Kenya Base ‘Surprisingly’ Undefended During Attack, U.S. Officials Say

When al-Shabaab attacked a U.S.-used airfield in Kenya, the al Qaeda affiliate took advantage of a woefully undefended perimeter that allowed its fighters to overrun American and Kenyan forces, according to U.S. and military officials familiar with the details of the Jan. 5 attack that killed a U.S. soldier and two U.S. contractors. The incident lays bare one of the fundamental challenges of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism missions across the sprawling African continent. Roughly 6,000 U.S. troops and defense civilians are responsible for the entire U.S. mission in Africa — with roughly the same number of troops that are stationed in Iraq alone. By June, the Trump administration plans to finish trimming the U.S. presence by "fewer than 130" special operators, officials said last year. But the attack comes as the Pentagon is considering further reductions to focus on competition or possible conflict with Russia and China.  Before the attack, Camp Simba and the nearby airfield were seen as a sleepy backwater outpost, according to one military official. The U.S. military is in Kenya training and assisting the local military in the fight against al-Shabaab; Camp Simba is used as a base for American surveillance assets and commandos working with the Kenyans in the porous border region between Somalia and Kenya. “It’s very relaxed, it’s very pretty,” the military official said. There’s not much to see at the airfield — a few buildings, tents and CONEX shipping containers surrounded by thick jungle vegetation. Baboons occasionally wander onto the airstrip. Waterbucks and lions live in the area. Not far away are resorts visited by celebrities like Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt.  Despite the obvious vulnerabilities of a rural, densely-jungled base so close to the Somali border — and recent warnings that al-Shabaab was increasingly targeting Americans — officials familiar with the attack say the airfield perimeter wasn’t adequately secured to prevent the kind of penetrating attack that killed the three Americans.  Security “was surprisingly sparse,” one military official said. “It’s such thick vegetation and such a large area; it wasn’t properly manned or equipped.” Camp Simba itself — the residential compound about a mile north of the airfield, where U.S. troops sleep — is well-cleared, said a congressional source with expertise on military operations in the region. “But when I look at the airfield, it’s notable to me the vegetation isn’t cleared around the airstrip,” the source said. Fencing, if there is any, isn’t substantial enough to be visible from satellite imagery.  “This is a no-brainer that it would have been very easy for these guys to sneak up through the brush and get very close to the hangers before they were spotted,” that person said.  A spokesman for U.S. Africa Command, Col. Chris Karns, said in an email Wednesday that the outpost’s security is being evaluated as part of an investigation into the attack.