Briefing: the pan-Sahel initiative

Abstract

THOSE DENIZENS OF WASHINGTON SOMETIMES DESCRIBED AS STRATEGISTS, policy-wonks and Beltway insiders are, most unusually, developing a keen interest in West Africa. Part of the reason is oil.' Another part is the conviction that Africa is a key new front in the war on terrorism.2 Regarding the latter, the main threat is perceived to exist in the Horn (where Somalia offers an unhealthy mix of lawlessness, Islam and unpleasant memories of an earlier US failure) and East Africa (scene of terrorist attacks on US embassies in 1998 and of attacks on Israeli targets in 2002). Within the US Department of Defense, the Horn of Africa is the fief of Central Command (CENTCOM), the structure headquartered in Tampa, Florida, that covers the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest of Africa, meanwhile, falls under the European Command (EUCOM), whose headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, oversee US military activity in 93 countries involving some 120,000 troops. Hence, it is EUCOM that has responsibility for fighting the war on terrorism in North and West Africa and in the space between, the Sahara desert. Key to this is the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI). PSI first came to public attention in November 2002, when the State Department issued a press release announcing that two officials from the Office of Counterterrorism had visited Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to discuss with officials there a scheme that would be aimed at fighting terrorism, controlling illicit trade and enhancing regional security. Subsequently, little was heard of the scheme until November 2003, when PSI began implementation. Funded by the State Department to the tune of $7.75 million, including $6.5 million in fiscal year 2004 small change in Washington, but a substantial amount for such poor countries as those of the Sahel the heart of PSI consists of training military units from the four partner countries, mostly by soldiers from US Special Forces from EUCOM. Also involved in some aspects of the scheme are US marines, with some logistical work being sub-contracted to the private security company Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE), well known from peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s. It is notable that since PSI got going in 2003, US participants increasingly describe it as a means of actually tracking down suspected or known