The plan and action will bring together military staff from nine participating countries for medical training and command-post exercises, drawn and focused on: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Nigeria

AP/Dakar, Senegal- The United States is pouring more soldiers and money into its anti-terrorism campaign in Africa, including in Algeria and Nigeria, both oil-rich nations where radical Islam has a following.

A new effort outlined Wednesday in a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Senegal proposes spending $100 million a year over five years to boost security in some of the world's least-policed areas, starting with a joint military exercise in the region next month.

An earlier anti-terror exercise with a budget of just $6 million focused on troop training in four west African nations. The new campaign will target nine north and west African nations and seek to bolster regional cooperation Analysts were waiting to see if the program would be fully funded &emdash; but said the intended budgetary increase shows the United States is taking West Africa more seriously.

"If they're turning the corner to $100 million, that's graduation into something much larger," said J. Stephen Morrison, Africa director at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It's still modest, but it's a dramatic step up."

Maj. Holly Silkman, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said underpopulated border areas could be sanctuaries for "terrorists or would-be terrorists."

"We want to increase security in those areas by training with each country's military and creating a regional focus, rather than just a country focus," Silkman said by telephone from European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

U.S. officials have long viewed northwestern Africa's vast desert stretches as prime real estate for aspiring terrorists seeking to set up training camps or other bases. Some U.S. commanders liken the area's ungoverned expanses to Afghanistan during Taliban rule, when Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror group thrived.

The region is shot through with sandy tracks still traveled by camel caravans &emdash; ancient thoroughfares officials say militants can use to traverse poorly guarded borders. Much of the troop training will focus on units responsible for guarding frontiers, said Silkman.

Muslims in west and north Africa, like Muslims elsewhere, generally are moderate. But extremists do exist. Militants have roamed south from oil-rich Algeria into West Africa recent years, and in northern Nigeria, years of poverty and brutal military rule has radicalized some in the population.

"We're concerned with the radical movement," Silkman said. "Islam isn't the problem, it's only the radicals."

Nigeria:

Morrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the United States now appears to have created a "counterterrorism bookend" to its strategy in east Africa, which has seen a spate of terror attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania blamed on al-Qaida.

Notable among the new entries is Nigeria &emdash; Africa's most-populous nation at 130 million, and the source of one-fifth of all American oil imports. "By adding Nigeria, that adds a very significant dimension, because northeastern Nigeria is arguably the area that poses the greatest vulnerability in terms of al-Qaida or affiliates taking root," Morrison said.

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What they (the legislators) have tried to do in the democratic way, which is not easy, would probably have been done by taking arms or by -- with bullets. So, but with democracy, of course, some people feel that this is the way this should be, and then I have an opportunity to defend myself. There is discussion. There is dialogue. There is a decision. There is fairness." He made these comments when he appeared on Tuesday September 17, 2002 on CNN International to discuss the issues of impeachment facing him, the allegations of corruption, abuse of the constitution and deployment of soldiers ina civilian environment which led to the "massacre of civilians" in Odi (Bayelsa) and Zaki Biam (Benue). On the charges by international human rights organizations and Nigerian media that his government has been involved in actions which have led to the deaths of thousands of Nigerians, the retired General gave a surprising answer. 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