America's Combat Hub For Counterterrorism In The Horn Of Africa And The Middle East

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U.S. drone camp in the heart of Djibouti

Expansion is underway at the United States’ first counter- terrorism base, fenced within a one-runway airport shared by military and civilian aircraft in the heart of Djibouti. Scheduled to be complete in the next two years at a cost of nearly $1.4 billion, the Pentagon hopes the upgrades will strengthen the U.S. fight against terrorism in the Horn of Africa.Department of the Navy; CIA World Factbook. Image source: GeoEye via Google Earth. Gene Thorp, Bill Webster and Craig Whitlock/The Washington Post. Published on October 25, 2012

Remote U.S. Base At Core Of Secret Operations -- Washington Post

DJIBOUTI CITY, Djibouti — Around the clock, about 16 times a day, drones take off or land at a U.S. military base here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

Some of the unmanned aircraft are bound for Somalia, the collapsed state whose border lies just 10 miles to the southeast. Most of the armed drones, however, veer north across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, another unstable country where they are being used in an increasingly deadly war with an al-Qaeda franchise that has targeted the United States.

Camp Lemonnier, a sun-baked Third World outpost established by the French Foreign Legion, began as a temporary staging ground for U.S. Marines looking for a foothold in the region a decade ago. Over the past two years, the U.S. military has clandestinely transformed it into the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone, a model for fighting a new generation of terrorist groups.

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My Comment: Camp Lemmonier is probably America's most important counter terrorism base outside of the United States.