Marine rapid deployment team headed to Europe to deal with future Benghazi attacks
NBC News:
Highlighting the continuing fallout from the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Libya that took the lives of four Americans, defense officials told NBC News on Wednesday that the U.S. Marine Corps is on the verge of announcing a new group tasked with crisis response in north Africa and eastern Europe.
The group, which will be known as the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, will likely be based at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. The team will be capable of rapid deployment for responding to security threats throughout the region — including a U.S. embassy under attack.
Orders for the new Marine unit will likely go to the secretary of defense for approval late next week. The task force will have around 1,000 Marines and a variety of aircraft, including a half-dozen Ospreys — a airplane that can take off vertically like a helicopter but once airborne is capable of high-speed flight.
If approved, the land-based task force will deploy from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina early this spring.
...It is still curious that such forces were not in place when the Benghazi attacks occurred. The Ospreys are the ideal craft for getting forces in place quickly without an airport needed. Marines have been traditionally the first units to fight in such situations back when most operations were conducted from a ship. With today's reduced size Navy and the high cost of operating carriers, putting them on a land base is not surprising.
There was once a much smaller unit with a similar function at NAS Sigonella while I was there from 1993 to 1996. It was comprised of sailors attached to the NAS Sigonella Security Department and envisioned, formed, and trained by Marine Corp Maj. M. Dickey (then Capt.). The unit trained in field operations and Close Quarters Battle with an emphasis on hostage rescue. Although never officially formed as an independent unit or command, the unit was approved by the Commander in Chief of US Naval Forces in Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and received funding for equipment and training. I'm not sure what brought about the demise of this unit. The two most probable factors and the eventual transfer of Maj. Dickey to his next command and the unwillingness of the Italian Government at that time to have such units stationed in their country after the fiasco between Italian military units and Navy SEALS, then stationed at NAS Signonella, when the Italian Carabinieri, Italian Air Force, and the American Navy SEALs came close to firing upon one another following the interception by Navy F-14 Tomcat fighters of an Egyptian Boeing 737 airliner carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, which had been commandeered by members of the PLO on 7 October. The hijackers had killed a Jewish-American citizen Leon Klinghoffer. The F-14s instructed the Egyptian plane to land at Sigonella where the Americans had planned to take the hijackers into custody. The Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi instead claimed the hijackers were under Italian jurisdiction. The Italian authorities therefore refused to allow the SEALs to board the plane, threatening to open fire on the Americans had they made an attempt to do so. This move was supposedly dictated both by security concerns about terrorists targeting Italy if the United States had had it their way, and by the Italian tradition of diplomacy with the Arab world. The ensuing stand-off lasted throughout the night, until President Ronald Reagan gave the orders for the Americans to stand down.
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