Special Forces Swiftly Evacuate US Embassy Staff From Sudan
Sunday, 23 April 2023 02:26 PM EDT
Newsmax.com
U.S. special operations forces carried out a precarious
evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Sudan
on Sunday, sweeping in and out of the capital with helicopters on
the ground for less than an hour. No shots were fired and no major casualties
were reported.
With the final embassy employee out of Khartoum, the
United States shuttered its diplomatic mission indefinitely. Remaining behind
in the East African nation are thousands of private American citizens. U.S.
officials said it would be too dangerous to carry out a broader evacuation
operation.
Battles between two rival Sudanese commanders had forced
the closing of the main international airport and left roads out of the country
in control of armed fighters. The skirmishes has killed more than 400 people.
In a statement thanking the troops, President Joe Biden
said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist
remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”
He also called for the end to “unconscionable” violence
there.
About 100 U.S. troops in three MH-47 helicopters carried
out the operation. They airlifted all of roughly 70 remaining American
employees from a landing zone at the embassy to an undisclosed location in
Ethiopia.
Ethiopia also provided overflight and refueling support,
said Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Biden said Djibouti and Saudi Arabia provided assistance,
too.
“I am proud of the extraordinary commitment of our
Embassy staff, who performed their duties with courage and professionalism and
embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan,” Biden
said in a statement. “I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service
members who successfully brought them to safety.”
U.S. Africa Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, were in contact with the factions before and during
the operation to ensure that U.S. forces would have safe passage to conduct the
evacuation. John Bass, an undersecretary of state, denied claims by Sudan's
paramilitary Rapid Security Forces that it assisted in the U.S. evacuation.
“They cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on
our service members in the course of the operation," Bass said.
Biden had ordered American troops to evacuate embassy
personnel after receiving a recommendation from his national security team,
with no end in sight to the fighting.
“This tragic violence in Sudan has already cost the lives
of hundreds of innocent civilians. It’s unconscionable and it must stop,” Biden
said. “The belligerent parties must implement an immediate and unconditional
ceasefire, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and respect the will of the
people of Sudan.”
Sudan's fighting broke out April 15 between two
commanders who just 18 months earlier jointly orchestrated a military coup to
derail the nation’s transition to democracy.
The power struggle between the armed forces chief, Gen.
Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the head of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary
group, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has millions of Sudanese cowering inside
their homes.
The violence has included an unprovoked attack on an
American diplomatic convoy and numerous incidents in which foreign diplomats
and aid workers were killed, injured or assaulted.
An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered
with the embassy as being in Sudan. The figure is rough because not all
Americans register with embassy or say when they depart.
The embassy issued an alert earlier Saturday cautioning
that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the
airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated
evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”
The U.S. evacuation planning for American employees of
the embassy got underway in earnest on Monday after the embassy convoy was
attacked in Khartoum. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that U.S. troops were
being moved to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti ahead of a possible evacuation.
Embassy evacuations conducted by the U.S. military are
relatively rare and usually take place only under extreme conditions. When it
orders an embassy to draw down staff or suspend operations, the State
Department prefers to have its personnel leave on commercial transportation if
that is an option.
When the embassy in Kyiv temporarily closed just before
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, staffers used commercial
transport to leave.
In several other recent cases, notably in Afghanistan in
2021, conditions made commercial departures impossible or extremely hazardous.
U.S. troops accompanied personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, in
an overland convoy to Tunisia when they evacuated in 2014.
Connecting the Dots:
Satellite
Sentinel Project monitors the activities in Sudan
and South Sudan.
John Prendergast
is a co-founder for the Satellite Sentinel Project, a co-founder
for the Enough Project and was a fellow at the Center for
American Progress.
Enough Project is
an affiliated project for the Center for American Progress.
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Center for
American Progress.
George Soros is the founder & chairman
for the Open Society Foundations, a member of the Bretton
Woods Committee, a board member for the International Crisis Group,
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society and
a supporter for the Center for American Progress.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Center for
American Progress and the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Lawrence H.
Summers was a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress, a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think
tank) and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, a board
member for the International Crisis Group and a professor; former
president for Harvard University.
Harvard
Humanitarian Initiative is in collaboration with Harvard
University and analyzes the images for the Satellite
Sentinel Project.
Satellite
Sentinel Project monitors the activities in Sudan,
and South Sudan.
John Prendergast
is a co-founder for the Satellite Sentinel Project, a co-founder
for the Enough Project and was a fellow at the Center for
American Progress.
Enough Project is
an affiliated project for the Center for American Progress.
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Center for
American Progress.
George Soros is
the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, was
the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society and a
supporter for the Center for American Progress.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Center for
American Progress.
Resources: Past
Research
McDonnell: Looking for
the Real Bastards in South Sudan (Past Research on
Sudan)
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2017
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2017/04/mcdonnell-looking-for-real-bastards-in.html
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