US military steps up operations in the Horn of Africa

Djibouti, an impoverished former French colony, has close links to the region’s two most troubled nations, Yemen and Somalia, where US boots on the ground would not be popular.

But Djibouti has decided to throw in its lot with Washington and the West, becoming effectively the region’s garrison town.

The French still maintain a major base here with over 2,000 servicemen and women, their Mirage fighter jets thundering down the runway shared with the civilian international airport.

The Germans, Italians and Japanese are all here, conducting counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and beyond.

But the biggest presence by far is American – there are more than 4,000 people on the base at Camp Lemonnier.

Housed in a compound within a compound are hundreds of highly secretive Special Forces operatives from JSOC – US Joint Special Operations Command.

They bypass normal camp authority, taking their orders direct from their own command in Florida.