3/27/2023 0 Comments Army drawdown 2017![]() While any drawdown will be "damaging" said Gurdon, it comes at a time when violent extremism is rising and European support flagging. ![]() Read more: Sahel conflict having devastating impact on children, says UN But US airlift and refueling support for Operation Barkhane is estimated to cost around $45 million, roles Townsend said other European countries "can and should" take on. But "counterterrorism remains the American priority and that's why, having spent so much on the drone base in the north of Niger, that isn't going to change."ĪFRICOM head Stephen Townsend acknowledged US drones were better equipped than those of France, whose more than 4,500 troops lead contingents from the G5 countries of Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad in efforts against militant radicals in the area. "The US considers the Sahel as France's domain and certainly Europe's problem, and therefore it wants as little to do with it as possible," Gurdon said. However, Charles Gurdon, managing director of the risk consultancy group Menas Associates, told DW that while the US may be pulling its special forces out of the region, it will not abandon drone operations against militants in Libya and, more recently, Mali. In December, The New York Times reported a recently-completed, $110 million (€99 million) drone base in Niger may also be abandoned. But after the 2017 deaths of four US soldiers in Niger, American lawmakers were alarmed they had so many troops at risk in a conflict they knew little about. While the US currently has 4,000 personnel stationed at its only permanent African base in Djibouti in the east, it has more than 1,100 troops in the west. Read more: US reduces troops in Africa, focuses on training rather than combat ![]() "It won't be a complete departure of American or NATO forces but a redeployment … moving from areas of conflict and high risk like Somalia and Mali to safer places like Djibouti," Younes said, as Trump tries to shore up public opinion ahead of elections in November. The area has seen the most rapid increase in violent extremist activity across the continent, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.Īlthough it is still unclear what shape the review may take, Kamel Ben Younes, president of the Tunisian Ibn Rushd Institute for Arab and Africa Studies, told DW that a new strategy to reassign troops away from conflicts in the west is likely. While Esper underlined that the US would not "totally withdraw forces from Africa," the head of US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Stephen Townsend warned an abrupt end to support for France against militants in the Sahel would "not go in a good direction." US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday the move is part of a global pivot designed to refocus more military resources towards China. ![]()
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