When al-Shabaab attacked a U.S.-used airfield in Kenya, the al Qaeda affiliate took advantage of a woefully undefended perimeter that allowed its fighters to overrun American and Kenyan forces, according to U.S. and military officials familiar with the details of the
Jan. 5 attack that killed a
U.S. soldier and two U.S. contractors.
The incident lays bare one of the fundamental challenges of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism missions across the sprawling African continent. Roughly 6,000 U.S. troops and defense civilians are responsible for the entire U.S. mission in Africa — with roughly the same number of troops that are stationed in Iraq alone. By June, the Trump administration plans to finish trimming the U.S. presence by “fewer than 130” special operators, officials
said last year.
Before the attack,
Camp Simba and the nearby airfield were seen as a sleepy backwater outpost, according to one military official. The U.S. military is in Kenya training and assisting the local military in the fightagainst al-Shabaab
; Camp Simba is used as a base for American surveillance assets and commandos working with the Kenyans in the porous border region between Somalia and Kenya. “It’s very relaxed, it’s very pretty,” the military official said.
Despite the obvious vulnerabilities of a rural, densely-jungled base so close to the Somali border — and recent warnings that al-Shabaab was increasingly targeting Americans — officials familiar with the attack say the airfield perimeter wasn’t adequately secured to prevent the kind of penetrating attack that killed the three Americans.
Security “was surprisingly sparse,” one military official said. “It’s such thick vegetation and such a large area, it wasn’t properly manned or equipped.”.....snip~
https://www.defenseone.com/news/2020...?oref=d-skybox
The US Commander should be held responsible. Busted down in rank should be off the top. What say ye?