U.S. takes terror fight to Africa’s ‘Wild West’

Aside from the 2003 kidnapping issue, U.S. and Algerian authorities have failed to present “indisputable verification of a single act of alleged terrorism in the Sahara,” Keenan said. “Without the GSPC, the U.S. has no legitimacy for its presence in the region,” he said, noting that a growing American strategic dependence on African oil has led the United States to bolster its presence in the region.

“African oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward,” Walter Kansteiner, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said as early as 2002. A report by the National Energy Policy Development Group anticipates that by 2015, West Africa will provide a quarter of the oil imported by the United States.

San Francisco Chronicle