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The United States is pulling the plug on its drone operations in southern Ethiopia as demands on its fleet of unmanned aircraft expand elsewhere across the continent with the rise of the Islamic State in Libya, and extremist militants in Nigeria, Mali, Chad and Cameroon.
Since 2011, the U.S. had been using the air base in Arba Minch, 250 miles south of the capital, to launch surveillance drones aimed at groups in East Africa with links to al Qaeda. U.S. personnel primarily focused on al-Shabab, a Somali group which has waged deadly terrorist attacks across East Africa.
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Terrence Lyons, a regional expert and associate professor at George Mason University, told FP that the base’s closure could signal “the U.S. is having difficulties with its relationship with Ethiopia.”
Ethiopia’s authoritarian ruling government won nearly 100 percent of the national vote in May and has come under fire from human rights organizations that claim it has unfairly cracked down on journalists and activists. Domestically, the ruling party has also had to face some unrest in the Muslim community, where many believe the government has overstepped its boundaries and interfered with the country’s official Islamic authority.
“It could be that from the Ethiopian government side, being seen as one of the countries supporting drone bases killing Muslims in the region might have been problematic,” Lyons said.
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