Latest news with #Africom
BBC News
02-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Mali Attack on military: Al-Qaeda linked group in takes responsibility
An al-Qaeda linked group says it carried out a major attack on the Malian town of Boulikessi, and seized control of an army than 30 soldiers were killed in Sunday's attack, according to sources quoted by the Reuters news agency, however that figure has not been confirmed by the Monday the same group, Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), says it targeted the military in the historic city of a statement responding to Sunday's attack, Mali's army said it "reacted vigorously", before "withdrawing" - suggesting a tactical retreat. "Many men fought, some until their last breath, to defend the Malian nation," the statement unnamed local source told Reuters that JNIM had left many casualties and "cleared the camp".The attacks, the latest sign of collapsing security in Mali and the wider Sahel region, came after the United States Africa Command warned about growing efforts by various different Islamist militant groups which operate in the Sahel to gain access to West Africa's coastline. During a press conference on Friday, the commander of United States Africa Command (Africom), Gen Michael Langley, described recent attacks in Nigeria, the wider Sahel, and the Lake Chad Basin as deeply troubling, warning that the groups' access to the coast would significantly boost their capacity for smuggling and arms is thought that more than 400 soldiers have been killed by militants since the beginning of last month in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, Reuters reports. Additional reporting by Simon Ponsford. More BBC stories about the Sahel region: Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to form joint force to fight jihadistsThe region with more 'terror deaths' than rest of world combined'I thought I would die' - freed captive tells BBC of life in West African jihadist base Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Arab News
31-05-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Africom's demotion sends a signal: Africa must buckle up
US Gen. Michael Langley's blunt declaration at the African Lion 2025 military exercise — 'There needs to be some burden sharing' — resonates less as a strategic evolution and more as polite euphemism for irreversible US retrenchment in Africa. It marks a discernible shift away from the usual rhetoric of good governance and counters the underlying causes of insurgency that defined past US engagement. Instead, Washington is now signaling that its fragile African allies must prepare to stand more on their own. This is not merely a tactical adjustment; it is perhaps the opening salvo in a potential dismantling of the US Africa Command, an institution born in 2008 to symbolize Africa's rising strategic importance. A leaked Pentagon briefing, contemplating Africom's merger back into European Command as a subordinate three-star billet, exposes the core driver: fiscal parsimony disguised as strategic realignment. After all, the projected savings represent a minuscule 0.03 percent of the Pentagon's nearly $900 billion annual budget, leading to one retired general's wry assessment that dismissed the proposed 'merger' as mere cost-cutting rather than well-conceived strategic maneuvering. Strangely, the move contradicts the administration's almost simultaneous escalation of kinetic operations — from loosened airstrike rules in Somalia to expanded combat authorities — revealing a preference for lethal action divorced from the holistic planning a dedicated command is almost always required to provide. On the surface, this bizarre posture does not suggest outright disengagement, as alarmists would have us believe, but a cheaper, more fragmented, and ultimately less effective militarization. 'Burden sharing,' therefore, appears less a call for equitable partnership and more a precursor to transactional disengagement. The underlying calculus seems worryingly mercenary — that is, for African countries to expect enduring US security investments, Washington must first be assured of demonstrable, immediate returns. Of course, this introduces a whole host of questions. Will potential host nations even agree to foot the bill for bases? Will access to critical minerals such as cobalt — vital for batteries, with 70 percent of global supply coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo — be guaranteed on favorable terms? Favorable to whom? Will US energy firms secure priority contracts? Langley's oblique reference to US support for Sudan, in further comments, hints at this new 'quid pro quo' expectation. Moreover, the systematic dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development and other soft power initiatives under previous budgets leaves the military as the primary, blunt instrument of influence, now wielded with an eye firmly on the balance sheet. This is not multilateralism but rugged transactionalism, where security partnerships exist only if they yield direct, tangible economic or strategic profit that exceeds the cost of deployment. For now, however, the bureaucratic inertia favoring Africom's survival remains formidable. Congressional Armed Services Committee chairs issued an immediate rebuke of any plans to dismantle the institution, declaring combatant commands the tip of the American warfighting spear and vowing to block unilateral changes lacking rigorous process. Their control over the defense budget and security assistance programs grants them significant leverage. But it is unclear whether that will be sufficient to dissuade an administration convinced that a rather different set of rules are now at play across the African continent. For African countries to expect enduring US security investments, Washington must first be assured of demonstrable, immediate returns. Hafed Al-Ghwell Regardless, CASC lawmakers do have a point. The proposed demotion of Africom from a four-star combatant command to a three-star entity under European Command constitutes far more than an organizational reshuffle. It represents a deliberate degradation of Africa's institutional standing within the Pentagon's hierarchy, with profound implications for how US security policy toward the continent is formulated and prioritized. After all, the bureaucratic architecture of the US military assigns immense weight to the rank and position of its commanders. A four-star combatant commander occupies one of only 41 such positions across the entire US military — a rarefied stratum granting direct, unfiltered access to the defense secretary and the president. This constitutes a critical 'action channel,' a formal pathway enabling the commander to shape policy debates, advocate for resources, and present Africa-centric security assessments at the apex of national security decision-making. Removing this four-star billet effectively mutes Africa's dedicated advocate in the rooms where global priorities are set and resources allocated. A three-star deputy, nested within EUCOM's bureaucracy and reporting through a superior focused primarily on European and transatlantic security concerns, simply lacks the equivalent rank, prestige, and direct access necessary to ensure Africa's complex challenges receive commensurate high-level attention, especially when competing against demands from regions such as Ukraine or the Indo-Pacific. However, Africom's toehold on the continent, though opaque, has only become more vulnerable in recent years. The expulsion from Agadez and Niamey, two critical drone bases in Niger with more than 1,100 personnel, crippled intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities across the Sahel. This leaves Chabelley airport in Djibouti — supporting perhaps 4,000 troops and a squadron of MQ-9 Reaper drones — as the sole publicly confirmed, persistent drone hub. Estimates of total Africom personnel fluctuate wildly due to rotational deployments and classified sites, but credible assessments suggest fewer than 5,000–10,000 troops continent-wide at any time, concentrated heavily in Djibouti and Somalia. This scattering across what are known as 'Cooperative Security Locations' and 'Contingency Locations,' potentially two dozen sites with 100-200 troops each, creates persistent entanglement risks. Furthermore, sustaining such a diffuse, vulnerable presence has become politically unsustainable given the lack of clear, publicly defensible victories against resilient groups such as Al-Shabab or Daesh affiliates flourishing in post-Qaddafi Libya and parts of the Sahel. Yet, the confluence is undeniable. The demand for allies to shoulder more risk coincides with a push to downgrade the command structure advocating for sustained engagement, all while expanding kinetic operations on the cheap. Thus, the 'end' of Africom as an independent entity is plausible, even likely — blamed on budgetary scalpels, but mostly due to being a casualty of a transactional worldview. However, this does not in any way signify a total demilitarization of US policy in Africa. Rather, it heralds a more incoherent, reactive, and narrowly self-interested era — and Africa had better buckle up. Military force would remain an option, perhaps even the default option in the absence of robust non-kinetic tools, but planned and executed with less expertise, less consistent oversight, and less regard for long-term stability. Africa, in this emerging era, risks becoming a theater for opportunistic strikes and extractive deals, its complex challenges reduced to a ledger of costs and immediate benefits — a far cry from the 'smart power' aspirations that accompanied Africom's founding.
TimesLIVE
28-05-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
US weighing future of military command in Africa, says top general
The US is assessing the future of its military command for Africa, its top general for the continent said on Tuesday, and called on African governments to make their views on its possible elimination known in Washington. President Donald Trump's administration is considering merging Africom, which became a distinct geographical command in 2008, with the US command in Europe to cut bureaucracy, American media outlets reported in March. Speaking to reporters before a conference of African defence chiefs in Kenya, Africom's commander, Gen Michael Langley, said he had discussed the issue with officials on the continent. "I've talked to a number of ministers of defence and a few presidents and told them we were assessing," Langley said. He said governments should make their views about Africom's future known through their ambassadors in the US.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump is back to 'bombing the hell' out of terror groups, from the Houthis to ISIS
Donald Trump promised to "bomb the hell" out of ISIS in the lead-up to his first term. Now, several months into a second term, he's hammering terror groups again. The US military has stepped up its airstrikes in Somalia and Yemen in recent weeks. Ahead of his first term in the White House, President Donald Trump campaigned on "bombing the hell" out of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. At that time, the terror group was surging, causing turmoil in the Middle East and beyond. Now, roughly a decade later and a few months into his second term, the president is back to bombing terror groups. The US military has noticeably increased the number of airstrikes that it has carried out against ISIS in Somalia under Trump compared to his predecessor, Joe Biden, according to publicly available information on these operations. And across the Gulf of Aden, a body of water that separates the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the US has been heavily bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen nonstop for more than a month in a bid to get them to stop their Red Sea attacks. Trump's new bombing campaign against the group appears much more aggressive than the Biden administration's operations. Trump's campaign pledges in 2015 and 2016 to "bomb the hell" out of ISIS preceded an intense air campaign against the terror group. The White House later announced the US military had defeated ISIS. Its once-sweeping caliphate in Iraq and Syria crumbled under international pressure, but the threat persisted. The US intelligence community still considers ISIS to be a major threat, and it is not limited to the old caliphate. During the first three months of the new Trump administration, US Africa Command has disclosed at least eight rounds of airstrikes against ISIS in Somalia. It's a major jump from previous years under Biden. Last year, the US military carried out one airstrike on ISIS in Somalia, according to publicly available statements from Africom. And in 2023, American forces carried out a lone assault operation against the terror group in the country. In 2022 and 2021, there were no publicly reported missions. ISIS-Somalia has doubled in size over the past year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in a March report on global threats. Africom regularly says that the terror group "has proved both its will and capability" to attack American and partner forces and calls these efforts a threat to US national security interests. The US military is also conducting operations against al-Shabaab, which ODNI refers to as Al Qaeda's largest and wealthiest affiliate group. It has long been active in Somalia. The US averaged more than 10 rounds of airstrikes against the group each year that Biden was in office, with a peak of 15 in 2023. So far, there have been at least five rounds of US airstrikes against al-Shabaab this year, the latest of which occurred overnight Wednesday. The strikes come amid reports that the White House was considering eliminating Africom and closing diplomatic posts in Africa, which could hurt counterterrorism efforts. The airstrikes also appear to reflect the president's move to give US commanders more authority over strikes and operations. A US defense official told Business Insider on Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is "focused on persistent malign influence" by ISIS, al-Shabaab, and similar groups in the area, adding that "we're working closely with the Somali government to degrade and destroy those malign actors." The official said Hegseth has "empowered" combatant commanders to take the necessary steps to identify and eliminate threats to the US and its interests. The US is still hunting down ISIS in the Middle East. In March, for instance, the military killed the terror group's second-in-command in Iraq. Other operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria that have been publicly acknowledged by the Trump administration have been carried out by local partner forces and "enabled" by American troops. Between late 2023 and the end of last year, US warships and aircraft have been tasked with intercepting Houthi missiles and drones targeting ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. American forces have also carried out airstrikes to wipe out rebel weaponry and assets in Yemen. This year started out with relative calm in the Houthi conflict, but on March 15, the Trump administration started a new campaign of strikes in Yemen to get the rebels to permanently stop their maritime attacks. Since then, the US has moved a second aircraft carrier into the Middle East and has deployed B-2 stealth bombers to a base in the Indian Ocean in a major show of force. Top officials, including the president, have said that the large-scale bombing will be "unrelenting," and the US military frequently touts the "24/7" operations on social media. However, experts and analysts have cast doubt that the intense campaign, now in its second month, will completely annihilate the Houthis, as Trump has threatened. It's unclear how much of the Houthi network the US has affected. Air Force Lt. Gen Alexus Grynkewich, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters on March 17, days after the campaign began, that strikes hit training sites, drone infrastructure, command centers, and weapons storage facilities. Details since then have been scarce, but US Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, said Thursday that American forces struck a port in Yemen that the Houthis used to import fuel. Read the original article on Business Insider
