Chapter 920: Dark Clouds of War

In Africa, there is such a magical country.

It is Djibouti, known as the "sentry on the oil route," because it guards the Mande Haixia, a strategic passage for the Red Sea entering the Yindu Yang; every year, the shipping volume passing through here to all parts of the world accounts for nearly one-third of the global total.

And in such an important location, the game between major powers is naturally indispensable.

In fact, this is the case; although it is a sovereign country, Djibouti, known as the sentry on the oil route, is filled everywhere with military bases built by other major powers under the guise of "supply bases."

The largest of these is, without a doubt, the Lemonnier Base.

Lemonnier is the largest US military base in Africa; it is located southwest of the Djibouti International Airport and was first used by the French Foreign Legion.

After the 9/11 incident, based on counter-terrorism needs, the United States, through a series of political maneuvers, finally succeeded in "leasing" the base to deploy a Joint Task Force of the United States Marine Corps.

Later, because of the wars the United States continuously pushed in the Middle East, the importance of this base became increasingly prominent.

By 2003, Lemonnier had become the only permanent US military base in Africa.

The base covers an area of over 500 mu, with aprons, hangars, operation centers, arsenals, vehicle maintenance stations, as well as training grounds, recreational facilities, and more.

After years of operation, Lemonnier has become an important strategic stronghold for the United States to control the Middle East, East Africa, and the Beifei Diqu.

At the same time, this is also an important command center for the US Africa Command, so when the Autobots began to be aggressive in Africa, Lemonnier was the first to feel the pressure.

A video conference was thus initiated.

Lemonnier Base, inside a conference room.

A white general with graying hair and the rank of general on his shoulders was sitting in the conference room with several staff officers and generals.

These people were sitting on one side of a round conference table, while the other side of the round conference table was empty.

However, on the wall over there, several LCD monitors were pieced together at this moment, and the figures of one or several people appeared on each monitor.

This was a video conference initiated by the US Africa Command, while the participants on the other side were all located within the United States, coming from the White House, the Ministry of National Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Air Force Intelligence Agency.

"……Everyone, for some time recently, we have discovered some very bad intelligence within Africa."

"Although our satellites and intelligence systems had already grasped a large amount of intelligence on alien activities within Africa long ago, because the United States does not have many interests in Africa, and it is far from the mainland, Washington believes that sufficient security depth is conducive to homeland security, so we have adopted the same default attitude toward alien activities here in Africa as we did in South America!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of many people on the LCD monitors changed, and the most unsightly was the CIA Director, Huake Xier.

To say that the United States sat by and watched the Decepticon erosion of South America is truly lying through their teeth.

Since its founding, the United States has regarded the entire Americas as its own preserve.

From the latter half of the century before last, after the United States ended the Civil War, it began to export influence and capital to its two neighbors, Central America and South America, slowly taking a century and a half to completely bring the economic lifelines and politics of all countries in the Americas under the control of US influence.

But all of this began to change a few years ago.

The Decepticon Frenzy suddenly broke into South America, and then the situation in the entire South America began to gradually slip out of US control day by day.

By the time the United States discovered it, it was already a bit too late.

At that time, because the mainland was repeatedly attacked by the Decepticon Legion, and the main force of the Navy suffered heavy losses in the Atlantic Ocean and Yindu Yang regions one after another, they briefly lost the ability to intervene militarily abroad.

Helpless, they could only choose to use military aid as the primary means, with CIA sabotage and instigation as secondary.

As a result, because of the asymmetry of information, much of the military supplies they aided eventually fell into the hands of warlords and some small South American countries under the control of Frenzy.

And the CIA suffered even heavier losses; not only were the secret bases established in South America over the past half-century uprooted, but a large number of spies trained and lured by the CIA were rounded up, and even hundreds of elite agents dispatched from the US mainland ended up missing shortly after entering South America.

Later, as the US military strength recovered, it was not as if they hadn't tried to send special forces into South America to probe intelligence while also testing the degree of control the Decepticon Frenzy had over South America.

As a result, the nuclear submarine carrying the special forces was inexplicably sunk to the seabed before it even approached the coast.

Similarly, transport helicopters loaded with special forces soldiers were all hit by anti-aircraft missiles flying from who knows where while still tens of kilometers away from the coast, suffering heavy losses.

Even some hawks who had clamored to use satellites to scout the aliens' bases in South America and then wash the ground with nuclear bombs eventually stopped their performance after a series of earthquakes suspected to be underground nuclear tests in South America were captured by seismograph stations.

After the successive failed probes by the CIA and the US military, the US government finally had to pinch its nose and acquiesce that South America, which it had spent over a century successfully training into its own backyard, had now completely fallen into the sphere of influence of aliens.

And now that this matter was brought up again, several hawks immediately could not sit still.

"General Yakeer, I remember you mentioned before that the ones mainly active in the African region were Autobots; haven't those machines always been very well-behaved?"

Arrogance is a new buff the United States has mastered since the end of the Cold War.

It has made the American elite class, especially the ruling class, accustomed to being supreme, to the point that even when facing alien creatures more powerful than themselves, they would deliberately belittle the other side out of hostility.

But obviously, not every Autobot is like Optimus Prime, sincerely wanting to be friends with them.

General Yakeer, commander of the Africa Command, also frowned at this accountability.

"Sir, I am not an Autobot; if I were clear about their thoughts, I wouldn't have taken the initiative to initiate this video conference!"

He looked straight at the new black president, his expression very serious: "Mr. President, currently, the intelligence personnel we have planted in various African countries have all sent back intelligence of large-scale Autobot activities. They have changed their previous posture of only appearing in remote and desert areas, and have even clashed with many African tribal armed forces, as well as police and military."

"And this is exactly what makes me feel very uneasy, because intelligence shows that the Autobots have repeatedly fired and opened fire directly on local people, just like the Decepticons."

"I have to solemnly issue a warning to you and everyone in the country: the various changes in the Autobots make me and my colleagues suspect that the change in South America is very likely to be staged again in Africa; we may soon have to give up Africa again!"

Once these words fell, the conference room fell into silence.

Everyone's heart was gloomy; they all felt that the dark clouds named war seemed to have begun to loom over the Earth.