UNITED States forces were caught off guard when the Guinean colonel they trained turned out to be the mastermind behind the country’s recent coup and is now the leader of the West African nation.
Col. Mamady Doumbouya has declared himself the new leader of Guinea after he led special forces into the presidential palace and deposed the country’s 83-year-old president, Alpha Condé, on September 5.
According to the New York Times, Doumbouya is said to have slipped away to mount the coup early Sunday, raising suspicions he did so while his US instructors were asleep.
They had been working with Doumbouya and other Guinean service personnel to train them in counterterrorism techniques, and to help them prop up their civilian government.
Guinea’s new leader and his allies are said to have been angered after Condé successfully changed the country’s constitution to enable him to serve a third term as president.
Doumbouya, once a close ally to Condé, is a familiar figure to American forces, who have been in the country since July to train a group of about 100 Special Forces members led by the Colonel and have worked with him for years.
Kelly Cahalan, a spokeswoman for the US Africa Command, told the Times the coup is ‘inconsistent with U.S. military training and education.’
US officials also told the Times, who obtained a photo of Doumbouya posing with US military officials outside the American Embassy, they were ‘puzzled’ by his decision to stage a coup at a moment when he was working so closely with Americans.
US officials said they were looking into reports that Doumbouya and his conspirators slipped away from the training base in the middle of the night while instructors were sleeping, the Times reported.
Due to the timing and the close relationship with the Colonel the current situation has been an ’embarrassment’ for the Pentagon, the Times reported.
US officials have even had to clarify that the US did not have previous knowledge or any involvement in the coup.
‘We do not have any information on how the apparent military seizure of power occurred, and had no prior indication of these events,’ Bardha S. Azari, a spokeswoman for the US Africa Command, told the Times in an emailed statement.
Leading to further suspicion of American involvement is a video of American solders smiling as they make their way to the US Embassy on Sunday.
A group of green berets were recorded driving a four-wheel drive vehicle with Guinean soldiers hanging from the back as they smile and touch hands with locals chanting ‘freedom!’
American officials were forced to clarify that the recorded incident was not reflective of any support for the coup.
‘The US government and military are not involved in this apparent military seizure of power in any way,’ Azari told the Times.
Doumbouya, who at 41 is now the second-youngest leader of an African state, served in Afghanistan and Cote d’Ivoire and completed a commando training course in Israel, before serving as a French Legionnaire, the Times reported.
Following last Sunday’s storming of the presidential palace which killed 11, the Colonel appeared on television draped in the country’s flag and claimed he was forced to seize power because of the actions of President Condé, whose popularity in the country has been declining for years.
The Times reported that despite his ‘disaffection’ with president Condé, Doumbouya’s coup was most likely fuelled by tensions within the defence establishment, specifically with Guinea’s defence minister, Mohamed Diané who the colonel said deprived his Special Forces unit of resources.
