Top > World > 2005 > August > 2005-08-09

U.S. troops keeping watch from Lamu

Lamu is a strange place to find the US military on active duty. Dusk falls over the thatched roofs and white walls of Lamu`s ancient stone town, and the lilting muezzin calls float out over the calm waters of the channel as the crooked alleys fill with Muslim faithful hurrying to evening prayers. The soldiers on patrol here are part of the 1,500-strong "Horn of Africa Combined Joint Task Force" stationed in a former French Foreign Legion base in the tiny Red Sea state of Djibouti. The primary reason for the military manpower and its associated hardware lies just up the coast: the lawless, failed state of Somalia, long seen as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism.

"We find the terrorist networks here using the fact that there is a lot of ungoverned space in the Horn of Africa," said Maj Gen Samuel Helland, a former commander of the Djibouti task force. "It`s very easy for a terrorist organization to establish a presence. It`s very easy for them to train, equip, organize, and use the facilities that are present to gain a foothold there."

The border with Somalia is barely 70 miles north of Lamu, explaining why US officials were keen to accept Kenya",s invitation to bolster their sea and land defenses against any southern spread of radical Islam. American troops regularly support the Kenyan Navy as they search boats for drugs, equipment, or illegal agents trying to slip into Kenya.