Djibouti. 2 US Helicopters crash ...10 missing.

The US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Camp Lemonier the ex French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti in December 2002 where at least 1,000 US troops are based. He made it clear that their arrival was not temporary: "These are serious problems. I suspect that if you look in one, two, three or four years, this facility will be here."

A missile from a Predator UAV drone, which was controlled by the CIA, eliminated six presumed members of al-Qaida, including one of its leaders, in the province of Marib, in Yemen, across the strait. The drone took off from Djibouti but was controlled from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The Voice of America has been approved to broadcast from Djibouti, targeting Yemen and Somalia.

In 2002 (Los Angeles Times, 23 December) Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Djibouti’s minister of international cooperation, said: "We readily enrolled in this global war on terror after 11 September, and we’ve given the Americans everything they have wanted. But for now, we haven’t seen anything from the US in return". He took it as an insult when a visiting US delegation offered $4m in aid, three-quarters of which had to be spent on improving security at the airport.

Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) began moving all headquarters personnel and equipment from its flagship, USS Mount Whitney, in the Gulf of Aden, into facilities at Camp Le Monier on May 6, 2003.The Kellogg, Brown & Root Company (Halliburton subsidiary) administers the contract for facilities and support operations at the camp.

A notice in Camp Lemonier announces: Toilets for Djiboutians only."It is for reasons of hygiene," said the camp's spokesman.

However the US presence in this part of Africa has been very low key and the news today that 2 American military CH53 "Super Stallion" marine transport helicopters (see pic) carrying a total of 12 people have crashed off the coast of Djibouti in East Africa will remind many of their growing military presence and influence in the region .

The BBC reports the rescue of 2 crew members but the remaining 10 are still missing.

The helicopters were on a nighttime training mission at the time of the crash, whose cause had not been determined Friday night. At the Pentagon, a spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, said there was no indication of hostile fire.

Members of the Djiboutian military notified U.S. officials at about 5:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EST) that the helicopters had crashed in the Gulf of Aden not far from the Djiboutian coastal town of Ras Siyyan. a US defence spokesman said. The cause of the crash is not yet known.