, which includes oil producers like Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, is central to US efforts to reduce dependency on West Asian exports.

It currently supplies around 15 per cent of US oil consumption, and that is forecast to rise to 25 per cent by 2015, although resource-hungry China is also looking to corner oil supply from the region, notably in Angola.

To reflect the growing strategic importance of Africa, the US military will launch a separate Africa Command (AFRICOM) in October, to be based in Germany for its first year but likely to move to the continent thereafter.

''One of the things that will make the Africa Command somewhat unique is that there are going to be more US agencies involved,'' said Vice-Admiral Brian Peterman, US Coastguard commander for the Atlantic.

''The State Department will play a big part in it, so will customs and immigration. It will work on not just military issues but all issues of US interests in Africa.''

PIRACY A CONCERN

In a joint naval and coastguard initiative, the two vice-admirals were touring six West African countries Mauritania, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Sao Tome and Gabon to build maritime cooperation ahead of the year-long trial deployment of a US Navy vessel to the region in October.

The amphibious ship, capable of carrying training teams and smaller boats, will act as a mobile base along the coast, in a test of a global naval project dubbed Global Fleet Station to expand the US maritime presence for a reasonably low cost.

The commanders were also encouraging local governments to adopt an electronic tagging system for ships, known as Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), as a cheap means of tracking shipping in their waters aimed at tackling smuggling and piracy.

''When we talk to major corporations like oil companies or insurance companies, there is a growing concern about the safety and security of their enterprises,'' Stufflebeem said, singling out Nigeria, the world's third worst nation for piracy.

''There is a growing intersection of illegal activities that cross over into terrorism. Terrorists are using illegal activities to raise money,'' said Stufflebeem, citing diamond trading in Africa and drug trafficking from South America.

Stufflebeem said the AIS initiative should be complimented with a network of radar stations, such as the 18 million dollar site being built by the US government for Sao Tome. However, he played down speculation of a US naval base on the archipelago: ''We are not looking for a permanent presence.'' With hundreds of illegal West African migrants arriving in Spain's Canary Islands in recent weeks, despite European Union patrols along the coast of Senegal and Mauritania, Stufflebeem said the United States was committed to stemming the tide.

REUTERS

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