October 23, 2006
United Press International (UPI)
The U.S. Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa now has 1,800 troops working in the region, CJTF-HOA's commander, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Richard Hunt, told the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference of business, academic and community leaders in Djibouti Saturday, the American Forces Press Service reported Sunday.
Hunt told the conference that U.S. policymakers recognized the scale of the problems involving poverty, disease, drug running, human trafficking, smuggling and pockets of extremism that they dealt with. U.S. policy was to try and prevent terrorism before it could get established in the region, Hunt said in the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, according to the AFPS report.
"The conditions out there to support terrorism are ripe," Hunt said. "Our job is to diffuse that situation."
"Africa is the new frontier that we need to engage with now, or we are going to end up doing it later in a very negative way," he said.
Hunt said 1,800 U.S. service men and women were currently deployed in the region under CJTF-HOA. He said the task force was created in November 2002 with the goal of preventing terrorists formerly based in Afghanistan from creating a new safe haven in the Horn of Africa region.
However, according to the AFPS report, "within six months, the task force moved ashore and its mission morphed into a blend of military cooperation, military-to-military training and humanitarian assistance over a massive, eight-country region."
"What we're trying to do here is change the conditions and the environment people exist in to keep that kind of conflict from happening," Hunt said.
Source: UPI, Oct. 23, 2006