The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, U.S. military officials said.
The Air Force has invested millions of dollars to upgrade an airfield in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where it has built a small annex to house a fleet of drones that can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. The Reapers began flying missions earlier this year over neighboring Somalia, where the United States and its allies in the region have been targeting al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda...
The Washington Post reported last month that the Obama administration is building a constellation of secret drone bases in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, including one site in Ethiopia. The location of the Ethiopian base and the fact that it became operational this year, however, have not been previously disclosed. Some bases in the region also have been used to carry out operations against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
The Air Force confirmed Thursday that drone operations are underway at the Arba Minch airport...U.S. military personnel and contractors have become increasingly visible in recent months in Arba Minch, a city of about 70,000 people in southern Ethiopia...
The MQ-9 Reaper, known as a “hunter killer,” is manufactured by General Atomics and is an advanced version of the Predator, the most common armed drone in the Air Force’s fleet.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Now, U.S. Drone Base in Ethiopia!
The wars expand and expand. WaPo reports:
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Coming to a sky near you! (See here and here.)
ReplyDeleteSpreading more love and cheer....
ReplyDeleteDon't drone me, bro.
ReplyDeleteBob, how can we allow the prez to murder anyone on the planet at a whim if we don't have conveniently located bases worldwide?
ReplyDeleteJeez, some people...
@Richie,
ReplyDeleteLOL! (as creepy and as serious as the subject is).
That is the gem of the day IMO....
They do this, they will keep on doing this and they will make further incremental attacks on civil liberties because there is no pushback from the brain-dead public, 95% of whom don't even know where Ethiopia (or Africa) are located.
ReplyDeleteAnd here’s some more intelligent analysis sure to appeal to those brilliant red-stater Republican primary voters:
ReplyDeleteJohn Boehner says the military has been cut enough ($350 billion in cuts spread over 10 years!!! The horror).
http://tinyurl.com/3c4udgh
We’re doomed.
Yet they still can't seem to get rid of the keylogger virus that has infected these drones...
ReplyDeleteThere are some lessons for Drone warriors from the Norden bomb sight.
ReplyDelete