NAIROBI, Kenya – The United States will review an inquiry into the Manda Bay Al-Shabaab Raid, aimed at Camp Simba, a US naval base in Kenya, and one of the most advanced and equipped in East, Central and South Africa, in just one year after the unprecedented attack.
Gen [Rtd] Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered a high-level review of a preliminary military investigation into a January 2020 attack on a Kenyan Islamic extremist base that left three Americans dead, the Pentagon said Monday as reported by the New York Times .
The cheeky attack by about a dozen Shabab fighters at Manda Bay, a sleepy base near the Somali border, marked the largest number of U.S. military-related deaths in Africa since four soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger in October 2017.
The attack delayed the demise of security in the U.S. military and their allies, leading to a desperate effort to find appropriate strategies to mitigate the case. Loopholes, including lethargy among the forces, were first exposed by the New York Times.
US commands took about an hour to respond. Many of the local Kenyan forces assigned to defend the base hid in the grass, while other U.S. troops and support staff were called to tents with little protection to wait for the battle. It would take hours to evacuate one of the wounded to a military hospital in Djibouti, about 1,000 miles away.
Already, the U.S. African Command has conducted an investigation into the attack that killed a service member and two Pentagon contractors, but the results of the investigation remained bottled up in the Pentagon in recent months by the Trump administration and were never approved or made public.
Instead of accepting what the investigators had concluded at face value, Mr. Austin Army to appoint a four-star officer outside the African chain of command to review the findings and conclusions, according to a statement that John F. Kirby, Mr. spokesman, released late Monday. The Army appointed General Paul Funk, head of the service’s Education and Doctrine Command, to conduct the audit.
“An independent review will provide additional insight, perspective and the ability to assess the entirety of this tragic event involving multiple military services and Department of Defense components,” Kirby said.
“It is the Secretary’s desire to ensure that there is a complete investigation and consideration of the contributing factors that led to this tragic event and that appropriate measures are taken to reduce the risk of future occurrence,” Kirby added. “The affected families deserve nothing less.”
An external review of Africa Command’s investigation could seek to avoid a repeat of the controversial investigation by the Ministry of Defense into the Niger attack in 2017. This report found widespread problems across all levels of the military counterterrorism operation, but focused in particular on the actions of junior officers. leads up to ambush – unfair in the face of many family members, lawmakers and even Jim Mattis, then Secretary of Defense.
Sir. Kirby said in the statement that until the new review was completed, the Pentagon would have no further comment on the Africa Command investigation into General Funk’s work.
“We will provide updates to the family members affected by this tragic attack and will ensure that Congress is properly informed when the review is complete,” said Mr Kirby, who gave no indication as to when it might be.
In the January 5, 2020 attack, Shabab fighters Dustin Harrison, 47, and Bruce Triplett, 64, killed two experienced pilots and contractors with L3 Technologies, a Pentagon contractor that helps carry out surveillance and reconnaissance missions around the world. They taxed their Beechcraft King Air 350 on Manda Bay’s asphalt.
Specialist Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, of the Army was in a nearby truck serving as an air traffic controller when he was killed in a subsequent shootout.
At the time, the deaths meant a grim extension of the US-led campaign against Al-Shabab – often limited to Somalia, but in this case it spread to neighboring Kenya despite an escalating US air campaign in the region.
Earlier this year, al-Shabaab militants released the names of the militants who brainstormed the attack, calling them “heroes.” The attackers were of different nationalities, and the five most important were killed after a violent exchange of fire with the American troops and the Kenya Defense Forces. [KDF] subscription.
Days later, the United States ended the withdrawal of troops from Somalia and relocated them to Djibouti and Kenya, where the US Africa Command uses as strategic points in firing missiles at Al-Shabaab. In total, the United States has close to 6,000 active troops in Africa.
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