A company of 150 soldiers from Niger has brought the war on terrorism to a new frontier, carrying out a three-week hunt for armed bandits linked to an Algerian terror group in the inhospitable terrain of the Sahara desert and the Sahel region. "It was tough," said Major Moussa Salaou Barmou, whose unit was the first US-trained group to go out on a mission in the arid region. "We managed to get a couple of them, but the rest escaped into Algeria. As soon as we got close, they just moved on -- we couldn't keep pace."
| They can't outrun an airplane, and I think we ought to teach the Niger air force how to do this; a few leftover Skyraiders would do nicely. |
The tally from the three skirmishes last month around Mount Tamgak, about 600 miles northeast of Niamey, Niger's capital, was relatively modest: seven bandits killed, two Niger soldiers lightly injured, according to Moussa. But senior US military officials say the message sent by the mission is critical in West Africa. For the first time, the armed forces of four nations -- Niger, Mali, Chad, and Mauritania -- will patrol what had been a 3,000-mile wide no-man's land as vast as the continental United States. |