Poor, poor Africa. Yet another scramble for the continent's resources by Western countries helping to organise violence and advertise it through their media to encourage more bloodshed and disunity.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/31/uk-gambia-security-idUKKBN0K90EP20141231

BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh returned to Banjul on Wednesday and accused dissidents backed by unnamed foreign powers of mounting an attack on the capital the day before.

Earlier on Wednesday, shops and banks reopened a day after gunfire erupted around the presidential palace in an apparent coup attempt led by a former commander of the presidential guard.

In a sign of heightened security, government forces set up three checkpoints on the Denton Bridge into the capital to search people as they headed into work and check identity papers, witnesses said.

The U.S. government and the United Nations both issued statements condemning any attempts to seize power but also warning against any further violence.

Addressing Gambians for the first time since he returned from abroad after the attack, Jammeh dismissed talk of a coup, saying his country had been attacked by dissidents based in the United States, Germany and Britain.

"It was an attack by terrorist groups backed by some foreign powers which I will not name now," he told state television.

Jammeh said weapons seized by security forces had been made in the United States and authorities would release further intelligence gathered from the attackers on Thursday.

The capital was locked down by security forces on Tuesday after gunfire erupted early in the morning. An earlier government statement played down the incident.

Diplomats monitoring the country, one of the most secretive in West Africa, warned of the possibility of a crackdown on those accused of having links to the attack.

"There are fears of reprisals. It is about whether (Jammeh) can be seen to be calm and in control without it getting too bloody," said one Western diplomat.

The diplomat said four attackers were reported killed and four others injured in clashes. Most are believed to be former members of the Gambian military, the diplomat said.

A senior State Department official told Reuters on Wednesday the United States had no role in the coup attempt, after local media and several analysts said some of the assailants were U.S. residents or dual nationals.

Among those named were Lamin Sanneh, a former head of the presidential guard, and a U.S. Army reservist who had U.S.-Gambian nationality.

SECURITY COUNCIL

Following brief talks at the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a transparent investigation into the events and also urged restraint.

Jammeh's security forces foiled a coup plot in 2006 and Amnesty International said after that incident it feared some of the alleged plotters may have been executed without trial.

Jammeh, 49, took power in a coup 20 years ago and since then has stifled dissent in his impoverished West African nation of 1.9 million. He has faced increasing criticism from abroad over issues ranging from human rights to his claim he can cure AIDS.

This year the European Union withdrew millions of dollars in aid after Jammeh signed into law an act that could imprison homosexuals for life. The U.S. government also recently removed Gambia from AGOA, its African duty-free trade partnership.

In 2012, Jammeh was criticised for suddenly executing nine people being held in prison.

The country attracts tourists, particularly during the northern hemisphere's winter. They include about 60,000 Britons a year. The British foreign office advised its citizens to stay indoors and avoid public gatherings.

Gambia's national territory comprises a splinter of land wedged into Senegal and facing the Atlantic. Senegalese police said on Wednesday Gambia's borders remained open.

(Reporting by David Lewis and Diadie Ba in Dakar, Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Louis Charbonneau in New York; Writing by David Lewis and Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Why didn't he just name the Foreign Governments - They already tried to overthrow you, so why not just expose them?

How are we sure all the coup d etat carried out dan la Nigerie are not amewrica and the west cloned.

It is always the hands of Esau but the vioce of Jacob.

I still wonder why their drone have access to our air space after we puit on them on thier 2face militia training.

Ijebulogic:
Why didn't he just name the Foreign Governments - They already tried to overthrow you, so why not just expose them?

Abi o, the US has quickly denied involvement.

Blackwater

Blackwater Security Contractors and the CIA

PvtParts:
Blackwater

The bigger concern is that African Leaders refused to think.


Remember or refer to Robert Ludlum Bourne Series ... Congo, ...






.

[b]as already mentioned in this thread i also think there was western government involvement and possibly an South African mercenary outfit. Africom is now negotiating with Spain to either build or extend a base contract.


Gambia coup plan has echoes of Hollywood farce

Javier Blas, Africa editor


[img]http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/4861c9f6-599b-4d95-9ef2-a5ccdb90af39.img[/img]



Yahya Jammeh, president of Gambia

Code names, conspiracies and a dead of the night attack on an African president. It may sound like the plot of a low-budget Hollywood film, but it happened in real life in Gambia, a tiny and poor nation in west Africa.

A small group of Americans with eight M4 semi-automatic rifles, two pairs of night vision goggles and black military style uniforms, allegedly decided to overthrow Yahya Jammeh, the authoritarian and eccentric president of the smallest country on the African mainland. Google Maps satellite images, with written notes signalling “guard” posts, were their main intelligence asset. A manifesto titled, “A Charter Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy” inspired them.



Their budget was, however, that of a low-budget thriller, not a Hollywood blockbuster. The gang allegedly numbered 18-20 people and spent $220,798 on the attack, including $4,000 on two sniper “Barret” .50 calibre rifles that the accountant who compiled their expenses said were “not really necessary, but could be very useful”. Each men had $4,000 to cover costs while they were in Gambia.

But the coup attempt failed and this week, US federal prosecutors charged a Texas businessman with conspiring with a former US Army sergeant and others to orchestrate an attack in Gambia on the last two days of 2014.

The attack echoes a bygone era in Africa when mercenaries tried to overthrow governments in small African countries. The last such attack happened more than a decade ago. In 2004, Mark Thatcher, the son of the late UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, received a suspended sentence in South Africa for his role in a coup attempt against the government of Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea. But it was Bob Denard, a former French soldier and mercenary, who for years epitomised the soldier-of-fortune-led coup in small corners of Africa. In the Comoros Island alone, he led four attempts between 1975 and 1995 — two of them were successful.

The leaders of the alleged gang in Gambia did not have the pedigree of Denard, however. US authorities accuse Cherno Njie, a 57-year-old US citizen of Gambian descent who made a small fortune in the housing industry in Texas, of bankrolling the coup. Mr Njie, who expected to become president, and Papa Faal, a 46-year-old former US sergeant, face charges of violating the US Neutrality Act by “conspiring to make an expedition against a friendly nation” and another count of conspiracy to posses a firearm, according to a criminal complaint filed in Minnesota. Nr Njie and Mr Faal could not be reached for comment. Gambian officials have publicly blamed Mr Faal, Lamin Sanneh, an exiled former head of the presidential guard, and seven others for the attack.

[img]http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/0e1a101e-9740-11e4-9636-00144feabdc0.img[/img]
Gambia locator map

What might have led Mr Njie to organise the coup, as alleged, is unclear. Ebrima Sankareh, editor in chief of the The Gambian Echo & Tribune, a newspaper for the Gambian diaspora in the US, describes him as “a very quiet and serious fellow with a very sharp intellect, unassuming, attentive, calm and calculating, but equally shrewd”. In a profile about him published in November, he described Mr Njie as having a “penchant for . . . political discourse”.

Mr Faal’s possible motivations are even less clear. But an author with the same name and the same military background, self-published a book A Week Of Hell two years ago about Gambia’s coup of 1981.

Preparations began in August, when Mr Njie allegedly started recruiting men for his plan, according to a US criminal complaint. On December 3, a small group of about 10-12 men flew via South African Airways to Dakar in Senegal and from there they made their way overland to Gambia.
A spreadsheet seized by the FBI appears to depict the prices of various weapons and logistical support

[img]http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/a17b7184-9751-11e4-845a-00144feabdc0.img[/img]

A spreadsheet seized by the FBI appears to depict the prices of various weapons and logistical support

They planned to ambush the president and convince the head of the Gambian army to “stand down and support the change in leadership”, it is alleged. Gambia’s poorly equipped army numbers fewer than 3,000 soldiers.

“They hoped the president would surrender, but were willing to shoot him if he fired at them,” Nicholas Marshall, an FBI special agent, said in an affidavit. But the president never got the chance to surrender — he had left the country to celebrate New Year.

As in other mercenary-led coups in Africa, the target was a dictator. Mr Jammeh has run Gambia with an iron fist since he seized power in a coup more than two decades ago. He is known for his authoritarian rule and eccentric beliefs. In 2007, he claimed that he had found herbal cures for HIV and personally administered his treatment to patients. The following year he vowed to execute any gay person discovered in Gambia. In 2013, Gambia pulled out of the Commonwealth, the organisation that groups together mostly former territories of the British empire, following criticism over the country’s human rights record. Mr Jammeh called it “neocolonial”.
"They hoped the president would surrender but were willing to shoot him if he fired at them"

- Nicholas Marshall, FBI special agent
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With Mr Jammeh out of the country, the conspirators opted for a different plan. They split into two teams, codenamed “Alpha” and “Bravo”, and hid in the woods near the palace. In rented cars, they approached State House. But, instead of fleeing, the soldiers responded with heavy fire. Within minutes, the members of the Alpha team were dead while the Bravo group had run for safety. The 160 members of the Gambian army who supposedly agreed to support the coup never showed up.

Mr Faal told the FBI that he “fled the scene and took refuge in a nearby building, removed his body armour, boots and military-style clothing and changed into clothes obtained from a man in the building”. Within days, he had surrendered himself to the US authorities in the embassy in Dakar. He apparently identified Mr Njie in a photograph shown to him by US investigators.

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Among the documents were also annotated Google satellite images of where the attempted coup took place

When the FBI searched houses owned by Mr Njie in Lakeway and Austin, Texas, they found a document describing what appears to be his vision for Gambia. Handwritten notes contained the following questions: “Do you have a budget?”, “How many troops do you have?”, “What is your plan after a takeover?” and, finally, “What is the transition period for a return to civilian rule?”

In the end, Mr Njie did not need an answer to the final question — Mr Jammeh remains in power. This week, the president-cum-dictator responded to the coup by firing several ministers. “This was not a coup. This was an attack by a terrorist group backed by some powers,” he said.
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20 years in office.mhen this African leaders she. He deserves a coup for sure. Another mugabe

azzima:
20 years in office.mhen this African leaders she. He deserves a coup for sure. Another mugabe

And like Mugabe, the same people who were his friends selling him weapons now need to cut their costs by striking a deal with someone else cheaper (and dumber) in power.