Special Article: With Groupement Scipion in the Inner Niger Delta
by Jean-Christophe Houdon
Article from
Le Spectateur militaire.
Tough Legionnaires eye me with disdain as I disembark from the landing craft onto the muddy bank. A few dozen meters up the embankment, ringed by barbed wire and crowned with four guard towers, sits my objective, Fort Brazzaville, the headquarters of Groupement Scipion. Established three months ago and built by the 1er
Régiment étranger de génie, Fort Brazzaville is home to nearly a third of the Groupement's three thousand men. The sun bakes its packed-earth embankments, and the tents and bunkers offer scant relief from the
African sun.
My travelling companion, Adjudant-chef Alain d'Issoir, led me up to the fort, making sure the Senegalese tirailleurs posted as defensive troops understood that I was a member of the press, and authorized to move freely about the fort, except in restricted areas. After checking in with the duty officer, he then gave me a whirlwind briefing of the situation in the Inner Niger Delta. "We're here after Muslim bandits," d'Issoire explained. "About six months ago, a number of Arab Muslims came in from the north and started to stir up the local populace with talk of creating an independent Muslim state. After the colonial tirailleurs skirmished with them on a few occasions, they decided to contain their operations to the Inner Niger Delta. The tirailleurs can't get at them easily, particularly after the start of the wet season, and so the Muslims started pirating rice shipments on the rivers. Since the tirailleurs were having difficulty solving the problem, Governor Calvel requested regular forces. President Theisman sent the Légion étrangère."
In turn, the Legion dispatched
Groupement Scipion, a mixed group composed one of its most elite units, the
1er Régiment étranger de parachutistes, and a group of supporting units, commanded by Colonel Joseph Levavasseur. Although the 1er REP is barely two years old, under Levavasseur's command it has established a reputation within the Legion as an extremely demanding, disciplined, and well-trained unit. Every Legionnaire has volunteered for the Regiment, and passed not only the Legion's grueling standard training, but also a highly selective eight-week parachutist school in Corsica, which graduates only one in three candidates. The 1er REP has a mostly friendly rivalry with its brother unit, the
13ere Régiment Dragons Parachutistes (13ere RDP), a metropolitan unit formed solely from French natives. Both units share the same selective recruiting, rigorous training, and elite status. The 13ere gained a feather in its cap during the Monaco Crisis, but the men of the 1er REP believe that their operations on the Inner Niger Delta will demonstrate their superiority over their rivals.
Late on the evening of my arrival, d'Issoir pulled me aside. "I've found an old comrade here in the regiment, and he offered to let you join his team on a patrol. It could be very dangerous, but you won't have many opportunities like this. Do you want to go?"
Groupement Scipion's bases in the Inner Niger Delta.
A Patrol in the Delta
At midnight I boarded the landing craft
Mameluck, anchored in the river near Fort Brazzaville. The three-hundred ton landing craft was not designed for riverine work, but with its shallow draft, it serves quite well in the unexpected role of a riverine gunship. The
Mameluck towed a half-dozen smaller gunboats, while several others of unusual design nested on her decks, ready to be swung over the side with the ship's crane. Tired from my journey, I found a corner to curl up, out of the way of the Legionnaires, and snatched five hours of sleep. d'Issoir's friend, Sous-Lieutenant Claude Jaccotet, prodded me awake with his foot just as the sun rose. "Come on, Houdon, we're wasting time. Get your kit and join us."
I joined Jaccotet and his team as they boarded one of the lighter landing craft
Mameluck had towed into position. These smaller boats have a short overall range, but they can get to more of the waterways. Part of the challenge Groupement Scipion faces is covering a vast area of the delta with limited reasources, and this requires the Legionnaires to demonstrate a great deal of flexibility. After an hour in the landing craft, Jaccotet finally paused to explain the mission to me. "We have intelligence about enemy movements in this area. These are nasty guys. A bunch of them are Arabs who came into the area. They're the leaders and the tough guys - they call themselves the
Frères de Mahomet, or FMs. They recruited few of the local Tuaregs, Bwa, and Fulani as guides to the terrain. Now they're expanding their organization and filling the ranks. The FMs will take over a small village, steal all of the rice, and kidnap all of the boys. Then they go back to their camps and force them to fight each other for their survival. The ones who live learn to kill without mercy, and they're starting to join the combat groups. If we run into them on patrol, don't think of them as kids any more. Sometimes they're more vicious than the adults." Jaccotet spits over the side. "Make sure you tell the people back in Paris that this is not about putting down rebels or maintaining order. When a dog is rabid, you don't reason with it. When a tumor starts to grow, you sedate the patient and cut it out."
Having warmed up to me, Jaccotet introduced his group. His men, thirty in all, composed the 1er REP's second
trentaine, part of the Regiment's
Groupement Franc. In an already highly-experienced unit, the men of the
Groupes Franc identify themselves as even more elite. Each
sizaine (also called a
l'equip) is composed of six men skilled in fieldcraft, marksmanship, stealth, and a host of other skills. The sizaines go out on patrol, often for days at a time, conducting reconnaissance of enemy positions and snatching prisoners for interrogation. Although every division in the French Army has its own
Groupe Franc, the unit is more informal and the men are volunteers from the division's component infantry regiments. In the 1er REP, however, the
Groupe Franc is much larger, and a permanently established part of the Regiment's order of battle. Although he ranks as a sous-lieutenant, Jaccotet is in fact a soldier of ten years seniority, having joined the Legion during the Rif-Atlas Revolt, and he served in Morocco. On this patrol, Jaccotet has brought his six-man command team and a second
sizaine, for a total of twelve men. The second team is led by a junior sergeant, Antonin Gravel. Also included in the patrol is a local boy who Jaccotet introduces as 'Danny'. Danny speaks workable French, but is also fluent in Arabic and Fulani. He serves as both a scout and a translator. Jaccotet explains to me, out of Danny's hearing, that the seventeen year old volunteered for the job in order to avenge his family, which was killed by the FMs during a raid on their village.
Jaccotet also instructs me to change out my civilian clothes for 'the lizard', a camouflaged combat smock designed to help a man blend into the undergrowth. "The rebels won't care if you're a reporter or not, so we'd prefer for you to blend in like we do." He gave me a jacket and trousers that matched his own, but lacked any rank or unit badges. "You'll also want some of our boots," he said. "The FMs don't like to fight us, but they'll sometimes leave us traps, like poisoned spikes that will cut through rubber or leather boot soles. These boots are armoured. But still, watch carefully where you step."
Danny, riding in the front of the boat, abruptly signalled, and the landing craft's helmsman cut the engine. "I smell something," Danny announced in passable French. At once, all of the Legionnaires become very serious, preparing their weapons and gear. Jaccotet instructs the helmsman to bring the boat into the shallows, where the grasses grow in the water near the bank. Gravel's team plunges off the bow ramp into waist-deep water, accompanying Danny ashore; Jaccotet's machine gunner and rifle grenadier both ready themselves for action. Several tense minutes pass before Danny returns to the boat, and he speaks quietly with Jaccotet. The officer listens and then comes to a quick decision. "There's a group of FMs operating close by. We're going to find them and see what they're up to." He instructs me to follow and details one of his men, Legionnaire 2e Classe Drusynska, to keep tabs on me. I wade off the ramp of the landing barge, keeping at the rear of the formation and revelling in the cooling water. Tall grasses grow on the shallow bottom of the delta, and reach high overhead. In the midst of this verdant overgrowth, visibility is less than a meter.
Danny leads us out of the water onto a muddy island, and gestures for us to keep low. Several hundred meters on, we link up again with Jaccotet's second team in the tall grass, looking over a narrow channel. The team commander confers with Jaccotet at a whisper, and news is passed down the line quietly. From my position, I can see a pair of brightly-painted canoes pulled up on the opposite shore. Two men are unloading bags of rice from one of the canoes. Behind them stands a small mud-walled fort with an armed man on the makeshift rampart. An ingenious roof, constructed to look like a grass-covered hill from the air, shades the fort. Drusynska expresses himself with a raised eyebrow, and begins checking over his rifle with the expectation of combat.
Jaccotet gathers his twelve Legionnaires around and gives them instruction with rapid-fire sign language. Gravel signs back a few questions, and all men then signal their acknowledgement of the orders they have received. Drusynska and another man, who I remember introduced as Oliveira, remain with me, watching the front approaches; the rest of the team moves off through the grass. Drusynska tells me to stay out of the way when the shooting starts, and quietly unfolds the bipod on his Manurhin rifle. It seems like we wait for hours, and my arms and legs itch as small insects crawl inside my lizard combat smock.
The assault comes with vicious suddenness. A flare erupts from the grass like a homesick meteor, arching up overhead. A moment later, Drusynska's Manurhin spits fire and lead, downing the sentry on the wall of the fort. Oliveira fires a rifle grenade, which arcs through the air and lands squarely in the gate of the fort. High explosive tears the wooden portal from the walls. One of the men unloading the canoes is stricken by proximity, while the other tries to run for his rifle in the canoe. Drusynska shifts fire and effortlessly downs him in the same the moment the MF snatches up his gun. The remaining ten men of the team erupt from cover and charge into the gateway of the fort. The sharp staccato of rifle fire continues for thirty seconds, broken only by a few screams. Then it is over, and Jaccotet, wiping blood from his spike bayonet, emerges to beckon us inside.
Jaccotet is exultant. His men have emerged unscathed from the assault. The bodies of twelve FMs are gathered in the courtyard, while another five enemies lay wounded. The Legionnaires sweep the fort thoroughly and find three girls locked in a room. Jaccotet questions them while Danny translates, and we discover they are the wives of a
Frères de Mahomet leader known to our Intelligence services as 'ABR'. None of the girls are older than Danny, and like him, their families have been destroyed by MF raids. The revelation dampens Jaccotet's mood, and he has the girls identify the Muslim chief, who was killed in the fighting. Jaccotet has Danny reassure the girls of their safety, and joins me in the courtyard. "I wish we could hang these scum," he says, frightening one of the prisoners with an evil look. Drusynska and I inspect the bags and crates in the fort's tiny courtyard, and find battered Mauser rifles and cases of ammunition, plus four tons of looted rice. Drusynska handles one of the rifles carefully. "We find these Chinese Mausers now and then. Maybe sold on the black market by corrupt generals, or lost to Chosen in the war. They're the best guns the rebels use. This place must have been a distribution point - there are two hundred here, and a case of ammo for each of them. This is our biggest haul ever." Jaccotet learns from one of the girls that one of the survivors of the assault was involved in running the arms to the delta; he pounces on the man and isolates him for the intelligence officers.
Mameluck creaps into the shallow channel an hour later, and a landing barge conveys a senior officer ashore. It is Colonel Levavasseur himself, distinguishable from his Legionnaires only by the colonel's rank on his shoulders. He playfully chides Jaccotet for trying to bite off too much. "You
Groupes Francs will get in over your heads one day if you aren't more careful!" he laughs. The Colonel inspects the rifles and the ammunition and pronounces his satisfaction. It's the largest capture of arms since the arrival of Groupement Scipion. The wounded prisoners are treated by medics and then taken, hooded, aboard the
Mameluke. So too are 'ABR's three widows; intelligence officers will try to find their families, or if that fails, will send them to a boarding school in Niamey run by British missionaries. "We've seen this before, unfortunately," Jaccotet says to me privately. "If we do nothing but free them, then what good is it to be free, with no family left and not a franc to their name? They shall end up worse than they started. The missionary school will give them an education and at least the possibility of a future less bleak than their present."
Levavasseur's Legionnaires
I return to Fort Brazzaville aboard the
Mameluck and collapse on a borrowed cot. I'm covered in insect bites and exhausted by the events of the day; worse, dinner sits poorly with me. I'm woken just after dawn and shown into a nissin hut at the request of Colonel Levavasseur. "I didn't recognize you yesterday at the fort, Houdon," he apologizes, and waves an old issue of
Le Spectateur militaire for me to see. "I've followed your articles. When I learned you wanted to report on Groupement Scipion, I was happy to approve your request." We share a warrior's breakfast - camp rations that take me back to my days in the
Chasseurs d'Afrique, bolstered by local rice and strong black coffee that settles my stomach at last. "I'm happy to see that you went out yesterday with Jaccotet. There's nothing quite like getting out there in the delta and seeing everything. It gives you a better appreciation for what we're trying to do here."
He shares a bit of his latest information. "We think the FMs number only a thousand men or less. They operate in bands of fifteen to twenty across the length and breadth of the delta, and it's a real challenge to sort them out from the innocents who live in these areas. About half of the bands are organized by and take orders from the
Frères de Mahomet. It's a very emphemeral organization, incorporating Tuaregs, Bwa, Fulani, and Bambaras - a slice of every ethnicity in the region. The rest of the groups are either inspired by the
Frères, or taking advantage of the confusion they're causing." Levavasseur shows me a map of the delta. "We've started by establishing an 'oil spot', so to speak, here around Fort Brazzaville. Also downstream and upstream. I've dispatched the river gunboats to escort native trading canoes on a few major channels. The
Frères have taken a few cracks at the convoys in the last few months, but they don't appreciate the bloody nose we've given them every time. Now we're expanding our security zones."
I asked if the
Frères had ever tried to confront the Legion head-on. "Now and then," Levavasseur grinned. "They've tried to ambush our patrols, and once tried to infiltrate Fort Brazzaville's outer works before we got them completed. We've taught them some bloody lessons, and it appears they've reconsidered that strategy." He gestures to his map again. "Now, I'm operating on a two-pronged plan of attack. First, we're actively patrolling for enemy activity and aggressively hunting rebels when we encounter them. But I'm also engaging with the local population in order to tie in their interests to our success." He expounded on that point. "The patrol you went on yesterday serves as a case in point. A local fisherman spotted suspicious strangers several days in a row. He was afraid to report it at first. But two days ago, his daughter-in-law was treated for fever by one of our mobile field hospitals, and he told us what he'd seen. We dispatched the
Groupes Franc to scout the region, and you know the rest. Yesterday was an unusually big payoff for the information we've received. Normally, we get a lot of small tidbits like that and my intel chief has to piece them together to construct a picture."
After breakfast, Levavasseur showed me around the fort, pointing out a group of Tirailleurs who were training with the Legionnaires. "While part of our goal is to eliminate the bandits, our final objective is to hand off control to the Senegalese Tirailleurs. There are three regiments here in the Soudan, but they simply lacked the training, equipment, and expertise to deal with the problem correctly. I've assigned some of my best officers and sergeants to retrain a unit of troops as an elite battalion, which we're designating Rangers. When we're done training them, they'll be nearly as good as we are, our paratroop capability aside. The first company graduates next week. They'll start taking on patrol duties in the Akke region, where the FMs are trying to keep a firm grip. It's taking a bit of time and care, but we're ripping them out bit by bit."
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