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CRASH THAT KILLED 3 U.S. ARMY COMMANDOS AND 3 PROSTITUTES IN MALI STILL A PUZZLE
(GIN) – Questions continue to be raised about the three U.S. Army Commanders killed alongside three women alleged to be prostitutes after their rented Toyota Land Cruiser went off the Martyr’s Bridge in Bamako, Mali, West Africa, last April.
The three military men were Special Operations Forces.
“What were the men doing in the impoverished country of Mali?” wrote Washington Post staffer Craig Whitlock in a recent piece. “And why were they still there a month after the United States suspended military relations with its government? … This is at the crux of a mystery that officials have not fully explained even 10 weeks later.”
Whitlock covers the Pentagon and national security for the DC paper.
According to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the accident is “currently under investigation.”
The story raises anew the troubling image of a fast-growing U.S. military presence on the continent, as affirmed by the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Europe, Asia and Africa section.
Africa is “the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics,” said the DEA’s Jeffrey P. Breeden. “It’s a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up.”
In an editorial this week in the Washington Examiner, columnist Gene Healy observed: “Four years ago, few would have predicted that one of President Obama’s legacies would be increased militarization of U.S. policy toward Africa — but that seems to be the case.”
Meanwhile, Mali’s interim president ended his treatment in France for injuries sustained in an attack by opponents and has returned to Mali to put the final touches on a unity government, on the eve of a deadline set by foreign partners.