A recent study by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project has claimed that private US contractors have been conducting surveillance flights over Somalia from Kenya, Manda Bay in Lamu County to be specific.
The worldwide network of investigative journalists that collected the intelligence indicates that this has enabled myriad attacks on Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia by the US through airstrikes.
In the last 13 years, US airstrikes have killed an estimated 100 civilians in Somalia, the reporting project quotes a London-based firm, Airwars.
Early this year, two private contractors who were part of 150 US personnel at Manda Bay were killed following an attack by Al-Shabaab.
This confirms that the base under the US Africa Command (Africom) indeed has private contractors.
Africom had in a separate statement confessed to having US civilians operate armed drones in East Africa for surveillance purposes.
According to a study by two universities in the US, the Pentagon in its 2018 budget allocated $370 billion for private contractors which is more than half of its budget.
The report said that continued reliance by the US military on private contractors is questionable and accountability is likely to be overlooked.
Sean McFate, a retired private military contractor in the report is quoted saying that “the ethical standard of who can pull the trigger has been slowly eroding over the last 30 years.”
McFate describes the work of a private military contractor just as dangerous as it is for those on combat.
He explained that private contractors “are part of the kill chain” because they provide intelligence which is used in airstrikes.
However, an Africom spokesperson told the reporting project that although private contractors have the privilege to operate armed drones, they have no clearance to decide on if to “deploy the weapon system” or not.
“At their core, decisions to fire on the enemy may only be made by lawful combatants under the law of armed conflict. Our uniform-wearing service members are lawful combatants; our contractor teammates are not,” the Africom official stated.
Following the scathing attack on the joint US-Kenya military base in Manda Bay, an additional 100 US troops were sent to the base following the death of three US nationals in January this year, among them a US soldier.
The base has also been extended to shift from “tactical operations” to enduring operations”.
There is a new aircraft hangar whose core aim is to guard the safety of “sensitive technology installed on surveillance aircraft”.
The US adds that Kenya has benefited from US military operations as a host country adding that “It’s also one of the world’s top five recipients of US counter-terrorism aid.”
