US military exercises under way

Some 3,000 US marines and navy personnel have arrived on the coast of Kenya for a series of joint military exercises to be carried out in collaboration with Kenyan servicemen in the coastal region.

About 1,000 marines will deploy ashore for "a series of bilateral training manoeuvres and to carry out several humanitarian projects at sites near the exercise", according to a Friday statement from the US embassy in Nairobi.

US military personnel would be joined by some 250 Kenyan soldiers, and together they would conduct "intensive ground and air manoeuvres" as part of the exercise, known as "Edged Mallet". The exercise - scheduled to have begun on Sunday 3 February - was "considerably larger" than recent bilateral military exercises between the US and Kenya, the statement said.

The exercise would involve an amphibious landing by US marines from ships positioned off the Kenyan coast, and Kenyan military forces would then join in with manoeuvres in coastal military exercise grounds, the US ambassador to Kenya, Johnnie Carson, said in an earlier statement on 18 January.

As part of the overall exercise, US marines would also undertake several humanitarian projects in Kenya, the statement said. "Marines will construct two classrooms and repair a bridge in one coastal village, while drilling a public well and restoring a medical clinic at another site. US medical personnel will offer free medical services to people living near the exercise areas," the statement said.

In order to eliminate the threat of accidental civilian injuries from unexploded shells following the exercises, they would be limited to small-arms fire, and no "explosive ordnance" would be used, the US embassy statement said.

Some 220 members of the Maasai and Samburu ethnic groups in July 2001 lodged compensation claims against the British army, saying the UK Ministry of Defence had been negligent in failing to remove unexploded ordnance from firing ranges in central Kenya. Maasai and Samburu pastoralists living near the Archer's Post and Dol Dol firing ranges claim there are four or five accidental deaths per year from discarded, unexploded ordnance.