Top U.S. General in Africa Paints Grim Picture of U.S. Military Failures in Africa

President George W Bush created a new command to oversee all military operations in Africa years ago U S Africa Command was meant to help bring peace and defense to the people of Africa The Trump administration now has AFRICOM on the chopping block as part of its sweeping reorganization of the military According to the general leading the command its mission is far from accomplished Gen Michael Langley the head of AFRICOM offered a grim assessment of assurance on the African continent during a newest press conference The West African Sahel he announced last Friday was now the epicenter of terrorism and the gravest terrorist threats to the U S homeland were unfortunately right here on the African continent The embattled four-star general who noted his days were numbered as AFRICOM s chief was speaking from a conference of African defense chiefs in Kenya where he had been imploring ministers and heads of state to help save his faltering command I announced OK if we re that central to you you need to communicate that he explained asking them to have their U S ambassadors make entreaties on behalf of AFRICOM Current and former defense officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide candid assessments were divided on whether Langley deserves a measure of blame for the dire straits the command finds itself in One former defense official spoke highly of Langley calling him an effective and transformational leader who rapidly grew into the job and developed strong fruitful relationships with members of Congress A current official however mentioned almost the opposite calling the four-star general a marble mouth who did a poor job of making a affair for his command fumbled relations with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and diminished AFRICOM s standing with legislators Sought by messaging app if the latter assessment was accurate a former Africa Command official sent a chuckling emoji and replied no comment followed by but yes The official revealed he could be quoted as such Before when the command began operations U S military initiatives in Africa were handled by other combatant commands AFRICOM s creation reflected rising U S national shield interests on the continent and a desire for a single command to oversee a proliferation of post- counterterrorism exercises predominantly in the West African Sahel and Somalia Since U S Africa Command began operations the number of U S military personnel on the African continent as well as programs operations exercises bases low-profile Special Operations missions deployments of commandos drones strikes and almost every other military activity has jumped exponentially AFRICOM disrupts and neutralizes transnational threats in order to promote regional shield stability and prosperity according to its mission announcement That hasn t come to pass Throughout all of Africa the State Department counted deaths from terrorist violence in and the first years of U S counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel and Somalia By two years after AFRICOM began operations fatalities from attacks by militant Islamists had already spiked to according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies a Pentagon research institution The situation only continued to deteriorate There were an estimated fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence in Africa last year with percent of those coming from the Sahel and Somalia according to a contemporary analysis by the Africa Center This constitutes a jump of more than percent since the U S launched its post- counterterrorism efforts on the continent The Sahel that s where we consider the epicenter of terrorism Mali Burkina Faso and Niger are confronted with this each and every day they re in emergency The terrorist networks affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda are thriving particularly in Burkina Faso declared Langley During his tenure the U S was largely kicked out of the region forced to abandon key nodes of its archipelago of West African bases and multiple secret wars across the Sahel that were largely unknown to members of Congress as they played out Langley noted that since the U S left Niger in September of last year AFRICOM has observed a rise in violence across the Sahel Related U S Counterterrorism Efforts Destabilizing African Nations He neglected to mention that terrorism increased exponentially during the years of heaviest U S military involvement leading to instability and disenchantment with the U S He also failed to note despite having been previously grilled about it during congressional testimony that the military juntas that booted the U S from West Africa were made up of U S -supported officers who overthrew the governments the U S trained them to protect As violence spiraled in the region over the past decades at least officers who benefited from U S measure assistance were key leaders in coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror including the three nations Langley emphasized Burkina Faso in and twice in Mali in and and Niger in At least five leaders of the coup d tat in the latter country for example received American assistance U S war in Somalia which has ramped up since President Donald Trump retook office also got top billing The U S is actively pursuing and eliminating jihadists disclosed the AFRICOM chief And at the request of the Somali Establishment this year alone AFRICOM has conducted over airstrikes double the number of strikes that we did last year The U S military is approaching its rd year of operations in Somalia In the fall of the U S military established Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa to conduct operations in encouragement of the global war on terror in the region and U S Special Operations forces were dispatched to Somalia They were followed by conventional forces helicopters surveillance aircraft outposts and drones By the Pentagon recognized that there were fundamental flaws with U S military operations in the Horn of Africa and Somalia became another post- stalemate which AFRICOM inherited the next year U S airstrikes in Somalia have skyrocketed when Trump is in office From to under the administrations of George W Bush and Barack Obama the U S military carried out declared airstrikes in Somalia During Trump s first term AFRICOM conducted more than air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State By the end of his first term Trump was ready to call it quits on the sputtering conflict in Somalia ordering almost all U S troops out of the country in late But President Joe Biden reversed the withdrawal allowing the conflict to grind on and now escalate under Trump The Biden administration conducted declared strikes in Somalia over four years The U S has already carried out airstrikes in Somalia in according to AFRICOM society affairs At this pace AFRICOM is poised to equal or exceed the highest number of strikes there in the command s history in Related Who Could Have Predicted the U S War in Somalia Would Fail The Pentagon Despite almost a quarter-century of conflict and billions of taxpayer dollars Somalia has joined the ranks of signature forever-war failures While fatalities from Islamist attacks dropped in Somalia last year they were still percent higher than according to the Africa Center AFRICOM narrated The Intercept that the country s main militant group al-Shabab is now the largest al Qaida organization in the world Langley called them entrenched wealthy and large The command called ISIS-Somalia a growing threat in East Africa and commented its numbers had tripled from to an estimated in the last months The U S not long ago conducted the largest airstrike in the history of the world from an aircraft carrier on Somalia according to Adm James Kilby the Navy s acting chief of naval operations That strike by F A- Super Hornets unleashed around pounds of munitions Those tons of bombs killed just ISIS members according to AFRICOM At that rate it would take roughly pounds of bombs to wipe out ISIS-Somalia and about pounds to eliminate al-Shabab firepower roughly equivalent to four of the atomic bombs the U S dropped on Hiroshima Japan Troubles loom elsewhere on the continent as well One of the terrorists new objectives is gaining access to West Africa coasts If they secure access to the coastline they can finance their operations through smuggling human trafficking and arms trading Langley warned not mentioning that U S counterterrorism failures in the Sahel led directly to increased attacks on Gulf of Guinea nations Togo which sits due south of Burkina Faso saw a percent increase in terrorist fatalities in according to the Africa Center Langley also referenced trouble in Africa s the bulk populous nation We re observing a rise in attacks by violent extremist organizations not only in Niger but across the Sahel to include Nigeria Langley warned He offered a somewhat garbled plan of action in response The scale and brutality of several of these incidents are really troubling So we re monitoring this closely and these events and offering of sharing intel with the Nigerian and also regional partners in that area remains constant We are committed to supporting one of the most of capable militaries in the region in Nigeria Related Nigeria s Military Gets Billions in U S Aid On Christmas Day It Bombed Its Own Civilians Again U S sponsorship to the Nigerian military has been immense and Nigerian people have suffered for it something else that Langley left unsaid Between and alone the U S provided facilitated or approved more than billion in measure aid to the country In those same years hundreds of Nigerian airstrikes killed thousands of Nigerians A attack on a displaced persons camp in Rann Nigeria killed more than civilians multiple of them children A subsequent Intercept review revealed that the attack was referred to as an instance of U S -Nigerian operations in a formerly secret U S military document A Reuters analysis of evidence compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Content Project a U S -based armed violence monitoring group exposed that more than people were killed in airstrikes outside the the majority current war zones in Nigeria during the previous five years That same year an scrutiny by Nigeria s Premium Times called out the ruling body for a systemic propaganda scheme to keep the atrocities of its troops under wraps In his conference call with reporters held as part of the African Chiefs of Defense Conference Langley took only written vetted questions allowing him to skirt uncomfortable subjects AFRICOM failed to provide answers to follow-up questions from The Intercept During the call Langley offered a farewell and a pledge This will likely be my last final Chiefs of Defense Conference as the AFRICOM commander A nomination for my successor is expected soon Langley described The Intercept and others But no matter who holds this position the AFRICOM mission remains constant AFRICOM will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with African partners into the future Langley s pleas at the conference suggested less certainty For years AFRICOM and Langley in particular has been paying lip arrangement to a preference for African solutions for African challenges or as Langley put it last week It s about empowering African nations to solve African problems not just through handouts but through trusted cooperation But he has seemed less than enamored with African solutions that include severing ties with the United States In April before the Senate Armed Services Committee he accused Burkina Faso s leader Captain Ibrahim Traor of misusing the country s gold reserves to protect the junta regime Langley partially walked back those comments last week and appeared to seek reconciliation We all respect their sovereignty he explained So the U S seeks opportunities to collaborate with Burkina Faso on counterterrorism challenges For more than two decades the U S was content to pour billions of U S taxpayer dollars into failed counterterrorism policies as deaths mounted across the continent Nowadays the dangers of terrorism loom far larger and the U S finds itself shunned by former partners I ve been charged by the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to mitigate threats to the U S homeland posed by terrorist organizations commented Langley It s about the mutual goal of keeping our homeland safe and it s about long-term threshold not dependence The current Pentagon official reported that Langley had used up what good will he once had I don t think various will be sad to see him go he recounted The Intercept Langley s tenure may not have sown the seeds of AFRICOM s dissolution he explained but if the command is ultimately folded into European Command as a few have proposed he likely helped to hasten it He s been part of this predicament the official mentioned Maybe him leaving could be one key The post Top U S General in Africa Paints Grim Picture of U S Military Failures in Africa appeared 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