A New Way of Dealing with Insurgency in Africa

U.S. defense and intelligence officials are voicing renewed concerns about the spread of increasingly capable terror groups in Africa, warning some have become so powerful it is no longer possible to “degrade” them. The warnings, part of a newly released report by the Defense Department’s inspector general, echo earlier warnings by the U.S. military’s Africa Command about growing threats to the U.S. homeland. They also come as the Pentagon unveiled a proposed $740.5 billion budget for next year focused not on terrorism but on competition against China and Russia. “The threat posed by al-Shabab and ISIS-Somalia in East Africa remains ‘high,’ despite continued U.S. airstrikes and training of Somali security forces,” Fine wrote in the report, based on information from U.S. Africa Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency. In West Africa, the report concludes the terrorism landscape is just as concerning.

SOURCE: VOA