U.S. shuts drone facility in Ethiopia
The U.S. government has shut down its
drone operation base in southern
Ethiopia, an embassy official announced.
The spokesman for the U.S. embassy in
Addis Ababa David Kennedy told AP that
a decision had been reached that the
base in Arba Minch, 450 kilometers of
the capital south of Addis Ababa, was no
longer necessary.
“U.S. military personnel are no longer in
Arba Minch,” Kennedy said. “In our
ongoing bilateral discussions on defense
cooperation, we reached a mutual
decision that our presence in Arba
Minch is not required at this time.”
Ethiopian media reported about the base
when it was set up in 2011 but the U.S.
has never publicly confirmed its
existence. A security expert in Addis
Ababa, who insisted on anonymity, said
the base was used to attack Islamic
extremists in Somalia.
Ethiopia is a staunch U.S. ally in East
Africa and has sent hundreds of troops
to Somalia to counter the Islamic
extremist rebel group. Although Ethiopia
has a history of human rights abuse, it is
also a key U.S. ally in the fight against al-
Qaida and other Islamic extremists in
the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopia had troops in Somalia between
2006 and 2009 to defeat extremists.
Ethiopia re-deployed its troops to
Somalia in 2011 to combat al-Shabab. Al-
Shabab, al-Qaida’s East African affiliate,
is fighting the internationally-backed
Somali government. The rebels were
pushed out of Somalia’s capital,
Mogadishu, in 2011 with the help of
African Union troops. But al-Shabab still
carries out numerous guerrilla attacks in
Somalia and the countries contributing
A.U. troops, including Kenya, Djibouti
and Uganda.
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