AFRICOM Chief on threats, way forward for US military in Africa

Last updated on October 6th, 2024 at 02:59 pm

The Commander in Chief of the US armed forces in Africa General Micheal Langley has started to mould the presence of the army in the continent after the withdrawal of the forces from Niger. 

There is a great deal of uncertainty in  the region as counter terrorism  operations are in full swing to keep up the fight against terrorism and regain the 2 bases lost in the country. In the east, international participants and troop numbers for the new African Union Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) have yet to be finalised less than 3 months before the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) ends on 31st December.

Chief Langley stated that the ISIS in Somalia had grown about twice the numbers as it was before and explained how the Al-Qaeda affiliate al-shahab had taken advantage of the Somalia and Ethiopia tensions to increase the recruitment. 

The USA has been in talks with Angola for a joint partnership. The country is one among the 38 nations that has a shoreline and can access economic viability with the exclusive economic zones. The US wants to help the fishing industry of Angola by stopping other countries of the region taking advantage of the EEZ.

Asked about the Chinese intrusion in Africa and building up their 2nd military base in the continent, the General said that the United States of America are looking to build another defence base to level up and get a stronghold against its arch enemies.

“Russia is also marking its territory with small military bases across CAD, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. The Wagner group that is an extremist formation of Russian Defence forces has been in Libya and has transitioned to the Russian MOD who have introduced the Russian African Corps in the continent. The numbers are in the few hundreds and not so much of a factor”, he stated about the Russian operations in the African continent.

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Al Sahab is getting stronger day by day and the need to stop that is very direly felt. The conflict between the Ethiopian and Somalian forces needs to be quickly resolved to make the first line of defence. After that ATMIS will be ended and with the advent of AUSSOM the rest of the issue will be taken care of. We need boots on ground to counter this and the African states need to participate along the way otherwise the terror strikes will be seen increasing. Groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Shahab are on the prowl to take control of the region.