Not Quite Ready-For -Prime Time: AFRICOM 3 Americans Killed In Kenya at An Airfield

The attack on January 5th in Africa was overshadowed by events in The Middle East - two fields of war where American Special Operations troops are operating under-the-radar. They're not officially 'boots-on-the-ground'.
WASHINGTON — "Armed with rifles and explosives, about a dozen Shabab fighters destroyed an American surveillance plane as it was taking off and ignited an hourslong gunfight earlier this month on a sprawling military base in Kenya that houses United States troops. By the time the Shabab were done, portions of the airfield were burning and three Americans were dead."
It took four reporters to get that story out today - 17 days after the incident.
Chaos as Militants Overran Airfield, Killing 3 Americans in Kenya

The brazen Shabab assault at Manda Bay, Kenya, a sleepy seaside base near the Somali border, on Jan. 5 left three Americans dead, raising complex questions about the military’s mission in Africa

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Charlie Savage and Helene Cooper

• Jan. 22, 2020Updated 10:38 a.m. ET

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COMPLEX QUESTIONS? MORE MURKY DETAILS

The four reporters note per usual :

This article is based on interviews with a dozen American military officials or other people who have been briefed on the attack. Several spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss aspects of a security failure that is now under investigation.

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“This was designed for propaganda, to show they could strike American bases,” said Matt Bryden, the director of Sahan Research, a Nairobi-based think tank.

“Their capability to strike in East Africa is growing.”

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• There are about 200 American soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines, as well as about 100 Pentagon civilian employees and contractors, in Kenya helping train and assist local forces.
• American forces have used Manda Bay for years. Special Operations units — including Green Berets, Navy SEALs and more recently, Marine commandos — have helped "train and advise" Kenyan Rangers there.
• On Sept. 30, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the gate of a military airfield in Bale Dogle, Somalia, injuring one American service member.
• On Nov. 5, the Shabab released a 52-minute video narrated by the group’s leader, Abu Ubaidah, in which he called for attacks against Americans wherever they are, saying the American public is a legitimate target.
• The attack in Kenya came about a week after an explosives-laden truck blew up at a busy intersection in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, killing 82 people. The Shabab also claimed responsibility for that attack.

 

" . . . Many details of the attack remain murky, and the military’s Africa Command has released only scant particulars pending an investigation. But the deaths of the three Americans — one Army soldier and two Pentagon contractors — marked the largest number of United States military-related fatalities in Africa since four soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger in October 2017. The Kenya attack underscores the American military’s limits on the continent, where a lack of intelligence, along with Manda Bay’s reputation as a quiet and unchallenged locale, allowed a lethal attack.

The deaths also signify a grim expansion of the campaign waged by the United States against the Shabab — often confined to Somalia, but in this case spilling over into Kenya despite an escalating American air campaign in the region. Kenya is a new addition to the list of countries where Americans have been killed in combat since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, joining Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Niger, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

The attack is raising new and complex questions about the enduring American military mission on the continent, where more than 5,000 troops now serve, especially as the Pentagon weighs the potential withdrawal of hundreds of forces from West Africa to better counter threats from Russia and China. A Pentagon proposal to reduce the American military footprint in Africa drew sharp criticism last week from senior lawmakers of both parties, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a close adviser to President Trump. . .