The US is keen to build a substantial military presence in Africa, citing the need to combat the growth of Al-Qaeda in Somalia, Algeria and other countries on the continent. This book reveals the secret US agenda behind the 'war on terror' in Africa and the shocking methods used to perpetuate the myth that the region is a hot-bed of Islamic terrorism. Africa expert Jeremy Keenan points to overwhelming evidence suggesting that, from 2003, the Bush administration and Algerian government were responsible for hostage takings blamed on Islamic militants. This created a permissive public attitude, allowing the US to establish military bases in the region and pursue multiple imperial objectives in the name of security. The shocking revelations in this book seriously undermine the mainstream view of Africa as a legitimate 'second front' in the 'war on terror'. Jeremy Keenan is a Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has written many books including The Dark Sahara (Pluto, 2009). He acts as a consultant to numerous international organisations on the Sahara and the Sahel, including the United Nations, the European Commission and many others. The Dark Sahara America's War on Terror in Africa By Jeremy Keenan Pluto Press Copyright © 2009 Jeremy Keenan All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7453-2452-4 Contents Acknowledgements, x, Abbreviations, xiii, Glossary, xv, Maps, xviii, Introduction, 1, The Dossier, 10, Missing, 13, 1 The Sahara's Bermuda Triangle, 15, 2 Reconstructing Tora Bora, 33, 3 'Whodunit', 42, 4 Grounds for Suspicion in the Algerian Sahara, 54, 5 Grounds for Suspicion in the Sahel, 74, 6 Who was El Para?, 94, 7 Oil and Empire, 116, 8 Algeria's 'Black Decade', 132, 9 Islamists and Eradicators: Algeria's 'Dirty War', 142, 10 The 'Banana Theory' of Terrorism, 158, 11 Preparing the Disinformation, 176, 12 The Nature of US Intelligence, 196, 13 'Blowback' and Resistance, 204, Notes, 212, List of Jeremy Keenan's Works, 254, Index, 260, CHAPTER 1 THE SAHARA'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE Does the Sahara have its own 'Bermuda Triangle'? It was a question that both the world's press and many of the Sahara's inhabitants began to ask. People might occasionally disappear without trace, especially in remote areas, but surely not 32 of them – and especially when they were in at least seven separate groups. Although the idea of a Saharan Bermuda Triangle was fanciful, the facts were stark: between 21 February and 11 April 2003, 32 people had disappeared into thin air. People only start being registered as 'missing' when they don't turn up. There may therefore be quite a time lag between actually getting lost, being abducted, or whatever else might cause one to disappear, and other people becoming aware of it. In this case, it was not until the second week of March, around the time of the Djanet conference and the public divulgence of the dossier on German looters, that tourism agencies in Illizi, Tamanrasset and Djanet began to receive the first anxious phone calls from friends and relatives in Europe. I had both been at the conference and heard the phone calls from friends and relatives at first-hand. My immediate thought was that enraged locals, or perhaps even the Algerian authorities themselves, had taken the law into their own hands. It was a chilling possibility which lingered for several weeks, until it became clear that the first disappearances had actually preceded the groundswell of anti-German sentiment that emanated from the Djanet conference. If the disappearances had nothing to do with looting, then what had happened to those missing? By the second week of April the Algerian government had mobilised 1,200 troops, later to be increased to some 5,000. Ground patrols with local guides spread across the region, targeting especially the area around Ain el Hadjadj, while satellite surveillance, two helicopters (later reported to be ten) and one reconnaissance plane, all running four sorties a day, searched from above. Still there was nothing: no bodies, no vehicles (and there were ten all-terrain vehicles and more than half a dozen motor bikes missing), no clothes, no tracks. Simply nothing. For several weeks, the question of what had happened to the tourists was almost the sole topic of conversation in the Sahara, while the world's media, especially in the countries from which the missing people came, became increasingly preoccupied with the mystery. Speculation was rife, ranging from the plausible to the ridiculous. In the early stages of the drama, the Algerian media were keen to suggest that the tourists had simply had an accident; they had got lost, perhaps as a result of sandstorms or, more likely, because their GPS systems were malfunctioning. Indeed, in the wake of a few prominent articles, most of the country's population tended to believe that the Americans had scrambled GPS systems to confuse the Iraqis prior to