M. Rubin: “Ankara is supplying drones to all the Islamists in Africa – It must be stopped”
However, Turkish pressure forced the Somali authorities to release the Turkish engineers accompanying the mission.
The engineers claimed that the drones were intended for agricultural purposes!
This controversial discovery was made by the top defence analyst and academic at the Washington-based US Pentagon, Michael Rubin.
“It would be strange to assume that the statements of the detained Turkish engineers were true.
The price of the drones is $780,000, which is far beyond the financial means of any Somali farmer.
It is no coincidence that Turkey helped build a large drone base, staffed by Turkish and Somali intelligence officers, alongside Somalia‘s National Intelligence and Security Agency, an agency that supports rather than blocks the country‘s most radical terrorist groups.
As Turkey provides aid not only to terrorist groups in Somalia, but also to the genocidal regime in Ethiopia (which is not only carried out by the old orthodox federal government as Rubin claims, the Ethiopians are Coptic Christians or the First Orthodox until the Second Ecumenical Council, but mainly by the Tigray rebels who are mysteriously winning the conflicts against a strong federal Ethiopian army by African standards) and the Sudanese Islamists.
The forces in Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan that are interested in a democratic future are increasingly facing threats, but are being ignored by the West.
The drone base in Somalia is not the only problem.
In early 2021, Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey had built a drone base on the territory of Cyprus that it occupied in 1974.
“Turkey for us is not 780,000 square kilometres, Turkey for us is everywhere,” Erdogan said.
The Gechitkale air base, as Erdogan renamed it, extends the coverage of the Turkish drone fleet, making it possible to threaten Israel, Egypt, the Suez Canal and shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean in general.
The White House should not ignore these attacks: drones will become more expensive and more sophisticated with time and experience.
The United States must develop a multi-faceted response strategy. Congress must ensure that U. S. allies threatened by Turkish, Iranian or Pakistani drones have a qualitative military advantage – both in terms of drones and defense against drones.
Is Turkey deploying drones in occupied Northern Cyprus?This means that, in this case, the Pentagon will have to provide drones to Cyprus and Greece to balance the threats.
Is the Turkish Army supplying drones to Somalia‘s increasingly unstable government?
And isn‘t it time then to provide Kenya and other neighbouring countries with UAVs to combat the Turkish threat?
Are Iran and Turkey supplying drones to Ethiopia to use against their people?
The United States must give some kind of response.
The same need for protection exists in Armenia, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. India will also have to fight for a qualitative military advantage as Pakistan and possibly even Turkey are supplying drones to terrorists in Kashmir.
The passive position of the United States in the face of the growing threat is both the loss of a leadership position and the responsibility it entails.
“The relationship with America is supposed to be a path to security, not a threat to an ally. “
Michael Rubin is considered a “hawk” of the Democrats and his recommendations even influence governments. . . Republican.
He has a clear anti-Turkish stance as he believes that Ankara no longer serves American interests but only its own and calls for its exemplary punishment to make an example of the US and. . . rest.
The Sahel is the steppe strip of land south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. It extends, from west to east, from northern Senegal, continuing south through Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, central Niger, northern Nigeria, central Chad, central Sudan, a small area in the north of South Sudan and ending in northern Eritrea on the Red Sea coast.
But now Ankara is extending even further down and “touching” Central Africa.
Its aim is to influence extremist groups wherever there are Muslim populations, even in. . . South Africa.
This will enable it to put pressure on unstable African governments to serve its interests and give it geopolitical space.
