Horn of Africa to serve as base of operations: small but strategically located Djibouti on the Red Sea is hosting more than 3,000 U.S. troops. They are prepared to strike al Qaeda targets in Yemen or aid a possible war in Iraq

U.S. Marines and special ops troops are in Djibouti, a country of some 600,000 population at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Strategically located, it provides an ideal base to launch attacks on al Qaeda targets in Yemen, less than 50 miles away, or join other U.S. forces who may fight in Baghdad, about 1,500 miles to the northeast.

Some 1,200 U.S. special ops troops--many of whom arrived in April--and Marines have established a command center at Camp Lemonier, a former French army barracks near the Djibouti airport.

In August, about 1,500 Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) from Camp LeJeune, N.C., and 1,500 sailors and Navy pilots left the U.S. aboard three ships for a six-month military exercise in Djibouti. They are based in a desolate area on the northeast coast dubbed Camp Havana.

Marines are using the desert to practice live-ammunition infantry assaults, artillery fire, Harrier-jet bombing runs, Super Cobra helicopter attacks and M-1 tank warfare.

CIA operatives also are based at an airfield in the country. In October, they carried out an unmanned Predator recon plane attack that killed six al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen.

In November, the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney left Norfolk, Va., to establish a floating anti-terrorism headquarters off the coast. About 400 troops from the 2nd Marine Division on the vessel are coordinating military operations--under U.S. Central Command--in the region.

"This is focused on looking for al Qaeda, looking for terrorist cells and dealing with them expeditiously and directly," said Marine Corps Gen. James Jones.

Attractive to the Corps

Djibouti is not an unfamiliar place for U.S. Marines, who held three training exercises there in 2002. Air Force AC-130 gunships also were stationed there in the early 1990s during operations in Somalia.

A former French colony, Djibouti is France's biggest overseas base, hosting 2,800 troops, including units of the famed Foreign Legion.

Djibouti offers several advantages in the U.S. war on terrorism: it has a relatively stable, republican form of government; it has a safe harbor, important in light of the October 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen; and it overlooks the Bal el Mandeb Strait, through which Navy ships pass and a critical avenue for military supplies in a possible war with Iraq.

It also is one of the few nations--especially in the Middle East region--that allows Marines to practice amphibious landings on its beaches and conduct live-fire training. It's obvious the advantages are attractive to the Corps.

"It offers things that are difficult to find, that is, your ability to employ your heavy weapons systems," said Col. John Mills, commander of the 24th MEU. "Ranges for that are disappearing all over the world as areas are getting developed. I think that MEUs possibly in the future will make this a regular stop."

Meanwile, next door in Eritrea, a possibility exists for that half-Christian country to become a staging ground with bases at Assab or the Dahlak Archipelago off the coast.