From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website.
U.S. officials have struck relationships with regimes that generally aren't considered allies in the war against terrorism, and while the cables show U.S. diplomats admonishing the regimes to respect the laws of war, they also underscore the perils of using advanced military technologies in complex, remote battlefields with sometimes shifty friends.
Cables released this week indicate that the United States:
* Provided Saudi Arabia with satellite imagery to help direct airstrikes against Shiite rebels after earlier strikes resulted in civilian casualties.
* Collaborated with Algerian forces in 2006 and 2007 to capture militants allegedly bound for Iraq and, more recently, obtained permission to fly U.S. surveillance planes through Algerian airspace to hunt suspected al Qaida members.
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