US Africa commander highlights terror growth in Sahel and competition with China for influence
Gen. Michael Langley, the four-star Marine General who leads U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), said the Sahel region of the continent is now the "flashpoint of prolonged conflict and growing instability. It is the epicenter of terrorism on the globe."
Several terror groups have expanded drastically in the last three years. Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is three times the size it was in 2022, he said, and has spread across Mali, Burkina Faso, and parts of Niger, which the U.S. military pulled out of last year.
Isis Increasingly Unopposed Following Us Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Collapse Of Syria
Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a faction affiliated with Al-Qaeda, is now four times the size it was in 2022, expanding mainly in Burkina Faso.
"We're keeping a good eye on this because they could have the capacity to attack the homeland," Langley said in a call with reporters.
Read On The Fox News App
"Throughout my travels across West Africa and through dialog here at the conference, the concerns shared by my peers match my own," he added. "One of the terrorist's key goals now is access to the west coast of Africa. If they gain access to the vast coastline, they can diversify their revenue streams and evolve their tactics, more easily exporting terrorism to American shores."
Lone Wolf Attacks Surge In The West As Terrorism Intensifies Globally
He noted that the terror groups engage in illicit activity like smuggling, human trafficking and arms trading, which fund their nefarious actions and destabilize the region.
U.S. forces over the weekend conducted an airstrike against the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab in Somalia. The East African country has been wracked for decades by attacks and insurgency from Islamist terrorists, both from ISIS and al-Shabab.
The U.S. is in a race with China and Russia to gain influence and trust with the local governments of several African nations to help protect citizens from terror groups.
Langley said there is an increasing concern about the number of African soldiers going to Beijing for military training and replicating a U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.
"They're trying to replicate what we do best in our IMET program," said Langley. "And then they also said they're going to increase security and training in a number of countries. So, they're trying to replicate what we do."Original article source: US Africa commander highlights terror growth in Sahel and competition with China for influence
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
22 minutes ago
Ranger fired for hanging transgender flag in Yosemite may face prosecution
A Yosemite National Park ranger was fired after hanging a pride flag from El Capitan while some park visitors could face prosecution under protest restrictions that have been tightened under President Donald Trump. Shannon 'SJ' Joslin, a ranger and biologist who studies bats, said they hung a 66-foot wide transgender pride flag on the famous climbing wall that looms over the California park's main thoroughfare for about two hours on May 20 before taking it down voluntarily. A termination letter they received last week accused Joslin of 'failing to demonstrate acceptable conduct" in their capacity as a biologist and cited the May incident. 'I was really hurting because there were a lot of policies coming from the current administration that target trans people, and I'm nonbinary,' Joslin, 35, told The Associated Press, adding that hanging the flag was their way of saying, 'We're all safe in national parks.' Joslin said their firing sends the opposite message: "If you're a federal worker and you have any kind of identity that doesn't agree with this current administration, then you must be silent, or you will be eliminated.' Park officials on Tuesday said they were working with the U.S. Justice Department to pursue visitors and workers who violated restrictions on demonstrations at the park that had more than 4 million visitors last year. The agencies "are pursuing administrative action against several Yosemite National Park employees and possible criminal charges against several park visitors who are alleged to have violated federal laws and regulations related to demonstrations," National Park Service spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz said. Joslin said a group of seven climbers including two other park rangers hung the flag. The other rangers are on administrative leave pending an investigation, Joslin said. Flags have long been flown from El Capitan without consequences, said Joanna Citron Day, a former federal attorney who is now with the advocacy group Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility. She said the group is representing Joslin, but there is no pending legal case. On May 21, a day after the flag display, Acting Superintendent Ray McPadden signed a rule prohibiting people from hanging banners, flags or signs larger than 15 square feet in park areas designated as 'wilderness' or 'potential wilderness.' That covers 94% of the park, according to Yosemite's website. Park officials said the new restriction was needed to preserve Yosemite's wilderness and protect climbers. 'We take the protection of the park's resources and the experience of our visitors very seriously, and will not tolerate violations of laws and regulations that impact those resources and experiences,' Pawlitz said. It followed a widely publicized instance in February of demonstrators hanging an upside down American flag on El Capitan to protest the firing of National Park Service employees by the Trump administration. Among the climbers who helped hang the transgender flag was Pattie Gonia, an environmentalist and drag queen who uses the performance art to raise awareness of conservation issues. For the past five years, Gonia has helped throw a Pride event in Yosemite for park employees. She said they hung the transgender flag on the iconic granite monolith to express that being transgender is natural. This year, Trump signed an executive order changing the federal definition of sex to exclude the concept of gender identity. He also banned trans women from competing in women's sports, removed trans people from the military and limited access to gender-affirming care. Gonia called the firing unjust. Joslin said they hung the flag in their free time, as a private citizen. 'SJ is a respected pillar within the Yosemite community, a tireless volunteer who consistently goes above and beyond," Gonia said. Jayson O'Neill with the advocacy group Save Our Parks said Joslin's firing appears aimed at deterring park employees from expressing their views as the Trump administration pursues broad cuts to the federal workforce. Since Trump took office, the National Park Service has lost approximately 2,500 employees from a workforce that had about 10,000 people, Wade said. The Republican president is proposing a $900 million cut to the agency's budget next year. Pawlitz said numerous visitors complained about unauthorized demonstrations on El Capitan earlier in the year. Many parks have designated 'First Amendment areas' where groups 25 or fewer people can protest without permits. Yosemite has several of those areas, including one in Yosemite Valley, where El Capitan is located. Park service rules on demonstrations have existed for decades and withstood several court challenges, said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. He was not aware of any changes in how those rules are enforced under Trump.
Boston Globe
30 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
The convictions that count are the ones that sometimes sting
I bring up Goldberg's essay not only to recommend it but also because I was struck by the question with which he introduced it: 'What principle do you hold,' he challenged his readers, 'that is against your self-interest or political desires?' Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up It's a cogent and revealing test. It obliges anyone who answers the question to think about whether they embrace their convictions as a matter of principle or merely because they're convenient. Anyone can defend the freedoms or prohibitions that serve their own purposes. The truer test of ideological and moral seriousness is whether you adhere to your principles even when doing so cuts against your interests, tastes, or partisan loyalties. Advertisement This isn't an ivory-tower abstraction. American history is rich with examples of people who upheld principle at real personal cost. John Adams, though a patriot who hated British rule, risked his career to defend the redcoats accused in the Boston Massacre, convinced that even despised defendants deserved counsel and a fair trial. Justice John Marshall Harlan, raised in a Kentucky family of enslavers, broke with his social milieu to insist in his lone dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that 'our Constitution is color-blind.' And in 1960, Richard Nixon, urged by allies to contest an election marred by serious irregularities, refused to plunge the nation into turmoil, saying the country's stability mattered more than his own ambition. I have tried to meet that test in my own writing — with what success, I leave others to judge. For instance, I defend the right even of Holocaust-deniers to spread Advertisement I have sometimes put a version of Goldberg's question to candidates in a primary election: Can you name a position you take that is clearly opposed by most of your party's base? Rarely have I gotten a substantive answer. Most politicians duck the question, unwilling to announce that they uphold an unpopular position on principle — even though doing so would be pretty strong evidence that their convictions were genuine. What makes this problem worse is the increasingly common belief that only those who agree with us are legitimate participants in American life. Too many on the right write off their opponents as anti-American, while too many on the left see theirs as irredeemably bigoted or authoritarian. If you begin from the premise that dissenters are not merely wrong but illegitimate, then there is no reason to extend to them the rights or freedoms you claim for yourself. But that mind-set drains principle of all meaning. Defending free speech only for your allies is like championing religious liberty only for your own faith: That's not upholding a principle — it's wielding a partisan cudgel, something that has become endemic in contemporary American life. So much of what bedevils our civic discourse these days, Goldberg writes, begins with 'the premise that America is defined by our politics and, therefore, the people with the wrong politics are not Americans.' Which is why Goldberg's challenge ought to be posed more often. A principle that only applies when it's easy isn't much of a principle at all. So, readers, I'll put the same question to you: What principle do you hold that runs against your own interest or desire? Please give it some thought and share your reflections. In a future column, I'll share some of the more intriguing and noteworthy responses. Advertisement Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
38 minutes ago
Villagers offer harrowing accounts of one of the deadliest attacks in Sudan's civil war
CAIRO -- When Ahlam Saeed awoke last month to the sound of gunfire and roaring vehicle motors, the 43-year-old widow rushed outside her home in war-torn Sudan to find a line of at least two dozen vehicles, many of them motorcycles carrying armed fighters. 'They were firing at everything and in every direction,' the mother of four said. 'In an instant, all of us in the village were fleeing for safety." Many people were gunned down in their houses or while trying to flee. At least 200 people were killed, including many women and children, in the community of straw homes, according to a rights group tracking Sudan's civil war. Saeed and her children — ages 9 to 15 — were among those who survived after rebel fighters rampaged through Shag al-Num, the small farming village of several thousand people in Sudan's Kordofan region. In interviews with The Associated Press, Saeed and four other villagers described the July 12 attack, one of the deadliest assaults since the war began more than two years ago over a power struggle between commanders of the military and the rival paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. The villagers' accounts add to the devastating toll of the conflict, which started in April 2023 and has wrecked the country in northeastern African. The fighting has killed more than 40,000 people, displaced as many as 14 million, caused disease outbreaks and pushed many places to the brink of famine. Atrocities, including mass killings of civilians and mass rape, have also been reported, particularly in Darfur, triggering an investigation by the International Criminal Court into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. The villagers from Shag al-Num said RSF fighters and their allied Janjaweed militias stormed into the community, looting houses and robbing residents, especially of women's gold. Some victims were held at gunpoint. Some young villagers attempted to fight back by taking up rifles to defend their homes. The RSF fighters knocked them down and continued their rampage, witnesses said. 'It was as if the hell's door was opened,' Saeed said, sobbing. Her straw house and neighboring homes were burned down, and one RSF fighter seized her necklace. 'We were dying of fear,' she said. The villagers said the fighters also sexually abused or raped many women. One of the women said she saw three fighters wearing RSF uniforms dragging a young woman into an abandoned house. She said she later met the woman, who said she was raped. Satellite imagery from July 13 and 14 showed 'intentional arson attacks' and 'a large smoke point' over the village as well as 'razed and smoldering' buildings, the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health reported. In the two-day RSF attack in Shaq al-Noum and surrounding areas, more than 450 civilians, including 35 children and two pregnant women, were killed, according to UNICEF. After the assault, many of the survivors fled, leaving behind a mostly deserted village. The RSF did not respond to questions about the attack from the AP. Beyond the village, the oil-rich Kordofan region has emerged as a major front line following the military's recapture of Khartoum earlier this year. The warring parties have raced for control of the three-province region stretching across southern and central Sudan because it controls vital supply lines. 'Kordofan has become the most strategic area of the country,' said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The fighting has exacerbated the already dire conditions in the region. In Kadugli, the provincial capital city of South Kordofan province, 'roads have been cut off, supply lines have collapsed and residents are walking miles just to search for salt or matches,' said Kadry Furany, country director for Sudan at Mercy Corps aid group. A mental health therapist in Obeid, the provincial capital of North Kordofan province, said the city received waves of displaced people in recent weeks, all from areas recently ambushed by the RSF. The therapist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about her safety, said she supported 10 women and girls who endured sexual abuse, including rape, in RSF-seized areas in July alone. Among the victims were two women from Shag al-Num village, she said. 'The conditions are tragic,' she said. To the west of the Kordofan region is el-Fasher, the military's last stronghold in the five-province Darfur region. The city — which has been under constant RSF bombardment for over a year — is one of the hardest hit by hunger and disease outbreaks, according to the U.N. The World Food Program has been unable to deliver aid by land. It warned this month that 300,000 people, who are 'trapped, hungry and running out of time,' are at risk of starvation. 'Everyone in el-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,' said Eric Perdison, the food program's director for eastern and southern Africa. 'Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.' The paramilitaries and their Janjaweed allies imposed a total blockade of el-Fasher, leaving no route out of the city that the RSF does not control, according to satellite imagery recently analyzed by the humanitarian lab at Yale. The blockade caused food prices to spike up to 460% higher than in the rest of Sudan, according to the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies. Most staples are scarce or no longer available. Civilians who want to leave the city are required to pass through a single RSF-controlled point, where they have been robbed, forced to pay bribes or killed, according to the Yale lab, aid workers and residents. On Aug. 2, a group of people, including women and children, attempted to flee the city. When they reached Garni, a village on a crucial supply route just northwest of the city, RSF fighters ambushed the area, residents said. 'They tell you to leave, then they kill you,' said al-Amin Ammar, a 63-year-old who said he escaped because he is old. 'It's a death trap.' At least 14 people were killed, and dozens of others were wounded in the village, said the Emergency Lawyers rights group said. Aside from fighting, the region has been ravaged by lack of food and a cholera outbreak, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local aid group known as General Coordination. Many people have nothing to eat and resorted to cattle fodder to survive, he said. Some have not found even fodder, he said. He shared images of emaciated children with their exhausted, malnourished mothers on the outskirts of el-Fasher or the nearby town of Tawila. 'People don't await food or medicine,' he said, 'rather they await death.' The 12-year-old son of Sabah Hego, a widow, was admitted with cholera to a makeshift hospital in Tweila, joining dozens of other patients there. 'He is sick, and dying,' Hego said of her youngest child. 'He is not alone. There are many like him.'
