“The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, US officials said,” reports the Washington Post. The paper goes on to outline how the US is establishing drone bases in Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula and reactivating a base in the Seychelles to complement existing facilities in Djibouti, creating a ring of drone bases around the region.

This new initiative to put unmanned, heavily-armed drones in the sky is aimed squarely at al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It’s a troubling development for a region that’s endured more than its fair share of violence and instability, but a strong indication that the United States – perhaps slightly bored after disengaging from Iraq and preparing for withdrawal from Afghanistan – is focusing its attention on the threats posed by the militant Islamist groups, otherwise known as terrorist organisations.

The United States has used drones with increasing frequency over the last few years, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, but most prevalently in Pakistan. They’re a usual sight in the badlands of the Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier province; the automated predators go after al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects, dropping their precision-guided munitions from a vast height at the touch of a button from some uniformed controller sitting comfortable in a military base somewhere in Nevada. They don’t always hit the intended target. According to Pakistani newspaper The News, 270 such attacks have been carried out on Pakistan soil since 2005, a massive aerial bombardment campaign condoned by no UN resolution.  It’s hard to measure their exact impact because of the frequency of the attacks and their clandestine nature, with estimates of the bodycount ranging from hundreds to thousands. But most analysts are agreed that a significant percentage of these deaths are civilians. The Pakistani Ministry of Human Rights is in the process of reporting the issue to the UN, and describes the drone attacks as increasingly resembling extra-judicial killings. The UN itself has been critical of their deployment, saying they undermine international human rights, and cause hundreds of civilian casualties.

But drones make good sense from a military perspective, allowing the US to launch bombing raids on targets in absolute safety; the most severe possible injury their personnel can sustain is a stubbed toe in the control room. Interestingly, the unmanned bombers don’t fall under the auspices of the US Air Force but rather are controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency. This makes sense given that drones are completely useless without good intelligence of where exactly potential targets are, but also means the drone program is shrouded in secrecy and almost completely unaccountable.

While US bases in the Seychelles and Djibouti are nothing knew, a base in Ethiopia has the potential to severely disrupt the politics of the Horn of Africa. An Ethiopian base would allow the US to attack not only Somalia but also surrounding countries such as Sudan and Chad, while at the same time legitimising the oppressive government of President Meles Zenawi.

It’s early days yet, of course; the bases haven’t been built yet, and the drones aren’t flying. But when they do, they’ll change the way that war is waged in Africa, and be a potent extension of US military power into the heart of the continent. And they’ll kill, the guilty and the innocent alike. Humans find it hard enough to discriminate between the two; for machines, it’s impossible. DM

Read more:

• US assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian peninsula, officials say in the Washington Post;
• As drone war ramps up, so does criticism of it on Global Post.

Photo: REUTERS